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

“Charlotte, you cannot get involved with that man. I won’t allow it.”

“Mom …”

“He’s a horrible man.”

As she rides in an eighty-thousand-dollar Mercedes.

I grit my teeth and jerk my head towards Dmitri in the front seat. “Stop it.” I hiss the words. “Now is not the time.” Oh Lord, is now a bad time.

Not that my mother cares. “Charlotte.” Her voice is sharp and tinged by anger. “Can’t you see what he’s doing? He’s using his wealth and his house to seduce you the way Lila was seduced and stolen away.”

I sigh. “Lila ran away, Mom. No one stole her. She went because she wanted to go.” Because she was selfish. Because she never had to face the responsibility of our mother’s broken heart.

And it’s as if I haven’t even spoken. “Another older man clouding my last daughter’s vision.”

So. Freaking. Dramatic. But I hold back my sigh. “Jesus, Mom. Couple things. First, Lila is still your daughter. So where this ‘last’ daughter thing is coming from, I don’t know. Second, Kostya is only a year older than I am.” Thirteen months, to be exact.

I would keep going, but Dmitri pulls Kostya’s car into Mom’s driveway. He climbs out of the car and walks around to open Mom’s door.

“Come inside,” she demands. “We need to finish this.”

I would rather do anything in the world than go in that house and listen to my mother spread her poison over the feelings I’ve developed for Kostya, but if I don’t, there’s no way to predict when she’ll show up and demand to finish the conversation. When I climb out behind her though, Dmitri catches me by the arm. “Miss Lowe, if you’re not back in twenty minutes, I’ll come get you.”

I shake him off, knowing “come get you” will be something closer to “drag you back to the car, kicking and screaming.”

“You can wait on the porch but I can tell you, nothing happens here that Mrs. O’Reilly across the street”—I point to the two-story brick house opposite Mom’s—“doesn’t stay on top of. She’ll be on the phone with 911 at the first sign of trouble.”

He doesn’t protest, so I hurry up the porch steps and through the door. Mom is waiting for me by the dining table, hands on hips, feet apart. “Sit down, Charlotte.”

I’m not going to spend any of my twenty minutes arguing, so I sit as she reaches into her bag and pulls out an envelope and holds it out to me. “What’s this?”

“After I put the little girl to bed last night, I did some exploring.”

Oh God. My heart drops.

Exploring when I was a teenager meant snooping. I hope she doesn’t mean she “explored” Kostya’s office or his bedroom. But a low, deep stab in my belly says that’s exactly what she’s done. “Kostya Zinon is a bad man.”

“Mom, he isn’t trying to steal me away from you.” But I know that isn’t what she’s talking about. I only wish it was.

She nods to the letter. “Read it.” As I slide my finger under the flap of the envelope, she continues. “There’s a whole drawer full of these. None for you. They’re all addressed to the little girl.” I recognize Kostya’s pointed, all-caps handwriting. Shitty shit McShit. My mom has stolen a private letter from Kostya. I haven’t read more than the first line but Mom is almost salivating.

“What did you do?” If she’s only taken the letter, maybe I can save this. Save us.

“He’s a criminal, Charlotte, and that letter is his confession to all of it. Drugs. Weapons. Prostitution and pornography.” She clicks each sin off on her fingers. “And I know just how to use it.”

“Use it?” Oh God. She can’t be serious.

“To force him to hurry up and find Lila.”

But he’s already working on it. Has his men on it, anyway. “Mom.” I don’t know how Kostya will react if she tries. “You cannot blackmail Kostya. Not into moving faster. Not at all.”

She waves me off. “I can convince him to add more money and men to the search. Don’t you want your sister back?”

This is more than a clash of conscience. This is true danger. And pure stupidity. Not just her idea of blackmail, but the thought that I might be able to somehow look past what he does and who he is.

“Mom, you can’t even threaten it. Jesus, you can’t even think it.”

“Oh, relax, Charlotte. I’m not really going to turn him in.”

She rolls her eyes. But I can’t take the chance. She stole the letter from him already. Blackmail would drive him over the edge. I don’t know what’s waiting over that edge, but I guarantee it isn’t anything I want to know about.

“Charlotte, I want Lila back. I thought you did, too.” Of all the gifts God gave my mother, her ability to guilt me into action is the one she gets the most use of. But this time, there’s too much on the line. Actual lives. Mine and hers.

I have no idea what to do. Or how to make her see that blackmailing someone like Kostya can only go badly for everyone involved.

“Mom.” At least I still have the letter. I can return it to Kostya. “Where did you get this from?”

She reaches for it, but I jerk it away before her fingers can curl around it. “Give it back.”

“I’m giving it back to Kostya. It’s his.” And before she can figure out how to wrench it away from me, I leave.

I walk out to Kostya’s car and climb in before Dmitri has time to open my door.

“Let’s go. Now.”

14

Kostya

I’ve checked my watch ten times, like some pathetic, lovesick fool. But I can’t focus on anything other Charlotte. Other than how much I want to touch her.

I need to rein this shit in.

I’m Kostya Zinon. Head of the most powerful Russian Bratva in the U.S. I won’t be brought to my knees by a woman. Not outside