Havok: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance - Riley Rollins Page 0,13

of this game being played in his presence. I open the cylinder to unload the gun.

The single round is at the twelve o'clock position, right where the firing pin would've hit it.

Had I played, I would've shot myself in the head.

Igor stares at the gun, and he sees it too. We make brief eye contact as I remove the round, and hand the revolver back to Luka.

The corner of Igor's lip curls, and a cold feeling permeates my stomach. I look away.

Petrov takes a seat at the head of the table, and his expression suddenly hardens. "Boys," he says with a sharp edge, and we go silent.

"Big news this week."

There's a low rumbling at the table, and I cock an eyebrow.

"We taking resources in new direction," he says. "Human trafficking." Then he looks at Igor. "Igor been spearheading effort. I let him take it from here."

Igor stands up, and launches into the details of the mystery operation he's been working on for the last few months. He fills us in on a global slave-trade network the Bratva has been developing to move people between the east and the west. It's mostly transferring sex slaves from the West to old, rich men in Eastern Europe.

"And," he finishes, "The pilot program is taking place right here in West Ark. The project I have been working on is sourcing girls from Fascinations."

His words are like a hot poker through my chest, and I instantly think of Penny being sold into sex slavery. My stomach burns with acid. I don't like this. I don't fucking like this at all.

Luka and Valentin look at each other, then at me, waiting for someone else to respond to the news.

I'm the first one to speak.

"This is fucking sick shit," I say. "Drugs, guns, hits... that's one thing. But this is sick. Innocent girls. Fuck."

Igor just looks at me smugly, the faintest trace of a grin on his face. The man has no sense of right or wrong. He'd cut his own mama's throat for a fiver.

Petrov shakes his head. "No griping. Havok, you confused? We say jump, you jump."

I grit my teeth, holding my tongue. Igor has always been ranked the same as me, held the same powers. But it's obvious that he's moving up, and has Petrov's favor right now. It's not fucking good.

"Yeah," I say. "Forget it. I'm good." Petrov cocks an eyebrow, but moves onto the next topic at hand.

All I can think about is Penny. Thinking about her being kidnapped and sold into sex trafficking makes me feel sick.

The meeting continues for a half-hour, but I barely hear any of it.

9

Penny

The next week, there's a stabbing on the club floor. A Russian and a Mexican get into it and both leave on gurneys with life-threatening injuries. Igor has to call in a HazMat team to clean up the mess, and the cops interview everyone.

A fleet of cop cars congregates outside the club, and strobing blue and red lights stream in through the open door, bathing the club in technicolor hues. The DJ has stopped the music, and a detective questions a group of us.

I'm standing right next to Havok. And despite the seriousness of the situation, all I can really think about is the magnetic field that seems to pull me toward him. He's wearing a tight black polo shirt tucked into khakis, and he looks damn handsome in it. His thick shoulders pull the shirt fabric tight over his chest, and the delicious outline of his body is clearly visible.

Me on the other hand, I'm wearing a sloppy sweatshirt and sweatpants over my stage clothes. I'm exhausted. My head buzzes with opiates and alcohol, but I'm not worried about the cops detecting it. I've been getting better and better at hiding the signs.

"Name?" says a detective to Havok.

He shuffles his weight between his feet, obviously uncomfortable. "Vladimir."

The cop looks up from scrawling on a small spiral-bound notepad, an eyebrow raised. "You got a last name, buddy?"

"No."

"Look, if you just cooperate, everything will go much easi—"

Havok cuts him off. "I saw nothing."

The detective sighs. "All these witnesses say you were standing right here, in clear view of the room."

"Something confusing? I said, I saw nothing."

"Fine," says the cop, annoyed. He jams the cap back onto his pen. "I can't force you to talk. But if you get subpoenaed into court, you'll have to."

Havok shrugs. Then the detective moves away to question more cooperative witnesses.

His attitude is getting under my skin. And for some