Page 19 of The Bratva's Captive

“No,” I cut in coldly. “She fucked around and found out what happened when the Ivanov Syndicate was nearly ruined because of her lies and duplicity. That is a mistake I will not allow.”

“It would serve you well, though, to remember how your grandfather and I ruled as partners.” Lifting her chin, she looked both regal and scolding. “I understand you have lived your life hating your mother for how she harmed the family, but I do wish you would see my role in your life as an example of how else a married life can be.”

“I do see…” I growled, raking my hand over my hair. “And I also see how it’s pointless to worry about marriage or an heirnow.”

“I beg to differ.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, as if I were the one giving her a headache about this. “And that is whyI’ll still go through the preliminary steps of researching eligible women you can consider. I am doing the background checks and compiling their files so that when you do get your head out of your ass and feel ready to just pick someone, I’ll have it all prepared for you to browse through.”

I shrugged. “Fine.”But don’t hold your breath waiting for me to jump to action.

With that terse ending, I left the house. I walked away from the topic of marrying a woman and knocking her up. Of course, she was right. I would have to do my duty someday. But she had to give it a rest and stop nagging me.

I had other things to worry about first.

On the drive to the club where the Geminis’ party was, I didn’t bother dwelling on the trouble our family was facing. Instead, as I neared the strip club with the private rooms in the back for elites like myself, I looked forward to finding a woman to fuck.

It’d been too long since I’d let go and enjoyed a tight pussy. I’d been too busy lately to let a stranger pleasure me. But that dry spell would end now.

“Wait in the car,” I told the driver and the other Ivanov man in the front seat. “I won’t be long.”

One walk through the VIP rooms would tell me if I would find what I was looking for here. It would only take a single trip through the crowd to overhear anything worth listening in to. And it would give me enough time to scan the dancers and strippers on offer.

After all that talk with my grandmother about Mafia princesses, I entered the party with a defiant mindset to sample somethingopposite of what she wanted me to see and live with for the rest of my life.

No more sleek brunettes. I was sick of seeing the same old from the Russian families we were allies with, all of them overly dressed up, too prim and proper and posh, like porcelain dolls. They dressed the same. They talked the same. And they felt the same.

I was in the mood for something different. Someone new.

The first few minutes of making my way through the crowd told me that I wouldn’t be overhearing any decent gossip that might equate to intel. Just from saying hello to the members of the Gemini family who called for a celebration I didn’t care about, I heard and saw how drunk and wasted the guests were. Perhaps I’d come later than I thought I might, but it seemed everyone else had arrived with an intention to get as messed up as they could, as quickly as they could.

Half of them were falling over and others were drinking harder and harder between hitting lines of coke.

Goddamn…

It seemed like all the dancers and strippers were just as far down the path of making this night one they wouldn’t remember in the morning. If they weren’t doing lap dances and drinking shot after shot, they were sucking dick or fooling around with each other.

What the hell did I walk into here?

Is there a fucking full moon or something?

There was a difference between finding a woman to fuck versus walking into an out-of-control orgy. That was what this seemed like—until I spottedher.

Doing a double-take at the slender woman in the corner, I was snagged again after my cursory glance of that area by how bright gold her hair was. Even in the lower lights of the party rooms, her blonde waves enticed me to want to look again.

And again. I raked my gaze over her, unable to look away from her curvy yet slender figure. Still in a skimpy costume and not yet bare, she instantly lured me to want to peel away those flimsy layers and see what she was hiding. As the only dancer here who hadn’t stripped all the way yet, she was offering an automatic game of playing hard to get.

Before I could think it through, before I could rationalize why I was so immediately drawn to her, I was walking across the room. Without taking my gaze off her once, I headed directly to where she was in the corner, her back plastered against the wall as she furrowed her brow at the three men crowding around her.

Maybe that was it.

She wasn’t smiling sultrily and suggesting for men to come hither. This blonde was almost scowling, not acting like a siren. And as she tried to rear back out of the way of one of the men making a grab for her waist, she looked pissed.

That fire. That fight.

Those were what I could get on board with. Too many of the Mafia princesses I had to meet were so vacant, so conditioned to be docile that they had no backbone at all.

Whoever this woman was… She had some sass and attitude.

Just what I could use tonight.

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