Time Stood Still (Volkov Bratva #3.5)(10)

“Do you want my honest opinion?” Lauren asked since they were alone for the time being.

“No.”

Deciding that she would tell him anyway despite his somber mood, she kept on. “I don’t think Mish would actually kill you if you had a thing with a particular someone that’s close to him.”

“Leave it alone, Lauren.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Jesus f*cking Christ. Leave it alone. If I wanted your advice, I would have asked for it. Stop trying to ‘fix’ shit when you should be worried about yourself.”

Six months ago, she might have started tearing up at that, but now she just looked over at Luka. “Won’t happen again.”

Turning away from him, Lauren headed towards the shoes department, knowing that was more than likely where she would find them. Luka was right in some regards, she was trying to ‘fix’ whatever it was between him and Alex. She wanted them to be happy, as happy as she was with Mishca, but it was pretty clear from his attitude that whatever was broken between them, they’d have to fix it themselves.

Sure enough, Alex and Amber were busy trying on shoes when Lauren walked up. Forcing a smile, Lauren did what she came to do, and by the end of the day, there was more than one person ignoring the enforcer.

***

After meeting with Roman in Green Hill to finalize his plans for the parlor, Mishca still had a long day of driving around the neighboring boroughs, checking in on his men and the work that needed to be done. Business was far from perfect and it would be a while before it even got close, but he could say that things were far better than even he had anticipated. Even the men he answered to were impressed, and that was a hard thing to accomplish.

It didn’t hurt, however, that he was fair with the men under him. It became pretty clear that the better work you did—that didn’t include enforcing his rules—the more likely you were to receive a bonus.

Money was always a great motivator.

Hundreds of men answered to him now that he was at the top, and that didn’t include the number of workers he had at his clubs, and yet, there was only one person he was desperately close to strangling.

Mishca stood behind the chair in his office and could almost feel his hands wrapped around the throat of his enforcer, but because he knew Lauren would take Luka’s death hard, he kept his fingers where they were, his knuckles gone white with the force of his grip.

“Luka,” he started through gritted teeth, trying to force his annoyance down, wishing for once that Luka would do what he asked without having to make a joke out of it. “This is serious.”

Since that night in the motel room, and Mishca had taken over as Pakhan, Mishca had seen less of his enforcer—and if he were being honest, it was in part because of his harboring resentment for what he had done, but mostly because he was entirely too busy.

But with the shift in power, Mishca didn’t have many people left he trusted implicitly—and Luka had only been doing his job after all. Some wondered how he could trust Luka without knowing a single thing about him, and if he were on the outside looking in, Mishca would wonder the same thing, but Luka had never made him doubt him. Ever. He’d witnessed and heard of enough bloody shit that Luka had done that there was no doubt that he was who he said he was.

That didn’t mean Mishca didn’t have the inclination to look into him now after everything that had happened. He just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

“Serious? This is serious. Very serious,” Luka agreed, shaking his head vehemently. “I’ll make sure nothing falls to shit while you’re off choking the dragon.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, Mishca squeezed his eyes shut. “Luka—”

“Jerking the chicken?”

“Get out.”

Luka pouted like he had been looking forward to saying more.

“One more thing.”

He turned as Mishca came around his desk, rolling up his sleeve. Luka’s eyebrows went up as he watched in fascination at what Mishca might do next. But Mishca didn’t say anything, only slung out his fist, connecting with Luka’s nose.

His head snapped back, his hands immediately coming up to cup his nose, a surprised laugh spilling out of him. Dropping his hands, blood streaming from his face, he wiped it with the back of his hand.

Grinning, he said, “You hit like a bitch.”

At this point, even Mishca was smiling. “Don’t ever break my finger again.”





CHAPTER THREE





It was organized chaos the next morning as they readied to leave, wanting to get to the airport early. A few of the men that Mishca had brought over, Lauren had never seen before, but he made sure they stuck close to the elevator and didn’t venture any further into the apartment. While he’d finished the last of his rounds of walking through the place making sure everything was secure, Lauren was waiting for him, on the phone with Susan, letting her know what time they were supposed to be arriving.

Mishca passed a set of keys to Luka and said, “Keep things running smoothly.”

“Yea, okay.”

He gestured for them to enter the elevator, pulling Lauren to his side as one of them pressed the button to go down. There were a number of people in the lobby, but seeing Mishca’s security, they moved to the side, eyes wide.