Kase.
My body jolts as the last thing he said to me comes screaming back.
Little sister.
My eyes snap open. No, it can’t be. My parents only had two children, Amanda and me. It was always just the four of us until our mother died. My gaze roams around the dark room, my stomach sinking at the familiar sight. It’s not enough that he kidnapped me, but he had to bring me back here. Back to the place my nightmares were created. Back to the very same warehouse, Dante held all the other girls and me. Bile rises up the back of my throat, and I have to swallow several times to choke it back.
Finally, my gaze lands on the man standing not two feet in front of me. Gone is the surfer look, replaced by clean, pressed dress pants, a dark button up shirt, tie, and vest. He looks nothing like the man Alessandro invited into our bed months before or the man who I ran into at the grocery store yesterday.
“What the fuck is going on, Kase?”
The lips I once thought were so kissable pull into a smirk that sends shivers of fear coursing down my body. Sounds of a struggle to my right draws my attention. My father is slumped over in a chair, his wrists and ankles bound just like mine. Blood dripping down the side of his face.
“Dad?”
In all my years on this earth, I have never called my father, dad. He was always “father,” but seeing him completely helpless brings the little girl in me to the surface. It might not seem like a noteworthy distinction, but to me it was. “Dad” means there’s some sort of relationship there, a closeness; whereas, “father” indicted a certain disconnect. It was less of a familial relationship and more resembling one of business. The fact that it took seeing him tied up and bloody for me to call him, dad, is not lost on me. Oh, the irony.
“This wasn’t the family reunion I had hoped for, but since our father refused to come out of hiding by himself, I was forced to take certain measures,” Kase says, bringing a chair over to sit in front of me. He leans back, casually resting an ankle of the opposite knee.
“What. The. Fuck is going on, Kase?” I repeat my earlier question. Somebody better start talking and fast. These ropes are digging into my wrists and making me angry. I have a momentary vision of snapping them in a fit of rage – hulk style. A small smile pulls at a corner of my mouth. That’s exactly what Alessandro would do if he were in this situation. As soon as it appears, it fades again. How the hell am I going to get myself out of this?
Kase sighs like he’s disappointed in my inquiry. “You know,” he starts, dropping his foot back down and leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped between them. “For the princess of the Bratva, you’re not very bright. But,” he pauses, eyes me up and down, “I’m willing to overlook that part if…” he trails off, his eyes flickering between my father and me.
Don’t engage him, Jessika. Don’t play into his sick game. “If?” Dammit!
Kase grins, “I’ll spare your life, dear sister, we can walk out of here like none of this ever happened. If… you kill our father.”
I start to protest, but the glare he shoots my way cuts me off. “I know you were planning on ending him, Jessika, so there’s no point in denying it. You hate him for what he’s done to you since your mother died. Such a tragedy… to die in a car accident on her way to pick you up.”
“How did you?” Nobody knows the details surrounding my mother’s death. For the longest time, Amanda and I believed she died of liver failure, the result of spending day in and day out drunk out of her mind. It wasn’t until I was sixteen that I found out the truth. My mother had died in a car accident while on her way to watch me in my first band recital at school… she was sober. It gutted me to find out. So much so that I threw myself into my training. I trained until my muscles screamed and my body gave in to exhaustion every night.
Kase looks over at my father. “You didn’t tell her, Nikolay? All these years…” he tsks, shaking his head. My father doesn’t answer, his body still slumped over in the chair. “Your father… our father,” Kase corrects himself, “is responsible for your mother’s death. Just like he is for mine. See, Nikolay couldn’t stand to have a drunk as a wife, but what angered him, even more, was that she chose to put her children before her husband. Nobody drove your mother’s car off the road, Jessika. Our father had her car tampered with.” He stands abruptly from his seat in front of me and stalks over to my father. “See, once I was old enough, I started looking into my own mother’s death. I thought it strange that a woman who wouldn’t drive even five kilometers over the speed limit was doing one-hundred in a sixty zone. The answer?” He grabs a fist full of my father’s dark hair, yanking his head back. “She wasn’t. Nikolay had her brake lines cut, and when my mother went to hit her brakes, going down one of the steeper hills in our hometown, she couldn’t stop.”
As much as I hate him for tying me up against my will, my heart breaks for Kase. But I can’t let that cloud my judgment right now. I need to channel the badass assassin, but I just… can’t. That story about his mother, the memories of finding out the truth about my own mother’s death. It’s just too much. I think I’ve gone soft after only three months with Alessandro.
“Seems like once Nikolay finds a way that works for getting rid of nuisances in his life, he sticks with it. Your father got my mother pregnant when she was eighteen, and he was newly married to your mother. He promised that he would leave your mother, so that they could be together. Except, he left and never came back. For ten years, I had to listen to my mother cry herself to sleep at night because of what this bastard did to her. And then one day, just like your mother, she was gone.”
Kase pulls a knife out of his pocket, flicking the blade open and pressing it to my father’s throat. “Tell her why,” he seethes.
“The bitch was going to take me for everything I had. She was nothing more than a dirty slut,” my father growls. Flinching when Kase presses the blade harder against his skin.
“You see, dear sister,” Kase says, turning his stare on me, all while still holding my father’s head back and the knife at his throat. “You and I are no different. I may have been sent into foster care, but I kept tabs on you. Made sure I matched your training. Even back then I knew you were the strong one. Amanda was always weak, she didn’t stand a chance against you. You and I, we’re cut from the same cloth. I don’t want to kill you, Jessika. I want you to join me. With Nikolay gone we can make the Bratva bend to our will. We’ll bring them to their knees at our feet.”
“And then what, Kase? What’s your plan for after we leave this warehouse? Alessandro isn’t just going to accept that I suddenly want back in the game, which I don’t.”
He laughs, finally letting go of his grip in my father’s hair and moves away from him. “The Famiglia are nothing. You shouldn’t concern yourself with low-level slime.” He comes to a stop in front of me, squatting down to eye level. His fingers caress a line down the curve of my neck. “I will be the most feared crime boss in all of Ontario. This is your chance to be by my side when that happens. Everyone will bow down to you. You’ll be their queen. No one will be able to touch you. Don’t you want that kind of power? Imagine what we could do together, Jessika. We could make millions. Nothing would happen without our say so. We’d be organized crime royalty.”
If he had come to me with this little speech several months ago, who knows what would’ve happened. I probably would’ve said yes. He’s attractive enough, and the sex was hot, plus he promised me the chance to make millions, so why not. But now… even after the revelation of having a half-brother and what our father did to our mother’s. No matter how much I’d give to stare into my father’s lifeless eyes, I still can’t find it in me to agree. Because when I eventually do take his life for all his transgressions, it’ll be on my terms. Not because some pretty boy thinks he can tell me what to do.
I relax a little and lean into his touch when he moves to caress the side of my face. His blue eyes soften instantly, a slight smile appearing on hi
s lips.
“Kase,” I sigh, hoping it sounds as dreamy as I think.
He moves in, his lips pressing into mine. When he opens his mouth, I bite down hard on his bottom lip until I taste the metallic tang. Kase pulls away, stumbling back before righting himself and straightening to his full height.
“You fucking bitch! You bit me,” he yells, his fingers coming away red from pressing against his lip.
“I may be a woman, but I’m not a dog. I’m not going to roll over and show you my belly just because you tried asserting your alphaness. You can go right ahead and just fuck yourself.”
I laugh when his hand connects with my cheek, sending me almost toppling over.
“You stupid cunt! You will bend to my will.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I bend to no man’s will.”
I knew it was coming, predicted the second it would hit, but slap still managed to make my head spin, stars to form behind my closed eyes, and the punch to the gut left me breathless. All this because I refused to kill a man I was going to murder anyway… just on my terms when I was ready.
“Why me? If you want to kill him so bad why not do it yourself?” The question had been burning inside me ever since he told me what he was planning since bringing me here.
He smirks. “For the same reason I tracked down your boyfriend and let him believe he was the one in control. For the same reason, I showed up at your house that night and had you both. Power. The power of knowing that I can reduce a man like Alessandro to a trembling mess, of knowing I can make you, a trained killer, do whatever I want.”
Awesome (note the sarcasm). He was power hungry. There is no talking sense into people like that. Kase wants what he wants, and there wasn’t a thing I could tell him that would convince him to untie me. He’d be smart not to anyway. Once I get free of these ropes, I’d make him regret the day he ever laid eyes on Alessandro or me, for that matter.
It all makes sense now. If Kase killed my father himself, he’d have the entire Bratva hunting him down, and his dreams of being the most feared man in organized crime would either come to be, or he’d be the most hunted man on the east coast. If I were to kill my father; however, they would bow to me since I was the princess of the Bratva. I was technically next in line whenever my father decided to step down. Not that I’d ever step into those shoes. Hell, I don’t even want anything to do with my father right now. I’d first snitch to the cops then take over as boss to the Bratva, and that… that was saying something.
Chapter 5
Alessandro
“You’re just going to leave him down there? Bleeding out?”
“Yeah. You got a problem with that?” I turn to Rico. Braxton wanted to bring him up to solider, but he hadn’t taken the Omerta yet. The oath of silence. Or murdered anyone. There was still time for him to prove he was worthy of the Famiglia, but if he kept questioning me, he would be the one buried six feet under.
“Not at all,” he grins. The fucker actually grinned like he was getting off on this shit. Well, fuck. Maybe he was just as sadistic as the rest of us.
“Yo! Alessandro,” Stefan calls from the front doors. “Boss is calling a meeting at your place.”
“Why the fuck at my place? What’s wrong with his perfectly good office?”
Stefan shrugs. “Something about Klara needing rest. I wasn’t going to question it.”
I slap him on the back as I make my way past him and out the door. ‘Good man.”
We’ve stopped questioning Braxton’s orders when it comes to Klara. I’m not sure which one of them is actually pregnant, him or her. He seems to mimic all of her mood swings. Shit, I still can’t believe one of us is going to be a dad. Never thought I’d see the day.
We pull up outside of my house. Instantly something doesn’t feel right. It’s quiet. Too quiet. Over the months Jessika has been living with me I’ve almost always come home to music being blasted from inside. Loud enough for me to hear every word sung from inside my car in the driveway. That woman doesn’t have normal eardrums, I swear. Or I’m getting old as fuck.
“Jessika,” I call out as soon as I step foot inside the entryway. There’s no answer. Bounding up the stairs two a time, I check the bedroom, media room but she’s not there. I double back down and check the kitchen, living room, and finally the basement gym, but she’s nowhere to be found.
“Alessandro!” Stefan hollers from the living room.
“What is it?” I asked entering the room. Him, Rico, Marco, and Braxton are all standing around the fireplace mantel. Their faces varying in rage. When my gaze lands on what they’re all looking at, I know why. My fists clench, my blood pressure skyrocketing. “What the fuck?!” my voice booms through the house.
On top of the fireplace mantel, leaning up against the frame of the TV is a polaroid picture of Jessika and Kase. But it’s not your ordinary picture. No. This one is of Jessika hog-tied, lying face down on the very sofa behind me, gagged and blindfolded. Kase is in the corner, a smile spread across his face as he holds something up to his nose. Is he… is he smelling it? It’s then the object of his hand becomes familiar because I picked it out myself.
“What is he holding?” This coming from Marco.
“A pair of Jessika’s underwear.” I’m not aware that I growled that out loud until a bunch of curses sound around me.
“What does he want with your girl?” This from Rico.
“That’s a good fucking question. One I intend to find out.”
“Before or after you kill him?” Braxton snickers.
“After.” The one word is clipped.
Braxton nods, his phone already in his hand, typing a message on the burner. Despite the rocky start he and Jessika had at the beginning, I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to help her if she needed it. She was mine now, which means she was family and Braxton did anything for family. Unless you crossed him. Nobody survives that shit.
“I’m not waiting for reinforcements,” I tell him as he continues typing out his message.
Rico snickers and I swear to god, his face and my fist are going to have a meeting if he keeps this up.
“I figured as much. Which is why I also told Mason to be on standby. If you’re going in there rogue then you’re going to need all the help you can get if shit goes south.”
“We don’t even know where they are,” Marco interjects.
Braxton and I shoot him a look that shuts him up before we go on ignoring the other men in the room. “354 Davis street.”
“The fuck?”
Braxton turns on his heels, heading back towards the front door before my brain has a chance to catch up with what he just revealed without actually revealing anything. Sly son of a bitch.
“You’ve been having her followed?”
He stops when he gets out to the SUV and opens the door but doesn’t get in. “I needed to know that she could be trusted.”
There’s so much in that statement that we’ll need to discuss later or fight out is more our style. “Why are we just finding this out now?”
“Because my guy just got to the warehouse he followed them too. He didn’t want to alert them to his presence,” Braxton says getting into the vehicle. “The stupid shit is using the same warehouse Dante held those women in.”
“I’m not waiting for reinforcements. Once we get there, I’m going in. Anyone who stands in my way is going to get a bullet,” I say over my shoulder, already rushing around to the other vehicle, and the other woman in my life, my hellcat. My blacked-out 2015 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat. Braxton yells out something, but I can’t make out what it is as I slam the door closed and fire her up. This beauty goes a quarter mile in ten seconds. This… this is sex on wheels. Zero to ninety-six kilometers in under four seconds. I groan, feeling the power rumble through the steering wheel with every increase in speed, racing through red lights in my haste to get to the warehouse and my girl.
Why the fuck would Kase take Jessika? That’s the part I don’t understand. He m
et her the one time. The time when I… flashes of memory surface. Kase kneeling behind Jessika, his face buried in her ass while my fingers strummed her clit. My cock buried in his ass hours later. My cock hardens at the memories.
No. Fuck. Shit.
Our one night stand had kidnapped Jess, and I have no fucking idea why. This was not the time for those memories to pop up or my dick. Pulling up to the warehouse, I barely have the car in park before I shove open the door and jump out. Braxton’s SUV with the other guys pulls up a second later. I already have my gun drawn and heading toward the rusted metal door.
“Rico!” I hear Braxton call from behind me. “You want to earn your solider status? Don’t let him get killed, and you kill whoever is in there helping Kase. You do that, and we’ll talk.”
“Yes, Boss.” I hear Rico say and seconds later he’s behind me with his gun drawn, watching my six.
I may hate that he asks too many fucking questions and talks non-stop, but if he makes sure I walk out of here with no bullet wounds, I’ll buy the man a drink and welcome him into the family with open-fucking-arms. Especially because I have no idea what we’re walking into as I pull open the door. It takes my vision a minute to adjust to the darkness when it does I’m looking directly over a railing. The curtains that made up the makeshift rooms those two – almost three – years ago are no longer up. It’s just one big, dark room now. And sitting in the middle, tied to a chair with a gag over her mouth is my beautiful girl, and standing behind her, with a knife to her throat is the motherfucker I’m going to kill.
“Hello, lover,” he drawls in a fake southern accent. My steps echoing off the metal staircase with every step. Kase yanks Jessika’s head back, the blade pressing closer into her skin when he realizes I’m not alone. He tips his chin up toward Rico. “Tell your watchdog to drop his weapon.”
Deadly Intentions Page 3