A Love of Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 1)

by Nancy Haviland

  “Like what?”

  “You foolishly thinking he could kick my ass.”

  Those lips he’d been staring at thinned. “Is Gabriel even your real name?” she surprised him by asking.

  “Yes. My mother named me after her father.”

  “I don’t want personal details,” she snapped.

  Why? Because knowing shit about him made him less of a monster?

  “So, Gabriel Moretti. Does that mean TarMor is Tarasov/Moretti, and not Moore like the world thinks?”

  “That’s right. Alek and I grew up together in New York, and we started the firm ten years ago. It was nickel-and-dime stuff for the first couple of years, but at least it was ours. Once Markus came on board, we expanded and it became more of a time sucker. We used to laugh because we were becoming successful without the requisite blood on our hands. We’ve done pretty well.” His bad. He’d let slip more personal details.

  “I quit, by the way. I know two weeks is courtesy but I don’t feel that’s necessary under the circumstances. And can you leave the room and give me some privacy now?”

  He knew his smile was smug. “No. I’m good where I am. And I don’t accept your resignation.”

  She sat up and the expression on her face said that she was having none of it. Gabriel had seen that expression on her father’s face a time or twenty. “You can’t force me to work for you, Gabriel!”

  Why did the sound of his name on her lips make him hard? He shifted to the side so she wouldn’t see it. “Why not?”

  “Well, because you lied to me. Because all you’ve done is lie.”

  He gave her an impatient look. “After everything I’ve told you, about your father, his enemies, my brother, can you not understand why I did that? Can you not see now that I had to have you close to me? However I could get you there?”

  “You didn’t have to have sex with me,” she blurted.

  “Yes, sweetheart, I did. I just couldn’t help myself.” And that was the God’s honest truth. When her breath caught and her eyes widened, he got up and walked a few steps away. It was either that or strip her and fuck her through the mattress. For some reason, he didn’t think she’d go for that.

  She scooted back against the headboard, knees up, arms wrapped around them. She looked young and scared, and Gabriel wanted to give himself a shot in the face for being such an asshole.

  “Fuck. You’re right. I didn’t have to have sex with you,” he admitted, his ass hitting the foot of the bed, his back to her. “But being who I am, being used to getting what I want, I took you. Because I desperately wanted you. I shouldn’t have lied, hell, I shouldn’t have fucking touched you, but I did both and I can’t change it.” He rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his hands, never so tired in all his life. “You have to stay with me, sweetheart. I can protect you because I know the threat that’s coming. Please don’t fight me on this. Don’t make my job any harder than it has to be. I don’t know what your father would do if something were to happen to you on my watch.”

  She was silent, and he could only hope he’d gotten thought to her, because if she decided to cause a fuss, he was in for a very rough ride.

  “What if I get away from you and go to the police?”

  “We all have connections to the boys in blue. Including Stefano. Word would get back to him before you could spit and, depending on whose payroll the cops in question are on, you might find yourself in the back of a squad car being delivered to my brother with a pretty bow on your ass. Who would help you then?”

  He was her only option. He hoped she understood that.

  “Fine.”

  Best. Word. Ever. He turned. “You’ll stay? Without screaming the place down or trying to take off first chance you get?” he asked to be sure.

  “Yes.”

  He had to admit he now had the urge to give her a prize. Her hands came together and she began linking and unlinking her fingers, her tapered nails clicking as she drummed one set on top of the other in that way she did when she was nervous.

  “Would my father hurt you?”

  Concern? For him? “If something were to happen to you on my watch?”

  She nodded.

  “There’s no doubt in my mind that your father would hurt me if any harm comes to you.”

  “What if it isn’t your fault? What if I decide to sneak away? He shouldn’t make you pay for something you have no control over.”

  Gabriel stood and went to her, covering her hands with one of his to still her fingers as he knelt by the bed. “If you sneak away and my brother or Furio—the guy that came to your house tonight—finds you, the least of your worries will be how painful your father will make my death. You will be in the arms of men who—”

  “No, no, no.” She shook her head violently. “I . . . I don’t want that. I don’t want you to even be hurt. Whatever has happened between us, I don’t want that. I don’t want you to die.”

  Her wary gaze met his, and his heart squeezed at her words. She didn’t want him hurt, or dead. She was worried about his safety.

  It wasn’t a declaration of forgiveness, but it was something.

  He reached forward and traced his knuckles down her cheek, rubbing a lock of her dark silky hair through his fingers. She didn’t flinch back. Whether it was because she was warming up to him again or just too tired to care, he didn’t know. But he’d take it. “No one will die if you stay by my side. No one will be hurt, if you stay by my side,” he stressed. “And, Eva?”

  She made a little sound.

  “Don’t think badly of your father, because he isn’t the only one who would kill for you.”

  Turning away, she looked out the window into the night. Her profile was as perfect as the rest of her. God, she was flawless. From her beauty to her spirit . . . to her guarded, guarded heart. Once Stefano was caught, how in the hell was Gabriel going to let her go?

  “You’ll stay at my side?” he asked, forcing her to confirm once more.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Good. He could live with that.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Motherfucker!”

  Stefano’s incensed roar bounced off the walls of the strip club’s small office.

  This fucking day couldn’t possibly get any worse, could it? First Furio’s infuriating recount of his run-in with Gabriel’s boys, and now this. But this. Oh, this was so much worse. Betrayal. Public betrayal. Humiliating, degrading, public betrayal.

  “Where did this meeting take place?” he demanded, rounding on his cousin.

  “Right here. Maybe an hour ago.” Alesio’s voice and eyes were steady, which spoke volumes about his part in the situation. The kid was only telling it like it had gone down. He wasn’t directly involved. Thank God. Because Stefano had always loved the good-natured up-and-comer and would have loathed having to discipline him. “Said he was on his way to the airport,” Alesio continued. “I called you the second he left.”

  Because he had to calm the fuck down and get the facts, Stefano tamped down his fury. “Tell me what he said.” Sonsofbitches! They were all going to die. Every last one of them.

  “That he wouldn’t stand with you anymore. Couldn’t, because of what you have planned. Said he was going to Seattle to be at the right hand of the real boss of the family. Asked if I wanted to go with him. ‘Come out on the winning side,’ he said.”

  The real boss? The winning side? Stefano’s carotid was actually aching from the rush of blood pouring into his head. In a swift move, he snapped up the laptop from the desk and sent it into the wall with a powerful overhead throw. The printer was next. And then the monitor for the security cameras.

  Vincente Fucking Romani was a two-faced, devious, conniving cunt. Snake-in-the-grass motherfucker! Stefano spun away from Alesio, almost seeing what respect the kid carried for him wafting up and disappearing like smoke. His skin actually crawled with mortification and s
hame at the monstrous double cross.

  Shmuck! Sucker! Blind and stupid fucking asshole!

  All words and phrases people would use to describe him from now on.

  Oh, that long-haired fucker was going to wish he’d never laid those cold, dead eyes on him. By the time he was finished with Vincente Romani, the prick would be a limbless torso sinking into the Hudson.

  Fucking Gabriel.

  That sonofabitch had fucked him again. Absolutely. Brutally. Made him look substandard. This time by infiltrating his organization and planting Vincente, his boy, at Stefano’s side.

  Holy fucking hell. How much information had Vincente forwarded about the goings-on in the family over the years? How much of Stefano’s current plans did Gabriel now know?

  Everything. Because he’d trusted that slimy fuck enough to let him stick his nose anywhere in the business he’d wanted.

  He turned to Alesio. “Get the Brownsville crew together and have them meet us here in an hour. Tell them we’ll be out of town for a day or two.” He crossed the room and paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Prepare them for one hell of a bloodbath on the West Coast,” he ordered before walking out.

  For the final time, his brother had fucked him.

  Eva. Vincente. Alekzander Tarasov. Jakson Trisko and Quan Mao, just because they’d be in the way. Hopefully Maksim Kirov, the other Russian fuck. And then Gabriel.

  In. That. Order. They. Would. Die.

  Stefano slammed out of the club and got behind the wheel of the Navigator, alone for the first time in recent memory. His snatched his phone from his pocket and speed-dialed Furio. The time had come for those who’d wronged him to pay.

  Eva sat in a large chair with her legs tucked under her. The light of morning streamed into the main room from the huge windows. God, she was so mentally drained. From the minute she’d woken up, she’d been trying to reorganize her thought process, altering the negative way she’d always thought of her father.

  She’d done pretty well.

  Hearing the bedroom door open, she glanced up as Gabriel prowled into the room. His hair was still wet from the shower, shining blacker than a raven’s wing. He wore a black button-down, the kind you didn’t tuck in, with the sleeves rolled to a casual three-quarter length. A pair of well-worn jeans and black leather boots completed this morning’s casual look.

  He looked as yummy as he always did.

  Dammit.

  He stopped next to the couch, leaving a good stretch between them, and she steeled herself against her attraction to him, pulling the lapels of her robe tighter. He noticed. She hadn’t gotten dressed because she’d been too worried about waking him.

  He’d slept next to her last night. When she’d woken up in his arms, for just a few moments she’d forgotten that anything bad had happened. It was like it had been yesterday morning after they’d made love.

  Maybe you could get back to that place again? a voice argued. If only you could forgive him. His apology certainly seemed sincere.

  Then she thought of her mother and how she’d gotten romantically involved with a gangster. Where that had ended.

  Her heart hardened.

  Tonight she’d sleep on the couch.

  “Morning, sweetheart.” Oh, that voice, deep and rumbling. “Did you sleep well?”

  His gaze was so heated she was surprised her treacherous body didn’t melt into a puddle of stupidity.

  As she nodded, her stomach growled, breaking into the moment. “Sorry.” She covered the noise with her hand as her cheeks heated. “Hungry.”

  “I know the feeling,” he threw dryly over his shoulder as he walked to the door.

  What did that mean? That he was hungry for breakfast?

  While his back was turned, she skipped quickly into the bedroom and dug through one of her two suitcases. They’d been waiting for her this morning when she’d woken. She tossed the robe onto the foot of the bed and quickly slipped on underwear and a bra before sliding her legs into a pair of camel-colored leggings. She pulled a loose white tank over her head and left her hair down but slipped her usual hair tie around her wrist before she headed back out.

  Or did he mean he was hungry for her?

  After the way he’d watched her lose her shit last night, she doubted it.

  Gabriel was standing in the doorway to the dining room, and he drank in her form as she crossed to him, unsettling her more with every step she took.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” she ground out as she approached, her nerves stretching tighter and tighter.

  He just smiled slightly and pulled out a chair for her at the table.

  She sat, tucking one leg under her, and inhaled the tantalizing aroma of coffee, bacon, and eggs. Her mouth watered. Gabriel took his seat to her right, at the head of the table, as she lifted the carafe and poured two steaming cups of java. She added cream to hers while he lifted the covers off their breakfast plates.

  “Eat,” he ordered without looking at her as he picked up his fork.

  “Really, boss?” she said under her breath as she picked up her fork. “I thought I was only allowed to smell?”

  “You’re much lippier than I expected you to be.”

  She tipped her head and gave him a droll look but didn’t respond. She was too busy enjoying the smoky flavor of the bacon. Really.

  “Shall we attempt a conversation about Vasily again?” he asked.

  At her father’s name, without her permission, Eva’s heart shifted. For a man she’d always hated. A man she’d always assumed was self-serving and irresponsible and nothing but a rich playboy. Instead he’d sacrificed his own happiness, his family, in order to keep them safe from the indisputably dangerous world he lived in. What kind of person would do such a noble but painful thing?

  Your sperm donor.

  Regret for her awful judgment had her biting her lip. But, in the end, it had all been for nothing. Because her mother’s life had indeed been taken by the very people Vasily Tarasov had tried to protect them from. Members of a rival Russian organized crime family.

  She was the daughter of a Russian mob boss.

  She closed off the rising hysteria. But really, who could blame her? In the last twenty-four hours she’d lost her virginity, started a new job, found out her boss was the man she’d lost her virginity to, been attacked in her home, been held hostage against her will, and found out her father was a Russian crime boss.

  Shaking her head at the impossibility of it all, she did something extremely normal and took a drink of her coffee. Maybe it would do her good to talk about it. God knew she wasn’t getting anywhere with it on her own.

  “I don’t know if you’ll understand,” she admitted, scooping up some eggs. She chewed and swallowed.

  Gabriel seemed surprised she wasn’t protesting the subject. He put a half-eaten piece of toast down on the side of his plate. “Try me.”

  “I hate him.” She cringed and dropped her eyes to the orange that was a pretty garnish. Nice. Very subtle. “I mean, I did hate him. For so many years, for abandoning us. He seemed so irresponsible and selfish.”

  She clutched her napkin in a death grip. “My mom never gave me any details about him, other than she’d loved him. I used to ask her stuff when I was younger and she’d change. Get really still, like she might break if she moved. The light in her eyes would go out, and her voice would become hollow. It was like watching the life drain out of her. Needless to say, I stopped asking.”

  She forked up more eggs but had to wash them down with some orange juice in order to swallow them; her throat had gone so dry. She placed her utensils aside. “Once I was old enough to realize what I was seeing, I knew my father had destroyed her when he left us. Sure, she lived, took amazing care of me, created a wonderful home for me. But for her?” Eva shook her head. “A huge part of her was dead. It’s the main reason I’ve shied away from getting involved with anyone. I didn’t want that to ever happen to me.�
��

  But now she was very afraid it could.

  The walls around her heart cracked at the sympathy swimming in Gabriel’s eyes. He reached over and squeezed her fingers. “I don’t mean to disregard your mother’s pain, sweetheart, but what about you?”

  God his hand felt good on hers. “I always thought he left because of me,” she answered honestly. “I thought I’d ruined things when I was born, and it’s made me wonder if she regretted having me. Had she ever looked at me and thought about what her life would have been if I hadn’t come along? If my father would have stayed. Was I enough for her?”

  Eva realized then that she was twisting the ring Gabriel wore on his thumb around and around. He didn’t seem to mind, and it was soothing, so she kept at it.

  “I know that’s my grief talking. Or that’s what my counselor at school said. He also said that second-guessing the decisions I’ve made over the past couple of years will pass. Because, naturally, I wish I’d stayed in Seattle and not gone to New York at all. Then I wouldn’t have missed that time together. I mean, who knew we didn’t have the rest of our lives.”

  “Eva—”

  “I know.” She waved her hand and refused to meet his eyes. “But if I’d been here, we’d have been somewhere together that day and she wouldn’t have had the accident.” Of course, now Eva knew it was no accident. And for all she knew, maybe she’d have died that day, too.

  “Or you could have been at school or work or out with Nika and it would have happened anyway.” She glared at his reasonable tone. He glared back. “And Vasily never left because of you—he left for you. Because he thought it would keep you both safe.”

  She swallowed the knot in her throat and blinked the moisture from her eyes.

  “All it takes is to hear him talk about you one time to be convinced of his love for you. The pride in his voice. The look in his eyes.” He leaned in. “Are you hearing me?”

  She nodded and felt the broken part of her heart that belonged to her father heal that much more.

  “He deserves huge props for such a sacrifice.” Gabriel’s laugh was rough as he ran his thumb over her knuckles in a smooth circle. “It must be in your blood, because Alek did the same last year—ended a yearlong relationship with the love of his life to keep her safe from a mole in Vasily’s organization. The guy’s still struggling.” The blaze of emotion that shone in those mossy depths stole Eva’s breath. Could a man who loved his friends so deeply be that bad?