He finishes his own drink and says, “Who was the girl? I saw her when I was telling everyone the rules. She didn’t exactly look like she belonged.”
I sit down behind my desk and lean back. “She’s the police chief’s daughter.”
Aleksei immediately says, “I swear I had no idea!”
I believe him, but I’m also pissed at his carelessness. By the looks of it, so is Nikolai.
“I talked with her, and I don’t think her dad sent her here. In fact, I don’t think he had any idea she was here. I’m guessing he’d be pretty fucking pissed to find out about it. If I thought it was worth the extra trouble, I’d tell him myself just so I could see the look on his face,” I say with a laugh.
“Why was she here then?” Nikolai asks.
I raise my hands and give him a cocky grin. “She wanted to see me fight. Poor thing has probably been dreaming about having one night with me for ages. I hated to break her heart, but you know how it is. Can’t have her hanging out here like some lovesick puppy.”
Pointing my finger at Aleksei, I add, “Don’t you fucking bring strange women here again. I don’t care what the fuck they offer.”
He at least has the decency to drop his eyes and look slightly embarrassed.
Nikolai sets his empty glass on my desk and says, “We won big tonight, Dima. Lucky for all of us that you managed to win the fight before everyone had to scatter. The Irish are going to be pissed. They had a lot of money riding on Jimmy.”
“Then Jimmy should have been a better fighter. Not my problem. It was a fair fight,” I say, suddenly ready for this whole night to be over.
Looking at Aleksei, I say, “Just divvy out the money to everyone involved and hide the rest in the Arctic Fox profits as usual.”
Nikolai scrubs a hand over his face before asking, “And the next fight?”
“Cancel it,” I say.
“The Irish aren’t going to be happy about this, Dmitri. They’re going to want a chance to redeem themselves.”
“Belov is too suspicious. I’m not going to risk my ass and everyone else’s just so the Irish can try and save face. They’ll get their rematch, but it will be when I say it is, not them.”
“Understood,” Nikolai says, but he doesn’t look thrilled about it.
Both men stand, and he says, “We’ll be next door if you need us,” before walking out.
I have no doubt they’ll be spending the whole night drinking and knee deep in willing pussy. I should go with them, drink myself into oblivion and fuck some random woman, but I can’t bring myself to do it. There’s only one woman on my mind, and, unfortunately, she’s the one woman I can’t have.
When I hear someone come in the back door, I get up and find Anton rearming the security system.
“Everything go okay?”
“It went fine,” he says, and I imagine the car ride was mostly silence since Anton’s English is rudimentary at best.
“The address?”
Anton finishes typing in the rearming code and turns to me. He’s older than the rest of us and used to be a damn good fighter back in the day. He’s since let his love of vodka and American donuts turn his body into more pudge than muscle. He’s still a bear of a man, though, and can be quite intimidating when he needs to be.
“I already texted it to you.”
“I left my phone upstairs. Where does she live?”
“Why do you care so much anyway,” he asks, crossing his beefy arms over his chest.
“I don’t,” I say, holding his gaze. “I care where the chief of police lives.”
He looks as if he doesn’t quite believe me, but as he turns to head into the club, he says over his shoulder, “923 Birch Street in the Applewood subdivision.”
Knowing there’s no chance in hell I’m going to be able to fall asleep anytime soon, I grab some hand wraps and a pair of gloves and walk over to one of the black punching bags hanging from the ceiling. When the gloves are on and I start punching, everything else disappears. I no longer hear the thudding bass from next door or the sound of Belov’s voice in my head, yelling threats at me, and for a few glorious moments, I don’t think about how badly I want to fuck his daughter. All I’m thinking about is punching the hell out of this bag.