Page 28 of Sexting My Bratva Boss (Mafia Silver Foxes #1)

Konstantin

T he penthouse smells new. Not fresh— new . Cold concrete, virgin lacquer, brushed steel fixtures and faint ozone from recently installed wiring. A property that’s never been lived in, touched only by designers and cleaners.

I don’t like it.

Still, it’s necessary. The townhouse is compromised—riddled with ghosts. My blood dried into the marble. Audrey’s scent still in the air, clinging to the high-thread-count sheets I burned the same day I was released from the hospital.

I gave the order to sell it that afternoon. Had it wrapped up through my own real estate firm to keep it quiet. Transferred to shell ownership in two hours flat. All of it arranged through Satin.

They’re already waiting when I arrive.

Leaning against the far wall of the elevator lobby, all tailored steel-gray slacks and an asymmetric turtleneck, Satin is a modern sculpture come to life. They wear their long black hair in a single braid down the center of their back, geometric silver jewelry catching the mid-morning light.

Their expression is, as always, unreadable.

“Mr. Martynov,” they purr, offering the keys between two perfectly polished fingers. “Welcome home.”

I take the keys. They’re cold.

“This place was just finished last month. Custom design. Over seven thousand square feet. Black walnut, brushed steel, radiant floors, smart glass on every window. You’ll love the view.”

I step past them into the main room.

The view is fine.

Manhattan stretches beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, a glittering river of ambition and rot. I stare out at it and feel… nothing.

Behind me, Satin’s heels click once on the slate tile. “You want a walkthrough?”

“No.”

“Understood.”

There’s a pause. I hear it before I see it—the calculation in their voice, the curiosity that no one else would dare express.

“I’ve heard a rumor,” they say lightly. “That congratulations are in order.”

I turn slowly.

Satin is smiling with their mouth, not their eyes. Their fingers worry the end of the braid; the only sign they’re anxious, wondering if they’re overstepping.

“Is it true?” they ask. “A child?”

The word hits harder than expected.

Child.

I say nothing, which is answer enough.

Satin’s gaze flickers, and the smile fades. “Be careful, Konstantin. In this city, rumors spread like blood in water. And children… children make people stupid.”

My eyes narrow.

They back off, gracefully.

“Enjoy the property,” they murmur, already heading for the private elevator. “It’s a fortress, but even fortresses fall. Ask Troy.”

The doors close behind them with a whisper.

Silence reclaims the space.

I walk the penthouse alone. It’s beautiful, in that soulless way—which feels like fate. A soulless man in a soulless place. Dark wood panels glow under downlights, everything sleek and masculine. The furniture is all angles and sharp lines, untouched. The kitchen is chef-grade.

I shake off memories of Audrey in an apron, flour powdered against her jaw. Her wide eyes the night she told me. I’m pregnant.

The bedroom is cavernous. I practically run there, away from the apparition, but it doesn’t do me any good. We found so many places to fuck, so many to make love, not all of them beds—but I doubt I’ll ever be able to sleep again.

The townhouse wasn’t home before Audrey stepped inside. It was a place I went back to every night, a place I liked the look of. The rooms wrapped around me, and it felt safe, largely in part due to the security system and the years I spent there.

This place… this place doesn’t know me yet.

I pause at the kitchen island, laying the keys down flat.

My hand lingers over them, fingers tracing the steel edge.

Audrey’s face flickers into my mind. The way she looked in that hospital bed. Pale. Shaken. Defiant.

The way she whispered that she didn’t think she could do this anymore. That being with me—being near me—was going to get her and the baby killed.

She’s right.

I am not a safe man, never have been, and never will be. I’ve come too far, to the very edge of the world—possibly over it and into hell.

At least that’s what it feels like now.

To have a taste of what could be and lose it. This must be how Adam and Eve felt, pushed out of Eden, tart apple still on their tongues. Knowing too much: what they could have had.

What they lost.

No matter how much I want to protect her, no matter what I feel when I watch her laugh, or cry, or press her palm to her stomach like she’s already cradling the child—our child.

A boy, maybe. Or a girl. I don’t care, but my chest aches with the fact that I’ll never know.

Could I hunt them down? Follow Audrey to the ends of the earth, pay someone to watch her, to divulge her medical records? Yes, but will I?

What matters is that they’ll grow up with a target on their back. Because they’re mine.

The only way I can give them a good life is to never look for them again.

I sink into the nearest chair.

I should give her up. Let her go. Let her take the baby.

Send them as far from New York as they can go.

Disappear them in the Arctic Circle if I have to.

It would feel good to walk across an endless, cold landscape and let the frost steal my breath.

In Russia it was talked of often; people who, drunk, wandered out into the winter wasteland. Fell asleep. Slipped away.

I look at her and I don’t just see beauty or lust—I see salvation.

I see the version of myself I could’ve been, if the world hadn’t taught me to sharpen my soul into a blade.

Maybe I would have done things differently all those decades ago if I had known she would be waiting for me here in New York.

But Audrey is right--loving her is a weakness. Wanting this child is a weakness.

Olena said as much, has been forceful of it, sure that I’ll lose Martynov Global Holdings. That just one loose tooth in this system I’ve created could take me out if they sense weakness.

That’s not even taking into consideration men like Giuseppe, or my other enemies. I’ve made plenty of them over the years.

Olena arrives hours later, uninvited, and lets herself in. I don’t bother asking how she got a key, though I wonder if Satin and she talked about their misgivings.

The penthouse door clicks softly, and she steps inside in a black trench coat, head freshly shaved and gleaming like a knife.

She surveys the space with a critical eye.

“You’ve upgraded.”

“Did I?”

She takes a slow turn, then fixes me with that sharp gaze. “You needed an untainted place.”

I say nothing, tamping down the rage that threatens to burst my veins. This isn’t time to turn against my own. Olena has been by my side for years; I trust her with my life. And she isn’t the one who made a mistake.

I am.

She walks toward me, heels muffled on the expensive tile. She stops three feet away.

“I assume Satin filled you in.”

“I didn’t ask for gossip.”

“You should. Because everyone’s talking, Konstantin.”

Her arms cross over her chest.

“You’re distracted.”

I raise a brow. “I’m recovering.”

“You’ve been recovered for days. You haven’t attended a single meeting.

Haven’t reviewed the expansion in Macau.

The weapons shipment in Tunis. You’re barely holding the board’s attention, and they’re starting to look for other sources of power.

By the way, the auction house in Upstate New York is doing well. Not that you asked.”

I lean back.

Olena has always known how to strike where it hurts.

“You’re worried,” she says. “About her. The child. The future.”

It’s not a question. I meet her gaze. “You ever wonder what we’re building, Olena?”

Her mouth twists. “Power. Legacy.”

“And what’s the point of a legacy if I’m dead before I can give it to anyone?”

Her eyes soften, just a fraction. Like me, Olena escaped a past that didn’t want her. But I’ve never asked her: what does she want? What does she long for?

And is it not another person, a companion? A legacy?

“You think this child will save you?”

“No,” I whisper. “I think I’ll destroy them.”

She sighs, stepping closer. “Then let them go.”

“I can’t.”

“Then make them strong.” Her words land like a slap.

I watch her cross the room, pour herself a drink from the bar, and perch on the edge of a low-slung leather chair. Probably the first person to ever set her skinny Russian ass on it.

“You lost Mikhail,” she says softly.

I flinch.

That name is never spoken.

My younger brother. Caught in a street war that wasn’t his, all because a gang back home wanted to make an example of me. Think you can leave here, succeed, without us? I’d been running money, a mule, for them for a while. Until I left.

The poitsiya found him.

“He was your first weakness,” Olena says. “This one—Audrey, the child—they’re your second. The difference is you let Mikhail go. You have to let them go, too, Konstantin.”

Did I ever let Mikhail go?

I stare down at my hands. Calloused. Steady. The hands that built this empire.

The hands that bled to keep it.

Olena sets the drink down without taking a sip. “Fix it, Konstantin. Or lose everything.”

Night falls. The penthouse doesn’t feel any more or less empty.

I pace the long hallway between the kitchen and the windows, glass in hand, drinking something older than most of the men I’ve killed.

I should sleep, but it’s been impossible, as if the fight is still happening—as if I’m still on my knees in the atrium, the thug at my back, the pipe’s metallic clang.

Outside, the city pulses.

Inside, the cut at my waist throbs. I could make one call and get painkillers to dull it, but vodka does the same just fine.

At two-fifteen in the morning, my phone rings.

Not the secure line—the personal line.

For a moment I hope it’s her. Audrey changing her mind. Asking me to come back. I haven’t made her leave the country house, can’t bring myself to do it, but Kashmere has reached out to say she’s been packing. Slowly. Agonizingly.

As if she’s considering…

But the name that flashes onto the screen is that of my enemy. Sartorre. It shouldn’t surprise me. I did, after all, kill three of his men only a few nights ago.

I answer without speaking.

He chuckles.

“You’re up.”

“You always call this late?”

“Only when I know you’re not sleeping.” There’s still an edge of an accent to his words, though he, like me, tried hard to assimilate.

I pace to the window. “What do you want?”

“I heard about Sal,” he says casually. “Can’t say I’ll miss him. Thank you.”

“You confirmed it, then. That he was leading the coup.”

“I suspected. In the last days, he went rogue. Stopped answering my calls. Made demands he didn’t earn. You did me a favor, Konstantin.”

I grit my teeth.

Giuseppe’s voice is smoother than the wine he traffics. “You’ve made a mess, but not one you can’t clean. I trust Redline’s already been.”

I say nothing.

He hums. “And how is your family?”

The silence stretches.

“I’m not going to threaten you,” he adds. “That’s not what this is.”

“Then what is it?”

“A warning.”

“Go on.”

He exhales. “When I was younger, I thought having a family would be a liability. I kept everything separate. Wife in the countryside, kids in boarding school. I thought I was protecting them.”

“And?”

“They grew up strangers. Afraid of me. Of my name. My business. That’s why Rocco is such an ass.

But Fia, we pulled her out of school, had her taught in private.

After… well, you don’t need to hear about that.

There are some things you can’t protect your children from Konstantin.

The point is, Fia was the only one around to see my work.

I was scared when she was with me, yes, but I’d seen what the world would do to them even if I wasn’t there.

So, I brought the boys home. There’s still a rift. .. a chasm we can’t seem to span…”

I let that hang in the air.

He chuckles bitterly. “You have a chance to do something different. Don’t waste it.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Because I know what it’s like to live in a penthouse full of ghosts.”

The line goes dead.

I stand in the dark long after the call ends.

The vodka bottle is half-empty. My soul feels the same.

I want to call Audrey. I want to beg her to come here, to see this place. To sit in that chair, to lie in that bed, to let me worship her swollen belly and promise I’ll be better. Safer. Smarter. That I’ll walk away from it all.

But I can’t promise that.

I’m a man soaked in blood. Anything I touch will eventually drown.

I walk to the bedroom, strip down, and climb into a bed that still smells like packaging plastic and bleach. Sleep doesn’t come, and I don’t expect it to.

Instead, with my eyes closed, all I can picture is Audrey in a dress soft as sunlight. Holding our child against her chest.

And me—watching from the outside.

I don’t know if I’m strong enough to stay away.

But I know I have to try, for them. For once in my goddamn life—something other than vengeance.