by Nikki Wild
There are always doubts when someone in the Bratva dies. Hard doubts when they're murdered. Sure, plenty of people would have reason to see a man like my father dead. Ivan Maximovich was days away from taking up the mantle of Vor, handed down from my grandfather. All four New England mafia cells would pay tribute to him. He would sit on top of a throne wrought from stolen gold and painted with the blood of anyone who tried to stop him. His younger brother was never meant to sit on that throne, was never trained in the art of leading. He was trained to kill.
Of all the people who'd like to see my father dead, none would have a better chance of seeing that dream come true than his own brother. Who else could have the kind of unquestioned access to my family? Who else could think of getting away with murder in plain sight? Family is sacred, but Alexei worshiped at the altar of envy.
Alexei had to know that my siblings and I suspected him of killing our parents - we sure as hell never accepted him with open arms, even when he more or less adopted us. Every hug he ever gave me felt wrong. Every tender moment between us tainted by what he was: if not a murderer, than at least a man who didn't mourn his brother quite as hard as he should have.
The day he took the role that should have been my father's, he was downright giddy.
Now I wondered – did Deda believe Alexei killed my father, too? How could he believe that and still allow Alexei to come to power? His own son, murdered by his other son?
I didn’t get the chance to ask Deda what he meant. Our conversation was over just as it really began. The doorknob turned, and opened with a swinging bang. Deda barely responded, fearing nothing, but I crawled back, jumping in my own skin. Alexei stood in the doorway, casting a long shadow over the lush carpet. His eyes landed on his father, narrowed. For one long, silent second, the two men just looked at each other. And then Alexei looked at me.
"It's over," he said. "Your little boyfriend is dead."
No. No. That wasn't true. Sinner wasn't dead. Alexei was a liar, an evil fucking toad whose lips were only made to spew lies, who couldn't tell the truth if he tried, who only lived to intimidate and scare and alienate and destroy --
If he was lying, then why was I sobbing? Why was I throwing myself into Deda's arms? Why was I thrashing on the sheets? Why was Alexei laughing, watching me writhe in agony over the thought that Sinner was dead - because of me. Because I'd come into his life like a bundle of sweating dynamite, just waiting for a wrong move to explode. Because as long as I shared blood with Alexei Maximovich, nothing good would ever stay in my life. If I loved Sinner so much, I should have stayed the hell away from him.
Deda was speaking to Alexei in Russian, his words harsh, his arms around me, but I wasn't listening, I didn't care. They fought over my wails, my stomach dropping away, my body stabbed with grief. Of course Alexei would kill him. Only one of them could have lived if they met. And it wasn't Sinner standing in the doorway.
I heard the door closing with a slam. My sobs had stopped, but I gasped for each breath, eyes open, unable to blink, all too aware of my pounding heart, curling up like a dying flower in Deda's arms. He began to rock me, like I was a little girl having a nightmare. It wasn't enough. Many years ago, before I knew what pain was, it might have calmed me down. But now, it wasn't enough. Nothing would ever be enough. This wasn't how life was supposed to be. This wasn't what was supposed to happen when you fell in love.
Love shouldn't punish you.
Love shouldn't kill you.
I threw the pillow across the room, wishing it were made of glass, wanting to hear something that would match the constant shattering of my heart. I wanted every sound to be ugly, I wanted the whole world to go dark, a biblical plague descending on New England, from Connecticut to Maine. The whole world should be suffering.
And no one should suffer more than Alexei.
If I got out of there - if he let me out for some other reason than walking me to the hangman's rope - I would make sure he suffered. I didn't know how, but I could imagine. I lay back on the bed and imagined lots of ways to destroy my uncle. You think Rasputin had it bad? He and Uncle Alexei could share stories in hell. By the time I was through with him, at least in my mind, hell would be a relief.
Chapter 29
Sinner
"You got the worst of it, you know," Doc said, hands steadily pulling thread through my flesh. "They ought to give you a vacation."
I stared at the bullet, covered in blood and gristle, covered in my insides, sitting in its little bowl. I saved all the bullets I took, and this one would be no exception. Especially considering all the baggage that came with it. This wasn't like the one that got me in the thigh when I was still in my teens, or the one that nearly left me assless, or the one that dug itself into my shoulder just a few years before.
This one hit my side, but it was aiming for my goddamn heart. Yeah, I said it. Heartbreak turns us all into fucking poets.
"A vacation?" I grunted, managing a smile. "Are you kidding? I won't even be sleeping until we get back at these motherfuckers."
Doc - short for Dr. Tapsmith, our own personal off-the-books surgeon - gave me a frustrated look.
"If I remember correctly," he said. "You've got a good reason to lay low. About two feet tall, kinda looks like you, much prettier though..."
"Yeah, yeah," I spat. "Just sew me up. Save the lectures."
"I've got two kids," he said, ignoring my civil request. "And trust me, if I thought working for you guys put me at risk of not seeing them graduate high school..."
"I'm untouchable," I said. "You know how many bullets I've taken? They can shoot me, but they can't kill me."
"That's what they all say," Doc shook his head, yanking particularly hard on a stitch. "Before they get killed."
"Remind me, do we pay you for advice?"
Doc shut up after that. I took the rest of his stitches with the same hardened will I applied to everything in my life. Didn't flinch, you wouldn't even know I'd just been gut shot, dug into, and sewed back up.
When he was done, he gave me the usual "keep it clean and dry, apply the dressing, blah blah blah" that I already knew by heart. Getting shot wasn't too different than getting tattooed, really. Just a longer healing time, and antibiotics for a week. Painkillers, too. The good stuff. Doc left me laying in bed, imploring me not to move for awhile. As soon as he was gone, I got up.
My side ached; I felt like I had a cavity in my gut, with air constantly whistling through it and sending sharp pain through my torso. It was good. I liked it. It took my mind off her.
I managed to get myself downstairs, where the boys were steadily picking up the pieces of the clubhouse, and each other. I really had gotten the worst of it, with most of us getting away with flesh wounds. The cleaning crew - the kind of cleaning crew that dealt in bodies and the fluids they leave behind - had already come and gone. Not a dead Russian in sight.
"We only got three of them," Tusk said, noticing my pained approach and coming to meet me halfway. "But they didn't get any of us."
"Three for none ain't bad," I said. My voice barely strained at all. "Listen, I gotta be with my kid, but I can't ride like this. Don't even trust myself to drive."
"Sure," Tusk said. "I'll give you a ride. You ought to take the week off, anyway. Not gonna do us much good, based on what Doc told me."
I sneered. Doc's big fucking mouth. Like one little hole in my side was gonna keep me down for a whole week.
No, I couldn't take a week off. What would I do? While Amy was at school, what the hell would I do with myself? Lie in bed and think about her. Fuck that.
"What's Train thinking?" I said. "Hold on, those stairs gave me a hard fucking time."
I grabbed a seat, one of the few things in the house that wasn't destroyed by the raid.
"Train is thinking that we should never have taken those drugs," Tusk said. We both looked at Army, who was facing away from us. Thank God someone said it - and our President, no less. This shit wasn't worth it. "But it's no
use ruminating on that. Gotta look forward."
"Yeah, and? Does he want to make a deal, or...?"
"I don't know," Tusk shrugged. "I think maybe he wants to see if they'll get the idea. I mean, we did kill three of them. They were dumb, coming into our house. They put themselves at a disadvantage."
I thought of Alexei - what the hell had be doing all alone in the kitchen? Man was a goddamn psycho. Head of the Bratva, and he was unguarded in the heart of enemy territory? The whole family was crazy. Why the hell did they ever think I would make a good mark? I was just a foot soldier. A diehard loyalist, a well-respected patched member, and one of the longest-riding Tides in the gang, but still just a foot soldier. I didn't even take fucking minutes during church. All I could boast was a room of my own at the clubhouse, and they had to know I'd never take Lucy there.
Why me?
I'd like to say I thought those words in a purely curious and logical way, but shit. No use hiding it. There was some of that self-pitying whine in there, too. You know the kind. Like when a teenager gets a gnarly zit right before prom: why me?!
Because you're weak enough to fall in love in the first place, said some crappy part of me. I growled it away. Tusk crooked an eyebrow at me and my animalistic vocalizations.
"Pisses me off," I said. "Coming in here, acting like...like I don't fucking know what."
"Hey, what kind of happy pills Doc give you?" Tusk asked, changing the subject.
"The kind I don't want to share," I snapped, leaning back to get the rest of my wind back.
"I just don't want you thinking on all this too much," Tusk said. "You took a big one for us. No one's pissed at you for losing him."
Well, they should be, I thought bitterly. Because he would be dead and all this shit might be over if it wasn't for her. It was because of her that I didn't get his brain acquainted with a bullet first second I could. It was because of her. Of her. Of her!
My mind was stuck in a loop, my breath heavy, my hands fisting. I saw white - and not because the pain in my gut was working double time. All that shit. All that shit she said. All the ways she touched me. I let her near my fucking kid. I let Amy fall in love with her, too. The whole time, she was just playing me like a fiddle. Fuck!
"Hey, hey," Tusk said, completely misunderstanding my mood. "I mean it. You got closer to taking him out than any of us. Was just bad luck. We're happy you're alive. And if anyone should be feeling bad..."
He made a not-so-subtle gesture in Army's direction.
"Yeah" I said. "Right. I'm not...it just hurts. I gotta get my kid."
"So let's go," Tusk said, eager to see my mood lift, knowing that Amy was likely the only person who could make that happen. "Oh, yeah. Train's working on getting a girl for you. Just to take care of shit at home while you're laid up. Make dinner and shit."
"Don't want no girl," I grunted, closing my eyes and willing back the pain. The pills would take care of my body, but I didn't think anything could take care of my heart. Especially not some ditsy little club whore running around half-naked, pretending like she gave a shit about my kid, trying to become my old lady, dreaming of some nurse-him-back-to-health bullshit. The farther I got from the female population, the better. If I never saw a pair of tits again, it'd be too soon. My stomach turned - even more painful than you'd imagine - just thinking about what I'd already lost at the price of a woman's body.
"You need someone," Tusk insisted.
"Well, get a prospect to do it," I barked, straining to sound forceful. Blood was rushing in my ears. If I didn't calm down, I'd pass out. The world was already getting a little fuzzy.
"Alright, alright," Tusk said, shaking his head in confusion. Well, of course he was confused; what kind of self-respecting man turns down the offer of a sexy personal nurse? All the sponge baths he could ask for, and she'll cook you dinner. "Whatever you want. How about Tania?"
That was Spit's wife, the good girl that didn't belong. I considered this, forcing myself to take deep breaths. She was older, I sure as hell didn't want to bone her, she was already taken, and she did love Amy.
"Fine," I grit out. "Whatever. Let's go."
"Let me..." Tusk reached down for me, but I shook him off. I could walk myself out to my cage. On our way through the big gravel parking lot where we all kept our rides, I noticed that my Indian had been knocked down at some point during the fray. I pointed at it, and Tusk made quick work of putting it to rights. I wouldn't be riding for a little while, I guessed. Not with that hole in my side - the way it still felt like a cavity, the idea of sending blistering cold wind through it made my teeth ache.
Well, good. Because I didn't think I could ride that bike without thinking of how good she felt on it. How she said she liked that engine. Even just looking at it - shit.
At least seeing my daughter didn't make everything hurt. Only some things.
"Hi, Uncle Tusk," Amy said brightly as she climbed into the backseat, buckling herself into the car seat. She accepted the fact that he was driving my car as easily as she might accept that it happened to be cloudy one morning.
"Hi, beautiful," he said.
"Daddy's late," Amy complained. "Jenny's mom said so."
"Daddy isn't feeling very good," Tusk said, pulling out into traffic.
"I have a stomach ache," I explained. "Like you got last month, remember? But a lot worse."
"Oh," Amy said. "I can make you popsicle."
"That sounds perfect," I managed a smile, even though I couldn't manage to turn around and actually give it to her. "Tania is going to come over and make dinner and hang out with you while I'm sick. Does that sound good?"
"Okay," Amy said, swinging her legs and looking out the window. "Is Lu coming?"
Tusk glanced at me, interested, smirking. I knew he was wondering if this “Lu” chick was the reason I’d been ditching my beers-at-the-bar and first-broad-I-see habits. I stifled my groan.
"I don't think so, baby girl," I said. "I don't know if Lu will be around for a while."
"Okay," Amy said. "Jenny has two cats. One of them kil't a mouse."
"Gross," Tusk said.
"That's what other girls said, but I thought it was coooooooool," Amy laughed.
"A girl after my own heart," I said, rolling my head back against the seat and closing my eyes. Amy chattered all the way home, and every word helped my heart ignore its pain a little bit longer.
Chapter 30
Lucya
"I can't believe it," I moaned. "I thought you were gone."
"Never leave you," he groaned into my ear. His hot breath had me collapsing forward with need, his hands resting on my breasts, gently fondling them, my nipples hard under his insistent thumbs.
"But I thought..."
"No," he said, one hand leaving my breasts to plunge down my stomach, ripping down the front of my jeans, thrusting past my panties and finding my sex. One hand still toyed with my breasts as his fingers split my lips open and found my wet center. Doused in my pleasure, he rolled a finger around my swollen clit, swallowing my cry in his throat. He owned me. My body, my mind, my heart. All of me; his. Always. His.
The heat of his body bounced off my skin as he turned me around, one hand still buried in my mound, the other cupping my ass. He bit at the back of my neck like a wild animal, pushing his hard cock against me, lifting my ass cheeks to create the perfect friction between us. Desperate, I turned my head, and he sucked my whole being into his mouth with a single kiss.
I shook with the rolls of pleasure that shot from my clit to my spine, his rough treatment a punishment I didn't know I deserved. His hair tickled my cheeks. He grabbed me up and threw me around like a rag doll, pushing me onto the table, popping the button off my jeans as he yanked them down. My hips jerked along with them, my elbows hitting the wood with a horrible crack.
But he was going to undress me, gently or not. He was going to have me naked and bared for him, nothing between us. My slit was wet, dripping. His cock was long and veiny in his h
and, he wrapped an arm around me and tugged, sliding me forward until my ass was on the very edge of the table. I was still leaning back on my elbows, I was still looking up at him with my mouth open and my tongue out like a dog in heat. I was still waiting for him to take me the way I needed to be taken.
He dropped his head to press his forehead against mine, pacing himself between my legs, one hand on his cock, the other sliding up and down my inner thigh. My breasts shook with each struggling breath. I whimpered, throwing my arms around his neck and pulling. The minute I felt his head against my slit, I clenched. Everything clenched. Jaw, stomach, hips, thighs. Every nerve squeezed together and prepared to be ripped apart.
"Please," I begged. He grabbed my ass in both hands and lifted; a second later and I was sliding down his cock, feeling him pierce all the way to my center. The strength of the penetration detonated inside me, a climax ripping through me as soon as he was buried to the hilt.
My ankles crossed, my thighs desperately clinging to his hips. He took my flesh between his teeth and bit until I screamed. He slammed me back down on the table and fucked me hard, pushing until my back hit the wood and pinning my arms down. Each stroke split my body open, my breasts bouncing in time to his thrusts.
"Mine," he spit, one hand moving to my clit. Raw and swollen, it responded immediately. The way he burst inside me at the same time he rubbed my clit, I was breaking apart in pleasure. "Lucy. Lucy. Lucy."
"Yes," I moaned through gritted teeth, my orgasm washing through me, his cum spilling into my womb, overheated and fertile. This would be how I saved us, this would be how I loved him, all the way, opening my body to him, welcoming his seed inside me...
"Lucy!"
The air in my lungs was hot and stale as I gasped. Everything around me felt soft. I was sweating. Something like daylight flooded over me. And my hair, spread over the white pillowcase, was greasy and damp with my sweat.
I blinked into the reality my brain so desperately needed to escape. Desperately enough to torture me in my dreams.