Chapter 1 - Rurik
Before rolling into the underground parking lot, I paused to look proudly at the building’s new sign. It had been several months of sleepless nights and grueling hard work to set up my first business here in Los Angeles, after deciding to stay in the US permanently.
After all the trouble my huge, American family had been in since I arrived for what was supposed to be a short visit, it was a wonder I wasn’t back in Moscow, where things were relatively easy. As easy as it got in our line of work, anyway.
Granted, while running the biggest Bratva organization in either city was never completely without gunfire, kidnappings, and explosions, things were a lot wilder in LA.
My business partners back home, as well as my uncles and cousins still remaining in the old country, didn’t understand why I bothered when everything ran like clockwork in Russia, and we all had more money than we could ever spend. The Fokin name commanded respect, and yes, even fear. Why not go home, where I have more time to read? Why stay in LA, where every other person seemed to want to kill one of us?
The sign on the three-story building that I now owned said it all. Not my first building, not my first business, but the first step in conquering the American dream. Perhaps with more guns, but still. This was a legitimate business… mostly.
It still had some kinks we needed to work out, and since we’d become so busy in such a short time, we were severely understaffed. But overall, I was loving running Gavrik Imports with my silent partner, Gavril Bocharov.
Maybe investing millions into a company with the head of the organization who’d been trying to take down my family formore than a year didn’t seem like such a smart move, but that was before Gavril fell hopelessly in love with my cousin Lilia.
A year ago, if anyone told me I’d be pulling into the parking lot of a business I owned with the man who tried to shoot me—and the only reason he didn’t succeed was that my sweet, shy cousin shoved me out of the way—I’d have laughed myself sick. If that same person told me Gavril would also go on to save my life, not so long after that encounter, I’d have laughed until I was in a coma.
Aside from all that, or maybe because of it, running a business with a former enemy was my new reality, and I was generally loving every minute of it. Making money hand over fist and gaining the respect and approval of my older brothers and cousins.
Upstairs, I had to pass by a sea of hopefuls interviewing for the latest position I had to fill. I had put it off long enough, but it was finally time to hire a personal assistant. I couldn’t keep track of all our deliveries on my own anymore, and it would be nice to delegate the more boring paperwork. Not to mention, I could stop wrestling with the damn space-age coffee machine that could do anything but make a simple cup of black coffee without a hassle.
As I perused the dozen or so people eager for a shot at a good job in the current economy, I wasn’t that impressed. Nothing but a sea of beige, or to change things up, a couple of people wore navy blue.
Since I tried not to judge any book by its cover, I called in the first candidate. It took three minutes to know he was all wrong. He knew nothing about the import business, and I sent him on his way. The next two were utterly without imagination,going blank when I asked them to come up with new product ideas.
“I thought this was a personal assistant position?” the rather stern-looking woman asked, as if possible advancement in the company offended her. Good day, madame.
As I sent her on her way, I looked over the crowd again, wondering if it was too early to take lunch when I’d barely been in the office an hour. If I had a personal assistant, I wouldn’t be doing my own interviews. I’d already spent the first part of the week in excruciating meetings trying to hire a few new warehouse workers, and I didn’t want to think about the nightmare of getting a design team on board for when we were ready to start promoting products.
None of the duds in my outer office looked worthy of trusting a simple delivery from one floor to another, let alone knowing who might be a good fit for the company. As I was about to call the next one in, someone slipped in late.
“Nice of you to show up,” I said, looking at my watch.
In truth, it hardly mattered if she didn’t arrive at the posted time of nine o’clock since there were so many people ahead of her. But was she tardy because that was a character flaw, or was she thinking three steps ahead and arriving a little late so she didn’t have to wait so long for her turn?
No, it hardly mattered at all because I was instantly intrigued by her. Her little gasp as I called her out, followed by her tipping up her chin and boldly going to the sign-in sheet as if she was actually early, was impressive. Normally, people withered under one of my pointed glares, but not… I leaned over her as she filled in her name.
Not Clementine Gardner. Cute, like the juicy little oranges. With a toss of her glossy black hair, she flashed her grayeyes at me with a tight smile. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, not sorry at all.
And I loved it. Finally, a bit of boldness and confidence. And she wore a bright turquoise skirt that hugged her lush curves, with a flouncy white blouse buttoned up to her creamy neck. Could this one have a spark of imagination? No beige or dark blue, but a color that asked to be noticed. Demanded.
And I was noticing. Her pretty, heart-shaped face was almost free of makeup, except red lips I couldn’t drag my eyes away from as her perfunctory smile faded under my scrutiny.
“Not a problem, Miss Gardner. I hope you don’t mind waiting.”
For some reason completely unknown and foreign to me, this young woman had knocked me off kilter. Yes, she was gorgeous, but this was Los Angeles. You couldn’t turn around in this town without bumping into someone incredibly good-looking. There was something about her, something I had to get to the bottom of, and I’d stuck my foot in it by telling her she’d have to wait.
Was I going to be unfair to all the other people who needed a job? I tried not to be, but when I dismissed the next one and saw Clementine’s nose in a book—a book, not a tablet—my curiosity piqued. To hell with protocol and fairness. I shuffled through the remaining candidates in record time, calling out her name well before lunch.
“Clementine Gardner,” I said, just to feel my tongue roll around her first name.
A little too forceful, making her jump in her seat. Perhaps she wasn’t as confident as I first surmised, but she quickly recovered her poise.
Poise was good, and so was the ability to keep it together under stressful circumstances. We were a new company with lots of little glitches still occurring. To say it was stress-free around here would have been a lie. My assistant would need to be tough.
She slowly uncrossed her legs, drawing my attention to them—or maybe I was already looking. She was petite, barely coming up to my shoulder when I loomed over her by the sign-up sheet, but her legs were long and shapely, disappearing beneath the hem of the turquoise skirt, which fell to her knees when she stood. Thrusting out one hand, the other still clutching her book, she gave me a determined smile.
When I first saw the paperback, I wondered what she was reading and would have checked out the cover now, but my eyes were riveted to her face. Not just pretty, but interesting, with high cheekbones and those intense gray eyes, she made a point to lock eyes with mine.