4. Max

Acrowded bar is not usually where I like to spend my evenings, but I've been insanely busy for the last month dealing with some bullshit and I needed to get out of my apartment. This place serves the brand of vodka I like, and it's a good opportunity to pick up a woman for the night.

There is no shortage of available females here. Young, not so young: I have my pick of the crop. From the moment I walked in, female eyes snagged on my designer suit, Rolex, and devilish smile.

OK, I lied about the smile.

Smiling is for losers.

But the rest is on point.

The brunette sidling up to me in a skin-tight red dress is easy on the eye. She's slim, with long legs, and pretty blue eyes. Yet… I feel nothing.

Haven't done for months.

I fuck often enough, but it's a physical release. Nothing more. Women warm my bed for a few hours and then leave. The last serious relationship I had - and I use that term loosely - was with Katerina two years ago. Kat and I had a mutually beneficial arrangement that involved sex and dates when we both needed a plus-one.

There was no love. She liked sex and I liked knowing there was a woman on speed dial if I wanted to get laid. We parted by mutual agreement, and according to Sasha, she's now fucking some actor.

Good luck to him.

Kat had expensive tastes.

"Are you looking for some company?" the brunette asks, licking her cherry-red lips.

I scan her face and figure but my body doesn't react. Not even a twitch.

"Not tonight, sweetheart." Her face falls but she's not ready to give up just yet.

"Some other time?"

"Sure," I smile. "Let me have your number." I won't be calling her, but she doesn't need to know that. Chances are I won't be sticking around for long anyway. I'm only here to have a meeting with the fucking mayor.

The sooner I get rid of that bastard, the better. He's becoming a serious pain in my ass.

It started well enough. A few sweeteners here and there to ensure plans were expedited and not much attention paid to my business activities. But as time's gone on, he has started to get greedy. And now we've begun hearing more about his extra-curricular interests, the situation has gone rapidly downhill.

Sasha tells me he's gotten friendly with Anatoly Uriov, which is concerning. Uriov deals in women. Not a trade I have anything to do with, but the man's got a lot of well-connected friends, so I'm not in a position to shut him down yet. He and I have history; he stays out of my business and I give him the same courtesy.

I suspect their new friendship has a lot to do with the rumors I've heard, about how Uriov has diversified his business interests. He's discovered there is money to be made from live-streaming content on the Dark Web. The kind of content sick people pay a lot of money to watch.

I didn't ask Sasha how he found out, but I know him well enough to be confident it wasn't because he signed up to watch any of it.

The mayor is a sick fuck. It makes sense that Uriov and he found each other. Birds of a feather and all that crap. For now, he's useful to me, but I won't turn a blind eye to his activities forever.

The brunette sashays away having given me her number. Once she's out of sight, I quickly delete it. I'm just about to sink the rest of my vodka and leave when a curvy girl on the dance floor catches my eye.

Unlike her petite friend, she's not dressed to kill. Instead, she wears skinny jeans and a white vest tee. There's nothing flashy about her but the way her ass fills out those jeans gives me an instant hard-on.

Long hair threatens to break free from a messy bun and her toned arms gleam with sweat. She's utterly gorgeous. Then she half turns, laughing at something her friend says, and I realize who she is.

The girl from the bar a year ago.

The girl whose piece-of-shit boyfriend I left for dead in a bathroom.