Dirty Damage: Chapter 18

The marble conference table stretches between us like a funeral slab, and my mother sits at the other end, a Chanel-clad vulture waiting to pick apart whatever dares land in front of her.

Today, it’s my future on the menu.

I turn to Candace. The family publicist’s fingers hover over her MacBook, ready to spin whatever I feed her into a digestible headline for the masses.

“We’re here today to talk about my engagement.”

Her dull green eyes light up at my words like she just won the PR lottery. Engagements, weddings, babies—it’s what publicists live for.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

My mother’s blood-red nails drum against the marble, each click a little death knell for my patience. Her eyebrows—pencil-thin thanks to her surgeon’s artistic vision—arch skyward.

“This is serious enough to be made public?”

“Candace wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t,” I drawl.

Candace attacks her keyboard with an enthusiasm I wish was catching. But this is Oksana Pavlova I’m dealing with.

She adjusts her cream silk blouse, settles a cigarette between her lips, and strikes the lighter my father gave her on their twentieth anniversary.

The flame flickers to life and catches the cigarette.

Smoking isn’t allowed in Pavlov Industries, but the rules don’t apply if your name is on the building.

“What kind of train wreck have you shackled yourself to, son?”

Candace freezes. You’d think she’d be used to my mother’s brand of brutal honesty by now.

“Is that all the confidence you have in my choice?” I ask.

“Call it a mother’s instinct.” She takes a drag, blowing a cloud of smoke around her head. “That and the fact that you didn’t bring her to this meeting. You’re afraid to show her to me. And apparently, you need to ‘manage’ the messaging before you roll this woman out to the public.”

“She’s not the latest yacht up for offer, Maman. She’s my future wife. The future mother of my children.”

She rolls her eyes. “And what else is she, Oleg? Who is this woman and what is wrong with her?”

Plenty, I’m sure. I just haven’t known Sutton long enough to see beyond the surface.

The sight of her in nothing but her underwear has fueled my sex drive for forty-eight straight hours, she can cook a mean bowl of pasta, and she’s sweet to my niece and nephew despite me foisting them upon her without asking.

But surely, under all of that, she’s riddled with faults.

I know of one issue, at least.

“Her name is Sutton Palmer. Until recently, she was an employee at Pavlov Industries Daycare.”

The cigarette freezes halfway to my mother’s lips. “She works for you?”

“Worked,” I correct. “Past tense. She doesn’t anymore.”

“Do I dare ask why?”

She stubs out her cigarette with enough force to crack the crystal ashtray, swiveling her chair to face me fully.

“She was involved in a… situation last week. It’s why she isn’t at this meeting today. She’s lying low.”

Candace has no doubt typed Sutton’s name into her search bar and is doing a good job of hiding her shock at what she’s found.

I know the first result that pops up. I’m responsible for a third of the clicks on those photos.

The same photos are inside the file I slide across the table to my mother.

“I’ll be marrying Sutton as soon as a doctor verifies pregnancy, but our engagement will be announced as soon as possible. That’s why Candace is here.”

Candace sinks into her shoulders like a turtle. No one wants to be caught in the crossfire when Oksana is in the fight.

My mother lays her red talons on the folder, dragging it closer to her. She opens it slowly, eyes scanning the first page and then the second.

She moves with ominously slow precision through the entire folder.

Then she slams it shut.

“You’ve lost your fucking mind.”

“Is that your blessing?” I sneer through a smile.

“Be serious, Oleg,” she barks. “You need a powerful woman by your side. You want me to support your bid to take over the company and the Bratva? Then find a suitable wife.”

“I already have.”

Her nostrils flare wide. “The woman you’re seen with matters, Oleg. Her reputation matters. She will be the wife of the pakhan and the mother of the future pakhan.”

“I’m aware.” The words fall from my lips like ice. “Appearances are everything—which is, again, why Candace is here.”

Our publicist peeks over her screen like a prairie dog checking for predators. A decade of handling Pavlov drama, and she still hasn’t developed immunity to the toxic waste dump that is my relationship with my mother.

“What’s real and true doesn’t matter,” I say matter-of-factly. “We manufacture the truth. We create the reality we want. Candace will do that for Sutton.”

My mother opens her mouth, but I silence her with a raised hand. “Sutton has baggage, but that can be spun to my advantage.”

Intrigue flickers across my mother’s stony face. “Explain.”

“She’s desperate and broke—she’ll toe whatever line I ask her to and that’s a hell of a lot more than you can say about any of the candidates you threw my way.”

With my mother, I’ve always been a salesman. She needs to be convinced, and like Candace, I’m good at twisting the truth to my benefit.

But doing it for Sutton feels different.

Wrong.

“Those ‘candidates’ had something to offer besides their bodies. They came from influential families who⁠—”

“Who had their own motives and agendas. I know Sutton’s motives. I can control her.”

Images of Sutton flash through my mind. One in particular: her with her delicate wrists cuffed to my body, coming apart on my fingers as she gazed up at me like there was nothing she wouldn’t let me do to her.

That is control.

That is surrender.

I shove it aside as fast as I can.

“At least the women I selected were educated, refined. You could be proud to have them on your arm. Instead, you’re going to have a stupid, useless bimbo raising your children.”

My jaw clenches hard enough to crack.

She’s never seen Sutton with children. My mother doesn’t know how Sutton fights back even when she’s cornered.

She can handle my world and my children; I have no doubt.

But I don’t owe my mother an explanation.

“A contract has already been drawn up. She’s already signed it. I don’t waste time on lawyers or—no offense, Candace—publicity agents, unless I’m serious about something. The decision has already been made, Maman. Time to get on board.”

She could pull her support for my security system.

She could back Uncle Boris and make my fight to the top harder than it needs to be—but cold as my mother is, she admires strength.

“It seems I have no choice.” She flips open the folder, splaying Sutton’s boudoir photoshoot across the marble table. “Is this really what we’re working with, Candace? What can be done about these?”

All nervousness gone now that she’s in business mode, Candace studies the pictures with the detached eye of someone who’s seen everything the internet has to offer. “My first impression is that she’s beautiful. And obviously photogenic.”

“So is every adolescent out there with a good camera and an airbrushing app on their phone,” Oksana mutters.

“True, but not all of them become overnight internet sensations based on a few sexy pictures. The fact that she was able to pull it off is telling. People are going to be interested in her. I can work with this.”

I resist the urge to be smug and gloat in my mother’s sour face, if only because she knows how to lose gracefully when she has to.

“Very well, then.” She flicks the folder closed. “Have a few mock-up engagement announcements sent to me by the afternoon.”

“Once they’ve passed your initial inspection, send them to me, Maman. I’ll make the final decision.” I push away from the table and stand. “I’ll leave you ladies to your task.”

My mother’s eyes—the same shade as mine—fixate on me. “Don’t forget about your task, son. Otherwise, all this will be for nothing.”

I wouldn’t exactly call the sight of Sutton in tiny red panties ‘nothing,’ but I nod anyway, the memory of those photos burning behind my eyes.

“I know what I’m supposed to do.”

The problem is doing it.