The Russian's Dangerous Game
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Authors: Elizabeth Lennox
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Contemporary Fiction
The Russian’s Dangerous Game
By Elizabeth Lennox
Copyright 2014*
ISBN13:
9781940134703
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Any duplication of this material, either electronic or any other format, either currently in use or a future invention, is strictly prohibited unless you have the direct consent of the author.
If you download this material in any format, either electronic or other, on a non-sanctioned site, please be warned that you and the website are in violation of copyright infringement. Financial and punitive damages may be pursued in whichever legal venue is appropriate.
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[Brianna Stewart stepped out of the cab while smoothing the embarrassingly clingy fabric down over her hips. She balanced carefully, not used to the four inch heels that were already making her feet ache. She handed the cab driver some money, making sure to not bend over too far. The ridiculously expensive dress she’d bought for tonight’s mission didn’t have a great deal of fabric in the tush area. It was an uncomfortable circumstance, but necessary to capture her prey. “Thank you,” she said sweetly to the driver. “Have a good night.”
At least it wasn’t a cold night, she thought, trying desperately to find a silver lining to her crazy adventure. The late fall weather meant that the humidity had left the air
, but it was an abnormally warm autumn this year. Thankfully, the night air still hadn’t cooled down to the point where she’d need a coat. It was coming though. She could smell something in the air, could feel the warmth moving out of Washington, D.C. and wool coats would most likely be coming out very soon.
The
cab driver looked into the soft, green eyes of the beautiful woman and hesitated. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” he asked, not sure that this gentle lady was prepared for what went on inside this particular nightclub. He’d never been in there himself, but he’d heard rumors. It wasn’t open to the public and only the very elite knew of this place. It was where the wealthy of the world came to play and they partied hard inside the benign looking edifice.
Brianna
warily looked up at the building, then back to the cab driver. Was she okay? She could honestly say she’d never been more frightened in her life. But fear was not going to deter her tonight. Turning back to the worried looking driver, she forced herself to smile brightly. “I’ll be fine,” she replied quickly, more to reassure herself than the cab driver. “But thank you for asking.”
With that, she turned around and took a deep breath, not sure what to do next. The building didn’t look like
a decadent nightclub patronized by the bored and fabulously wealthy. In fact, it looked like just a normal office complex, although it was very elegant.
“Coeur Tombe?” a
tall, previously hidden man asked.
Brianna looked in the direction of the voice, startled to hear anything at all. The
darkness seemed to be abnormally quiet tonight. “Yes,” she replied, relieved that she was in the right place after all. She’d been expecting a long line of people trying to get into the club, begging a heavily muscled bouncer for entry. The streets were empty and she’d been wondering if she’d gotten her information wrong.
“This way,” the man said and open
ed the door, pressing a button that was hidden behind something on the cement wall of the building.
A moment later, a pair of doors opened up and a warmly lit elevator appeared. She stared at the interior for a long moment, her heart racing and her mind telling her to run down the street to
a brightly lit diner where it was safe. Instead, Brianna stepped through the door and took a deep breath. Looking around, she noticed only one button instead of the normal series of buttons that would take her to the various floors of the building. The strangely silent man pressed that button and the doors closed. She was startled, not sure what the button might be for. It almost felt like he was signaling someone but that didn’t make sense. Who would he be signaling?
She found out a moment later when
the elevator doors opened up again and she tentatively stepped through the next doorway. Instead of the peaceful, hesitant quiet of the night air outside, she found herself enveloped in a pulsating, throbbing darkness interspersed with flashing neon lights and a thick, blue and green mist rising from the floor.
As soon as she took a few steps forward, the mist envelo
ped her legs, adding a sense of mystery to the eerie atmosphere. She looked down, astonished to discover that she couldn’t see her feet any longer.
So this was the
fancy nightclub everyone was talking about, she thought as she stepped through the doors. There wasn’t a cover charge at the door like she was expecting. There wasn’t a big, beefy guard standing sentry. But there were probably hundreds of people, all glammed up and writhing on the dance floor. Several waitresses were walking by with neon colored cocktails held high up in the air and there was a bar on each side at the front with a well-lit backdrop, luring customers to the multiple bartenders where drinks were being served up with astonishing speed.
Her eyes took it all in, her mind whirling at how insane the whole atmosphere seemed to be. She took several steps forward, wishing desperately that her best friend
s, Nikki and Rachel, were here with her now. It was always terrifying to be alone at a bar, but this was beyond frightening. This was….mind numbing. Nikki would look at all of this insanity and make some joke; Rachel would grab her hand and squeeze it gently to give Bri some encouragement. And then the three of them would find a corner, grab some drinks and make up silly stories about the other patrons. When the three of them were together, Brianna always felt invincible and had since the first time they’d met back in elementary school. They were alike and yet so completely different from one another. Their personalities complimented each other, while their fears, hopes and dreams connected them almost closer than sisters.
But Nikki
and Rachel weren’t here, she told herself firmly. So she squared her shoulders, and dug deep inside of her to find some strength. In fact, her friends didn’t even know she was doing this. She’d kept her mission to herself, afraid Nikki would try and talk her out of it or Rachel would demand to come along.
Th
is wasn’t a girls’ night out. Tonight was all about work, about breaking out of her comfort zone. She had a job to do and she had a limited amount of time in which to accomplish her mission. She had to do this on her own. As a reporter, she had been floating along, content with covering weddings and garden parties or any other society piece her editor handed out. If she had any chance of escaping the wedding circuit and being considered a real reporter, she had to take risks. She had to get out of her comfort zone and find some breaking news, something that would stun the newspaper readership and her editor with the incredible impact of her article.
She was tired of the snarky little comments about her work
from the other reporters in the newsroom, teasing her about how she wasn’t a real reporter. Her editor wouldn’t give her anything but fluff pieces no matter how much she begged for something more substantial. He repeatedly told her that she was good at those stories and should stick to what she did well.
S
o if she could just get one story, one fabulous report that would show her editor, as well as everyone else, what she could do, she would never have to report on the billowing folds of a wedding gown or the tantalizing curve of a tulip again!
This was her chance.
And she was here tonight to hunt down her prey - none other than the elusive, illustrious and disgustingly wealthy Rocco Antoniv. He was currently in town, and Brianna was determined to reveal the real man behind the charming, suave billionaire. She’d been at his press conference earlier that afternoon, gritting her teeth as she watched him answer questions and charm the more hard core reporters with his wit and jokes. Sure, he might be an astonishingly handsome man with black hair and that scary, dangerous Russian allure complete with a sexy accent that probably sent shivers throughout other women’s senses. Not hers though! She’d been immune to that charm and sex appeal and his accent didn’t do a thing for her!
Okay, she might be lying just a tad. That accent had caused some flutters in her stomach every time he’d answered a question
, but she’d just told herself it was indigestion.
S
he’d watched him carefully during the press conference earlier today, trying to understand his personality and give herself insights into his true nature. He was taller than the average man, but not scary tall like so many people asserted. Of course, she’d been in the back of the conference room and hadn’t been able to compare the man to another person since he stood on the make-shift stage, but he hadn’t seemed abnormally tall. As for the “buffness” everyone drooled over and talked about? Who knew? He was wearing an expensive suit that looked nice enough, but she had no clue if the man underneath the clothes was muscular or just thin and well built.
He
did look impressive, though. He displayed charm and humor, answered all the reporters’ questions with intelligence, and controlled the room with ease. No one left offended and everyone seemed to think they “knew” Rocco Antoniv.
But
she’d seen something in his eyes, something hard and unyielding. Even from a distance. As he answered questions about his latest project, she’d watched him carefully. He was hiding something. She just knew it!
There was more to this man than he was revealing and she was going to be the one to break it to the world.
She’d seen it in his eyes while he was talking to the others. There was something more to the reason he was here in Washington, D.C. – something he wasn’t telling the other reporters. And they weren’t seeing it because he had them all convinced he was just in town for a routine museum opening.
Okay, so it was his museum! And it was possibly the most impressive museum she
’d ever seen besides the Smithsonian. The extraordinary pieces he’d donated were astonishing. Although he was only in his mid-thirties, clearly he had used his financial and business acumen to acquire not only wealth, but also many significant historical pieces. She’d researched his path to billionaire status and it was quite breathtaking. The man was ruthless in business, merciless about buying up one company after another and incorporating their products or intellectual property into his empire. Everything served a purpose, every purchase, product, or deal was another piece in the puzzle. When fully assembled, those pieces formed a truly impressive and multifaceted picture.
But she
just knew that there was more, that something big was happening. She could tell by the look in his strange, golden eyes, he was up to something.* The museum opening was just a front.
She suspected that he was out to buy yet another company.
And if that were the case, she was going to warn all the workers as quickly as possible about his eventual takeover. The man had come from nothing; the earliest records of him showed that he had been an orphan in Voronezh, Russia. Somehow, when he grew up, he had started buying up companies there, multiplying his wealth exponentially every year. No one could stop him. He came in, bought up a company that was hurting, fired half the staff and pulled all the others into his massive corporation.
If she could warn just a few of those people, then they wouldn’t be floundering to pay their mortgage next month. She had a duty as a reporter to not just report the news, but to help others with the information on which she was reporting.
She’d seen firsthand what horrors could be wrought when someone didn’t have anything to live for. Her father hadn’t been able to handle life after her mother died of cancer and he’d lost his job. She’d only been five years old when he’d decided to take his own life versus….she stopped her mind from going down that path. She couldn’t think about her father tonight.
To that end, she found herself here, in this crazy
nightclub where the women were showing more skin than they were covering. Men and women were writhing to the obnoxious music and drinking alcohol at a rate that would put her in the hospital if she were ever to try it.
As she looked around
, her entire body was tense, feeling abnormally insecure and self-conscious. She desperately wanted her friends here. Just someone to talk to or, at a minimum, help her feel less conspicuous. She looked around and felt like she was wearing too much clothing even while she was painfully aware of how short her dress was and how much it revealed. She would never be caught wearing something like this if she thought she would run into anyone she might know.
“Can I buy you a drink?” a man said, leaning
close and blocking out some of the irritating neon lights.
Brianna
jumped slightly and moved away from the leering man, irritated that he would even dare to approach her. Men simply didn’t do that to her, so she wasn’t sure how to react when it happened. Men hit on Nikki and Rachel all the time. Nikki was the pretty one while Rachel was the sexy one. Nikki was the one men approached, asked out. Rachel was the one men ogled as she walked by with her red shoes and a smile that challenged men. Brianna, on the other hand, was the quiet, mousy girl who preferred reading a good book to glamming it up and hitting the town. Nikki never noticed any of the men trying to get her attention. And Rachel simply ignored most of the men who panted after her. Nikki was too busy barreling through life to notice silly things like men and Rachel couldn’t be bothered, too intent on her job and her clients. Well, and her wonderful husband now.
Brianna
shook her head, trying to keep herself in the present, remind herself that she was just as strong and capable and she had a story to hunt down. “I’m fine,” she told the stranger, trying to step around the still-leering man.
“
Where are you off to?” he said, trying to block her path. “Let me get you a drink, we can dance and get to know each other.”