“What you have to wonder is, after a fast jab in the big vein in Oleg’s neck, there’s going to be pretty impressive fountain of thick red between you guys and me. So the interesting question is, when I jump through the red curtain swinging the blade, which two or three of you are going to survive the first sweep?”
Oleg on the floor rattled out a raucous and hideous laugh.
“Guys,” Oleg yells, “You let him kill me, my Tommaso is going to come and make you all into hamburgers.”
“The blood won’t slow machine-gun bullets down very much, Mischa,” one of them shouts, “I wonder how many bullets you can carry and still swing a machete.”
“Why don’t we find out how many bullets all of you can carry?” Illya’s voice from the wide shuttered opening. My men fan out through the warehouse floor. Petrov jumps onto the fork truck and puts a gun on the driver. The truck stops and lowers my BMW nicely to the floor. I’m impressed to see Petrov in action. I never saw him wield anything but a mouse or a keyboard before, except when he twirls a ballpoint pen.
“So, Oleg. Are you ready to hear about the future, or shall we do the fountain of blood show after all?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Her
MISCHA HAS FOUND A route back into Moscow that seems to be free of traffic. In fact, the road we’re on is almost deserted. He looks at me, sideways. “I was so fucking afraid that I was going to lose you. I was shaking inside.”
“Well, you didn’t show it,” I tell him. “You had me completely fooled.”
His voice lowers. “No, you can see through me. I know that you can, Irina. It’s a big part of why I love you so much.” In his voice, and his eyes, I can feel a real swell of pent-up emotion.
“Well, a girl shouldn’t reveal all of her secrets.”
“I’m not joking,” he rasps, “I couldn’t bear to lose you, Irina. You know that, right?”
“Yeah. Until tomorrow, probably.” I’m kidding, but only partly. I know that a man like him is not going to stay obsessed by a girl like me. Not for long, anyway.
He seizes me by the face, pulls me to him. “Irina, I love you. I love you completely. You are mine, totally. I need you to be with me for all time. Forever.” My stomach flutters like an autumn wind has lifted every leaf in New England.
“Misha, watch the road. Concentrate on your driving.”
He swerves violently. The brakes squeal and howl. Clouds of dust and smoke from the burning rubber envelop the car. We hammer and slide to a stop, rocking.
He reaches for a control on my seat, and lays both his seat and mine down flat. He takes hold of me by the neck. Presses me down into the thick, yielding upholstery. The soft, padded leather shapes and flows to caress my back. He hauls up my skirt as he clambers on top of me. His mouth claims mine. He kisses me deep, hard.
“You’re mine.” he almost growls, “All mine. Forever.”
His urge is an animal lust. He pulls my clothes apart. His hands are all over me. He takes and possesses my throat, my breasts, my nipples. Reaching down he grabs my ass and squeezes, making my hips buck up, to scrape my pussy against the ridge of his thigh.
I’m pulling at his shirt, eager and anxious, panting to feel him. As his mouth works down my body, I pull on his clothes, his ass. Anything to feel him. To pull him nearer. To wrap myself on him. Around him. To give myself to him.
He says, “Give me this,” as his lips descend on my wet pussy.
I want his cock. I yank on his belt to pull his ass toward me. To get my hands on his lethal manhood. The hot skin in my cleavage is craving him. And my throat, too. I want to feel him pulse and swell in my mouth. I want to taste his cock on the back of my tongue. Feel the dark heat of him rise up into my mouth and nose. Suck and swallow his cum.
I get his pants open and marvel at the size of that monster. How did I even get that inside me?
Then I’m lost as he sucks on my clit and his tongue slips inside me and his fingers are everywhere and my ass and my thighs clench and my fingers clutch and claw. Involuntarily I shove my wet pussy in his face and scrape up and down and grind as hard as I can.
While I’m still trembling, he flips me over onto my front and hauls my ass in the air. Kneeling behind, he slaps my ass and yanks on my hair as his thumb hooks inside me, drawing and dragging high and deep, parting the wet velvet walls inside me and buzzing on that trigger spot way up in front.
I quake and moan as his fingers roll and plow around my clit, stretching my hood.
My thighs weaken and sag when he slaps my ass again.
With one thumb piloting my pussy into tumbles and blasts of orgasm, his other thumb cruelly circles and teases and pokes in my ass. I jump, thrilled and afraid, but his voice, dark and commanding tells me, “Oh, yes. And soon, but first,” as his cock parts and pierces my weeping butterfly, stretching the breath out of me, he says, “We’ve made you a woman. Now we need to get you pregnant.”
My thighs shudder and stretch apart as the hard, ridged trunk of his hot shaft splits and stretches me. His hips slap against my ass and I’m thrashing, face down and helpless, on the piston of his merciless pole.
“You are so fucking beautiful,” he tells me as he slaps the same raw spot on my ass, making me leap and clench at the sharp sting.
With one hand, his fingers tweak and tug on my swollen nipples, squeeze my bouncing tits and pull the flesh of my stomach, holding me higher, closer as he hammers into me. His other hand holds my hair, and he rides me like a pony, tugging, guiding. Commanding.
When at last he says, “Now, Irina. Are you ready for me?”
I can only shout, “Yes, Mischa. Yes. Give me all that you have.”
“I love you, Irina. Forever!”
As he erupts inside me and I burst like a fountain on the power of his volcanic blast, my head shakes and my eyes squeeze tight, my neck stretches and I groan, “I love you, Mischa!”
We lie in the car in the darkness, in the wet pools and the charged scents. Lights occasionally whizz by on the road outside, but we only notice each other. He stays inside me, rising and thickening sometimes, pushing occasionally, always showing me how he loves me. His arms encircle me. I nuzzle in his protective embrace, more content than I have ever been in the past.
When we finally rouse, pull our clothes back to some impression of decency, and start the drive back to Moscow, he tells me, “I’m handing over control of all of our businesses to Illya and Petrov.
“Aren’t you afraid that they’ll steal your empire away? that they’ll take your place and have you, I don’t know what it is that you say, rubbed out?”
“No, that’s American gangsters. But anyway, no, we’re all on the same side. They’ve wanted to take over for a long time. They’re not ready, but they probably never will be. Not until they have a chance to actually grow into the situation. Between the two of them, I think they’ve got enough of a head and a strong heart. They’ve got brains and smarts, and instinct for how to anticipate things and to deal with conflict.”
“Between them?”
“Exactly. The deal that I made with Oleg, that was their masterplan. Mainly Illya’s, but Petrov’s, too. They will take the business into the future. I can concentrate on what’s important to me.“
“Oh?” I’m excited and still a little afraid, but I have to ask, “What’s that, Mischa?”
“Education. I have an educational charity to help poor kids find their way without having to turn to crime.”
“Oh.” I’m surprised, but Mischa is a man who is full of surprise.
“I’ve wanted to concentrate on that for a long time now.” He looks over at me, “That’s going to be my second priority.”
“Really?”
“The first is you. You and our babies.”
“Babies? Plural?”
“Very plural. Our many babies.”
“WE’VE HAD SO LITTLE time, I haven’t had the chance to give you this.”
“You don’t need to give me gifts.”
&nbs
p; “It’s not really a gift, my darling. It is something that is yours already.”
Her face glows when she sees the little silver chain and the small, worn locket.
“Mischa. Thank you.” She kisses me tenderly, with such a warmth that she makes me glad to be alive. “I can’t believe that you found it.”
I don’t want to talk about where it was. She doesn’t need that memory revived. I’m just happy that I was able to save the thing that is plainly so precious for her.
“You’ve had it a long time, I think. Is it an heirloom?”
“Kind of… It’s something from Momma when she was… before she… I don’t know. It’s a memory from a long time ago.”
“I knew that it was important to you.”
I need to know more about her relationship with her mother. I have to know everything about her. But there’s time. I know what I need to know already. I have all the resources I need to discover the rest.
I tell her everything that matters now. “Irina, I need you to be mine. Forever. I want to marry you and have babies with you.”
“Are you really going to stop being a gangster?”
“Will you marry me if I do stop?”
“Mmm… let me think.” Her nose wrinkles, and she looks up at me with a smile. “Yes.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Umm….” She twitches her mouth. Then purses her lips. “Yes.”
Epilogue I
Him
After the wedding, I take her back to the States. I’ve only been for a few trips on business so it’s good to get to know her part of the world. I have another motive, though. While my lovely Irina is at a spa for a day, I find her mother and pay her a visit.
The rundown and derelict suburb where she’s living prepares me for her apartment. Not enough, though. She’s taken neglect and decay in and embraced it. She offers me food and drink. I struggle to find something that I can accept, in order to be a good guest.
I settle for some bottled water. She shrugs as she hands it to me.
When I tell her that Irina and I are married, it’s like I gave her the score for a sport she doesn’t follow.
Unable to find any small talk so we can establish a ground, I go straight in. “Irina needs her mom, Mrs. Bachunin. But not like this.”
“I’m not Bachunin, boy. Never was. I was born Gloria Cazenove and that’s my name. Never married and I never will.”
“So does Irina take the name Bachunin from her father?”
“Piece of shit. Skunk. I don’t know why I didn’t get it changed. Only makes her remind me of the bastard. I see too much of him in her anyways.” She takes a long tug on a can of beer. “Look, Mister, I can see you’re here with something in mind.” Her eyes narrow. She’s sizing me up. Looking at my suit, the tailored shirt, my rings and watch. She’s checking my ink, too, what she can see of it. “Are you going to help me get out of the hole or what?”
“I am, Gloria. But probably not in the way you think.”
“Oh, you want me to come to Jesus for you? That’s okay, I’ve done that before. Likely enough I can do it again.”
“No, Gloria. Not like that. Irina has told me how she tried to rescue you, more times than she can count. Others have tried, too, I believe.” I reserve comment on her choices of men. How they seem to me is not at issue here. “Gloria, the one person who hasn’t tried to rescue you is Gloria.”
“Oh, am I going to have to listen to lectures? I mean, I can do it, but a bottle of rye would surely help. Or something better even. I don’t suppose you’d have anything like that.”
“I have truckloads. Warehouses full of the kind of thing you’re talking about. I’m not giving any to you, though. And if anyone else does, the help I’m going to give you will cease. Immediately and forever.”
“Kind of help is this you’re offering, then, mister? Not so sure I like the sounds of it so far.”
“You may not. But you’re going to take it. I’m going to pay your rent and any medical expenses you have for six months. I believe that you can get yourself on track in that time. If you do make progress, I’ll help you some more. If not, you’re on your own.”
“Well, that’s very fine of you, but…”
“There’s one more part. You won’t be here. I found a beautiful apartment for you. Not big or grand, but it’s nice, it’s clean, and it’s in a nice neighborhood.”
“Ain’t any nice neighborhoods like that around here.”
“No. Probably not. There are some in Massachusetts, though.”
“I don’t know anyone in Massachusetts. Never did.”
“Good. That’s the point.”
“What about Stocker?”
“Stocker. Your present live-in crutch and enabler?”
“I don’t like the way you talk.”
“You’ll get used to it. You want to take your present deadbeat with you, carry him like a stone around your neck? It’s up to you. What I said still goes, though. If he gives you a wrap, or pills, just one time, you’re out on your ear.” I look in her eyes for a long moment. “Don’t think I won’t do it.”
“I see you mister,” her face flushes as she drains the can. “I know you will. When do I get to see Irina?”
“When she wants to see you.” I stand. “You ready?”
“You expect me to leave right now? Just like that?”
“You need to pack?”
“I’ll need to buy clothes, things for the trip.”
“There are shops where you’re going.”
“I ain’t got no money.”
“There are jobs, too. I’ve spoken to a couple of people who are willing to give you an interview.”
She’s shuffling in the chair. Making preparations to begin standing. “This what you Ruskies think of as loving? This how you treat your family?”
“No, Gloria. This is how I’m treating Irina’s family. If you were my family and you acted the way that you have, I’d lock you in a cellar for a month with bread and water, a hard cot and piles of improving literature. We Russians know about suffering, Gloria. You don’t want to push too hard on those limits.”
She stands and lifts her chin as she looks me in the eye. I’m impressed. Not that I’ll let her see it. Gloria is tough and she has a core of strength. All she’s really lacking is motivation and some good habits. I think she’s going to come through this well.
Epilogue II
Her
WE KEEP A HOUSE in Massachusetts now, as well as the one in Moscow–—not Mischa’s old house, we built a nice, modern house. Not too far from Carla’s building. We did have a basement constructed, though, with a lot of the fittings and style from the old dungeon. We’ve found a lot of games to play with the equipment and toys down there.
It’s such good fun, we had one built in the Massachusetts house, too. We made the second of our sons down there.
On Mischa’s birthday, he makes a point of inviting Gloria to dinner. She made a fantastic turnaround and runs a dependency and rehabilitation refuge now. She’s still not the easiest person to get along with but I adore that way that he treats her. With respect and courtesy, like an armed standoff, but with real care too. He’s said more than once how he admires the way that she faced up to all of her past and carries it forward, making her life into something positive.
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