Kostya: A Dark Mafia Romance (Zinon Bratva) by Nicole Fox (open ebook .TXT) 📗

owe her my gratitude at the very least, but I’m not a man who’s going to drop to my hands and knees to thank her for doing the job I’ve hired her to do.

Period.

By the next afternoon, I’ve moved any residual weakness for Charlotte to a sealed black box in my mind.

It’s easy to do when she’s at home with Tiana and I don’t have to see her ass disappearing around every corner. When her fuckable lips are far from my sight.

I have important things to worry about right now. Business things. Whelan things.

Specifically, I need to prepare for the meeting I’ve agreed to. A Whelan courier visited two days ago, after they received the mutilated remnants of the men who dared attack me after the fundraiser. He requested a parley, a chance to sit at the negotiating table across from those Irish scum and make my demands very clearly heard.

A number of possibilities exist. Perhaps the attack was unauthorized by the Irish leadership. A rogue lieutenant, or a faction of malcontents. Perhaps the attack was a test, a foray into my defenses to see if my kingdom is vulnerable for the taking.

I doubt both. More likely than not, this parley is merely the next stage in a larger Whelan scheme. I plan to sniff it out and crush it—ruthlessly.

But caution is in the cards for today. The last thing I need right now is a war with the Whelans, but neither will I back down to their aggression. If we can’t reach an agreement, I will do what needs to be done.

I don’t have time to think about the consequences or the blowback from not finding a way to coexist. Jack and Collin Whelan will be here shortly to bargain for power. I could end them the same as they could finish me, but neither of us will make that move. Not here, in broad daylight, in a building with my name across the top. The risk would be too great for our businesses—both the legitimate ones and the ones we hide in the shadows.

The electric door opens a moment after a light signals their arrival. I press the button under my desk. It turns on the video camera that will document their expressions and their words so I can analyze every moment later and decide what further action to take.

Jack Whelan enters first—tall, imposing, his once-red hair faded with age into a stark white—and his eyes betray his smile. He’s not here as a friend. Not here to find a solution to our turf dilemma. He’s here to measure me and my strength against his, to show his son—a smaller, more weaselly redhead—that there is nothing to fear if he stands his ground.

But Jack Whelan is wrong. Standing his ground against me, against Kostya Zinon, head of the Russian Bratva, will bring him nothing but pain. I have the power and influence to make certain no one connects his disappearance to me. If I need to, I’ll remind him of what I can do. But first, I want to see how he behaves, whether he will submit to me, or force a battle neither of us really wants.

“Kostya.” His accent is old country, more suited to the Atlantic coast than here. I take his hand firmly in mine. “You’re looking well.”

I return the smile because respect is everything. His son, behind him, hasn’t mastered the art of tranquility or feigning it when necessary. His scowl is deep and telling. He doesn’t want to be here. He would rather be in the streets, asserting his power with fists, with knives, with guns. Despite our similar ages, he’s a foolish child, not yet a man. But I shake his hand and nod accordingly. He presumes to deserve the respect he refuses to give, and his smug smile says so. Time will show him the error of his ways.

“Please, sit.” I motion to the chairs I’ve put in front of my desk. Chairs with hard backs and no stuffing to the seat cushions. Let no man be comfortable in your presence—that is a lesson I learned from my father.

Jack’s ramrod posture says he knows what I’m doing, that he expected the discomfort. Collin shifts as he tries to find a position that will accommodate his size—bony and slight.

The older Irishman watches me, distrustful. This could be an ambush, a luring of these men to my private office where I can make sure they disappear and are never found.

But only a fool would believe I would risk such a dangerous move here. This meeting is important for both of us. Although not important enough that the elder Whelan would give me the absolute respect of shutting his phone off. Instead, he sets it at the center edge of my desk as it vibrates. His business is as important as mine and he’s letting me know he won’t be cut off from it.

He stares at me and I wait. Patient. Always patient.

“Kostya, it is in our both our best interests to maintain peace between us.”

“I agree.” Ostensibly, that is one of the purposes of this meeting, to find terms we can agree to. The other purpose—for me to measure the validity and longevity of any agreement we make—is less obvious, but infinitely more important.

An agreement is only as good as the ability to keep it. I know this. He knows it.

“What do you hope to accomplish with this peace?”

He cocks his head, the angles of his body still razor sharp, matching the intelligence in his eyes. “A greater power between us. An understanding. A camaraderie.”

Fignya. Bullshit. He doesn’t care about an understanding. He cares only about power. Only about the respect he feels he’s owed.

“Camaraderie cannot be bargained, Jack.”

His smile fades. I’ve let him know there will be no friendship between us, no allegiance. There can be an understanding only.

Collin narrows his eyes and surveys my office. The opulence here is for show. I need none of it, but for the