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“All right,” Lyon said, looking around the room.
Oleg laughed. “Soon enough!”
Lyon stood. “I’m going to attend to some work.” He looked at the men around the room. As armies went, it was small, but it was a start. There were several powerful men on the fence. Once Lyon brought them over to his side, most of the organization would coalesce behind him. “Please eat and drink. Enjoy yourselves. We have a lot of work ahead of us, but today, we’ll celebrate the promise of our future together.”
It was important the men saw Lyon’s victory as their own, that they saw themselves as an avatar for him: seizing power, kingpin to the kingdom. Deep down, they knew there could only be one king, but on the surface, it was useful for them to see themselves as future rulers.
He strode into his office and shut the door, relieved to be in silence.
He walked around the desk he’d had installed in the office, a hunk of metal and glass that fit surprisingly well in the otherwise opulent room. He sat down and unlocked the bottom drawer of the desk, then removed the laptop he kept there.
He took a drink of his vodka and opened the computer, got through the rigorous authentication protocols he’d had installed on the device, and tabbed to the most important of his spreadsheets: the document containing the names of the players in the bratva, the men he would need to officially take control, something that could only happen when all of the brigadiers and the leaders of the Two Spies agreed to support him.
He highlighted the cells containing the names of the men in the other room: Oleg, Rupert, Stefan, and David. They had chosen a side.
His.
He looked at the other names near the top of the list. They were more complicated, their motivations more subtle than the four men he’d already brought in, but they would have to be next.
He scanned the list, his gaze coming to rest on one name.
Musa. The Chechen.
His motivation was clear, but that did nothing to ease Lyon’s mind, because Musa’s motivation was the same as Lyon’s: power.
There would be no negotiation with him, although Lyon would try anyway.
A knock sounded at the office door and he looked up. “Yes?”
The door opened and Oleg entered the room, his arm around a beautiful brunette in a tight pink dress.
“Your surprise has arrived!” Oleg announced, a sheen of sweat on his brow. “This is Mila, and she’s here to keep you company while you work.”
Behind Oleg and the woman named Mila, Lyon could see that the atmosphere had grown more lively in the back room, a handful of women mingling with the men, the music turned up.
Lyon stood and came around the desk.
The woman named Mila looked him over appreciatively. “Hello.”
“Hello.” He recognized her as one of the sex workers employed by the bratva, had seen her at various events where the men gathered without their wives and girlfriends.
Sex work was a tradition he supported, although one of the first things on his list of planned reorganization was to give the workers more autonomy, regular STD screenings, and health care. It was ludicrous that sex work was illegal in the first place. They were living in the twenty-first century. Consenting adults should be able to do as they pleased.
Lyon would ensure the bratva’s sex enterprise was as businesslike as the rest of their interests.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Oleg said with a grin, shutting the door behind him.
Mila stepped further into the room, her hips swaying suggestively under the pink dress. She was a beautiful woman, her dark hair falling around a perfectly symmetrical face, her body ripe and inviting.
Lyon leaned against the desk. This was good. The perfect way to banish thoughts of Kira from his mind.
“Come closer,” he commanded.
She walked toward him, stopping when she was only inches away.
“Take off your dress.”
She lifted it over her head, reveling a slender body, flat stomach, and small, pert breasts that spilled out of a pink lace bra.
