Page 7 of Claimed Bratva Virgin

Our eyes met, and he didn’t even flinch; he just smiled and tipped his blue solo cup toward me.

Sandy blond hair, long, athletically carved legs, and a soft jawline. He wasn’t close enough to tell the color of his eyes, but I had no doubt that they were pretty.

The stranger was cute, in a rich boy-playboy way. But a man like him wasn’t cut from the same cloth as me.

If he got any closer, I could bet he had clean, trimmed fingernails, good designer shoes, and straight white teeth that, without a doubt, had never been knocked out before.

It was simple. Pretty Boy over there was a descendant of a soft and easy heritage, while people like me, who had illegal early childhood training in getting clear headshots, were not advised to mingle.

The reason was simple: Where I came from, Pretty Boy and his likes almost never survived.

Before he started trudging through the sand toward me, I turned away—

And accidentally bumped into someone else.

A girl, this time around.

We stood close enough to one of the lit torches for me to see her properly, and it was her eyes I saw first: crystal green, the color of priceless emeralds. Then, I noticed her raven black waist-length hair, as dark as night. Her skin was pale, a stark contrast beside the flickering orange burn of flames. She looked simple and ready to enjoy the night in a cropped brown halter top on a vibrant pair of dad shorts and cross-woven beach sandals. When she moved the red solo cup in her hands, I caught the cursivestyle intricately inked across the insides of her wrist but couldn’t make out the words.

And when she smiled at me, from ear to ear, she reminded me ofme.

That dangerous and audacious spark in her eyes, the subtle darkness that swirled behind them, her aura that screamed everything a middle finger in the air would—I saw all of it.Feltall of it.

She took a step back, scanned me from head to toe, and went back again to my face.

“What do you know? A year later, we meet again, and I’m in the queue for your autograph.”

“I don’t see any queue behind you, or in front.”

A brief pause.

Then, we both busted out laughing.

Giselle Rae. We’d met at an auction a year ago, and the connection between us was instant. She shared mutual feelings toward the auction. We both thought it was boring and overhyped. Then, a conversation about a random topic started, and before long, I started talking about cars.

I didn’t see her anywhere else again after that night, but Giselle was one person I’d encountered that I was sure I would never forget.

“When I spotted you from the stand, I couldn’t believe it. Girl, you were on fire. God, I wish I was as cool as you.”

“Seems like you’re even cooler.”

She snorted. “Yeah, sure. Next thing, you’ll say I’m Charlize Theron.” Her lips curled to the side in a lopsided grin when she took her cup to her mouth. “All that talk about cars and making a name in racing. You finally made it, huh?”

I shifted my weight from one bare foot to the other, letting the weight of her words sink in. It’s what I’d been doing for the past half an hour—musing on how fast my dreams were coming true. The sudden tilt of her brow and knowing glint in her eyes made her know she was right.

I know she’s right.

I finally made it.

I took a sip from my glass. The champagne in it was almost gone. Time had been far spent. “I guess you could say that. I’m still making it, though. For me, today was just a start.”

Her chuckle was a horse, a deep rumble from her throat, and a hearty “Congratulations, Leo” flowed from her lips.

“I’m actually happy for you—and me, of course, because I get to benefit. It’ll probably be less than twenty-four hours of fame. We should take a picture, so I’ll post on Snapchat that I have a friend who’s one hundred thousand dollars richer. The world needs to know.”

I laughed as loud as the champagne in my mouth would let me, and she moved to stand beside me with her smartphone raised for a friend selfie. The front camera focused on our faces, and I was barely halfway through a comment about the possibility of her post putting a moving target on her back when someone else appeared in our shot.

“You got lucky today, Colombo.”

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