Chapter One
“I’m so excited, Papa!” Katrina Sokolov gushed. “In just two days Ivan and I will be in a helicopter on our way to a private island in the Keys.”
Nika Sokolov wasn’t certain what disgusted her more. The enraptured expression on her sister Katrina’s face, or her father’s adoring smile. Katrina had always been Papa’s favorite. He’d spent a fortune sending her to the best schools in Miami. He had even gone in debt to Hollywood’s own Russian mafiya in order to pay for Katrina’s first college degree.
Denis Sokolov gave Katrina a beatific smile. “Ivan loves you very much, daughter. He will take good care of you.” Denis carefully fluffed an orchid before placing it inside a vase. “I’m certain your future will be filled with many wonderful vacations.”
Uh huh, yep, that was pretty much true and it pissed Nika off to no end. She loved her sister. There was only two years difference and they had been thick as thieves since their mother had died when they were little girls. They had played together in their father’s flower shop, pretending to be florists. Then Katrina had gone off to an exclusive private boarding school and Nika had stayed at the local public high school. Katrina had gone on to college. Nika had gotten stuck being a florist’s apprentice for crappy pay and even worse hours. Her father never seemed to think she might want more in life.
Katrina carefully brushed her finger over the purple fronds of the orchids her father was arranging. “I never thought I could love someone like Ivan. But he’s a good man even if he is a mafia boss.”
“He has certainly taken care of our family,” Papa agreed.
Nika made a face at her sister from a safe spot behind the mountain of red roses she was trimming. She was so sick and tired of her goody-two-shoes sister being the queen of the Petrov crime family. Katrina hadn’t even known anything about that life until she’d come home six months ago. It had been Nika negotiating with the Petrovs and trying to keep the shop above water even with the mafia thugs coming in and making constant threats.
A discreet cough reminded Nika that she wasn’t quite alone in the back of the store. Mortified by the childish mockery she’d just displayed, Nika peeked over her shoulder to see that Maksim Petrov was smiling at her. Smiling!
The oaf was Katrina’s boyfriend’s brother. Maksim was the second in command of all the Petrovs and a very important man in Hollywood, Florida. He was also a total ass. Nika had lost count of the number of times she’d watched him get right in her Papa’s face and demand money. Now they were just supposed to forget all of that had happened. Papa seemed to, but Nika could not.
Nika tried to ignore Maksim. Really she should be feeling sorry for him. Since he was a super important guy, he probably got a little tired of trailing around after Katrina like a guard dog. Ivan had decreed that ever since the Tretiak family had attempted to sell out the Petrovs to the cops, Katrina needed constant protection. That meant Maksim got to play babysitter.
A stubborn thorn pricked Nika’s finger. She shoved the offended digit into her mouth and sucked on it to take away the sting. The break gave her a moment to steal another glance at Maksim. He was awfully good-looking for an asshole. Not that she was really supposed to care.
Except Maksim was over six feet tall and so broad shouldered that he was a little hard to miss. His dark hair was shorn close to his scalp, and she could see a little bit of ink exposed on the back of his neck. Nika had always wondered what kind of tattoo a man like Maksim would have. She had often closed her eyes and tried to imagine scrollwork or words stretching across the expanse of his shoulders before drifting up his neck toward his hairline.
Nika clenched the shears in her hand and shifted uncomfortably on her stool. She was actually getting wet between her legs just thinking about the guy and she hated him. Well, theoretically she hated him. Maksim was one of the men responsible for all of the drama that had happened just over five months back. There had been cops everywhere and shootings that seemed random but likely weren’t. Nika didn’t know everything that had gone on, but she liked to think she knew enough about the mafia to realize when they were behind something.
Katrina’s laugh had the quality of a tinkling set of wind chimes. Sometimes it galled Nika to no end that her sister was tall and beautiful. They both had the Sokolov blond hair, but Katrina was slimmer in the hips and waist. Most days she looked like a storybook princess. Men had always flocked to Katrina, but she’d been too busy with her books and her studies to care. Nobody had ever looked twice at Nika even if she jumped up and down and screamed her head off. She was the wild one. Katrina was the good one.
“Papa, I’m going to miss you while I’m gone.” Katrina put her arm around their father. “Is there anything you would like me to bring you back from my trip?”
Nika leaned sideways, watching their father place his hand on Katrina’s belly. “I would like a grandchild one of these days.”
Oh ick! Really? Nika scoffed as she considered how lame it was for her sister to try and play house with the mob boss of the Petrov family. Yes. Mafia men had families and children. Wasn’t that how the traditions were continued and control of the families was handed down? But Katrina was going to raise the next Petrov leader? Really?
Nika slammed her shears down on the worktable and got up. She shouldered her way past Maksim’s bulk. “I need to pee. Move it, Neanderthal man.”
***
Maksim had never met a ruder woman before in his life. So it made no sense that he also found Nika Sokolov to be the most fascinating woman of his acquaintance. There was something so absolutely unapologetic about her attitude that he couldn’t help but admire.
It had always surprised him that Katrina and Nika were sisters. Looks aside, he could not think of two more dissimilar personalities. Katrina was cool and logical. Nika was fire and spice. Plus she had the shorter, curvier body that Maksim would have loved to get his hands on.
He had never particularly enjoyed going into the shops and homes of people in his family’s territory and bullying them into paying for protection or settling up their debts. Now things were changing. Ivan didn’t run things the same way that their father had, and Maksim had hopes that his career as a mob enforcer was coming to an end. Until then he had what felt like a lifetime’s worth of memories that involved threats both real and imagined.
Maksim shook off his melancholy. This wasn’t the time to take a trip down memory lane. Still, it was difficult to be back in this shop and not recall the last time he’d come in here to get payment on the large debt that Denis Sokolov had once owed the Petrovs.
A grin played at the corners of Maksim’s mouth as he remembered Nika Sokolov picking up everything she could lay hands on in the shop and hurling it at him as though she were a big league pitcher. With her blue eyes crackling with fire and her blonde curls in disarray, she had treated him to one of the most stunning displays of temper he’d ever witnessed.
“Maksim?” Katrina’s tone was his first clue that something was up.
He strode to the front of the store, but couldn’t see an immediate threat. “What?”
“There are two policemen getting ready to walk in here. They’re doing something with their phones right out front, but the one guy had his hand on the door just a minute ago.”
“Then why are you still up here?” Maksim demanded crossly. Seriously, sometimes the woman had no sense. “Go to the back. Now.”
“But Papa is here alone,” she protested.
Denis gave Katrina a little shove. “Maksim is right, daughter. Go to the back and wait.”
Maksim nodded to the old man. He knew Denis was perfectly capable of deflecting a bunch of questions from the police. After Katrina and Ivan had become engaged, the Petrovs had no bigger fan than Denis Sokolov. He took family ties very seriously.
It practically took Maksim frog marching Katrina in front of him to get her to duck out of sight in the back of the shop. Maksim heard the bell at the front door jingle as the cops walked inside. He used the bulk of his body to push Katrina back into a supply closet. Then he waited for Nika to show herself. There was absolutely no need for her to wind up the target of some bogus police investigation.
He smelled her spicy feminine scent before he saw her. Reaching out of the closet, he snatched Nika and dragged her into the dim, close space.
“Hey! What the hell?” Nika struggled against his grip. “Maksim?”
“There are cops in your father’s store.” Maksim kept his voice very low, but he knew Nika understood. She was an incredibly quick, clear, thinker in a crisis.
“Damn.” Nika shoved her way in front of him and pressed her face up to the door as if she intended to peek around the corner. “Is Papa all right?”
“He will be unless you go charging out there and give them a target,” Maksim snapped. “Will you get back?”
“No!”
Maksim used his bulk to bully her back behind him and then carefully leaned out as far as he dared to try and hear what was going on. Nika attempted to see around him. Maksim wrapped his arms around her curvy body and pinned her to his chest.
The instant response from his nervous system nearly made him forget what was happening out front. Everything inside him woke up. The sensation of Nika’s soft flesh pressed up against him was exquisite. She felt like silk. Her scent enveloped him and gave him decadent ideas of what it might be like to kiss her.
A man’s rough voice pulled Maksim back to the moment. “Come on, Sokolov. Tell us where your daughter’s mobster boyfriend is hiding.”
“We know you continue to stay in contact with Katrina.” The second voice was more cultured. “In the past you’ve been perfectly willing to give us information on the Petrovs. Don’t you want your daughter away from these criminals? We can help put Ivan Petrov away for good. He would be out of your daughter’s life and you’d have Katrina back.”
“I do not know what you are talking about.” There was a snip as Denis Sokolov continued to build the large floral arrangement he’d been working on earlier.
“Don’t give us that crap!” The first man was getting irritated.
Maksim’s gut tightened. He would have liked to go boot the bastards out of Denis’s shop, but it wasn’t his responsibility to do so. Plus he had Katrina and Nika to worry about. If Maksim went out there, Nika was going to be right on his heels in the thick of trouble.
“I told you. I don’t know where Ivan Petrov is. Nor would I tell you if I did.” Denis’s Russian accented words were strong and clear. “I think you will find that there are very few people in this neighborhood who will say a word against the Petrovs.”
“Bunch of stupid bastards!” the first man snarled.
There was a crash and the sound of glass shattering on the cement floor. Nika squirmed like mad against Maksim’s hold. He tightened his arms, lowering his face to the top of her head to keep her in place. The softness of her hair tickled his nose.
“We have to help him,” Nika insisted.
Maksim pursed his lips, hating the answer he had to give. “The best way to help him is to leave.”
With that he dragged a struggling Nika out the back of the shop, with Katrina following behind him.