Havok: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (5 page)

T
he club closes early
the night of the stabbing, and it's just as well. I have a job to do tonight. A target to eliminate.

On nights like this, when I'm stalking a target through the city streets, I normally feel no emotion. No remorse. Nothing.

But tonight, I'm distracted. Penny has been weighing on my mind, bothering me all evening. Her vulnerability, with Igor running this new sex trade. And all the things she said to me today.

Some stupid fucking part of me wants to know her better. Not just to fuck her, not just to suck those beautiful fucking nipples until she begs for my cock, but to treat her real nice and find out what kind of girl she really is.

But the honest truth is, the idea absolutely fucking terrifies me. When you let people get too close, things get… messy. And complicated. I don't like making life complicated. Blood, sweat, cash, and cum, those are the currencies I deal in now. Like a machine. Life is simpler this way. No need to throw a monkey wrench into things.

Better to let her live her life, to keep her away from atrocities I commit. She can be the object of my jerk-off fantasies, and that way, we won't have to do the dangerous and fatal dance that I know would inevitably happen if we ever spent more than ten minutes in private together.

I just have to keep an eye on her, and if Igor sets his sights on her, then I'll figure out what the fuck to do.

Tonight, my target has a thirty-five thousand dollar bounty on his head. A Ukrainian who's stepping on the Bratva's toes, trying to set up a prostitution ring in West Ark.

The Bratva doesn't tolerate competition. West Ark is our town. It's not an open marketplace of competition and ideas. And when someone forgets that, we are more than happy to remind them.

It's past midnight, and my target has just stepped out of an office building downtown. My intelligence says he's going to walk to a parking garage four blocks down the street, get into a black Escalade SUV, and drive out of West Ark and back into New York City for the night.

But he's not going to make it out of the parking garage.

I follow him a block and a half behind, pursuing him quietly in the night. I'm wearing a black trench coat to stay dry in this miserable rain we've been having. My face is shrouded underneath a Russian military hat. And beneath my coat, my pistol rests against my hip, the silencer already screwed on.

I've always followed the money, and my conscience has never gotten in the way of that. Whether it's weapons smuggling, carrying out a hit, or extortion, there's always a good reason for it to happen. Nobody's hands are clean in this fucked-up world. And if a bad guy gets what he deserves, so what?

This human trafficking shit, though, it's wrong. And it's eating away at me, a constant distraction.

Across the street, my target walks into the parking garage. From a distance, I see him fumble with his wallet, probably searching for his parking voucher. There's no one in the security booth, and the streets are quiet. It's time to make my move.

Quietly, I cross the street, increasing my pace. I slip my right hand under my jacket, and feel the comforting custom ivory grip of my gun. Its cool, smooth surface helps bring me back to reality, and get my mind off of Penny, if only for a brief moment.

As I enter the parking garage, I see my target enter an elevator, the door closing behind him. If my intelligence is correct, he always parks on the top level.

I hustle up a concrete stairwell, beating the elevator to the top. Swiftly, I move across the gray concrete underfoot, until I'm standing right outside the elevator door. The indicator light shows the elevator at the floor beneath me…

...and then it dings cheerfully as I withdraw my gun from its holster. I train it on the metal door in front of me as the door slides open.

My target glances up from the cell phone he carries in his hand, and a look of sheer terror overtakes his face.

"Good night, Mr. Ovechenko," I say. My silenced pistol makes two soft cracks, and he crumples to the ground, a spatter of bright red blood coating the elevator wall behind him.

The elevator door closes automatically. I re-holster my gun, turn, and walk away.

I take the stairs.

* * *

T
here's
a White Bear meeting the next night. The boys all gather around the table as usual, waiting for
pakhan
Petrov to show up and start the meeting. Everyone except Igor, that is—which I don't like at all. An image flashes through my mind of Igor abducting Penny on her way home from
Fascinations
. The thought enrages me.

Yeah, I can admit it to myself, I'm worried about that girl. I
know
it's only a matter of time before that fuck Igor gets her in his sights. Lately I've been watching him as much as I've been watching the club. And that's why I didn't react fast enough to stop the stabbing. I'm thinking too much about Penny, the tormented girl who's too good for the lowlifes who surround her. She's got a kindred spirit. She should be far away from me, Igor, and the rest of them. Helping sick people in the hospital who deserve her attention, making something real out of her life.

It's not like me to worry about a piece of pussy. Pussy is disposable.

But there's something about Penny that's very much not disposable. Something that needs my protection.

"Heard you really fucked up Ovechenko," says Luka with a grin, popping a dumpling in his mouth. "HazMat was scrubbing that elevator all morning after a little old lady found him in there."

I smile grimly at the thought of his corpse rotting, the hot morning sun pounding down on the metal elevator. That's what happens to enemies of the Bratva.

To enemies of Vladimir Vladimirovich Ivanov. This kind of shit is how I earned my nickname. Havok.

Luka, Valentin, and I bullshit for a few more minutes until Petrov finally shows up.

"Hey, boss," says Valentin. "You hear what Havok did to Ovechenko?"

Petrov smiles. "Another job well done by our man Havok."

He sets his briefcase on the table, snaps it open, and pulls out a manila folder. "Havok, glad I rely on you, soldier. Because you have new mission."

"I'm on it," I say.

He opens the manila folder, pulls out a stack of paper, and slaps it down on the table in front of me.

"First girl job. Be easy."

On top of the stack of papers is a photograph of a woman on a stage.

It's Penny.

My mission is to kidnap Penny.

T
he next day
, I'm working the afternoon shift. Mackenzie corners me in the dressing room five minutes before my shift. "Here," she says, opening the utility closet and pulling me inside. It's cramped, musty, and stale in here.

"What's up, Kenzie?" I ask as she pulls the door closed. A mop handle jabs into my back, and I twist uncomfortably, trying to shove it aside.

"Remember what I said about Marcy and Jen?"

"Yeah."

"It's getting worse."

I furrow my brow. I don't have time for this right now.

"Those two new hires from last month—Ruby and Mandy—same story."

Okay. Well, maybe that is a bit weird. Now that I think about it, the turnover
has
been really high lately.

"You're telling me you can't find any trace of them?" I say.

"None. No answer to texts or calls. All moved without warning. Landlords have no clue."

My heart beats faster, and acid burns in my stomach. For some reason, this is actually giving me really bad anxiety now. I need to stop by my locker and grab some pills to calm myself down.

I want to believe that Mackenzie's just being Mackenzie, but this is getting a little too strange to be a coincidence.

I glance down at my cell phone, toggling the screen on. "Shit. I'm on in one. I'll find you on my break."

Mackenzie nods at me, worry in her eyes.

* * *

W
hen I come
out on stage, I see the one thing I always hope not to see. Brock's paying me a visit at work.

As if that's not complicated enough, Havok is working security tonight. It's going to be a mess of a night if they recognize each other.

"Hey babe," Brock calls out from the audience. I can practically smell the booze on his breath from here, and I have no idea how he got into the club like this.

I give him a small, reluctant wave as I swing my weight around the pole on stage. I'm naked from the waist up, and my nipples are pebbled against the cool, dry club air. Right now I wish I could just dance for Havok and tune everything else out.

Brock knows I don't want him coming here when I'm working. But of course he doesn't respect that. It's just another way for him to lord power over me, because when I'm working, I can't say no.

Yeah, I could tell Igor he's bothering me and have him kicked out, but the consequences at home wouldn't be worth it.

"Get down here and gimme some love," he says. The club is so empty that I don't have an excuse not to. It's just him and one other customer, who's having drinks with a girl at the bar.

"Pull your chair up here," I say. He scoots up to the edge of the stage. I drop down to my hands and knees, crawling toward the edge.

"Great tits, babe," he whispers, slurring his words. He tries to put his face in my hair, to get close to me, but I pull away. To anyone else in the club, it must look like I'm handling an unruly customer. But the truth is, he truly repulses me.

"Be nice," I say, trying to scold him gently. With Brock, it's a constant battle to walk the line, to stand up for myself without pissing him off too much.

"Don't you fuckin' sass me," he growls in a low tone. Looks like I failed anyway. The wretched smell of booze billows around my nostrils. He reaches into his pocket, digs around, and withdraws a handful of one-dollar bills. "Be a good girl and get on my lap."

My face reddens in humiliation, and I suddenly feel sorry for myself. Those bills are from my last shift. He's paying me for a lap dance I don't want to give him, using my own money.

For a split second, I think of leaping off the stage and going to Igor. But I can't. That would be too stupid. Best to just get this over with.

I climb onto his chair and grind on his lap, focusing on the music. Over Brock's shoulder, I see Havok. He's wearing a dark blue button-down shirt tucked into well-fitting slacks. He's so handsome tonight. And he's watching us intently.

"Hey," Brock hisses into my ear, "I got somethin' special for you tonight."

I don't reply. I don't want to know what it is.

"I'm gonna give it to you in the ass. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," I reply flatly.
Not with you
, I think to myself.

As I dance on Brock's lap with my eyes closed, I feel his hands wander over my thighs, up my sides, and onto my breasts. My skin crawls. I open my eyes, and right as I'm about to tell him off, Havok storms toward us.

I
'm
on fucking edge during my next shift. This assignment is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because it's me who got the assignment to kidnap Penny. That means I control what happens to her.

But it's also a curse. Because it forces me to make a call, and make it fast. Either I betray this beautiful, innocent girl and sell her into a lifetime of suffering, or I betray the Bratva. And that's more deadly than a bullet to the heart.

I can't betray her. I just can't. So I need a plan, and it needs to be good, and it needs to come together fast. Petrov is expecting delivery within 48 hours.

So the last thing I fucking need is when Penny's fat, piece-of-shit boyfriend waltzes into the club. I try to control myself, but when Penny's set starts and she comes out on stage dressed in a sexy-as-fuck red lace piece, I can barely contain my rage. Being in the same room as the piece of shit who's putting his dick inside her every night, I just can't fucking handle it.

My hands ball up into fists, and my teeth grind together like gravel.

When the first song hits its chorus, she slides her shoulder straps off and pulls the fabric below the bust of her breasts. I swear she's staring right past her boyfriend, looking me in the eye.

But then the son of a bitch catcalls her, and waves her down for a dance. And when I finally catch him groping her breasts, that's all I need. The club maintains a strict no-touching policy and grants no exceptions for boyfriends. Under normal circumstances I'd give a warning first, but not this time. I've got the discretion to do what the fuck I want, and what I want is to kick this asshole out.

So I do, and it all happens in a blur.

Penny stands aside and watches from a distance as I push her boyfriend toward the rear exit behind the stage. The other dancer in the room side-eyes us as I force the cocksucker toward the door. He resists, so I give him a hard shove against the crashbar latch, opening the door with his body. The paint is nearly all scraped off and the door is dented all over, battle damage from thousands of customers being pushed out into the alley over the decades. This shithead is just the latest in a long line of evictees.

We emerge into the afternoon sunlight in the alley. I twist my body and kick the door closed, locking it shut. There's no handle on the outside. This fucker won't be going back in.

"Walk away, fuckface," I tell him. But he's too stupid to listen. Instead, he steps closer to me, trying to intimidate me.

"I remember you, asshole," he says.

"I remember you, too," I say. "You beat up on girls."

"So maybe I'll beat up on you," he says, cocking his head and stepping even closer. Our noses are inches apart.

I shrug. "Fucking try."

He raises his arm to swing, telegraphing the punch from miles away, the sign of a man who's got no clue how to fight.

I don't even bother blocking the punch. I just step back with one foot, bring my head and torso back, and then slam my head into his face with a brutal headbutt.

There's a savage cracking noise, and I immediately know I broke his nose. But then he stumbles backwards, his eyes rolling back into his head.

He falls, crashing down hard, and the back of his skull bounces off the lid of a metal trashcan behind him. Blood pours out of his nose, forming a crimson pool on the hot asphalt beside him. His wrists and arms rotate inward, like he's having a seizure.

I'm no doctor, but I've been around the block long enough to know what that means.

Severe brain damage.

A few seconds later, he stops moving and goes limp.

Behind me, the door swings open with a thud. I turn around, and it's Penny, topless in red lace panties. My dick's hard in my pants, and I don't quite know whether it's because of her or the thrill of the kill.

She looks at the dead scumbag on the ground, then back at me, and then she screams.