I wriggled at the window, as Professor Lim stared at me in consternation. I put a finger to my lips, pleading with her not to shout for Ho Jin. She continued to stare at me, holding her silence, as I backed out the window, and into the dark alley beyond.
I’d done it. Phase one was complete, now, it was time for phase two.
Meet a man who didn’t mind awkward virgins, in sparkly minidresses, with sneakers on.
CHAPTER2
Konstantin
The crowd at Pravda moved with reckless abandon, like a river streaming down a long gully. It opened around me, the unmoving stone that parted the water.
It wasn’t a new feeling for me; being an outsider. I’d been the outsider my entire life, since my father had hit my mother one too many times on a cold Moscow night, and she hadn’t gotten back up. And I only became more of one when he’d decided to bring both me and my baby sister to New York. I’d been many things in between, brother, son, bratva heir, and now,pakhan, but throughout it all, I’d been the outsider within.
I was a man fated to never truly belong, a soul spoiled by darkness, a violent taint too deep to ever remove. Still, I had secured a place for my loyal bratva in one of the most profitable cities in the world, and hung on to it, even if I had made my own darling little sister resent me for it. We were the only family each other had, and I’d vowed to myself that I’d always keep her safe. Katya had fought at the restrictions that had kept her caged in, innocent and unharmed, for so long, but she hadn’t known what my enemies would do to someone like her. I let her hate me, as long as it kept her safe.
In the world of bratva, marriage was the way to safety, union, and brotherhood. Profits came later, making sure you lived another day came first. After I’d arranged a powerful marriage for Kat in Moscow, one that would have seen her rise higher than me, and be treated like a queen, she’d disappeared.
Now, Jae Han Song thought he could threaten me with her safety. The head of a rival family and a powerful one at that. He’d called a meeting with me, and told me he wouldn’t give her back, even without letting me speak to her. Rage boiled and stewed in my veins at the thought of my sister, an Ivanov, caged and bound by some stranger, unable to reach me.
What rankled less, but still notably, was the way the other bosses in this city thought they could placate me. My whole life, I’d been the charity case, Konstantin Ivanov, the one who didn’t belong. I was too wreathed in darkness, too dangerous, too intense. I’d finally found a calling I could be myself in, and the Songs and Lucianos thought they could disrespect me, and I’d lie down and take it like a dog. They had another thing coming. Jae Han Song, the fucker who’d found my sister, had decided to keep her. Well, he was about to understand that I was old-school when it came to revenge. A sister for a sister.
I knew nothing about the Song family, except that the youngest was only nineteen years old. I’d be finding out more tomorrow when I took her. It was all arranged. Jae’s own uncle was my in for grabbing the girl. Who needed enemies with a family like that? That weakness, at least, was something that Jae and I shared.
My gaze filtered over the VIP section, landing on Kira, sitting by my side. For all appearances, she was my fiancée. Between us, that was a laughable title. She was a friend, perhaps my only one, and I’d agreed to pretend that I was going to marry her until she could sort things out with her family. In Russia, her family was just as powerful as my bratva was here, but Kira didn’t trust her father.
Women are pawns in the bratva world, and men are good little foot soldiers or killer guard hounds. That was the way of it, and there was no point in resenting it.
I stood, feeling that jaded miasma creep through my bones. Fuck, I was really starting to hate my life lately.
“I’m going outside,” I called to Kira, who merely nodded.
Shrugging on my huge sheepskin, I made my way through the crowd. Eyes followed me as I went. I knew how I looked, and I knew exactly the kind of women that were drawn to my particular brand of brutal, predatory strength. Tonight, I wasn’t in the mood for any of that. I didn’t want to have to pin someone down or choke them either. Even that got boring after a while.
I checked in at the front desk that we’d had no trouble, before lounging in a nook by the entrance and lighting a smoke.
I heard the girl arguing with the bouncer before I saw her.
“No. This is not a library, go home.”
“I have a change of clothes, I just need to go inside to change them.” Her reply was insistent. Her voice was intriguing, and I found myself pulled forward to glimpse her.
“Who comes to a club and gets changed there? Get out of here. Besides, this ID is clearly fake.”
“It's not! It’s perfect!” The girl protested hotly, sounding personally offended that the bouncer would think her ID was fake, almost as if she’d made it herself.
“Is there a problem here?” I asked, stepping around the corner, and out into the cool night. Whatever I’d expected to see, it wasn’t the woman in front of me.
Her shining cap of jet-black hair shone under the club's red lights. Her dark eyes were almond-shaped, and her skin was golden. The look in her dark eyes was what arrested me on the spot. She was stunning, decidedly so, and young, christ, she was young. Igor was right to question her ID. She was also wearing what looked like pajamas and converse on her feet.
“The problem here is that this man is being discriminatory,” she announced primly, her cheeks heating slightly at the thorough perusal of my gaze.
“Is that right? On what basis?”
She hesitated a moment, clearly deciding which way to jump. “Classist. There is no code that maintains that a person has to wear designer clothes to enter a club,” she said, raising her chin and daring me to disagree with her.
I found myself grinning. This encounter was an unexpected diversion.
“Quite right, however, there is a policy against sneakers, if you didn’t realize,” I told her, crossing my arms and leaning against the door. My cuffs had ridden up, and my full sleeves of dark and intricate tattoos were visible. I saw her eyes fall to them, and widen a hair before she sagged.