Page 18 of Pregnant By the Russian Pakhan

Chapter 12 - Mikhail

“There’s a woman at the gates asking—no, insisting on seeing you,” one of Mikhail’s men said with respectful deference from the doorway. “She said you would want to hear what she has to say.”

“If she isn’t one of our expected guests for tonight’s events, send her away,” Mikhail said, not bothering to look up as he adjusted his cuff links and checked his reflection in the mirror.

The man at the doorway cleared his throat. “We already tried, especially after your instructions the other day about the women we’d been bringing into the villa to work. But this woman is…different. She seems to know you personally. She calls you Nikolai.”

His head lifted at that. He was intrigued. He never used his surname in any gathering, only his first name—which was why most acquaintances knew him simply as Mikhail.

Sure, the name Nikolai was famous and feared all over Chicago, but very few people knew he was associated with that name when they met him in person, unless they also ran in mafia circles. Whoever this woman was, she had to be from a dark part of his life. Who was she and what did she want?

Or was this part of Dostoevsky’s tricks? Mikhail leaned toward his laptop and flicked on his connection to the CCTV. The woman from the limousine was standing right at his doorstep.

Mira.

Shocked recognition went through him as he took in her familiar features. Even through the camera, she was breathtakingly beautiful in a white dress with red flowers scattered all over it. She looked as though she’d just walked out of the pages of a magazine. His dick pressed against his fly as lust surged through him and he became even more furious at her and at himself.

She was Dostoevsky’s spy. He knew that now as surely as he knew his name, and yet knowing that didn’t stop his body from reacting every time she was near. What sort of fool was he? Even now, he wanted badly to bury himself between her legs and fuck her so hard that neither of them would be able to stand straight for a week.

He was suddenly restless. He needed a cold shower, but he couldn’t very well dash off to have one now. Angrily, he settled for pouring himself a shot of whiskey. As he knocked back the drink, it chased a fiery path down his throat to his stomach and his senses refocused.

Good. Dostoevsky must really think he was a fool, sending his woman here to tempt him again after what he’d done to his mole, Sam.

“Throw her off my property. If she lingers, kill her,” Mikhail ordered.

Even as he said the words, he felt emptiness yawn in the pit of his stomach, but he swallowed his instinctive need to recant the order.

He hadn’t gotten to where he was in life by believing in coincidences. Mira knew Dostoevsky and had gone directly to his house after their night in the limo. It could only mean one thing—she was working hand-in-glove with Dostoevsky and that automatically meant she had the worst intentions possible. Mikhail couldn’t afford to let his feelings of lust or whatever the hell this was get the better of him.

As the man bowed respectfully to leave, a thought occurred to Mikhail and it gave him pause.

Wasn’t it infinitely more prudent to hear her out, especially if she was working for Dostoevsky? That might give him some insight into what Dostoevsky was up to lately.

“Wait,” he called. The man paused immediately at the door. “On second thought, bring her in. Let her mingle with the guests until I get downstairs then find me and bring her straight to me. But do not take your eyes off of her for even a minute.”

“Yes sir,” came the reply.

As the door shut behind the other man, Mikhail tried to put the woman from the limo out of his mind momentarily as he prepared to greet his endless parade of guests.

He tucked his gun into the small of his back, completing his attire. He was throwing a dinner party for several of the investors in his companies, intending to mingle with them and find out as much as he could about Dostoevsky and his plans. If he spoke to enough people, he would know who was being pressured to sell their shares in his companies and he could forestall it by purchasing those shares for himself. He would probably also get a few tidbits about Dostoevsky’s plans from his associates and from his little spy, Mira, whether she knew it or not.

His lips quirked in a secretive smile at the prospect of crossing verbal swords with Mira. She was an intelligent woman, he had to give her that. Of course, if she hadn’t been intelligent, he wouldn’t have given her the time of day. His blood stirred at the challenge she posed; she was beautiful, enchanting, entrancing and probably a lying betrayer too. He would meet her and get as much information as he could from her; and he would somehow manage to do it without letting her know what he was doing.

He went over to the windows to contemplate the rolling fields of greenery beneath him. His villa had acres and acres of planted fields in every direction. Mikhail had always loved nature, and something about it calmed his soul.

But now, looking down at the lush green vineyards beneath his windows did little to calm him. He aroused, simply because he knew Mira had somehow found her way into his villa.

The thought that she was probably there as a spy and not because she missed him and has sought him out, spurred anger in him; anger was good, he assured himself. He would use that anger he felt to defeat his enemy. He was more ruthless than Dostoevsky, and if the other man thought he could be defeated so cheaply, then maybe it was time for Dostoevsky to retire from the mafia game.

A few minutes later, as he strode in to greet his guests, all traces of anger had been wiped off his features. The music was low and well-modulated, the food was rich and expensive, the wine and conversation flowed freely, and the guests were an exclusive set—some of Chicago’s richest and most influential men and women.

Everyone wanted an opportunity to stand close to Mikhail and converse with him. Everyone wanted his attention. Ladies fluttered their lashes when he was close and laughed just a bit louder, while the gentlemen, although already successful in their own right, tried to look and sound more successful when they were in his presence.

Mikhail was listening to Silas Major and his wife Tiffany share titillating stories of their trip to Brazil when he felt the atmosphere change imperceptibly. He couldn’t be sure what exactly it was, but all of a sudden, he perceived Mira’s unique perfume—jasmine and roses.

All his senses went on high alert and his nostrils flared as he picked up that unmistakable fragrance he always perceived when she was near. It wasn’t even really a perfume; it was something more primal and natural. It was her.

No one else, in all his forty years of sojourn on earth, had ever affected him this much.

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