Annoyance fading, the driver looked at me like I just sprouted horns from my head. “Vy uverenny?” Are you sure?
“Da?”
He muttered something in Russian that sounded like, “I hate this job,” before he put the car into drive.
With shaky hands, I dialed Ivan’s number. My skin chafed with impatience as it rang and rang, and then, finally, it went to voicemail.
“Ivan . . .” I began, my throat thick. “I don’t understand what’s going on, but I think you’re right. I think someone might be watching me. I’m sorry for not believing you . . .” I swallowed. “I—I met a man. His name is Ronan, and he owns a restaurant. I’m going there now. I’ll text you the address when I arrive.” My voice cracked. “I’m scared, Ivan.”
I didn’t know what else to say, so I ended the call.
The driver sped off as soon as I stepped out and shut the door, probably hurrying home to his mother. Darkness shrouded the restaurant. It looked closed, but the door wasn’t locked, so I pushed it open and walked inside.
The bartender watched me warily with a towel over his shoulder while he washed glasses. Kostya sat on a stool next to the hallway, his phone in his hand. When he saw me, he fixed me with a heavy stare.
“Is Ronan in?” I asked.
He regarded me thoughtfully for an uncomfortable amount of time, the silence itching beneath my skin, and then he gestured down the hall without a word. The bartender bit out a sharp curse. Words were exchanged between the two men, but I didn’t stick around to hear any more.
I passed the kitchen, which sat empty and dark. Stopping in front of Ronan’s office, I saw it lay vacant as well, though a few masculine voices reached my ears from down the hall. The chill of unease returned, curling in my stomach as I forced my feet toward the sound. The back room door was cracked, and I inched it open.
My heart stopped.
A man sat in a metal folding chair, his hands tied at his wrists, which rested on the table in front of him. His face was black and blue, white T-shirt covered in blood. My stomach roiled, but the confusion and horror trumped the dizziness that tried to pull me under.
Albert leaned against the back door smoking a cigarette and watching the scene with a bored expression. Other men occupied the room, but I could only see Ronan.
He sat with his elbows on his knees while he ran a finger across the sharp edge of a knife. He was talking, the words low and English. His voice sounded different than when he spoke to me. It was tainted with darkness and thrill; the kind of voice that thrived on lust and pain and control. I picked his words apart through the drumming of blood in my ears, putting them together like a puzzle.
It was a nightmare come to life.
Ronan was asking whether anyone really needed a pinkie finger. It sounded like a rhetorical question, but a few men piped up.
“He might forget the size of his cock with no finger to compare it to.”
“His wife would miss the shocker,” one said, eliciting hearty laughs around the room.
Ronan smiled. “I guess she will have to get it elsewhere.”
My vision dimmed, terror inflating in my throat, when he stood and slammed the man’s hands flat on the table.
“Any last words as a ten-fingered man?”
The man clenched his teeth.
Ronan chuckled. “So be it.”
With a quick glint of silver, the man’s pinkie rolled off the table and fell to the floor with a sickening noise. His painful groan didn’t swallow my gasp of horror.
Ronan’s dark gaze came my way.
I couldn’t breathe, paralyzed beneath the heartless, brutal sheen in his eyes as he wiped the blood off the knife onto the side of his pants leg. A hot rush of adrenaline lit inside of me.
I ran.
Knowing a man sat at the end of the hall, I took a sharp right into the dark kitchen, crawled behind the stainless steel counter, and pressed my back against it. Soft steps sounded in the hallway, growing closer. Tears ran down my cheeks. I covered my mouth to hold in a sob.
Dread tightened my lungs, smothering each breath before I could inhale.
“Kotyonok,” he mocked, the soft endearment sounding from somewhere in the dark. He didn’t turn the lights on, and I knew it was because he was enjoying this twisted game of hide-and-seek.
I crawled away from his voice.
Now, I could see a light from the service door leading out near the bar. My chest moved up and down in anticipation. Without warning, I was on my feet and running to it, but I didn’t make it out of the dark before arms caught me from behind.
Ronan’s hand covered my mouth, muffling my screams, while I fought against his iron grip with tears flooding my vision.
“Where are you going, kotyonok?” His menacing words pressed against my ear. “The party is just getting started.”
A sharp sting poked the back of my neck.
And then heaviness pulled my consciousness, down, down . . .
Until everything was dark.
FEEL LIKE PLAYING A GAME WITH THE DEVIL?
—Anonymous
faodail
(n.) a lucky find
I tossed the empty syringe to the floor when her body went limp in my arms. I’d kept the injection in my pocket since she ran into me on her first night here, waiting for the right moment to put it to use.
And this was not the right fucking moment.
Anger sent a rush of heat through me as I wrapped an arm around her legs and lifted her, her long blonde ponytail hanging lifelessly. Beneath her coat, she wore a bohemian skirt with a slit to her hip and some kind of blouse that didn’t reach her navel. So impractical for a Russian winter.
As always.
Her head rolled to rest against me, tear tracks wet on her cheeks. I looked away from her face and turned to see Albert behind me, his cautious gaze on the girl in my arms. He was as emotionless as ice, but I could only assume the barely-there look in his eyes was reservation about what I might do to her.
“I will take her,” he said.
I was sure he would.
Annoyance flared in my chest. “You’ll go clean up the mess with Adams. There’s blood all over the floor.”
I’d never told him to scrub a floor, but the fact he wanted to protect this girl from me . . . Well, that pissed me off. She was mine for the time being, and I’d do whatever I goddamn pleased with her.
His gaze touched her again before he moved to comply without a word.
Albert was loyal to a fault; he’d taken bullets for me. But I’d realized since Mila set foot in Moscow, I couldn’t trust any of my men with her. The first fuckup was only ordered to scare her toward my door, not take one look at her and decide to rape her. My moral compass may be pointed south, but something felt . . . inappropriate about abducting a bruised teenage girl with a concussion. I prided myself on being a fair man, so, naturally, her attacker was floating in the Moskva without a single tooth or finger to be identified.
“Andrei,” I said, passing him in the back room.
He pulled the toothpick from his mouth and followed me to the car in the alleyway. I deposited my package on the back seat. Her skirt rode up, baring too many inches of smooth, toned thighs. The girl had an annoying issue with pants. Instead of enjoying the sight, I experienced an urge to pull the fabric down and wondered if this was what human decency felt like. Slightly nauseating.
Slamming the door, I turned to Andrei. “Anyone even looks at her, kill them.”
He put that stupid toothpick back into his mouth, his attention stuck on the girl’s legs through the car window.
I clenched my teeth. “That includes you. I have better things to do than watch you blow your own brains out.”
He gave me a curt nod and slid his gaze from the window.
I headed back inside and made my way to Kostya, who sat on a stool at the end of the hall, his attention on his phone. I stopped beside him to see he was playing Candy Crush. The fucker was so engrossed in his little ga
me, he jumped when I spoke.
“You got four jelly beans there.”
Cautiously, he looked at me. “Gde?” Where?
“There.” I pointed them out.
He pulled the red jelly bean into place and swallowed. “Thanks, boss.”
“No problem.”
Then I punched him in the face.
He flew backward to the floor. I kicked the stool out of the way and stepped on his phone, hearing it crack as I walked toward him. Grabbing a fistful of his shirt before hitting him again, I revered the burn in my knuckles.
“You better have a good fucking reason for allowing her back there,” I growled in Russian.
Blood poured from his nose. “She’s poisonous. Just like the stories of her mother.”
“Not a good reason.” I grabbed my gun from my waistband and pressed the barrel to his head.
He tensed. “You have been playing with her for too long. We can all see she’s digging her Mikhailov claws into you.”
Yeah, maybe I had let this go on for too long, but I made the goddamn decisions around here.
“We? Who else had a hand in her coming here tonight?”
He hesitated, and my finger tightened on the trigger.
“Vasily,” he blurted. “He only scared her.”
Irritation crawled up my back. I was losing patience with my men when it came to this girl. But what infuriated me the most was that nobody had the right to scare her except me.
“Do you think you could do my job better than me?” I asked. He’d have to kill me to do that, and we both knew that was a fight he’d never win.
His jaw clenched. “Pasha was my brother.”
The unfortunate truth was, I forgot the kid’s name when I had my fingers deep inside Mila.
Maybe she was poisonous.
I’d had my fair share of beautiful women and then some, but this one . . . It was like her body was designed just for me. Unfortunately, beneath that all-American cheerleader exterior lay a Woodstock advertisement. I had nothing against free love, but it would be an understatement to say I wasn’t someone who threw around peace signs.
A cab driver/drug runner of mine recognized Mila minutes after she stepped out of the airport. Since then, I’d learned a number of her ridiculous achievements: valedictorian, cheer captain, homeless shelter volunteer. She even organized a fundraiser to save humpback whales when she was fifteen. If that didn’t paint a clear picture, she was voted “Most Likely to Win a Nobel Prize” at her prestigious high school.
God was laughing at me when he delivered my revenge straight to my hands wrapped in a perfect, environmentally friendly package. Although, he must not have accounted for Mila to practically beg me to take advantage of her.
From the moment she came on me, grabbing fistfuls of my shirt with innocent desperation like I was the only one who could give it to her, it brought out a deep, unnerving fire in my groin. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t impairing my decisions.
I despised how much I wanted to fuck Alexei’s daughter, but I hated being called out on my shit even more.
“Get out of my sight.” I shoved Kostya away from me. “You disgust me.”
He got to his feet, wiped some blood with the back of a hand, and disappeared out the door. Putting my Makarov in the back of my waistband, I rolled the anger off my shoulders and returned to the back room.
“Albert.” I snapped my fingers. “Let’s go.”
He rose from his haunches and tossed a bloody rag to the floor.
Outside, I slid into the back seat next to Mila, and when I adjusted for space, her head came to rest on my lap. She had hair for days, the color of wheat and summertime. I went to slide my fingers through her ponytail but stopped the impulse when I realized the ridiculous shit I just thought. Hitting my thirties had made me disgustingly sentimental.
Long blonde eyelashes rested on cheeks untouched by makeup. Full, parted lips. She looked innocent and vulnerable—but so did her mother, who’d been a real-life Poison Ivy, renowned for her voice though infamous for her sadomasochistic activities.
As naïve as Mila may seem, she was astute enough to see straight through me and to quote “The Raven.”
Too bad her soft heart was her downfall.
Her breathing grew a little shallow, and my chest tightened with the thought I’d injected her with too much etorphine. I slapped her face. She flinched like her sleep was disturbed, and the uncomfortable sensation faded.
I didn’t care about this girl.
I just didn’t like killing women.
Though, after my brother and I did nothing but watch while our mother choked on her own vomit, it wasn’t exactly an oddity. Some women deserved death. Especially my mother. And Mila’s for that matter.
Albert drove us to the house outside the city. It was over an hour’s drive at best, and I wondered what my pet would do if she awoke before we arrived. Would she cry, beg? Or would she show her Mikhailov colors?
Annoyed I couldn’t find out now, I almost regretted drugging her. But I didn’t have the patience for a hysterical woman in my car. It was the sedative or choking her until she passed out. The latter was less reliable, and something in me didn’t settle well at the idea of hearing her struggle for breath—even though any offspring of Alexei’s deserved that and more.
I pushed him out of Moscow last year. There could only be one ruler of this city, and I didn’t like to share. I assumed he would go lick his wounds elsewhere, but the bastard was a sore loser. Pasha’s mutilated body showed up on my doorstep three months ago. I saw red. My blood still burned just thinking about it. It was a fire that couldn’t be doused until I had Alexei’s head.
I didn’t think he had any love in him, but he must care for his daughter if he raised her in secrecy in America. Once he conceded, she’d be free to crawl home. Until then . . .
“Moy kotyonok.” I ran a thumb across her parted lips. “I told you this city would eat you alive.”
I just didn’t tell her I owned Moscow and everything in it.
morosis
(n.) the stupidest of stupidities
My mouth felt as dry as cotton. A strand of hair tickled my cheek. I reached up to scratch it, but confusion clouded my mind when my hands refused to move.
I peeled my eyes open, blinking against the light coming from the television in the otherwise dark and unfamiliar bedroom. My heartbeat trembled when I saw my wrists secured to the armrests of a wooden chair. I yanked against the ropes, but a soft moan brought my gaze to the TV on the dresser. I stared at the scene playing in front of my eyes, revulsion rising in my throat.
The moan on the screen came from me while I sat naked on Ronan’s lap, grinding on his hand.
He recorded us.
The video was shot from a high corner of my hotel room, on a camera that could have been there my entire stay. Humiliation churned in my stomach and twisted my heart like a wrung-out rag as I watched myself come and shudder against him.
Then the video began to play again.
I liked Ronan.
I cared.
And he was only using me.
Tears blurred my vision while I frantically pulled at the ropes on my wrists, trying to twist out of them. I froze when a heavy presence told me I was no longer alone.
Ronan stood in front of the door, a sliver of light fanning in from the hall. His eyes, the breadth of his shoulders, the black-on-black of his expensive clothes—they swallowed the shadows in the room.
Darkness there, and nothing more.
I called it in the beginning. Something inside of me always knew.
“You aren’t going to do much more than hurt yourself. I learned how to tie a knot in prison.”
The indifference in his voice penetrated my veins, freezing my blood from the inside out. I tensed as he moved closer, his gaze flicking to the TV to watch me gyrate on his lap.
“A video of you riding my cock would have been better, but regardless, you make a good show, kotyonok.”
This man wasn’t the one I came to know the past week. I realized now that “generous” man was nothing but a lie. Only someone sick could touch me, caress me, knowing all along I was just a pawn in whatever twisted game this was. I was so stupid. A stupid, naïve girl who’d walked right into a monster’s arms.
I winced when my muscles tightened, still feeling a sharp sting in the back of my neck from whatever he stuck me with.
“What did you give me?” I breathed, my voice wavering.
He leaned against the dresser and crossed his arms, his shoulders nearly blocking all the light from the TV. Only yesterday, I found his size and strength attractive. Now, it terrified me.
“Etorphine.”
It sounded familiar, and I placed where I’d heard of it: the show Dexter. It was what he used to knock his victims out before torturing them. Images of saws and detached limbs made my veins shake, especially as I recalled how Ronan cut off a man’s finger without any remorse.
If he had a demented urge to mutilate me, why would he need to record us? And if he worked for a sex trafficking ring, why wine and dine me for so long? He’d had multiple opportunities to kidnap me, including the first night I slept in his office.
Nothing made sense, and the unknown spread ice through me.
“What do you want from me?” I asked.
“Such a loaded question,” he said, eyes on something small he twisted between his fingers. I knew it was my heart-shaped earring. “What do you think I want from you?”
I stared at him, my pulse racing with uncertainty.
“You really have no idea,” he drawled, gaze alight with amusement. “Apparently, they don’t make girls as smart as they used to.”
I was stupid. I knew it, and I accepted it. But hearing it from his lips sent a burst of fire through me.
“Just tell me what you want, you psychopath,” I snapped, yanking at the ropes on my wrists.
The Darkest Temptation Page 10