Page 38 of Baby for the Bratva King

9

FELIX

I enter my Madison Avenue branch later that evening, flashing the receptionists a quick smile. I don’t have time to chat. I have a meeting to host and a man to kill. The latter is optional. I can send an assassin to take care of the job myself, but I need to shove my knife into something warm and forget about this morning.

I press the elevator button, stepping inside when the doors fly open.

I keep two spare rooms on the top floor for business meetings. I never work from home. I like to keep my professional and personal lives separate. Up until Saskia entered my life, I never really had much of the latter.

Occasionally, I’ll book out a hotel room and take a woman back, but the interactions are always impersonal. The women get down on their knees, coat me in saliva and let me finish in their mouth, but that just about cuts it. They lie in bed afterward, patting the space next to them, forcing pillow talk on me, but I leave.

That’s what hotels are good for, and before I met Saskia, I thought the same about women. They’re only useful for a night. I check out the following morning—if I even want to stay the night—and move onto my next destination.

I open the door, the butler there to greet me. He straightens his bow tie, acknowledging me with a nod. “Good evening, Mr. Pozharsky.”

“Evening,” I say, walking into the multi-story penthouse. There are five of these in this particular hotel, and they sell out fast.

“Felix,” says Gabriel, sitting at the table, helping himself to venison.

“Don’t get up,” I say, wandering over to the cabinet to pour myself a glass of scotch.

“The media are eating up your little stunt,” says Gabriel, shoveling food in his mouth. “Your maid is a whore.”

“Strippers and whores are two different things,” I educate Gabriel, sitting down at the head of the table with my scotch.

I look down the length of the table, watching my men tuck in. We have business to discuss, a kill list to update, but my motivation is running low tonight,

Saskia is sticking her nose into my life, and I don’t like it. Questions make me sick, and I already have enough people digging into my life without her trying to get close too.

But Saskia isn’t being nosy. I wonder about her family, if she’s trying to see if we have anything in common.

Bylat. If she was more careful with her mouth, I would’ve sank all the way into her pussy earlier, and done it slowly, which is something I never feel the need to do. I’m always chasing the high, but with her, I find myself chasing the small, intimate moments, like I have all the time in the world.

And time is extremely fucking limited. I’m forty-four years old, way past the halfway mark of my life. Not many Bratva leaders make it to fifty, unless they inherit the throne at that age. And even then, I can guarantee they’ll be dead before they celebrate their first year.

Being in the public eye helps. It deters a lot of enemies. My death would be a big deal for everyone, and the murderer would be shamed by the entire world.

I’m exempt from death, at least for the time being while the mafia allegations are just conspiracies.

Murdering me would be too messy, so most people don’t bother. This works out well for me. I can shove my knife into people peacefully. My victims don’t retaliate. They accept their fate and let me stick my knife in them, because they know killing me will get them into even more trouble.

Best just to suck it up and accept your sins.

Most of our clients obey me because of this, but you always get one or two who think they have what it takes to challenge my authority.

“Ivan Furenuz has been taken care of,” reports one of my men, cutting into the wild game steak. “We scattered his ashes into the Hudson.”

“Good,” I say, sipping scotch. “Anything else to report?”

“Your love life is a trending topic at the moment,” adds another.

“Anything new to report?”

“We have a mokroye delo (wet business) to take care of tonight,” says my enforcer unenthusiastically at the end of the table. “One of our clients put in a request.”

“Who?”

Triks shrugs. “Not my business, but they want him gone by morning.”