I squeeze my hands on the steering wheel, stifling a savage growl from the base of my throat.
I feel like hammering my hand against the wheel, beating my chest.
This is bad.
“No,” my woman whispers. “Who are they?”
“They’re the Russian mob,” I tell her. “They’re bad, really fucking bad. Completely ruthless. They don’t just kill you if you make a wrong move against them. They kill your whole family.”
“Jesus.” Juliana shivers, wrapping her arms around herself. “Why would my dad do that? Why would he work for them?”
Patricia makes a hesitant noise, and then some fire flares into my woman.
She snaps, “I deserve to know. Tell me. ”
“Your mother wanted the finer things in life, I suppose,” Patricia mutters. “She wanted to live like she thought she deserved to. And your father desperately wanted to provide her with that life. It was just a stupid mistake. But once you’re in, you’re in. But then they started to tell him to do things he wasn’t comfortable with. And he made the worst mistake you can in that world. He hesitated.”
“And they burnt down our house,” Juliana says, unable to stop the sob from crackling in her words now. “The fire wasn’t an accident. It was them.”
“It was them,” Patricia confirms.
I glance at the rearview, almost pulling over so that I can cradle my woman in my arms. She didn’t tell me that her parents had died in a fire, too, that we’re bound by more than fate.
We’re bound in flames, in pain, in the torment of being left behind.
Her eyes meet mine and she nods, and I know she understands. She’s thinking exactly what I’m thinking.
I love how easily we can communicate, how effortlessly the words pass between us, even when we don’t open our mouths to speak them.
“The leader of the Bratva stated publicly at a dinner that he was going to murder your whole family for the crime of disobeying him. Apparently, this meant that he had to stick to his word, whatever happened, no matter how much time passed. He had to kill you – or have you killed – even if two decades have passed since he made that statement.”
“It’s their fucking code,” I snarl, putting as much hatred into the word as I can. “To them, this means they’re good men. They’re doing the right thing. They’re being men of their word.”
Patricia nods slightly.
“Yes, that’s it. They knew me – I’d met a few of the Russians whilst with your parents – but I hadn’t disobeyed them or agreed to work for them, so I was allowed to live. But they did visit me one night. A man put a gun in my mouth and just held it there, standing over my bed, staring down at me. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. The message was clear.”
“If you talked,” Juliana says, her voice quiet and leaden with grief, “you die.”
“Yes,” Patricia says. But then she puffs up, as though a glimmer of pride is moving through her. “But I did something, Juliana, something I never told anybody about. The night of the fire, I was staying at your parents’ house. The guest room was next to your bedroom. I heard the men stomping through the house. I heard your mother screaming. You were such a quiet baby. You were so easy to carry out of the house, to carry across the city, to lay at the doorstep of an orphanage. And then I had to run. I couldn’t be seen with you. I couldn’t let them know where I’d taken you. I left a note on your blanket. My name is Juliana Smith. Smith, the most generic name I could think of.”
“What is my name, then?” she gasps.
“Juliana Crichton,” she says. “And your mother was Anna Langdale, and then Crichton. And your father was Jeffrey Crichton.”
Juliana cradles Rebel to her chest, fighting off the sobs.
I keep driving us through the night, taking the off-ramp and heading down the country roads toward the suburbs, my high-beams slicing like white sabers through the pitch-dark.
“I waited a year and then went back to the orphanage one day, to see if you were still there. You were. I left it at that, content that you were alive, that the Bratva hadn’t gotten to you. But over the years, I kept checking up on you. I had to make sure you were safe. And then when you left the orphanage and started a life of your own, I followed you. I wanted to be certain the Bratva didn’t get their hands on you.”
She pauses, coughing back a sob. Juliana moves closer to her, as much as the seatbelts will allow.
“It’s okay,” she says. “Patricia, it’s okay.”
“It’s not,” she says, fighting off the sobs. “I should have never made contact with you. I should have left you outside that railway station. But when I saw you and Rebel looking so miserable, looking so helpless, I couldn’t. I felt like I had to help. I thought enough time had passed. I was wrong. Last week, one of the Bratva swung by the office, claiming that he wanted me to plan a birthday party for his daughter. He made me take the contract on for free, of course. I was naïve. I thought that was it—a free party. But he was scouting. He must’ve heard that a woman named Juliana was working for me. I’m an idiot. I should’ve given you a false first name, too.
“But how could I do that? How could I take your name away from you, when so much else already had been?”
Both of them burst into tears, clutching onto each other, crying for a long time as I guide us through the night.
I can’t pull over to comfort my woman.
I can’t stop driving away from the city.
Because now I know that this is the Bratva, I know just how fucked we truly are.
The only way to save her now is to somehow make a deal with – or kill – Igor Zhirkov, the leader of the Bratva. And that’s like trying to assassinate a president or reason with a snake. He’s stubborn and ruthless and commits more evil in a week than most men do in a lifetime.
“You saved me,” Juliana cries.
“I lied to you—”
“No,” Juliana says firmly. “I won’t look at it like that. I refuse to. You saved me. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be dead. So you made mistakes along the way. Everybody does. But you saved my life, Patricia, and I’ll never stop being thankful for that.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Juliana
We drive deep into the suburbs, the houses getting further and further apart until the gardens are more like fields, and each house has a gate of its own.
Jett drives up to the biggest house on the street – a house that borders on being a mansion – and rolls down his window, letting in a shaft of night-cold air.
I shiver and cradle Rebel closer to my chest as he leans out to type a code into the keypad.
With a creaking noise, the gate begins to slide open.
My sleep-hungry mind reels from everything I’ve learned during the ride here, my whole life turned upside down and dropped on its head.
Everything I thought I knew has been shattered.
It wasn’t an accident.
It was a punishment.
My father was a criminal.
Patricia has known me my entire life.
She saved me twice, first when I was a baby and then at the railway station.
She lied to me.
I close my eyes and let out a shivering groan, wishing I could flit back in time to the underground apartment with Jett and just stay there, cuddle up with him on the couch, feeling his rock hard body pressed against me.
Feel him slide his hands all over me again, but this time we’d go all the way, giving in to our savage lust, taking each other’s virginities, and creating a wonderful life in the process.
“This is your safe house?” I murmur, opening my eyes and taking in the grandiosity of the estate.
There is a wide gravel driveway and enough space for several cars to park. In the center of the overgrown garden – itself at least twenty-five times the size of my apartment – sits a stone fountain, covered in ivy and empty of water. The house itself is a large colonial-style building, with a wide porch held up by two pillars
and more ivy climbing up and down the walls.
It looks as though it hasn’t been lived in for a long time.
“One of them,” Jett says, nodding.
“It must’ve cost a fortune.”
He shrugs, his eyes still glimmering in that sharp way of his, the same way they’ve been glinting ever since Patricia revealed my secret history.
“My work pays well,” he says. “Money’s not a problem. It never will be, for us. I’ll always take care of you.”
Light flurries in my chest at his words.
I could tell all through Patricia’s speech that he wanted to roar, to pull the car over, to shout at Patricia for putting my life in danger.
But he held back the beast inside of him for me, the same way he did at the underground apartment when everything in him wanted to take me roughly, to ignore my wishes to wait.
He’s a beast, but there are parts of him that he tames for me.
I can’t believe I’ve only known this man for less than a day.
With everything that’s happened, it feels so much longer.
My womb quivers and goes tight inside of me, as though screaming at me that now’s the time to make children together.
Don’t wait any longer, it cries.
Because there might not be a tomorrow.
Jett drives us to the garage and reaches out of the window again, typing in another code. The garage door opens and he slides us into the darkness, the lights only flickering on when we’re parked inside.
“I need to make this clear, to both of you,” Jett says. “We can’t let anybody in this neighborhood know that this house is occupied. We need to stay indoors, keep the curtains drawn. I’ll do a recon of the backyard and see if there’s a place for Rebel to walk and do her business, and maybe we can go out there, too, as long as the sight-lines don’t screw us over. But for the most part, we need to be invisible. Do you both understand me?”
“Yes,” Patricia murmurs, arms wrapped around herself.
“I understand, Jett,” I say.
“Good.” He sighs darkly and then nods. “Let’s go inside. You need to get some sleep.”
He’s staring at me now, a subtle smirk touching his lips.
My womb gives another urgent twinge.
The unsaid message in his eyes is, We need you strong and healthy for when I put a baby in you.
Jett jumps from the car and then quickly opens my door, throwing me a smirk. I giggle in response, the sight of his smile is so welcome after all the mayhem.
I wonder if some women would find his beast-and-gentleman routine jarring, but I like it.
It’s good to know that I’ve got a beast and a caring man, that I don’t have to pick between the two.
When the world needs him to be, he’ll turn into the savage he was in the underground apartment, fierce, protective.
And when the world lets him, he’ll just be Jett.
I just wish nerves didn’t twist through me when I thought about going all the way with the beast he’ll become.
Is he as nervous as I am?
He didn’t seem nervous back at the apartment.
But then he hasn’t been a virgin all these years because of anxiety, or because nobody wanted him.
He chose to be, waiting until we met.
He places his hand on the small of my back, a tingle moving through me.
Patricia steps from the car with Rebel cradled to her chest.
“I can take care of her if you like,” she murmurs, looking over the top of Jett’s jet black sedan at me. Her eyes are still glimmering with tears. “It’s the least I can do, after everything.”
“You really don’t mind?”
She shakes her head slowly.
“I can’t believe you’d even ask me that after everything I just admitted to,” she sighs.
“I told you, Patricia. I don’t judge you. I don’t blame you.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand how that can be,” she murmurs. “But thank you. Thank you so much.”
Jett leads us into the house, locking the garage door behind him. The house seems bigger because of how empty it is. We pass a stylish kitchen – marble island, giant metal extractor fan – but every surface is so empty, it looks like a show home.
My mind fills it up automatically, imagining a baby’s bottle here, a glass cutting board there, every corner of the house flourishing to life all the possibilities of our future lives.
I see myself standing at the kitchen counter, soft music playing from somewhere in the room, the children laughing in the yard as Jett walks up behind me and wraps his arms around my waist.
If I can do it. If I’m not too nervous. If I don’t clam up.
I don’t know what it says about me, that after everything Patricia just revealed, this is what I’m concerned about.
Maybe it means there’s something wrong with me.
Or maybe it just shows how important Jett and our possible future already is to me.
Who knows, maybe I’m just plain crazy.
We all pause at the bottom of the stairs, Rebel cooing as she snuggles closer to Patricia’s chest.
It’s impossible to hate my best friend – my parents’ best friend – when Rebel is clearly still so in love with her.
“Patricia, if you go to the top of the stairs and turn left, walk right to the end, you’ll find a furnished guest bedroom there with an ensuite. I’ll go out tomorrow and get some food and some change of clothes. But for now, let’s just try and get some rest. Come on, Juliana. I’ll take us to our room.”
Our room.
The phrase sends a shiver through me, starting in my chest and ricocheting through my whole body. He speaks with such casual command, as though the very concept of being refused has never entered his mind.
It might be arrogant with other men, but with him, it just makes me want to cuddle close to him and let him protect me from the horrors of the world.
I say goodbye to Rebel, tickling her behind the ear, and then exchange a significant look with Patricia.
She clearly wants to know who Jett is, what our relationship is. From knowing her for so long, I can read that she thinks I’ve known Jett for longer than this evening. We must come across like that with the way we talk together, the casual intimacy and closeness.
His hand still on my back – tingling, soothing – he leads me up the stairs and to a door at the end of the hallway.
He pushes it open to reveal a large room with a king size bed in the middle, the sheets jet black and simple. The room is mostly empty, but just like in the rest of the house, I can imagine the plush rugs that could go in here, a seating area in the middle. The balcony would be a gorgeous place to have breakfast together every morning. We could put a bar or a vinyl record player in one corner.
He closes the door behind me and then moves forward, wrapping his arms around me, his torso pressed solidly against my back. He pulls me toward him and brings his lips down to my ear, his breath tickling hotly.
“One hell of a night, eh?” he growls.
“Yeah,” I murmur, laughing at the insanity of it all. “One hell of a night.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jett
Juliana walks to the balcony window, looking out onto the night, her reflection in the dark glass causing the base of my cock to start throbbing again.
Now that we’re here – and I know that all the doors and windows are locked tight – I feel the beast awakening inside of me again.
Something carnal stirs deep within my chest, my pectorals tightening and bulging against my shirt.
Even in her makeshift outfit, with my pants all baggy on her, I can’t help but mentally tear her clothes off and remember how she looked naked. The curvaceous glory of her flesh, the way I could sink my hands into her ass cheeks when I had my mouth pressed close to her soaked center.
“This place really is amazing,” she murmurs.
“I got it by killing people,” I growl, but really
it’s the monster inside me talking.
My dick is pulsating now.
My seed writhes inside of me, roaring at me to shove her roughly up against the glass and pry her legs apart with my knee, tear down those pants and just push myself up inside of her, ram into her savagely until the floor is slippery with her relentless releases.
She sucks in a breath at my words.
“Killing bad people,” she says.
“And you’re okay with that?” I snarl, stalking across the room toward her.
I have to be sure.
She turns to face me, biting her lip again in that way that fucks me up in a million different ways.
“Yes,” she says, standing up a little straighter, causing her breasts to jiggle alluringly.
Fuck, to taste milk from those pink nipples would be heaven.
I remember the way she came as I cradled her against my chest, my personal naked fuck-toy, came just from me sucking on those needy nipples of hers. I want to make her do it again, and again and again, only this time with a river of her mother’s milk gushing in time with her orgasm.
“I’m okay with it because I know you, Jett,” she murmurs. “I know how crazy that sounds. I know we only just met last night. But …”
She trails off.
I move across the room, reach up, and touch her chin to redirect her gaze to me. She trembles at my touch, as though she’s afraid I’m going to unleash myself upon her at any moment.
It’s not an unjust fear.
I’m constantly on edge, my last release all over those juicy breasts of hers already a distant memory.
My body hungers for more, more, more.
“What?” I growl. “Don’t play games with me, Juliana.”
“You’re so freaking hot and cold, you know that?” she says, smiling.
“Doesn’t sound like you’re complaining,” I grunt. “And anyway, you’re wrong. With you, I’m not hot and cold. With you I’m hot—and then I’m burning, on fire, fucking boiling.”
She reaches up and touches my hand, pressing it against her face, turning her cheek toward my palm as though savoring the warmth of my body.
Saved By The Hitman: An Instalove Possessive Age Gap Romance Page 7