Yes, Nadja was no use like this anymore, it was time to finish her so he could spend the resources on someone more profitable. But she could still serve a purpose once she was gone. She would be the perfect messenger, possibly the one thing to bring Liam MacFarlane out of hiding. He smiled to himself as he listened to her rapid, shallow breaths and looked into her hazy eyes.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” he murmured. “You’re going to make me happy, and it’ll be over very quickly.” He unzipped his pants and took his cock out, stroking it slowly as he let his other hand wander down her torso, finding one of her breasts and squeezing it so hard, she yelped in pain. Watching her breath pick up pace and her eyes widen in fear made him even harder. He continued to stroke himself while he drew his hand back and slapped her hard across the face, sending her head snapping violently to one side.
When she looked at him again it was with tears in her eyes and a red handprint on her face. She began begging him to stop. “Ostanovit’!” He always loved it when she begged that way.
Pushing her down on her back, he put his hand around her trachea and forced himself into her violently.
Then, as Nadja struggled to eke one more sip of oxygen from the last breath she would ever take, Sergei spent his anger in a roar of triumph. After he was finished, he climbed back to his feet and zipped his pants, looking at her limp body askew on top of the bedcovers. Yes, she was still of use, and wouldn’t Liam MacFarlane and his whore get a treat when they were reunited with her?
Chapter 13
By the time Lila was hustled in the door of Cian’s penthouse, the adrenaline crash had come and she was shaking like a leaf.
“Here,” Danny said gently as he handed her a mug of tea where she sat on the sofa. “I put in lots of sugar, helps with the shock. You’ll be okay.”
The mug shook so hard in her hand, she nearly spilled the hot liquid all over herself.
“I’m…really…fine,” she said, teeth chattering. “I just can’t…s-stop sh-shaking.”
“You remember that time after I got shot by some of the Vasquez guys over in Jackson Park?” Louis asked from where he stood by the front door.
“Yeah,” Danny answered, watching Lila carefully as she sipped the tea. “You were shaking like a dog after a bath.”
“Right? It’ll go away in a bit,” Louis consoled as he stretched his big arms over his head, exposing the guns that resided under one arm and in the waistband of his khakis.
Lila tried to focus on her breathing, taking small sips of the sweet liquid as she counted inhalations and exhalations. She realized she’d vomited in the parking lot and never had a chance to clean up. God. She probably reeked. She looked down, hoping she wouldn’t find puke all over her button-down blouse.
The door to the penthouse burst open, and Cian strode in, Finn right behind him, neither of them looking particularly happy.
Cian came straight to her and dropped to his knees, his brow furrowed in worry. For a long moment, they simply locked gazes, saying a million things all at once, none of them out loud.
“I want to talk to Lila alone,” Cian directed, his voice husky. Lila didn’t even look away as Danny, Finn, and Louis filed out of the room.
When they were gone, Cian took her hands in his and kissed them on the knuckles. “Never again,” he told her. “You can’t ever do something like that again.”
She swallowed uncomfortably, her throat tight with all of it—the fear, the disgust, the tenderness.
“But I did it,” she said, trying…and failing…to smile.
Cian shook his head, releasing her hands and standing as he gazed down at her. “You did it, and you may have gotten a reprieve for Rogue, but now Sergei knows what you look like. It wasn’t worth it, Lila. Why can’t you see that?”
She dropped her gaze, not wanting him to see that he might be right. When Sergei had touched her, when he’d leaned in and whispered that in her ear, she’d known she’d gone too far. She had never been so frightened in her life. Never felt less in control, less able, less worthwhile. Cian had been right, Sergei wasn’t just a criminal. He was something else. Something darker, more insidious. Something evil.
Setting the mug down on the coffee table in front of her, Lila breathed.
“We’re hitting their utilities tonight,” she said, deciding that a change of subject was in order.
Cian nodded, not looking at her as he leaned one elbow against the mantel of the fireplace. “Good.”
“How are Liam and Katya?”
“Fine. For now.”
She tried one last time. “If I get back to work on that overseas account, I think I can crack it in the next few hours. I was very close earlier this morning.”
This time, he didn’t respond at all.
She finally stood, crossing the room to stand alongside him. “I’m sorry.”
He didn’t look at her.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have done it… I don’t know anymore, Cian. I don’t know how you do this. How you keep track of the pieces and make these life-and-death decisions all the time. I don’t know what your long game is, but I know you well enough to assume you have one. How you’re balancing that with the shorter term and the crises that seem to pop up minute by minute, I’ll never understand.”
He glanced down at her, and she took that as a sign to press harder, so she scooted around to face him.
“I don’t know how you do this,” she repeated before she placed her hand over his heart. “I think I know why you do it. But I don’t know how.”
His gaze drifted to her face, her lips, her throat, then to her hand where it touched him.
“I’m not sure I can keep doing it much longer,” he murmured. “Not when I see Liam’s apartment’s been blown to bits with him in it. Not when I hear a man like Sergei threaten to cut you open while I’m sitting blocks away, completely helpless.”
“I’m sorry. You were right, I didn’t understand. He’s something more than just a gangster. He’s…”
“I think the word you’re looking for is insane.” Cian placed his hand over hers. “The Bratva are known for it. They’re not businessmen like a lot of the guys I deal with. They’re known for the lengths they’ll go to in order to get revenge or prove a point. They’re insane, plain and simple.”
Lila took a deep breath, and before she could stop herself, she blurted it out, that thing deep inside that had been gnawing at her since the first night she’d slept in Cian’s arms. The thing that had brought her to this place, this point, this precipice.
“I don’t want to leave.” Her face flushed with heat.
He smiled tenderly at her, and it nearly broke her in pieces.
“And I don’t want you to leave.” Then he paused, and she knew what came next. “But you have to.”
He was right. But it hurt.
“I know I can’t make you, and I can’t tell you when, but you have to promise me that you will.”
She swallowed, her throat dry with anxiety. “Okay. I promise.”
He pulled her to him in a close embrace, leaning his lips next to her ear. She couldn’t help but think how entirely different it felt from Sergei’s lips in the same position. A shudder ran through her from head to toe.
“Listen carefully,” he whispered into her hair. “There is a car parked in the covered lot at Adams and Racine, slot seventeen, for the date we first met. Inside the glove box is a passport with your photo, cash, and a number to call for a chartered plane to Nauru. Once that number is called, the plane will be waiting by the time you arrive at the airstrip, and things will be set in motion, including a customs agent who will meet you when you land and expedite your paperwork.”
She started to pull away from him to look at his face, but he held her tight, talking faster, his voice still in a whisper.
“There is a house there for you, with a staff—housekeeper, guards, grounds people. And in the house, there are the numbers for offshore accounts that will last you the rest of your life. You
can take your mother with you--”
Now she did pull away. “Cian, no…”
He gazed at her, and that was when she realized. That was when she knew that the deep ache she’d been carrying around since the day they first met was shared, and that it wasn’t just attraction or lust or friendship, it was love. She’d fallen in love with Cian MacFarlane, just as he’d fallen in love with her.
“Yes,” he said emphatically. “Yes. I told you I’d take care of you, and I meant it.”
“I can take care of myself—”
“I know that,” he interrupted. “I know you could get your own IDs and stash your own money—I assume you have, in fact. You’re far more capable of disappearing than I am. But I wanted to do this. I needed to. I have to know you’ll be okay. When all this is over—when Liam and Finn are out too—I want to be able to picture you in that house, the one I gave you, being protected by the people I’m paying for. Safe. And happy. I really want you to be happy, Lila.”
“What if I can’t be happy without you?” she asked in a small voice, her chest split open with the pain of it all.
He held her cheeks in his palms and kissed her on the forehead. “You can. I promise you can.”
“So this is your long game? You get Liam and Finn and me out like you did Connor, and then you what? Take the fall? Let yourself get killed? If you can get us out, why can’t you save yourself?”
“That’s not how this particular scenario works.” His gaze left hers as he looked over her head out the windows. “The friends that I deal with?”
She nodded, knowing he meant the FBI.
“I’m arranging for them to let my brothers go. One at a time. My friends don’t know that, but…” He shrugged.
“No!” she cried.
“Shh, shh,” he warned, tipping his chin back toward the other side of the penthouse where Finn, Louis, and Danny had gone and the soft murmur of a television played.
“You can’t,” she whisper-yelled, terror lodging deep in her gut. “You can’t make yourself the trade-off.”
“I can, and I have. There’s no way out of this for me.” Then he kissed her softly on the lips. “But there is for you, and that’s what matters. You’ve promised me now, and I know you won’t go back on that. Tell me where the car is parked.”
She dutifully repeated the information back to him, and he grinned, seemingly satisfied.
“Good. Now, I want you to stay here until you go. I don’t care how many men I keep on that place of yours, it has ground floor access and all those windows, it’s impossible to really secure it.”
She sighed, too drained and overwrought to argue anything more. “Okay.
“I’ll have the guys bring all your stuff over—your computers, clothes, what else?”
“Everything in the top left drawer of the bathroom.”
He grinned and gave her a smacking kiss on the lips. “We’ll play house, Lila from Rogue. Until you go, we’ll play house. And it will give me something to remember. It’s the best gift I could ask for.”
Lila managed to smile back, while deep inside, something cracked and then shattered. She might have gone her whole life and never encountered Cian MacFarlane, and that was tragic yet wishful thinking all at the same time.
Because once upon a time, Lila Rodriguez had thought her father was the man to break her, but now she realized it was Cian who would do it instead.
The power at the brothel went out at ten p.m., right at the start of their highest traffic of the day. Sergei followed one of his men down the hallway to the control box, their way lit only by the flashlight on a cell phone.
“All these breakers are on,” Alexei told him.
“The streetlights are still on outside,” another man said, entering the room.
“Yebat’,” Sergei swore. The MacFarlanes. “Find Liam MacFarlane,” he growled.
“We don’t even know if he’s still in town,” Alexei answered.
“Find him!” Sergei roared before planting his fist deep in the other man’s gut. As Alexei collapsed to the floor, clutching his midsection, Sergei kicked him hard in the face before slamming out of the room.
Liam was fully dressed, curled around Katya’s sleeping body. They’d kissed for hours, but only kissed, because he figured, with everything she’d been through, anything else had to be up to her. As he’d tamped down the urge to tear her clothes off and bang her on the kitchen counter, he’d reminded himself of his purpose—to give her back her choices.
So he’d kissed her, and kissed her and kissed her, like some teenager making out in front of the TV. And she’d let him. And then they’d fallen asleep. Or she had.
Something in Liam’s gut wasn’t right, and he always trusted his gut.
He almost dismissed the first whistle, but when it was followed by a second and then a muffled thump, he reached for his gun on the coffee table next to him. As he began to sit up, Katya complained, still asleep, murmuring something in Russian. He shook her as gently as he could, leaning down and whispering in her ear.
“You have to wake up. Don’t make a sound.”
In the light that filtered in from outside, he could see her eyes pop open, wide with fear. He held a finger to his lips, and she nodded, silently. They both sat up, and Liam swung his feet to the floor, wincing a touch as his ribs protested. He was healing well, but Katya’s weight against his chest had aggravated the bruises.
She sat, frozen, waiting for him to tell her what to do. He listened, his internal radar telling him something bad was coming. He heard another subtle thump and saw Katya flinch. Yeah, it wasn’t him being paranoid; she could feel it too.
Without pausing for a moment, he grabbed her by the wrist and bolted off the sofa, tugging her through the door to the bathroom just as the first bullets sprayed in through the back windows of the living room.
The house was a tiny bungalow—living room, kitchen, bathroom, and one bedroom. The bathroom was dominated by an old claw-foot tub, and the only window was the small one over it. Liam closed the door, putting Katya in front of him with his back to the wood that would last about ten seconds once they entered the house and continued shooting.
“Get down in the tub,” he instructed as he stepped onto the edge of it and leaned over to unlatch the window.
She huddled, arms tucked around her knees.
“Get your head down too,” he instructed, sounding harsher than he intended. She complied immediately.
The rusty latch resisted, then gave way suddenly, making a screech. Liam took a deep breath and paused, listening to the sounds of renewed shots rocketing through the living room. He couldn’t help but chuckle. They were scared of him, ripping up the place with round after round before they dared to kick in the door and face whatever might be inside.
Pussies.
He slowly pushed the little window open, keeping his head below the frame in case someone outside noticed and shot. But then he heard a whisper.
“Liam! Liam!”
He stood taller and peeked over the edge of the sill to find Jimmy staring back at him from the alley below the window.
Thank God, the Russians hadn’t killed both of his men.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
“I have the car around the corner. I was doing a walk-around when they hit. Must have thought there was only the one of us up front.”
Liam nodded as he heard the front door splinter and voices shouting in Russian.
“Take Katya. I’ll never fit through this window. Don’t wait. I’ll catch up,” he instructed. Jimmy didn’t look happy, but he nodded.
Liam reached down and pulled Katya to standing. “Go with Jimmy. He’ll take care of you.”
“But what about—”
“Just do what I say.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond to that, just grabbed her around the hips and boosted her headfirst through the window. Jimmy grabbed her arms and pulled her the rest of the way out. Liam heard their footsteps running down the alley and saw Kat
ya looking behind her, trying to watch him as Jimmy pulled her away.
Liam pulled one gun out of his waistband and another from an ankle holster. He said a quick Hail Mary, then carefully cracked the bathroom door open. He heard the men in the kitchen, and heavy boots heading toward the back of the house where the bathroom and bedroom were located. Any moment, he was going to be trapped like a rat in a cage.
With lightning speed, he burst out of the bathroom, landing in the archway between the living room and back hallway. He noted one man with his back turned in the doorway to the kitchen, and another to his left, heading right for him. He fired with both guns, hitting the guy in the kitchen square in the back and winging the other guy in the shoulder, causing him to drop his gun.
Shouting came from the kitchen, and Liam knew there was at least one more man in the house. He didn’t waste time to find out, but instead darted into the bedroom, picked up the nightstand, and tossed it through the plate-glass window, leaping through the sharp-edged opening seconds before the bedroom door slammed open and bullets flew. He ran alongside the house wall until he reached the corner, then he took off running, leaping over fences, and landscaping, darting between yards, sticking to private properties rather than the street where he would be so much more visible.
An hour later, after hiding five separate times from the Russians cruising the area looking for him, he bought a burner at a convenience store and stood outside the concrete-block building along the darkened side, away from the parking lot and any lights.
He punched in Cian’s number, and his overprotective older brother answered on the first ring.
“Where are you?”
“How did you know it was me?” Liam asked, amused.
“Just tell me where the hell you are so we can come pick you up,” Cian snarled in response.
“Is Katya okay?”
“Yes, she’s fine. We’re all here at my place baking cookies while we wait to find out if you’re alive.”
Brush of Despair (Dublin Devils Book 2) Page 14