Twilight Sins: Chapter 2

I hate this fucking restaurant.

I got a hideous stomach churning feeling when I first walked through the door an hour ago. Three vodkas later, it hasn’t gotten any better.

I hate it mostly because it’s so familiar. I know it like the back of my hand, like the taste of my own tongue. I practically grew up in here. From the time my legs were too short to even reach the ground when I was seated, my family has come here for moments big and small.

When my little brother Nikandr took his first steps, we were here.

The last time I saw my sister Mariya in person, we were here.

On the day those motherfucking Gustev Bratva mudaks stole my father’s life from me, we were here.

But just like the vodkas, the passage of time has done nothing to make it easier to step back through those doors. If anything, it just makes it worse. It makes me remember all the shit I’ve tried so hard to forget.

The server comes flitting back over. She must be new, because I don’t recognize her face, though it’s been five years since Otets died and I was last here, so I suppose some turnover is natural.

Her smile is bright and unconcerned, which is another reason I know she must be new. If she had any idea who I am, what I do, what I’ve done, she wouldn’t be smiling.

She’d be running for the goddamn hills.

“Can I get you anything else? A refill? A menu? You look lonely.”

I clench my jaw. Yeah, definitely new. Someone seasoned would know better than to try prying into my personal life. “No, thank you.”

Let no one say I’m not a gentleman.

She frowns and opens her mouth to reply, then thinks better of it and scuttles off. I have to remind myself it’s not her fault that she’s confused. I’ve spent my whole life learning to keep my face wiped clean of emotion. It all gets locked into a tiny black box deep in my chest and that’s where it stays.

Grief, rage, lust—it all looks the same on the face of Yakov Kulikov, pakhan of the Kulikov Bratva.

That’s how it’s always been.

That’s how it has to be.

I glance at my reflection in the face of my watch. More and more, it strikes me how much I look like my father. I have my mother’s brows, thick and dark, but it’s my father’s strong chin and my father’s green eyes looking back at me.

I feel the prickle of someone’s attention. That’s another thing I’ve spent years honing. In my line of work, if you don’t notice eyes on you, then people get too close. And when people get too close, bad things happen.

Knives between your ribs. Bullets in the back of your head before you even realize that your time has come.

I wait a beat, then shoot my gaze up to the far window. It’s pure instinct that makes me look there. But, like always, pure instinct pays off.

I see a girl cowering against the wall on the other side of the window. No, not a girl—a woman? A young lady? Fuck if I know what to call them these days. I keep my interactions with the opposite sex to an absolute minimum. When I have needs, I call a professional who knows how to be discreet and get the job done with no fuss. They come, I come, they leave. End of business transaction.

Whatever you call her, she looks like I just struck her with a bolt of lightning when our eyes lock. Her lips part ever so slightly. Even from here, I can tell that they’re juicy and full. And that expression is the kind of innocent confusion that is only ever found on the faces of people who haven’t seen the ugly side of this world.

Not like I have, at least.

One more beat passes before the woman leaps back out of my line of sight. The last thing I see is the swish of her blond hair before she disappears.

I shrug and go back to running my finger around the rim of my glass of vodka. Nikandr ought to be here soon. Leave it to him to run late; my little brother thinks appointment times are a funny little joke that people play on one another, no matter how many times I slap him upside the head to suggest otherwise.

I frown when I catch sight of a tiny smear of blood on the back of my knuckle. I pick up my napkin, dip it in the vodka, and wipe it away. The alcohol on my split skin stings for a moment before it passes. I flex and unflex my fist to make sure I didn’t break anything when I cracked that spindly little biker across the face.

My mind flashes back to an hour ago. His thin lips had wobbled, slicked with his own blood, as he looked up at me from where he fell. “Are you going to k-k-kill me?”

“No. Not if you tell me what I want to know.”

He fessed up quickly after that. When your reputation precedes you, like mine does, it’s easy to uncover the information you need. People crack so easily. They bruise and bleed and then boom, they are putty in your hands.

In the case of the unfortunate motorcycle club member, I needed to know the name and location of a reclusive manufacturer of untraceable guns. He couldn’t give me the exact spot, but he gave up the name of someone who would know.

That’s progress.

For five years, I’ve been chewing my way up the food chain in search of this elusive son of a bitch. Because when I find him and claim his business as my own, I’ll cut off Akim Gustev’s lifeblood.

And then I’ll get to watch in delight as the man who killed my father slowly chokes and dies.

A presence before me draws my attention away from my thoughts. “It’s about fucking time you showed up, Nik⁠—”

But it’s not Nikandr. It’s not him at all.

It’s the girl from the window.

She looks frailer under the lights than she did out in the darkness. Her skin is tan and smooth, her lips full, her eyes bright. As I watch, she strokes a fallen lock of hair back behind her ear.

That’s just the obvious stuff. I note more about her as she fidgets in place. The purse slung over her shoulder is a fake Louis Vuitton—a nice fake, but a fake nonetheless—which makes me think she makes decent money but not amazing. Something white-collar, judging by her uncalloused fingertips. The toned slope of her triceps looks like it belongs on a yoga fanatic. Or a dancer, maybe. Either one works for my sudden mental image of putting her legs over her head and feasting on her pussy until she falls apart for me.

Most noteworthy is that her hands are trembling, which obviously suggests one thing above all else: that she’s absolutely fucking terrified.

“Can I help you?” I drawl.

She chews the inside of her cheek so hard that, a moment later, she winces. One of those trembling fingers goes in her mouth—fucking hell, that mouth—and comes away dabbed with a red smear of blood on the tip. “Sorry,” she mumbles. “I’m nervous.”

I arch a brow and wait for her to explain what the hell that has to do with me.

“I’m just—I don’t do this kind of thing often. I mean, I do, but it’s not me; it’s my best friend Kay—I mean—ugh. I’m doing so bad already and I haven’t even sat down yet.”

Yet. That’s an interesting word. She seems to think I’ll be inviting her to join me. I open my mouth to tell her to fuck off—I’m not in the mood for soothing the worries of anxious women, no matter how adorable or flexible they may be—but what comes out instead takes me by surprise.

“Don’t do what kind of thing often?”

Her throat bobs as she swallows. She gestures back and forth between us. “This. Dates. Blind dates, rather. It’s—the whole thing is just really awkward for me. As I’m sure you can tell. But I’m in a What the hell kind of mood, so even though I’m absolutely gonna give Kayla another earful when I get home, I’m just… winging it, I guess. I’m Luna, by the way. I should’ve said that first.”

A blind date. I understand now: she thinks I’m the person she’s here to see. The thought is hilarious in its own right. Men like me don’t do “blind dates.” We don’t do “dates” at all. We see, we crave, we conquer.

But this one… Something about her suggests that she’s never come within a country fucking mile of a man like me. Something about her suggests she wouldn’t know what the hell to do with me now that she’s here.

And something in me really, really likes the idea of showing her just how far she can bend before she breaks.

Maybe, unlike the vodka, it’ll take my mind off the memories.

So I stand and hold out my hand for her to shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Luna. Take a seat.”