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We both stay clasped in each other’s arms as we recover our breath. Viktor lifts his head and we share another kiss before he lowers me gently to the ground. I feel like a new woman and bask in the euphoria until Viktor and I both hear shouting down the hall.
I cross my arms over my chest and brace into the corner of the stairwell. Viktor’s eyes linger on me as he unbuttons his shirt and before I know it I find my eyes glued to his body, studying the parts that are gradually exposed the further down his shirt he moves. I swallow back as he opens to a chest filled with tattoo ink, scars, old puncture wounds and muscles. So many muscles.
He takes his shirt off and leans over me as he wraps it around my body. I tighten the shirt around me, folding open sides of the front across my torso and pull at the bottom so it falls over the hem of my torn skirt.
“Viktor… they’re looking for you,” I say uneasily.
Viktor walks to the doors at the other end of the stairwell, sneaks a casual peek out the window, but overall doesn’t appear concerned.
Just then, the phone hiding in what’s left of my ripped shirt buzzes. I pull it out of the pile of cloth that used to be my shirt and check the message.
Parked outside. Back of the building.
Arkady’s driver came for me. I’m relieved, but then I look at Viktor and I’m overwhelmed by the feeling of wanting more of him.
We watch each other at opposite ends of the stairwell. Viktor’s eyes pass over my body once more, blazing a path of desire onto my skin. He comes to me and opens the door to lead me out to safety.
“Run,zaychik,” he says to me in a low rumble.
I do the very last thing I want at that moment and walk out the door.
Chapter2
VIKTOR
The sensation of an ice pick driving through my skull wakes me. Sunlight shines in from a distant corner window, which does nothing to ease my headache. A grunt escapes from my throat as I get up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. My vision spins and I decide it’s probably best to give myself a minute before standing up.
Hangovers are the worst.
The cool cement floor of my room wakes me up a bit more, but I’d rather be woken up in more pleasant ways. I push off the bed and head to the window, looking out at Smolensk, the place I used to call home.
My room looks out to a cluster of boxy cement highrises, each one identical in appearance. There are many compounds just like this scattered across Russia. Old industrial towns that either fell with the Soviet Union or were a casualty of the corrupt power vacuum left in its wake. Whatever the case, it makes a great spot to run the headquarters of one of the largest known Russian mafia organizations. I nod my head to myself, knowing this is just one of the many smart decisions Vadim made as Pakhan of the Mikhailov Bratva. Someone as young as Vadim becoming so powerful doesn’t just happen. It’s accomplished through a series of calculated decisions that brought exponential success a dash of good luck.
My eyes drift to the ground and lock onto a soldier patrolling the property, rifle in hand. Plumes of steam rise from his mouth every few seconds as he passes the building, turns, and comes back.
Mikhailov is a name that doesn’t feel like it’s mine, but it is. I am Viktor Mikhailov, son of Konstantin Mikhailov, the man who used the fall of Soviet Russia to build the first post-Soviet criminal empire. Before those times, criminals were limited to small time deals made during their time in prison, but that all changed after the Soviet Union collapsed and opportunities to gain a foothold in the country’s newly privatized industries rained from the sky.
Konstantin Mikhailov wasn’t always a criminal, but he associated with criminals and built what turned into a shipping empire, smuggling goods in and out of the country. He loved to travel and got what I remember him calling his dream job with an air freight company. When I was a child, he sent me postcards from all over the world. When he was home, he’d recount all his adventures to me. His rise in the crime world was fast but started small; people asking him to bring simple goods that were considered a luxury to the countries he visited. Clothing, shoes, children’s toys. Our family was poor then, struggling like the rest of the families in our village, crammed in apartments with shared bathrooms. My father understood what it was to go without and was happy to oblige the requests he’d receive on his trips, collecting a little profit in the process.
But things transformed rapidly for Konstantin Mikhailov.
What started as my father smuggling petty amounts of home goods to other countries escalated to larger quantities. Then to more countries. Then drugs. Then guns, where his success exploded. Our family became wealthy beyond anything I could comprehend, and it happened overnight. But Konstantin was always building, using his influence to move us from our cramped living quarters to a separate house at the center of our village. It was a building originally intended for groundskeepers and their families but was never occupied. A house meant for several families, and it was just for my parents and me. We lived like royalty, in a castle surrounded by a ring of cement highrises where the rest of the families lived. Over time my father used his money to improve entire village, bankrolling renovations in the high-rises so families could have bathrooms, appliances that actually worked, and could stay warm during the coldest months of the year.
He fulfilled my mother’s every desire and built any luxury imaginable into our home. It was his gift for all the years we spent struggling to eat. The inside of our home was a dream.
The outside world was another story.
The residents knew who my father was and who he associated with. Eventually, they came to respect but also fear my family as increasing numbers of tattooed criminals streamed in and out of our door on business, perpetually at my father’s beck and call.
The beginning of the Mikhailov Bratva was forming.
I was growing into a curious young man, hoping to model myself after my father. But Konstantin Mikhailov tried his hardest to keep me out of the criminal life, forbidding me to overhear conversations he had with his soldiers or interact with them in any way. He made me vow to never follow in his footsteps.
Kicked out of my father’s inner circle, and with no friends to speak of because the villagers feared my family, I spent most days alone. Some kids even admitted to me their parents wouldn’t allow them to become friends with me because of my family name.
I examine the collection of tattoos I’ve added to my body over the years, spilling down from my muscular shoulders and following the thick cords of meat lining my arms, down my hands and fingers. Badges from so many brutal acts I’ve committed. When it comes to avoiding the criminal underworld, I failed my father.
Apparently, Tatyana was drawn into the criminal world, too.
