Kostya: A Dark Mafia Romance (Zinon Bratva), Nicole Fox [life changing books txt] 📗

open and move to the closet. A Bond girl would wear something shimmery and form-fitting for a meeting at the Baltzley, but I’m not an invited guest. I’m a spy. Lowe. Charlotte Lowe. Tonight is my night. What I wear matters as much as what I’m doing.

Even if what I’m doing is making a very, very big mistake.

The hotel is glitz and glamor on a scale so grand I can’t comprehend. I’ve been here before, but this kind of opulence is so overstated that taking it all in would require more trips than I have time for. The crystal chandeliers—seven in the lobby alone—that dangle from what I believe are actual gold chains send prisms of light and color dancing across the mile-high ceiling. The leather seating, complimentary appetizer and beverage service, and tuxedoed concierge mean a stay here is way above my earning potential, but I hold my head up and walk carefully toward the bank of elevators.

I have a copy of Kostya’s keycard in my handbag and because it’s only seven and he hadn’t left yet when I did, I know he isn’t here. My plan is to slip into the room, find a nice quiet hiding spot for my newfangled voice recorder, wait for them to leave, then retrieve it and let Google Translate work her magic. This way, I’m not in the room when they arrive, not in the room while they speak, and not in the room when they leave, but I’ll have all the information I need.

Whoever designed the elevator—the smart elevator that doesn’t require a rider to even touch a button—took form and function to new heights. The walls are etched mirrors boasting the hotel’s logo above velvet benches making an L on the right side and the attendant with glasses of sparkling champagne on the right. Bellboys and staff must have their own bank of elevators because one of those big rolling carts sure as hell won’t fit in here.

I ride to the top floor and slide my keycard into the door. I don’t have time to stop and stare in the way that the delights of Kostya’s suite deserve. I need to be in and out and gone before anyone arrives.

But I can’t not see what a three-thousand-dollar a night mattress feels like. And it’s like a cloud. A heavenly cloud under my ass. Wow. If I had a bed like this one, I’d be in bed by seven every night.

“For God’s sake, Charlotte. Snap out of it.” I have an objective. A purpose. And it has nothing to do with this damn bed. The main room isn’t ripe with places to hide the recorder and I hate to go for the obvious—under the sofa—but it makes the most sense. I am on my hands and knees in front of the sofa when the door opens and I hear Kostya and Yelisey.

Oh shit.

This is so bad. I go flat and belly-crawl to the far side of the sofa then wait before crouch-running into the bedroom to hide behind the door.

I can’t hear them speaking, wouldn’t understand even if I could, but I know the minute Kostya walks toward my semi-lazy hiding spot. I could’ve folded myself into the armoire. It’s probably bigger than my room at Mom’s house. Or I could’ve even slid under the bed. Maybe disappeared onto the balcony until they all left, but instead, genius that I am, I hid behind a door he can close and expose me at any time.

I wait for him to walk into the bathroom then step out, liking the armoire idea more by the minute after discounting the balcony because of the rain. As I open the cabinet door, he opens the bathroom door and we are face-to-face, inches apart.

All I can think to say is, “Fuck.”

10

Charlotte

I can’t tell if he’s angry. He’s rigid and his breaths are short but he’s holding my arm gently. Certainly, if he was angry, he’d be squeezing bruises into my skin. That’s what I tell myself because I can see what looks like fury in his eyes, and I’m scared.

“What are you doing here?” His tone is clipped. He’s controlling each word and how much of his accent comes through.

Some spy I’d be. I can’t even think of a good fib. Literally nothing comes to mind. I have no reason that I should be in this room, this hotel, this part of the city.

“I, um, I saw on your schedule that you would be here tonight, and I wanted to surprise you.” Since I started watching Tiana, I haven’t seen, nor would I be able to adhere to, a schedule.

“My schedule.” He purses his lips and I’m busted. I know it. The only thing to do now is wait for him to deliver whatever punishment he finds fitting—hopefully I’m only fired, not something in line with being fitted for concrete shoes. There is a bite to his tone. “Who are you, Charlotte Lowe?”

I don’t know if he’s asking in a literal sense or if he wants the more abstract answer. “I don’t …”

“Are you a Whelan spy?” His voice is hard.

“No.” I don’t even know what a Whelan is, outside of a hastily shouted word during Kostya’s interrogation, and as far as being a spy, I’m nowhere near adequate.

“But you wouldn’t say if you were.”

“No, but I’m not.” Now his fingers tighten in the soft flesh of my upper arm. “You’re hurting me.”

“And you’re lying to me.” He flings me away as if he can’t stand touching me.

I’m lying, and there’s no graceful way out of it. Who am I kidding anyway? “Kostya.”

He slams the door shut, and there’s nothing tender in the way he hauls me against him, nothing gentle in the fingers around my biceps, nothing soft in his eyes as he glares at me. His kiss is rough. Demanding. Punishing.

He pulls back. “Why you, Charlotte? Of all people, why did it have to be you?”

Be me? Why did what