BAD APPLE: The Complete Series (Parts 1-5) (14 page)

Misha

Two days of hell. I’ve been subjected to two days of absolute hell as my home is overrun by family and those damn hellcats she calls friends. If it’s not Mama flitting around stealing time with her, it’s Katya and that damn father of hers.

My own father is noticeably absent since Feliks is here, and I can’t say I blame the man entirely. The Velnicova boys are assholes, a close second only to my own brothers who can’t seem to find their way home, no matter how many times I’ve unsubtly told them to fuck off so that I can be alone with my wife.

Sex is out of the question. I’m not a freaking animal, but can’t a man have some time alone with his wife to still the fear still raging within?

I need her close, wrapped around me, the feel of her heartbeat thumping over my own. And I need time alone with her to finally kiss those sweet lips and secure that last piece of her.

“You need to go already.”

“Shame on you, boy. To reject the love of your family at such a time when Irina needs us,” Mama
tsks
, her reproach sending my patience to its limits as they flit around the living room.

“She’s fine, for fuck’s sake! Just look at her. She’s about ready to brain us all if you don’t stop fussing, and those damn brothers of hers are driving us both nuts. Angel, tell them, baby,” I plead, my eyes narrowing when all she does is smile and accept another blini from my traitorous brother Leo.

“I’m good, Misha. I like being coddled by the womenfolk. Although, if you’re so intent on my brothers leaving, I won’t complain,” she hisses, throwing them a glare that has them all cringing. “You can kick Luka’s ass too, if you want. Seems Mr. Man can’t keep his dick in his pants. Seems he thinks it’s okay to pull a tap and snap on my best friend.”

Poor Tatiana gasps and goes deathly pale before her cheeks turn pink with humiliation. I could cringe for my wife’s newfound abrasiveness, but I’ve been meaning to address this situation for a while, and I see my own brothers tense before rising in anticipation.

Tat isn’t one of our women, but she’s a sister, and in Russian families a sister is a prize worth killing a man for. I want to kill Luka for the pain he’s purposely caused her.

He took her to a charity function days ago, only to flirt with every woman there and end up getting caught with one, her skirt thrown up…

He did it purposely, his intentions for Tat to find them so engaged in intercourse clear. He meant to hurt her. Why, I cannot say, but for this I would gladly beat him to death and not feel an ounce of guilt.

“Mind your own fucking business, Irina. Tatiana knew the score when she came to me, so don’t go blaming me for everything.”

“Knew the score!
You
came to my apartment and screwed
me
asshole! You were the one who cuddled and did the whole emotion thing, not me. I was just the dumb schmuck foolish enough to believe your bullshit, Velnicova,” she yells, her golden hair practically crackling as she springs to her feet and throws my three-grand vase at his head.

The loss is nothing when the satisfying sound of his pain echoes through the room, the sight of his blood attesting to the fact that his evasion came a second too late to save him from her ire.

“You wanna know exactly how I feel about you, you slime-sucking piece of dog meat? I fucking despise you more than I ever loved your lying ass. You wanna tell everyone how we’ve actually been together for two years? Wanna tell Mama how you’ve been leading me on for so long, coming to me and then breaking things off whenever the mood to fuck another woman struck?”

The room is deathly silent but for Katya’s gasp as Tatiana starts sobbing and railing at her lost love like a woman scorned, her anger and hurt so palpable that I see Luka flinch and pale.

“Tatty.”

“Tatty nothing! I have loved you for so long, I sometimes wonder what I could be lacking for you not to feel the same way. I have excused your cruelty and told myself you just needed time. I lied to everyone I loved, my best friends included, because you told me you needed time. I felt like shit every time I met someone who could actually love me, only to break things off when you strolled back into my life as if you hadn’t been screwing everything with a vagina!” she yells. I can’t help but wince when she lays hands on an antique that took me two years to find on the black market.

“I was a hopeless idiot for ever thinking you would want anything more than to screw me over again. Do you know how everyone laughed at me at that ball? I stood around and waited for you while everyone tittered behind their hands and perfect strangers came over to make the lewdest offers to me, and still, it took a while for me to realize I was being had. It hurt, a lot, to know that once again you ditched the poor little Russian girl with stars in her eyes and love in her heart, but nothing, absolutely nothing in this world will make me forget the sight of you touching my cousin!” she yells, throwing the vase so hard, I don’t even bother to lunge for it.

              Then Tat just seems to deflate, her entire being going limp as sobs fill the room.

“Tatty, I didn’t…I never went through with it…” Luka whispers dazedly, his face a mask of pain when another sob bursts forth. “I love you, Tatty.”

“You love me? You love me!” she yells, her voice so hoarse and shrill, even Leo winces. “Well I don’t love you. Not anymore. You made sure of that, didn’t you? I finally get it, Luka. I finally get that you don’t want me. And now I’m freaking stuck with your stupid ass because you can’t use a condom!” she wails, her hysterical laughter prompting the mothers to snap out of it and rush towards her as Irina, Nikita, and Eliza start rising threateningly.

“Tatty.”

“Not another word,” Nikita rasps just before I see something I never thought in my life to see.

Irina, my sweet-as-pie wife who cries while watching television, pulls her arm back and hits Luka so hard that the man just teeters before crumpling like a paper bag.

“I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, and quite frankly I don’t care right now. What you’re doing is so unlike the man I have always loved. I can’t…you don’t deserve her love if this is what you think love is, Luka Velnicova,” she spits as Nik lands a kick and Eliza stomps on his hand in fury.

“Tatty…”

“
Nyet
, Luka,” Max grates. “Leave her be, brat. She is hurting and fragile right now. Give her time to pull her pride back around her.”

No one moves, no one says a damn thing as the women all turn on their heels and shuffle Tatiana away, her sniffles dying down.

“Christ, man, even I am not that much of an asshole,” Feliks mutters, falling into a seat along with the rest of us as Luka struggles to sit up, his head hanging with the weight of Tat’s implications. “You know, I heard rumors about that fucking ball, but I never imagined it was you, dude. That’s just cold.”

Those words gain my old friend a measure of respect and I go so far as to pour him a drink and salute him before falling into a seat and glaring at Luka.

“Man, and I thought I had problems with the new improved Irina? You’re totally fucked if you screwed that girl’s cousin, humiliated her, and knocked her up too. Tat’s a good person, understanding, but I have seen her get pissed, and she is way more than pissed,” I murmur, watching the guy cringe and poke at his already swelling eyes and nose.

Dude’s gonna have two blue eyes and a Rudolph nose if he doesn’t get ice on that soon. Too bad I’m all outta sympathy.

“I was drunk, okay! Christ, I couldn’t have fucked that woman if I’d downed a bottle of Viagra. My dick was limper than a washrag,” he yells, making us all shudder when he grips the bridge of his nose and twists, a loud crunch following the move.

“Okay. So what exactly had Tat believing you were screwing then?” Leo asks darkly, his molten blue orbs shooting sparks at the man.

“I was going downtown when she walked in.”

“Jesus. You are so screwed.”

I kissed my ex for all of five seconds and Irina still won’t kiss me.

Luka is so fucked if Tat saw him eating some other chick. Hell, her own cousin!

“God, I need a drink.”

Lena

The smell of sweaty balls is all pervasive as I sashay my ass back to the bar, offloading the empty tray with a groan when Phil dumps another round on it and points me to the VIP table in back—the very table I’ve been trying to avoid since one of the Romanov twins strolled in and sat his fine butt down beside my target.

What no one in my family knows and what has been driving me crazy since the FBI approached me two years ago is that I am undercover and working my way up into an organization that would have my brothers going crazy if they ever knew.

Papa knows. He knows and he’s helped me as much as he can since he had his heart attack and had to start delegating to his crew. The reason for my little adventure is not an all-consuming need to serve my country and protect good people from bad men like my boss.

I was born with about as much altruism as a stick, and that’s the way I like to live my life. Or that’s the way I liked to live before the father of my child decided to go and get himself involved in business that could see him in prison for the rest of his miserable life.

I hate that man so much, but I love him, too, and I won’t ever see him sent down for crimes he hasn’t committed. No, the only crime he’s guilty of is being foolish enough to trust a lifelong friend whose only loyalty is to himself and the fat Russian bastard currently taking up perfectly good breathing space at his table in the back.

So here I am, after two years of working like a dog in a freaking strip club, my life a freaking joke because I need to help the Feds catch the Romanov boys in the act while simultaneously keeping the parentage of my kid a secret.

Not easy since Feliks went and filed for custody, blowing my progress almost to hell and back before Peter, my “Swedish boyfriend,” stepped in and had things put on the back burner.

I’m so close to gathering that last shred of evidence that I can almost taste freedom. I need that freedom, need to stop chasing shadows and focus all the love I feel for my baby on him.

I want to spend my days playing with him and being the mother I’ve always wanted to be. I want time for bedtime stories and ice cream in the park.

Hell, at this rate, I’ll take an hour of just sleeping, my kid curled up in my arms, his sweet baby smell stuffing my nose.

I’m so close.

“Hey, baby, you got more than those drinks for me?” one Romanov asks salaciously, his palm squeezing my ass so hard, I have to hold back a groan of pain as I shift away and smile cheekily.

“Not tonight, handsome. My boyfriend’s got me on a tight leash, and since tonight’s my last night…” I say, trailing off flirtatiously.

The older man, Johnny, one of the leading generals, shakes his head and grabs his drink.

“You can’t leave us, Vicki. I need that tight ass bouncing around here to break up the sight of tired pussy and saggy tits.”

God, I hate these men. They have about as much respect for women as Stalin had for civilians. But I have to remind myself that I’m almost done.

Peter’s concocted a great cover of the billionaire playboy whose heart was captured by his little Russian waitress, and I’ve been invited to a garden tea with Big Romanov’s wife, Lucinda, the day after tomorrow.

Since there’s nothing at the club, getting into the house is the next step, one I’m hoping will lead to me actually getting a USB drive into a computer to gather what I need to prove that the Romanovs are not really laundering money through Feliks’s company.

Then I’ll be done, and as soon as I am, I am looking forward to a good day’s worth of beating Feliks to death. Or at least till that man sees sense.

“Sorry, handsome, but my heart’s taken,” I trill, gritting my teeth when they start laughing and making off-colored comments about the high price of my vagina.

I’d dearly love to tell these assholes that my trust fund could buy and sell my fictitious boyfriend twice over, but that would be blowing my cover and I can’t do that, no matter how tempting it would be to see those men choke on their own rancid breaths.

I’m almost done, ten minutes left of my shift, when I feel my heart plummet and see all my hard work go to hell.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

That raspy voice is one from both my nightmares and my wildest dreams to date. I’ve heard that voice in all its guises. Lust. Love. Joy. Anger and hatred, when we ripped into each other so violently, I still bleed from the wounds he left me with.

I know what I’ll see if I dare to look up into those icy blue-green eyes.  I see a mini replica of that face every day and every night when I sneak into my son’s room and stare at him with all the love and longing I feel in my heart.

I love that face, just as I have always loved this one. Even when I hated him so much, I couldn’t breathe past the pain.

He can’t be here, not now, not when I am so close to my goal I can taste success.

“Hey, pal, no touching,” I hear from my right, my eyes going misty as relief and trepidation course through me.

Peter is coming to the rescue, as always, and just in the nick of time when I see him pat Feliks’s shoulder and step to cover him from prying eyes just as the drug he stuck him with takes effect, making him sway and slur drunkenly.

“Lena…”

“Sorry, pal. You’re mistaken. This is my girl, Vicki. We’re getting married in two months’ time in my home country,” he drawls in the phoney accent that still makes me cringe.

By the time I’m done and walking out, Feliks and Peter are gone, or so I think just before the man steps in front of me, his eyes blazing.

“You have some explaining to do, Lena.”

Shit.

“Er, where’s Peter?” I ask, shuffling sideways in a bid to get closer to the old broken-down Ford the Feds gave me at the start of this operation. The thing smells like cheesy socks and a hobo’s nuts, but it purrs like a kitten and only backfires when I hit the gas too hard.

Feliks notes my move and counters, his steps pushing me closer to the darkness of an alley in the opposite direction of where I want to be. I should be panicking and running like hell right now when that seductive, dark smile tilts his lips and his lashes lower dangerously.

I know that look. It’s the same one he gave me when we first met. It’s his predatory look. The one that says he means business. The very one that makes my heart sink in my chest.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard and sweaty way, Helena.”