Defiant. Sweet. Alluring.
A business deal gone wrong brought me to her doorstep.
She's everything I shouldn't want; everything I was against after watching my mother's obsession destroy her.
Still, I can't stop myself from craving her.
I should know...
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CHAOS UNFURLED AROUND ME as breakfast preparations were made, but all I could fixate on was the simple text Igor had sent me last night.
Home. Now!
That was all the text said, but I could feel the fury behind it all the way from Russia. I sighed, pushing my hair out of my face. I must have really pissed my old man off because he didn't do texts. He claimed it was too 'basic' and 'beneath him', whatever the fuck that meant. He preferred his email chains.
I clicked the exit button on my phone, closing the text he sent me. I clicked on Ariana's text next, against my better judgment.
This was my fifteenth time checking the text since she sent it last night. Yes, I was counting. It was an unhealthy fixation. One I was powerless to. I promised myself I'd delete the text chain and forget all about it, but I eventually found myself scrolling through our chain of texts.
Oddly enough, I always wished people around me would stop talking. It was different with her. I wanted to hear what she sounded like. She'd succeeded in intriguing me just through her text messages. They packed enough attitude behind them that it made me wonder what she'd sound like spilling those words from her mouth.
I read her last text again, and my amusement dropped.
You're Bratva scum, after all. Always looking for lives to ruin.
My mother had shared the same sentiments as her in her last days, but I couldn't hold it against her. Neither of them. How a woman like my mother ended up with Igor remained a mystery to me, but Mikhail liked to remind me that love was blind.
Until it wasn't.
She finally started to see her husband in his true colors when she neared her deathbed, and she didn't like what she found after being oblivious to it for years. Mikhail and I had suffered the brunt of her episodes when she couldn't reconcile the heartless criminal with the man she was obsessed with.
Igor sure didn't care about her or her wellbeing anymore. She'd lost his interest, after all.
The only reason he kept her around after she birthed two sons for him was because of said sons. He said a little soft wouldn't hurt. If only he knew that 'soft' involved cleaning up dried vomit and disinfecting knife wounds.
Mikhail's voice floated into my head.
Forget about her. Let's go start something for ourselves one day.
I chanced a look at my little brother, who was goofing around with the Samoyed he'd roped me into buying.
I didn't even like dogs, but there were only a few things I wouldn't do for him. Like joining his threesome parties or orgies.
He was the reason I had found the courage to leave Russia. I wanted a better life for him. He wasn't cut out for the brutal work Igor forced him to do at ten. Taking care of him was the least I could do after I let our mother slip between my fingers.
