Stingray Billionaire: The Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (56 page)

CHAPTER
EIGHT

Lexi

I
showed up at Peter's office an hour and a half after he'd called. I had no idea
where Peter was planning to send me for an audition, so I'd chosen to dress
professionally, and had picked out an emerald green blouse that softy draped
low enough to be sexy, but not so low that I looked slutty. I'd paired it with
a black pencil skirt that had a moderate slit up the back and a pair of black
pumps that were high enough to make my legs look longer than they really were,
but were still functional for walking on city streets. I'd put my hair up in a
loose French twist and gone easy on the cosmetics so that I looked fresh and
natural.

"Kid, you
look dynamite!" Peter crowed when he saw me. He wrapped me in a big hug
and asked how I was doing.

"I'm
okay," I said hesitating. I didn't want to spill the Josh-saga and end up
crying before he sent me out on an audition.

"You know,
that McClean was an ass, kiddo," he said unexpectedly. "I'm glad you
dumped him and moved on. You deserve someone much better than that two-bit
hustler who can't act his way out of a wet paper bag."

"Peter!"
I exclaimed as I began laughing. Somehow hearing Josh described this way by
someone in the business took a bit of the sting out of him dumping me.
"How did you know?"

"Aw, kid,
don't you know by now that I know everything about everyone in this
business?" he bellowed. "It's how I've stayed in business for as long
as I have! Besides, that punk of a manager of his called and asked if I knew of
other actors in LA who might need a roommate. Apparently, your boy didn't have
a solid plan once he got to the city. What an idiot."

"Peter,
you're the best," I said shooting him a grateful look. Even if he was
making up a story, which he often did, it was a good one and it soothed my
bruised ego. "Where do you want me to go?"

"Kid, I've
got an odd job for you, but you're the only one I thought could play the
part," he said as he looked at the paperwork on his desk. "I’ve got a
guy who needs someone to play the part of a jewelry salesperson for a few
weeks, and I think you'd be a hit in the role!"

"Wait, you're
asking me to work retail?" I narrowed my eyes. "I don't like the way
this sounds, Peter."

"No, I'm not
asking you to work retail," he said and then stopped to rethink.
"Okay, yeah, I'm asking you to work retail, but it's more of an acting job
than a sales job. You need to play the role of a smart, sexy sales clerk in an
upscale jewelry boutique while the owner searches for someone who actually
knows what they're doing."

"Peter, this
makes no sense!" I cried. "This isn't acting! It's just another way
of putting me in a job that sucks by telling me it's an acting role. You're
selling me false goods, my friend."

"No, actually
I'm not, kiddo," he smiled. "I know what it looks like, but what if I
tell you that the wages for this particular job are one thousand a week? Does
that interest you?"

"Wait,
what?" I said doing a double take. "One thousand a week? One zero
zero zero, per week?"

"Yep, one
thousand a week," he grinned.

"For playing
the role of a sales clerk?" I asked.

"Yep, that's
it," he nodded.

"Wait, what
do I have to do after hours?" I asked suspiciously. "I smell some
kind of shady activity going on here."

"You don't
have to do anything after hours that you don't want to," Peter said
calmly. "It's literally going in and playing the part from eight to five
every day and then going home. There are no tricks or hidden catch."

"Who the hell
is this guy who needs to hire an actress for this job? Why can't he hire a real
salesperson?" I asked. "There have to be thousands of them around
town, and for those wages, he'll be able to hire the best of the best!"

"He needs
someone immediately and none of the candidates he's interviewed have met his
requirements on all levels," he said. "Now, he just needs someone to
fill in the gaps while he takes the time to find the right person. Look, it's
an easy job, do you want to audition or not?"

"Sure, I
definitely want to audition, but you understand why I'm a little skeptical,
don't you?" I wondered what the employer was like. Was he particularly
unattractive? Is that why he couldn't be out on the sales floor himself? Did he
have some kind of disease that wouldn't let him come in contact with the
public? "Who is this guy?"

"He's a
Russian, and he's got a new store over on Wabash. It's not open yet, so you'll
have to help him get it ready for the opening," Peter warned.

"What's wrong
with him?" I blurted out.

"Wrong?
Nothing's wrong with him," he said, but I got the feeling that Peter
wasn't telling me the whole story. He often left out the more unsavory parts of
the story when he really wanted someone to take a job.

"If I get
there and find out that you've sold me into sexual slavery so that you could
collect an agent's fee, I swear I'm going to find a way to escape and come back
to get you, Peter," I told him in an ominous voice.

"Oh, get over
the dramatics, will you?" he waved me off. "It's a straightforward
job with a hefty paycheck and good hours. Take it. You won't be sorry."

"Fine, where
do I report for my interview, er, audition?" I asked. Peter gave me the
address along with the man's name and cell number.

"He said that
you are to call him when you're on your way so that he can make sure he's at
the store," he warned. "So make sure you call!"

"Yes,
sir," I said as I mock saluted before tucking the paper in my briefcase
and heading out the door. I turned and looked back, and quietly said,
"Thanks, Peter. I mean, for…you know."

"Aw, go on,
kid," he shooed me away without looking up. "Go land the job and make
me proud!"

I turned and
headed out the door toward the elevator, hoping that I wasn't making a serious
mistake.

CHAPTER
NINE

Max

After
my phone call with Peter, I hopped in a cab and headed over to the Wicker Park
to meet my father for lunch. I knew this was going to be a tense conversation,
but after talking with Babi, I also knew that the longer I put it off, the
worse it would be. I normally used a car and driver in Chicago, but I also knew
that my car was regularly followed by a variety of friends and enemies, and
this time, I didn't want anyone to know I was visiting my father.

My father,
Vladimir Malinchenko, had been an undercover agent for the KGB during the ’70s
and ’80s. He'd spent time gathering information in East Germany and then had
disappeared for a few years, or at least, that's what Babi had told me. I could
never get my father to talk about that time, so I'd always assumed that he'd
been on a secret mission, but as I got older, I learned to read the tattoos of
the men who were
vore y zakone
and
realized that my father was part of an underground group of men who fought to
uphold the old traditions of the
bratán
.

When I was nine
and my brother was twelve, my father came home one afternoon and told my mother
to pack our suitcases. She refused to do it at first, crying and pleading with
him not to do this to our family. He held his ground and warned her that if she
didn't obey, he'd make her sorry that she hadn't. I didn't understand what was
going on. My father had always been a tough man, but he'd never once hit or
even threatened my mother; in fact, he'd been the man that all the other
husbands on our block complained about setting too high a standard. He might go
to the bar and get stinking drunk with his friends on Saturday night, but he never
once failed to bring my mother flowers for her birthday or a holiday and he
always came home in time for dinner with the family. He was a hard man, but a
fair one.

My mother finally
gave in and packed our bags, and by the next morning, we were on a train that
was heading out of St. Petersburg toward Finland. My father didn't say much on
the train ride, but my mother cried the entire trip. Once we arrived in
Helsinki, my mother stopped crying and she and my father took us to the
American Embassy and asked for asylum. Given the fact that my father had been a
member of the KGB for over two decades, the American government was happy to
grant him anything he wanted in exchange for information about the operation.

For two months, we
lived in a one-bedroom apartment near the embassy while my father told them
everything he could remember about his time in the KGB. I remember going to
school with Finnish kids and not understanding a word they were saying. I tried
to make friends with a boy who was bilingual, but his classmates teased him
until he shrugged and walked away. I pulled inward and tried to be as invisible
as possible. Kristov, however, did the opposite, and he was soon suspended from
school for fighting with the other boys over a soccer ball. My mother kept us
home after that, and soon after, we were put on a plane heading for Chicago.

"Sir?"
The taxi driver had stopped in front of the address I'd given him and was
waiting for me to get out. "Sir, we're here."

"Huh?" I
shook my head to clear it and then looked out the window. "Oh, yeah.
Thanks."

I exited the car
and walked up to the front door of my father's bar. The sign over the door read
“Ursus” and had a ferocious brown bear with sharp fangs and claws carved into
the wood above the bar's name. I shivered a little as I pulled the door open
and entered. Inside, the place smelled of beer and cigars, and there was a sad
Russian love song playing on the overhead speakers. The interior looked a lot
like Babi's apartment. It was heavy, dark oak and walnut carved with intricate,
traditional designs. The bar ran across one entire wall and had every brand of
Russian vodka a customer could possibly want, including the stuff that was my
father brewed in a homemade distillery contraption made of a washtub and several
lengths of pipe.

"Papa?"
I called as I moved toward the back. "Papa, are you here?"

"Maksimka!"
my father exclaimed as he exited the back room. "You are here! I've been
waiting for you all day!"

"Hello,
Papa," I said as he grabbed me and hugged me tightly. "It's good to
see you."

"Why so
formal, Maksimka?" my father asked. "Come, come, I've got lunch ready
in the kitchen. Are you hungry?"

"I'm
fine," I said as I warily followed him to the kitchen. Years of watching
my father operate had made me wary of his overly magnanimous ways, as that was
usually when he cut someone off at the knees – and food made everything
trickier. "What did you fix, Papa?"

"I made
borscht and a good, thick rye bread," he smiled as he grabbed a bowl and
began dishing up the deep red soup and stopping to spoon a healthy scoop of
sour cream into the middle of the bowl before grabbing the bread knife and
hacking off a large slice of warm bread. "Eat! Eat! You're too thin! Why
aren't you bigger like your brother? Kristov is strong and healthy! You look
weak and hungry."

"Thanks,
Papa, you always know how to compliment me, don't you?" I muttered into my
spoon. The borscht was fresh and delicious, and I had to admit that if my
father knew one thing, it was definitely how to cook a delicious meal. He'd
learned this from Babi, and she was proud of the fact that her son knew all the
family recipes.

"Oh, don't
get your head all twisted up with craziness," my father scolded me.
"I'm just worried about you. Your mother would be worried if she saw you
right now."

"Babi saw me
yesterday and she didn't seem too worried," I said defensively.

"She was, she
just didn't say anything," he said as he sat down on a stool across from
me and sipped from his ever-present cup of strong, black coffee. "She wondered
why you were so thin and worried."

"Papa, cut
the crap, you know why I'm worried," I said as I dropped my spoon in the
borscht and splattered red juice everywhere. My father grabbed the towel he
kept tucked in his belt and wiped up the mess.

"Maksimka,
why do you talk to your father like this," he asked with a dangerous glint
in his eye. "I'm trying to keep the family business intact, and in order
to do that, I need you and your brother to work together."

"But, Papa, I
don't think the business needs me," I said. As a child, I'd always done
what I was told, and as an adult, I'd kept the habit with very few objections,
but at that moment, I felt strongly about objecting to this particular
obligation and I knew it was going to come at a rather high price, but I
couldn't stop. "I feel like I could do something more useful for the
family if I ran my own shop and created another stream of income."

My father leaned
back on his stool and considered me very carefully. He weighed his words before
he spoke, but when he did, I felt a chill run down my spine. Papa was a man who
knew what other people were thinking, sometimes even before they knew it
themselves, and while it made him a powerful businessman, it also made him an
extremely dangerous opponent.

"Maksim, you
think I run a bad business. You think I'm a
vore
v zakone.
You think I'm a bad man," he said giving voice to some of my
most private thoughts. The thoughts that I knew I'd be punished for if they
ever saw the light of day. He continued, "All of this may be true on some
level, but I will tell you this: I have never done a dishonest business deal, I
have never hurt anyone who has not hurt me first, and I have never treated
anyone badly who didn't deserve it."

"Papa…"
I began.

"No, you
listen to me,
moj syn,
I have given
you everything in my power," he said leaning across the table. "I
have given you a life in the U.S., school, money, and I have spent a lifetime
building a business that is successful enough to take care of you, your
brother, and both your families when, God willing, you have them. I have never
asked for anything in return, but now I am asking."

"But, Papa, I
really do think a high-end jewelry store could be yet another income generating
business and I have spent a great deal of time researching and coordinating the
business," I protested carefully and thoughtfully. If my father suspected
that my real reason for starting the business was to distance myself from him
and the family, there would be hell to pay. "It seems like a fair tradeoff
to let me run the business, don't you think?"

"Fair?"
he yelled as he slammed his fist down on the counter. "Fair? What is fair?
Is it fair that I had to move my family away from my homeland, away from my
city, so that they could have a life that wasn't possible in Moscow? Was it
fair that I went from being a highly respected man to someone who runs a bar?
Was it fair that I worked long hours and late nights when your mother needed me
at home?" He stopped and inhaled sharply to keep from letting his emotions
take control.

"No, it
wasn't fair," I said softly. "But I think we are heading into a new
era of doing business, and we're going to have to modernize or else we're going
to suffer. We shouldn't suffer, should we, Papa? The business shouldn't suffer,
should it?"

He closed his eyes
and raised a large callused hand to his forehead, rubbing it back and forth
before he looked at me again. When he did, I saw the years of pain welling up
in his eyes, and my father's pain scared me far more than his anger. I knew
what happened when he was in pain – and nothing good had ever come of it.

"Maksimka, I
loved your mother more than life itself, but nothing I could have done would
have saved her. She made her own choices and I had to protect you boys. You
know that. Kristov knows that. I know that. The only thing that kept me going
was the thought of you and your brother running the business together and
carrying on the family tradition. If you don't, then what good was my life?
What was my purpose? I'm not a young man anymore. I don't have a lot of time
left."

"Papa, don't
say that, you're fine," I countered as I searched his face for a sign that
what I was saying was true.

"None of us
know how much time we have, Maksim," he told me wearily. "The truth
is that I'm losing my grip on the young ones. They don't understand the value
of the old ways, and I'm too old to bring them to heel, anymore. I need you and
Kristov as my captains. I need you to wear your stars so that the young ones
will fall in line and do as they're told."

"Papa, I
don't have the same kind of force as Kristov does," I said. "I'm not
like him. I can't make people do what I want them to do through violence."

"Don't you
think I know that,
moj syn
?" he
said shaking his head and smiling. "Kristov is the muscle, but you are the
brains. I need you to be the brains of the operation, so that your brother can
be the brawn. He is a good boy, but he can't see past his own
zhopy
. I need you to oversee
things."

"Papa, I've
sunk a lot of money into this shop, and I want to make it successful," I
said as I thought about the beautiful gleaming jewels carefully packed in boxes
waiting to be unpacked and sold. "I need to add to the business and make
it successful so that we can add it to the family income and ensure that we'll
be financially solid for a long time. I need to contribute in the best way I
know how. Can you understand that?"

"I understand
it all too well, Maksim," my father said. "I know what you want. I
wanted the same thing before we left Moscow, but the family business is the
most important thing and I need you here to run it."

"Papa, can I
at least have a few months to try? I've sunk a lot of money into this store and
I want to at least recover it," I said as I quickly tried to think of a
way that I could have what I wanted without angering my father too much.
"Just give me a few months to at least try. If I can't make it successful
in that time, then I'll close up shop, sell it all, and come work with Kristov
without a complaint."

My father sat
staring at me as he considered my request. He sipped from his coffee cup and
then leaned forward and spoke. "I'll give you three months to make your
first million; if you can't do it by then, you're never going to do it big
enough to make it matter. If you can make your first million by then, then
we'll talk about how to keep your store open and let you have your little side
business. But meanwhile, I want you to keep in contact with your brother and me
so that we can keep you up to date on the situation with the family. I've got a
shipment coming in the week after next and I need help getting the cargo off
the dock. Do you understand me?"

"I
understand," I said nodding solemnly. My father's cargo shipments weren't
a pretty business, and I knew that my mother had seriously objected to it, but
one thing we all understood was that we were never, ever to interfere with my
father's business. We were all well aware of the fact that those who did didn't
live to tell about it. And, it didn't matter who they were.