A sharp pang of jealousy made him growl. Before he went to the next image, he pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the photo for later.
More photos revealed Elena with different girls her own age, Elena with a scruffy-looking young man, animals at a petting zoo, amateur landscape shots, Elena behind a bar holding up bottles of liquor, pictures of food, and dozens of random shots of pastel dresses and kawaii-style leather collars featuring bows and bells, or heart-shaped jewelry she seemed to like. Cute.
Her search history revealed a week’s worth of research about Moscow, which went along with the Word documents he found full of things she wanted to do or see while she was here. Her bookmarks and favorite sites were an eclectic collection of cute, normal, and perverse. Elena’s taste in porn was darker than he’d expected. Half an hour of scouring and he already felt like he knew her.
He had put the computer to sleep and ambled back through the house, making sure he left everything just as he’d found it. He’d locked the back door on his way out, moving silently between the houses under the cover of an encroaching twilight.
That was two weeks ago.
Most nights his work started just as she was getting off, making it difficult to follow her home. It was convenient that she was working at his favorite bar—one under his boss’ thumb—where he could see her at least three days a week. Their flirtatious exchanges and her relative naivete were more entertainment than he’d been privy to as of late.
What exactly it was about her that had snagged his attention, he couldn’t say. It wasn’t as if women were scarce. In fact, the last statistics he’d read claimed there were about a hundred Russian women for every eighty-some Russian men. For some reason, though, the only female he was interested in was the doe-eyed American girl.
But she was such a tiny thing, so clean and innocent. He used the term “innocent” loosely, of course. It wasn’t as if Evgeni thought she was a virgin—no woman who looked like that stayed intact long past puberty. But there were other types of purity, and she had it in spades.
He’d almost bet she’d never thought of breaking a law in her life, had never cheated on her boyfriends or her taxes or tried to sleep her way into a promotion. She was an honest girl, a good girl, uncorrupted and unaware of the full breadth of darkness all around her threatening to swallow her world whole.
The way she made him feel was difficult to sort out. On one hand, he fantasized about bending her over the table when she came to take their drink orders—fisting that mane of hers in one hand and jerking down her pants with the other—fucking her within an inch of her life until she begged him to cum just so the onslaught would stop. On the other hand, an instinctive need to protect her had him wanting to break the neck of any man who looked at her twice.
It was… complicated. Deliciously complicated.
Playing this game with her was torture, but he was trying to keep himself reined in. If Evgeni did what he wanted—took her how he wanted—she’d likely be running for the nearest police station, crying abuse the second he got ahold of her. Most women didn’t share his sexual proclivities. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t matter; some bitch would come on to him, he’d warn her off, and when she didn’t take no for an answer, he’d spend a couple hours destroying her pussy and marking up her body.
She wouldn’t bother him again.
He didn’t want Elena to look at him the way those women did—like he was a monster. He was one, but that didn’t mean he wanted that bit of solnyshko stolen from him before he was good and ready to let it go. It was a nice change in the predictable landscape of his life. Being an enforcer for the Bratva wasn’t as glamorous as people thought.
As organized as their operation was, it was still just a job. A tedious, violent job requiring frequent trips to the laundromat to scrub out the bloodstains. Evgeni was smart, good with numbers, and had a head for planning and business, but none of that was why his boss kept him around. He was little more than a trained attack dog, enforcing the laws and codes of their brotherhood at the behest of their unit leader in service to the Pakhan—their boss.
It was old school terminology for an old school crime family. He’d practically been born to it. His father had been the previous Pakhan’s Obshchak, or accountant. Evgeni had grown up in the life, understanding what it was to be part of the Bratva. Unlike most children in the family who stayed home with their mothers when they weren’t in school, his father had taken him everywhere.
Evgeni had learned all about the organization through the careless conversations of those around him. Often they forgot the little boy sitting quietly in the corner, waiting for his father’s work to be done. He’d learned from men in the restaurants and bars where his father went to do bookkeeping for the family, who took pity on him and fed him, clapping him on the shoulder and telling him how he’d grow up someday to be a fine soldier. He’d learned from his father, who was less careful with his record-keeping than he should have been, even though it was written in code. He’d learned from the violence he’d witnessed, the kind a child should never be exposed to.
He’d learned. He’d adjusted. He’d adapted.
And now he thrived.
Evgeni was one of their most trusted assets, the enforcer with the highest rate of success and collection out of all eight of the men in the unit, though Oleg wasn’t far behind. They succeeded because they almost always got what they came for. No matter what, no matter how.
Oleg was perfectly happy where he was, content to do the supervisor’s bidding, drink, and whore himself into oblivion. A lot of men in the organization were. A lack of ambition made for a loyal workforce.
Evgeni wasn’t satisfied like they were.
He had been chosen as an enforcer because of his brute strength, dispassionate nature, and strong stomach. The men known as the warriors of the family were better respected, even if they rarely got their hands dirty. That was what he should have wanted—to be just one step up from his current status, to be put in charge of part of the operation and its business dealings. He’d be overseeing other men and recruiting new ones—more mundane pursuits than his current job required.
But that wasn’t enough. Evgeni wanted more.
He wanted the supervisor of their little group’s title—brigadier.
The current brigadier was a piece of shit. Evgeni was positive he was stealing from the organization, whittling away at profit margins for his own gain all while giving the Pakhan false reports. He didn’t have the proof yet, but he was well on his way to getting it. When he did, he was going to destroy the man’s life.
For now, he was biding his time. Toying with Elena was a fabulous way to while away the hours, something to focus on other than getting drunk and going home to an empty apartment when the violence of the day was done. It was a game he enjoyed, but it couldn’t be more than that. The girl was too soft for the life he lived. Her inherent sweetness aside, she was well-loved. She’d be missed if she never returned from her trip.
Game or no, if he caught her trying to walk home again after dark, he’d have to break his own rule. Evgeni would spank her so hard she wouldn’t sit down for a week. She’d be lucky if he didn’t fuck her ass after to drive the point home.
It was certainly a more pleasant thought than the tangled web of politics he’d have to navigate if he wanted to achieve his current goals.