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

I know more than I want to share, and yet I still share more than I intended to. I know about the babysitters who called family services whenever Nat forgot to pick up our daughter. Yelisey’s report was thorough and heartbreaking.

Charlotte lays a hand on my arm. “She asks about you.” There is the slightest disapproval in the thin line of her lips.

I need to be home more. I know it. But I don’t see much chance. Not with the volatility of the Whelans and the vengeance they will extract. “I’ll see her in the morning.”

I should go to my room, should walk away. But I can’t stop staring at Charlotte’s lips.

My thoughts are unwelcome. I shake my head as if I can clear them away physically.

“Well, I should say good night.” It’s barely eight in the evening but she’s determined to go, already walking away—when I spot the blood on her arm.

I pull her back to me.

“What?” she asks, wide-eyed.

“There is …” I lift her sleeve and look. This is not blood. It’s ink, perhaps. “A spot on your arm.”

Her smile is like sunlight and I’m caught in the shine of it. “Tiana wanted to give me a tattoo. I couldn’t reach to wipe it off. It’ll fade.”

“Come.” I lead her to the bathroom at the end of the hallway by the stairs. When we are both standing inside, I’m trapped with the scent of her, trying to inhale shallow breaths because more would make me want things I cannot want from her.

As I dampen a cloth, she looks up at me, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Her eyes are open, curious, trusting. Her skin is soft as I hold her arm with my free hand and imagine twisting it behind her, crushing her petite frame against the wall, and thrusting into her while she whimpers my name and clings to me with her nails raking my legs.

I want her—to feel her slender fingers wrap around my cock, to taste her skin, to see her eyes dilate as I yank her panties away and feel her wetness on my fingers.

I move closer so that the heat from her body warms me, and the desire in her trembling makes me smile with satisfaction.

I look down at the same moment she picks to look up at me. Her eyelids flutter and my pulse kicks in response. To taste her would be my undoing. I know it.

And yet, she is so close. Right here for the taking. It would require only …

“I have to go,” I say abruptly.

I drop the cloth into the sink and leave her.

For my sanity. For my daughter. For Charlotte.

For now.

7

Charlotte

Not that I mind Kostya being here, in his own house, or that he’s taking care of Tiana, his own daughter, but I don’t know what to do with my free time since he’s taken this morning to spend with her. The house has a library of first editions and signed classics, memoirs and biographies, poetry, sonnets, and a copy of the Fifty Shades trilogy. Who doesn’t like to lose herself in a good book? But I haven’t asked to borrow one, and he hasn’t offered me free range of the house, so I don’t even know if I’m allowed to be in this room.

I don’t know anything, actually. Whether or not my boss is a Russian Mafia leader. Whether or not I should be afraid of him or be attracted to him or if being attracted to him—because let’s face facts, I’m attracted—is even allowed.

The library is lined with mahogany shelves of perfectly maintained books, ranging behind wingback leather chairs, an antique humidor, and a baby grand piano. Floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the backyard. There is a flower garden to the left, the swimming pool and guesthouse to the right. Every single thing I can see is manicured and pristine.

As I’m standing in the doorway gaping at the insanely ridiculous display of wealth, which still has not gotten old, Kostya and Tiana walk across the patio to the shallow end of the pool.

She has a pair of water wings on her arms and a life jacket hugging her torso. His giant hand swallows hers as he walks around to the steps. She smiles and hops next to him until he stops to strip off his T-shirt.

Whoa.

He’s extraordinary. His stomach is flat and muscled, just like I recall from the office, his chest broad and smooth and inked with the fine lines of tattoos. Deliciously inked, with very few inches left bare. I see the swirling slashes of Cyrillic text—something in Russian, I assume, although reading comprehension is not high on my list of priorities right now. I’m more concerned with how my finger itches to trace each tattooed line.

My body vibrates with desire I need to lock down. I will.

In a minute, though. Maybe two.

His expression is stern as always but a touch softer than normal, and when he looks at her, I can almost see the wheels in his mind churning. Tiana is probably the first person in his life that can get away with throwing a tantrum and not face his wrath in return. Although, so far, she hasn’t had a reason to act out, since her father is indulgent to a fault.

I find myself drawn to him, to them, like a magnet. Walking through the library, I push through the double doors on the far wall and exit out to the pool area. The sound of Tiana’s laughter and the trickle of the waterfall feeding the pool fills the air. When I sit on the chaise to watch Tiana—it’s my job; that’s my story and I’m sticking to it—she giggles and uses Kostya to steady her as she climbs out of the water.

I don’t intentionally watch him, but he makes a lovely picture with the sunlight reflecting off the water and onto the little drops streaming down his chest and arms.

He’s staring, and there’s a hint