The Fixer (Chicago Bratva 2)

Sasha loves it. She climbs on and pulls her friends up. Twirling and bouncing with pleasure. She looks down at me with the heat of alcohol-induced lust and exhibitionism in her eyes. “Are you coming up?” she calls down over the music.

I shake my head. “I’m standing guard.”

Her friends love that. They whoop and ooh. I didn’t say it for effect, though. I am literally standing guard. From where I dance, I get flashes of panty beneath their short skirts, and any guy who takes that as a green light to approach is going to catch my knuckles in his gut.

There’s an art to knowing when to leave a party when alcohol is involved. You want to leave just past its peak, while everything is still perfect and fun, but you’re not too inebriated.

I watch until their exuberance starts to wilt, and then I swoop them down off the platform and outside to get some fresh air. Once they cool off, I suggest it’s time to go.

Sasha collects her big purse from the coat check, and I put her friends in the first cab waiting in front of the elite club. I walk around to the driver’s window and hand him a hundred dollar bill. “This is for their ride. If they don’t get home safely, I will hunt you down and kill you.”

Sasha smacks my arm as the cab driver bobs his head and accepts the cash.

“You can’t say that.”

“I can,” I counter. “I did.” I claim a second cab for us.

Sasha shakes her head. She’s somewhere between tipsy and sloshed, so all her movements are exaggerated and slow. “Because you’re a man you can throw your weight around like that. There’s no way I could ever r-reenact that scene and have the cabbie take me seriously.” I catch her elbow as she wobbles on the pavement, then hand her into the back of the cab and follow her in.

“Chateau Marmont,” I tell the driver.

Sasha’s still chewing on the injustice. “I don’t think I could even get that cocktail waitress to give me decent service. And it’s my money you’re throwing around.”

“It was my own,” I correct her.

“Either way, you still have all the power. I have none.”

Getting into a philosophical discussion with her in this state is probably a bad idea, but I do, anyway. She’s right—playing alpha male is easy when you are one, but she sees herself as far more weak than she is. “Power isn’t just something divvied out by gender. And it’s definitely not something that’s bestowed on you by others. It’s a choice you make for yourself. Either you react to everyone else, or you claim your own power.”

“Right. How do you think I should’ve taken my own power when my dad called me in to tell me to marry you or lose my inheritance? Hmm? Should I have told him to go fuck himself? Is that what you would’ve done?”

She has a point.

But so do I.

“No, Sasha. But you’re married to me now, and you have a choice. You can keep pushing and prodding me—running away and making me chase—to try to get the power from me. Or you can decide you’re my equal and make your demands. Tell me what you need from me to make this work.”

She blinks at me, wide-eyed, silent for a moment. Then she says, “But I don’t want it to work.”

Her words hit me like a cement block to my head.

“What’s the alternative, caxapok? We divorce, and the money goes to Vladimir? Or we separate, and one of your father’s men either kidnaps or kills you for your fortune?”

“I did make my demands.” She smacks my arm with the back of her hand. “I asked you to let me stay in Moscow. And how did that go over for me? Hm? Oh yeah, I remember, it ended with you carrying me out to the car like a sack of potatoes!”

My lips twitch at the memory and at her feistiness. “My ability to keep you alive is possibly the sole reason your father picked me. Leaving you in Moscow wouldn’t accomplish that.”

“Okay, so I demanded my own bedroom. What did that get me?”

The taxi pulls up in front of our hotel. I pay him, and he opens Sasha’s door for her. I walk around to take her hand.

“I didn’t trust you not to run away. And with good reason, apparently.”

“Are you really just talking about sex here when you tell me to demand what I need?” Sasha asks as we step into the lobby.

I put my finger over her lips with a smile because she’s too loud, and she giggles.

“Is that it?” she asks again as I guide her down the hallway. “You want me to demand sex? My friends think I should.”

I open our room, and she looks around, just now noticing her surroundings. “Where are we?”