Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 51507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 258(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 172(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 258(@200wpm)___ 206(@250wpm)___ 172(@300wpm)
I was an alpha asshole, and had no shame in admitting it.
That’s not to say that I didn’t have a lot of women in my life. I did. Ever since I’d gotten smacked upside the head with the load of testosterone that was puberty, I’d had almost more women hanging around me than I could deal with. In high school, the young girls would practically stalk me. And the older they got, the subtler they became, but there were no fewer of them. And when they knew I was connected to the mafia, assassins, thieves, and just overall bad guys, they should have been smart and run away... they did the complete opposite. And then of course owning Black Secrets only fueled my desire more. I owned a playground where every fantasy could be met with parties in The Party Room and the men who attended the parties could quench their every thirst.
Sometimes I didn’t mind a casual fuck. Sometimes I wanted to be left alone. It was a balance that I’d been happy with as long as I’d had Dasha and his daughter as my surrogate family to ground me. To keep my ego in check and remind me that I was a human being who still enjoyed meatloaf and to watch a Sunday night football game with a buddy. But now that he was dead... things seemed darker and I wasn’t rebounding as I should. I worked around death used as consequences for deals gone bad. I had lost more friends than I could count. You couldn’t be where I was in the circle I frequented and expect to grow old or have friends who do the same. Not unless you were dying old behind bars.
But my friendship with Dasha was different.
He was Russian mafia. Part of the Bratva brotherhood. In all reality, we shouldn’t have been friends, but somehow a dark Italian corporate CEO and an even darker Russian prick hit it off. We worked together and had a mutual respect for each other, but we also traveled together and did normal things like dinner and watching the game.
Dasha was my normal.
Now I just felt like a dark motherfucker again. Alone.
Work helped—the length of my work weeks was getting to be ridiculous. They were the things of which legends were made. But the solace was empty. Beyond the isolation, there were miles and miles of nothingness, and I considered walking away from the dark world altogether. I knew that my partners at Black Secrets would shit themselves if I left. But I was growing weary of being there every night. I had no desire to take part in the parties. Most of my partners were getting serious with women and weren’t present like they once were. Now that they were even wealthier fucks, they were settling down and becoming respectable. I wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on, but the dynamic of our club was changing and it no longer had the same appeal to me that it once had. Even though the club was packed on most nights, I was over smoking cigars and drinking gin with men who didn’t measure up to Dasha.
It was getting old, or I was getting lonely. Or I just needed a fucking attitude check.
I wasn’t sure what the fuck I would do, but I was tired and sick of just about everything. I needed to get my shit together.
The one bright spot in my life was the only social engagement I cared to keep—my once a month lunches with Raychel.
She was a strange, timid little creature. She’d been a rock for me when Dasha died even though I was supposed to comfort her as she grieved for her father, and I wasn’t about to forget that. I’d always liked Raychel, although I knew that she was completely off limits. She was much younger than me and the daughter of my best friend.
Was she fucking beautiful? Hell, yes.
But the answer was no. No fucking way would I even consider her.
Was I lying to myself? Hell, yes.
I considered. Fuck me, I had considered every time I jacked off after a dinner with them.
She was of age... barely.
But I was a total shithead and absolute creep for doing so.
I own it. I own just how fucked up I am.
In a perfect world, and if I were a good man, I would have never considered plunging my cock deep inside of her.
But the world was far from perfect, and I most certainly wasn’t a good man.
But I’d hidden my lustful thoughts from Dasha, and for that, I was proud.
Raychel couldn’t have been any more uncomfortable around me if she’d tried—fidgeting, stuttering, and never meeting my eyes the entire time she was in my presence. She’d only gotten a little better about it since we’d been lunching.