BAD APPLE: The Complete Series (Parts 1-5) (2 page)

Misha

She’s gorgeous, cute, and sweet in a way that makes what I am about to do so wrong that even a man like me knows it. And yet I’m going to do it anyway because I have to.

I want that little piece of land her bakery is sitting on, and I want it yesterday. So what if it’s wrong to swindle a woman out of her dream?

It’s not as if I’m going to run her out of business and leave her penniless. I have a perfectly good location set up for Irina Velnicova and her little operation. Hell, she’ll be thanking me with kisses by the time I move her into that new space.

“We can’t do this, Mish. Did you see how sweet that woman was? I almost fell at her feet and begged forgiveness for what we were thinking of doing to her.” Leo groans, falling into a chair across from my desk as I stand at the window and look down at the little bakery across the street.

No, I shouldn’t be doing this, I know that, and not just because Irina is a sweet woman with a heart of gold, but because I have other choices. The problem lies in the fact that those choices do not involve me getting my way and that rubs me raw.

“We need that building, Leo, so do not sit there and tell me to do any less than what I have been doing. Irina doesn’t need to remain there in that building. She can run her bakery and diner from a block away without hurting her business.”

“She could, but the fact is why would she want to when she doesn’t have to? She worked really hard to get her business up and running without those brothers of hers taking over and throwing money around. And she’s made a good business there, Misha, a fucking terrific business considering she started out alone and worked fifteen-hour days before her goods became a hit.”

Yeah, which makes me feel like more of a heel about this whole thing.

I come from a Russian family that’s been in the States for three generations, though if you heard my parents speak, you’d think they’re newly Americanized.

We’re a solid unit and love one another to death. Hell, I still go home for dinner every Sunday and my mama still asks me about women and grandchildren on the regular. My family and the business we’ve built from nothing is my life.

That’s why this is so important to me. I have no beef with Irina past the fact that she’s the sister of Feliks Velnicova, a man who’s been encroaching on my business long enough that he’s gone from being a thorn in my side to an enemy.

One who seems to have no weaknesses, save for his family. One family member, in particular.

And I need a weakness to exploit, because if I don’t get that vulture off my back soon, my business and everything that my family has worked so hard to build will all come crumbling down around me.

I’m a good businessman. I work hard and make good choices when it comes to filling the family’s coffers, but that’s hard to do when every move I make is countered by that bastard.

My business isn’t suffering, but it will be soon if I don’t make a move now.

“This is the only way. We both know he won’t stop coming for us until the family gives him what he wants, and I’ll be Goddamned if I let some two-bit hoodlum get his hands on my sister and nephew after putting us in the poor house. I say we play this shit an eye for an eye and see how he likes having his family involved.”

Leo sighs heavily and shakes his head once before stalking over to the bar and coming back to me with a much needed drink.

“I wish Lena would get her shit together, man. She’s got little Maks in the middle, as well as all the rest of us, and yet she gets to flit around without a care while we scramble to hold off her baby daddy,” Leo snarls, his face going hard once again.

I happen to agree with him, though God knows my opinion has been ignored for a good two years now since our baby sister first came home pregnant and so changed that it’s hard for me to look at her sometimes.

Gone is the sweet little girl who went off to college, and in her place is a bitter woman who is using an innocent child to hurt a man who has every right to see the baby he created.

“I hear ya, man, but with Papa in the mix, you know for damn sure we aren’t getting any sense into her anytime soon,” I say, sipping on my drink and keeping my eyes trained on the shop below.

“Fucking brat is what she is.”

Amen to that.

It’s me and Leo and our younger brother, Vadim, who run shit while Papa sits back in his retirement and Mama is left to look after Maks while Lena flits around like a princess.

I love my sister, but lately she hasn’t been a very good sister or daughter.

“This is the only way to work things and kill two birds with one stone. We need the Mathis deal to go through, and you heard that old asshole. He wants that building before he’ll do business with us. If I can get it, we’ll be okay even after losing Forbes and Hemsy to Feliks. As for Irina being in the family…that would make the Velnicovas family, and Papa couldn’t object to Maks meeting his father after that.”

As much as I love my father and my sister, what they are doing is wrong. Feliks deserves a chance to be a father to Maks, and Maks deserves to know his father.

As for Irina…

“She’s too good to be used this way, Mish.”

“For God’s sake, Leo, what do you think I intend to do to the woman? I’m going to take her out and get to know her a little.”

“And sample her pie?” he asks cheekily, silently laughing at me when the woman in question appears below.

I
am
going to sample that pie. Hell, after seeing the way she blushed clear to the hint of cleavage I saw, I’m going to gorge on it and make her thankful she offered in the first place.

“Nope.” I grin, letting the word end with a pop. “I’m taking her home to meet Mama.”

Leo’s eyes stretch wide just as Vadim walks in, a cocky grin lining his face as he comes to stand beside us just as Irina is joined by the loudmouthed Nikita Barns before the two skip off to the left, hands tightly clasped.

“Did you see how green that chick’s eyes were? I swear I almost took her eye out when my dick saw her.”

“Shut your filthy mouth and pay attention, idiot. Big brother wants to take Irina to meet Mama.”

Vadi’s eyes widen comically before he starts rubbing his hands together with glee.

“Ohh I can’t wait to see Lena’s face. And damn, man, I can’t wait to see Papa’s when he realizes you outflanked him. I love the old bastard dearly, but he’s pissing me off with his attitude lately. You know he almost took Mama’s head off the other day when she wanted to take Maks to the park? She hasn’t cooked for him in four days.”

Not only has Lena caused a huge rift between my father and his three sons, but she’s making waves in a marriage that has stood the test of thirty years.

Enough is enough.

“So you’re serious about little Irina, huh?” Vadim asks, his eyes going glacial as he looks at me.

My brother may be a womanizer with a new bird on his arm every night, but he loves them all and has a healthy respect for the good ones. Irina, I know, is a good one, and this is Vadi’s way of warning me not to screw with one of the good ones.

Which I have no intention of doing.

I may be lining her up to lose her building, but I’m going to give her so much more than what I take. I have a bigger, better location lined up for her, and with my backing I see Irina doing so much more than running a tiny place that can cater to only so many people.

“As a heartbeat.”

The woman is good and kind and exactly what I’ve always imagined in a wife. Yeah, I’m fucking serious. Mama will love her, and the fact that I wanted her on sight isn’t a bad thing either.

I’ll give her a good life, and with the way I almost ripped my fly when I saw that spectacular ass wagging my way, I won’t have a hard time remaining true to my wife.

“Good. On the upside, I’ve managed to set up a meeting with Mathis next week. All we gotta do now is make sure we play shit right so we can outwit that crazy bastard.”

Oh I’m going to outwit him all right. I’m going to outwit them all and watch while Lena and Feliks scramble to get at each other while I settle this shit once and for all.

I love my nephew, more than I have ever loved another human being, and by the time I am done with those two yahoos they’ll be so worthy of the little guy, he’ll think he woke in a fucking candy store.

If I have to fuck them all up to get there, I will do it. I want my family back in order, and I want my new family happy.

“Let’s do this.”

Irina

I love the city in summertime. It smells like garbage and sweat and all the things someone who isn’t a true New Yorker will never understand.

It may sound strange to you, but the city with all its ugliness is also beautiful and pure in its own way. It’s hard and mean and yet you’ll never meet a better person than a true New Yorker.

Neighborhoods are like families and the people in every family would kill to protect those they love. Just as my own little hodgepodge will knife a bitch to protect me.

“So, that guy this morning, huh?” the girls ask when Nik and I walk in carrying coffee and these amazing hot dogs that can only be had from Fig’s Diner a block away.

No offense to my girls, but some things you just can’t replicate, and Fig’s coffee and hot dogs are perfect examples. I sit with a huff and dig in just as Liza sits down to inhale her own fare.

She’s a card, this one. Her hair is never the same color from week to week, she swaps out contact lenses the way I change undies, and her clothes scream “crazy,” but she’s mine and I love her. Even if the woman can eat like a starving horse and never gain an ounce of weight.

Nik is the other end of the spectrum. She’s dark with green eyes and so clean cut, you literally fall on your ass when she opens her mouth and you hear some of the vile stuff that lives there.

And then there’s Tat, my innocent little Tatty who’s blonde, brown-eyed, and vacillates between shy and totally homicidal. Seriously, just last week she almost went up in flames when a customer flirted with her. She almost broke his nose when he got a little too handsy.

The chick is nuts.

I love them all.

“Yo, earth to Riri. You gonna dish about that hunk or what?” Nik asks as she dissects her hot dog with a clinical eye that drives me nuts.

“Seriously, why order an onion relish when you just end up tossing them?” I ask, filching the poor innocent darlings before she can toss them in the garbage.

“I like the taste but hate the stringiness of them. And that’s not what I’m talking about, so stop trying to distract me and dish. How hot was that fucker, huh?”

I find myself sighing dreamily before snapping back to reality and giving them all the gimlet eye.

“He was okay. Let’s move on,” I say, desperately needing to change the conversation.

I saw the hot coming off that man in a way that almost had me panting, but I refuse to even think about that because I am not dating. Never again.

Not after my last relationship bombed so badly that I still have the knife wounds in my back. And definitely not after seeing my ex a few days later and the carnage that was his face.

I wanted to pin it on a random mugging till he saw me and literally ran screaming the other way, his terror evident. Which means one of my brothers got hold of him.

Poor sap.

I don’t date anymore and I never look at a man who I wouldn’t want to live through next week, lest my brothers get their filthy hands on him.

And I want that hot specimen to keep living, and living, and living some more.

“He was not
okay
! He was gorgeous and intense looking and he wanted to try your pie,” Nik yells salaciously, her stern look ruined altogether by the lusty expression she throws my way. “Why I bet he’d go all crazy over the cherry flavor.”

“Seriously,
stop
. So what if he was hot and my vagina started screeching invectives at me? So what if he looks like the kind of guy who’d take Feliks in a fight? And so freaking what if I almost had an O when he smiled and popped that dimple….”

Focus here, Ri. Do not go having another daydream about that mouth and those long thick fingers of his.

“So you’re not into the hot Russian your mother would kill to see you with? And you’re not into the way he looked at your crotch and licked his lips? And let me guess, you’re so not into the fact that he was close to climbing the counter to get to your hot ass? Dude, you shoulda seen his face when he came in and saw you wagging tail at him.” Tat giggles, making my eyes narrow at her in warning.

“You all know I do not date,” I mutter.

“Bullshit. You don’t do anything but work, talk to your cats, and go out with us occasionally when we get you too drunk to say no. You, my girl, have no life since you let that little fuck face and his sidepiece screw with you. You need to stop being so afraid to fail and just try some man candy. Dude, there’re like a million flavors you’ve never tried. Surely tuna isn’t gonna mess you up for life,” Nik mutters, shuddering when a stray onion hits her tongue and she’s forced to pull the stringy offering free of her half-chewed food.

“First off, my cats have got character.”

“One of them farts constantly and the other one tried to take you out the other day. Those pussies are whack!”

I ignore that slur with a roll of my orbs and continue.

“Secondly, he who has no name was not tuna. He was mackerel if ever I tasted that shit. But no, I am not ruined! Let’s not forget my brothers, guys,” I point out, sipping at my coffee.

Tat goes all dreamy-eyed at the mention of my brothers, and I sneer in disgust as Nik and Liza shake their heads.

“I love him so much I had to lecture my slutty vagina last week. We’re officially holding out till he realizes we’re meant to be,” Tat breathes, making me gag.

“You’re looking at this all wrong, Ri. You’re a healthy, beautiful, successful twenty-five-year-old woman. You should be out having fun and not worrying about the man you bring home just because you have three brothers who are apt to rip a man apart and give him a vagina.”

“Ha-ha, Nik, ha-ha. You all know I can’t so much as smile at a man without one of those goons being on him with threats and the occasional broken leg. You remember two months ago when we went to Electra’s and that guy hit on me?”

Nik snorts and cackles while the others giggle like fools.

“Oh remember that time Luka slapped the sandwich guy for looking at your boobs?”

I throw Tat another glare as she goes all wet for Luka, again, and shake my cup at the girls.

“The point is that I am not good at relationships and we all know it. I mean I can’t even blame He who has no name for what he did because we weren’t going anywhere and I knew it. The brothers just misunderstood my crying for a broken heart and did what they always do.”

Poor guy.

I tried to apologize again even after he looked at me and ran only to have him fall down a flight of stairs to escape me, breaking his right leg and cutting his head open.

Poor guy.

“So don’t do a relationship then. Do a steamy affair with a hot guy who knows how to pluck cherries. Do the hot Russian with the dimples and lips that look good enough to wrap around your—”

“Stop!”

“Okay, fine, but sex is fun. When you have sex with someone you find hot and nice, it’s even better. So get out there and give the hottie your pie and move on from the cats and freaking doilies already,” Nik yells, making me cringe anew.

The woman may look straitlaced, but she’s a wild one who has no filter. She also has a point. I’m twenty-five, alone, and living off of romance novels while my cats keep my feet warm.

Well, one cat. The other is a kamikaze wannabe whose only mission in life is to take me out unless I lock him out on the fire escape. Poor Sweetie doesn’t know how to love yet, but I’ll teach him. If I survive another year with the little bastard.

Maybe I should consider an affair, something to keep me company after the bakery’s doors are shut and I drag myself home.

“Look, let’s make this something you can’t ignore anymore. I dare you to go for that Russian the next time you see him in here.”

These women know I can’t resist a dare. I haven’t been capable of it since I was little and my brothers would torture me to death by calling me a baby.

Like the idiot I am, I accept the dare, smirking confidently because no way will he be back.