Nikolai

by Shandi Boyes

  “Consider Nina yours.”

  Sergei steps back, shocked, aware Nina was once off limits. This is different. I’m not sharing Nina. I’m giving her to Sergei.

  “I’ll have her delivered to you within the hour. But…” I step closer to him, chest to chest, eyes to eyes. “If she shows up dead tomorrow, you’ll be buried alongside her tomorrow afternoon.”

  His smirk reveals how stupid I am being. I’ve always believed it is better to risk everything than walk away with nothing just to play it safe, but it isn’t solely my life at stake here. It is the woman I’m endeavoring to protect after she’s already been hurt, the one who doesn’t appear to trust anyone.

  It’s all about the angel who walked through the gates of hell unscathed. Because if she can do that, perhaps she can show the devil the right way out.

  I wait for Sergei to enter the elevator at the end of the outdoor corridor before yanking my cell phone out of my pocket. It’s cracked like an Easter egg, compliments to my arrest, but it will get the job done.

  My boiling anger dulls to a simmer when Trey answers my call two rings later. “If you’re hoping to send me on a grocery expedition like Roman, you’re shit out of fucking luck. I’m not your lacky.”

  I twist my lips to hold back my smirk. “The title is negotiable.” Once his laughter lessons, I advise him the real reason for my call. “I need Nina delivered to Sergei within the hour.”

  I hear the groan of a woman on the brink of orgasm before Trey says, “You’re loaning Nina to Sergei?”

  From the ruffling of sheets and a faint ‘come back to bed, baby’ I can only assume he is being entertained at either Clarks or Clichés.

  “No.” I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. “I’m giving her to him.”

  “Fuck.” More ruffling, most likely Trey tugging on a pair of jeans. “Vladimir didn’t buy my excuse?”

  I smirk, unsurprised he understood my request without me needing to spell out all the details. He’s good like that. Always one step ahead.

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Need decoy?”

  I stray my eyes to Justine, who is pulling back the sheets on her bed. “No. I need you to deliver Nina to Sergei. Her delivery will give me a couple of hours—”

  “And gain you more blood on your hands…” Trey’s words trail off when I growl. “Sorry, Nikolai, but this is Sergei we’re talking about.” A car door creaking open booms down the line. It’s quickly chased by the rumble of a motor. “He swears he doesn’t have a thing for necrophilia. I don’t believe a fucking word he speaks.”

  He’s not the only one.

  “I told him he’d be buried with Nina if he killed her.”

  “Do you really think that’ll stop him?” he huffs out with a grunt.

  He isn’t technically asking a question, but I answer him anyway. “Probably not. That’s why you’re going to deliver Nina, then make yourself comfortable.”

  I can’t see Trey, but I can imagine his smile when silence resonates down the line. “Sergei has been seeking a way into your crew for years.”

  “And you’re going to make him believe he’s in with a shot. Greed is Sergei’s drug of choice. He’d choose it over lust any day of the week.”

  “Should you be encouraging him down this path, though, Nikolai?” He sounds worried. Justly so. Sergei is even more unhinged than me.

  I scrub at the stubble on my chin as my eyes once again stray to Justine. She’s in her bed now, sleeping on top of the bedding since it’s too humid to slip beneath them. Even with my attention being shot down more than welcomed, my thirst for her is undeniable. I crave her like I already know what she tastes like.

  The fucked-up thoughts in my head should frustrate me more than they do, but for some reason, they don’t. A life without challenges is boring, and convincing an angel to side with a devil is far from tedious.

  I watch Justine for a few more seconds before shifting my focus back to my conversation with Trey. “I don’t have much choice. Vladimir has already walked us down this path. At least this way, I get a few hours of reprieve.”

  “True.” Trey’s big exhale rustles down the line. He’s not one hundred percent convinced, but since he’s minus a better solution, he’s going to run with mine. “If Sergei falls for it, what do you want me to do with Nina?”

  I take a moment to consider a reply. It’s nowhere near long enough considering the short period of time I’ve known Justine. “Offer her an out. If she wants it, buy her a one way ticket to LA. If she doesn’t, make sure she is aware our agreement is terminated.”

  “Look at you, acting all grown up.” My swollen chest shrinks when Trey adds on with a laugh, “If only you could get rid of your fiancée just as easily, eh?”

  Yes, I’m engaged. No, it’s not up for discussion. It was a stupid mistake I made years ago while high, and I’m still fucking paying for it.

  “With all the weaponry trade we’ve conducted the past six months, have you found a vanishing potion yet?”

  Trey’s reply is more honest than deceitful. “Yeah, it’s called a bullet.”

  After talking shop with Trey for almost twenty minutes, I make my way back into Justine’s retro apartment. Our conversation didn’t stray far from the ones we’ve had many times the past six months, except this time, I requested for my personal life to be included in our efforts to keep Vladimir in the dark about my business proposals. There will be less chance of an ambush if we watch Vladimir as closely as he forever watches me. I hate needing to be cautious, but I prefer it over being dead.

  I dump my cell phone onto the table housing the letter open Officer Prentice almost had a meeting with before heading for Justine’s bedroom door. I know her door isn’t locked. Not only did I fail to hear the locking mechanism slide into place when she slammed it shut, but the barrel of the lock is drilled out. It makes the perfect peep hole, which I look through not even two seconds later.

  Justine’s strengths shine when I notice the rise and fall of her chest. She’s sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware of the chaos honing in on her.

  I could let her rest, but I can’t execute a perfectly laid-out plan with patience.

  I also need to shut her blinds before anyone gets a sneak peek of the luscious thighs exposed by the high rise of her skirt.

  The rusty hinges on Justine’s door would buckle under the force of my boot in no time, but then I’d run the risk of waking her, so, instead, I carefully apply pressure to the door handle until the mechanism stopping it from twisting warps.

  Just before the foldable chair Justine placed under the doorknob collapses with a bang, I push open the door enough I can catch it in my hand. Word to the wise: if you want to keep a bad man out of your room, don’t barricade your door with a foldable chair. You may as well leave it open and pretend you locked it.

  Once Justine’s curtains are closed, I move to the side of the bed she’s sleeping on. She stirs when I track my finger over a mottled scar on the back of her right knee. It doesn’t replicate any of the burns and marks my body holds. It’s angry and stretched, as if her skin was shredded by an immense amount of force.

  The span of her scars and their odd shape keep me fascinated for several long minutes. I’m not surprised. Scars tell a million stories, and I’m dying to hear hers.

  “You’ve just got to be brave enough to share them with me, Ahren.”

  While staring at her angelic face, I count backward from ten, knowing I should leave when I reach zero, but aware that’s unlikely to happen. Vladimir is already watching, so now I must watch too. I watch the way Justine’s lips part when she takes in shallow breaths, and the paleness of her cheeks since she is unaware she’s caught my eye. I watch a red blush creep from her knees to her nape when the desire to touch her becomes too much to bear, and how her breathing grows along with her body’s hue when she senses my touch. Then I watch her some more just for the hell of it.

  I should wake her so I can finish what I
started on her front door. I should spread her thighs wide, snap off her no-doubt still soaked panties and eat her cunt as if I’ve never been fed. I should fuck her until her body is so flushed with heat, her scars will fade in its fiery red coloring, but I can’t. Not only must I remain alert in preparation for Vladimir’s next move, there’s something so surreal about seeing an angel in the flesh, I can’t act on any of the inane thoughts in my head.

  Rico said years of misery would be undone by a reward I’d never anticipate. I assumed it would be of monetary value. I had no clue it would be in the form of a person.

  Chapter Eight

  With the sun risen and Roman on guard outside, I make my way from Justine’s room to her guest bedroom in preparation to have a shower. My head is throbbing due to a lack of sleep, but I’m still hyped with adrenaline. I had a perfect cure for my restlessness directly in front of me, but instead of acting how I was raised to be, I let Justine sleep.

  Don’t ask me why or I may be tempted to slit my own throat.

  Although pissed I spent my night watching Justine instead of tasting her, it granted me the perfect opportunity to truly look at her. Her features are so unique, several hours flew by within a second. With her long red hair twisted off her face, I saw how her little nose screwed up anytime she murmured in her sleep, how she sleeps in a ball like she’s adept on protecting herself even while she’s sleeping, and although her sleep was mostly restless, my touch was capable of settling the occasional murmur.

  While watching her sleep as if she was working a pole on a dollar bill littered stage, I realized she isn’t the type I usually go for. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. She is gorgeous, but her beauty is compliments to good genes instead of a surgeon’s scalpel—a stark contradiction to the whores and strippers I’m surrounded by every day.

  Her natural, unenhanced features have me so fascinated, instead of demanding for Roman to unearth a way out of my predicament, I’m conjuring ways to prolong my stay without my extracurricular activities being placed on Vladimir’s radar.

  Only yesterday I would have said it wasn’t possible.

  Today, I’m feeling optimistic.

  While moving for the bag of clothes Roman arrived with hours ago, I notice a single file sitting neatly on the bed in the middle of Justine’s guest bedroom. My motives shift for the third time the past twelve hours. Instead of heading straight for the bathroom to wash off the funk making me restless, I read the dossier Roman complied on Justine at my request.

  Excluding the last three dot points of the one page transcript, it is as clean as a whistle. Mere weeks after Justine was hospitalized for a ‘personal’ matter, her brother, Maddox, was charged with first degree murder. In an endeavor to keep their son out of jail, Justine’s parents sold everything they owned to fund his legal expenses.

  It did them no good.

  Even in lieu of a body, Maddox was found guilty by a jury of his peers, and his family lost everything—including their only daughter, who switched her major from architecture to criminal justice so she’d have a chance to work alongside the number one defensive attorney in the country, Carmichael I’m-going-to-gut-him-alive Fletcher.

  Justine’s file unveils the reason she’s in Las Vegas, but if it is the sole reason she’s here, she’ll face more issues than a long weekend sleepover with a mob prince. Maddox isn’t just in one of the most gang-populated prisons in the country, he’s also under the Petretti’s watch.

  Despite me sharing their blood, the Petrettis are rivals of the Popovs. Their former founder, Col, was killed a little over three years ago. Rico murdered him in vengeance for organizing the death of his mother before making out she died of an overdose. My mother helped Col in return for gifting her the son she desperately craved—aka me.

  Now can you understand Vladimir’s disdain? I’m not just the byproduct of his wife’s infidelity; my veins carry the blood of his mortal enemy.

  My mother believed Vladimir was none the wiser about her deceit. She was wrong. When Rico brought it up at a family dinner two months before his death, and only a week after Vladimir convinced me to organize for his wife to be killed as brutally as his mother, it was clear Vladimir knew all along I wasn’t his son.

  He played along with my mother’s ruse with the hope I’d be the final piece of the puzzle he’d been struggling to complete the past three decades. In some ways, I was. Not only did my brother kill my father, my mother chose death over a life without Vladimir.

  I knew my mother’s decision long before she pulled the trigger. It didn’t make it any easier to swallow, though. For years, I’d wondered if I was a gimmick she used to toy with Vladimir. Her suicide proved I was. It was always about her and what she lost when Felicia, Vladimir’s favorite whore, gave birth to Vladimir’s first son instead of his wife.

  Hating that I’m allowing the ghosts of my past to haunt me, I snag a change of clothes out of my bag before making my way to the bathroom Justine hid in for almost twenty minutes last night. I don’t need to alert Roman to my whereabouts. He keeps watch no matter what I am doing—and yes, that was meant to sound as perverted as it did.

  Don’t let Roman’s worldly eyes, fatherly face, and fit body covered by a fancy suit deceive you. He’s a killer in every sense of the word.

  Leaving my clothes where they fall, I climb into the shower before cranking up the heat. I’m barely under the water for two minutes when the it switches from moderately warm to skin-scorching hot.

  “Jesus fucking Christ.”

  As I dive through the shower curtain, a lighting quick montage of the punishment Rico endured years ago flashes before my eyes. When Sergei threw acid on his back at Vladimir’s request, not a peep escaped his lips, yet here I am squealing like a banshee over a little water.

  I must be getting soft in my old age.

  Pissed about the weak, insolent man I’m portraying, it takes me a good ten seconds to discover the reason for the extra steam in the bathroom. Justine is standing across from me, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. Her teeth have caught her lower lip, and her eyes are blazed with lust.

  The need in her heavy-hooded gaze switches my mood from tormented to playful in under a second.

  “Morning, Justine,” I greet her in Russian, my voice extra husky from the comical bulge of her eyes when they land on the dragon tattoo weaved across my right hip and halfway down my thigh. It’s an explosion of color that hides more than a handful of secrets.

  They say every tattoo tells a story.

  Mine don’t.

  They hide them.

  The heaviness on my chest clears away for smugness when Justine gabbles, “My god, is that a python?”

  "It's a dragon," I correct, aware she’s not referencing my tattoo but more than eager to discover if she’ll argue the fact she was eyeing my cock like I left three Benjamin Franklins on her nightstand. Her eyes represent big shiny marbles of innocence, but I know she’s horny. I can feel it, much less smell it.

  After several long seconds of silence, I mutter, “Be careful, Ahren. A dragon has never died from a snake bite, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be wary of the snake. Venom isn’t a snake’s only danger.”

  My cock goes from semi-aroused to painfully hard in an instant when Justine’s eyes snap to mine. Hunger is brightening her alluring gaze, but for once, it isn’t for a fight. They’re as stormy as they were last night when I had her pinned against her front door. She’s liking what she sees—scars and all—and it has me more than eager to make her mine.

  When I head her way, my steps painstakingly slow so Little Red Riding Hood knows the Big Bad Wolf has her in his sight, Justine strays her eyes to the side, where they remain until she builds up the courage to sidestep me.

  I could let her go, but I’m done playing nice. Not only are haunted memories reminding me of the bastard I was born to be, I’m confident she wants this as much as me.

  She just needs to be shown how badly.

  When I cinch my a
rm around her waist to draw her into my torso, she freezes like a statue. If I heard her squeak right, she’s not hightailing it out of the bathroom because she is in fear of her life. It’s because she’s petrified about giving in—again.

  With my pulse high and my hips struggling not to buck against her like a stallion, I ask, “You like what you see, yet you continually deny me. Why?”

  Justine proves she’s as feisty as her hair coloring when she snaps, “Who says I like what I see?”

  She purrs like a motherfucking kitty when I grind my semi-erect cock against the meaty globes of her ass. It is the fight of my life not to bend her over the tub and defile her now. I would if this was another day at the office. There I don’t ask. I command. I’m trying something new this weekend. Will I be scolded for it? Most likely. But when you are forced to live your entire life in thirty, you’ve got to mix things up occasionally.

  “Tell me again you don’t like what you see.” I take a moment to settle the unbridled hunger in my voice before saying, “You want my cock nearly as much as I’m dying to slide it between your lips.” When a lie flares through her wholesome eyes, I squash my finger against her plump lips. “Before you speak, be warned: if you lie to me again, I’ll tie you up and bring you to the brink of climax over and over again, only stopping when my cum is covering every inch of you. Then I still won’t let you come, no matter how much you beg.”

  I realize she likes things dirty when she stops fighting against my hold. Although pleased I’ve unearthed one of her quirks, a lack of sleep has made me as restless as the heady scent of her cunt.

  “I won’t chase someone who doesn’t want to be chased, Ahren.” I spent my entire childhood striving for the unattainable. I refuse to do it again. “Do you want this? Yes or no.”

  I’m anticipating for her to nod, so you can imagine my shock when she whispers, “No, I don’t.”