Jealous Russian Stalker (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 92)

by Flora Ferrari

  I step into the hallway feeling an incredible rush. I’m a cross between lightheaded and fully focused. It makes no sense but that’s the only way to describe it.

  Making my way toward the elevator I pass by the ice machine noticing a man standing there who suddenly turns and pretends to fiddle with the machine.

  I pass by, pretending not to notice, and round the corner.

  I press the button for the elevator and when it arrives I step inside and press the ground level floor but quickly step out.

  The door eventually closes and leaves the floor, but obviously not with me in it.

  Obvious to everyone but Captain Weirdo in the hallway.

  I move back to the edge of the hallway, getting down on my stomach and maneuvering into a position where I can catch his reflection in the polished aluminum ice machine’s exterior.

  As expected he’s no longer at the ice machine, but where he is is moving down the hall.

  I continue tracking him until he stops in front of my woman’s door.

  He casually looks both directions before pulling something from his pocket and tapping it to the lock.

  The lock disengages.

  Hell no!

  I didn’t learn much about Willow tonight, but I do know, with complete certainty, that she’s here in Moscow alone, isn’t expecting company, and knows no one.

  This can’t be good.

  I jump up from my position just as the man steps a foot inside her door.

  He hears me and backs out of the room, a pistol in one hand and a yet to be attached silencer in the other.

  He points the pistol directly at me and fires off on shot.

  I immediately drop to the ground, hearing the round from the weapon whiz by my ear.

  I roll sideways and turn preparing to take off again in his direction to stop him, but when I look up he’s gone.

  I chase after him, racing down the stairwell I finally approach the front desk.

  “Where is he? Where did he go?”

  “Who, sir?” the man behind the counter says as he rolls off a cot which is discreetly positioned behind the desk.

  “The man who just fired a shot on the second floor!”

  “The second floor?”

  I do the quick math remembering that the European scheme of numbering floors is different than the American way. Did I get that right? Yes. Wait. What the fuck is wrong with this guy?

  “Yes, the second floor!”

  “Let me pull up the footage.”

  “The footage? Where the fuck is the man who just left the hotel?”

  “I’m not sure, sir. I was sleeping.”

  As someone who lives and dies by the competence of his actions, I absolutely hate incompetence.

  The man presses some keys while I tap my foot, wanting to run out into the night, but not about to leave my woman alone.

  “It seems that camera is out right now, sir.”

  “The others? What about the other cameras?”

  “The system is down.”

  “Down?”

  “Where is the security guard?”

  “He had to leave early for the night. We don’t have security this evening.”

  “What? Are you fucking kidding me? You’ve got guests from all around the world paying good money, and completely selling out this shit hole nonetheless, and you don’t have one damn single security guard on staff?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I just work here.”

  “You just work here?”

  I want to reach across the desk and ring the kid’s neck, and I can see in his eyes and the way he takes a step back that he knows it to.

  Wait. How was I so stupid?

  Of course all these “coincidences” happened.

  This isn’t an amateur setup. This is professionals at work.

  The time of night, when the body’s circadian rhythm is at its lowest point, ensuring all the guests will be completely out of it, deep in sleep.

  The silencer on the weapon. It was so long he had to screw it on, hence why he didn’t have it on already inside his jacket pocket.

  I walk around the counter and show myself to the employee area.

  “Sir, you can’t be back here.”

  I reach underneath the CCTV and pull out the wires leading to the cameras…which are cut.

  “Whoever did this did it from the front. From right here,” I say getting up in the kid’s face.

  “I swear it wasn’t. You can talk to my boss.”

  I grab the kid by the collar and see the fear, and truth, in his eyes.

  I release my grip as he keeps his hands high as if to surrender.

  He’s the scapegoat. I get it.

  These guys are sick. Trying to pull this off and then pinning it on some kid probably working part time to pay his way through college. Even if it is state funded, education and living expenses around the world are out of control these days.

  “Here,” I say, pulling a one hundred U.S. dollar bill from my pocket, and a five. “Get yourself two coffees from the machine with the five. The hundred is to stay awake until morning. You see anything you call this number,” I say taking a pen and paper from his stationary. “Anything! You got me?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault, kid. It’s theirs. And they’re going to be the ones who are sorry.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Willow

  My alarm sounds and I drag myself out of bed and into the bathroom.

  Not more than a minute later the water is washing over me, waking me up, and I’m starting to feel better already.

  Last night was so strange. First the “date” with Ivan and then I could have swore there was a canon, or a gunshot or something, in my dream. It woke me up, but luckily I went right back to sleep…dreaming more about him.

  I get dressed and ready and step out the door, my head down as I bump right into something that feels like a brick wall.

  “Oh. What are you doing here?” I ask, as Ivan turns to face me. He was standing with his back to the door like he’s some sort of security guard.

  “The conference is over for you. Grab your things. We’re leaving.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “There’s no time for good mornings right now. Someone is trying to kill you, or us both, and we’re getting out of here.”

  “Have you lost your mind? Get out of my way.”

  He sidesteps me, blocking the entire door. There’s no way I’m getting around his massive frame.

  “If you don’t move I’ll yell for the police.”

  “That’s the last thing you want to do right now.”

  “Let me guess. They’re in on this conspiracy theory of yours too?”

  “It’s very likely they are or someone is.”

  “Come on. Move. I don’t want to be late,” I say trying to shuffle past him.

  “You don’t believe me. Sit down.”

  “No, you get out of my way or you’re balls and my knee are going to get introduced real quick.”

  “Look at this,” he says, pulling up a video on YouTube.

  I roll my eyes and exhale hard but figure I’ll watch it, hoping it will appease him and then he’ll stop making a scene.

  A video taken from some sort of surveillance camera far away from a bridge plays.

  “Do you know what this is?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care.”

  “Well you better start because this happened just feet from St. Basil's Cathedral on February 27, 2015…just steps away from the Kremlin’s walls. Russian opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov while walking with his girlfriend, was shot seven or eight times at point blank range with a Makarov pistol. You know why you can’t see it? Because the snow plow truck pulls up at the precise moment to block it. You think this was chance? You think this happens by accident?” He pauses. “Do you know what happened in your room last night while you were asleep?”

  I shake my head.

  “A man ste
pped in and removed a pistol and a silencer from his jacket. What do you think he had in mind?”

  I almost want to cry, as Ivan’s stern look both terrifies me and lets me know he truly cares about me at the same time.

  “Pack your things. Quickly.”

  “What time was the shot?”

  “Why are you still asking questions?”

  “What…time…was…the…shot?”

  “About four thirty,” he says.

  I remember rolling over at the time I thought I heard the canon and the cheap digital alarm clock on the hotel nightstand showed four something.

  I do as I’m told realizing I’m in way over my head. I wouldn’t have necessarily complied, but in a land where I don’t know who I can trust I have to pick someone and live with the consequences.

  He takes my hand and guides me out to the street where there are cabs waiting.

  “This way,” he says walking in another direction while cab drivers are frantically trying to waive us down.

  It’s all starting to make sense.

  We maneuver quickly to an old Lada parked in an alley. There’s a man literally asleep at the wheel and he appears to be some sort of do-it-yourself taxi operator. Lovely.

  Ivan yells something at him and the man sits up in his seat before opening the door quickly and exiting the car.

  Ivan stuffs a wad of Rubles in his fist and throws my luggage in the back and yells at me to “get it and hold on.”

  We take off and a few seconds later I see signs for 68A and E105. We merge onto the roadways, and I feel his hand on my head as he pushes me down in my seat.

  I want to keep track of signs so I know where my damn kidnapper is taking me, but when a bullet cracks through the rear windshield I don’t think twice about the methods this man is using.

  The car moves sporadically in a few strange directions as I feel my body thrown against the door and then underneath the footrest area.

  Suddenly we make a sharp turn and we accelerate hard and I hear a loud splashing sound from a distance.

  “They’re finished,” he says. His big hand grabs me by my collar and lifts me up and into my seat. I can feel his rough hands on my skin as he reaches all the way across my body and fastens my seat belt.

  “You’re gonna need this,” he says.

  CHAPTER 16

  Willow

  For the next few hours we drive, only making quick stops for gas, toilet breaks, and sandwiches, which we eat in the car.

  We’re well out of Moscow and there are long periods of time where we don’t even see other cars.

  “So can I add kidnapping victim to my resume?”

  At first he says nothing and then suddenly a deep belly laugh escapes him. I have to admit it’s pretty funny, and he wraps his arm around me and pulls me into the side of his body as he drives along the open road.

  It’s the first time he’s touched me in a warm way, not to diminish the way he manhandled me when my life was in danger, but this is different…much different.

  “I’m sorry about everything. I really am, but this had to be done and there wasn’t time to discuss it…as you see now.”

  “But why is this happening?”

  “That’s what we’re both going to find out real soon.”

  We drive another couple of hours before finally turning off and driving down some very poorly marked roads, at least the ones that are marked at all and then he stops in front of some huge rocks and steps out of the car.

  He pushes the rocks to the side, making quick work of something I can barely believe less than three men could move.

  A few minutes later he’s back in the car, breathing hard, but not as hard as I’d expect after making those World’s Strongest Man competitors look like pansies, and he pulls through the hole he created before stopping the car and resealing the gap.

  He drives along a windy stretch of gravel until out of nowhere appears a small home.

  “My dacha, or summer home, that I haven’t seen in years.”

  A few moments later we’re inside and he’s sweeping the floors and opening the windows to let some air in.

  I take a step to check out the house and the floorboard creaks.

  “Don’t move,” he says.

  He finishes preparing the house for another minute or so and then grabs a simple wooden chair, spinning it on one leg so it’s in position and then steps over it and sits down.

  He crosses his arms staring at me.

  “Strip.”

  “Strip?”

  “Are you wearing a wire?”

  “A wire? No, I’m not wearing a wire.”

  “Prove it.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Willow

  “I’m not taking my clothes off,” I say.

  “You Americans make everything about nudity so sexual. It’s just a body. We all have one. Show me yours…now.”

  The problem is not all of us have a body, at least not like his…and I’ve never shown anyone mine.

  His eyes stare at me with a seriousness that I want to say is devoid of lust, but I know I’d be lying to myself.

  “How do I know you’re not wearing a wire?”

  “Are you joking me?” he says, a common expression I’ve heard since I got to Moscow. “You think I’m out to harm you?”

  “Maybe this is all some trap…reverse psychology.”

  He exhales hard and throws up his hands.

  “Okay, crazy woman. I will prove it to you and you will prove it to me at the same time. Let’s go,” he says standing and taking me by the hand and leading me through the house.

  It buys me some time to think of what I’m going to do next and as we pass an old vase filled with knives in the kitchen, with me trailing behind him yet still hand-in-hand, I see there’s clearly an opportunity to do what I want with him…or at least attempt it.

  But the thought never crosses his mind to protect himself from what I could do, and the moment I have to grab something to protect myself is lost, not that I’m someone who likes violence. I abhor it actually, or at least I did until I met him.

  He opens a small door and turns a knob, and the tiny room comes to life.

  “A sauna?”

  “If either of us is wearing a wire this should take care of it,” he says. “You can sit down with your clothes on or off. Take your pick.”

  He quickly slides out of his clothes, with the exception of his underwear, without so much as a thought about it. I watch as his muscles come on full display, rippling and flexing as his body twists and turns to remove the fabric covering his absolute masculine perfection.

  “See,” he says, holding up his shirt and turning it inside out and then doing the same with his other items. “I’m clean.”

  He steps into the sauna and I do the same, still completely clothed.

  Not three minutes later the room is starting to get a bit steamy, yet I keep my eyes locked on him.

  He leans back in the wide berth he’s taken and puts his head against the wooden slats, closing his eyes.

  “Don’t be foolish. You’re going to harm yourself,” he says, his eyes still closed.

  My eyes rake over his masculine presence from his broad shoulders, down and across his barrel-like chest, over each groove in his eight-pack abs and down to the big bulge in his boxer briefs, where my gaze stalls.

  I can’t help but stare at what I first took notice of on that stage just yesterday. The thought that so much has happened in such a short amount of time is mind boggling.

  My eyes drift down across his thick, muscular thighs and along his calves, which are full and strong. I can’t count the amount of guys I’ve seen at the beaches in Florida who skipped leg day at the gym and their torso is completely out of balance with their lower body.

  Not him.

  He’s as solid as an oak tree from top to bottom.

  And my bottom is getting red hot from sitting on these slats.

  I stand up and slowly reach for my shirt. He doesn’
t even so much as look at me let alone move in his seat.