In the Beginning (Volkov Bratva #1)(86)

She was not confused in any way. She knew what he expected of her, and knew that he only kept her because of his perverse nature. The older she got, the quicker he grew distant, but that was no matter. Anya drained him of every cent to his name and left in the middle of the night. She had no fear that he would come after her, knowing that he faced a much longer sentence if she ever opened his mouth.

With her first taste of the upper-class society, Anya decided then that she would do everything in her power never to return to her impoverished childhood, begging for food and wearing rags for clothes.

Once the professor was of no use to her anymore, next came a famous chef, a CEO, and even a lawyer. Men walked in and out of her life, their money left behind, but to a woman like Anya, it was no longer enough. She grew bored with the scores of men, seeing them only as means to an end. She wanted the thrill of the chase, the excitement of a challenge.

That was when she stumbled across Mikhail Volkov and his wife, Catja. She knew with only a glance that he was different from the men before him, that he could be everything that she wanted. There was something dark and alluring about him that called to a primitive part of her. Anya had to have him, no matter the cost, no matter who was hurt in the end.

And though there were some women that would find the idea of courting a married man repugnant, she reveled at the idea, eager to test the wiles she had patiently acquired over the years.

Every Thursday at the beginning of the month, like clockwork, Mikhail and a group of other men would meet in the city, frequenting a hotel she was staying in. For months she tried to tempt him, but nothing seemed to catch his eye when he was at the hotel, but luck was on her side. After a bit of spying and bribing, she learned that the couple and their four-year-old son were in need of a maid. Though it pained her greatly to sink so low as to scrub the floors on her hands and knees, the reward was too important for her to allow her pride to interfere.

Anya groveled in the face of Mikhail’s wife, but when she was gone from the house and she was free to wander the house as she pleased, she poured on the charm whenever she came across Mikhail. A peak of the lacy cups of her bra here, a flash of her panties there. It was his smile that gave him away, the slight tilt of his lips letting her know she was finally getting to him. It seemed to prove too much for the devoted husband of six years.

No sooner had Anya begun working in the home, she and Mikhail began their illicit affair. They snuck around at first, making love in every room. Soon, neither cared whether they were caught, practically throwing it in Catja’s face.

Now the mistress of the house, it was not just Catja receiving elaborate and expensive gifts, but there was one thing of Catja’s that Anya still coveted, her diamond ring.

She longed to finally have one of her own, much bigger than the dainty, traditional cut of Catja’s. Anya had begun to plot, thinking of ways to take the other woman out of the picture without suspicion falling on herself, but there was no easy way to accomplish this since Catja no longer trusted her.

But luck was still on Anya’s side.

For reasons Anya had never cared to find out, Catja was dying. On that fateful morning, as Catja’s casket was lowered into the ground, Anya began planning her dream wedding. Six weeks later, she was married. Now, as the woman of the house—and knowledgable of every aspect of Mikhail’s life—Anya requested everything under the sun. They moved to the manor out of the city, purchasing the twenty acres of land surrounding it. If she wanted a car, she needed only to bat her eyelashes, and as long as the boy that Mikhail fawned over did not try to form any kind of relationship with her, she was content in her new found happiness and power…at least for a spell.

That happiness she had searched for so long began to fade as she was now thrust into the position of house wife. For her, the spark was no longer there, until a new delightful challenge presented itself just a few months later.

Now, a simple little suka thought to unravel everything that Anya had worked for? She would kill her first.

As a mixture of rain and hail fell from the stormy gray clouds obscuring the sky, Anya sat in silence in the back of her chauffeured town car, her driver expertly maneuvering through the late day traffic. They were on their way to a meeting with one of Anya’s sources inside the NYPD.

Fifteen minutes later, they pulled into a parking lot behind a gambling parlor in Chinatown—the owners friends of the Bratva’s—adjacent to the unmarked police car. It had always amused Anya that the police in this country liked to believe their cars were inconspicuous. In fact, it was painfully obvious who the vehicle belonged to.

She adjusted her sunglass in annoyance as she waited Officer Johnny Marciano to hustle his way over. Henry, the driver, stepped out of the car, gravel crunching beneath his boots as he intercepted Marciano, checking him over and removing his firearm, before allowing him into the car.

Johnny Marciano was in his mid-forties, with a beer gut and a grotesque combover. He had beady brown eyes and the tan skin of his Italian heritage. Beneath his arm, he carried a large briefcase that he held onto like precious gold. With on last cursory glance around, he climbed into the back with Anya, the pulse at the base of his neck fluttering wildly as Anya leveled a stare on him.

She was dangerous in her own right.

Marciano gave her a pained smiled as he swept his hand over his thinning hair, shifting the case onto his lap. Behind her glasses, she could see the fine tremor running through his body.