THE FIXER

I make a non-committal sound and look out the window. Do I hate her for what she did? For lying about me and getting me thrown out of Igor’s cell?Belonging to NôvelDrama.Org.

Maybe I did when it happened. It solidified my feelings about women as lying, manipulative pains in the ass. I don’t know if I still do. Yes, I think she’s a petulant and spoiled mafiya princess, but I also know she is exactly what Igor made her.

Is it possible she’s not in any danger, and this was just Igor’s final punishment to us both? That he enacted some kind of rich irony to couple us together after we fucked each other over so well last time. That his money is not actually what’s putting Sasha in danger, it’s the glue that keeps us bound?

I suppose.

But I doubt it. I know the workings of the bratva. This is one of Igor’s many machinations, yes, but I still believe it was because he trusted me to keep Sasha alive.

He wasn’t sure about the men he kept closest to him in Moscow.

“I don’t hate you for the past,” I say, finally, still looking out the window. “But I’m not above punishing you.” Igor planted the seed that I would exact retribution with her. After experiencing how pleasurable it was to spank her gorgeous ass, I’m not inclined to let her off the hook.

I sense a shiver run through her. I steal a glance where she sits beside me. Her pouty lips are parted, and I see a flash of both excitement and vulnerability. A glimpse of that beautiful, underloved teenager, desperate for attention from any quarter and seeking it from me.

But the moment she realizes I’m looking, her mouth snaps closed, and she lifts her chin. “Maybe I’ll be punishing you,” she sniffs.

Fuck.

Me.

Maybe this all was Igor’s big, sick joke.

SASHA

MAXIM PAYS someone at the curb to take our bags and check us in, so we can go straight to the security line. There, he pays someone for us to cut in line.

I’ve forgotten how nice it is to travel with a powerful man. It’s not that I didn’t have money in my purse when I went back and forth between California and Moscow. But it wasn’t the same. I’ve been sheltered my whole life. My years at USC were off the charts fun-having freedom and developing friendships-but I was still just a college student. I had no power.

I didn’t know how to grease wheels or who to bribe. But maybe that’s only a secret club for men, anyway. Women rely on their beauty to get special favors. It’s always worked for me.

My minidress gets me plenty of attention. Honestly, it’s way more something I’d wear to go out dancing at a nightclub than something to travel in. Ditto on the platform sandals. I wore it to get under Maxim’s skin, still under the impression I’d be able to talk him out of dragging me to Chicago.

But here I am in the airport showing way too much skin. Oh well, I might as well own it. I toss my hair and cock a hip, pretending I’m a movie star, and that’s why we get to cut in line.

Maxim loops an arm around my waist and draws me closer to him. My breast brushes against his chest, my nipple puckering in my bra. My panties are still wet from his spanking in the car.

I arch a brow but don’t pull away. I was expecting a rebuke or the crankiness my father used to show when he thought I looked slutty. I like Maxim’s response quite a bit better. “Staking your claim?” I purr.

“Damn straight.” He looks around. “It’s either that or kill every man who looks at you, and I don’t think that would go over in an airport.” He gazes down, standing taller than me, even in the platform heels. “I seem to recall you have a streak of exhibitionism in you,” he says.

I blink, startled by the observation.

“So I figure I’d better accept it, or I’ll spend the rest of my life mopping blood from the floor.”

I’m even more surprised by his chosen response. Do I have a streak of exhibitionsim in me? My mother always said I was a show-off. My father told me to stop begging for attention.

But Maxim doesn’t say it like it’s a character flaw. He makes it sound like a kink. Something sexy and hot, not cloying and weak.

I fight to swallow, suddenly remembering why it was I fancied myself in love with Maxim when we were in Croatia. Because he actually sees me. He pays attention. He may be the only man in my life who looked past the red hair and pretty face. Even when I didn’t know who I was, he seemed to. I remember sitting on the deck, watching the dolphins play in the water as we played cards and listened to music together. While my father was smoking cigars with his men or screwing my mother in their cabin, Maxim was the only one who noticed my existence.

That was why I offered myself up on a platter for him.

Like an idiot.

“As long as everyone knows you’re with me, we have no problems, sugar.” He pulls me closer, angling my body into his, so his thigh comes between mine like we’re doing a sexy lambada on the dance floor. “You have it, you might as well flaunt it.” He gives me a wink, and I melt even more.

Damn him.

I squeeze my inner thighs together around his thicker limb. It would serve him right if I left a wet spot on his pant leg.

He doesn’t seem to mind a bit. His hand strays lower, rounding over my ass. “They can look all they want,” he murmurs. “And you can give them a show. Just as long as they don’t try to touch.”