AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter1
TATYANA
Mikhailov Bratva Compound, Rural Russia
The muscles in my legs tense as a frigid gust of cigarette smoke blows past me. I rub my thighs together as fast as I can to stay warm as the winds of a winter storm swirl around my almost bare legs. A mix of snow and ice crystals pelt my calves, leaving needle-point marks of frostbite on my skin. The thick metal door to an old warehouse looms over the group of women I’m standing with, practically mocking our sad attempts at conserving body heat given how little clothing we’re wearing.
When a person is close to death from hypothermia, their body feels extremely hot. It’s not uncommon to see people about to die tearing their clothes off, as if their body was tossed into an open flame. Right now, standing outside a warehouse that serves as part mafia front company and part illicit night club, I feel that’s my best chance of ever feeling warmth again.
I side-eye the thick wall of metal that acts as a front door to the Mikhailov Bratva warehouse, hoping my hatred for it has the power to magically slide it open. Arkady has sent me on some terrible missions in the past, but this is shaping up to be one of the worst.
Do the men inside know how to open a door?
Anna, one of the ladies huddled in our group, breaks away from us, taking clipped steps towards the door with her thigh-high boots. The long strands of her candy pink wig float with each change in wind direction as she stands beside the warehouse entrance. She raises a flattened hand with her cigarette tucked between two of her fingers and smacks it against the door, causing the entire sheet metal wall to emit a deep rumble.
“Are you going to let us die out here!” she screams.
Anna receives no response, apart from the occasional roars of men’s laughter and techno music that’s been blasting away since we arrived. I turn my head behind us to see if anyone could have possibly heard her. The car that dropped us off is gone, leaving us stranded in the middle of a frozen tundra.
That’s Russia for you. Big cities surrounded by vast desolation.
I curl myself back into the circle the group the ladies formed to stay warm. It’s weird to huddle so close to strangers, but stretchy nylon dresses do little to preserve heat and we’re all a minute away from losing limbs.
A deep groan bellows from the direction of the warehouse, followed by a loud chunking noise. Plumes of steam drift into the air as the ladies in our group sigh in relief that someone is finally opening the door.
Gravel crackles as the rusted metal door slides open. The circle of ladies separates and immediately snaps into party girl mode, cheering and flashing the cheesiest grins. They walk with a spring in their step, making their tits bounce so the men inside get a glimpse of what’s on offer to them. I file into the middle of the women, making my way inside as discreetly as possible.
A man with a bald head covered in tattoos waves the women inside and leers at us as we pass. A warm lump of bile collects in my throat as I hear him give each woman entering the warehouse a progressively worse pickup line. When it’s my turn I angle my head forward, allowing my curly brown hair to form a wall on the side of my head so I don’t need to look him in the eye as he croaks a drunken “yaaah” noise at me. A sharp clapping noise echoes in the hall has he slaps the ass of the next woman passing him.
Lovely.
The ladies I entered with scatter, each one attaching themselves to a member of the Mikhailov Bratva. Some ladies entertain more than one man at a time. I watch Anna in her pink wig as she greets one man by pouring vodka into her mouth, opening it and spitting it into the mouth of the Bratva soldier, who then swallows it. They end their display with a kiss that’s more an uncoordinated licking of each other’s faces.
Although they’re a party favor for the night, the ladies take their jobs seriously. If they can’t charm at least one of the Bratva into fucking them by the end of the night, they get dealt a harsh punishment by Arkady.
Luckily, I have a different mission. My eyes sweep across the warehouse, noting the people present. The Pakhan, Vadim Nikolaev, isn’t here, which is another sign tonight’s mission is a waste of my time. If the rumors of his half-brother, Viktor Mikhailov, returning to Russia were credible, he would definitely be here. Viktor returning would threaten Vadim’s seat as Pakhan since Viktor is the legitimate heir to the empire.
I watch the room full of men settle into their own corner of the dingy refurbished warehouse, glamoured by the women they paid to seduce them. Most of the men here are quite handsome. My eyes catch on a few men as they cut through the crowd, but I force myself to stay focused. None of them are the man I was sent here to spy on.
The crowd mixes and mingles, turning the room into a swirl of muscular, tattooed men and comparatively tiny women dangling at their sides, trading shouted conversations at one another in order to be heard over the techno music blaring so loud it shakes the lights dangling above. Two of the men tear their shirts off and begin wrestling among the crowd, sending tables flying and bottles of vodka spilling as they collide with anything in their way. A few of the women startle and look concerned, and I don’t blame them. I’ve seen drunken play fights like this get out of hand and turn into with someone dead over a bruised ego. You never can tell how a Bratva party will end.
I try to hide in the shadows where the harsh overhead lighting doesn’t reach, unable to bring myself to flirt with any of these men. I know what flirting could lead to. Even though Arkady told me I’m not required to sleep with the men the way the rest of the women are, the men here are under the impression I’m on offer the same as the rest of the girls. I doubt the terms of my mission as a spy will stop any of them from trying. A man who knows he can die any day will try to bed as many women as possible before their number is up. I’m not a child anymore. I’m an adult now and I’m learning the harsh reality of this world, but I don’t want to lose my virginity to a brutal man who will forget me the second it’s over.
Leaning on a far wall will make me look suspicious. I decide I have to at least try to blend in with the rest of the women here and head towards the dance floor, cutting through the crowd to look like I’m mingling without actually doing it. When I try to get a closer look at everyone at the party, I bump into a man so tall he could pass for a cathedral and am immediately flung off his muscular body. I look up at him and notice his dark wavy hair, thick beard, and a Kalashnikov rifle tattooed across his chest. He didn’t even notice I bumped into him as he lifts two women, one in each of his arms, and spins them in the air.
One lady standing close to Anna shrieks in laughter at someone’s joke, tipping the cup holding her drink without noticing and sending a river of orange-tinged vodka down the front of my dress. I grunt, frustrated that I now smell as marinated in alcohol as everyone else here despite not drinking tonight.
This job is a complete waste of time. They always are. But whenever rumors spread through the Bratva underworld of a man claiming to be the son of Konstantin Mikhailov returning to Russia, Arkady wants it investigated. He sends me because I’m the only person who has even a glimmer of a memory of what Viktor Mikhailov looks like. Even as a child growing up in our village, Viktor is a hard image to forget. My father could pick Viktor Mikhailov out of a crowd too, but he’d have a hard time blending in as a party girl at a Bratva safe house, so I go instead. I get watch women get trafficked as party girls sitting on the laps of criminals as they let them do whatever they want to their bodies. Every party ends the same way. I fight all night to duck advances from men while the other girls trade stories of who they fucked with pride. The next time I see Arkady after my mission, I have to tell him the same thing I always do: Viktor Mikhailov was not there.
Why would he be? Viktor disappeared 15 years ago, the day our village was attacked and they killed his parents. We were together that day, huddled behind a wall listening to the shooting ring out across the village. We were always together in those days. He kept me safe the moment the attack started, and when I was clamped in the arms of one attacker with a knife slicing into the side of my neck, he offered his own life as a trade.
Viktor Mikhailov saved my life that day 15 years ago, and then he disappeared for good.
“Come on, Tatyana!” Daria calls out as she pulls me into a drunken, stumbling dance she’s in with two other Bratva. One is the creep with the tattooed scalp who let us inside. His glazed eyes meet mine and I see his head wobble in approval as his eyes trail down my body. I feel a sick dread churn in my stomach when he hooks his hand around my back and yanks me into his torso, crushing my body against his as he sways me around to the music.
I try to stay in character as best as I can, but I’m terrible at acting the way the rest of the girls here seem able to do naturally. One man pulls the top of a woman’s dress down, exposing her breasts to everyone at the party. She keeps dancing without missing a beat. The women understand their job tonight is to be nothing but a pretty blank canvas for these men to pour their depraved dreams over.
The soldier with the tattooed scalp spins me around, making me hate that I’m here tonight. When he places me back down, I’m facing the other end of the hall and see a group of men I hadn’t noticed before sitting around a card table. I continue dancing with the soldier, ducking my head around each uncoordinated turn he inflicts on me so I can get a look at all the men at the card table. Some of them I’ve already seen earlier, but I have to make sure I’ve put eyes on every man here tonight and can leave with full certainty that Viktor Mikhailov was never here.
