6. Enemy

Brielle Clarke

~•~

An involuntary whimper escaped my mouth at Mr. Vasiliev's words, making the two men snap their heads toward me. My eyes met the ground immediately.

"Raise your gaze." I heard the younger man growl out. Barely stopping myself from flinching, I looked up to see that he had his eyes trained on me already.

He looked dangerous and the tattoos he had all over his body made me curious about his pain tolerance. I almost had a tattoo once and I chickened out.

I didn't know who would be a better choice to stay with but I didn't have to think much about that because it was not my choice.

My eyes were locked with his and my breath hitched, unable to look away for some reason. His tongue poked the inside of his cheek as he finally broke eye contact with me, facing his father instead.

"Ya voz'mu yeye." He finally declared. I did not understand what he said so I could only stare in oblivion.

However, the smile that came on his father's face gave me an idea. "Of course, you're going to ruin my fun. After I had her, I would've just given her to your brother. I wouldn't keep her."

I bit down on my lip. I knew I came from this kind of family where women were treated as whores or trophies but hearing him talking about passing me around like that made me shiver in disgust.

"Stop doing that." I released my lip from my teeth at once, not wanting to draw more attention to myself. The junior Vasiliev let out a sigh. "Well, it's my one million you spent, so you can scurry off."

"Your one million?"

"I run the mafia, don't I?" He raised a challenging eyebrow at his father.

It didn't seem like the men liked each other. It also didn't seem like they hated each other as well. I could only hope that the man standing before me was not as vile as his father.

He was the head of the Russian mob but I hoped he had a little bit of moral in him.

He did say he was not going to rape me, so I guess that was a start.

"Are we done here? I have work to do."

"Your men told me it's your day off."

"Well, I'd rather not spend it arguing with you, so if you'd excuse me."

Without saying anything more, the younger Vasiliev turned around and disappeared through the exit, leaving me alone with his creep of a father.

"You've been quiet so far. Keep it up but seduce him or something. Maxim's so uptight sometimes."

Uptight? Was he talking about the same man that just bragged about being able to have sex whenever he wanted?

"Remember, he might own you now but if I have a complaint to make, the Italians will work on you."

I did not want to find out what that meant, so I nodded. "Yes, sir."

He regarded me with one last look before he left me as well. I was frozen on the spot, not knowing where to go or what to do.

After a while, I sat down back on the couch, hearing footsteps moving to and fro around the house but none of them ever neared the living area.

As soon as I started looking around the house, I heard someone come in. Startled, I jumped up immediately, surprised to see an American man walking toward me.

When he spoke though, he sounded every bit of Russian. "Christ. You're jumpy."

I smiled nervously.

"When I heard what Maxim's present was, I had to come to take a look for myself. Despite how gorgeous you are, he doesn't seem happy about it."

When I kept silent, he let out a laugh, his blue eyes shining with fascination. He ran a hand through his blonde hair before extending it to me.

"I'm Mikhail. You are?"

"Brielle," I said quietly, shaking his hand.

"Brielle?"

"Brielle Clarke."

He paused. "Brielle Clarke? As in that Clarke? The daughter of Edward Clarke?" I nodded my head. "Damn, Maxim's father is one motherfucker. How the hell did you end up here?"

That question only reminded me of the fact that my own father sold me out. I still hadn't gotten over it and I knew it would take a while to accept that none of my family members liked me or wanted me in their lives.

The thought brought tears to my eyes and I quickly blinked them away.

"Fuck, I didn't mean to make you cry. I'm sorry."

I almost laughed. For someone in the mafia, he was kind. I had never heard a man apologize in my life. Women just had to deal with men the way they were.

"Now, there's a smile. Don't you talk?" He facepalmed the minute the question exited his mouth. "Of course you do. You just told me your name. Maxim left you alone here, didn't he?" With a nod from me, he sighed. "Come with me."

At first, he was walking very fast but when he saw that I could barely catch up, he slowed down his strides. I couldn't commit the path to memory as he walked me toward a door he threw open.

There we saw Maxim, a knife in his hand.

"Her name is Brielle Clarke," Mikhail announced, a hint of amusement in his voice.

Maxim had the same reaction as Mikhail did. He froze, then slowly turned around to face us as we were standing by the door. "I am going to kill my father."

I couldn't understand what that meant nor could I decipher if he was being serious or not, which was why I couldn't help myself but ask, "Why?"

Maxim barely spared me a glance before he returned to throwing knives and the nice one replied to me. "Max here hates your father.*

"Maxim." The man in question corrected snappily.

"Maxim," Mikhail rolled his eyes, "basically hates your family. His father did this to mess with him."

I bit my bottom lip. Of course, it was just my luck that the person I ended up with was someone my father had made enemies with. Who knew what he would do with me now?

"Stop doing that." His cold voice snapped me out of my reverie.

He hadn't necessarily been nice to me earlier but he sounded more rude and it frightened me. I wondered if he was still going to keep me after learning of this new information.

If he was, what was he going to do?