Free Russian Mobster's Secret by Bella Rose Page A

problem.” Vlad nodded pleasantly to both of them. “Have a nice night.”
    Susan watched him walk away and felt an odd sort of relief. Vlad was exactly what she should have wanted in a man. But for some reason she could not identify, he just didn’t appeal to her in that way.
    Kirill snorted. “That guy always was spineless.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” She rounded on him.
    Kirill’s expression suggested he thought the answer should be obvious. “Come on! If he really wanted you, he should have been willing to fight for you.”
    “That’s barbaric.”
    “I’m speaking in general terms here. You don’t have to take it literally.” He waved his hand to indicate Vlad. “If that little weakling challenged me to a physical fight, I would decapitate him in seconds. But that doesn’t meant his first response should’ve been to walk away and just let you decide what you want. What does that say for how he feels about the situation? Shouldn’t he have been angry? I mean, I’m angry, for fuck’s sake, and I’m not even your significant other!”
    “You’re angry about what?” She left him in her front room and headed back to the kitchen. She needed to do something in order to distract her from this asinine conversation.
    Unfortunately, Kirill followed right behind her. “I don’t know why I’m angry. I just know that it pisses me off to see you with Vlad. All right?”
    “If I didn’t know better, I would say that you’re jealous.” She pulled ingredients from her cupboard and began throwing things into a bowl.
    “I don’t get jealous.” He leaned against the doorjamb and folded his arms belligerently over his chest. “That would be a huge handicap in my line of work.”
    “What do you really do, anyway?” It occurred to Susan that she had never asked. “I’ve heard rumors, of course. And now I’m realizing that I’ve never actually tried to substantiate them. I’ve just sort of repeated them to you.”
    “At me, actually.” His smile suggested he hadn’t minded in the least. “I work for the Orlov family. That much is true.”
    “Oksana says you think you do.”
    “Oksana is a judgmental bitch who can’t stand the idea that I might possibly be cooler than she is.” He grimaced. “And yes, I did just make that juvenile statement.”
    “So what do you do?” She began stirring the brownie batter.
    He moved to swipe a bit of batter with his index finger, and she swatted him with her spatula. He jumped and put his offended finger in his mouth.
    “I’m an assassin.” He spoke the words around the finger still crammed in his mouth.
    “Wait.” She yanked his finger out of his mouth. “Did you just say that you’re an assassin ?”
     
    KIRILL COULD NOT quite decide if Susan was handling this news well, or if she was about to lose her mind. She began waving the spatula in the air and muttering to herself.
    Finally, she flung the utensil in the bowl of batter and reached into a cabinet to retrieve a pan. He had never seen a woman bake like this before. It was shockingly domestic, and for some reason he found it incredibly sexy.
    “So,” Susan began speaking as she poured the batter into the pan. “You’re telling me that you actually kill people for a living. Like murder them?”
    “I wouldn’t call it murder.” He shrugged. “Generally they have to be pretty bad characters in order to be put on my hit list. It isn’t like they’re Boy Scouts or anything. They’ve run afoul of the Orlovs in some way. Either they refuse to pay a debt, or they’ve committed some sort of crime against the family. They’re usually extremely unsavory individuals.”
    “Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to justify what you do right now?” She raised an eyebrow.
    Kirill opened his mouth to answer, and then realized that he was doing exactly that. “Damn.”
    “You kill people for a living.” She wasn’t talking to him now. She was talking to herself. “He murders people.