Page 4 of Unwritten Vows
Derrick
I love when I’m able to play with the girls I’m forced to date a little.
It makes life more interesting. Eliza Andreeva is perfect.
She’s a beautiful, young, smart-mouthed girl that knows almost zero about this cutthroat life we live.
What’s more is that she thinks she does, and has the sass without the bite.
My ex-girlfriend, Mara, was similar but with one key difference: She had the bite.
She was a bitch in bitch’s clothing, which were her own words, not mine.
But my little Liza, my jumpy Little Bunny, is so deliciously innocent and ignorant to this life.
She idolizes her Daddy. The relationship between them is as rare and pure as a desert rose, despite the horrible shit he’s done in his life.
She’s a true anomaly. She’s someone I can really corrupt.
Someone I can teach all sorts of fun things to.
More than all of that, everything I do to Liza sets her nerve-endings ablaze, and that’s the kind of effect I like to have on someone I need to at least pretend to like.
My ex, along with most of the other girls I’ve been paired with, have simply been too jaded and blase.
Their bad girl reputations were as thoroughly embedded in the minds of their followers as my bad boy reputation is in mine.
I had no effect on her and honestly, she just wasn’t my type.
It wasn’t like I was going to live a long, happy life with her anyway.
But I’ve earned some small bit of trust from this monolithic figure, the Bolyar, who heads up an even bigger brotherhood than the one in Boston—certainly bigger than the one my father is the underboss of in Rhode Island.
And the Bolyar’s daughter might be a bit frigid, but her body certainly isn’t towards me.
It’ll be a challenge to thaw her, but I’m up for it.
In fact, I’m looking forward to it. She’s not boring, that’s for sure—I’m excited for something different.
Something that isn’t so easy in this easy life I live.
As her father walks back into the great hall, I see another welcomed sign: he is looking between his daughter and I with approval.
I’m right next to her, and it’s probably even obvious I’ve just been touching her, but he still likes this picture of us together.
I know without a doubt now that I’ve got him locked down. I just need to crack his daughter.
Liza expertly ignores me and my hand under the table, “accidentally” grazing her naked thigh where the hemline of her dress ends.
She is good at schooling her expression, I’ll give her that.
I’m impressed that her father seems to have taught her something, even while keeping her shielded from the world the way he has.
I’ve looked—there’s next to nothing online about her.
She goes to a tiny private school on the Upper East Side and has almost no social media presence.
I can’t believe a 20-year-old girl living in New York City has such a small footprint on the worldwide web.
I can’t wait to ask her about how she has managed this, or how she feels about being kept in such isolation.
The chef brings out a traditionally-Russian inspired preparation of aged steak, with Russian potato latkes and a side of vegetables.
We are all served at the same time by different waiters.
This is a lot of pomp and circumstance, but I have always had this type of life as well.
When you have the money to be frivolous, you are expected to be frivolous. It’s all a game.
“This looks amazing,” I say, cutting into my medium-rare filet.
I look over, expecting to see a thoroughly cooked hunk of meat on Liza’s plate, but as she cuts into it, juice spills out and I see the red center.
Of course, she cuts a dainty bite and chews a hundred times, but I’m still shocked.
I’ve never seen a girl eat a bloody steak.
I love how Liza doesn’t act exactly the way I think she will.
I love that she’s who I think she is in most ways, and then pops up with these little surprises here and there.
“The preparation is world class, but the meat is also aged twenty-seven days.” God, everything she says is steeped in high-society snobbery, but all within such an innocent little package.
Her hair is long and wavy, partially pulled back in a small bun, and the rest reaching down to her lower back.
Her crystal blue eyes are sharp and smart, but huge and demure at the same time, somehow.
To top it all off, she has a light dusting of freckles along her cheekbones and seems to be wearing just a touch of mascara.
She’s the very image of a disney princess.
And there’s no man alive that doesn’t wonder what it would be like to desecrate one of them.
Her father leans in toward me. “You said you don’t work with the politicians, but your father just corrected that and told me that you’re involved with some of the state senators out in Rhode Island. Being shy about your accomplishments, my boy?”
I give him my most award-winning smile, with just a hint of the hard edge I want to portray.
“Yes, thank you. It’s hard work, but made easier by some of my top men.
As I said, mostly it’s my enforcers who take care of the politicians; I just manage the situation.
Our guys are loyal and willing to do just about whatever we ask without pushback.
We can pay exceedingly well, of course. I have to show that I’m able to hold up the brunt of the work for a leader if I want to take my father’s place one day, after all. ”
I don’t say that Divny, my father’s boss, is on his way out with no heirs after his son was killed in an ill-informed gun fight a few years back, and his daughters are living on The Golden Mile in Moscow with their mother, buying millions of dollars of clothes and face creams, I’d assume.
It’s not that I’m unsympathetic to the family; it’s that they themselves couldn’t care less beyond what their son had done.
At least I make it so that my own father is proud of me.
At least he’s not fucking embarrassed by my existence.
I think, in a lot of ways, Divny’s family was relieved when their disappointment of a son caught a bullet he practically asked for.
“I was telling Liza earlier that there’s more to you than the face she sees on the computer, and it’s obvious at this point that I was right.
I’m sure she is as shocked as I am to hear how different you really are from the reputation you’ve expertly honed for yourself.
It’s even more impressive that you’re willing to pretend you’re some petty reprobate just to get what you want.
” After he’s done praising me, the titan that is Yaroslav Andreeva leans back to study me as he nods his approval.
I shoot my eyes over to Liza, fully expecting a lip biting, silent admission of acquiescence, but instead I’m treated to a stone gaze with just a hint of something I can almost taste, and I’m pretty sure that something is worry.
She clears her throat, and I’m certain it’s to buy herself time to figure out what to say. We all wait for her, and finally, she speaks. “I still think that remains to be seen, Daddy.”
Oh, I can practically taste how sweet that worry is now radiating off of this poor little girl.
She can barely even look at dear old Daddy as she disagrees with him, afraid to see the disappointment on his face.
She thinks she has him wrapped around her finger, but I’m certain by now that it’s the other way around.
Yaroslav is, after all, a master manipulator.
It probably comes as second nature to him, so much so that he can’t even help but employ it with his own daughter.
Which, of course, is all the better for me.
“Well, I wonder if you’ll give me the chance to make a believer out of you, Liza?
I haven’t had much occasion to go out in this great city, since most of the times I’ve come here have been for business.
Would you mind showing me around a little?
I promise, I’ll make it worth your while.
You’ll see how much of an enlightened gentleman I can be.
” I bat my eyes at her to seem playful, hoping she’ll feel obligated to take the bait.
Her father helps me, of course, just a moment later. “Look at that, Solnyshko . He’s extended you an invitation without waiting for myself or his father to set up the next meeting. You’ll accept, won’t you, little love?”
She waits just a beat too long, her jaws ever-so-slightly clenched, and I eat up her indecision like the sweetest candy. She gives me one of the most painful smiles I’ve ever seen, especially directed toward me , and licks her lips.
But still, just as I knew she would, she says the words I want to hear. “Of course, Daddy.”