Page 67 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

He strides back down the hallway I was led through earlier. Men dressed in black with earpieces stand at attention outside various doorways. They don’t say anything as Ilyasov walks out the door and back into the main area of the noisy club.

The music pulses louder than ever, sending vibrations through the floor and into my feet. People grind in a mass of exposed flesh on the dance floor. Women gyrate on upraised pedestals, nearly naked.

It’s an orgy of sin.

And Ilyasov Romanoff is the one who makes it all happen.

Ilyasov waves to a waitress and, without coming close, she nods before rushing off towards the bar. A moment later, she meets us at a large corner booth with a tray of drinks.

“Good to see you, sir,” she says in an indecipherable accent. Her legs are exposed in tiny black shorts with fish net stockings beneath them. Glitter is painted across her flat abs. As she places the drinks on the table, she bends over, giving us both an intentionally clear shot down her shirt at the surgeon-enhanced tits within.

Ilyasov waves the girl away and then turns to me. “These girls work for me,” he explains. “Everyone here works for me. This is my club.”

“Nice place.”

It’s exactly the kind of place Ilyasov would enjoy. Loud, flashy, in your face. Subtlety has never been his flavor.

“You like this? You should see the private rooms. We rent them out by the hour, but I’ll give you one for free if you’d like. The girls are on the house, of course. Pick any two you like. They’ll show you how to lighten up, take some stress off your shoulders.”

He lifts his arm and snaps his fingers. Instantly, another girl appears. This one has bright pink lips and breasts that have been squeezed and lifted into a tiny black corset top.

She gives us each a sultry smile. “Yes?”

Ilyasov tips his head to me. “Show my brother a good time.”

Without hesitation, the girl walks over to me, grabs the booth on either side of my head, and pulls herself up until she’s straddling me. Her eyes lock on mine and she rolls her hips over me with obvious skill.

From afar, she looked like a mirage. Pure sex. Pure temptation.

But up close, the illusion cracks. She smells like leather and hairspray. I can see the cakey layers of makeup across her skin. Sweat beads on her forehead and drips down her neck. Mottled bruises and hickeys range all over her body. Perhaps even a few teeth marks—from her previous patrons this evening, no doubt.

Like Ilyasov said, this woman works for him. She does what she’s told to do for the men who pay her boss the right price.

I’ve never wanted anyone less.

Inexplicably, Arya’s face appears in my mind.

I picture her lying back on the table at the vet clinic, her eyes screwed shut in pleasure, her mouth wrapped around a moan as I fill her with a savage thrust.

Thatwas authentic.

Thatwas real.

This bullshit? It’s all show with no substance beneath. The façade of a crumbling building with nothing within. Pixie dust on a corpse.

I push the woman roughly off my lap and away from me. She doesn’t look offended or surprised—she looks frightened.

But not frightened of me. She casts nervous eyes over at Ilyasov, wondering what he’ll do now that she failed.

“I’m not in the mood,” I tell my brother. “Tell her she can go.”

Ilyasov sends the girl away as quickly as she appeared. She doesn’t hesitate—just scurries away from the booth. “It’s rude to refuse your host’s gift, you know,” he remarks to me.

“I think an exception can be made when that gift is a person.”

He rolls his eyes. “How could I have forgotten? You don’t use people. My morally upstanding brother.”

“I do use people. We all use people. It’s how the world turns.”

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