Chapter 10 - Fiona

Boris responds to me immediately, his hands anchoring in the small of my back, pressing my body close to his.

My senses are overloaded—the scent of the roses, the sound of our breathing together, Boris's cologne, how he growls low in his throat, his hands moving over me like a dying man looking for purchase on a rocky cliff face.

In a second, he's turned us around, bunching my dress up around my hips, his fingers finding me, damp, through the cotton of my underwear. I gasp into his mouth, and he takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into my mouth.

I tighten my hold around his neck, pushing my tongue into his mouth, fighting with him to gain traction. His fingers move faster, bringing me closer and closer, until I'm unraveling against the side of the building, gasping and pressing my forehead into his chest.

Boris growls, low in his throat, when I drop to my knees in front of him, pulling out his cock and taking it in my mouth. His hand comes to the back of my head, guiding me. I look up at him through my lashes, watching him watch me, and the moment is so erotic that I feel myself getting wet again.

"Fuck," he says, "I like seeing you on your knees, Fiona."

A moment later, with a few final thrusts, he comes, and I stare up at him, swallowing every drop. It makes his eyes go even darker, and he grabs me by the shoulders, pulling me up, acting like he's going to tuck me into his chest.

Then, to my surprise, he takes a shuddering breath, shaking his head and dropping his hands. I feel the absence of his touch, a cool chill running over my skin.

"I can't—I can't give you what you want," he growls, stepping away from me and putting his hands on his head like he's just run a marathon. "I don't think I'm the man you want."

"I feel like I'm being pretty clear that you're the man I want," I say, still tasting him on my tongue.

"No—what you said about Olive earlier," he says, turning his head. "I can't agree to that, Fiona."

" What ?" I ask, stepping back and bringing a hand to my chest. "What do you mean—you can't agree to that?"

"I won't promise that nothing bad will happen to her. I can't promise that."

Images of Olive—jumping on my bed, telling me what to wear, cackling in her deranged way when someone she hates gets canceled—fill my head, and I stumble away from him, shaking my head.

"No, Boris, I swear to god there's no way she has any idea what her dad is up to. Are you hearing me? You said you don't hurt innocents. Olive is an innocent."

"You can swear to god, but that doesn't mean I can be sure of it."

"I want to make something perfectly clear, Boris," I saw, narrowing my eyes at him and stalking forward until I could jam my finger into his chest. My emotions surrounding this man are so confused—one second, I'm wet and begging to get his cock inside me, and the next, I hate the sight of his stupid fucking face. Right now, it's the latter. "If you hurt Olive, I will make it my personal mission to bring this —" I motion to everything around us, "—burning to the fucking ground."

"Fiona—"

"Olive is the only person in the world that I care about. She's the reason I made it through freshman year, you fuck."

"I'm sorry that you like her, Fiona," Boris says, his eyes dark and serious, "but I have no proof that she's not involved in the Allard business."

It gets quiet between us for a moment. We're standing a few feet apart, breathing hard and staring at one another.

"Is there really not a single cell inside of you that could believe she's involved?" Boris asks, his eyes searching my face.

" Fuck you," I spit before turning on my heel and stalking back to the house. Of course, he follows me the whole way, making sure I get to the bedroom. When the door closes, I hear him turn the lock. I roll my eyes—I could pick it with the bobby pin in my hair if I wanted to.

But leaving at this point isn't going to help anything. If I'm going to stop Boris from hurting—or doing anything to—Olive, I'll have to do it from the inside.

***

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door. I grab the lamp from the table and hold it up, ready to smash it over someone's head if they so much as reach for me in the wrong way.

When I open the door, I see Ivan standing there in his suit, his hands clasped in front of him. He flinches when he sees me holding the lamp.

"Oh, sorry, Ivan," I say breezily, setting the lamp back on the table. "I thought you were someone else."

"Right," Ivan says, tearing his eyes from the lamp and looking back at me. "Well, Mr. Milov would like you to dress and meet him downstairs in twenty minutes."

"You can tell Mr. Milov to go fuck himself in the—"

"Fiona," Ivan says, casting his eyes to the ground. "I know you're upset about—something. But if it's all the same to you, I'd rather you be the one to tell him off or tell him no, or whatever it is you want to do. If I come back downstairs with anything but you, ready to go, there's going to be hell to pay. But if you go down there and have your fight with him, he'll see that there's nothing I could have done."

"Fine," I say, thinking of the service jobs I've had—like waitressing and how much it sucked for the customer to tear you to pieces over a mistake the kitchen made.

I shut the door and go back inside, applying some mascara and putting on a simple outfit—a cute little white skirt and matching collared shirt.

Usually, I don't dress like this. But I usually can't afford nice outfits. And I typically don't have a Boris with his heated eyes looking me over.

When I come downstairs twenty-five minutes later, Boris is standing with his brothers, talking about something. They all go quiet when I come down the stairs, and I see Anton whisper something to Roman, and then Boris claps both of them on the backs of their heads.

"Good morning, Fiona," Anton says, "you're looking—"

Boris punches his brother in the arm.

"Not another word," he growls. "Get lost. Try to actually use your heads today. Did you get it? Figure out how the hell Allard got those guns from us. Or I'm getting rid of you and finding new brothers."

"Good luck with that," Anya says, dancing through the room. She's wearing a two-piece swimsuit with a cover-up and looks amazing. There's a basket in her hand that must have been prepared by the chef here. A picnic on the beach for her while I'm being whisked off to who knows where. "The Russian men in this city are abysmal."

"Who says they have to be Russian?" Boris mutters. "Better yet, maybe I'll just find more sisters. The women in this place are more capable than you."

Viktor and Roman mutter something under their breath while Anton just laughs.

"Come on," Boris says to me, touching my elbow gently before turning and walking out the door. I'd been planning to tell him to fuck off again like I did last night, but in waiting for his siblings to finish their banter, I'd forgotten to yell at him. Instead, I grumble and follow him out the front door, climbing into the passenger seat of his SUV when he opens the door for me.

"You'd better be planning to dump me in the river," I say, eyeing him. "Because I am not doing anything cute with you right now. There is nothing on this side of the Mississippi that's going to make me forget how much of an ass you are. And be warned—I'll definitely fight you. Maybe I'll take you in with me."

"I'm not going to dump you in the river," Boris says, "that would be at least an hour's drive. Dumping people in the river isn't a very secure method of—you know what? You already know that, you ass."

"You don't get to call me an ass!" I say, whirling in my seat and pointing at him. "You're threatening to kill my best friend, Boris!"

"I am not threatening to kill her. I never said I was going to kill her."

"Then what? Tie her up in your basement and let Viktor go at her with his tools?"

The thought of Viktor firing up his bone saw and getting it near one of Olive's perfectly manicured fingers makes me queasy. When I was in the basement, listening to Viktor take that man's finger off, I wasn't even this nauseous. But just the thought of it happening to my best friend is enough to make me sick.

"No, god," Boris says, "we don't do that kind of stuff to women."

"That's sick —"

"No! We don't do that kind of stuff either, Jesus, Fiona, you're working yourself up over nothing."

"Are you swearing to me that you're not going to hurt Olive?"

"I can't promise—"

"Then I'm not exactly working myself up over nothing, am I? The threat of bodily harm to my best friend is, in fact, something."

"You are so frustrating to talk to—"

"Maybe you should think twice before you kidnap the wrong girl, then Bor-y."

"We're back to the pet names?"

"Only because I know you hate it."

"Thank god," he mutters as we round the corner and swipe into a community. "We're here."

"Where's here?" I ask, suspiciously eyeing the guard as we pass through the gate.

"This," he says, rolling down the windows and letting the warm, fresh Nevadan air flow through the car. "Is Sunrise Hills. A gated community for members of our Family."

"There's a golf course?" I ask, looking out the window as we pass a hold in the center of town. There are a few people out, and they wave to Boris as we park outside of what looks like a community center.

"Yes," he says. "Think of this place as something of a retirement home for the Family. But it's not just the elderly, we also house people in the community who can't care for themselves anymore. For example, there are some women here whose husbands gave their lives for the family, and so we offer them housing."

"Offer them housing? Like, they just live here for free?"

"Yes," Boris says, "the family owns and operates this community. It's supposed to be a safe haven for people who are done with their time in the Bratva."

"Supposed to be?" I ask as we turn the corner, and a street comes into view. I gasp, bringing my hand to my mouth when I see what it is that he brought me here to show me.

"This area was attacked two nights ago," Boris says, "one casualty. A little boy with a respirator. His mother was trapped on the other side of the wall and couldn't get to him. Do you see the mark left here?"

Boris points to one of the driveways, where there's a big, curling mark drawn in the soot from a house. I stare at it, trying to figure out where I've seen it before.

"That's the Corsican sign," Boris says, and then, when it's clear that I don't know what that means, he glances at me again. "The French mafia. Here in the United States. In Vegas. They haven't been powerful since the Second World War, but it seems Allard is leading the drive for them to make a comeback."

I shake my head, taking a step back from the sign. I saw James Allard on that ship, hitting those women, laughing with the guard, that cool, cruel face as he walked away. But this is another thing entirely.

My mind won't let go of the idea of the little boy on the respirator, unable to save himself. The mother as she screamed and cried, wanting to save her son but physically incapable of doing anything.

"That's horrible," I breathe before turning to him. "But going after Olive is just more of the same—going after someone who's innocent. Who has nothing to do with any of this."

"She doesn't have nothing to do with it ," Boris says. "It's very possible that she's in on everything—they could have even been recruiting you into the group, priming you to join."

"Well, didn't you do that, too?"

"Sometimes," Boris admits, "but we don't human traffic or go after innocents from rival groups. Some would argue that that makes us weaker than those groups. I would argue that without some sort of code of honor, you have nothing to live for."

I'm silent the entire ride back to the house.

***

The following day, Ivan wakes me again, telling me to get ready and meet Boris. Once again, the entire family is in the entryway, Anya munching on a bagel as she teases her brothers. She takes off for another fun day, and Boris tasked Roman, Viktor, and Anton with doing things. Then, the two of us leave.

This time, Boris takes me to a warehouse on the outskirts of town.

"We do ferry cocaine and heroin," he says when he leads me inside the doors. "And this is where we keep it."

"Why are you telling me this?" I ask, eyes tracking to his. It doesn't make any sense for Boris to tell me his secrets. Especially when he knows I can escape, go back to the Allards, and tell them all about it.

I wouldn't do that—because it's clear that Mr. Allard is a monster, but that doesn't stop me from questioning Boris's intentions.

"I'm following my intuition," Boris says. "My father said a man should always be able to trust his gut."

I follow Boris around the rest of the day, watching how things are run and seeing how he steps in to help, hefting large bags and moving a forklift that died. The drugs are hidden inside bags of beans and then labeled with the bean type according to which drugs are inside.

I took an operations and supply chain class last semester, and I start applying those concepts to this warehouse. Boris takes my suggestions in stride, never once suggesting that, as a student, I might have no idea what I'm talking about.

As we move operations, I realize that my degree might actually be applicable to far more than just business—even illegal organizations are still organizations, after all.

I watch the muscles in Boris's back as he leans down, helping a foreman lift a bag onto a cart. He may not be the tallest or widest man I've ever seen—but he's undeniably strong. My mouth waters as I watch him, thinking of our last kiss, and I have to shake the thoughts of him away.

When we get home from working at the warehouse, we all eat dinner together. But this time, when I retire to the bedroom, Boris comes to the door.

"Did you order anything nice to wear?" he asks, leaning on the doorjamb, his eyes wandering over me.

"Define nice."

"I don't want to ruin the surprise."

I turn and head to the closet, pulling out one of the sparkling dresses I ordered with Ivan. It feels like centuries in the past, even though I've only been here for a week now.

"What about this?" I ask after slipping it on. When Boris speaks, it's after his eyes linger on my face, then drop down to my tits before sliding to the dress.

"Perfect."