King of Malice: Dark Bratva Steamy Romance (Kings of Las Vegas Book 3), page 1
KING OF MALICE
DARK MAFIA STEAMY ROMANCE
KINGS OF LAS VEGAS
TAMMY ANDRESEN
Copyright © 2025 by Tammy Andresen
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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CONTENTS
King of Malice
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
King of The Hunt
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
King of Corruption
King of Corruption
Lords of Las Vegas
More about Tammy
KING OF MALICE
King of Malice
Kings of Las Vegas
Tammy Andresen
I accidentally entered THE GAME.
My best friend has disappeared.
Growing up in foster care together, she’s my family, and the person who saved me on the worst day of my life.
That day is the reason I completely panic when a man touches me.
But that doesn’t matter now.
It’s my turn to save her.
The last place she was seen?
A Bratva King’s whorehouse.
Dimitri Ivanov is the stuff of nightmares and completely untouchable.
Until he comes to the temp agency where I work.
He’s a single dad who needs a nanny.
I beg, borrow, and steal to get the job. I don’t care about the danger.
This is my only chance to find Cassie.
But stepping into his world is like a trial by fire…testing my strength, pushing on my every fear.
And when I’m thrust into the very GAME that has stolen my best friend, the truth becomes clear:
Dimitri is the only man who can protect me.
And the last man I should trust.
PROLOGUE
Ava
“Now I lay me down to sleep,” I softly whisper so that I can’t be heard more than a few feet away. Cadence and I are pretending to be asleep, despite the raging fight happening between our foster parents just outside our door.
At fourteen, we’re way too old for this kind of kiddie prayer, but the air is charged with danger, and I just need to do something.
“You never fucking shut up, woman,” Al, our foster father, screams at the top of his lungs. “I’m so fucking sick of you and your stupid ideas.”
“I pray the lord my soul to keep,” Cadence says back, our hands reaching across the narrow space between our twin beds.
Al is a mean drunk. We know the kind. Cadence and I have been in four different foster homes in the last two years. Two together and two apart. “And if I die before I wake,” I add drawing in a shaky breath.
“I pray the lord my soul to take,” Cadence finishes, her eyes closing as a single tear leaks from her eye.
I tried to tell her not to put that petroleum jelly into Al’s slippers. Al and Judy are two of the few foster parents who would take us together. What’s more, even though Al yells a lot, he wasn’t like my last foster dad who touched me whenever he could, giving me the creeps. I’ll take Al any day.
But Cadence has always pushed buttons, and she hit one today. Coupled with the fact that Al came home drunk, he’s ready to fight, and he definitely wants us gone.
As if to voice my thought, he screams, “I want them fucking out.”
“But the money they bring in,” Judy answers back in a whining tone that sounds small and weak in comparison.
“You can keep Ava, she’s not a fucking problem. But Cadence…” I hear his slippers hit the wall as he throws them. “That little shit has got to go.”
I squeeze Cadence’s hand tighter as the door flies open and we let go of each other, me emitting a squeaking scream, as I huddle under the covers.
Cadence and I met at a group home, where, at the time, we were the two youngest kids. My mom had just died and hers might as well be dead, she’s always strung out and hiding out in some crack house—that’s what Cadence says.
We stuck together because the older girls were mean, and twice, when they stole my stuff, it was Cadence who snatched it back for me. One of those items was my mother’s locket, the only thing I have left of her.
I’ve got it around my neck now.
Al stands in the doorway, backlit by the hall light. “Get your fucking stuff girl.”
“It’s the middle of the night, Al!” Judy cries, appearing behind him.
He turns, raising his hand. A crack sounds through the air as it comes down across Judy’s cheek. His backhand is hard enough to send her crashing into the far wall. Cadence screams and scrambles from her bed, into mine, hiding behind me as Al stalks into the room.
Tears are rolling down my cheeks now too as I flop over and then roll in a ball around Cadence. I squeeze my eyes shut, like closed eyes will keep the impending hit from happening.
Al grabs me by the scruff of the neck and yanks. My head snaps and for a second, I think it might break. Pain radiates through my head and back as I scream out in pain and fear.
But he doesn’t snap my neck. Instead, I fly through the air, landing on Cadence’s bed with a bounce.
He leans down over Cadence, smacking the back of her head hard. “You think that was fucking funny,” he screams an inch from her face, her hands wrapped around her head, her knees drawn up to her chest as she tries to protect herself.
But she doesn’t cave. She’s disadvantaged in every way, but she still fights. “It was hilarious,” Cadence screeches back instead.
“Cadence,” I gasp, trying to help her see reason.
I hear the next hit, the force of Al’s hand ringing through the room.
“Al,” I cry next, but I’m frozen in fear, not able to move as he hits her a third time.
“Get your stuff and get the fuck out,” he says in her face but she’s not moving now. She’s so still, that fear beats in my chest like a drum, pulsing all the way up to my ears.
“Cadence,” I half whisper, half sob. “Cadence.”
He spins on me, his face twisted in rage. “Shut the fuck up or you’ll be next.”
I shrink back down in her bed as Al storms from the room and slams the door behind him. I wait for a second, two, to make sure he doesn’t come back in the room. Then I’m off the bed. “Cadence?”
She gives a low moan and a little of the tension in my chest unwinds. I jump back on my bed, wrapping her in my arms. “Oh Cadence, tell me you’re all right.”
“Someday, I’ll make him pay,” she says, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.
I squeeze her tightly. I wish she wouldn’t bait our foster fathers like that. It’s going to be so difficult to get put in another place together. Maybe I can beg Al tomorrow to let us stay. But it’s probably too late.
If we have to leave, we have to leave. Cadence is my only family now, and where she goes, I go.
I push up, trying to assess her bruises in the dark. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him—”
She grimaces, turning over, away from me. “You’re a good girl, Ava. It’s not your style.”
My heart seizes in my chest. Does she wish I’d fight for us more? Guilt makes me curl away. “I’d do anything for you.”
She doesn’t answer as she wipes more of the blood dripping down her chin.
CHAPTER ONE
Ava
I step off the bus, the stop only a block from my office building, and pull my phone from my purse.
Dialing the phone, I huff a breath of impatience even as I straighten my skirt, striding down the crowded Vegas thoroughfare. This time of day, the tourists aren’t clogging up the sidewalks as much as the army of workers coming off a night of work, or the ones starting the day-shift. But either way, they hustle, jostling each other and me as they pass.
I can’t bother with the irritation, my attention on willing Cadence to finally pick up her phone.
The line rings several times before it goes to voicemail. My eye close for a split second, my fingers touching the locket around my neck. “Cadence,” I beg into the phone. “It’s been days. Where are you? Call me…” I hesitate. “I’m worried.”
I frown as I hang up, rubbing th e worn locket between my fingers. It’s not the first time Cadence has gone missing. I should be better at controlling the panic by now.
She usually resurfaces after an epic binge of some kind or another.
But I thought those days had passed. That she’d cleaned up and was ready to live a straight, healthy life. She’d taken a job as a receptionist at a small company that I placed her in myself.
Then again, I’m pretty sure she and her latest boyfriend had an epic breakup, which never fails to send her on a path to self-destruction.
Frowning, I enter the lobby of my office, the air conditioning instantly cooling my skin.
At twenty-five, I’ve been working here since I was nineteen when I first applied to be one of the temps. I impressed the intake officer enough to get referred to HR, where I did a short stint in the nanny department before I was placed on staff instead.
I managed to get a college degree at night, while working full-time, while I also worked my way up the ranks at one of the largest agencies in the country.
Another city probably wouldn’t support a temp agency of this size, but in Vegas, temporary positions are big business.
With the number of workers needed to run the tourist industry, every company, big or small, uses us for staffing.
I run one of our smallest departments, nannies. My boss has hinted about giving me a bigger sector, but I’m happy with the work I do and don’t want to change.
Placing hired nannies with the right family is a job for which I feel intimately acquainted, and I work tirelessly to get it right. And while technically we’re a temp agency, the percentage of employees who take on permanent positions from our placements is amazingly high.
So, every placement is done with care, and I place all nannies with the expectation they’ll stay in their positions.
I smile at the receptionists and make my way up the elevator, bypassing the kitchen on my floor, to make my way straight to my desk.
Setting my bag with my lunch on the surface, I pick up my work phone, dialing the small insurance company where I placed Cadence six months ago.
“Bright Side Insurance,” a receptionist, who is not Cadence, answers.
“Hi, this is Ava Tantor from Temps For You. I’m calling to speak with Walter, please.”
“Mister Cartwright? He’s not in yet. Can I take a message?”
“Please.” I give her my information and then I take a quick breath. “But also, we placed the last girl in your position. Cadence.”
“Oh yeah. I heard about her. Left suddenly…”
My heart starts to pound in my chest. “Any idea where she went?”
“No.” the girl on the other end of the phone sounds skeptical, like it’s weird that I’m asking. “Why?”
I clear my throat. “She left incomplete paperwork here at the temp agency,” I quickly cover. “Trying to track her down.”
“Oh,” she sounds relieved. “Right. All I know is she came in last week and said she needed three weeks off. Mister Cartwright refused so she quit and then he hired me. I’m his niece.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. “Thank you so much. And if you could, please give him the message I called.” I hang up, the knot in my stomach so tight I feel like I might be sick.
Picking up the phone, I dial another number I know by heart.
“Steve Imperian, investigator for hire.”
Steve is a guy we use here at work pretty regularly. If a temp files a complaint against an employer, we do our due diligence to find out who is actually at fault before we proceed.
But I’ve used him privately to track Cadence on a couple of occasions.
I make good money for my age, and I live pretty simply. Small apartment, no car, thrift my clothes when I can.
I save half of my income every month in order to protect myself from any kind of disaster.
But on more than one occasion, I’ve used that money to bail out Cadence. From hiring investigators, to paying off some drug dealer she’d gotten herself in deep with, to sending her to rehab that she didn’t have the insurance to cover.
She hates it when I spend my money on her, so I try not to offer unless the situation is really bad. Cadence sees my help as a red line under her personal failures, I think, but it’s not true. I’m not trying to highlight her mistakes, just ease her suffering.
She’s my only family, and she had it way tougher than me. But also, and we both know this, if shit were really going down, Cadence is the one who’d save my ass. We’re a team.
“Hey Steve, it’s Ava from Temps For You.”
“Hey, gorgeous, good to hear from you. How’s it going? Did you change your mind about having dinner with me?”
“I’ll get back to you on dinner,” I answer, my voice laced with the tension I’m barely able to hold in. “I’ve got a problem that I’m hoping you can help me with.”
“Cadence again?” I hear his chair squeak as he sits up. “What is it this time?”
With a sigh, I tell him the little I know.
He listens silently, hearing everything I’ve got to say before he taps his finger on his desk. “Honestly, I wouldn’t worry too much.”
“You think?”
“I’ll look into it for sure, I’d do anything for you, and you know I’ll get you answers, but hear me out. If she asked for time off, planned something in advance, she’s fine.”
His words really do make me feel better and the knot in my stomach unwinds. “You’re right. Maybe she just fell in with a group who decided to tour the country on a bus, or is taking a trip to Ibiza, or…” I trail off as I try to think of another adventure she hasn’t been on that could take a month. “Gone on safari?”
Steve laughs. “I’ll get you answers. Same rate as always.”
“Thanks, Steve.”
I’m about to hang up when I hear him hesitate. “Ava.”
My mouth twitches as I wait for what’s coming. Hopefully not another dinner invitation. Steve’s cute enough but I’m just… “Yeah?”
“Are you sure you want to do this? Track her down? I know it’s not my business, but she puts you through hell…”
I bite my tongue, wanting to tell him he’s right, it’s none of his business. I’m not paying him for advice. I draw in a slow breath of air through my nose and then let it out. “She’s my sister, Steve. The only one I’ve got.”
“All right,” he says in a voice that makes it clear he’s shaking his head. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”
“Thanks.” I hang up, relieved I’ll have answers soon. The nice thing about giving him so much work is he’ll be quick. Temps For Us is a priority customer.
I’m about to return to the kitchen to put my lunch in the fridge and get started with my day, when my phone rings.
Stopping, I pick it up. “Temps For You, this is Ava, how may I help you?”
“Ava,” A man says on the other side of the line with the kind of deep baritone that moves through me like a shiver. “What a beautiful name.”
I’ve heard that line a million times, but it’s the first time that it makes me feel something other than irritation. A warmth slides through my stomach settling between my legs.
I don’t date. I’ve tried a couple of times, but it doesn’t really work for me. I can’t relax enough to enjoy myself.
But this man, with his eastern European accent and his honey-rich voice has my heart skipping a beat, wondering why I don’t give it another try.
“Thank you. Very kind. Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with?”
“Dimitri Ivanov.”
“Mister Ivanov—”
