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

the change because she scoffs a little and sighs, then waves a manicured hand toward the inside of her SUV. “What do you want me to do with Tiny Tim?”

But goddammit, she’s always been a team player. I do love that. “Drive him into the desert and burn the whole thing. Come by the office Monday, and I’ll see to it you get a new one.”

“I’ll ask one more time: you sure you have to go? I could use a little walk down memory lane, baby.” She steps in again, and I wrap an arm around her shoulders and press a kiss against the top of her head. She’s loyal and dedicated to our cause.

But I don’t love her. I don’t even want her.

I wish I could. She deserves to be taken care of. Maybe I’ll see if she’s interested in a romp with Yelisey, but right now, there’s a plane at LAX waiting on me.

“Another time.” We both chuckle. Probably because we both know that part of our relationship is over.

I give her a smile and a wave then drive away, all the while thinking how easy it was for Marguerite to use her sexuality to trick Kellan, the way Charlotte used hers to trick me.

Charlotte with her sweet, innocent act. With her bright shining eyes and silky touch. Charlotte who played me and used my daughter to do it. For what? For something I was already set to handle.

She deserves whatever I choose to do to her. There will be consequences. There have to be.

But for now, I will play the part I swore I would. Once I’ve done my piece, I won’t be obligated to Charlotte any longer. And I can condemn her to the dumpster fire of my past.

I pull into the pick-up lot and park, then make my way through to gate from the information Yelisey gave me. I see what I am looking for. I walk up, clear my throat.

“Lila Lowe?”

It’s two hours before I pull into the driveway at home. Lila hasn’t spoken much since I picked her up. She asked me enough questions for me to know she thinks she’s walking into a shitstorm and she can’t wait to get back to her family, the man she chose, and the children she gave life to. Not the sister and mother she left behind.

I walk inside and drop her bags in the foyer. I haven’t invited her to stay here; here is not where she belongs. I’m not the reason she came back.

There’s a hotel booked for her downtown. It’s the end of what I plan to do for her, not including permitting her to use my car to get where she’s going.

Charlotte meets me at the door, and her eyes are rimmed in red. Her skin is blotchy, and her nose is red. I don’t want to think of her crying. I’m mad as hell, enraged at her in ways that mean I want to punish her until she is begging me for mercy, and then some more.

But I can’t stand the thought of her alone and in tears. And that’s the reason I have to do this.

She wraps her arms around me, and I get a lungful of her sweet Charlotte scent. Potent, comforting, erotic, sweet, intoxicating. She’s everything I want, everything I need, and the scent of her does nothing to calm me or make what I have to do easier. Any other woman, this would be easy, but this one got under my skin and every reaction from her tears at me, or thrills me, or makes me so damned hot I can’t control myself.

Case in point: she’s trembling and clinging to me and it takes every ounce of strength I have to grasp one of her shoulders in each hand and push her back just so I can actually enter the house.

When she finally takes the hint and moves aside, her eyes go wide and her face contorts. Renewed tears stream down her cheeks as she points to a spot of Makenzie’s blood on my shirt. “Did you … is that … my mom’s?”

I look down and see the bloodstain she’s pointing at. “Nyet.” I sight. “No. This belongs to someone else who thought he would try to cross me.”

“So, my mom’s okay?” Her voice is breathless, as if she’s relieved and aggrieved at the same time.

“Charlotte, honey—Mom’s never been okay.” Lila walks in to stand beside me and Charlotte dries her eyes and breathes out.

Considering the lengths she went to in making sure that I completed my side of our transaction, I would’ve expected a hug, something more than the small short sigh Charlotte lets out when she looks over my shoulder at her sister.

Charlotte gazes from her sister to me and back again with saucer-like eyes but a tight line for her lips. “She’ll be happy to see you.”

“But you’re not?” Lila smiles as if she expected it. “I had to leave, Char. She was killing me here.”

Charlotte scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah. I get it. Because you left her with me. And I’ve been dealing with her shit, which is worse since you’ve been gone, by the way, so thanks for that.” She glances at me, and I can’t tell if she’s embarrassed to be having such a personal conversation with her sister in front of me or if the look should mean more to me than it does.

While I don’t mind their happy reunion—or what should be a happy reunion—happening in my foyer, I need to speak to Charlotte. It’s time I take care of the things I need to take care of in my own house.

I turn to her sister because I need another minute before I look at Charlotte. I’m not a man who’s used to having to search for his strength, but I can’t face Charlotte head-on yet. I can’t say the words I need to say.

That pisses me off.

I’m a Bratva don. Despite lust or love