Page 3 of Imperfect Desires

Viktor’s gaze sharpens. "Look to your own men for answers. Juan pulled this off. Simple intel on the street can confirm it. Your men set this young man up. I think he stuck his dick in the wrong girl."

“What are you talking about?”

“Juan has his eyes on a girl, but she wanted our young man here, so Juan thought to set him up for a painful death.”

What the hell? This is about Anna? A girl that practically begged me to screw her?

Mendes’s gaze darkens.

"And why the fuck should I let him walk?" Mendes asks.

Viktor’s mouth curves faintly. "Because I have been watching him. I recognize talent when I see it. And his talents are wasted on you."

My heart skips a beat at his words.

I may fucking yet live.

Mendes’s jaw clenches. But he doesn’t argue. He knows exactly who Dillion is and what he is capable of doing. With all my years on the street, I have only heard his name whispered, but I’m yet to climb high enough to deal directly with him. He is a ruthless enforcer for the Colombians.

Mendes doesn’t have enough muscle to challenge him.

"Thirty grand," Mendes says coldly. "That’s the price."

Viktor slides a hand into his jacket and pulls out a thick stack of cash. He tosses it onto the floor.

"Consider it a gift," Viktor says.

Mendes’s gaze flicks toward his men. "Cut him loose."

The ropes at my wrists loosen. My arms drop limply to my sides.

Dillion steps toward me and crouches down. His intense blue eyes meet mine.

"You work for me now," he says quietly in Russian. I don’t trust him. But I know better than to turn down a man like him.

He stretches out his left hand, and my hand closes around his. His grip is strong and steady as he pulls me to my feet. My legs buckle, but his hand doesn’t let go.

After spending my first five years working for him, he had grown to trust me enough to reveal his true identity: he is not just any Russian mobster; he is Bratva royalty, set to lead after his father. And by the time I’m thirty, I have become not just Viktor Makarov’s enforcer, but his friend.

And I owe him my life.

2

Alina

Tomorrow, I will turn eighteen and will be considered a legal adult. A woman. But I don’t feel like one. I don’t feel ready. I don’t feel any different.

I stand in front of the ornate mirror in my bedroom, running my fingers along the fine lace of my designer dress. The delicate fabric feels thin beneath my fingertips, almost fragile. The dress is pale ivory, stitched with delicate threads of silver. It fits me perfectly—custom-made, of course. Nothing in my life is imperfect.

My long black hair spills down my back in soft waves. My electric blue eyes stare back at me from the mirror, calm and steady. Myreflection is measured, composed. Exactly the way it’s supposed to be.

My hand lifts, and I tap the mirror lightly with the tip of my finger. A soft click sounds as my nail meets the glass. The rustle of the dress and the steady tick of the clock above the fireplace fill the quiet.

Eighteen.

I will be an adult. But I don’t feel like it; what does that even mean? I feel exactly the same as I did yesterday. The same as I did a year ago. A little taller, a little sharper maybe—but still the same girl underneath. The same girl who had spent years listening to the whispered conversations in the hallways, the thinly veiled threats exchanged at the dinner table. The same girl who grew up knowing that my future wasn’t truly mine—that it belonged to the Bratva.

A woman’s place in this world, into which I was born, is never her own. My mother’s fate is proof of that. She was married off to my father to secure an alliance. She played the part of the dutiful wife—the perfect Russian queen—until the day she died. I’ve always wondered if she was happy. If she was scared. If she regretted the choices that were made for her.

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