Page 90 of Bratva's Intern

Holy shit.

I was grinning like a fool, my heart still hammering against my ribs. My lips tingled from Maxim’s kiss, and my body felt too warm, too electric. I stared at the key in my hand, the weight of it symbolic of so much more.

I shook my head, forcing myself to move. As I neared my bedroom, a figure ran smack into me, and I collided with a warm, solid chest.

A startled gasp escaped me as I stumbled back.

Darius.

Shirtless. Well, more than shirtless. He was only wearing a pair of boxers.

He stared at me as if this was his apartment and he wasn’t the intruder.

“Oops, sorry,” I blurted, my face heating. I quickly sidestepped him and darted toward my room before I could embarrass myself further.

Jess! She’d already slept with him?

Like I was one to judge, given what I’d been doing with Maxim.

A few minutes later, a knock sounded at my door. It creaked open, and Jess slipped inside, shutting it behind her. Her hair was a beautiful mess. She wore a short silk robe that was knotted at the waist. Her eyes zeroed in on me like a hunter locking onto prey.

“Where the hell have you been, you slut?” she demanded in a whisper. “Why didn’t you call me? I was worried about you all night!”

I let out a giggle, still too giddy to care about being scolded. “When did you have time to worry? Looks like you had your hands full.”

Jess’s lips curled into a slow, smug grin. “More than just my hands, babe.”

A dramatic gasp escaped me, and she launched herself onto my bed, laughing. I followed and collapsed beside her. We both dissolved into giggles, tangled in the sheets like we were teenagers gossiping about our latest conquests.

“Tell. Me. Everything,” she demanded between breathless laughs, nudging me with her elbow.

Oh, I would. Every last sinful, scandalous detail. As long as she told me hers first.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

MAXIM

From the lounge above, I watched them—the city’s rich and ravenous—writhing under lights that pulsed like a heartbeat on the edge of an overdose. Their silhouettes melted together, nameless and hungry. Money no longer mattered. In the grip of lust, even kings begged like dogs.

I traced the rim of my glass with my thumb, taking in the titans of industry, power brokers, and polished socialites who drank alongside the wolves who’d clawed their way in through blood and leverage.

I took a sip from the whiskey. The burn traveled down my throat, smooth as silk. My lips twisted in a smile as I stared at the monitor affixed to the wall.

Even in the dim light, Mayor Hector Calloway was unmistakable. His salt-and-pepper hair, combed over to the side, didn’t quite conceal his bald spot. His suit, an expensive charcoal gray that likely cost more than the average person’s annual salary, was unbuttoned at the collar, tie discarded.

On his lap perched a redhead who wasn’t a day over eighteen despite what her fake ID said. Her dress, a second skin of crimson satin, rode up so high enough it left little to the imagination.

She leaned into him, whispering something against his ear, making him chuckle. He caught the hem of her dress and pulled the material up to her waist, baring her pussy.

I doubted his wife would approve. Or his daughter, for that matter, since the girl he had his fingers inside was her best friend.

Disgust curled at the edges of my amusement. Calloway was a man who used his money to get what he wanted. Inside my nightclub, Power, he was nothing but another man giving in to the vices he publicly condemned.

No phones, no cameras, no outside eyes.

That was the rule here. The reason men like him felt secure to let their masks slip, knowing that no evidence of their debauchery would escape these walls.

And I had enough of Calloway’s misdeeds on tape. Including the cocaine he’d snorted off his companion’s tits less than half an hour ago.

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