by Bethany-Kris
He didn’t need foreplay.
He twisted one thick bunch of her red hair around his hand so he could hold her in place, murmuring to her, “Just fucking suck me—don’t play.”
Her hands found his thighs for support, and that painted-red mouth of hers took him in. He plowed his cock deep down her throat and began thrusting. Slurpy sounds followed her moans of delight with every push.
He should have just closed his fucking eyes and got his rocks off, but getting head in a dirty alley was the least exciting thing he’d done that week. The distraction of busting a nut wasn’t enough to keep Roman from noticing the marks on her wrists where her bangles had slipped down her arms.
Bruises.
Blue and fresh.
He had a good idea who put them there, too. Dima had her eating out of the palm of his hand. He hurt her; maybe it was some shit he got off on, or maybe it was just because he could. Either way, she had to sit there and listen to him boast about all the other women he was using—or trafficking.
Fun times.
And he needed to get his head out of that headspace. Fast.
Roman tried to focus on the way her tongue moved over his cock instead of the imprints of bruises he could still see even after he closed his eyes. After a while, it started to work. She sucked him hard. He controlled her hair like reins around his hand. Yanking and tugging her while he fucked her mouth exactly the way he wanted.
When he came, he filled her mouth with his sticky cum until it dribbled down the side of her mouth while her tongue was still flat to the base of his cock, and she stared up at him. Only then did he pull away. Anastasia wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Her perfect red lipstick was smudged now.
She eyed him with her big green eyes while he pulled up his pants, waiting for something, maybe. What, he didn’t know.
Did she expect something?
He wasn’t Dima—wouldn’t hurt her. Roman also wasn’t a saint; the furthest thing from it really, and he got what he wanted here. Everything else was over.
Staring back at her, it was the first time he noticed the smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose. He allowed himself that one moment to feel sorry for her—whatever her circumstance—before he reached down and fished the key out of the front of her dress. She had wedged it deep down her cleavage, but he had a pretty good view of it the entire time.
He’d noted the Bugatti emblem on the keychain at first glance. It wasn’t the kind of car he could forget, and while he might have had other things on his mind earlier when they first arrived, he didn’t miss the vehicle when Dima pulled up, either.
He had to hand it to Anastasia. She at least tried to make a grab for the key. Roman held it out of her reach with a dry chuckle, and a little shake of his head.
“I would apologize, but I don’t think you really care,” he said.
“Of course, I care ... he’s going to kill me!”
Anastasia scrambled up from the ground, following him on shaky legs as he walked past her without a glance backward. Marky turned when Roman approached, and he tossed the key his friend’s way with a laugh.
There was no way that Dima drove all the way from Chicago in a Bugatti. It was pretty obvious that it was a rental. He was already delighting at the thought of chopping the car down and shipping it overseas to one of the clients on his list. Roman had spent the past decade adding up a trusted roll-call of clients who would drool at the vehicle he was about to have in his possession.
“What are you going to do with it?” she called behind him.
“What do you think I’m going to do?”
“Steal it for your chop shop?”
He gave Marky a look from the side, his tone mocking when he said, “She’s got brains, man. Imagine.”
Marky barked a laugh. “Shut up, asshole.”
Roman only shrugged, but even that wasn’t enough for Anastasia. She followed him down the alley while Marky went ahead of him with the key swinging from his index finger. It would have been easier if the chick disappeared by now. He half-expected her to go running to Dima or the others from his bratva to warn them of Roman’s plan.
Instead, her heels clicked on the cobbled alley while she tried to keep up with them.
“Please, I’m serious. God. Christ, listen to me! He will kill me, this will be all my fault,” she cried out again, a tremble in her voice making Roman hesitate.
When he turned to her this time, she was holding her arms out for him to see where she had shoved up the sleeves of her dress. There were more than just the bruises he had initially noticed. Cuts and deeper looking wounds, some fresh and others starting to heal, marked the insides of her arms.
Roman swallowed hard. “You’re not any better than any of the other girls he ships from state to state—you’re just paid.”
She didn’t reply, but the stuttering breath of air she released told him more than she could, anyway. He wasn’t up for playing hero with a woman—any woman, really. No one had time for that shit, but ...
Roman mulled over what to do. When he threw a look at Marky over his shoulder, his best friend gave him a raised brow and a tilt of his head in Anastasia’s direction like he was silently saying, Come on, Roman.
Jesus.
“Fine,” Roman told her, “you can come with us, but see yourself gone before morning.”
Relief swept over her face when she nodded wildly. “Yes, thank you, that’s all I need. Just a head start tonight.”
“Then, hurry the fuck up,” he growled.
Because he didn’t have time to keep being nice.
Marky had already made his way to the Bugatti parked at the side of the restaurant, opened the driver’s door and got the vehicle running. Ready for Roman to jump inside, and get gone as fast as he could. While there were bulls everywhere, keeping a watch on the premises, nobody even glanced his way when the Avdonin Prince slipped into a parked car. The key of which he already possessed.
Nothing looked out of the ordinary.
Anastasia climbed into the passenger seat, exhaling deeply as she tried to catch her breath. Roman caught her eye as he pressed down on the accelerator. She smiled back.
He didn’t.
She would give him anything he wanted.
That much was clear.
The problem?
He was already bored.
THREE
“So, you haven’t picked a woman yet? Or one hasn’t been picked for you?”
Anastasia’s soft question had Roman’s hand clenching tighter around the steering wheel. He hadn’t expected that from her. The word choice suggested that maybe her involvement with Dima allowed her insight on bratva men and their way of life. He didn’t dare to indulge her curiosity, if that’s why she brought it up.
With an arm dangling out of the rolled-down window, and a lit joint between his lips, he reveled in the smell of the heavy smoke filling the interior of the car. It clung to the air between them, every breath dragging into his lungs tasted like weed and expensive leather.
He might have offered her a hit, but he wasn’t in the mood to share. And shit, hadn’t his good deed for the day been enough?
She was there.
“No,” he eventually said, offering nothing more.
The way her mouth opened to say something else had Roman rolling his gaze toward the window at his left. She kept trying to get him to talk—he didn’t have shit to say.
“You’re just ... doing whatever with whoever, whenever, then?”
“Something like that.”
“You’re lucky. You do what you want and go wherever you like. Free.”
Her tone had dipped from sadness to almost dreamy. It made Roman’s throat tight—people always assumed that his life was easy. He walked on water while they drowned. He imagined what a life like that would look like.
“What makes you think I’m free?” he mumbled under his breath.
She still heard him loud and clear.
“You are Demyan Avdonin’s son.�
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“And?”
“Come on, don’t play stupid. Dima wouldn't shut up about you—the Prince of New York, he said. He tried to laugh it off, said you were just a spoiled brat with too much control who hasn’t grown up yet, but—”
Roman’s gaze cut to her, the fire burning bright enough to stop her words instantly. “What else?”
Her throat bobbed. “I—”
“What else? He must have said something else—you said it, not me. So, what else?”
“Nothing.”
Roman didn’t believe that for a second. He was, however, fine with letting her drop the conversation if she was finally going to shut up. Fuck Dima. That piece of shit wouldn’t last a month in New York with Roman to contend with on the streets. Better men than him had already tried.
And failed.
Anastasia fiddled with the sleeves of her dress, silent in her thoughts and unaware that Roman had turned his gaze back on her. He could have said a lot about her assumptions regarding his life—it was just easier for someone to see him from an outside perspective and judge or believe what they wanted.
But ...
Fuck.
His shoulders ached sometimes. From the expectations he knew his people kept hanging around his neck like a noose, and the responsibility of his position. He worried more often than not that he was an embarrassment for the men who shared his last name, and he wondered if his mother wished she had raised him differently.
God knew ...
Claire tried.
With him, she tried really hard.
His half-sister, Vera, was perfect in every way, and he was at the other end of that rainbow. She certainly hadn’t put their parents through the kind of shit he had over the years.
Still was, honestly.
The burden of not having turned out quite the way his parents pictured his life—or so he believed—kept Roman in a state of constant limbo. Numb because he was who he was, and he liked that person, but also just distant enough from the people who loved him that he hoped it hurt them less to see him this way. He never swung too much one way or the other; he stayed right in the middle, unwilling to figure out how to fix it.
Or if he wanted to.
When his family looked at him, did they see their legacy in ruin—was that all they saw?
“What’s on your mind?”
Anastasia’s voice broke through his thoughts. A throb at the back of his head reminded him why he didn’t like females for more than a quick fuck—they never stopped talking.
Roman’s stare cut her way. “Let’s get something clear, otherwise, at the next stoplight, I’m kicking your ass out of this car.”
She sucked in a fast breath.
He didn’t wait for her to respond before adding, “We’re not here to talk. I’m taking you to my shop, and then you go on your way. Disappear. I don’t need to see you again. I don’t want to.”
Cold, yes.
But it was the truth.
At least, he was a decent enough man to offer her that. He couldn’t say much else for the rest, though.
She sat with her long legs crossed, and her fingers tangling and untangling in her lap, the nervous actions making him more and more unsettled as the quiet seconds ticked on. He didn’t care where she went or what she would have to do to get back home after this. Wherever her home was. He just wanted to wash his hands of her.
“I really am grateful to you,” Anastasia whispered. “If I didn’t leave with you ... he would never have let me go.”
Roman groaned in response. He didn’t need her gratitude. He just wanted to be left alone.
“And you didn’t have to do this for me, except you still did. I know the asshole act is just to make it clear where we stand—and I do. You know, but maybe you’re not the man you keep telling yourself you are, Roman Avdonin.”
Or maybe he was exactly that man.
She didn't have the first clue.
Roman whipped his face around to look at her. “You don’t fucking know me.”
His voice and expression should have been cold enough for her to get the hint and shut the fuck up. His respect for her dared to notch up when Anastasia tipped her chin upward slightly, and stared him down, unafraid.
“No, I don’t—someday, someone will, though. And when that happens, what will you do then?”
The words hit him right in the chest.
She didn’t know ...
Couldn’t.
But that terrified him.
The only thing that did.
• • •
Roman hadn’t noticed the phone that sat between them in the console until the damn thing started to ring. Through the Bluetooth speakers. He hadn’t put the radio on, but apparently, the speakers were turned up loud enough to make the ringing pierce through his eardrums.
“Is he as deaf as he is stupid?”
“It’s his phone,” Anastasia informed, glancing toward the phone.
Clearly.
Roman growled under his breath as he turned the volume down to a bearable level. Not that it did anything for the ache in his ears. “Why the fuck did he leave it in the car?”
“Paranoid. He thinks they’re bugged, and someone might be listening. He doesn’t like carrying them around everywhere.”
“Them? He has more than one?”
Anastasia shrugged. “He only ever gets burner phones and switches them out every week.”
Jesus.
He understood the need—many guys in his line of work replaced their phones often—still, not to that extent. Dima sounded more and more like someone who was constantly looking over his shoulder. Always afraid of getting caught with his pants down.
Why?
The obvious reason was rarely the right one.
The ringing finally ended, and then a few moments later, the screen on the dash blinked with a voice message. He didn’t know why, but the message started auto-playing through Bluetooth.
Shit.
Maybe the car wasn’t a rental.
Roman startled when he heard a soft, but annoyed, voice echo over the microphone.
“It’s me. Katee. There. I called you back. Are you happy now?”
She sounded like ... a girl.
Young.
Maybe ten.
Silence spread through the Bugatti when the message ended abruptly.
He really shouldn’t ask.
Roman’s mouth worked before he could stop it. “Who the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know. She calls him a lot, though,” Anastasia replied. “Maybe his sister?”
Maybe.
Either way, Roman didn’t give a shit. And because he couldn’t afford another distraction like the phone call, he didn’t waste time rolling down the window and tossing the device to the racing pavement below.
All he cared about now was getting the car to the shop where he would hide it until it could be cut down.
• • •
Despite owning three different chop shops across New York, the one in Brighton Beach was the one he preferred working at because it was also technically his home. One of two. He kept an apartment in the city—just because.
His loft was situated right above the chop shop. When someone from the bratva needed to find him, this was the first place they came to do so. And now it looked like the cops knew it, too.
Later, when he had time to think the situation over because he had nothing else to do except stare at the cement walls of a jail cell, Roman would blame the comfort he felt in the safety of his home for his distraction. He used the clicker to open the warehouse’s shutters before driving straight into a goddamn mess.
At first, when Roman saw the three armed cops standing there—weapons already drawn and pointed at him through the windshield—he thought it was a joke. Not once had his shops been raided in the past year. And even before that, the amount of police he had on his payroll ensured he could do business without worry they were going to constantly come up on him without e
nough warning from his sources to keep his side of things covered.
Except it wasn’t a joke.
And he was fucked.
“Oh, my God,” Anastasia whispered, horrified.
Roman’s foot had hit the brakes on the car to stop it all of three feet away from the legs of the officers. His other foot twitched with the urge to jam down on the gas, but a rational part of his brain kept him from making an even worse mistake than he already had tonight.
“Hands up—step out of the car with your hands up!”
“Now!”
Shit, he hadn’t even put the car in park. Roman’s heart raced like thundering hooves in his chest as his gaze darted from the cops in front of him, and the rapidly closing garage door behind him in the rearview mirror.
He could have made it—would have—if not for Anastasia reaching over and digging her red stiletto nails into his arm with enough force to drag Roman’s attention away from the danger he still faced.
“What the fuck are you—”
She didn’t even finish her sentence before the windshield was shot out of the Bugatti. Roman had enough sense to turn his face away from the exploding glass, but he couldn’t say if Anastasia had been smart enough—or quick, for that matter—to do the same. His low fuck hissed through the car when he turned his head just in time to see brass knuckles coming for the driver’s side window.
It was over, then.
Roman knew it.
His hands went up, and all he said, hoping Anastasia would hear, was, “Be easy, shit.”
Two cops went for him immediately—one must have got the car in park because the damn thing didn’t roll away when he found himself some distance away from the car, face down to cement with hands on his back and shoulders.
A knee found the middle of his shoulders, too.
“Nice place, Roman,” he heard one of the cops say above him. “Always wondered what it looked like inside.”
Christ.
“This was a setup,” Roman hissed as he watched the scene unfold.
Anastasia was pulled from the car, too, but it only took one pig to do the job on that side of things. The horror filling her face as tears streamed down her cheeks did nothing to ease the rough handling of the officer that dragged her to Roman’s side on the cement floor. It also didn’t stop her from fighting the man every step of the way.