Page 45 of Bratva Sacrifice

“When did you get so fucking boring?” Anatoli says, with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “You don’t go out anymore. You only follow after her like she is a bitch in heat.”

“Because I don’t want easy pussy anymore, I’m boring? Because I like having her around, I’m boring?”

“You ignore matters of business to go fucking swimming,” he says. “You sleep with the goddamned light on.”

I ignore matters of business because it is my prerogative to do so. What is the use in being the fucking boss if you do not enjoy this? And the light stays on because Katya is afraid of the dark. I am not ashamed that I don’t make her be afraid.

“The whole fucking house thinks she carries your balls around in her purse,” Anatoli says.

“I don’t give a fuck what the whole fucking house thinks.” I never have. This is also something I do not have to care about.

“Your men think you are weak,” he says. “That is a problem.”

If this is true, soon enough they will be disabused of this notion. “Do you think I’m weak?” I ask.

Anatoli’s scowl deepens. “No,” he admits, though his voice is resentful. “But I don’t understand you anymore. Not since her.”

Of course he does not. He has never met a woman he has wanted for more than a night. There was a time, years ago, I might have explained myself to him, because before Anatoli was my second, he was my closest friend.

I don’t explain Katya to him. How could I do this thing when I don’t even think I can explain her to myself? But the days when I had to explain myself to anyone have long since passed. Katya stays. And if anyone else has a problem with this?

Do pizdy. I don’t give a fuck.

The security feed from days and days ago slows, stops. I have the information I need, now. I wind the footage back once more and erase it, clearing all evidence of Katya’s nakedness from the recording. And then I push back my chair.

“Tonight,” I say to Anatoli, “you bring me Piotr and Ivan.”

Anatoli’s brows lift. “Piotr? Really?”

He is not so surprised about Ivan, but then Ivan is one of those men who will never rise past foot soldier. He likes the perks of this life, but he is lazy. He is content to make some quick, easy cash, to throw his weight around. He likes presenting himself as a dangerous man, when mostly he is just a fool. But Piotr—Piotr earned his present position. He was a good enforcer; trustworthy, loyal.

Was.

Now he is something else.

Maybe he is one of those men Anatoli says believes me to have become weak. Tonight, he will learn otherwise.

∞∞∞

Katya wakes to the slide of my hand down the length of her spine. She stretches, her little toes curling and her arms stretching over her head. “What time is it?” she asks on the back of a yawn, her fingers covering her mouth and muffling her words slightly.

“Not so late,” I tell her. “Maybe I just wear you out, hm?”

Her blue eyes darken, brows drawing down into a glower. “Go fuck yourself, Alexei,” she says petulantly as she turns over onto her stomach, sliding her arms beneath the pillow.

The flat of my hand swats her upturned ass, and she buries her face into her pillow, muffling her surprised screech. “What was that, Katya?” I ask as I shove my legs into a pair of jeans.

“Alyosha,” she grumbles sullenly.

Better. She is still spicy, most of the day. Like a wild animal, she paces the confines of her cage and resents the bars that surround her. She is difficult and argumentative. She is contrary and spiteful and disrespectful. And nothing is so satisfying to me as kissing the spice out of her. Fucking her until she is again sweet for me. Until she makes her soft little sounds of pleasure as she comes on my tongue, my fingers, my cock.

She holds onto her anger because she needs it still. But every day, she settles a little more. She is sweet for me a little longer. I think she resents this. That for hours I can make her forget her fury. That she finds it a little more difficult each time to call it back. That she is capable of less heat every time.

Right now she is still soft, mostly compliant. Exhausted from an afternoon of swimming and fucking in the pool, she has been sleeping now for a few hours. But it is—as I told her—not so late, and tonight I do not want her wandering if she wakes. So I have to wake her up myself and tell her this.

“What are you doing?” she asks as she curls onto her side and props her head up in her hand.

“I have business,” I tell her brusquely. “You stay here tonight, Katya. No wandering.”