Toward the end of the interview, he slides a calling card across the table. It looks old-fashioned with gold trim around the edge, like something out of The Great Gatsby. A time, an address, and a place—the place where I will sell my body and perhaps my self-respect along with it.
For my mom’s sake, if nothing else.
“Do not be late,” Mr. Johnson says. He drums his manicured fingernails on the table. “My clients are very specific about punctuality.”
Thinking that that is just about the most lawyerly sentence ever spoken, I rise stiffly from the chair.
“Miss Greene,” he says when I am almost at the door.
“Yes?” I say without turning.
“If you wish to back out, now is the time. Afterward … it will not be so simple.”
I swallow past the knot in my throat. “How much do these auctioneer’s assistants typically make?” I ask.
“Anywhere between thirty and fifty thousand dollars,” he answers.
I clutch the calling card so hard the edges bite into my palm.
Then I leave without saying another word.
3
Erik
Six days have passed, and the pain in my shoulder still bites like a hungry dog.
But it is a good pain, getting deeper as I bench-press the bar, sweat dripping down my face. It reminds me of what a man must always be reminded of: to be vigilant, to take nothing for granted. There are always lurkers in the dark, ready to tear down what a man has worked his whole life for.
Anatoly is standing at the threshold when I rack the weights and sit up. He’s tugging at his scar, deep in thought.
“Business?” I ask.
He nods shortly. “The Bratva is still—”
“Asking questions with no answers,” I finish. “About Radovan and Alena.”
“Yes, but are there truly no answers?”
“None that would satisfy them,” I say.
“What are you doing to find their killers?”
“I heard you mention once that you got that scar asking questions you shouldn’t.”
“Yes.” He smiles. “I asked another man’s woman to come home with me. He was not pleased then, and was even less so when I buried him. Erik,” he says, striding forward, “this cannot go on.”
I wave a hand. “Tell them I have dealt with it.”
“That will not do, and you know it.” He paces over to me. “Tell me what happened. You know I can be trusted.”
I look up at him coldly. “You are a good man, Anatoly, but you forget your place too easily.”
He inclines his head in assent. “I will not argue, and I can only apologize. But I need to know the truth if I am to help you.”
I sigh, running a hand through my hair. As much as I may dislike it, he is right.
So I tell him, in a flat, emotionless voice, what happened six nights ago.
The hotel door swinging open.
My man standing on the other side, gun in hand. A grim reaper, coming for my life.
And the blood. All the fucking blood.
“Radovan,” Anatoly growls when I’m finished. “Then the traitor deserved worse than what you gave him.”
I pick up two heavy dumbbells and curl them, gritting my teeth at the pulsing in my shoulder. The bandage is leaking, but I will not stop until the workout is complete.
“You must be more cautious,” Anatoly says quietly, in a more respectful tone now.
“It is Damir and Fyodor who must be more cautious,” I snarl.
“Yes, but if you were to die …”
“It would be a bloodbath. Two wings of the Bratva slaughtering each other to decide my successor.” I drop the dumbbells with a heavy clunk. “Yes, I know. You are becoming a stuck record, old man.”
It is not the first time he has mentioned the risk.
“Have you given any thought to …”
“An heir?” I interrupt. It is not the first time he has mentioned this, either. “Who do you suggest? I wouldn’t touch half the girls in this city with your cock, much less grace their finger with my ring.”
“And why not?”
“Because I have seen what marriage does to a man.” I head over to the squat rack and slide on two more plates.
“You need not marry the girl. We have plenty of women who would tear out their eyes to bear your child.”
“Whores,” I say dismissively. “How would I even know it was mine?”
“Choose any girl in the harem and set her up on the estate. She will never see another man.”
“And have every man who has ever climbed between her legs leer and snigger?”
Anatoly shakes his head. “I did not know you were so proud.”
“Proud?” I grunt out a laugh as I deepen into the squat. “It is practicality. Men will not respect a leader if they’ve fucked his woman. I want somebody untainted, somebody …”
“Pure?” he offers.
“In so many words.”
“Then what about the auction?” he asks.
“Archangel Vision,” I mutter, turning the idea over. “When is it?”
“This evening.”
I smile at the old rascal. “So your visit has two purposes. Three, if you count wearing my nerves thin.”
“Will you consider it, Erik?” he says. “A Bratva without an heir is a dangerous thing. Open any history book and see it there. Blood fills a power vacuum if nothing else will.”
I give him a short nod. “Untainted. Innocent. Pure. Perhaps a virgin auction is just what the Bratva needs.”
What I don’t say is that it might just be what I need: a woman unskilled in the ways of the world, completely unlike that traitorous bitch Alena.
Anatoly bows deeply. “My thoughts exactly. But I will leave the decision with you.”
He backs out of the room, and once again, I am alone—with my sweat. With my pain. With my thoughts.
As my legs grind through one heavy squat after another, my mind floats back to days I thought I’d forgotten years ago.
I remember being young—five or six, maybe, perhaps younger. Standing in the yard with my father, baseball glove in hand, learning how to field a ground ball.
He seemed to think it was so important that I mastered the skill. “American boys learn how to do this as
