“Did it help? Punching the shit out of that bag, I mean.” She motions with her chin to the punching bag in the corner.
“For now.”
She sits down beside me on the edge of the boxing ring, eyes roving over my shirtless frame. Sweat still runs down my back and neck and her eyes don’t miss a single droplet as it traverses down my body.
“Your shoulder,” she says, her voice raspy. “It must still hurt.”
I smile at her concern. “I’ve felt worse. A bullet graze is a lot more pleasant than being shot. I know from personal experience.”
She bites her full bottom lip and looks around. “I don’t even know how to make sense of that.” Georgia leans in closer, her gray eyes dark in the dimly lit underground room. “Why do you box?” I thought maybe you’d be more into Krav Maga, you know, since it’s part of my training.”
Lifting my hand, I tuck a shiny strand of hair behind her ear. “Growing up, I was still scrawny. Barely had any friends. My family had money, but they didn’t have prestige yet. I was just another gangster’s kid roaming around the streets of Brooklyn. It’s still rough in lots of ways, but not like back then. At a young age, I had to learn to defend myself from the moment I struck out in the streets. One day, I was out running errands for my father when I met one of his associates, a guy known as Little Joe. He was huge by the way, nothing little about the man. Little Joe ran a boxing studio for some of the old timers. Not a mafia joint, just Eastern European émigrés that wanted to fight semi-professionally. Joe took a liking to me, especially when I walked into the studio one day with a black eye. Took one look at me and said it was time to start my training. Best skill I ever learned,” I say, and I mean it.
Her tongue brushes over her soft lips, setting off my desire for her, but she’s not done with the questions. “What happened today?”
“What do you mean?”
Her mouth tightens. “Something happened. I can tell.”
I scrub a hand over my face, hoping she’ll just drop it. “It doesn’t matter.”
She blinks, not dissuaded by my silence. I consider not telling her, or at least glossing over some of the harsher realities, but what’s the point? It’s better if Georgia knows how fucked up this world is. The farther away she stays, the better.
“It was about my mother,” I concede. “About the months before she died. Well, committed suicide.”
Georgia sucks in a sharp breath. Her hand settles into my own, a touch meant to comfort. My chest squeezes like a vice, but I keep on going. “I found out Oleg posed as a starving artist and tricked his way into my mother’s heart and eventually into her bed. He fathered a child with her. That child is Kira. Kira Antonov is our half-sister.”
“What the… did I hear that right? Your mother and Oleg?” She can’t keep the shock out of her voice. “Andrei, I don’t even know what to say.”
I shake my head, because there are no right words. “Oleg knew a child out of wedlock would tear apart my family and weaken my father. Today I learned just how he did it. How he tricked my mother into falling for him, and practically ripped a newborn Kira from my mother’s arms, raising her in secret. If he raised her at all.” I sigh heavily, a hot wordless fury still burning bright inside.
Georgia’s eyes are full of horror. “But why would he do that?”
“Revenge.” I drum my fingers on my legs. This is not an easy story to tell. “You know my father used to be an Antonov soldier, but what I didn’t tell you was how that came to be. My father was orphaned at a young age until Alek Antonov, Oleg’s father, found my papa running dice games in the slums of Moscow, making big bucks for a ten-year-old. Alek saw the potential and took him under his wing.
“He raised Papa alongside Oleg, Alek’s biological son, and Masha, his daughter. As they grew up, Oleg came to resent my father. My father was a better leader, a bettervor v zakone—that’s what the Russian mafia was called in those days.Thieves in law. Papa moved up the ranks quickly. Oleg was the opposite. Lazy and hot-headed, ruled by his vices.
“Alek didn’t have faith in his son’s ability to lead, which was why he was preparing to install my father as his heir when he was killed by a car bomb in the streets of Prague. Oleg was able to maintain control of the Antonov empire, and my father became enemy number one. By that time, Papa was a skilled Vor. He left his homeland, moved to Brighton Beach, where many Russians had already settled, and he built the most powerful bratva on U.S. soil.”
I tap my foot and crack my knuckles. I hate this part of my history. “My father moved on with his life. He met my mother, fell in love and started a family. But Oleg was spiteful. Angry that his own father chose my papa over him. He made his way to the U.S. and set out to destroy the Kozlovs, and what better way to do that than target the heart and soul of a family? He tricked my mother, then stole her newborn baby.” I choke, unable to keep the anguish out of my voice. Rage and pain ignite in my chest. I force myself to take a slow, steadying breath before I have to revisit the punching bag.
Georgia crawls into my lap. Her lips land on mine in a bruising kiss. “We’ll destroy him,” she murmurs. “We’ll find your sister, and after that, we’ll destroy him.”
Her fists curl and I see a spark, a fierceness to Georgia that I’ve only seen glimpses of before. And it is devastating. My arm wraps around her middle, and I bury my face in her neck, her sweet smell providing comfort.
“After my mother died, Papa lost his edge, and with that, his hold on the brotherhood. My father wasn’t as brutal or as aggressive as he needed to be to stay at the top. With my brothers and I still too young to step in, Oleg slowly grew a base of operations in New Jersey, and before long, he was crowding our territory in Brighton Beach. We didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until Oleg had our father assassinated, the final death-strike against my family.”
She blinks and her wolf eyes search my face. “I want revenge too, you know. I want to see Oleg destroyed more than you can imagine.”
“He took from both of us, krasotka, and I swear he will pay dearly.” My hands are in her hair and before I know it, I’ve pulled her face towards mine. Desire blazes in her eyes, a hunger that is mirrored in my own. “I’m not in a good place. If I take you now, it won’t be gentle.”
She watches me for a long moment, her eyes flicking back and forth between mine. She sees the fire, the turbulence, the hurt underneath it all, but she doesn’t turn away. Her lips brush against my own, her breath mingling with mine. “I want you too.”
I don’t want to use her body to chase away my dark shadows, but my resistance is breaking. I’m a weak man when it comes to her. Without further thought, I push her down and pin her back against the mat, hands braced on either side of her. “I warned you.”
I palm her breast over her thin t-shirt, my thumb flicking over her nipple. Our heavy breaths intermingle when I slant my lips over hers in a searing kiss, a clash of tongues and teeth. I usually avoid kissing on the mouth. It gives the wrong impression to the temporary woman in my bed, but none of that matters now. I’m overtaken by a kind of delirium and I can’t get enough of Georgia’s mouth. I suck her tongue, consuming her like she is my last meal on earth.
On a ragged breath, I lean over her, grabbing both of her ass cheeks in my hands, molding her supple flesh and pulling her in towards me, my very pronounced hard-on pressing against her belly like a pulsating brand.