Page 45 of Immaculate Corruption (Romanoff Bratva)

“I’m not abandoning my brother. You are here in my home as my guest. We are closer than ever, brother. I’m abandoning a failed business deal. It is nothing personal. As always, your emotions are getting the best of you.”

“How is this not personal?” Dima snaps. “You are threatening my entire life’s work. Our family’s legacy. And for what? A sick taste of long-desired vengeance? An ‘I told you so’?You’re better than this, Ilyasov.”

“It appears I’m not.”

Even sitting all the way across the room, the tension is thick. Vera, however, breezes back into the room as if it’s two brothers bickering, rather than two mob bosses on the brink of ripping each other’s throats out. “Come on, boys. Let’s not fight already. We’ve only been together an hour.”

“Dima and I haven’t fought in ten years,zolotse,” Ilyasov croons. “Just discussing.”

“Well, let’s discuss something lighter then. How about over dinner? I’m craving seafood. What if we get a family-size order of the lobster alfredo from that place you like?”

“Fabulous idea.”

* * *

Half an hour later, we’re walking into the formal dining room. The walls painted a dark green with gold-plated orbs hanging above the long table.

I manage to hold Dima back for a moment. “Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” he says, looking furious. “We’ll talk tonight.”

16

Arya

Vera is exhausted not long after dinner. She and Ilyasov retire to their room, which is on the top floor of the house, leaving the rest of the mansion to Dima and myself.

“Make yourself at home. Explore, eat, be merry,” Vera says, winking suggestively as she heads up the stairs. “We sleep with white noise, so you won’t bother us, no matter what you choose to do!”

When they leave, I turn to Dima. “Vera is a character.”

“She’s one of a kind,” Dima agrees. “That’s why Ilyasov picked her. That, and she refused to marry him at first. He has always wanted what he can’t have.”

We wander into the guest room. It’s really more of a suite, complete with a sitting room and luxurious master bath. The mahogany bed is huge and loaded down with pillows and blankets. Through a door to the left is a massive bathroom with a double standing shower, a jacuzzi tub, and double sinks.

After the accommodations I’ve grown used to the last few weeks, I’m in heaven. I flop onto the bed.

“My God, I could die on this mattress. It is so soft.”

“Guess I’m sleeping on the floor then.”

“You don’t like soft mattresses?”

“Soft things make the men who use them soft.”

I wrinkle my nose. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Do you dry off after a shower with a brick?”

I realize all at once I’ve never seen his home. Not his real one, anyway.

“I forgot the safe house isn’t where you usually live.”

“My normal place is bigger than this,” he says, looking around. “And less… traditional.”

“What’s wrong with traditional?”

In response, Dima picks up a corner of the floral comforter and holds it out like it’s disgusting, as if that explains it all.

I laugh. “Please don’t tell me your house is all black and white and straight lines.”

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