Zaika - a Dark Russian Mafia Romance

Howdy friends,

Some of you might know this, but Zaika is the second book in 'The Named' series. The first is Kotik, and it has graduated to the 'Zon.

You do not need to read Kotik to read Zaika. They are standalones with different couples. Are there easter eggs? Yes. Does it take away from the story if you don't know them? No.

Happy reading <3

Alina

He was all the way across the road on the roof of another building, but Andrei’s rifle was aimed right at me—at my heart—and I prayed to god with all I had that he wouldn’t miss. Although I didn’t have to pray that hard, he never missed.

It was only appropriate it be the heart.

That was long after I met him, in the grand scheme of things. I didn’t even know he was a sniper when I first saw him, just a down-on-his-luck veteran back from the war looking for work anywhere he could get it. Had that look about him with the dead gray eyes and all. Really unsettling, so I avoided eye contact best I could, which wasn’t hard because we didn’t work on the same floor of the casino. I served cocktails in the high roller rooms on the upper levels, and he manned the slot machines like the other thugs.

But I didn’t meet him at work. I met him when Oleg took me to the Swan. Nice place, roomy for a store, and full of white skirts with lace and frills. When I was a kid, I used to stare at wedding dresses through the windows and think they looked like cakes, especially the ones with pearls sewn into the hem. I wanted both the food and dresses, but had no occasion for either one.

It was Oleg, Rita, and I. He had some business with Mikhail, of course, because there was always ’business’ with Mikhail since they were forced to be partners.

Mikhail “the Grizzly” Petrovich. King-bossman of the guns and Kurev operations. He was there before we arrived, in fact, if it weren’t for him, Oleg wouldn’t have been relocated. I’d still be enjoying the gloomy Novosibirsk weather. But Grizzly or not, the man wouldn’t have anything to do with the girls—and the girls had always been Oleg’s specialty. Not unheard of to share a city. But not ideal. There was always some difficulty communicating, which was exactly why we came.

Andrei was in the back with the goons. Everyone introduced themselves, polite company and all, but we held eye contact for longer than necessary. Probably because of those unnaturally light, small-pupil demon-eyes, I’d tell myself later.

“Here’s the deal,” Mikhail began, steepling his hands atop the struggling metal desk. The man threatened to collapse it with just his forearms. Big man. Shaved head and a roll of fat at the back of his neck, permanently forcing his head a little forward. “I already have my boys in there—no don’t talk—I gave you more than enough of them. With real passports. All on the up-and-up. So if you have the militsia knocking on your door, it’s not my fucking problem.”

Oleg shifted his shoulders beneath the suit jacket that’d been tailored so precisely, you couldn’t fit a matchstick between him and the lapel. I could tell he was getting agitated already. No one back home mouthed off to him. But this wasn’t home, was it?

“Mikhail Petrovich,” my boss said patiently, “if the militsia come asking, it’s easy to paper the girls. Your men aren’t as diplomatic. I can’t have them flash heat every time they see an auditor. Please, inform them of the etiquette in a polite establishment.”

“Andrei.” Mikhail nodded, his eyes remaining on Oleg. The cigarette traveled from one corner of his lips to the other. The scarred man lifted his chin, and to my discomfort, he was still looking at me. “You know your ‘please’ and ’thank yous?’”

“Even know ’excuse me’ on a good day,” Andrei answered. The thick arms crossed over his chest shifted, casually tightening.

“Well, there you go,” Mikhail’s nostrils flared, and he finally looked to me, then Rita, and back to me. “You bring your bodyguards?”

“Liaisons,” Oleg corrected coolly. “Rita Feodorovna is my head of Food and Beverage…” There was a skip, and that half second would tell me if he trusted the present company. “And Natasha Denisova is my overseer in the high-limit lounge. Mind you, not an official title and I’d like you and your men to keep it between us.”

So. That wasn’t my real name, which could mean a few things. Mostly that my mouth needed to remain shut. A spy in plain sight.

“Aha,” the big man behind the desk huffed. “So what special privileges does this one get?”

“Immediate and undivided attention,” Oleg said. “A girl hears something, sees something, you’d best warn your guys to keep an ear out if she so much as whispers. This is not negotiable.”

There it was, the ‘not ideal.’ Oleg couldn’t build the flawless machine that was his network in this town. The thugs wouldn’t listen to him unless instructed by their bossman, and the girls wouldn’t talk to the muscle without cause. Unless they were fucking, and there was always fucking, even if it was against the rules.

The one rule I didn’t break. Not where Oleg could see.

I don’t like people, which is funny because you wouldn’t think I’d work this job unless I liked people, but options were limited. If you work for Oleg, you don’t tell him no when he says to put on that scratchy, gold sequin-covered dress. Better than the alternative, I guess. Rather deal with the big money staring at my tits than the junkies.

He put his foot down when it came to the casino. It wasn’t his first one, but he had no vory breathing on his starched, white collar this time. Odd to think of Oleg as someone’s bitch, because he never did get those stars slapped onto him before we left.

Someone he trusted had to reside in each department because the low-rung staff stole, and it was too hard to get new, reliable workers. Call it state surveillance. Most of them didn’t know who the plants were.

My first impression aside, Andrei seemed like a nice guy. I couldn’t stand nice guys because they aren’t genuine. They are the ones who sit at the tables and throw down a fistfuls of money. They call you solnushko and kiska, polite-like. They don’t get scummy until you’re caught with them and no one is looking. The nicer they are in public, the worse they are behind closed doors. Real ‘nice’ guys don’t have jobs and they spend all their time digging up potatoes at the plots of land they’ve had since before the Perestroika. They don’t come to the casinos and they don’t work for people like Oleg or Mikhail, which is why I didn’t buy Andrei’s shit at first.

He was one of Mikhail’s thugs standing around at every door in those suit jackets where you just know a Makarov is waiting to unload into some fat fuck’s chest the second they get on Oleg’s nerves.

I had a real problem, because even knowing this, I wanted to fuck him despite my no-workplace rule. Something about the danger of it. He wasn’t bad on the eyes either—the kind of man who could fill a doorway, all muscle you get working over iron in a basement, not tossing hay bales. I wouldn’t be surprised if he bent cutlery just by thinking about eating. Toss you over a shoulder and forget you’re still there, wrapped around his thick neck.

I used to see a guy like that, all man—but he didn’t have his own apartment, and I couldn’t bring him around Jana and her kid. A girl can only handle so many times in the backseat before it gets tedious enough to call the whole thing off. Andrei wasn’t the only of his kind aside from those decorations on his face that made him look like a storybook villain. Those damn grey eyes—the only part of Andrei that wasn’t in any way attractive, unless of course you counted the deep-set scar running from his jaw to under the eye. I didn’t—because it was kind of hot.

I always tended to fixate on interesting things like that, and he was the lucky winner this time.

I didn’t realize the cost of this whimsy in the end. And how could I? I don’t think anyone sets out in pursuit of these problems knowing that’s what they’re doing. Like doing a bump or letting a guy hit it raw.

I didn’t realize what it meant to get involved with Andrei Romanov.

Or that he might not be such a ’nice guy.’

Militsia - police

Vory - refers to “Vory v Zakone,” the original bratva formed in Russian prisons. The bratva structure was built imitating and including the ”Vory" culture.

Solnushko - “little sun”

Kiska - “kitty”

Perestroika - the late 1980s reform

About Russia: It is worth mentioning that Vory v zakone (“thieves-in-law”) is the top-tier leadership in the broader organization of bratva groups. A clear mark of being a vor are eight point stars tattooed on their chests, knees, or shoulders. These have to be awarded and indicate status.