Cognac Villain

Chapter 2 Episode 2

“I came over because you look lonely.” His words are breathy, arriving on a cloud of alcohol fumes. “Thought I’d keep ya company.”

I wrinkle my nose. “‘Oh, that’s nice of you. I’m fine, though. But thanks!”

If he understands the implied goodbye, he doesn’t show it. He steps closer, his belly pressing against me. “Who are you with?”

“My boyfriend,” I lie reflexively. “He’s getting me a drink right now.”

He hesitates for a second and then cackles. “Bullshit.”

That throws me for a loop, mostly because he’s so certain. “I don’t—I mean—How would you even know?”

“Because you’re here to meet him. Just like the rest of them.” He says it with more of that same finality. Like he knows something I don’t.

I have lots of questions, but none I want to sit and discuss with this charming fellow. I try to edge past him. “I’m just going to—”

“He isn’t that great, you know.” He shifts with me, blocking my path. “Everyone is here for Ivan, but I’ll show you what a real man can do for you. There’s no line to get to me.”

“Gee, I wonder why,” I mutter to myself. To him, I say, “I have literally no idea what you are talking about. You probably don’t, either. You’re drunk. So if you could just let me go—”

Suddenly, his sweaty, meaty hand slaps my ass.

Distantly, I hear threads of my dress popping. But it’s like paying attention to a dripping faucet when your house is on fire. I have bigger fish to fry.

Anyone who’s ever worked in the food service industry knows that customers do jaw-dropping things. Married men leave their phone numbers on the receipt; friendly-looking grandpas pinch your ass; their wives hiss that you’re a slut beneath their breaths.

And anyone who’s ever been stuck working in the food service industry, even when they’re so sick of all those things, knows that there are two choices: you can take it all on the chin and keep your job—or you can live out the fantasy of every server ever and show the motherfuckers who crossed the line that they messed with the wrong person.

Today, I’m the wrong person.

And this is the motherfucker who crossed the line.

I’m bored out of my f*****g mind.

Everywhere I look at this party, I see the least interesting person I’ve ever met. And the next, and the next. For a bunch of scumbags and criminals, you’d think they would have something engaging to discuss.

But they don’t. The furthest thing from it, in fact.

Because just about every soul under my roof tonight is here for the same irritating reason.

To get me to marry.

Whether it’s them I’m meant to be marrying, or their daughter, sister, cousin, mother, whoever, they aren’t too particular. They just want to get closer to me. To my empire. By any means necessary.

I don’t even blame them. The Pushkin Bratva is the biggest shark in a sea full of them. We have the money. The power. We decide who gets what and when, and the usual answers to those questions are “us,” “all of it,” and “right f*****g now.”

“These things will be the death of me,” I mutter.

“So why are you here?” asks Yasha, my best friend and right-hand man, as he snares a toothpick of cheese from a passing waiter.

“Because Anya will be the death of me if I bail.”

He snorts through a mouthful of brie. “True. That sister of yours owes you one for what she’s putting you through tonight.”

“That she does,” I agree.

But even that is a massive understatement. I wouldn’t be here, subjecting myself to this bullshit, for anyone but her.

If it weren’t for me, though, she’d be going through hellfire right now. Our father was furious enough when he found out what she’d done. Rebuffing half a dozen decent marriage proposals in order to elope with a lowly Bratva foot soldier? It’s blasphemy in the eyes of the old bastard who birthed us. Daughters, in our father’s mind, are pawns to be moved around the board as he sees fit. God forbid they should marry for love.

I think she should do whatever the hell she wants. That being said, I’m not exactly big on the concept. Marry for love: fine, if that’s what Anya desires.

But I will not be doing the same.

If I’m going to be forced to marry, I’ll be marrying for business. Nothing more. I’m marrying to take the heat off my sister’s transgressions. I’m marrying to solidify the Pushkin Bratva as the preeminent force in the American underworld.

Love has nothing to do with it.

A sudden sound from behind me draws my attention. Yasha and I turn as one, conditioned by years of fighting alongside one another to be ready for whatever comes next. It wouldn’t be the first party we’ve attended that ends in gunfire and bloodshed.

But there’s none of that to be seen.

A woman I’ve never seen before is baring her fangs at the drunken nephew of the Greek Genakos mafia don. Stefanos is his name, I think. He’s coarse and sloppy, which matches his reputation. Even now, his eyes are rolling in their sockets, loosened by too much of the free booze on hand. His claws are reaching out toward the girl.

“Keep your f*****g hands to yourself,” she spits at him.

“Aw, c’mon,” he mutters through clumsy lips. “I was just tryna be friendly.”

“Tryna appreciate you, too,” he mumbles. “You don’t gotta be a b***h about it.”

Her jaw drops. “I know you did not just call me a bitch.”

“I said you’re bein’ a b***h, not that you are—”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence before she cracks him across the face with a vicious slap. Those freewheeling eyes of his go blank and he stumbles backwards. He bumps into a wall and wobbles.

Then he rights himself and his unkempt smile twists into something far meaner.

“Listen here, you fuckin’ w***e…” He advances on her. Those hands of his suddenly don’t look so limp and harmless. He goes to paw her again. She tries to bat him off, but he’s bigger and stronger than her, so he just swallows her up with his bulk as he backs her into the corner by the bathrooms.

And with that, I’ve seen enough.

I’m not here to be anyone’s white knight. But I’ll be damned if this inebriated moron is going to go around groping unwilling women in front of me.

When I was a boy, I saw my father do far too much of that. I couldn’t do anything to stop him then.

But now? Now, I’m perfectly capable of ripping this motherfucker to pieces.

I cross the distance, find the back of Stefanos’s collar, and rip him to the ground. He shrieks and hits hard enough to shake the nearby sculptures on their pedestals.

A champagne flute crashes to the floor and shatters in a million directions. One of the jagged pieces cuts Stefanos’s ear. His blood starts to pool out onto the white marble.

I plant a knee on Stefanos’s chest and bend down close enough for him to hear every word I breathe in his face. “I think you are the one who ought to ‘listen here,’ my friend. The lady told you no. She asked you to keep your hands to yourself, but you did not. So now, I’m putting my hands on you, and I won’t stop when you ask me to. I won’t stop when you beg me to. I won’t even stop when you scream and plead and cry for me to please God just have some f*****g mercy.”

Stefanos’s eyes are wide and still now. His lower lip quivers. The cold fear sweat beading in his mustache disgusts me. “P-p-plea—”

“Shh.” I press a finger to my mouth. “I just told you that begging won’t help.” Then, sighing, I release my weight from off his chest and stand again. I pull my tuxedo cuffs into place as I look down on him from above. “But I don’t feel like getting your blood on my suit tonight. So for now, I’ll let you go. Get the f**k out of my sight.”

He doesn’t have to be told twice. He scrambles away on his hands and knees, leaking blood, until he can gather himself back upright. Then he goes bumbling away, down the corner and out of sight.

When he’s gone, I turn to the girl.

I’m still standing where that asshole left me backed into the corner. My hair is mussed and sweaty and my jaw is aching from biting down so hard. I’d like to get out of here, but I’m stuck for two main reasons.

One is that the man who just rescued me from Mr. Handsy Douche Bag is currently smoldering down in my direction. He looks like if testosterone had a face. Pure, rippling masculinity. Eyes like preserved honey. Hands that, even now, are flexing and unflexing like they’re capable of doing so much more.

The second reason is that, if I move out of this corner, Prince Testosterone and all the rubber-necking onlookers will get an eyeful of my bare butt.

That’s because, when the douche bag tried to paw at me, he ripped my dress all the way up the back seams. I can feel the cold breeze of the air conditioning blowing where I really wish it wouldn’t.