by Susan Stoker
Out of Miami.
Out of Florida.
Once I can secure a safe place for Zasha, I will text Niko the location and then disappear like a ghost. Just like I did when I broke the first promise I ever made.
I failed once.
I will not make the same mistake twice.
When you do not exist, luxury and comfort do not exist. There are no fancy cars or five-star accommodations. Anonymity requires keeping your ass off every radar.
Which is why after driving for six long hours, I do not take Zasha to a fancy hotel with room service and fine dining. I pull into the parking lot of a pay-by-the-night motel with a bag of drive-thru fast-food in my hand.
The blissful hours of peace I enjoyed after leaving her pouting in the car evaporate as I climb in bed fully clothed.
“So are we just going to pretend like nothing happened? Just keep staring at each other in complete silence?”
“You seemed to have no problem with it for four hundred miles.”
“You tried to leave me!”
“You told me you were twenty-one.” I glare at her over my shoulder.
A smirk paints her lips. “I told you a lot of things.”
“Go to sleep, Zasha.” It is more of a plea than a demand. I need her to move away from me. I need her to close that wicked mouth so I can loathe myself in silence. And I do. I hate myself. Not only for the sins I have committed, but for the violent need to repeat them.
Despite who I now know she is, and the disgust I should feel for the lust still blazing in my blood, her sweet scent and that fucking brazen-coated innocence have poisoned me.
Ruined me.
“You go to sleep.” She slides off the bed. “I’m taking a shower.”
Good. Stay in there all night.
As the bathroom door slams, I groan out a thick breath of relief and frustration. This undeniable need I have for her is not normal. She is eighteen. Twenty-six years of experience and life separate us. Our views of the world are not compatible.
It’s a fact I can’t allow myself to forget ever again.
9
Zasha
“Look,” I say as I walk out the shower, tightening the towel around my body. “I get you’re upset, but can’t we at least pretend to be friends?”
“I don’t have friends.”
I arch an eyebrow. “You have my father.”
He laughs darkly. “Not anymore. I fucked his daughter.”
I wince at the bitterness in his tone. “I’m more than Niko Gaheris’s daughter, you know.”
“Right. You’re also Ava Chernova’s daughter.” Shifting onto his back, he aims a scathing look at my towel and smirks. “A Bratva princess. You did this to me on purpose, and you expect me to fall for your shit again?”
I wish I could argue his harsh assessment, but I can’t. Sinking onto the edge of the mattress, I sigh. “I admit, I wanted information out of you. But can you blame me? You walked into Seven demanding to see my parents and then asked a ‘random stripper’”— I curl my fingers into air quotes—“about me. Where I come from that’s a threat.”
“Then why not try to ply me with alcohol? There are other methods of persuasion than damning us both in the eyes of your father.”
“That had nothing to do with you.”
“I disagree. What happened in that room had everything to do with me.”
“Yeah, after I lost focus. The sex wasn’t planned, Mik. All I wanted to do was give you a little show. I knew who you were. I knew it was a direct hit to that pristine bubble my father keeps me in.” I close my eyes. “He took something from me that didn’t belong to him, so I wanted to return the favor.”
“And what did he take, Zasha? Your first car?” My eyes pop open to find Mik kneeling on the mattress beside me, only a breath away.
“No”—I lift my chin—“my first kill.” At his flat expression, I point to my cheek. “My boyfriend wasn’t much for talking things out. He preferred a more direct approach.”
Stiffening, Mik scrubs his hands up and down his face then clenches them on top of his head as if trying to contain the violence demanding to be unleashed. “This man raised his hand to you?”
I snort. “Only once.”
Cursing in rapid Russian, he drops his hands from his head and gently cups my face. I don’t dare breathe as his thumb traces the mottled bruise. The intensity in his eyes is voracious. A stare so vicious I don’t know whether to run for my life or fall to my knees and beg for it.
Swallowing hard, I force a smirk. “Tuck your crazy back in, Iceman.”
“What?”
I wag a finger in his face. “You have murder flashing in your eyes like Christmas lights. But it’s unneeded. My father got to him first.”
Mik’s chest rises and falls at an alarming rate. He looks ready to drive back to Miami and take out the entire campus. The volatile possession in his eyes shouldn’t affect me like it does. What is it about this man that makes me lose all my self-control? Something a Chernov should hold most sacred.
I lay a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not upset he’s dead, Mik. He was a piece of shit. South Dade’s campus is infested with over-privileged frat boys like him.”
Those icy blue eyes drop to my legs. “Did he…?”
“No. My father paid a visit to campus, saw my face, and within twenty minutes, a bullet tore through Evan Hunter’s skull.”
Those words spoken to anyone else would incite horror and pity.
He shrugs. “I fail to see the problem.”
And this is why we have ended up in this situation. My father, my mother, Mik, Blade…they all fail to see the problem because they’re so removed from it. From that first taste. The first claim. They’ve lived so much life that they’ve forgotten mine has just begun.
“The problem is I didn’t need his help. I would’ve had no problem pulling the trigger myself.”
My response sets off a heated chain reaction. His eyes glaze over, his nostrils flaring before his hand slides from my cheek. The brief truce we made crumbles as he looks away, his jaw tight. “Trust me, he did you a favor. You do not want that on your conscience, lisichka. Once you claim a life, there is no going back.”
Now it’s my turn to slam my fist into the mattress. “I don’t want to go back! Why can’t anyone see that? My father claims he doesn’t want blood on my hands, but he’s a fucking hypocrite. My parents kill for a living, Mik. Their job is death, and blood is their currency. Despite what they want to believe, this is my fucking Bratva, too.”
I can see the moment the words register in his head. His stoned expression evaporates, leaving only deep lines of sadness. “I see that. I understand it. But I also understand Niko’s rage, lisichka. You do not understand how far someone will go to avenge a child.” Those icy eyes melt into lifeless pools, his sorrow consuming as darkly as the earth consumes the sun. “If this mudak were still alive, I would kill him myself for raising his hand to you.”
I remember thinking the moment I met him that there was no middle ground to him, only two extremes swinging back and forth like a pendulum. I was right; I just didn’t realize how extreme. I anticipated it with violence, not as an emotional seesaw.
I know what I feel for him is wrong. I know it can’t possibly end well for us. I’ve never been skilled at denying myself what I want, but I am not a woman with broken self-esteem. I know my value, and I will never beg a man to want me back.
“I’m fine, Mik.” I rise to my feet. “You can stop acting like you care.”
“I am not acting, Zasha.”
“Ah, right…your promise.” The one he begrudgingly confessed as soon as he threw me in his car. “Well, your godfather duties ended when you skipped town thirteen years ago, so stop trying to die on that hill.” I don’t know why I bend down and cradle his face. Maybe his erratic behavior is contagious, or maybe it pisses me off he won’t acknowledge I’m not the little girl he abandoned. I’m a woman tired of talking in circles. “You cl
aimed me, Mik. That makes you my lover not my family.” The corners of my lips turn down into a frown. “And me nothing more than your mistake.”
“You are no one’s mistake, lisichka.”
“But you said—”
“I did not come to Miami for your parents. I came for you. I am a contract killer, Zasha. A hitman just like your father. I was on my way back to London when a fifty-million-dollar job landed in my lap.”
“Oh God…”
“No, lisichka. There is no God here. Not for us. Someone wants you dead, and they are willing to offer a king’s ransom to make it happen.”
My body trembles. “Who ordered the hit?”
“I do not know.”
“Who accepted it?” My answer comes as he lowers his gaze and stares at the stained blue carpet. “Oh God…You…” I stumble backward.
“I did not take it to collect, Zasha!” he roars. “I took it to warn your father so he could protect you. But now…” Angry, he shoves the lamp off the nightstand. “Now I am not sure he can.”
“Then you protect me.”
“I cannot.”
The wall he has put up is impenetrable. Talking will do nothing but spin us around in more circles. There’s only one way I know to reach him.
Stepping forward, I place my hands on his shoulders again as I straddle his lap. Before he can protest, I slam my mouth against his. At first, he resists, his hands clamping around my waist to push me away. But it only takes one lick of my tongue across his lips for his grip to tighten and his control to snap.
Just like the first time he touched me, the kiss is volcanic, charged with something powerful I can’t understand. Deepening it, he leaves stinging bites on my lips before releasing a low growl in my mouth and pulling away. His chest is heaving as he tips his head back. “You are eighteen, Zasha.”
Not this shit again.
“So?”
“I am forty-four.”
“They’re just numbers.” I grip his shoulders tighter. “I’ve also watched men die at the hands of my parents. Both of whom are criminals who run a Bratva and a brothel. Are you really going to throw moral standards at me right now?”
With every touch, his iron-will weakens, so I do the one thing I know will push him over the edge. Taking his hand, I place it on the knot holding my towel in place.
“Zasha…” My name is a protest that dies on his tongue as I run my hands over his hard chest, tasting every inch of his scarred skin. His fingers tighten, and with a rough tug, my towel drops to the floor.
Once again, I’m bared to him.
He closes his eyes, a sharp breath lodging in his throat as I reach between us and cup his already hard cock. “Ty sobirayesh’sya ubit’ menya.”
You’re going to be the death of me.
The words haunt me, but I say nothing.
Niko Gaheris is a soulless killer. A man without mercy and emotion. Except for two people. His black heart bleeds for his wife and daughter. We alone have the power to bring him to his knees.
And the power to reign hell on earth.
Once he watches that video, the seas will run red and the sky will fall. My father won’t rest until his blade takes his vengeance on the man I forced to betray him.
I should hate myself. Mik already does. Eventually, we’ll hate each other, but until then, I’ll take what he’s willing to give.
Unable to hold back, I kiss him with everything I have. The sudden impact knocks him off balance, sending us both tumbling onto the mattress.
Tightening his fist in my hair, he pulls my head back, those cold, blue eyes glaring up at me as he breaks our kiss. “You want to play games, lisichka…?” He grabs my waist and with one spin, looms over me. “I have nothing. Everyone I love is dead, and the only person I could count on in this world now wants to cut me piece by piece. All because of this pussy.” Wedging his knees between my legs, he shoves them open. “A fucking lie.”
“No. Maybe it started that way, but this is more now. We’re more. I have no reason to be here other than you.”
“You have no idea what you are asking for, lisichka.”
“Then show me.”
Mik invades my mouth with kisses that demand an answer.
But it’s one I can’t give him.
I’ve always been a patient woman, content to wait for the perfect time to strike. But all that has flown out the window. My life is on the line. However, a Chernov doesn’t wait for danger to drop at her door.
She chases it back to the source.
10
Mikhail
I stare down at Zasha’s sleeping body, the sheet tangled around her from countless hours of my weakness. I have not had one in twenty-five years, yet I find myself breaking all my rules for her.
For Niko’s daughter.
Weakness shines like a diamond.
She is my diamond. A beautiful, priceless, irreplaceable diamond who compromises my carefully crafted anonymity. Thieves from all over the world will see her glimmer and come for both of us.
My fate is already sealed. I have not only defied my friend, but I have also defied my handler. For my deception, the price on Zasha’s head will double, and now, one will be placed on mine.
She is wrong. I cannot keep her safe.
I only bring death.
Quietly closing the door behind me, I step out into the parking lot as dawn breaks over the horizon. There is a reason I left Miami thirteen years ago, and it had nothing to do with restlessness or a need for excitement.
Those were hollow words meant to appease the family I had grown too attached to. Too accustomed to their bent of normalcy.
I left because of the woman in that motel room. I left a week before her sixth birthday because I feared that history would repeat itself. I gave up everything and everyone for her. So that she could grow to be the woman my sister never had the chance to become.
But here I am, delivering the death sentence I denied fate thirteen years earlier.
She asked me if I was a dark angel.
I am not. But I am beginning to believe I am the ferryman to hell.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I press another memorized sequence of numbers. One I have not dialed in over twenty years.
I pace as a throaty chuckle fills the line. “Good to see some things never change, boyevik.”
Even after all this time, just hearing the hypnotic cadence of her voice involuntarily straightens my spine. “Likewise. No boundaries, as usual, Oksana. This is an untraceable line.”
I am being generous. Oksana Karpova is as respected in business as she is feared. However, once you’ve sold someone’s soul to the devil, do not question his methods to claim it, or it might be yours he comes for instead.
“What can I do for you, Mikhail?”
“I need a favor.”
She chuckles. “My men always do.”
“I need to find out who put a price on Zasha Gaheris’s head.”
That gets her attention. “Why? Nikolai is a big boy. Let him choke on his own dick for whatever he has done to cause this.”
“That is just it. I do not think this is personal. I think someone is paying Ava back for dismantling the Eastern European ring.”
“Mikhail, you know that is not how we work. It is the Thieves’ Code. The sin of one causes the death of all.”
Thieves’ Code. Two words I had not thought about until yesterday when I broke it out of blind lust. Unfortunately, new Moscow is not old Russia, and the code is as watered down as a politician’s oath. Vory, made men, decide who it applies to and who it does not, who gets punished and who gets away with murder.
And who gets condemned for someone else’s sins.
“Emotions will be the death of you, boyevik,” she chastises with an annoyed sigh.
“She is innocent.”
“No one is ever innocent.” The challenge hangs in the air like a dagger. “Bring her to me.”
Zasha’s fierce honey glazed eyes flash through my
mind, and for the second time, I do something so far out of character, it makes me question my own sanity.
“Fine,” I bite out.
“I will see you when you land in Moscow.”
The line goes dead, tension hanging in the air, as unspoken and volatile as it was twenty-five years ago. I slam my palm against the side of the motel and curse under my breath.
Zasha is still sleeping when I open the door. Her outer innocence is a stark contrast to her inner warrior. However she has no idea what is waiting for us on the other side of the communist curtain. It is a dark place where thought becomes distorted. Friends become foes, and every face in the crowd becomes the monster hiding in the dark.
For now we are aligned, but the moment we land in Moscow, the rules change. People change. My little lisichka may be Russian, but she knows nothing of what that word means.
The Karpov Bratva has somehow managed to pull me back in. I owe them in blood. And if I am not careful, the payment will be Zasha’s.
About the Author
Cora Kenborn is a USA Today Bestselling author who writes in multiple genres from dark and gritty romantic suspense to laugh-out-loud romantic comedy. Known for her sharp banter and shocking blindsides, Cora pushes her characters and readers out of their comfort zones and onto an emotional roller coaster before delivering a twisted happily ever after.
Cora believes there’s nothing better than a feisty heroine who keeps her alpha on his toes, and she draws inspiration from the strong country women who raised her. However, since the domestic Southern Belle gene seems to have skipped a generation, she spends any free time convincing her family that microwaving Hot Pockets counts as cooking dinner.
Oh, and autocorrect thinks she's obsessed with ducks.
* * *
Connect with her and keep up with new releases at www.corakenborn.com
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