A/N - Please note possible trigger warning for darker themes of Bratva related sex trade activities and forced prostitution. Everything happens off-screen and nothing to the characters to any established characters. (P.S. Sorry this has taken so long! It will be done before the premiere.)
Katya knows more about the seedier side of politics and power than any 21-year-old should. She knows the sort of men drawn to that world. The hungry sort, the lustful kind, the self-interested and self-absorbed who like their egos - and other things - stroked with great regularity. They're all the same. Katya learned this the hard way.
As a little girl, Katya had been kept somewhat shielded from all of this. Her mother had hushed questions and shooed her out of sight whenever her father's men had come around. But her childhood ended suddenly with growing pains that nearly broke her when her father, a derzhatel obschaka for the Yekaterinburg arm of the Bratva, had lost a turf war and his life in a skirmish with the Uralmash gang. Without her father's protection, two of Katya's three older brothers bled out in the streets before her father's body had even cooled. And Katya… well, Katya had run. She'd run to Moscow, to the heart of the Bratva and the mercy of the Pakhan.
And she'd found it… sort of.
With all of her immediate family dead or missing - she doesn't kid herself, just because they didn't find her oldest brother's body doesn't mean he's alive - she'd been sent to her cousin Dimitri in America. But Dimitri had not been half the man her father was and his concern with her had mostly been how she could benefit him.
The Brotherhood has very limited uses for women and everyone has to earn their keep.
Never has this been more true for Katya than since her cousin's arrest last year. These days, she is lucky she hasn't been put to work in a brothel and she knows it. Whether that's due to some lingering sense of respect for her father or the striking looks she'd inherited from her mother, Katya doesn't know. But, more often than not, she's used to smooth over deals between her local Avtoritet and whatever other mid-level crime boss he's trying to make in-roads with at the moment.
It's a miserable life that leaves her flat on her back with sweaty men easily twice her age slaking their lust with her body more often than not, but Katya is smart. She knows how the Bratva works, knows she needs their protection and that serving as a liaison to the powerful gives her more opportunity to get out of her current situation than a brothel ever could. So, she plays along, coos her appreciation and flatters their egos in the hope that one of these men will choose her, take her under their protection as a mistress.
It's the best a fatherless daughter of the Bratva might hope for.
"This is a nice dress," Dima tells her, dropping his cigarette and grinding it into the pavement with his heel before stepping away from his car to circle her. "Very nice. I like."
His hand trails across her back as he talks, his eyes roaming over her and soaking in the details. She's used to this by now. The wave of shame and disgust at being treated as though she's nothing more than a bargaining chip still hits her, but it isn't as overwhelming as it was those first few months. Katya isn't sure if that's a good thing or not.
"I aim to please," she replies with a thin, disingenuous smile.
"That is what they all tell me," Dima smiles, his gold tooth shining brightly in the streetlight. "We will leave in just a moment. My men are finishing something up inside the building."
No sooner than he speaks, the heavy metal doors to the wharfside warehouse bang open and two of Dima's men drag someone out by the arms. Katya's seen enough dead bodies to be fully aware that this man's life is over. She doesn't even need to be close enough to see the bullet hole in his head to know that. It's all in how his body hangs, how the blood trails behind him.
"What did he know?" Dima asks as the other two men toss the body into the trunk of the car.
"Very little," replies Nikita, the larger of the two and Dima's right-hand man. "He was full of blame and excuses, but little information. And believe me, Sorenson would have talked. Barely had to bend his pinky back before he squealed like a pig. He would have kept digging, though."
"Free press," Dima sneers distastefully. "Free press and weak men. I hate America."
Katya's not sure she disagrees, though she's certain her reasons aren't the same as Dima's. But it's not like her opinion matters at the moment, so she follows Dima into the car when he snaps his fingers and puts the body in the trunk out of her mind.
"This is an important introduction, Katya," Dima tells her as his henchmen climb into the front seats and start the car. "An easy one, no doubt, but important. Do you understand?"
"They are all important," Katya replies, ignoring the way Dima's hand slides up her thigh as the eyes of his men focused on her in the rearview mirror. "I serve the Brotherhood."
"You serve me," Dima tells her in a low voice, his intent clear as his fingers drag along the edge of her panties.
"Perhaps later," she forces herself to say, smiling coyly. "First I have to secure a business relationship for you, yes?"
He huffs, but withdraws his hand, leaning back against the seat. There's clear annoyance on his face at being put off, but he also seems to be grudgingly accepting of her point. Dima might be a big fish in Star City's arm of the Bratva, but he's nothing if you go beyond the city limits. He's aiming to change that and it's obvious that he's using her at every opportunity to further his connections.
What she could do to further her position if she had the chance to whisper Dima's secrets into the Pakhan's ear… it's almost enough to make her wistful for Moscow.
Almost.
The drive isn't a long one, for which Katya is grateful. Anticipation only makes these things worse and she'd just as soon fast forward her evening to the point where she's scrubbing off the evidence of her night in a scalding shower before falling into bed alone.
"Say nothing until I grant you permission," Dima reminds her, pulling her back into the present as the car rolls to a stop outside a modest townhouse on the edge of the bad side of town.
It's a needless reminder. Katya knows well how this works by now, but even if she hadn't she has a keen enough sense of self-preservation to observe before engaging. It's part of the reason she's stayed alive so long; it's an even bigger part of why she knows one day she'll be successful and work her way out of this life. But she nods at Dima anyhow, mostly because he likes to know he's being deferred to, and slides out of the car after him, careful to keep the hem of her dress in place as she goes. Dima and his men are trouble enough without getting a free show and if Katya's going to be a whore, she'd much prefer to be an expensive one.
"Katya," Dima says, snagging her wrist and tugging her closer, his voice dropping to a level his men cannot hear. "This is most important. Our operation here is at risk. The police force… the masks… we are at war on all fronts and we need this ally to stay alive. Do not fail me."
There's a graveness to his voice that she's not used to. Dima is always casually in control, always cavalier about things like drugs and sex and murder, but this… this connection has him anxious. That alone is enough to pique Katya's interest, but it also serves as her first clue that tonight might go a little differently than usual.
"I don't fail," she tells him decisively. "It's how I've survived."
"It's how we'll all survive," he grumbles in an uncharacteristically uneasy tone, casting a wary glance toward the car. "Come on."
The pathway to the townhouse is short, but well-kept, all of the landscaping up and down the street is identical, a clear sign that none of the inhabitants take care of the yards themselves. It's a strange part of town, a tiny niche at the confluence of the wharf, the Glades and the business district, the edge of respectability, skirting the line between decent and disgraceful. Katya likes it. She can relate.
Dima rings the bell as Katya stands a foot or so behind him and they wait. She's done her homework. She always does. She's read news articles and seen press conferences and gossip columns. But still, even with hours of prep work behind her, she's more than a little stunned at precisely how good looking the mayor is when he opens the door. It doesn't make her actually want to follow through with this job any more than before, but she has to admit it'll be nice to have a break from flabby old men for a change.
He's new to politics, this mayor. That's no surprise, but he has been Bratva for some time, so it throws her a little how poorly he disguises his thoughts. He goes from curious to stunned to wary as he takes in Dima standing on his front stoop. He's aware of her too, but in a cursory way, like a fighter skimming for threats instead of a man looking with interest. That, too, is refreshing.
She wasn't entirely aware of how exhausted she was at being seen as a piece of flesh until someone looked at her differently.
"Mister Mayor, the Pakhan sends his regards," Dima greets toothily, with a little tilt of his head that shows deference Katya knows he doesn't feel.
If anything, the mayor looks annoyed at their presence, but he holds the door open wider as his eyes skim up and down the street.
"Здравствуйте," he greets in surprisingly good Russian. "Come in. Как у Вас дела, Dima?"
"Thank you," Dima replies, as if the mayor had options in the matter. It would not do for a known crime lord and his top whore to be caught standing on the mayor's doorstep. "We are grateful for your welcome."
"How about you return the favor by having your men do a few laps around the block while you're here?" the mayor requests with a heavy look.
He's clever, this mayor, Katya decides. Perhaps not in the traditional sense, the media has a near non-stop loop of pundits questioning his lack of education, but in a way that means he's well aware of what's required for self-preservation. In the more important way, in Katya's opinion. She doesn't know all of what he went through, his story in the Bratva's brotherhood, but regardless of his path, she sees a great deal of the lessons she's learned these past few years reflected back in his eyes.
"Perhaps just once or twice," Dima agrees, pulling back a curtain and making a gesture toward his men, who soon after pull out of the drive.
"I'm surprised to see you," the mayor admits. "As you can see, I'm not exactly set up to entertain company."
This is very true. His townhouse is incredibly spartan. If she hadn't known better, she'd have assumed he'd just moved in. But he hasn't. She knows that. He moved in months ago, after his fiance left him. All the same, this place is clearly little more than a residence on paper and a place to sleep. It's a far cry from a home. It reeks of loneliness, of a listless man without roots. She wonders if he had them before, if he still thinks of his loft where he'd lived with his ex as home, or if he's never had one at all.
"I will be brief," Dima assures him, cutting through Katya's thoughts. "The Pakhan and the Brotherhood would like to extend our most sincere congratulations on your position as mayor. As a man of our ranks, we could not be happier with your appointment and hope that you know you may call on us as friends and brothers if ever you are in need of our aid."
The lines on the mayor's handsome face tighten, his whole frame coiled and defensive. There's no question he's reading between the lines. Dima's greeting might be genial enough, but there's so much more to it than that. The Bratva does nothing without the expectation of repayment.
"I had been under the impression you were busy back in Kiev," he replies.
"Times change," Dima replies with a shrug. "We move on, move up. You know this. You live it, мэр господин."
"And what brought you to my city?" the mayor questions. It doesn't escape Katya that they have yet to move more than a few feet away from the door. This meeting is already going more stiffly than Dima would have liked. He will rely on her tactics all the more for it.
"Please, Oliver… our city," Dima corrects with a joviality that is most certainly insincere. "Our city. For the Bratva shares amongst the brothers, does it not?"
Mayor Queen is absolutely no more at ease with Dima's words. A Bratva captain, a politician of any means ought to be more welcoming of the brotherhood's hand reached out in friendship. Katya had expected, if not outright happiness at the alliance, at least a grateful sense of respect.
He is a very strange politician, she decides, and an even stranger Bratva captain.
"Nothing for you to worry on, my friend," Dima assures flippantly. "This is not the time for talk of deals. This is a moment of greeting and introductions. Might I present my associate, Ms. Katya Mikhailova?"
He looks at her then as if he's really seeing her for the first time and Katya finds herself standing up a bit straighter under his scrutiny. There's a pinched line to his brow and a flash of recognition in his eyes that surprises her.
"Leonid's daughter?" he asks after a second, striking her greatly by surprise.
"да," she confirms, uneasily and unaccustomed to being thrown.
"I heard what happened," he says, looking more at ease than he has since the moment he opened the door. "I'm sorry for your loss. Your father was a good man."
"We are none of us 'good men,' Mister Mayor," she corrects him. "This world does not allow it. But we can take comfort in our alliances, I think, as it is them that enable our survival and make the world more enjoyable. Do they not?"
He's clearly puzzled, reworking whatever assumptions he'd made about her, but Dima laughs and claps him on the shoulder, jolting him.
"She has a head on her shoulders," Dima confides. "Is sometimes trouble, but I think this is something you appreciate more than most, yes?"
"What-" the mayor starts, looking just as lost as ever, but Dima cuts him off.
"I shall leave you to become better acquainted," he announces, shaking the confused politician's hand before turning for the door. "I'll be in touch soon, капитан."
Dima moves faster than the mayor can untangle his tongue and the local Bratva head is out the door before he can question him further. So, instead, Mayor Queen turns to her with what she has to grudgingly call an endearingly lost look.
"Why are you here?" he asks slowly.
"For you, of course," she tells him, cocking her head to the side and taking a bold step forward and resting one hand on his chest.
He freezes. He completely freezes, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted. There's no doubt he's utterly thrown by the declaration and she can practically see him connect the dots in his head to create a clearer picture of why, precisely, she's standing in his foyer in a dress that's just-this-side of appropriate. It's silly. He's a Bratva man. He ought to have known better. He can't be unaware of how these things work.
"I… uh… what?" he asks, sounding like he's nearly choking on his tongue.
"My company is a gift from Dima and the local brotherhood," she informs him more clearly, because it's becoming increasingly evident she's going to need to spell this out for him.
"That's not- I mean… I'm not… That's-" he can't finish a thought, but he laughs in a way that sounds almost nervous and pulls her hand away from his chest before stepping back a solid three feet and gulping heavily. "Thank you, but I'm… No. Just, no thank you."
"I'm discreet, clean and extremely flexible," she tells him with a half shrug that's almost demure, but not quite. "And I can promise you would enjoy yourself very, very much."
"That's… I'm…" he's back to not finishing sentences again and he's blushing, which is sort of ridiculous given some of the older information she's seen about his life on the internet. "I'm not doubting your… skills."
"Do you not find me attractive then?" she asks, as confused as he had been earlier.. It would be a first for her, but she supposes it's possible. Maybe she should have gone blonde, as his taste seems to veer that way lately, given his ex.
"No, you're… a lovely girl," he assures her, holding his hands up in an almost defensive gesture, which is ridiculous given that she's a scantily dressed whore who can't even give her services away at the moment and he's probably the most muscular politician she's ever seen.
"Then what is the problem?" she asks. "It is not as though you are the one faithful politician in the history of politics, as you are not attached to anyone. I am here and freely offering myself to you with no strings attached. You admit I am attractive. You must be lonely, in want of a woman, all men are. I don't understand."
The look on his face shifts instantly to something sympathetic and Katya is confused because men do not look at her like this. They do not see her as a person at all, but if they did they would surely not look upon her with anything like empathy or caring.
"You aren't freely offering yourself. You aren't offering yourself at all. Dima is," he points out correctly. "And even if you were… I'm not lonely. And, while I might not be attached, I am faithful to someone and you aren't her."
"I don't understand," she sputters. And she doesn't. Men - especially men in power, men of politics, men of the brotherhood - crave a way to display that power at every turn. Their egos drive them as much as their libidos and Katya most definitely sates both thirsts. But this man, this mayor who is also Bratva… he would deny her. It contradicts everything she knows, about men, about life, about power, and it leaves her reeling for an explanation that makes sense.
"Yeah. I know," he agrees, but he doesn't seem inclined to explain further. "Why don't I just call Dima and-"
"No," she nearly shouts in a sudden panic, stopping his motion short as he reaches for the phone in his pocket. "No, you can't. Please, Mister Mayor, Oliver, I beg of you. Allow me to stay, just a little while. An hour or so. Then I can leave and we can allow him to believe you are satisfied. Please."
The idea of what Dima might do if she fails, oh it sends a shiver of trepidation up her spine and leaves her wrapping her arms around herself like they might protect her from the world around her. It's a childish move, one she learned years ago to be useless, but the instinct is still there.
"You're scared of him," the mayor notes with a small measure of surprise.
"This is so important to him, this alliance with you," she informs him, gulping around the lump that's formed in her throat. "His business, it is suffering. There are shipments being interrupted by the men in masks. He means to expand his operation, bring in more women, weapons, drugs, gambling and fight clubs. There is no option for this right now, not as things are. He needs your loyalty to make it happen and if he does not get it… I do not know what will become of me."
"You want to be free of him? Free of the Bratva?" the mayor asks curiously, grabbing a zip-up hoodie from the back of the only chair in the room and handing it to her. She takes it from him tentatively. It feels like the first step, a movement toward trusting him, and she doesn't know why but that scares her nearly as much as Dima does. But she is cold and she could use some comfort, so she gingerly takes the fabric from his outstretched hand and drapes it over her shoulders with a murmur of thanks.
"I was in university when my father was murdered. By the time I got word, the youngest of my brothers had already followed him to the grave and the middle one was gunned down an hour later. I won't speak of what happened to my mother and we never found my eldest brother's body," she informs him.
He winces in sympathy, a grim line to his lips as he shakes his head. "The Uralmash Gang was looking to make a statement."
"They would have killed me, too. At best," Katya informs him. "So I went to the heart of the Bratva to beg protection. But, like most Bratva daughters, I had little to offer but myself. And so I did, because I am a survivor. But do I wish to be a whore? One who cannot pick her own clients even? No. There are nights I wish I had ended things in my dorm room at university. At least that would have been on my own terms."
He does not make a judgement on her statement, nodding in understanding without offering platitudes about how much she has to live for, and for that alone she likes him a little better. He looks at her with the eyes of someone who understands where she's been. Undoubtedly, his path has not been the same as hers, but she wonders if maybe they don't run adjacent to each other in some ways. There's a haunted edge to his gaze that she recognizes from when she looks in the mirror.
"What if you had a way out?" he asks. "A way to a life away from Dima and the Bratva."
The laugh she chokes on is pained and weak. "There is no away from Bratva," she tells him. "There is only this. And, if I am lucky, someone who is not a monster will take an interest in me and keep me for his own."
She would not hate if it were him, she realizes, though she knows without a doubt it will not be.
"That's not necessarily true," he tells her. A sliver of hope leaks through the cracks in her splintered soul and she momentarily hates both him and herself for allowing that to happen. Hope has not had a place in her life since that day in Russia when her world ended overnight.
"It is," she counters. "You may think you have escaped it, but even you - a man of means and wealth - even you are beholden to the Pakhan."
"The Pakhan rules Russia," the mayor tells her. "He cannot have my city."
"You will refuse Dima?" she asks, the panic lacing through her voice again.
"I'm going to do more than refuse him," the mayor confides. "And I want you to help me."
"Me?" The laugh she lets out verges on the hysterical. "Боже мой, you will have the death of both of us."
"No," he disagrees, looking so confident that she almost believes him. "You and I are survivors, Katya. And if you help me, tell me what you know about Dima's operation and the people at the top here in Star City, we can do more than just survive."
There is no amount of research, she realizes suddenly, that could have possibly prepared her for Mayor Oliver Queen.
"Help me with this and I will make sure you are safe, out of his reach," he vows. "You never have to sleep with someone you don't want to ever again. And I will personally make sure that when this is all over there's a fully paid spot for you at Starling City University."
It is entirely too good to be true. It's everything Katya's wanted but never thought she could have. Not after Yekaterinburg. But now… now this charismatic, powerful man who told her no has her wondering if maybe it isn't possible after all.
"How?" she asks, not even registering that she's crying until a tear falls onto her hand. "How will you do this? How can you possibly hold Dima accountable? Save all of the girls he is bringing into this city who have situations far worse than mine?"
For a moment, she's not certain he's going to answer. He bites his lower lip, drawing it into his mouth and worrying the skin for a second as he thinks, appraises her, calculates precisely how much he can really tell her, she thinks.
"Because I can get in touch with the masks," he says finally. "And they want this city cleaned up as much as I do."
His answer surges through her like a bolt of joyful hope. God, she had almost forgotten what that felt like, and she finds herself nodding before she even realizes she's doing it.
It is a risk. It is a huge risk. She has not trusted a man since her father died, not really, and to trust a politician with Bratva roots… it is unthinkable. And yet everything within her tells her this risk is worth it.
"Yes. I will tell you everything I know," she swears. "And I will pray that you keep your word or else my father's line will die with me."
"I won't betray you, Katya," he replies. "I want the Bratva out of this city as much as you do."
She laughs sharply at that and looks down at her dress, thinks for a moment about what she has become, who the Bratva has remolded her into. "No offense, Mister Mayor, but I very much doubt you do."
"Maybe not," he concedes. "But I'm not far behind."
And with that, he pulls out his cell phone and punches a few buttons. It's a moment of truth for Katya and she holds her breath as she waits to find out who he's called. But, whoever she had expected, it is most certainly not the person on the other end of the line.
"Hey. It's me," he greets, his voice soft and affectionate, personal, not meant for her ears. She feels a bit like she's intruding even though he clearly could have stepped away if he had wanted to. "No, I know… You're on a… I know, you're busy tonight, Felicity. I just…"
There's a quiet sigh of frustration and the way his shoulders sag and the pain that paints itself across his face all tell a story Katya can read quite well. He is still madly in love with his ex-fiancee. It's her that he's unfailingly faithful to. But she can't help but think he was entirely wrong about being lonely. He needs someone - not her obviously, but someone - to lean on, someone to be there for him. Of all the men she's ever met, she has to think that he is most deserving of a woman to come home to, to share his time with.
"That thing we were looking for?" he continues, casting a glance toward Katya. "The link to the Bratva operations to help the masks? I think I found her."
A long moment of silence follows and Katya holds her breath as the mayor listens to his ex-fiancee. Of all the ways this night might have turned out, Katya could not have ever anticipated this.
"I know," he says finally. "It's… I'm sorry about the timing. I didn't want to ruin your evening. But this is important. Could you please come by? ...Thank you. Oh, and could you bring some spare clothes, please?"
Part of her think this is some complicated attempt to win his ex-fiancee back, to show her what a good man he is. If it is, if she's right - and she's sure she is the instant he hangs up the phone and stares at the lock screen with so much longing it spills over and races through her, too - she hopes it works.
If anyone deserves not to be lonely, she decides, it's Mayor Queen. Like her, he's been just surviving for entirely too long.