AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Once she decided to do something, like the rest of us, she went full steam ahead with no stopping. I hoped the holidayswould soften her up to Aleks and his new wife once and for all, because her continuing to be angry, while somewhat justified, was wearing on both of them.
Which wore on me, since I was my older brother’s second-in-command and closest confidant. I could use a break from family drama. Once inside, Nat was quickly swept away by one of our family members who’d traveled from Moscow for the combined holiday celebration and to congratulate Aleks and Katie on the new baby, who was due to arrive in a few short months.
As soon as she was out of sight in the happy, bustling crowd, I hung back, not quite ready to dive into the festivities. Like Nat, I almost wished I hadn’t agreed to come down for the party. I had a dozen fires steadily burning in San Francisco. Without constant supervision, they could turn into a rager that could burn the whole operation down.
I was also loving the hell out of the lobbying firm I’d opened up almost a year ago. It was growing steadily under the management of an old family friend, and was proving to be lucrative as well as an important way to gain influence over politicians. It was always good to keep them in line, and making money hand over fist while doing it never made me mad.
As much as I loved being Aleks’s second, I was thriving up there on my own. We’d agreed it was past time for our other brothers to take on more responsibilities since we both tended to be control freaks and tried to do everything on our own. Now Aleks wanted to spend more time with family, and I was champing at the bit to make a name for myself. Even if it wasn’t my actual name at the moment.
Once we were firmly embedded up there and had the necessary power to keep our rivals from fucking with us, I couldreveal that the great Fokins were now ruling San Fran as well as LA.
Yes, as much as I chided Nat that Christmas was for family time, I was itching to get back, and was almost about to leave before anyone noticed me hovering in the foyer. Right before I snuck out, someone I’d never seen before caught my eye. She was also hanging back from everyone else, as if trying to catch her breath.
Her beauty made me have to take a breath of my own because she was absolutely stunning. Chestnut brown hair hung to her shoulders in soft curls, framing delicate features. Her bright eyes had a hint of excitement in them, as if she was wondering what was going to happen next, and she clasped her hands in front of her slender waist. Her off-white dress was demure, falling to her knees, but did nothing to conceal curves I longed to know more about.
Who was she? One of Mila’s friends? She seemed about that age. But if so, why was she hanging back and acting so reserved? Did I have a bit of a shy one on my hands? I was already interested in getting to know her, already considering her mine. It was the twinkle in her eyes that did it.
It was time to get close enough to determine the color of those eyes, and try to bring a blush to her cheeks, because I wasn’t going to hold back. Laughing at myself, I stayed in the foyer, digging in my heels to keep from racing to her side. The intensity of my interest shocked me.
Could it be that watching Aleks’s newfound happiness was getting to me, and making me want something like that for myself? Or was it the dry spell since I was so busy in San Francisco that I didn’t have time for even the briefest of affairs?
No, it was because this woman was just so mesmerizing that I didn’t want to blink. And what we were going to have was going to be anything but brief. This had never happened to me before, since I wasn’t one to get such lightning bolt reactions. But her mere presence across the room was sending electrical jolts through my system.
Our Uncle Olaf appeared out of nowhere, or maybe it seemed that way since I only had eyes for her. He struck up a conversation, and I mindlessly asked him about his flight from Moscow, trying not to shove him aside to get the mystery woman back in my line of vision.
“Lev, where’s your head at?” the old man chided me after a few minutes. “Have you heard a word I’ve said this whole time?”
I apologized, lapsing into Russian, which made him smile a half-toothless grin. Our family in the old country always said we were too American, but we all kept up with the language. I did move slightly so I could see my girl over his shoulder, though, surprised to see Mila and Katie pull her aside.
Standing side by side as they were, I could see the mild resemblance to Aleks’s new wife. Their coloring was different, but their facial features were similar enough that it snapped me to think that she must be Katie’s younger sister, Jenna. But while Katie spoke about Jenna in the most glowing terms, she also talked about her like she was just a kid.
There was nothing childlike about Jenna as they led toward the library. She appeared to be all woman to me, the spark in her eyes turning to determination as my sister and sister-in-law towed her along with them. Those two looked so serious that I had the urge to go after them to make sureeverything was all right. My curiosity refused to settle down, and I wandered to the buffet to try to forget about my beautiful girl.
I quickly confirmed she was Katie’s sister from Max, who’d been chatting up her friend, also down from Berkeley for the holidays. So, Jenna was smart and driven as well as gorgeous, because not everyone got accepted to such an excellent school. After my reconnaissance mission to gather info, I retreated back to a quiet corner out of the way to think.
Because I was torn now. In the space of twenty minutes, I’d been planning out an entire future for me and the mystery woman. Being Katie’s sister meant she’d be staying here at their house, and I could easily wrangle an invitation instead of going to my old place that I kept down here. That would give me plenty of time to get to know her over the next week. Plenty of time to strike up a fling, since she wasn’t going to leave my thoughts that easily, and I hadn’t had any real fun in far too long.
If I did that, though, and Katie and Aleks found out about it, I’d get the ass-kicking of a lifetime. Was she really worth it? And did I only want a temporary fling?
Jenna reappeared from the library several minutes after Katie and Mila left, looking like they’d weathered quite a storm. All the sparkling light was gone from her eyes. As she made her way toward a seating area near the pool, it was clear she was trying her best to hide the fact that something was wrong. I’d been watching her carefully before, though, and something had happened in that library that stole the color from her cheeks.
The urge to race over there and somehow make it right hit me like a gale-force wind. Her beauty was somber now, and there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to get the smile back on her lush lips. It bothered me when anyone was so clearly upset, sinceI loved to make others laugh and lighten their mood. Especially people I cared about.
God, I was in deep. It was time to head over and get to know the woman I’d be spending a whole lot more time with.
Max got to her first, sitting down beside her with two plates of food. My fists clenched as my entire body stiffened. My younger brother Max was a notorious flirt, with a constant stream of women pining over him. As much as I wanted to see Jenna smile again and ease the worry in her eyes, if it was because of Max I was going to lose it.
Ah, fuck. It was worse than I thought. I was already jealous and completely ready for any ass-kicking coming my way, because I needed to get to know her. Thankfully, she got up from the table, leaving Max alone with his offering. As soon as she was seated alone by herself in a shady spot, she began wringing her hands. Yep, something was wrong.
As I headed that way to introduce myself—and not as her brother-in-law, my phone buzzed in my pocket. All our guys knew today was Katie’s big get-together and were informed that if they called any of us for anything that wasn’t a true emergency, they’d be sorry. And that meant something in our line of business so the call had to be important.
“What?” I snapped.
After an immediate apology, one of our guys filled me in on some shit that was escalating beyond his and his men’s control downtown. They needed to know what to do with the interlopers they’d caught. Ever since we ended a recent war with some Armenian gang of upstarts, we’d been making examples of anyone who tried to rise up and encroach on our territory.
I sighed. Apparently, Christmas Eve didn’t mean peace on earth. I’d made the cardinal sin of deciding to relax for once,thinking things were finally going smoothly here in LA for a change. Aleks was in deep conversation with Nat, who looked like she didn’t want to throw a punch at her father for the first time in a long while, so there was no way I could bother him with this.
“We just got word that there’s something else happening a couple blocks away.” My guy on the phone interrupted my thoughts, and I sighed again.
