Xander (Billionaire Racers Book 1) (2 page)

It’s not as if I don’t appreciate quality, especially when I approach it in the back of a Mercedes Benz. It’s just that
yacht club
is a complete understatement. It’s like calling the tiger graceful. He sure is, but he’s also a predator, lethal and fierce. The tiger attacks from a blind spot, slamming into its target from behind or the side, and then it goes straight for the neck. It suffocates the air right out of its meal, its teeth biting into the throat, and if it’s quicker than being torn apart, I’m still 100 percent certain the antelope or the deer isn’t at all on board with dying.

The club’s members are the most powerful members of various Russian mob families, crime syndicates, and Bratva
.
They own much of Miami, and that means they get to make the rules for us lesser (and less rich) mortals. Once upon a time, my dad was one of them. Now? Not so much. Still, his name has cachet, and it’s literally opened the door tonight. It’s given me an opportunity, and now here I am about to voluntarily stick my neck into the jaws of the beast.

My beast.

Alexander Volkov.

I haven’t seen Xander in six years, but I doubt he’s changed. Let’s revisit our tiger analogy—the stripes always stay the same. As soon as my driver coasted to a halt in front of the entrance, I had my exit planned out. When you’re a Russian mob princess, you don’t just hop out of the car—and it’s not a ladylike, am-I-about-to-flash-my-panties concern either. I’m always acutely aware of the limousine’s position and how close we are to an entrance and cover. Standing too long on the driveway guarantees exposure, but a doorman or a bodyguard yields much-needed protection. I’ve also got bulletproof glass, the driver’s watchful eye, and a bodyguard riding shotgun in the front seat. I left the bodyguard in the car, and he was pissed but understanding. I can’t beard my tiger in his den with protection hovering over me. There are a thousand ways for tonight to go wrong, and I’ve only thought of half of them.

As soon as I stepped inside the club, sound beat at me like brass knuckles. Tonight’s musical act is a Russian pop band flown in from Moscow for the night because yes, the people in this room have that kind of money. If they want something, they order it. Clothes, jewelry, cars, luxury properties, and yachts. This world has no price tags because everything is affordable. The singer pumping out lyrics on the small stage is proof of that—according to her website, she’s supposed to be touring Europe. Instead, she’s here. Surrounded by gorgeous, pretty people. The women wear expensive, too-short dresses and flash jewels and ten-thousand-dollar watches as they dance. Their male companions wear equally expensive bespoke suits and six-hundred-dollar loafers. Watchful goons in dark suits and earpieces line up against the walls, keeping their employers safe.

I scan the club, breaking down the dance floor packed with high-end cocktail dresses and tuxedos. Volkovs, Smirnovs, Aleksandrovs, and a hundred other exotic and plain vanilla names pack the room. The yacht club’s celebratory party for bad-boy racer and billionaire yachtsman Xander Volkov is officially in full swing. With an emphasis on
swing
. Twosomes, threesomes and moresomes—dancers partner off, grinding away to a DJ spinning techno beat. Tall and tanned, a young woman in a sequined sheath wriggles her hips to the music as her partner’s hand smooths the silk fabric over her prominent hip bones before sliding up to cup a breast. When you’re willing to kill to secure your business interests, what’s a little public sex?

No one stops me. If the antelope hurls herself into the tiger’s path, she’s one more free lunch. Who cares? Hard eyes track my progress from the door to the center of the room. I recognize more than a few Bratva leaders. They’ll make a note of my presence, and questions will be asked. I’ve adamantly avoided this world until tonight. The room contains more power than most countries wield. Many of tonight’s attendees deal in arms and drugs, their tentacles stretching deep into Asia and Latin America. They share a thieves’ code that rules their every action, but there are other families here that follow a more tribal structure. Many, if not most of them, have served time in prison, either in this country or in Russia.

My father is the head of our family. The Petrovs used to be hot shit, but today we’re more like the crud that sticks to the bottom of your shoe when you cross your legs at the movie theater. We’re unpleasant leftovers, not capable of much more than annoying you, but there are people who’ve decided it’s time to clean house and we have to go. I plan to stop that, which is the only reason I’m here tonight. I need a weapon, and Xander Volkov is about to give it to me.

“Lily Petrov.” Jack Andronov, the man who steps into my path, owns a fortune in casinos and resort properties. His short, dark hair is buzzed close to his scalp, his arms covered with Siberian prison ink, and the only thing that’s changed about him in six years is the newly crooked nose. That kink is the one visible scar of the twenty years he’s spent defending the Bratva’s interests with his fists. Even in this room, other men clear out of his way. He’ll kill anyone or anything and never question his orders. It always surprises me that his eyes aren’t ice-cold. They twinkle as if he’s just a nice guy and somebody’s beloved Uncle Jack. He smiles, the pleasure lighting up his eyes. He’s genuinely glad to see me—and yet he’d still kill me in an instant if those were his orders. I’ve seen him dancing and tossing back vodka like it was water, laughing and partying… and then he gets a call, his face shuts down, and he’s all business.

I can’t divide myself up like that. I can’t compartmentalize my personal life and my Bratva life, and it’s not just because I’m female. It’s also one of the reasons why I’ve avoided these people and this circle for so long.

“
Privet,
pretty girl. It’s been a long time.” Jack leans in to press a kiss against first my left cheek and then my right.

“Jack.” I brush my mouth over his cheeks, returning the greeting. He’s never told me how a Russian ended up with the name Jack—the first time I asked, he said it was short for
Don’t Know Jack.
The second time, it was a nickname for
Jackshit.
In other words, it’s none of my business. “You look good.”

“You too.” He runs his gaze over me, taking in my white cocktail dress from the tiny straps crisscrossing my bare shoulders to the overload of sequins decorating my boobs. I blaze in the club lighting, making the assembled company look at me. It’s also hard to hide a weapon in a dress this short, and I can’t afford any misunderstandings about my intentions. Jack and I both know the club is the last place I’d choose to be. I’ve made my dislike for the Bratva too clear. I’m Ivan Petrov’s wayward, recalcitrant, pain-in-the-ass daughter who has refused to have anything to do with the family business, but the community tolerates me because my dad loves me.

Some of these men are pretty on the outside, but none of them are beautiful beneath the skin. They’re predators, kings of their own fucking mountains, so rich and powerful that any one of them could make a girl less well-connected than me disappear and no one would ever say anything. There’s a code of public silence in this world of billionaires.

And because they could start a global war that could kill thousands and disrupt banking systems, they’ve come up with alternate ways of settling their differences. Tomorrow’s race is one such example. The public stakes are a million bucks to the winner’s charity of choice. That’s pocket change. There will be other deals on (or under) the table—and the winner takes all. It’s better than bullets.

“I need to see Xander,” I tell Jack, pretending this request is nothing more serious than my asking him to press the button for the second floor if we happened to get into an elevator together.

Jack treats me to a second, more careful examination. “You sure he wants to see you, pretty girl?”

“No.” I give him an apologetic look. “But it needs to happen.”

“Sometimes you must know when to walk away.”

I shake my head. “No walking tonight.”

“Wish you’d reconsider. The night before a race isn’t ever a good time.” Still, his hand comes to rest against my lower back, gently urging me into motion. Jack made a fortune with his fists. He’s a fighter—fists, feet, mixed martial arts. He took the first fortune he made in the ring, and then he invested it. I’m not privy to the details of those investments—I suspect no one person is—but Jack amassed a fortune in a few short years.

He’s still single although there are plenty of Bratva families here who would like to hook him up with a bride. Despite the modern date on the calendar, this world plays by an ancient set of rules. Even my dad treated me as an asset to be bought and sold. He loved me, but he had every expectation that I’d cement our family’s position with a wedding ring.

And when it looked like I’d given away the milk for free, my dad made sure I got married. He forced Xander and me to the altar, and then he eliminated my new husband by setting him up for assault and battery. In exchange for coming to my rescue, Xander acquired a wedding ring, a prison sentence, and a reputation that’s stuck with him all these years. I’m certain he’s not waiting to thank me because those first two things were definitely not part of his plans.

For a year after we married, I dreamed he’d come back for me after he got out of prison. That he’d carry me away from the mob life, take me somewhere better, and make everything all right. That we’d figure out a way to make our strange, twisted relationship work. When he rescued me, I was grateful. I didn’t realize how fast things would spiral out of control, or what price we’d pay. My dad thinks I should ask Xander for help tonight because he’s my husband, but he has no idea how many ways tonight could go wrong. The truth is, these billionaire bad boys are sexy. Hot. So amazingly gorgeous that dropping your panties seems like a great decision. But they’re predators. Alpha males. They don’t just own the world around them—they
rule
it, and I’ll never put myself under their control again.

I won’t be owned.

I won’t be a pretty possession.

My pussy is more than a means of transferring property between two men. I won’t wear a ring, I won’t take orders, and I won’t shut up. Not anymore. It’s one reason that I’ve never come within a hundred nautical miles of Xander since our wedding.

Xander comes from a family that was Russian mafia royalty long before the word went mainstream even if they’ve lived in the US for decades. He does whatever he wants except for that one time he took the fall for rescuing me. I assume he kicked ass at the club that night because he didn’t want his stepbrother dead—and I was just a collateral rescue. Afterward, when he brought me home to my dad, other things came out—like the fact that Daniel had taken my virginity.

You can imagine how well my dad liked that scenario—and Daniel’s not-even-junior position in the Volkov family only made it worse. He should have come courting with a big-ass diamond, and then everything would have been okay because it would have been simply business. Instead, the way my dad saw it, Daniel had stolen a valuable asset from our family, and that couldn’t go unpunished. My argument that my virginity was
mine
didn’t fly. Once again, Xander stepped up. He volunteered to take Daniel’s place as a more senior member of their family.

I think I was still in shock from the attack in the club—and Xander was there, big and protective, his tattooed arms wrapped around me so no one else could get to me. That had to be why I agreed. I let my dad hustle us to a justice of the peace and then we were secretly married. Xander took the fall for the assault and battery at the club too. My name never came up, and everything was smoothed over.

Xander’s wedding gift turned out to be a one-year sentence. No gift receipt, either. He served every day. Afterward, he got a moral waiver and entered the Navy. He did one tour of duty as a SEAL, and then he hit the professional poker circuit, cleaned the other players out, and bought every piece of Miami he could get his hands on. He’s the real fucking king of our city today, and my father knows it.

He did his time, but he never came for me. I expected a divorce decree, but he ignored me and built an empire instead. I’d have appreciated some kind of attention because I’d been nursing a crush on my white-knight husband for months, but it didn’t happen. Xander rescued me and he moved on. I’m just grateful he took the time to help me in the club that night because otherwise my life would have taken an irreversible right-hand turn into hell.

My family isn’t as strong as it used to be. My father’s old, and while his heart is as fierce as ever, his head is… not always here with us. He gets confused. He forgets what he did this morning. Not every day—but enough times in a week that the family leadership pulls at the reins harder each day. They’re not going down with the captain of the ship, and I can’t blame them for that self-preservation.

I’m the pawn, the marker, the only collateral my father has to pledge to build a new, stronger, smarter alliance with a younger family—and I’m married. I can resent the fuck out of the rules, but I can’t change them. The Russian mafia families are the new nobility, and they build their bloodlines and their dynasties with care. If I can convince Xander to protect us, I have something to offer. I can buy my father more time, more space, more life.

Or I can slip away quietly into the night. Leave my father to fend for himself. I didn’t choose this family. I didn’t ask to be born a mob princess. I hate the lifestyle, but I love my father. How do I run from him and leave him alone when he doesn’t always remember if he ate lunch? He needs me. I’m the one who refused to take my place in the family business. Instead, I started a consulting business as a reputation manager. I can whitewash a company’s online presence or massage it to fit their desired brand. I make strategic changes to their social media platforms and website. I like my baby company, and I’m independent, but I’ll never be a billionaire. Never be a mover, a shaker, a moneymaker.

There are mob princesses who own this world. When I look to my left, for example, I spot Delia Zakharova. She’s not just a pretty ornament. She’s more than a pair of wedding rings and a convenient pussy for cementing the male bonds that dominate our world. She’s strong, mean, and determined to come out on top—but I’d never make the mistake of thinking she’s got it easy. Delia fights every day to sit on top of the Mafia mountain. She runs a family business, and she’s got to be the best at being both a girl
and
a boy. Beautiful, polished, feminine on the outside—and entirely ruthless on the inside. I don’t want to fight. I won’t apologize for that.