DENY: A Dark Romance

by Sophia Gray

  My lungs ached, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I rushed through the house to the front door.

  “Where are you going?” my mom asked. She had returned to her book, but I didn’t think she was really reading it, more holding it up to cover that she was still processing the bombshell I had dropped on her.

  “Out,” I said, my hand on the doorknob.

  “Out where?”

  “I’m just gonna…” Where could I go? I thought frantically. I needed to get away from stress, which meant getting away from people who knew. “Denise. I’m gonna go see her. I’ll be back in time to make dinner.”

  “Clara has been—”

  “Tonight, she can have the night off.” I tried to smile but couldn’t. Before my mom could try to convince me to stay, I left, practically running to my car. I felt too confined in the house, like I was a prisoner. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. All I could feel had been the walls closing in on me.

  But out here, outside, I didn’t feel any better. I didn’t know if I thought the sun might help any, but it wasn’t. I just had to get away. See Denise. Try to forget what had happened the past few days. Try to just be me for once instead of the whore Anton was boning to get pregnant, instead of the fool who thought he might be a decent man, instead of the failure of a daughter who couldn’t even keep her sick mother happy, instead of the woman who couldn’t even keep a job.

  Before I could even get my keys out of my purse, though, I heard the rumbling of a car grinding to a halt. My fingers were just curling around the keys when my arms were grabbed from behind. A hand clamped over my mouth before I could even scream. I tried to bite him, to get enough room to scream even if just for a little bit, but I was thrown into a car, tires peeling before I could finally let out that scream.

  One of the guys, a big brute of a guy, backhanded me. I flew onto the lap of the guy sitting next to the window. He laughed and righted me, rubbing up and down my arm. I tried to squirm out of reach, but I didn’t want to sit closer to the brute, not that there was a lot of room in the backseat for the three of us as it was. Another guy was driving, a little too fast and reckless for my liking, especially considering my condition.

  Somehow, I still had my keys in my hands even though my purse was on the floor of the car, the contents spilling out more and more with each sharp corner we took. I tried to jab the guy who was overly touchy feely in his neck, but he easily overpowered me and took them from me.

  “Now, now,” he said with a leering grin, “if you want to play, we can play.”

  From the glint in his eyes and his gruff laugh, I knew I didn’t want to play any kind of games with him. Who were these men? It made the most sense for them to be in cahoots with the guy who accosted me at the hospital, the one who thought Anton and I were dating. If these guys were truly after Anton, then they wanted him dead.

  Which might mean that they would be willing to use me as bait to get to Anton. Or that they might want to send Anton a stronger message, and this time with a dead body. My dead body.

  I swallowed hard. I couldn’t get a good look at the driver, but neither of the men I was sandwiched between were the same guy from the hospital. Still, I knew in my bones they were all connected.

  “Please,” I said, my voice cracking on the word. I cleared my throat. “Please. Let me go. I haven’t done—”

  “Doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t done.” Handsy rubbed my thigh.

  I tried to shove him away, but the other guy gripped my chin and turned me to face him. “Beg all you like.” His grin was menacing. “Maybe we’ll listen.”

  He was lying. Maybe it wasn’t smart — scratch that, it definitely wasn’t smart — but I spat in his face.

  Calmly, he wiped the spit with his huge hand and then wiped it down the front of my shirt. “Don’t do that again,” Brute warned, his voice low and whiny. “We haven’t decided yet if we’re gonna keep you alive or not, so you might want to be a good little girl and take what you can get.”

  “Wouldn’t you like a real man?” Handsy asked. His hand moved toward the inside of my thighs.

  I shifted slightly, gluing my legs together.

  He laughed. “I could show you a few things, teach you new tricks.”

  “I’m not a dog,” I muttered.

  He roared with more laughter. “I like her spirit.”

  “I want to crush her spirit,” Brute countered.

  The two argued, and I tried not to listen to what they were saying. The driver snapped at them to shut up, but neither paid him any attention.

  Trying not to give into panic, I watched the streets, trying to figure out where we were and where we were going. So many twists and turns, though, that I soon started to wonder if the driver was deliberately taking a roundabout way to our destination. Was that for my benefit so I couldn’t follow? Or were they being overly cautious about being tailed?

  Wait a second! Anton had sent my mom a bodyguard! Maybe he had seen the kidnapping. Maybe we really were being tailed! Trying to be discrete, I glanced behind us a few times, but there wasn’t anyone there. As far as I could tell, we weren’t being followed.

  My hope didn’t completely die, though. Anton knew what he was doing. His men would know what they were doing, too. Maybe his bodyguards were that good at tailing that they weren’t obvious about it. God willing, he’d pull up alongside of us as soon as we parked, he’ll get me away from them, and then we could hightail it home.

  Yeah, that was definitely too much of a fairytale ending. Wasn’t going to happen. I was all alone with three very big, very bad guys.

  We bypassed shops and restaurants and houses until we reached the outskirts of town. No other cars were around, and the houses looked poor and rundown, abandoned even.

  The driver turned toward one house set apart from the others and we drove around the back of it. Handsy pulled me toward him and out of the car a little too swiftly, and I stumbled. He prevented me from falling by tugging me close to him. “Better stick close to me,” he whispered in my ear, grinding his pelvis against me. “The others aren’t as nice as I am.”

  I jerked back as far as his hand on my waist would allow. “I don’t need nice,” I hissed.

  He laughed. “You’ll wish for it soon enough.”

  My stomach twisted at that thought, and I was afraid I’d get sick right then and there, but Handsy on one side and Brute on the other led me to the back door. The driver unlocked it, and we filed in.

  The house was dark, no lights on. Even though it wasn’t dark outside, the black curtains prevented any light form filtering inside, so I stumbled along between the guys. They led me to a staircase, and we entered the basement. The walls were concrete, the floor, too. It was unfinished, cool and damp, without any furniture or rugs.

  No, wait. After we rounded a corner, I spied a chair, and they promptly sat me in it. In the corner, I noticed a coil of rope. Thankfully, none of the three guys walked over to collect it, but Brute made a point of looking at it before giving me a shrewd smile.

  “This can be easy,” Handsy said.

  “Or this can be hard.” Brute shrugged as if the matter was out of his hands.

  “Your choice,” the driver said.

  I stared at them each in turn. All of them were fairly tall and muscular. None of them was the one who had approached me at the hospital. Brute had a small scar beneath his left eye. Handsy was the only one with gel in his hair. The driver wore black gloves. He toyed with them as he approached that back corner with the rope, but he just leaned against the wall, arms crossed, gaze on me.

  “What…what do you want from me?” I demanded. Yes, I was scared, frightened beyond belief actually, but I was also angry I was in this situation, furious Anton had gotten me into this mess without being upfront with me about the danger I could be in, livid that people would go to such lengths because of money or whatever it was that was motivating them. Power? Revenge? Who knew what went on with mobs behind the scenes? I didn’t wan
t to find out. I just wanted to be free.

  “Just for you to answer a few questions,” Handsy said, kneeling in front of me, his hands on my knees.

  “Without lying,” Brute added.

  “I don’t know anything,” I said calmly. “I don’t even know why you took me.”

  Handsy squeezed my right knee painfully. “You know why we took you,” he said, shaking his head.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Make a guess,” Brute snapped.

  I had a guess all right, but I didn’t want to say. I didn’t want to be right. Because if I was right, that meant I was in the hands of very dangerous men. Men who might hurt me. Men who might hurt the baby. Men who might kill me. But my fear morphed into anger and even hatred. How dare they take me! As much as I had started to feel like I wasn’t trapped in Anton’s house after I talked to him and told him I would go and still visit my mom even after that guy accosted me, I had hated having to go everywhere with bodyguards. I hated the need for them, and I kind of was growing to resent Anton for my needing them.

  But Anton had the right of it. I had needed the bodyguards. I had been foolish to leave him, to leave his house, to go anywhere without them. Because of his job, because of my stupidity, I was here, trapped. Anton might not even know yet that I had left him, let alone that I had been taken. I eyed the men each in turn. They didn’t strike me as the kind to hold back. Handsy might rape me, and Brute wouldn’t have a problem torturing a woman. The driver…I didn’t like the gleam in his eyes. Something told me he might be the worst one of the trio.

  “I asked you to make a guess.” Brute brought up his hand, preparing to slap me.

  I didn’t flinch, and I stared him down as best as I could with me sitting and him towering over me. “Anton Kovalsky,” I said, proud my voice didn’t shake.

  Brute kept his hand raised. I was starting to think his scowl was permanent.

  “What do you know about him?” Handsy asked, crouching beside me. He brushed my hair back from my neck and started to massage my shoulder.

  I jerked away from him and winced inwardly. I didn’t want to show that they were getting to me. I didn’t want to react to their touch, their threats. Just answer their questions because otherwise they would hurt me, but maybe if I cooperated…yeah, right. They were gonna hurt me regardless.

  “What do I know about Anton Kovalsky?” I shifted my gaze from Brute to Handsy. “I know he’s fantastic in bed.”

  The slap was harsh, and it surprised me that the slapper was Handsy and not Brute.

  Tears prickled my eyes, but I didn’t cry, and I didn’t rub my cheek either. Instead I stared Handsy down. “He is. One time he—”

  This time, Brute went to slap me, but I turned my head to the side, and he just clipped my ear.

  “You think you’re so funny, huh?” Brute shouted, his face inches from mine. His spit sprayed on my face, and his breath told me he had onions on a sandwich for lunch.

  “I think I’m telling the truth,” I said without blinking. “His cock is a good eight inches and…oh. You guys don’t want to hear about that kind of stuff, huh.”

  “No,” the driver said from across the room. “We want to know what you know about Kovalsky and his mob.”

  “Oh.” I tilted my head to the side. My ear ached, and my head was starting to hurt, and my cheek still smarted, too. This was an interrogation. By Anton’s enemies. This so wasn’t going to end well for me. I shrugged, trying not to show any sign of fear or worry. “Honestly, there’s nothing to tell you.”

  The driver walked away, out of view, around the corner of the basement. I could hear rummaging around, and my fear level spiked.

  “Honestly,” I said, my voice almost squeaking. “He doesn’t talk to me about the mob. Not at all. We just…we don’t talk about that. Just positions and what’s for dinner and stuff like that.” Damn. Damn it. I was telling the truth! But it wasn’t what they wanted to hear. I didn’t even know enough to be able to realistically lie.

  The driver came back into view, his hands behind his back. My heart sank.

  “I…I swear. I don’t know anything. I know nothing. I swear.”

  Handsy and Brute exchanged a glance. Handsy stood and touched my cheek, the one he had hit, and slid his hand down my chest, palming my breast through my shirt. “Maybe you need to be introduced to my cock and feel that to remember.”

  I swallowed hard, gripping the edge of my chair so I didn’t stand and try to run away. If I did that, I was basically begging them to attack me. They always said the truth would set you free. Not in this instance. They weren’t going to believe that I knew nothing.

  “Out of the way,” Driver snapped.

  Immediately, Brute and Handsy stepped back.

  Driver approached me, a strange nasty-looking metal object in one hand, a knife in the other. He trailed the blade of against my jawline. “I’m going to ask you one more time. What do you know about Kovalsky and his mob?”

  I couldn’t handle this. I can’t keep quiet. “I know I’m pregnant with Kovalsky’s baby!” I blurted out.

  All three men took a step back, glancing at each other and then back at me.

  Oh God, did I just make things worse? I wished I had kept my fat mouth shut. These guys weren’t going to turn over a new leaf just because I hadn’t kept my legs close. If anything, I just ensured I wasn’t going to be free anytime soon.

  Anton…I never should’ve left you.

  But was it fair to think that? I had left him because I wanted to try to prevent something like this. Anton had killed a man, maybe a friend of one of these guys. I had wanted to keep the baby away from Anton and his lifestyle because I was afraid it would end up just like this.

  What was I going to do? Would I get out of this alive? What about the baby?

  Chapter 28

  Anton

  It had been a whirlwind of a few hours. I tried to drive north, but I couldn’t find them, so I gathered all of my men together and then sent most out to scavenge the city. I wanted Lily found, and I wanted her found yesterday.

  Then I called Alec. He didn’t answer — which wasn’t a surprise. He normally didn’t, not when he was undercover like he was now, seducing Golovkin’s daughter. But I called him back again and again until he finally did answer.

  “What’s up?” he asked in that slow, lazy way of his that told me he had just finished seducing the daughter yet again.

  “I need you,” I snapped.

  “At the house?”

  “No. Our normal meet up.” I hung up. I couldn’t stand to be behind these walls another second. I left my servants and Leo strict orders to call me if Lily returned and to not leave the premises. Then I called up another one of my men and sent him to join Lily’s mother. I felt better if she had another bodyguard on hard, just in case.

  This is all on me. All of me. I never should have told her about killing that guy. Not unless I wanted to tell her everything.

  It didn’t take a genius to realize she had wanted to leave me, and I couldn’t blame her. A few times, I had considered telling her everything, all about my past, all about my present, all about my desire for revenge, but I hadn’t wanted to be that open.

  Why?

  Because of fear. I didn’t think there was any way she would want to stay with me if she knew the truth. I was a mob boss, heavily involved with fights and gambling. It wasn’t a glamorous life, but it was my life. It was also a dangerous life. I wanted to keep her separate, to keep her safe. But mostly, I just wanted to keep her. I wanted her.

  This was new — this feeling of wanting and needing another person. After losing my parents, my family, I had closed myself off to people. Other than Nicolai and Alec, I didn’t let people in. Not even them, not fully, and not the rest of my men either. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to get hurt again. I didn’t want to feel helpless. I didn’t want to accept that I needed others.

  But I did. I needed my men to help me find the one I needed most of all �
�� Lily..

  Would I be able to save them both — Lily and her mom? And the baby Lily was carrying, too?

  Life used to be so uncomplicated, back before Golovkin resurfaced, when I had no cares, no worries, and access to any woman I wanted.

  Did I want to go back to those carefree days?

  No.

  I rushed to my car and drove to our meet-up spot. Every month, I changed it to a new one. Couldn’t be too careful in this business, though my not being careful with my mouth was what got us into this mess in the first place.

  When I freed Lily, I’d kill every last one of Golovkin’s men and then him, too, and be done with the lot of them. Then I’d sit Lily down and…what? Tell her everything? I wouldn’t even blame her if she wanted nothing to do with me, and if that were the case…I’d let her go. With my child. I’d provide for them both, without a doubt, and it would kill me to do it, but I would step aside. I would never force Lily to stick by my side. Next chance I got — once she was safe, of course — I’d rip up the contract.