by Nicole Fox
I turn away from the hallway, heading back to the stairs.
I get it now: he isn’t coming.
This was all a mind game. A war tactic.
I won’t wait any longer for him, but I’ll stay for the night. I need to know about my daughter and I need the story I promised Tom. That will have to be enough, because everything else I want from him is a cardinal sin.
One that I refuse to repeat again.
I started fearing the monster under my bed when I was five. I used to wrap myself up tightly in my blankets, ensuring that a hand couldn’t creep up and grab my foot or my hand. In my childhood logic, I thought a monster couldn’t grab my small, cocooned body and drag me under the bed. The fear died a quick death once my father made it clear how much he despised cowardice.
I wake up in increments. Observations hit me one at a time.
First—the weight of the blankets is gone. I never changed out of my dress, so with the comforter gone, I’m exposed to the chilly room.
Second—my wrists and ankles are restrained. The same fear I felt as a child comes back. The monster. It’s going to pull me off and under the bed.
I turn my head. It’s still dark in the room, but my eyes adjust to it. I look down at my limbs, stretched to the four corners of the bed. The bindings are silk, tightly tied around my wrists and up to the iron posters. I tug my arms. The silk doesn’t budge at all. I try to pull my legs up. Nothing.
“I should keep you like this forever,” comes his voice from the darkness in the corner.
I raise my head. Where is he? My heart is pounding a million times a minute. I was so stressed about the way my legs were tied down, I didn’t notice the shadow leaning against the closet mirrors. Maksim smiles slowly as he strides towards me slowly, like a Cheshire cat in the darkness.
“I like you this way,” he continues. “Vulnerable. Needy. Not capable of flipping tables or throwing drinks.”
I sneer at him, trying to push down that childhood cowardice. “I didn’t know you were so threatened by me. Maybe you should just tell me where my daughter is and we can never see each other again.”
“As I said, I like seeing you this way, so I wouldn’t mind keeping you here for some time.” He approaches the bed, his hands resting on the footboard. Even as I try to slow down my breathing, my body tenses. “You’re a Mafia don’s daughter. You can’t be so entitled that you thought you could disrespect me like that and not fall victim to some—let’s call it ‘retaliation.’”
“I didn’t think a Bratva boss would be so sensitive,” I snap before I can stop myself. I force a smile. “I understand. I won’t do either of those things again. I was angry, but we’ve agreed to a deal now and I’ll play my part.”
“It’s far too late for that, Cassandra,” he tuts. “Besides, you’re lying again.” His finger strokes the sole of my foot. I reflexively jerk backward, but the silk bonds remain taut. He moves his hand over my foot and toward the ties around my ankles.
I should be desperate for him to untie the silk—kicking him in the face would be incredibly satisfying—but I find myself wanting to move his hand up. I want his touch to guide itself higher up my legs. To salve the burning need that grows hotter with every passing second.
What. Is. Happening?
“You’ll keep rebelling until you understand that I’m the one with all of the leverage. Anything I give you is an act of benevolence.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, but the last word slurs off my tongue as his hand slides up my leg. He moves up along the bed, sitting down near my hip. I stare at him defiantly, trying to ignore his hand stroking the inside of my thigh. “So … what? You were just trying to annoy me by not showing up tonight?”
“Are you annoyed?” he whispers. His hand moves away from my thigh. My hips impulsively raise up. He gives me an amused look. “Are you tense?”
His thumbs slip under the hem of the dress, rubbing against my thighs. He tugs the skirt of the dress up. I hear some of the material rip as it reaches my hips. I pull against the restraints, pulling myself away from him, though part of me—a larger part than I want to admit—is dying for him to touch me.
Do it, asshole, that voice begs. Touch me. Make me moan.
“Tell me the truth, Cassandra Balducci,” he says, running his fingers over the waistband of my lace underwear. “You’re the one who believes the truth will save the world. So tell it to me. Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“Pissed off,” I mumble, but my heart is beating hard enough that I’m worried he can see it moving through the sheer material.
“And what else?” he prompts.
I shake my head, words failing me. God, his hands are so close. My pussy is pulsing. I need friction. I pull on the restraints again. They still don’t relent.
“That is a lie by omission, Miss Balducci,” he reprimands softly. “There is far more than anger swirling inside of you right now.”
His fingers curl under my underwear’s waistband. I wait for him to pull it down, but he abruptly yanks it up instead. The pressure against my clit sends my heart into a gallop. My focus starts to narrow to my underwear, his hands, and my clit. Everything else seems insubstantial and ethereal.
He tugs upward again. When I moan louder, he yanks my underwear down, pulling it close to the middle of my knees. I’m left bare for a second, but his hand quickly replaces it, covering my pussy completely, his thumb and his little finger splaying over onto my thighs.
Oh, fucking Christ almighty.
His hand slaps my pussy. My vision blurs, but before the sting can sink in, two of his fingers plunge into me. He strokes inside me, his fingers curled enough to stroke my upper walls. In the past, clitoral stimulation has been the only way I can get off, but I can feel him getting close to something without touching my clit—I’m quite literally twisted around his finger.
When he lowers his palm, the heel of his hand rubbing against my clit, I know right away that my world is going to end with a bang and I’m going to die on his fingers.
The heel of his hand presses down harder and his fingers move faster like he’s repeatedly pulling a trigger. My back is arched and my hips rock back and forth, still desperate for more. Heat is flushing my face. My breathing is so loud, it must sound like I’m dying. Everything is narrowing to a central point that begins and ends where Maksim’s hand is touching me.
Euphoria charges through me, a stampede of sensation trampling deep inside me and taking out anything else in my mind and body. Nothing else in the world matters. Nothing else in the world even exists. I feel myself smiling.
For the first time in a long time, things are simple. There is one thought and one thought only: I am going to come. Hard.
The joy fades as Maksim touches my cheek. He looks directly at me. A defiant, haughty anger dominates his eyes, but in his dilated pupils, I can see his desire like it’s a reflection of my own lust. He leans down, his mouth dangerously close to my ear.
“How does it feel to come on the hand of your family’s sworn enemy?” he taunts. For the first time, I notice his pants are unbuttoned and unzipped, his arousal evident. It should disgust me—the thought of him masturbating while touching me as I’m tied down—but it only makes my heart beat faster, my own arousal roaring back with a vengeance. “You are such a naive woman, mucking around in affairs that you’ll never fathom.”
My wrists are slick with sweat. The silk is drenched. I feel it give me a quarter of an inch. On the left side, the knot around my wrist has almost come undone completely. My ankle restraints are equally compromised.
As Maksim’s hand trails over my waist, I lean forward, my lips striking against his mouth. I kiss him, my lips moving against his like a key trying to find each of the bolts in a lock. Trying to get through the door and reach freedom.
I yank my left arm forward, unraveling the knot by force. I shove Maksim as hard as I can, while my other hand slips out of the knot and my ankles kick free from their bindings. Maksim ba
rely moves, but shock paralyzes him. I grab onto him, my hand on his throat, using all of my weight to force his back onto the bed as I tighten my grip.
“How naive do you think I am now?” I demand. “You don’t feel so powerful now, do you?”
The heat of his cock presses up right under me. My dress is still pulled up near my hips and, in our scuffle, his pants have fallen farther down. I stare down at him—the wolf that is intent on eating me—and all I know is that I need him inside me.
I release his throat, reaching back to yank his boxer briefs down. His cock is thick, veined, massive.
Fuck this man. He does not get to make the rules. He does not get to make me tuck tail and run. If this is the game he wants to play, so be it.
I can play it just as well as him.
I slide my neck away from his reaching grasp as I reach down, my hand grasping onto his cock.
I line it up against myself and press down on him. If I weren’t so wet, I can’t imagine him fitting, but as it is, I take him in inch by inch, my body thrumming as he fills me completely. As I rest my hands on his shoulders, pinning him to the bed, I see his face. His upper lip is slightly raised in a taunting snarl. He thinks I’m still naive, still playing a game I don’t understand. He’s too consumed in his own power to realize that he’s lost all of it.
I rock my hips back and forth. His lips part slightly, but the look in his eyes doesn’t disappear.
I don’t know much about Maksim Akimov, but I do know this: I fucking hate him.
The man inside of me. The man who knows more information about my own daughter than I do. The man who wants to ruin my family and my future. The man who thinks he has me under his thumb. The man I want to fuck and destroy at the same time.
I raise myself up and slam back down, so hard that it almost hurts. His face twitches, not with pain but with pleasure. I keep going, but causing him pain starts to become less important as heat begins to creep under my skin. I start bouncing, my thighs burning as his cock takes me to uncharted territory.
He reaches up, trying to grab me again, trying to reassert his dominance.
But I knock his hand away from me. My pussy grips tighter around his cock as I speed up the bucking of my hips.
When he kisses me, I bite him again, just like I did before. I taste the blood between us, but it’s barely noticeable as his hands lower to my hips. He thrusts into me just as hard as I’ve been pushing down on him.
He’s taking control again.
I shove his chest, pushing him back down. I rock my hips back and forth. His face scrunches up as he tries to figure out his next move. I feel that tightening pressure building up, but I can’t let myself get off before I get him to do the same. He taunted me about coming and now I’m going to make him eat his words. This is war and I’m not going to be the one to surrender first.
He’s going to be my conquest.
I’m not going to be his.
Even as I think this, I find myself sinking down on him and leaning forward, pressing my clit against his groin. I rub against him, more and more desperate for release with each passing second. When he raises his hips, thrusting into me with full force, I know I’m not going to last much longer.
As the pressure mounts inside me, threatening to explode into a river of delirium, I pull away from him, bouncing up and down with enough fury to start a fire. The feeling of his cock, the scent of his sweat, the sound of our breathing colliding against each other, and that face—it’s all too much. I try to think about something else, anything else, but his eyes—a pale blue or a soft gray, I can’t quite tell in the darkness—own me completely.
Despite my best efforts, I yield first.
I lose.
But the orgasm doesn’t feel like losing. It is manic, all-consuming. It’s so good that I can barely breathe as I realize why they call an orgasm the little death. Another layer of pleasure cascades down as I feel Maksim tense and explode inside me.
When the orgasm finally relinquishes its grip on me, I rest my forehead against his chest, still trying to catch my breath. I should get off him—a sore loser, a conquered woman—but my legs feel barely functional and the rest of my body isn’t in any better shape. I need a minute to collect myself.
Several more seconds pass by. Our breathing almost becomes synchronized but before it can, Maksim puts one hand under my right arm, the other under my left thigh and lifts me off him with alarming ease. He lays me down on the bed. He looks down at me and takes a breath, his mouth opening to say something.
But nothing comes out.
He closes his mouth and slides off the bed instead, frowning deeply. He pulls his boxer briefs and pants back up, then runs his hand over his hair, his sweat causing it to remain slicked back.
“You can go wherever you like during the day,” he says without looking at me. “You’re not a prisoner. But you must be home—here—at night. If I call you and you don’t pick up, my guards will find you and they won’t be as nice as they were when they took you from your apartment.”
I sit up, wiping the sweat from my forehead. The dress is nearly slipping off my body from my sweat. “So, I’m not a prisoner, but I am a captive.”
“If that is how you choose to see things,” he says. He turns and gazes at me for a few more seconds. Then he shakes his head once before walking out the door.
I cover my face with my hands as the door pulls shut behind him. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, but I don’t feel any better now that he’s gone. I don’t feel anything except a compulsive need to bring him back.
I lean back until my body drops onto my pillow. I can smell him—that masculine odor accompanied by something woodsier, muskier. I pull the pillow farther under my head. I settle my hand between my thighs, my skin searing with the desire to feel his rough hands on it again.
9
Maksim
Everything is fucked up.
I pour myself a glass of whiskey. Down it. Pour another.
I could have easily overcome Cassandra. A goddamn Balducci whore. The plan was to demonstrate my power over her—it’s the simplest way to break her. If she learned that she’s powerless when she’s with me, she’d be easy to manipulate. I’d make her come. I’d tell her what that meant. And I’d leave.
But she took control. And I just gave into it. I should hate her so thoroughly and yet when she was on top of me, she was everything to me. She was like opening the throttle fully without any fear of death.
I’ve never been with a woman like that before.
As I pour myself another glass, Bogdan and Fedot step into the library. Bogdan is a short, stocky man, skilled with an AK-47, SKS, and a Makarov pistol. Fedot is taller and slimmer. He can handle a gun fine, but I’ve kept him around for his hand-to-hand combat skills. I chose the two of them to grab Cassandra at her apartment because of their differing skill sets. If any Balducci had tried to stop them, either Bogdan or Fedot would have been able to take him out.
But now that Cassandra knows what’s at stake and what I’m willing to do, both of them aren’t necessary.
“Bogdan, you can leave,” I say. He nods once before pivoting and walking out of the library without another word. “Fedot, you’re going to remain on Miss Balducci’s security detail. It’s important for dealing with the Balduccis. If something happens to her, we lose our leverage.”
He nods. “I understand, boss. I’ll do whatever is necessary.”
“Good. You can go.”
He turns around, walking out. I finish the glass of whiskey as I brood.
I have countless loyal men under my authority. I’ll die before I let one clueless woman escape from under my thumb.
My father worked his whole life to start a humble hotel called the Akimov Suites. A property developer kept hitting him with code violations until he could no longer afford the hotel and the fees that the city charged him. He sold the property to the developer under duress, only to see the developer knock it down to build a stri
p mall that rained cash from the day it opened. My parents died a few months later.
I reconstructed an old hotel. Named it the Akimov Suites in my father’s honor, just as I built the Bratva that also bears my family name. The property developer, sadly, suffered two broken knees from a random hit-and-run. At least, that was the narrative that he and I agreed to tell the authorities. There may have been some duress involved in that particular negotiation. Such is life in my city.
The fact that the Suites functions well as a place to meet, a place I know like my own house, is merely a bonus.
“It’s nice,” Andre Vasquez says, holding up one of the small containers of cocaine. He sets it back down in the suitcase with all the others, then picks up his own suitcase and hands it to me. I lay it on the bed, unzipping it to find $25,000 in cash.
I glance back at Andre. He’s the leader of the Cyclops MC, a moderately sized motorcycle club that would usually float beneath my notice, but they’ve managed to rise quickly under Andre’s leadership and have crossed over into everyone else’s territory except the Bratva’s—which means they’ve managed to pay their respects and not make idiotic decisions. They’re also willing to pay a good amount for the Bratva’s smuggled cocaine, which makes them something akin to allies.
“Do you mind if I do some bumps?” he asks, touching the glass containers.
“You can do what you like once you leave my hotel, but I’m not going to be caught leaving here with a man high on cocaine.”
He bares his teeth, a flash of anger coming over him like a mask, but it vanishes just as quickly. He takes a deep breath. “I understand,” he says. “You’re completely right. It would be irresponsible.”
My phone starts to vibrate. I slide it out of my pocket, keeping my eyes on Andre.
“Yes?” I answer.
“It’s Fedot,” the soldier says. “I’ve been tracking your girl all day and she’s up to something.”