RED REAPER - Soldiers Of Fortune [book one]

Chapter FOURTEEN

Konstantin Ivanov

... earlier that morning ...

"Do svidaniya, Solnyshko.."

Lucky lingers in the passenger seat beside me after I park my Porsche out the front of her uptown apartment.. The nervous way she squirms through a reluctant farewell speaks to me as if she is waiting for me to say something more than goodbye, but after spending a night with her in my arms and watching her sleep I am more unsure of myself than I've ever been..

Lucky has blurred the lines in my mind between wrong and worse.. I am torn in two, undecided about how to continue to see her without giving her hope for anything more..

Or maybe it is myself who is instilled with foolish hope..

"Oh.. Well, I had fun last night.. Thanks again for everything.." She wavers, toying timidly with the buckle of her seatbelt as she undoes it..

I nod as a tension settles over us, though I am momentarily distracted by a familiar black sedan that I notice parked across the road.. "I am pleazed to know thiz, Malishka.."

"Ugh.. Kay.." When I don't say what it is she wants me to say, a spoiled sigh of frustrated disappointment puffs from her pretty pink lips before she reaches for the door handle and jumps out onto the sidewalk.. "Rite' then, whatever.."

She slams the car door so hard the windows rattle as she storms away up the path towards the highrise and I chuckle at the feisty fire that resides inside her as I watch her walk away..

It amuses me, her bratty behaviour and tempestuous nature holds me in rapture while I sit in contemplation of her sudden shift in mood..

I know enough about women to know that she wants me to chase her but I am caught between what I desire and what I deserve.. Choking on the truth of what can never be..

What I want is her.. What I will never be is the type of man who could marry an angel and live in happiness all the ever after.
She is the kind of fairytale that ends with a kiss and a sunset..
I am the kind that ends with a bullet and a hurricane..

So why do I continue to torture her?
Why do I punish myself with her presence?

With internal quiet outrage I climb from the slick silver GTS and wander down the sidewalk to look inside the recognisable black sedan, seeing an empty interior.. Against my better judgement I decide to wait for the owner to return, leaning patiently against the driver's door as I light a cigarette..

After several slow minutes, the object of my hateful envy appears, striding with the confidence of a man who doesn't know he is soon to taste the lead of a bullet, dressed in a black leather jacket and faded blue jeans, he looks like something shit straight out of a cliched cop movie..

Filthy fucking pig covered in the hubris stench of America.. I hate him..

"Zdravstvuyte, Detective Dickhead." I greet the lawman with a curt grunt and he frowns back at me in offended confusion..

"Do I know yeh' or summit'?" I am struck surprised by his thick southern Irish accent, and the connection he shares with My Solnyshko only angers me more, but I cover the intake of this new information with a cold glare.. As I reach up to smooth a hand down over my beard, the detective's knowing grey gaze flicks over my telling tattooed knuckles and darken in disgusted recognition.. In that moment I can tell he understands we are from opposite sides of the law.. "Listen 'ere fella, I dunno who the fuck yeh' think yeh' are--"

"Shhh.. You lizten to me Brody, I will make simple for you who I am--" I bring a finger to my lips and he clenches his teeth with irritation as he falls silent to hear my warning.. "I am 'ze man telling you to stay 'ze fuck away from my v'woman, or I kill you."