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Running the clubs and gym were child's play for me—a piece of cake.
I could run them in my fucking sleep.
Figuring out what to do with Celia? That was a bit more of a challenge, and was precisely why it occupied an even larger share of my hungry mind's attention.
I stood by the huge multi-paned window on the third floor of the warehouse I owned by the waterfront and waited for George to arrive. While I waited, I contemplated recent events.
Paying off Celia's and Graham's debt had been a success. I met with Victor Romanov and had a real heart-to-heart with him about my old friend's money problems and what I wanted to do. Victor apologized that Stepan had beaten up Graham, but protested that he had no idea Graham was my friend. He agreed that Stepan should have done more research into who Graham was and come to me when there were problems with the payment. He agreed with me that Stepan could take a beating so I could exact punishment for the oversight. Stepan was a psychopath who loved to torture, and he could always use a reminder of who was boss.
Victor was boss. I was his new friend, fast becoming a very good friend, and now considered the head of my family, which held sway in the world of gangsters and thugs.
My approach to Victor was well-planned and successfully executed. My first drill sergeant in the Marines—the one who had said I would go far one day if I put my mind to it—would be proud of the efficiency with which I arranged a meeting with the mafia boss and got my way with him.
"Who is this fellow to you?" Victor asked as we sat in a booth in his restaurant. Several big-muscled thugs stood around us, watching for any threats to Victor, who was second in command in the Romanov family in Boston.
"He's an old friend," I said. "He and I were supposed to go into business once upon a time but things didn't work out. He made a bad investment, lost his sister's inheritance, and then couldn’t pay the interest. I'm paying it for him out of loyalty and friendship. He couldn't pay the debt, and neither could his little sister."
"That's big of you," he said, eyeing me over his plate of food. "I like a man who's loyal to friends and family. Very big of you to look after his little sister's debt. Isn’t his father the current DA?"
I nodded. "Stepfather. A man doesn't choose his mother's second husb
and," I said, defending Graham, even though Graham had chosen Spencer over me. I hoped to distract his attention away from Celia.
"He doesn't," Victor said and took a drink. "Your friend needs a new investment advisor. Maybe he should have gone into business with you. You've made some smart moves since you took over for Donny. I've been watching you."
I nodded. "Thank you. I have a mind for money."
"My kind of man," Victor said and held up his glass of vodka. We toasted each other and I shot back the vodka, enjoying it as it burned down my throat.
"Was this the pretty little thing that came to the club the other night and made a scene?"
I frowned. How did Victor know?
Then I kicked myself mentally. Of course Victor would know. Misha…
"Yes, that was Celia," I replied, hoping to shrug her off like she was nothing to me. I didn’t want Victor to think he could use her to get leverage over me.
We finished our drinks and I left as quickly as I could, hoping he wouldn't ask any more questions about Celia. I didn't want him interested in her.
The whole business gave me a great deal of satisfaction. Only a few weeks earlier, I’d been wondering how I could get in deeper with Victor and his brother. Now, thanks to Graham's foolhardy investing scheme, I’d found a way in. On his part, Victor probably thought he finally had something to use to reel me in under his control. I was using him to get closer to Sergei, my real target. What better way to ingratiate yourself with a mafia type than to be in debt to them and pay it off on time and with interest?
I left with a promise to come to his restaurant some night for a special family dinner. That was a good sign—if Victor invited me to one of their big family meals, I'd get to meet Sergei, my eventual target.
I heaved a sigh of relief as I left the restaurant. I didn't want Victor to know how much Celia still meant to me. Even if she had thrown me over for Greg, I didn’t want anything to happen to her.
I wasn't obsessed with her, but I thought about her a lot. The idea of having her completely under my control was keeping me in a state of semi-arousal.
As Sun Tzu wrote thousands of years ago, if you know the enemy as you knew yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
I knew myself and I knew what was happening, but I had it under control.
I'd indulge myself in Celia, enjoy her body, use it for my own pleasure, and then I'd lose interest in her the way I lost interest in every other woman I'd been with.
As I walked down the block to my car, I couldn't remember the last time I’d felt this way about a woman. I never struggled much to have whatever woman I wanted and had never obsessed over those that got away. There weren't many women worthy of much obsessing.
Celia was the exception. She was worthy. She was also proving to be a real challenge but I was always up for a challenge. Hell, lately, I was always up, sporting a semi-hard-on at the prospect of seeing her at night. But my little visit to Victor worried me. He seemed too interested in her for my own good. That was the thing about gangsters. They were always thinking of ways to get more money out of you.
I planned on visiting Celia's dorm later in the day to install some bugs so she'd be safe when she was away from me.
