Cruel Paradise - A Mafia Romance

RUSLAN

"Nosebleeds?"

"Minor blip. Nothing to worry about. We had a few bleeders in every trial." My lead chemist drags his feet over to the pristine white lab table where sets of test tubes sit in neat arrays, each brimming with a white liquid. He hems and haws, flipping through his notebooks like the answers to my irritation will be found in there.

Fucking scientists. They're brilliant.

They're also a pain in my goddamn ass.

I clear my throat. "Sergey, humor me here. What is Venera?"

His hooded eyes blink in confusion. He knows I know the answer, because Venera is the billiondollar bet that will secure the future of the Oryolov Bratva; what he doesn't know is why I'm asking.

"It's, uh...it's an aphrodisiac with mildly hallucinogenic properties."

"Good job pretending I'm stupid. Keep it up. An aphrodisiac would be...?"

His blinks get faster and faster until I'm starting to worry he might malfunction. "I-it's an erotic ststimulant. Designed to induce st-strong s-sexual urges."

"Excellent. Now, do nosebleeds strike you as particularly erotic, Sergey?"

He glances at his three labcoat-wearing proteges. They're standing in a neat line, inadvertently mimicking the test tube samples of Venera.

"No, sir."

"'No' is correct," I snarl. "Nosebleeds are not erotic. Therefore, it's not a 'minor blip.' It's a fucking problem. What I want to know is, Is it fixable?"

He gulps loud enough for me to hear him over the dull thunder of the lab equipment churning all around us. "I will try, sir."

I fix him with the infamous Oryolov glare that makes grown men want to piss their pants when they try to meet it. "Don't try. Do it."

Sergey has a mind for science, but he doesn't see the bigger picture. That's also by design-because if he had any inkling of how much is riding on this drug launch, he'd curl up into the fetal position and never come out.

I've spread out billions of dollars in research and development, in bribes to cops and sign-on salaries to new drug dealers, in territory negotiations and raw material suppliers and this, that, and the other, all to pave the way for Venera to hit the streets and take over this city like a fucking storm.

Venera is my future.

Venera is my legacy.

Venera is how we win.

A grunt behind Sergey alerts me to the stick-thin lab tech waiting at attention just behind him. His eyes are watery and timid and his lab coat is stained at the hem.

The moment my gaze lands on him, Sergey waddles aside like a well-trained seal. He's seen enough of my temper to know it's best to stay out of reach.

I saunter closer to the man who cleared his throat. "And you are...?"

His eyes twitch. Left and right. Left and right. "Mattias," he says at last.

"Do you have something you want to say to me, Mattias?"

Now, his jaw twitches, too. "We need to focus on correcting all the side effects, sir. Not just the ones that will affect your bottom line."

I almost want to laugh. Not very many people have the balls to challenge me to my face.

In my peripheral vision, I catch my second-in-command, Kirill, straightening up. He senses danger. So do the other two lab aides. Like Sergey, they distance themselves from the upstart immediately.

"Seems like you disapprove of my decisions, Mattias."

He holds his soft chin up high. "Maybe I do."

My glare doesn't seem to have much of an effect on him, but the slow smile that curls over my mouth certainly does. Fear flits across his eyes and he takes a half-step back.

"I'm going to offer you one chance to step back in line."

His jaw clicks in place. "I-"

"Too slow."

I pull out a gun and shoot the mudak right between his squinty eyes.

Cue screams. Cue chaos. Cue bloodshed. All the usual music.

The other aides go scrambling in every direction, hurling themselves under the lab table and behind flimsy wire shelves. Sergey is the only one who remains standing, but judging from his sheet-white complexion, it's a shock reaction to the fact that one of his underlings is lying on the floor with a hole where his face once was.

When I turn to Sergey, he springs back, nearly upending the table with all the Venera samples. "SSir..."

"Calm the fuck down, everyone." Kirill's tone is equal parts impatience and amusement as he addresses the terrified room. "That smug motherfucker had a target on his forehead the moment he decided to sell sensitive intel to our competitors."

Sergei's eyes bug out. "Mattias did what?"

The lab techs have glommed onto the workbenches that hug the walls of the lab, chins wobbling like toddlers who've shit their pants.

Good. They'll work harder after this. Fear is an extremely effective motivator.

"Did any of you know about this?" I ask them.

I know they didn't. I've had full-scale background checks done on each of them. I know where their mothers live, where they hide their money, where their childhood pets are buried. I know things about them they've forgotten about themselves. Now that Mattias is dead, the whole crew is squeaky clean, but I need to make sure they stay that way. I can't afford another breach like this one.

"N-no...!"

"I swear, sir. I had no idea."

"We would never."

"Please..."

"Enough!" I barely raise my voice, but both of the stuttering scientists clamp their mouths shut. "Let this be a warning. Traitors will be shown no mercy. I will be judge, jury, and executioner and I'm not exactly impartial. Is that understood?"

I'm met with a desperate silence. Heads bob frantically. Satisfied, I snap my fingers and signal over two of my men. "Take out the trash. I'm sure Sergey doesn't appreciate us contaminating his floors with that traitor's blood."

Sergey looks as though the cleanliness of his floors is the very last thing on his mind. The color still hasn't returned to his face.

"The launch will take place soon. I need everything to go smoothly."

"Of c-course, sir."

"Bane Corp. exists to protect the movements of this Bratva. Without my fa�ade as a respectable CEO, I can't run my empire or protect the people under its wings. You understand that, don't you, Sergey?"

He dips his chin so low that he's in danger of snapping his neck. "Yes, sir."

"One mole is forgivable, but a second would raise questions about your competency to pick your own personnel."

"Pakhan, I swear-"

I hold up my hand to shut him down. "I'm not interested in excuses. I want fucking results. Now, get back to work and get this drug back on track. We're running up against the clock here."

Sergey nods once more, then disappears into the chemical storage room on the right. I chuckle-he'd rather be cooped up with cyanide than with me.

Good choice.

Kirill watches Sergey's clumsy lope until the poor bastard is gone. "Do you think he's up to the challenge?"

"He better be. I don't have the patience for any more delays."

"Patience has never been high on your list of virtues, brother."

Smirking, Kirill and I head out of the lab, shedding our protective lab coats along the way. More lab rats part like the Red Sea as we step aboveground, into the belly of the sprawling facility I purchased to birth this drug into the world. It cost me a pretty penny, but this investment is about to earn us a colossal return-if we can perfect Venera before its launch date a few weeks from now.

"I want eyes in that lab twenty-four-seven," I instruct Kirill. "I want every single chemist on this project to be monitored around the clock. Disloyalty won't be tolerated."

Kirill starts tapping at the screen on his phone. "Got it, boss. I'll get a team on them ASAP."

I frown when I notice the voicemail alert on my screen. It's a name that really pisses me off. What the fuck does she want at this hour?

"Seven minutes and thirty-two seconds," I mutter. "Fuck me."

"Something wrong?"

"I may need to get myself a new assistant."

"What for? You have a great one. And, added bonus, she's easy on the eyes."

Kirill may have a point-I just don't like the fact that he's made it.

Correction: I don't like the fact that he's noticed her in order to make it.

In my mind's eye, I see a flash of her as she was this morning. Not her usual put-together self, but another version entirely. Nervous, flustered, unkempt. I keep seeing the shoulder of her bra strap, the way her breast peeked out of the cup just enough to give me an eyeful of cleavage.

It was unprofessional. Lazy. Annoying. Distracting.

And tempting.

Way too fucking tempting.

"She's been dropping the ball recently."

"Enough said. Just give her a good tongue lashing and she'll pick that ball right back up."

I wince. The mention of tongues has me wondering just how much damage I could do to her with mine.

I imagine myself throwing her onto my desk just so that I can push her skirt up and see what those pencil skirts are hiding. It'd be so easy. She'd gasp and moan so fucking deliciously, I can already tell. I'm hard at the mere thought. Although some of that is just pent-up tension. I've piled a hell of a workload on myself, so it's been a long time since I've been with a woman.

"If she's called to give me some bullshit excuse about why she can't come in tomorrow, I'm kicking her to the curb."

"Your choice," says Kirill with a shrugged shoulder.

I walk over to my SUV while Kirill texts some last-minute instructions to my vors carrying out Bratva business across the five boroughs. The chauffeur opens the door and I climb into the backseat. Reluctantly, I start listening to Emma's voicemail, which I'm sure is going to be an unnecessary harangue of half-baked excuses and furtive apologies.

I stop short when a series of muffled sounds hits my ear. No coherent words seem to be forthcoming. Is this some sort of prank? A joke? No-what it is is a waste of my time. I'm just about to cut off the message and text my HR manager to open up a new job posting...

When I hear a single breathy moan.

Is this what I think it is?

Her voice comes through a second later. Heated, aroused, filled with a desperate urgency. It takes me a moment to realize what she's saying.

She moans a name-my name. And just like that, I'm hooked. 5

RUSLAN

"Are you going to punish me, Ruslan?"

Never have I wanted something so bad. My knuckles are white with tension as I grip the phone to my ear, hungry for every last moan and sigh and gasp that pops out of that dirty little mouth of hers.

My cock strains against the fabric of my pants, desperate to be freed. But I have a dozen men spread out across the upper floors of the chem facility and Kirill is walking towards the car, curiosity etched across his brow.

"Yes, sir. You're right, sir. What did you have in mind?"

Jolts of electricity race through my core hearing her play out this little fantasy. I can only imagine what watching her would do to me.

In the eighteen months Ms. Carson has been working for me, I haven't gotten so much as a hint of impropriety. Maybe this is my fault. Maybe that dig about her half-assed attempt at seducing me this morning unleashed the siren.

Or maybe this was a mistake. There's a chance she's unaware that she even sent me the voicemail. It is an unforgivable seven-and-a-half minutes long. And maybe thoughts of what I could do to her are just that distracting.

She groans deeply. Sounds of skin meeting skin. I can actually hear how wet she is.

"What's going on?"

I rearrange my expression and pause the voicemail. "Nothing. I'll have Boris drop you off first."

Kirill arches a brow but he doesn't push me as he clambers into the backseat. The surging possessiveness racing through me is not unfamiliar. I'm a possessive man and I don't like sharing my things. But that rule has never really applied to women.

Placing ownership on any woman just gives her a claim over me. That's been an inconvenience I've managed to avoid so far in my life. I'm not in any hurry to change things.

The whole way to Kirill's place, my knee keeps bouncing impatiently.

"You sure you're okay, brother?" he asks.

"Just preoccupied with the launch," I lie easily.

The moment we drop Kirill off at the entrance to his apartment building, I have my phone back in my hand and I'm reopening Emma's voice mail. I press play.

"Fuck me," I mutter.

The woman puts on a show tailor-made for me. Every time she refers to me as "sir" in that soft whimper, my cock jumps needily. The little hitches in her breathing mirror my own.

By the time we get to my downtown penthouse, I'm wondering if my dick will ever go down. Not that I've made much of an attempt to help.

"Thanks, Boris. See you tomorrow at six."

"Got it, boss."

I take the elevator up to the thirty-fifth floor after punching in my private access code. The doors open directly into my penthouse.

I'm a busy man, so it helps me to compartmentalize my life. That goes for my properties, too. Some are for business, others for pleasure-and this one on Madison Avenue, the grandest of my skyrise real estate, is just for me.

I come here when I'm craving peace and quiet, when I want to be completely alone with my thoughts.

Or with my assistant's filthy fucking fantasies.

There's no peace and quiet to be found here tonight. The only thing swimming around in my head is Ms. Carson. Her pert little mouth. Those innocent almond eyes. The way her ass moves when it's sheathed in a silk dress.

I'm not blind-I noticed her the moment she stepped into my office for the final interview. Her attractiveness wasn't the reason I hired her, though. In fact, I'd hired her despite her looks. No man needs to have constant temptation walking around in high heels and a red lip.

But her credentials and experience were all above board and I was sick of the revolving door of morons that darkened my doorstep with their ineptitude and emotional baggage. The assistant who preceded Emma quit, right before she burst into tears and called me a "psychopath in Hermes." I had Kirill get that printed on my business cards.

So when Emma stepped into the role, despite a few freshman kinks, it was like a breath of fresh air. She was smart, competent, and she didn't complain.

Not that I didn't know exactly when she was pissed off or frustrated with me. Her blue eyes have this way of darkening and there is a vein in her forehead that twitches anytime I order her around or give her a task she considers beneath her.

It's been my way of keeping her busy and far away-so that she didn't end up beneath me.

Of course, now, I don't have to imagine what she'd sound like if I were to pin her to the wall and run my fingers between her thighs.

I've listened to that damn voicemail twice already. Any more replays and I'm in danger of doing something stupid.

Like masturbating while I think about all the different ways I'd ravage her body.

Undressing, I walk to the leather recliner set up in front of the floor-to-ceiling window.. I manage to resist my phone for a full three minutes before picking it back up once again.

This time, when I start playing the voicemail, I put it on speaker.

Her moans fill what was supposed to be a blissful Zen silence. My cock braces against my pants, but I refuse to touch myself. I'm happy with the idea that I'm the star of her spank bank material, but I certainly don't want her in mine.

But the way she cries out my name as she touches herself... Fucking hell, it's the most erotic thing I've heard in my entire goddamn life. That and the sound of her fingers making contact with her pussy. The slippery wetness thrums just underneath her moans, getting faster and faster as she delves deeper into the fantasy.

"It sounds so fucking good, sir. Please do that. Please, please."

"Blyat'!" I pause the voicemail mid-moan.

I need to fucking delete it. That's the right move; I know that. But even as my finger hovers over the delete button, I can't bring myself to pull the trigger.

I should fucking punish her for this. Impaling her on my cock seems like a pretty fitting punishment right about now.

I fast forward almost to the end of the message and press play again. She's well past moaning now. She's practically screaming. I can easily imagine her tight little body shuddering as the orgasm rips through her. It gives me a perverse sense of satisfaction to know that I'm responsible for that orgasm, no matter how indirectly.

Her breathing flutters a little and then it hitches up again just at the very end. A thump. A shocked gasp. Muffled static-then, two seconds later, the message ends.

I'm willing to bet that my prim and proper little secretary had no intention of sending me that voice message. Hell, she probably had no idea she even called me in the first place.

What an irreversible mistake.

I wonder what else that mouth is capable of.

Leaving my phone on the recliner, I head to the en suite bathroom in the master. I strip off my boxers and get into the shower, cranking the water as cold as possible. I force myself to freeze beneath the hailstorm for ten long minutes, until my erection finally gives up the fight and eases.

There's no way I can avoid addressing this little slip-up tomorrow morning. Which leaves me with only two options: fire her or fuck her.

My cock likes the second option a little too much. "Down, boy," I growl, unwilling to endure another fifteen-minute ice bath.

Ignoring my bed, I sit down at the sleek black desk. The light from my personal laptop illuminates the room with an eerie silver glow. A quick search is all it takes to find Emma's file in my employee database. Her photo gleams at the top of the page. Innocent-looking. White blouse, red lipstick, a selfconscious smile.

But it's impossible to look at her and see her the same way anymore.

Not when I know how it sounds when she comes undone.

Each file includes a full background check on all my employees. Everyone has skeletons in their closet; I just prefer to know how many before I put them on the payroll.

As it turns out, Emma Carson was practically a Girl Scout up until about three and a half years ago, when she abruptly inherited a ton of debt. I give the file a quick scan. The debt is innocent enough, just run-of-the-mill life bullshit. Mortgage. Student loans. Inflation. Funeral home. The kind of shit normal people have to deal with if they don't have rich spouses or rich daddies.

But it gives me an idea.

After all, there's nothing sexier than the air-tight boundaries of a mutually beneficial arrangement. It's like Sergey's lab-nothing can go wrong if you keep it contained. Bottle dangerous shit up in a test tube and it becomes a tool, a weapon, a product.

It's when you let the chemistry explode on its own that shit goes wrong.

I pick up my phone once again and scroll through the contacts. My lawyer Isay's voice is cracked with sleep when he picks up. "Boss?"

I don't bother apologizing for waking him up. I pay my people enough to be able to demand twentyfour-hour attention whenever I need it.

"I need you to draw up a contract for me. Immediately."