Page 7 of Ruinous Need

VIKTOR

DEAR GOD.

I’m not used to this.

My hands curl into fists at the sight of Lisette wearing my hoodie and sweatpants, her slim frame drowning in the dark fabric, as she sips from a huge mug of tea. She’s perched on the stool with both feet tucked beneath her.

As I watch, she tilts her head at the newspaper, her blonde hair spilling across her face while she bites her lip in concentration. Her knee is jiggling, moving up and down as she thinks.

The sight sends the blood rushing away from my head to a place that shouldn’t be responding to her.

My cock needs to learn the stakes involved here.

Because if Semyon found out, he would cut it off. Without hesitation. Using a pair of rusty scissors. Before leaving me to bleed out or die from tetanus.

Not only that, but she’s a full fourteen years younger than me. And entirely under my guard.

I am not mentally or physically prepared to see her every day. That much is certain. Especially not if she keeps crossing lines like this.

“Who said you could wear that?” I growl as I approach the breakfast bar.

“You. You said I could help myself.” Her voice is light, cheery, though it’s early in the morning. She frowns at a crossword in the newspaper, tapping her hand against the mug. She doesn’t seem worried about my mood. She should be.

“To the living room and kitchen. Not my bedroom.” When she meets my simmering gaze, her eyes flash with amusement. She unfolds her legs to kick her feet against the chair.

I’m radiating anger and danger. I’m wearing military fatigues. There are five weapons strapped to various places on my body.

But still she looks at me with a shy-yet-cheeky smile. Like the sensors that detect danger in her brain are faulty.

“What did you expect me to wear? I didn’t exactly pack a bag for my kidnapping.”

I sigh and brace myself against the kitchen island. My knuckles turn white with the strength of my grip. I should have thrown her in the cells like Semyon ordered. “There were clothes in the guest room. Women’s clothes.”

I had borrowed them from Vera, my brother’s wife. She works as a lawyer for the Bratva. They looked like they were about the right size. Buying new clothes for a hostage had seemed excessive at the time.

Lisette wrinkles her nose. “I didn’t think you were expecting me to go to a business meeting. I wanted to wear something comfortable, not a silk blouse.”

This woman.

It’s been two nights and already she feels comfortable enough to talk back to me. I’m clearly doing something wrong.

I rip the mug from her hands and set it on the counter, spinning her stool around so she’s facing me.

“Lisette.” My voice is low and dangerous as I grit out her name but she looks up at me eagerly. With a pretty smile that doesn’t seem the least bit forced.

“Viktor.” There’s a teasing note there but not a single tremor in her voice.

“You are under my watch. And I may not be the Pakhan, but rest assured, I make the rules here. I have permission to keep you in line however I deem necessary. So, here are the ground rules. You do not communicate with the outside world. You do not go into rooms without permission. And you do not nap in my bed.”

She frowns at that last one, her soft lips bunching together in a pout. The movement, the plushness of her flesh, sends me barreling into a dirty fantasy where I force those lips open. “So you have been watching me. I couldn’t find any cameras.”

As if I would need cameras to know she’d napped in my room when I can smell her on my bedsheets.

“I’m not just watching you, Lisette. I’m keeping you here. By any means necessary.”

“And you just follow whatever orders the Pakhan gives you?” Her mouth twists.

“That’s my job. I’ve killed people for him.”

“And will you kill me?”

“I could.”

I want her to feel the force of my presence. I want her to acknowledge that her heart is beating rapidly right now, like mine is, however clear and steady those sea-green eyes are.

“Is that supposed to scare me?”

Obviously. “It should scare you.”

“No. I refuse to be afraid of you, pretty boy.”

Pretty boy? I stalk closer to her, my shoulders tense. I fold my arms over my chest, my fists balled tight.

“What did you just call me?”

“Pretty boy.” She swallows once. The first sign of fear. To my surprise, she reaches out a finger and traces my cheekbones gently.

The trail of heat surges in an intoxicating wave through my body as I stand, stock-still. Once again, unable to control my response to this girl. “You have gorgeous bone structure.” Her voice is unsteady now and I take that as a win.

“There is nothing pretty about me, Lisette.” I trap her hand against my face and pause for a second before I rip it away. I back away. She knocks me off-kilter.

“You try to hide it. With muscles and tattoos and frowns. But you have a kind face, Viktor.”

“You are a hostage. Not a guest. Remember that.” I scrub a hand over my face as though I can erase the heat from her touch. Erase the fact that she ever touched me.

I grab my car keys without another word.

Fucking typical from Semyon.

Putting me in charge of a hostage who’s some superhuman test of self-control. This is just another one of his mind games.

I slam the door and head out without breakfast or coffee. Just to get away from her.

Another messy day.

The first interrogation ends with our SUV riddled with bullet-holes after we missed an entire safe-house full of Irish soldiers. How they knew we’d be in Manhattan, across the city from their territory, is a mystery to me.

Everything feels messy at the moment.

Semyon’s intelligence isn’t as good as it used to be.

Every step we take into Irish territory feels like an uncalculated risk. I’m half-expecting a land mine to explode under our feet.

“Are you alright?”

Markov’s looks at me expectantly. “You seem… Moody.”

I fix him with a scowl.

“I didn’t sleep well.”

“How’s the hostage?”

I give a weary sigh. “Fine. She’s fine.”

“Not the reason for your mood?” It’s like he can see right through me sometimes.

“Obviously not.” I let my tone turn clipped, trying to close out the conversation.

But Markov can sense he’s hitting a nerve. “I can’t imagine you like having someone in your space.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snap. Even this monosyllabic brute is rubbing me the wrong way right now.

Even though Markov’s right. I’m not known for wanting to be around other people.

Until he showed up, I was entirely a lone wolf or a black sheep. Whatever you want to call it. I was the guy who made everyone else uncomfortable at the glitzy family gatherings. Not by my behavior but by my reputation.

The stories about me stole through the room before I could enter. Whispering in everyone’s ear about blood and death and destruction and most especially, the way I enjoyed it. Needed it.

I really should’ve had that coffee. But I needed to be out of Lisette’s presence before I did something stupid.

The one thing I’m known for is being above it all. Uninvolved. Detached. That was always so easy until her.

I have to stop thinking like this is a foregone conclusion.She’s a woman. A bodily urge. Like an addiction. And people get past that every day — they set down the bottle, or the pipe, despite their body’s urging, and they move on to better things.

That’s what I have to do with this strange craving I have to touch my cousin’s fiancée.

“This could be good for you.” Markov lets it hang in the air.

“She’s not a roommate. Or a therapist. This changes nothing.”

If it was anyone else, all I’d have to do was look at them and they’d cower away. Not Markov.

Perhaps it’s that he doesn’t know the full story. He didn’t know me when I was fifteen, he wasn’t there to see the creation of the monster he works with.

I’m fine with it. It’s easier to work with someone when they’re not constantly side-eyeing you to see whether you’ll go too far.

I refocus the binoculars. Our target today: Boris Gurov.

This one’s an easy kill. As a bonus, our intel suggests he can help with our plot to destroy the remnants of the former Pakhan and his legacy. Before he breathes his last breath, the pot-bellied rat will sing a song about where Yuri is hiding in Argentina.

From the looks of his gold button-down shirt and red face in the photo on his file, he’s not exactly a classy man.

He was involved in running drugs for a low-level Bratva family some years ago.

The whole thing was a disaster because he couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

He’s come back onto the Bratva’s radar for another similarly disastrous entrepreneurial effort.

A greedy business owner who didn’t respond to the first warning.

That’s all you get, from Semyon. Especially for an idiot like this one, trying to set up a brothel across the road from our own operation.

We have the photos to prove it. Nothing about the operation was subtle. Sure, the door in the alleyway was black and marked with a simple door number, but the women wearing skimpy dresses and too much make-up outside were a giveaway.

The man must be thick as a plank. He even tried to recruit some of the workers from our establishment to work at his, offering them a lower salary. As though they’d forfeit money to work somewhere that can’t even offer the protection of the Bratva.

“Boris!” I call out to him with a Russian greeting from across the parking garage.

He looks around, bewildered, as my voice echoes off the walls. I’m behind him before he can react, a gun at his temple.

He drops to his knees in an instant, the parking garage echoing with the sound of his sobs.

“Tell me what you know about Yuri Petrov.”

The words flow out of his lips so easily it’s almost suspicious. How, when he was looking for women to bring back to his club in Argentina, he reconnected with Yuri. He was in Buenos Aires for the day, down from his ranch in the north.

It adds up. We’ve swept through Russia, Mexico, and the Caribbean, while we track down the vermin. Further south, we haven’t bothered with yet.

He twists to me in surprise when he realizes that I’m not letting him go. This is an execution, not an interrogation. I wonder why he thought it was anything else.

Like Georgy, he thinks he has some kind of right to beg me for mercy.

“Please, Viktor, your father would have—”

I shut him up with an elbow to the windpipe. My father is the last thing I want to hear about right now.

Gurov clutches at my hand with a desperate but weak grip. Not such a big man anymore. It gives me grim satisfaction to watch these old men, who used to be able to get away with anything, realize that their fate is catching up with them.

And their fate is in the form of a bullet.

“This is from the Bratva.” I pull the trigger and deliver it cleanly into his temple.

Markov is already in front, lifting up his legs, as a trickle of blood makes its way from between Boris’s slack lips. He looks surprised in death, as though he was still thinking he would get away with it.

Fool. A mention of my dear old papa never saved anyone.