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

his power to them. Had any one of these guys walked up to me on the street and asked for directions, I wouldn’t have thought twice. That was how they got me. By being normal.

The TV flashes again, and I close my eyes.

I don’t want to see whatever it is. I want to hurt them the way they’ve hurt me. I want to watch them die. The urge is powerful enough my hands twitch and my chest tightens. There’s something to be said for anger. Something I’m clinging to.

But then, Goon #2 plops down on the sofa next to me. “I feel like we should have some popcorn, eh, boys?”

He’s making fun of me. I add him to the list of those I want to see dead. If there’s life after death, my immortal soul will delight in spitting on them when I kill them in that world, too.

But right now, I’m quiet because I don’t need the pain or to risk my child, since no one is coming for me and I’m going to have to figure out how to get out of here on my own. I tamp down the surge of emotion that overwhelms me yet again at the realization that no one is coming. Not just no one. No Kostya. I can’t dwell on that. On the fact that whatever we had was never anything real. Or if it was, I destroyed it. Mom did. No. I have to focus on the here and now. It’s my only chance at making it out of this alive without outside rescue.

In front of me, the screen is full of my face. As I look at myself and assess the damage, I hear my own voice—stilted and halting as if I’m a first-time reader—and I hope, I pray that when Kostya sees it, he knows I didn’t want to hurt him. I didn’t want to make the video. And I damn sure wouldn’t have sent it to the local news.

But after we watch it once, we watch it twice more. And listen as it’s dissected by news anchors. “The FBI is currently searching for the mystery woman in the video.”

“The woman has been identified as Charlotte Lowe, a former employee of one of the several companies owned by Kostya Zinon. We reached out to Zinon for a statement and received an email that reads:

The statement provided by Miss Lowe is false, and Kostya Zinon, a philanthropist responsible for millions of dollars in charitable donations each year, is not associated or affiliated with any form of organized crime. Mr. Zinon welcomes any investigation into these baseless and ridiculous allegations. Mr. Zinon is anxious to clear his name and prove Miss Lowe to be nothing more than a disgruntled former employee.”

My favorite is the one from Channel Four. A tall and regal blonde stands next to a screen with a clicker in her hand. She calls me a gold-digger. An extortionist. A wannabe whistleblower hero who offered no proof of anything alleged against Kostya.

But it’s the way she speaks of him that makes me angrier than anything else. She calls him Kostya, like they’re friends, pals, lovers. At least the other anchors were professional enough to call him “Mr. Zinon.” This tarted-up bitch has the temerity to insult me like she thinks it’s gonna land her in Kostya’s bed.

It’s not until much later, when I’m back in my concrete hole, missing the soft, simple comforts of worn leather and foam cushions, that the door opens again.

This time, a single man walks in with a chair. He flips it around in front of me and sits in it backwards. He’s wearing a gray suit with a white shirt and red tie. But I focus on his shoes. They’re black with white panels sewed into the sides and red stitching. For whatever reason they remind me of the Mad Hatter. I focus on them even while he speaks. Especially after he speaks.

“I’m afraid our time is about to end.”

I don’t speak because I know what it means. I’ve seen their faces. If they leave me alive, I’ll tell the FBI that I was forced to make that statement by Irish mobsters associated with the Whelan family, an organization that has to be on an FBI watchlist somewhere.

“Mr. Zinon says you are no longer of interest to him. Says you betrayed him.” Clown Shoes tsks his tongue against his teeth. “We don’t need ya anymore.”

I close my eyes even though I already pretty much figured all that out. Kostya believes I betrayed him on local news and then again when the syndicated national news picked up the story. And because of that—not because I’m standing toe to toe with my mortality—my eyes fill with tears.

I’m going to die. Kostya is going to find out about our baby during my autopsy, and he’s never going to know I didn’t want to betray him. I would’ve gladly, even while fired and heartbroken, taken what I know about him to my grave.

The smooth talker in the chair isn’t quite finished yet. “Since you’ve proved useless to us, we’re going to have to take the girl.”

“You don’t have to. You can leave her alone. She’s just a baby.” My voice breaks, shatters, and I end on a whisper. Not Tiana. They can do what they want to me. But not her. Surely Kostya will rescue his daughter. Her, he loved. That much I’m sure of.

“This war with Zinon has already begun. It’s about more than streets and money and drugs and all the other things which made our worlds collide. It’s about our honor and our obligations.”

I scoff. Loudly, using the sound to galvanize my flagging courage. “That sounds so much more romantic than the truth, doesn’t it? Is that the kind of line you use to pick up women? Because it sounds like something a jackass would say. Which is what you are. You know that, right?”

Fear and anguish and anxiety make me fearless. I don’t care