by SR Jones
“Fine,” I huff out. “I was going to stop you anyway.” God knows why I add the childish response.
I get off the bed, smoothing my top down. As I turn to leave, he grabs my hand, pulls me in and brushes one more soft kiss over my lips, then groans.
He smiles. “I’m trying to do the right thing here. Go on, zaika.”
Zaika? I am not sure what it means, but I think it’s Russian.
I pause at the door, unsure of what to say.
“Goodnight, Violet.” The way my name falls from his lips almost makes me fall to my knees and beg him to take me here on the floor. Instead, I smile and give him a nod before walking out of his room.
Once inside my room, I lean against the closed door and try to catch my breath. What was that? What the hell happened? Why did I respond to the way he kissed me so ravenously? Oh, I am in so much trouble.
“Couldn’t keep it simple by hating the kidnapping hitman could you, Violet? Oh, no, you have to humanize him and then start crushing on him. He’s not a good guy,” I tell myself, mumbling as I walk to my bed. “After all, even monsters can have nightmares.”
Chapter 9
Andrius
I kicked her out. I must be fucking stupid to have kicked Violet out of my room, but I still have no idea who she is. I almost don’t care I want her so much. Am I about to fuck my life up simply to get my dick wet? Although, something tells me it will be the most epic wetting my poor dick has ever had!
There was another reason for getting rid of her. The shaking and the trauma that can set in after one of my nightmares. I could have put it off, by riding out the adrenaline on her body, but she’s—-allegedly—a virgin so that’s a poor plan all round. If she hadn’t been, if she’d been experienced and willing, I’d have fucked her into the mattress. As is, she’ll need gentle, and in this mindset, I’m not capable of it.
Knowing sleep won’t return, I know if don’t do something to burn off all the cortisol and adrenaline coursing through my veins I’ll get the shakes, so I get up and put on workout gear.
Being as quiet as I can when I exit my room, I creep down the corridor and head to the gym. I won’t wake Justina working out, despite her bedroom being on the same floor. She sleeps like the dead, and the walls are thick in this place. I must have been shouting damned loud for Violet to hear me.
The thought of her listening to my deepest, darkest terrors play out gives me an uncomfortable sensation. Not shame as such, fucking hell, I’d defy anyone to go through what I have and not have nightmares, but more a sense of violation. Only Justina has witnessed my night terrors, and I wanted it to remain that way.
Once in the gym, I go to the treadmill. I’ll pound it for forty minutes and then lift heavy weights. Maybe, at some point, I’ll relax enough to go back to bed, but I doubt it. Usually after a night terror of such magnitude, I’m awake for the duration.
It’s early too, which means I’m going to be useless tomorrow. No sleep, tired but still wired. Fucking wonderful. Maybe tomorrow will be a good day to go and see Reece. Ask him for his help.
I decide I will. I want to make sure he’s okay. If anything happens to the fucker, it will be a bad day.
After working out, I go to my study and spend time on my investments. The reason I have so much money is because I was astute with the riches I earned as a mercenary. I invested well, including in property in northern cities that were cheap to buy in but had universities situated there. I then rented the houses out to students. You can make a lot of money. You don’t have to do the place out nicely, simply clean and safe, and you can rent it out per room. I have six properties I rent. Those, coupled with good stock picks, have meant once I walk away from this life, I will be set.
I will walk away. One day, when I have got the revenge I need for my sister, I’ll be gone. A ghost. My reputation is such, I’m hoping no one tries to come after me.
The dream has surfaced memories of my sister, and I don’t want to think about her. It still hurts too much, so instead, I focus on the men I need to kill to make it right.
Running through the list in my drawer again, only mentally this time.
Dymitro Antonich, dead two years ago. I throttled him while I looked into his terrified eyes. Before I killed him, I told him it was for my sister and my parents. He’d watched me as the life drained from his eyes, and it felt good to know I would be the last thing he’d seen.
His brother, Artem Antonich, is still alive, and running a small crime outlet in Russia. I’ll be going for him one day soon.
First though, Kyrylo Voloshin. He’s the main reason I’m here, working my way closer to his empire. Finding out what I can about him, he’s the one I want. The ringleader. The piece of shit, motherfucker, who walked into my family home when I was ten-years-old and killed my whole family.
Like with Artem, I’ve already killed Kyrylo’s brother. He’d been a youngster at the time of the attack, but he’d been there, watching the door, keeping guard. Because he hadn’t done any actual killing, I made his death quick.
Then there’s Petro Babiek. My jaw tenses as I think of the fucker. He’d been the one. The one to violate my teenage sister. I’d been hiding, wanting nothing more than to run out of there and murder those bastards. I couldn’t. Not without risking the life of my other sister.
When the men had entered our home, my mother had shoved me in a closet, pushed my three-month-old baby sister into my arms with a bottle, and piled clothes all around us.
“Keep her quiet,” she’d whispered, her eyes wide and terrified.
Somehow the angels must have been watching over us because she didn’t make a sound. Nothing could have stopped her if she’d wanted to bawl her eyes out, but through the whole horrifying thing, she didn’t make a murmur.
She’s safe now. Living in America with a new name and enough cash to keep her sorted for life. I don’t send her regular money because shit like that can be traced, no matter how good you are at covering your tracks. I don’t hear from her regularly, but she sends my aunt letters from a state away from her home, and my aunt replies to a PO Box.
After my family was killed, it was my aunt who took us in, looked after me and my baby sister, brought us up with her in Russia. She did a great job with my sister, me? I was already ruined. Fucked up beyond saving from what I’d heard that night as I hid in the dark trying to protect the tiny life in my arms.
Petro Babiek. That fucker has disappeared off the face of the earth! He had raped my sister, laughed as he held her down as she screamed and begged him not to. Then Kyrylo had ordered Petro to finish, so he could kill her.
Those cold pieces of shit have a fate worse than death awaiting when I find them.
Unable to focus on the numbers floating on the screen in front of me, I have gotten myself so wound up, I instead decide to go take a shower and get dressed. I’ll make breakfast for us all, and then we will go pay my injured friend a visit.
The morning is torture. Violet keeps shooting me these looks when she thinks I’m not watching her. Talk about mixed signals. Her gaze when it lands on me contains hunger, fear, and confusion.
I want to fuck her so bad, and by the time breakfast is over, I’ve decided I’m probably going to. There’s an inevitability about it all. Her being given to me, the way she is, every move designed to wake the predator within I try to keep leashed.
If she only loathed me, hated me, was repulsed by me, she’d be safe.
I wouldn’t take her against her will, but she wants me. All the arguments I’ve told myself about how wrong it would be because she doesn’t have any true agency in this situation weaken with every heavy-lidded look she shoots my way.
Before I cross that line, crash and burn my code into motherfucking flames, I want to speak to Reece. Put things in motion to try to find out who Violet truly is.
We’ll go soon. I need to get us both out of this house for a while anyway. It’s as if the building is weaving a wreath of magic around us, making the trans
gressions we are surely on course to commit okay because they won’t be real if they happen here.
I don’t go to church often. I believe though, and now I lift my cross to my lips and give it a kiss. Dear God, let me make the right decision and not totally lose myself in this. In her.
At some point, Violet has taken herself off, muttering about going to read. I let her because having her under my feet is making my blood burn with a need I haven’t experienced in years. Better she’s out of sight.
My phone goes, and I pull it out of my pocket with a sigh when I see Allyov’s number.
“My friend,” he says in Russian. “How are you?”
“Good.” I keep it short and sweet.
“How is the girl?”
“Good,” I say, injecting a smile into my voice.
He chuckles. “As much as I hate to drag you away from her, I have something that needs doing this evening. Meet me at Napoleon’s.”
He’s talking about one of the nightclubs he owns. Glitziest in all of Northern England. It has a VIP room that has a waiting list most nights. Every footballer in the region, every celebrity whose show films locally, every tin pot millionaire, they all want to be seen there. I hate the place. It’s full of total assholes.
“In fact.” Allyov pauses. “Bring the girl, she can meet the mistresses.”
“Except, she’s not a mistress, she’s a prisoner, and she may try to escape.”
“I am sure you’d enjoy the chase. Bring her.” It’s not a request, and he hangs up.
Fuck my life. First, I must take her with me to go to see Reece, and then we will be going clubbing. As much as I hate to ask her to come with me, Justina is going to be needed tonight. I’ll have to leave Violet alone for a while to do whatever it is Allyov needs me to do in the rooms above the club. I don’t want Violet alone, to be interrogated by him or his men. Or worse, their fucking mistresses.
Mind made up, I go hunt down Violet.
I find her in the library. Not a surprise at all. I loaded her Kindle up, but she’s got a leather-bound copy of one of the classics on the table in front of her and is reading.
“Violet, we need to take a short trip. To go see a friend in the hospital.”
She looks at me, and her eyes widen a touch. Justina isn’t here. She’s gone shopping to get food in for a week or so, and although she could order it online, she’s a weirdo and likes walking around supermarkets.
She says after growing up poor, and then in captivity for a long time, she relishes being able to go out and pick and choose what she wants without having to worry. Fair enough, and far be it for me to spoil her limited fun by making her a prisoner again just because Violet is here.
Violet stands and smooths down her skirt. She’s caught some sun from the pool yesterday, and her skin holds a faint golden glow. I bet she turns a beautiful color if she gets to sunbathe.
“I should change.” She looks down at her casual skirt, her flip-flops, and t-shirt combo and frowns.
“You’re fine.”
“Okay.”
She grabs her bag from the chair. It’s a cotton drawstring bag and so different from the designer things most of the wives and girlfriends haul around; it makes me smile.
Pushing the book into the bag, she pauses and turns to look at me. “Do you mind if I borrow this? Bring it with me?”
“Of course not.”
The first twenty minutes of the journey are silent, Violet staring out of the window, lost in her own thoughts.
She shocks the shit out of me when she turns to me and says, “Why did you make me leave last night?”
Bold. For an alleged, innocent virgin. My senses tingle again as they tell me something is deeply amiss with her supposed story.
“Because it’s not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“You’re my prisoner.” I play along, intrigued to see where she’s going with this.
“I’m not, though, am I?” A small smile flickers over her lush mouth when I glance at her. “You said I can leave, I won’t be safe, but I can leave.”
I shrug. “Still doesn’t mean you are in a place where you have free will, and you’re a virgin.” I look at her. “It’s a big deal for you.”
Her gaze slides away from mine as a hint of color lights her cheeks.
Busted. She’s not a fucking virgin. I’d bet money on it.
Proving at least part of my suspicions should make me desire her less, but it only makes me want her more. It’s as if we’re playing a warped version of hide and seek. Or kiss chase. Something where neither of us knows the layout of the house where we search for nooks and crannies in which to hide or to seek.
I still don’t think she’s one of Allyov’s girls, which only makes her more mysterious. If she’s not one of his girls, but not truly the innocent virgin he dragged off the streets, then who the fuck is she?
“Lying to a man like me is something a lot of people consider a health risk,” I tell her.
“I haven’t lied,” she says.
I don’t push her on the virgin thing for now. I’m going to get Reece to dig into her background as quickly as he can.
Not answering, I simply smirk and shake my head. Two can play at this game.
“Anyway, I don’t think you’re as bad as you say you are,” she pronounces confidently. “You saved Justina, and you have a strong moral code.”
While I like the fact she doesn’t see me as a monster, maybe she ought to. It would be safer for her. For me, too, if she did. If she stopped wanting me. Hated me even. I’d leave her alone … wouldn’t I?
I take my eyes from the road for a moment to look at her, drinking her in before I go and ruin her idea of me as a good man forever.
“Last week, I killed a man … slowly.” I let the words sit in the air between us. I don’t look her way, but out of my peripheral vision I see her stiffen.
“I’ve killed so many people, I have truly lost count. I have killed women too.” It’s the truth, I refuse to do so for the mob. But in combat, when it was kill or be killed, on occasion I had to. I don’t tell her this though. Don’t explain the statement anymore.
“Don’t fucking make me out to be something I’m not.”
She doesn’t reply, but when we pull up to the hospital, I notice she’s shaking. Fuck, I didn’t mean to go and full on terrify her only to give her caution around me. Shit.
Not ideal when we must go see Reece.
What if she takes my telling her this and decides she’s better off without me? Makes a run for it. Maybe, I should let her. Encourage it even. If she runs from me here, in a crowded public place, I can tell Allyov truthfully what she did. Then it’s all out of my hands.
No more head fuck. No more trying to stay on the right side of my moral line because she will become someone else’s problem. Allyov will either find her and give her away to someone else, or worse. None if it will be down to me though, will it? It will have been Violet’s decision to run.
Fuck it, I might give her the chance to go. Let fate fall where it will. Give her the opportunity to get away from me. If she keeps her head down and gets out of town, will Allyov really bother to go after her?
I pull into a parking space and finger the cross at my neck. What the hell should I do? This whole thing has thrown me for a curveball in a way nothing else has for years.
“Come on.” I open my door and motion for Violet to get out. I jog around to her side and hold the door as she climbs out.
She raises an eyebrow at me. “You have beautiful manners.”
The way she says it I can see the words, for a thug, running through her brain, but she daren’t say it out loud. She’s still shaken from what I told her and looks at me with renewed fear. Might teach her I’m not someone to be messed with or played games with.
Will she run? Will I let her, or would I do as Allyov seems to think and give chase? Why do I want to test her?
We head inside, and I go to the desk, reeling off Reec
e’s name and saying I’m family when I’m anything but.
“Reece?” Violet asks as she trots behind me to the bank of elevators. “He’s the British Special Forces guy you’re friends with, right?”
“How much did Justina tell you? Did she give you my inside leg measurement too?” I punch the button impatiently.
Violet shakes her head and casts her eyes down. “No. Not much more than you saved her, and how she and a man called Reece are both important people to you. And how … how she loves you.”
She lifts her eyes to me before once more looking away.
Her words warm something deep in me. I know Justina loves me, as I love her, but we don’t say it to one another. Neither of us are those kinds of people but she told Violet she loves me. It’s nice, I can’t lie. She’s become another sister to me. Not a replacement for a life lost, but someone who matters deeply in their own right.
I find Reece’s room and am thankful the NHS gave him a private one, rather than placing him on a busy ward. Perhaps because he’ll have coppers in and out questioning him, I imagine. I peer through the glass panel in the door, and seeing only Reece and a woman reading in a chair, I head in.
He looks up, and the shock of seeing me is writ large on his face for a fleeting moment.
I need to talk to him, and although my heart is pounding with a mix of trepidation and curiosity at the idea, I want to test Violet, see what she does if she has a chance to run.
I turn to her. “Violet, go get something to drink for yourself and me.”
Her smooth forehead creases into a frown as I hand her money.
Yes, my pretty little frightened rabbit, I am giving you a chance to run if you wish.
I don’t say it out loud, but I hope she can read it in my gaze.
If she chooses to run, I’m out of trouble. In the clear. Not in any danger of breaking a promise made under the eyes of God to a dearly beloved sister. Life can go back to the usual monotony it is for me, instead of this mix of emotions the girl stirs in me.