Rin covered his mouth and prayed the next words out of his grandfather’s lips were not the ones he was dreading and yet it appeared Sasha had been right. God didn’t help men like him. “She is the only daughter of Sacha Volkov and his wife Avery. When Sacha was just sixteen, he snuck into a strip club and found a dancer there. He had a fake ID, so she thought he was older. She was working a pole, so he thought she was older. They had a fling for two weeks and he went back to Russia. His fake ID did not have his real last name. Nearly fourteen years later he showed up to do a job with his father and stopped into a club Avery was managing. She and her mother ran a few clubs back then. Her mother ran Gina’s and Avery ran Satin. Sacha went into Satin on a whim for melancholy’s sake, I would guess, and found Avery. Then he found his daughter and that was it. He moved to Vegas same day. Avery and Sasha look more like sisters than mother and daughter and since Sasha spent more tim

She felt him unbutton her seatbelt and yank her hard across the width of the seat onto his lap in one quick movement and she shrieked with his action. “What are you doing?” “Shut up,” he gripped her chin and searched her face, “did you really think you were going to walk out of the house and my life and there be no repercussions?” She swallowed at his words. His life? “No, topolina, there will be hell to pay for what you’ve put me through the last several hours. Two phone calls from your grandfather, one from your father, who I might add I should have guessed was your father. What threw me was he told me you were twenty-nine and when I met you on the weekend you said twenty-eight so I’m cutting myself a bit of slack.” She opened her mouth to say something, but he covered her mouth with his hand. “Which part of I don’t want you to talk do you not understand?” He stared at her, the warmth he had looked at her with yesterday in the office noticeably a

Sasha squealed as Rin dropped her on her feet in the shower stall and ripped her dress right over her head. He took in her lacy bra and panties set and whistled wolfishly at her. He trailed his fingertip along her collarbone and down the swell of her breast. “Your body is something else,” he put his other hand along her rounded ass and squeezed it. Then he stepped back, “now for your punishment.” “My punishment?” she blinked as his demeanor changed. “Yes. You need to learn to respect the head of the household and the rules of the family.” “Rin,” she protested before stumbling over her feet as he pushed her under the water jets and turned the water on. She thought he had carried her up here for sex, even if it was just a quick roll in the sheets. She shrieked as cold water ran over her body. “It’s fucking cold.” “My bad,” he gave her a look which told her he knew what he’d done as he reached an arm past her to adjust the water temp. “Take the bra and pan

Her grandfather’s face lit up the screen and she could absolutely understand why Angie had commented about the man’s nose hair. He was so close to the camera it was frighteningly displaying every pore on his ruddy skin. “Dedulya,” she made a face from where she sat on Rin’s lap, embarrassed he wouldn’t let her up and had insisted she stay seated right where she was while the call connected. “You need to back up from the screen. It’s too much. It’s an entire wall of your face. It is a face I love but I want to see less of just it and more of you as a whole.” He leaned back in his seat and adjusted the camera, “better?” “Yes.” “You look comfortable,” he gave a pointed look to where she sat behind Rin’s desk. “Not particularly,” she didn’t bother to lie. “Then why sit there?” “Her choices have been removed for the day,” Rin said bluntly. “It is a personal matter we are working through.” “May I remind you Rin, she is my granddaughter.” “

Sasha prepared Sonny’s breakfast tray and yawned. Despite all the excitement of the morning, it was now eight-thirty, and she was exhausted. She needed sleep. She sat down on a bar stool looking at the tray and wondering where he was going to want to eat his meal. Viv appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, “hey.” “Hi,” she looked at her waiting for whatever the woman would say to her while away from Rin. “Rin and Sonny are still talking to my parents and Angie about her trip to London. I bailed.” She smiled, “so you and my brother huh?” “I wasn’t expecting it and I sure as hell wasn’t expecting marriage from a fling but he’s a hard man to say no to, especially when the entire fucking Volkov clan are behind him. They’re a scary lot. I don’t like it but even I know better than to piss my grandfather off.” She smirked, “though, it doesn’t mean I have to make his life a cakewalk either. Respect is a two-way street and I don’t simply dole it out on demand.”