by Warren, Rie
He said nothing, his frigid stare and tensed stance demanding me to obey.
With a loud swallow I glanced away, slowly peeling off the towel until it lay rumpled beneath me.
“I am not going to rape you.” His voice rumbled, the Slavic accent clearer than usual. “Not my style.”
Exhaling through my nose, I clenched my eyes tight so I wouldn’t have to see what was coming next. When it came right down to it, I wasn’t all that ballsy.
His hand landed above my breasts, palm so large and warm. He pressed me back until my head rested against a pile of pillows, and my eyelashes fluttered on my cheeks.
Labored breaths hastened from my chest when his fingers coasted to one shoulder and down my arm.
My palm curled open, and goosebumps coalesced from his touch when the pads of his fingers danced softly across my inner wrist.
I swallowed again and, oh my lord, my nipples tightened. I wanted to arch my back. A keen ache settled hotly between my legs.
What is going on?
I knew he was leaning over me suddenly because his body heat seemed to create a heady forcefield, the sensation of his warm solidity just inches away from making delicious contact.
I bit back a moan.
His low voice washed against my ear. “I can feel your pulse thrumming.”
I almost whimpered when his fingers danced to the center of my palm and then to the tips of my fingers.
“It’s probably going to speed even more in a second,” he murmured.
Liquid pleasure pooled inside me at his low hypnotic tone alone.
When he pulled first one hand then the other above my head and held my wrists immobile, my breasts jutted up. My nipples brushed against the front of his shirt and came into contact with his hard chest, and I mewled at the shockingly sensual sensation.
Then something snapped around one wrist . . . both wrists!
Eyes popping open, I thrashed wildly. “What the hell are you doing?”
He agilely leaped from the bed and secured both my ankles to the bottom too.
I didn’t even land one good kick before I was stretched out spread-eagle. He had me fastened to the bed by soft bindings around my ankles and what looked like one of his belts locking both my hands in place.
I fumed, swearing.
He, on the other hand, appeared very satisfied with his handiwork.
And he was just as turned on as I’d been a moment ago evident in the bulge at the front of his pants, heightened color in his angular cheeks, that glint in his eyes.
Pushing my breasts out a little more, I tried a different tactic.
I dropped my voice to a purr. “Scared of little old me?”
In the space of a second, he was back over me.
“I have to go out. And I don’t trust you to stay put,” he snarled in my face, his heat igniting my anger.
“You can’t do this!” Lunging as far as I could, I gnashed my teeth at him.
With one rough digit, he drew a circle around the flesh of my breast before following a line down the center of my belly to just above my mound.
My damn toes curled, and my breath halted.
“Looks like I can do any damn thing I want.” The tips of his fingers skimmed across the hollow of my pelvis, kindling hot chills beneath my skin.
Dark as jet, his gaze met mine. “And I can happily put something in your mouth to shut you up, malyshka.”
I bucked up again. “Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
He cocked his head. “Not sure. You probably bite.”
“Absolutely.” Tugging from my hands, pulling from my feet, I twisted and turned futilely.
Kirill leaned away. “You know, it turns me on watching you wiggle around like that.”
I stilled immediately. “Don’t leave me like this, Kirill.”
“Not open for discussion.”
“At least let Boris stay here.”
“So he can chew through the cords? Nyet.” But at least he flipped a blanket over my naked form.
“I take back every decent thought I almost started having about you,” I shouted at his retreating back when he walked to the door.
“Good. Keep it that way.”
5
Kirill
WITH BORIS YIPPING AT me, I locked my bedroom door. I walked down the hallway, the dog trotting after me, listening to Jo rant the entire time.
The woman had a set of lungs.
Might have to go through with my threat and get my cock in her mouth later.
When I stopped at the elevator, the mutt looked back in the direction of Jo’s shouts with the most pitiful expression I’d ever seen.
“Since when did you start liking the ladies? And why the hell her?”
He whined.
“I am not untying the shrew, and that’s final.”
He thumped his tail down on the floor. Twice.
Blyad. Now I had a disobedient woman and a disobedient dog.
Questionable loyalties aside, Boris Yelpsin tagged along with me into the elevator, down the private first floor corridor, and into The Sickle. The club open for the night, drinkers, dancers, partiers, and girls looking for a good but exclusive night out crowded the club. The Bratva soldiers maintained a steady but stealthy presence with weapons kept out of sight.
The bartenders shook and mixed.
The music pulsed and pounded.
The lights flashed and strobed.
And a lot of tall blonde man-magnets gave me the come-hither.
I felt no compulsion toward any of the Bratva-wife wannabes.
First of all, Boris was likely to take their throats out. And secondly, I still reeled from the day’s events and a woman who was supposed to be a boy called Joe.
She’d gained my attention in a major way.
Perhaps I was attracted because I’d never met a girl like her before—one who wasn’t pampered and perfumed and prissy.
Maybe I admired her feisty attitude—there was no denying she had spunk for days.
I hated to admit she amused me, entertained me. Wit and wiliness and a little bit wicked.
She’d reacted unexpectedly those few times I’d touched her when I was securing her. She’d liked it. She’d gotten off on it. Her pretty jewel-like nipples swelled up, the areolae begging to be licked. Her thighs spread, the strip of red curls above her pussy and her puffy lips finally fully visible.
I’d given Jo chills simply from a brush of my fingers down her arm to her wrist, across her belly to her hip.
And she’d made my cock jut to full hardness. Those little sounds she couldn’t control—the moans and mewls—almost dissolved even my strict control.
But it was the harsh red-purple bruises against her porcelain skin that had hit me hardest with unforeseen anger.
Who’d been beating her and why?
I’d detected her suspicion, her reticence, when I’d asked her about her living situation. For a second, I thought she was going to tell me something. Something useful in getting to know her. I hadn’t even been digging for details just to get back at her family for their stupid shenanigans.
That genuine curiosity on my part was enough to tamp down all subsequent feelings. Enough to keep my head in the game, both my feet planted in this cold ruthless world where tender feelings were null and void.
I accepted a glass of the finest chilled vodka from one of the loyal bartenders and downed the alcohol in one pull.
I walked up to the mezzanine, patrons parting the way for me and Boris. No one tried to touch me or talk to me. No one asked for special treatment or free drinks or any favors.
At the top of the stairs, I entered a much more private sanctum with a press of a finger on a sensor. The offices of The Cat and the Sickle stood behind wrap-around one-way windows overlooking the whole operation, complete with security cams on swivel inside and out and down in the dungeon. Joanna had been right about that part. The extensive basement was the base of operations for our black-market arms
trade from Boston to the great Motherland and rebel armies and syndicates beyond.
Inside, I gave Boris free rein and took a quick glance at the security monitors.
Arkady sat behind a large circular desk that ran the length of the wall upon which half a dozen computers and high-tech gadgets were mounted.
Yury held a bottle of vodka in his meaty paw, astute eyes on me.
Sasha pouted at Maksim. “But I want to party with the fun people. You’re soooo boring and boorish.”
“I still have permission to punish you, printsessa.”
“Papa!” She turned appealing eyes on our pakhan.
He waved her away. “Enough. I must speak to Kirill.”
A knock sounded on the outer door.
“Who is it?” I asked Arkady.
He quickly ID’d the man on the monitor. “Grigor.”
“Da. Let him in.” Patting my brother on the shoulder, I looked up when the newest soldier stuck his head inside.
He was the one I’d tasked with searching Jo’s truck earlier.
“Need to speak to the boss,” he said.
“I am right here.” Yury raised an imperious eyebrow.
“Izvineniya, Papa.” Grigor’s cheeks flushed as he edged inside. “I meant Kirill.”
With a snort, Yury waved him toward me.
I jerked my chin toward the hall and led him into my own office.
After shutting the door, I leaned against my desk.
He scratched his chin, gawked all around, then frowned at me. “I went through the truck. Inside and out as instructed.”
“And?”
“Nothing. I mean . . . not much. Looks like the boy . . . um, err, girl I guess . . . She”—he stacked two packs of chewing gum on the desk beside my hip—“likes gum? Mint. Peppermint though specifically.”
My eyebrow hiked high.
Sweat popped out on his forehead.
“Uh, didn’t find any GPS or trackers. Nothing but the booze, really. No drugs or anything like that,” he stammered some more.
I crossed my arms at my chest.
He rubbed his hands together.
“Oh.” His face lit up like a lightbulb going off. “Found this. Been ringing all day. Should I have taken out the SIM card or something?”
He showed me a phone.
“Give it to me.”
“Sure. Da. Of course.”
The device was slippery with the sweat from his hand.
I carefully wiped it off with my handkerchief, turned it over, and smiled when I saw all it took to unlock was a facial ID.
Smart girl let absolutely nothing pop up on her lock screen though. I pocketed the phone right where her switchblade had been.
“Are you going to kill me now?” Grigor’s voice quaked.
Chuckling, I drew out my KA-BAR. “Why would I need to do that?”
He audibly gulped.
“No reason?” His voice cracked.
“Are you going to tell anyone about the phone. Like our papa? Or my brothers?” I swiped the already shiny blade casually against my pantleg.
“No!” He shook his head quickly. “I wouldn’t.”
“Go get a drink.” I ushered him from my office and then to the secure door of the overlook. “You deserve it.”
My back slap out the door and into the club almost felled him to his knees.
“Something going on?” Arkady swiveled his chair toward me.
“Not on my end. What about you?” I turned the question on my all too clever brother.
He shrugged but kept watching as I checked both my guns and re-holstered them.
Yury watched too, eyes disappearing into slits. “You understand you have a job that does not include the unexpected Irish girl.”
“Da, Papa.”
He snipped the end off a cigar with a pair of gold scissors. “Maybe you should take Arkady along tonight.”
“You think I got my head screwed up because of that little bit of nothing upstairs?” I squinted at him. “She’s a bartering chip, nothing more. Besides, she could stand to be shown her place, and that’s all I intend to do with her. I’m solid.”
“Fine.”
I turned to Arkady and leaned over. “Keep an eye on her for me.”
His eyebrows raised, but all he said was, “Sure.”
I hit the camera in my bedroom back on with my remote fob. “Not on the big screens though. Use the iPad to monitor her.”
“Where is she right now?”
“Tied to my bed.”
Sasha must’ve been listening because she marched over on stilt-like high heels. “You can’t leave her tied up to your bed!”
Yury’s daughter could take her tongue-lashing and save it for someone who gave a shit.
I ignored her little tirade—she had nothing to do with any of this.
The only reason she was allowed up here in the first place was because Yury didn’t want her out of his sight. Unless she was being watched over by Maksim. And Maksim had gotten sick and tired of the spoiled brat parading her goods out in public where he had to make sure she didn’t get entangled with any men.
Case in point, Sasha’s dress tonight looked more like a handkerchief—something I never wanted to see Jo in.
And where the fuck had that thought come from?
Then again, I had left Jo naked. She’d better keep that goddamn blanket covering her.
“And make sure Boris stays down here with you.” I glanced at the mutt sitting with Yury’s heavy hand resting on his head.
Arkady frowned. “Why didn’t you leave him upstairs to guard the girl since he hates every single piece of ass you’ve ever slept with?”
“First of all, Joanna isn’t some random piece of ass, and I haven’t slept with her. Second? Boris apparently likes her.”
* * *
I cut the lights on my SUV as I pulled into the dusty gravel lot outside of the deserted warehouse. The broken glass in the building’s windows looked like jagged razor-sharp teeth.
The bulb in the streetlight had been blown out long ago, and now the only light cast over the abandoned place came from the moon above and the latent glow of the city in the background.
I scanned the entire area before getting out of my vehicle.
Not a soul in sight, as to be expected. Rodney always waited inside when I came to get the protection collection. Hell, for all I knew, the down-and-out lowlife used the ugly, cavernous warehouse as a squat.
Regardless, something felt distinctly wrong this time.
Moving toward the building, I kept a hand on the hilt of my KA-BAR.
No sooner did my long shadow eclipse the maw-like opening of the structure than a hail of bullets crackled at me from two different directions. I ducked backward and around the metal wall, bullets whistling out and kicking up dust at my feet.
Tuck tail and run at the first sign of trouble? Not my style.
Crouching low, I leaned into the opening. I heard the sound of a cartridge reloading, and quickly spun in that direction.
I could just make out a tall silhouette, darker than the surrounding shadows and half-hidden behind a column. Hurling my blade toward the man, I watched the gleaming steel whirl end over end. It’s long arcing sail across the warehouse ended with muffled impact. The hilt of my KA-Bar quivered, the shaft sunk deep into the first gunman’s throat.
I moved to the other side of the door, remaining outside.
The would-be-killer grunted out with a loud gurgle. The metal of his gun rang as it hit the cement floor. Then a thud sounded as his body dropped down too.
Another burst of wild gunfire blanketed across the entrance, coming a little too close to hitting my SUV.
Gripping my gun, I edged into the opening of the kill box, tracing the trajectory the bullets had taken.
Opposite side of the warehouse.
One target left.
The metal barrel of a gun pointed in my direction, and my assailant cursed out, “Shit.”
Shit w
as right.
He hesitated, and I fired off. One shot. Two.
Plug, plug, glug, glug.
His body jerked backward from the chest like a marionette on a string.
Thud.
Body number two.
And then came number three.
My contact.
Rodney came scurrying from the blackest depths of the warehouse, hands held high. “Don’t shoot, Kirill!”
Yeah, well, we’d see about that.
Holstering my gun, I walked to the scumbag I’d shot.
He’d landed at all kinds of ghastly angles, blood oozing from the two precisely aimed holes in his chest.
I kicked his body.
Nothing.
Didn’t recognize him, so I wondered if this all had something to do with the Irish. Couldn’t really expect to abduct someone’s daughter without some kind of backlash, and the O’Sullivans had to have figured out she never finished any other deliveries after making her way to The Cat and the Sickle.
I stalked over to the skin-bag with my KA-BAR sticking out of his neck. His carotid had to be shredded. His blank eyes stared wide open at nothing. I retrieved my knife, used my handkerchief for the second time that night, and cleaned the crimson-stained shaft while blood began to pour from the unplugged wound in the first assailant’s throat.
Still polishing off my blade, I prowled toward the rat who’d clearly sold me out. “Friends of yours, Rodney?”
As I approached, he shrank smaller and smaller, pulling his head back on his neck and his elbows in at his sides.
“It’s not w-w-w-hat you think.”
“Interesting,” I meted out the words between tight lips. “Money first.”
His face paled even more, skinny fingers fumbling inside his battered jean jacket. He produced a fat wad of bills, which he collected from an assortment of smaller businesses on my behalf.
I could’ve used one of the Bratva’s brigadiers, but I’d met Rodney when he’d fallen on some hard times.
I’d felt sorry for the weaselly fuck who’d just set a trap for me.
He kept his body half-turned away from me—as if his protective posture could save him if I chose to smoke him too—and handed over the cash.
“Spasibo.” I pocketed the money. “So what was this exactly?” Discarding my soiled handkerchief, I ran the KA-BAR’s blade between the tips of my fingers.