23
I tensed and air stuck painfully in my lungs. How the hell had Vasilije figured it out? Had Aleksandar outed me? No, that didn’t make sense, unless he had a death wish.
Vasilije leaned back in his chair and slung an arm over my shoulders. It was possessive. “I picked this one up from a warehouse over on the south side a few days ago. Saved her from a life of fucking and sucking cock to line your pockets.”
Relief swept through me that he didn’t know the truth, but also fear at what he’d just said. Why not pull a pin on a grenade and throw it in the center of the table? The tension would be the same.
Goran’s face turned to stone, and he said something sharp in Serbian, where the only word I understood was Vasilije’s name. All he did was shrug in response. What the hell was Vasilije doing? He stared at my father with a sick smile smeared on his face.
“It’s a big loss for you. She’s good,” Vasilije said. “I had Oksana blow me on the ride over here.”
Every pair of eyes turned to me. Konstantine’s jaw fell open so hard, it was a miracle it didn’t hit the table, and that was the moment Vasilije finally believed he won the game at shaming me. My gaze dropped to the tablecloth.
It didn’t matter what my father thought. Whatever evil deed I did was nothing in comparison to him. But my brother . . .
He’d been the only man to stand up for me. If it wasn’t for Konstantine, I’d be dead. If I had killed Ilia without my brother’s story to back me up, my father would have murdered me. I knew it down to the marrow of my bones. He’d loved Ilia almost as much as he loved his own son, and certainly much more than me.
I stared at the tabletop, not wanting to see the hurt and concern in my half-brother’s pale eyes.
“Wonderful. We didn’t arrange this sit-down,” my father said, his tone indifferent, “so we could hear about your whore’s oral skills.”
I snapped my gaze to him and a humorless laugh almost bubbled out, but I caught it in time. I understood why he’d said it. He was playing his role as much as I was, but he was enjoying it. He liked getting to openly treat me the way he secretly wanted to. Like I was nothing.
Goran’s commanding voice drew everyone’s attention. “What do you want to discuss?”
“I’m going to give you a gift, my friend.”
I blinked at my father’s warm tone. Sergey Petrov calling Goran Markovic a friend meant the world was upside-down.
“A gift?” Goran asked it with polite surprise, but in his eyes, I saw his thoughts. He was wondering if the gift was the kind that came from the barrel of a gun, or even worse.
My father’s voice carried across the table. “And in return, you won’t touch another shipment of girls again. We’ll run our business, and you’re free to run yours with your own women.” His steel-colored eyes slanted to Vasilije. “Even though we’ve established how Russian women are better at fucking and sucking cock.”
So, it was negotiations for a truce, at least in one aspect of business. It was the biggest part of my family’s empire. Most of my father’s money was made off the backs of women he sold into sexual slavery. The whole process of recruiting women and getting them to America was risky, expensive, and time-consuming. He lost tens of thousands of dollars in investment every time the Serbians hit us, not to mention the lost income when my father had no product to sell.
He’d been ready to crush the Serbians, but war couldn’t be waged without casualties, and although we were larger, the Markovics had been in Chicago longer. They had powerful support, including the Italians, and winning the war against them wasn’t a sure thing.
My father would try diplomacy first.
Goran looked intrigued, yet suspicious. “That would have to be quite the gift, my friend.”
“You’re under FBI surveillance.”
Vasilije snorted. “Tell us something we don’t know.”
Sergey Petrov didn’t like being disrespected, and he glared at Vasilije as if he was a bloodstain on an expensive tie. “The blindfold club your uncle frequents just hired an undercover agent. The next time he goes inside, he’ll be arrested.”
Blindfold club? What the hell was that?
My father’s focus went back to Goran. “I believe you’re a smart man like I am, and you’ve done your best to protect both your family and what you’ve built. I respect that. I respect how your business survived when they took your son down. But you know as well as I do, no amount of maneuvering will save you once you’re in the hands of the FBI. They’ll come after every Markovic, and they will be ruthless.”
Vasilije’s expression didn’t change. He looked calm and indifferent, but I knew he was not. His fingers had been brushing over the bare skin of my arm as his hand dangled over my shoulder, and they ceased moving. I felt the temperature of his blood rise.
His tone was dark and skeptical. “If that’s fucking true, why tell him? They take us down and that solves all your problems.”
Because my father didn’t want the Serbians arrested. He wanted to rule them. He needed the Markovics under his control.
My father sneered. “You think if your family disappears, no one else will rise to fill that hole? The need for a steady supply of women is too great. This way is fast and clean. We make this deal today, and that’s the end of it.” He reached for his glass of red wine and took a sip. “Do what you want with the information, Goran. I’m a man of my word, as I know you are. If you strike me again after I’ve saved your legacy, I’ll bury you, and your friends will help me do it.”
Goran considered his options for a long moment, even though he had none. My father was a horrible excuse for a man, but he didn’t tell lies. There was no upside. No other option but to take this deal. If the Markovics struck a shipment again after my father offered an olive branch, the Italians might turn on the Serbs.
It was better when everyone played nicely. There was plenty of crime to go around in Cook County.
“How do you know about the undercover agent?” Goran said, his discerning gaze focused on my father.
“I have a person on the inside.”
Goran Markovic’s face twisted with disappointment, unhappy to give up whatever the club was.
My father drummed his fingers on the table, starting with his index and rolling through to the pinkie finger, then repeated the action over and over. Each series of thumps seemed to make Vasilije tenser.
Impatience got the best of my father. “Do we have a deal?”
“Yes,” Goran snapped. “My people won’t go near your girls from now on.” He took in a deep breath and rolled his shoulders back, assuming a more confident posture. “Other aspects of our businesses overlap, as you push further into areas you shouldn’t. I worry you’re stretching yourself too much, my friend.”
Was he talking about drugs, or guns? My father’s greed and ambition was insatiable. He’d been undercutting the Serbians every chance he got, and pushed further in on their territory each year. The brief truce had lulled my father into a false sense of security, and it’d come back to bite him by way of a bullet to the shoulder.
“I understand your concern, Goran.”
That was all my father would say on the matter.
If the evening wasn’t surreal enough, the men proceeded to order dinner, and then chat as if they were . . . coworkers. Savage men pretending to be civilized. I was introduced to everyone at the table even though I already knew their names.
I could barely tolerate it when Vasilije struck up a conversation with Konstantine. It looked like my brother felt the same way, but he politely participated while stealing glances at me. He wanted to know if I was all right.
“Is there some reason you’re eye-fucking my girl?” Vasilije said abruptly, and the table went silent mid-conversation.
“No,” my brother answered, looking embarrassed. “I wasn’t.”
Vasilije’s deep eyes were acute. “Yeah, you were. I get that she’s gorgeous, but she’s fucking mine.”
I dry swallowed so hard, it was shocking it wasn’t audible. Wasn’t it obvious to Vasilije that Konstantine wasn’t looking at me with anything other than concern? Or was he too possessive to notice the difference? And . . . he’d just announced to the table he thought I was gorgeous.
“Relax, Vasilije,” my father said. “He’s not interested in your whore. He’s a Petrov. I bet this girl,” his icy gray eyes locked with mine, “is only worth what’s between her legs.”
Bile rose in the back of my throat and I had a vision of spitting in his face. I’d watch the glob of it drip down his cheekbone as rich satisfaction overwhelmed me, but I didn’t get the chance. Vasilije straightened in his seat and his expression turned to steel.
“You’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
Sergey Petrov pressed his lips into a thin line, visibly irritated. People didn’t speak to him like that. “I don’t?” he charged back, patronizing.
“First off, she can’t be a whore since she was a virgin until yesterday.”
My face flushed with heat. I wanted to melt down my chair and disappear beneath the tablecloth.
Only, Vasilije wasn’t done. “And second, you should hear her play the piano. The songs she writes? They’re amazing, and that’s coming from me, who could give a fuck when it comes to music.”
I couldn’t breathe.
Vasilije Markovic was defending me against my own father, and his words burrowed into my cold heart when I didn’t want them to. Foreign emotion fluttered in my center, and the friction heated me from the inside out.
My father’s attention snapped to me and his eyes churned like a violent sea. He’d paid for me to go to college, after my stepmother forced him to, and when I’d changed my major to music, he’d been furious. He pulled me out of school and told me I would clean houses with the Russian women he could no longer turn a profit with at the whorehouse. That ‘career’ would make more money, he’d said, than my music.
So, I’d presented the deal to my father. I plant the surveillance devices in a Markovic home, and in return, I could re-enroll next semester at Randhurst University, continuing to pursue my music degree. I was willing to make sacrifices to get what I wanted, and life was too short not to go after my dream. You never knew when it would end. Tomorrow you could perish in a house fire on my father’s orders, or your plane could fall from the sky.
My father let out a joyless laugh. “You fucked her one time, and it sounds like she already has you by the short hairs. Be careful, Vasilije.” He held his glass of wine by the bell and swirled the liquid inside. “Russian women are dangerous.”
Vasilije had been right. My father had no idea what he was talking about.
♪
As I scrubbed my hands under the faucet in the restaurant’s bathroom, I stared at myself in the mirror. It was like looking at an actress in stage makeup playing the role of Oksana Kuznetsov. She looked and sounded like me, but wasn’t.
I pulled to a stop when I exited the restroom. My father lurked, waiting for me in the dark back hallway.
“I’m impressed,” he said in Russian. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
We were out of view of the table, but I kept my voice low. “We shouldn’t speak to each other. If anyone sees—”
“I want the devices in Goran’s house.”
My blood slowed. “What?”
“Vasilije isn’t involved enough.”
“No. That wasn’t our deal, and how the hell would I do that?”
He looked at me like I was stupid. “You seduce him. Look at how fast you turned Vasilije. The boy is in love with you.”
I wanted to laugh. It had only been four days, and Vasilije didn’t do love. But I didn’t have time to explain any of this. “How am I supposed to seduce Goran? I’ve never met him until tonight, and Vasilije will kill me if I try.”
Not to mention, I didn’t want to seduce Goran. He was the same age as my father. Both the Markovic men scared the hell out of me, but Vasilije . . . the fear I felt around him was different. Tolerable. The unsettling connection between us grew stronger the longer he kept me around.
“It’ll be easy.” My father’s expression was cold and deadly. “Now that Vasilije’s staked his claim, Goran’s going to try to take you away from him.”
My heartbeat sped up. “What makes you say that?”
“It’s what I’d do. Vasilije is all talk. He needs to learn his place in the family.”
My father didn’t know what I did, and I choked back the desire to warn him not to underestimate Vasilije. It was much better for me if he continued on, blindly unaware of the dangerous people circling around him.
“Our deal was for Vasilije, and you told the table full of men in there that you’re a man of your word.”
His jaw set. “You changed the deal first. Don’t be surprised if Goran makes a play for you before then.” He pushed past me, flinging a hand on the door to the men’s room, but paused. “Good luck, Oksana. You’ll need it, now that you’ve become a pawn in their game.”
He disappeared inside, and didn’t see the dead smile that widened on my lips. He was forgetting how a pawn who survived crossing the board could be promoted to a queen.
I could go from the weakest player to the strongest one in a single move.