Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92133 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 461(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
The doors opened and I stepped off. My presence made the room immediately freeze. Men and women, counting piles of cash, doing their job. Glancing over the people, I noted there were no new faces. Everyone here had been working for me for quite some time. They all knew not to fuck with me. Still, it didn’t hurt every now and then to appear, to let them see me.
They had all seen me kill a man. Admittedly, it had been to save them, seeing as he’d brought a gun to this place in the hope of killing me and ending the Bratva, which was so fucking cute. There was no end to Volkov. No way of outing the best man that had ever come to this place.
I’d not been kind to the man who threatened to kill my staff. I’d been a mean motherfucker and they all saw it, and in doing so, they had sworn their loyalty to Ivan. Once I was satisfied nothing was amiss, I left the basement and went to my main office. Leo left me alone long enough to change. I stuffed my clothes into a bag, which I handed to Leo to dispose of.
Rather than leave the casino, I decided to check the basic running of the place. Sitting behind the desk, I logged into the computer, drawing up the emails, and reading through them. There was enough to keep me occupied.
Working my way through each one, the temptation to reach for my cell phone and to see Adelaide was strong, which didn’t bode well for me. Women were a weakness.
Adelaide meant nothing to me. I had no reason to be so … intent on seeing her. I reached for my cell phone, but stopped myself from logging in to see what she was doing. She was just a woman.
My wife.
My still virginal wife.
Gritting my teeth, I tossed the cell phone into my drawer and continued with my work.
As I was about to reach for my cell for the fifth fucking time, my office door opened. I was about to yell at whoever dared enter my office, but I kept my mouth shut as I watched Ivan Volkov enter the room.
After years of being his brigadier, I knew he didn’t want any special greeting. Even though he was the Pakhan, the boss, he never wanted to be treated as such, unless he requested it.
“Hello, Andrei,” Ivan said.
“Volkov.”
“How come you’ve not booked a honeymoon?”
I frowned. “A honeymoon?”
“It’s what new couples enjoy after getting married.” Ivan grabbed my hand and pointed to the band wrapped around my ring finger. I’d picked the ring out. It was silver, plain, and could have been mistaken for anything. “In case you didn’t know, you’re married.”
“I know.”
“So, what about the honeymoon?”
Ivan let go of my hand and I sat back, looking at him. “You’ve come all this way to berate me for dealing with work? I dealt with a rat this morning, who was quite happy to snitch.”
“Ah, yes, but you see, you’ve got a very lovely wife at home.”
“I know what I’ve got at home.” A complication.
“I’d have expected this behavior if you’d married Bethany.”
“Adelaide shouldn’t be my wife.”
“Not only is she your wife, but she will be the mother of your child, but then, you’d actually have to fuck her to do that,” Ivan said.
I gritted my teeth to keep from talking. He knew I hadn’t taken her on our wedding night.
Ivan smiled. “I like that you don’t lie to me, Andrei. I do like that about you. It’s one of your few rare qualities.”
“What brings you here?”
“I’ve got some business to attend to in Slavik’s territory. No matter what you hear, you are not to respond to it, am I understood?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Simple. You’re not to move from your territory. I will call you with an update, do you understand?”
I didn’t like this. Slavik and Ivan were planning something. I hated being kept out of the loop, but this was my job.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” Ivan tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair. “I’ve been thinking about Yahontov.”
Yahontov was Ivan Yahontov, but we called him Ive so as not to confuse him with Ivan. Not that you could mistake the two.
Ive was a monster to the core. I heard his territory was dark and his men were cruel. One of the rules as brigadiers is that we never got involved with other territories. We ran our places the way we saw fit.
Ive was cruel. He was evil. But with a past like his, I could totally understand that. The fact he was able to attend certain functions without drawing attention to his oddness was a miracle. Ivan liked to have strange men running things.
I was an odd choice—the unwanted son of the previous Bratva, who was in fact a soldier’s son. Yes, I discovered through torturing my father that I wasn’t his son after all. My mother had an affair with a soldier, but they didn’t kill me.