Koroleva

1 Today, I have a Romeo

The air was heavy. The density and lack of ventilation were so great that I could feel the scant clothing sticking to my skin. I had paid over three thousand pounds for a little piece of cloth that many would say wasn't even good enough to clean the floor with. Two squares of fabric, one in front and one behind, held together by wide strips that left my body exposed.

Rock music played in the background, and the scents of beer, cheap liquor, leather, and sweat permeated the dimly lit venue, lined with wood.

It seemed to me that in another era, a strong smell of tobacco would have also filled the air, had current laws not forced smokers to indulge their unhealthy habit outside the premises.

Places like the one I was in were not unfamiliar to me, on the contrary. From time to time, I enjoyed losing myself in similar dives for a single purpose, the same one that had brought me inside today.

The bikers offered wild, no-questions-asked sex, a hard fuck against any surface that could satisfy their hunger—and mine, of course. In business terms, we'd call it a win-win situation, meaning both parties benefited. There might even be an extra bonus if I managed to hook up with one of the guys who worked for my future husband; what a wonderful wedding gift that would be.

I smiled inwardly. Oh yes, that would be like scoring a goal in his own net.

I observed the obscene looks, filled with deep lust; there had to be someone suitable.

None of these men cared that I didn't fit into their scene; they didn't wonder what brought me there because their sole functioning neuron was fixated on placing me in relation to their erection.

Simple, that's what they were.

Everything about me was a lure for their groin.

My naturally blonde hair fell in a clean cut below my soft jawline. My green, cat-like eyes promised to lick up every last drop from the bowl. My thick lips, smeared in velvety red, were ready to wrap around a pretty gift, not to mention my meter-ten legs made to wrap around a waist.

I was tall, standing at one seventy-five, which, with the extra ten centimeters my heels provided, made me tower over many.

Model. Most saw me with the eyes of a clothes hanger. They believed that was my job as soon as they set eyes on me. I admit that fashion was not indifferent to me; I liked using it to my advantage, capitalizing on the hidden message each garment held.

Another option they considered was that I worked as a hostess, whether on land, sea, or air. No one guessed right, which suited me just fine.

Nikita Koroleva was a businesswoman, perhaps not in the conventional sense, but a businesswoman nonetheless. The paths of the mafia were impenetrable. The Bratva had no choice but to adapt to the new times, taking a path that was the most "legal". This did not mean that the businesses we considered were entirely clean.

Most of us, the descendants, children of the mafia, operated on a scale that encompassed whites, blacks, and grays. A rainbow of sober colors in which we swam like fish in water.

I remember how my father explained to Yuri and me that Putin's entrance into the government marked a before and after for the Bratva. The "wild nineties" were history. Now there might be the occasional isolated shootout, tortures to extract information, but the harsher forms of extortion, with which my father grew up, or that my brother and I experienced from the protection of covert glances, sheltered behind slightly open doors, were diluted under the snap of broken bones and blood on concrete.

"Bullets" were fired from rooftops that no longer covered snipers. Now, the thrown weapons were wielded by lawyers and financiers, hence the highest levels of corruption occurred in the courts, where files were lost under the weight of corrupt officials, loyal to the regime.