The Bastard's Bargain

by Katee Robert

  * * *

  “It’s been a week. We can’t wait any longer.”

  Dmitri closed the door to Keira’s room and gave Mikhail a long look. “It can wait.”

  “With respect, boss, it can’t.” He fell into step as they headed down the hall toward the stairs. “Mae was released on bail.”

  Dmitri stopped cold and swung around to face his second. “How is that possible? We did everything but gift wrap her for the feds. Even they shouldn’t be able to fuck that up.”

  “And yet they managed.” Mikhail passed over a manila folder, his expression severe.

  Dmitri flipped through it and resumed walking. “My office. Now.” This wasn’t business that should be discussed where anyone could hear it. The fewer people who knew he’d been caught off guard with this news, the better.

  Once they were safely shut into his office, he spread the handful of papers onto his desk. And cursed. “I should have known.” Since Mae had been found torturing an FBI agent’s daughter—also Aiden O’Malley’s fiancée, Alethea was claiming entrapment and a whole host of other things. It shouldn’t have mattered—tricking someone into a petty crime and kidnapping a woman to torture with the intent to murder were two very different things. Except apparently not according to the judge.

  The charges against Mae hadn’t been dismissed, but the judge granted her bail—and it had been promptly paid despite being an astronomical amount. There was no possibility of Mae suddenly becoming an upstanding citizen, which meant she and her mother were gunning directly for the one they’d blame for this whole situation—Dmitri. “Blyad. If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  That was the question. Dmitri prided himself on staying ahead of the game, but he hadn’t expected this. He’d been confident that the FBI would ensure Mae was put behind bars to await her trial—and that she’d be found guilty. The daughter of an FBI agent was a superb witness, and Charlie’s reputation would be cleared by the time they went to trial. Another fucking surprise. Perhaps if he’d stayed instead of rushing to Boston to collect Keira…

  It wouldn’t have changed anything. His reach within the local government was long, but no judge on his payroll would have granted Mae Eldridge bail. Ultimately, his being there or not wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.

  Alethea wasn’t the problem. She was a crafty woman, but she could be reasoned with. She wouldn’t do anything that would directly endanger herself or her family. If he pushed the stakes high enough, she’d take the hint and disappear.

  Mae, on the other hand, was a wild card.

  “Does Aiden know?”

  “Hard to say. It went down in New York, and Finch doesn’t seem the type to give him a courtesy heads-up.”

  No, agent John Finch was more likely to hang his daughter out as bait to see if Mae would bite again. Dmitri could have told him it was a lost cause—Mae didn’t seem to have the same self-preservation that her mother possessed. She was the type who is more than happy to cut off her nose to spite her face—perhaps even literally—but she wasn’t an idiot. Being arrested would infuriate her and, if she couldn’t get to Aiden and Charlie, she’d move onto the next best thing—Dmitri. Worse, Mae wasn’t governed by the unspoken rules that most of the people who moved in their world were. She didn’t give a damn about taking out innocents if it meant she was able to hurt her target.

  She wouldn’t strike directly at Dmitri. Even she was smart enough to know that was suicide. No, she’d hit him where she suspected it would hurt most.

  She’d target Keira and the families of his men.

  They had to find her.

  “Pull our men’s families into the available safe houses in the city. Ensure there are men there on a rotating schedule.” They couldn’t keep his people locked down indefinitely, but if there was one thing Mae lacked, it was patience. Alethea’s leash on her daughter had snapped, and he saw no evidence that it would be reclaimed.

  He picked up the phone and dialed Aiden’s cell. Dmitri hadn’t had any intention of reaching out so soon after the last less-than-civil conversation, but the situation had changed.

  “You have a lot of fucking nerve calling me now.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to put your vengeance on hold for the time being.”

  “Fuck that. We’re coming for you, Romanov.”

  He clenched his fist and then forced himself to release it. Losing his cool right now might be satisfying in the short term, but he had bigger problems than his and Aiden’s pissing match. “Mae Eldridge is free.”

  That seemed to bring Aiden up short. “The fuck she is.”

  “She was released on bail this morning. Her attorney claimed she was entrapped by the FBI, and the judge bought it.” He had to take a few seconds to fight down the curses that threatened to escape. “She and Alethea have dropped off the radar.”

  Aiden was quiet for several long moments. Probably living through those long hours in between when Mae took his woman and he was able to rescue her. Hours when they couldn’t be sure Charlie was still alive. “She needs to be stopped.”

  “I concur.” In addition to doubling the manpower he had on the search, Aiden’s help would ensure the O’Malley didn’t move against him for marrying Keira. Two birds with one well-placed stone, though he would have rather traded barbs with the man if it meant Mae was safely locked up.

  “I’ll be in touch”

  “See that you are.” Dmitri hung up and turned to Mikhail. The dark-haired man waited patiently as he always did, the ultimate hunter. “Find them. Alethea’s too smart to have gone back to the family home, but we can’t take for granted that she didn’t.” Bailing Mae out was a calculated risk. Alethea had to know that both O’Malley and Romanov wouldn’t rest until the threat to their respective women was eliminated, so she wouldn’t have made that decision lightly. Mae was brutal enough to last in prison for some time unscathed, which meant there was a deeper game being played.

  Now it was just a matter of finding out what.

  A pounding on the door had him fighting a sigh. Only one person dared make an entrance like that. Sure enough, when Mikhail opened it, a tall redheaded woman stood there scowling. Always scowling. Between her coloring and size, she could easily pass for a lumberjack—and she had the shitty attitude to match. Dr. Jones.

  Her thick brows lowered at the sight of him. “She’s through the worst of it.”

  He didn’t let himself sigh, because any outward sign of emotion was handing ammunition to the enemy. Dmitri had no illusions—the second the doctor left here, she’d call Aiden O’Malley and report everything. The only reason she’d taken his call to begin with was because she’d been on the O’Malley payroll for years. Keira might be married to Dmitri, but she was still an O’Malley in the woman’s eyes. He’d called, and she’d come to New York to help see Keira through her withdrawal.

  Dmitri crossed to his desk and wrote out a check for the agreed-upon amount. Dr. Jones wasn’t a fool—she’d ensured herself a nice bonus for being inconvenienced. He’d readily agreed to it because, even out of her mind, Keira was more likely to trust a doctor she had experience with than anyone on his staff. “Anything I should know?”

  “She’s going to be out of sorts for another week, at least. Depressed, anxious, something else along those lines. No telling how it’ll present, because everyone is different, but she won’t be back to anything resembling normal even though she’ll think she is.”

  Fragile. For all her fire and spikes, his Keira was so goddamn fragile.

  “I’ll take it into account.”

  She gave him a long look. “I’d also remove or lock up all the alcohol in the place, and whatever other drugs you might have lying around. She didn’t choose this, so chances of relapse are high.”

  He’d already accounted for it. Keira would find no easy pickings in the household, and the men were under severe threat if they supplied her with something
Dmitri had forbidden. All of that wouldn’t matter a damn bit if he couldn’t convince her that she had a good reason to stay sober.

  Dmitri didn’t lose.

  He sure as fuck wasn’t going to lose when it came to Keira.

  Chapter Four

  Keira woke up restless. She tried to go back to sleep, but unfamiliar energy coursed through her, demanding she get out of bed and do something. She started by peeling off her clothes. They weren’t the ones she’d worn to Romanov’s—or ones that she’d packed—and she had no memory getting dressed in the first place. Did that goddamn Russian do it?

  She wasn’t sure what bothered her more—that he’d seen her naked or that he had seen her when she was defenseless.

  Needing some armor back in place, she wandered into the bathroom. It was as big as some people’s bedrooms, with a tiled walk-in shower and double sinks with a counter large enough to sleep on. The dark gray coloring was accented with deep red, and brought the word decadent to mind.

  A second doorway led to a large walk-in closet filled with clothing. She rifled through it, her eyebrows inching up. All in her size, down to the shoes lined up like little soldiers in their cubbies. High-handed Russian. That was his MO, though, so she wasn’t exactly surprised. Dmitri Romanov was god of the world he moved in, and he didn’t hesitate to bend people to his will to suit his purposes.

  He wouldn’t find her nearly as bendable as the others in his life.

  Keira considered dolling herself up, but he’d see right through the ploy. Dmitri had home-court advantage, and he would use it without mercy. Her only chance to get one up on him was to act against expectations and use his surprise for her gain. She didn’t know what she wanted yet, but she wasn’t going to roll over and play Stepford wife just because she’d said yes at the altar.

  If Dmitri had given her half a chance, she would have given him a chance.

  Instead, he pulled high-handed shit that was right in line with her brother, and then locked her in a room for…God, she didn’t even know how long it had been. Long enough for her to lose her damn mind and sweat out every single drop of alcohol and whiff of weed in her system. Another choice she might have considered making on her own but that he’d taken from her hands.

  He’d pay for that, the same way he’d pay for the threat he’d leveled to draw her out of her home and into that goddamn chapel.

  She took what was supposed to be a quick shower…right up until she realized how gross she felt. Both the shampoo and soap were expensive and smelled faintly of roses, and the water pressure eased tension from her shoulders. Giving up all pretense of rushing through it, she soaped herself up several times and then stood under the water, her racing thoughts slowing for the first time since she’d walked out of the O’Malley house and climbed into Dmitri’s car.

  Romanov wouldn’t allow open rebellion. He’d expect it, but he wouldn’t be able to let her run rampant unless he wanted to undermine his position—the whole reason he’d married her in the first place. Because of that, he would have guarded against it the same way someone childproofed a house.

  The last thing he’d expect was obedience—or at least the appearance of it.

  Keira could play the game. She was out of practice, but it wouldn’t take much to slide back into the rhythm of things. The Romanov operations were just another flavor of O’Malley. Dmitri would want kids at some point, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. There wasn’t a chance in hell he’d push for that before he secured his power.

  In the meantime, Keira would undermine him in every way possible. She wouldn’t step into outright rebellion, but she wasn’t going to make it easy, either. The terms Romanov had laid out were clear enough—as long as Keira was in his home as his wife, he would not pursue war with her family. She might like the idea of everything he loved going down in flames, but she couldn’t risk trying to make it happen without fear that it would blow back on Aiden and the others.

  And then her choice would be for nothing.

  But that didn’t mean that she had to play nice. She could make Dmitri’s life a living hell. Subtly. She’d be the rock in his shoe, the sliver in his palm, the itch he couldn’t quite scratch. As long as she didn’t cross the line, the worst he could do was punish her. Not Aiden. Not the O’Malleys.

  Keira could take anything he doled out, and she’d come back swinging the second she hit the ground. He thought he could buy a wife and that would be the end of it, but she’d been property for too damn long. If he wasn’t going to give her the freedom she desperately needed, then she’d make him suffer until he relented.

  If she enjoyed it in the meantime…well, she never pretended she was a nice girl.

  She dried her hair and put on enough makeup that she didn’t look like she’d spent the last week on the verge of death, and then got dressed. A pair of jeans and a slouchy tank top that showed a bright red bra with every move completed the look—put together without appearing to try too hard. Chew on that, Romanov.

  One last look in the mirror made her pause. Even with the makeup, she looked like shit. Too thin, her cheeks hollowed out, her long hair lackluster, dark roots showing. That was priority number one—get into fighting shape. Charlie had introduced her to Krav Maga, and Keira had every intention of pursuing it going forward. She’d spent too much of her life helpless, and she wasn’t about to go back to feeling like that.

  The rest? It would fall into place as time went on.

  But first, she had to go face the dragon and lay some ground rules.

  * * *

  Dmitri heard someone enter his office, but he didn’t look up from the tally of numbers before him. Whoever it was wasn’t a threat—Mikhail wouldn’t have allowed them in if they were—and it wasn’t good form to drop everything to address interruptions. He wrote down the total and capped the pen. Only then did he look up.

  Keira.

  She padded across the thick gray carpet and slouched into one of the chairs across the desk from him, every inch a queen despite being dressed casually. Her bare foot swung, drawing his attention. The image of a barefoot Keira wandering his home filled him with a possessive feeling that he didn’t know what to do with. “You’re awake.”

  “I want to renegotiate the terms.”

  Surprise flared, though he fought to keep it off his face. “We didn’t negotiate to begin with.”

  “Yes, we did. Peace in exchange for me.” She straightened in the chair, bringing both feet to the floor. “I want an addendum.”

  What could she possibly want that she didn’t already have? Granted, he hadn’t taken the time to walk her through her new life, but judging from the clothing she wore, she’d found the closet he’d had outfitted for her. Dmitri leaned back. “There’s an account already set up in your name. I have access to the information, but it’s yours alone. There will be money deposited on the first of every month to do with as you will.” He found himself curious as to what she’d buy when her every other need was taken care of. It would tell him a lot about the woman, and he craved the knowledge.

  Her expression didn’t give an inch. “I expect nothing less.”

  Brazen. So damn brazen. He shouldn’t like her arrogance, but he was drawn to it all the same. “Outline your addendum.”

  “I want access to a local Krav Maga gym.”

  “Consider it done—though one of my men will accompany you to and from, and I’ll choose a gym that is trustworthy.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Fine.”

  That had been easy enough. He’d even expected it, though not so quickly. She’d spent time at a gym in Boston with Charlie Finch, and from all the information he had gathered, she’d enjoyed it immensely. It would keep her busy and content, which was his intent. He picked up his pen. “If that’s all—”

  “It’s not.” Keira crossed her legs and leaned forward, the move making her shirt slide down and revealing a lacy red bra that exposed as much as it covered. Dmitri got one breathtaking glimpse of her
nipple through the lace before she sat back, shielded once more. A long look at her face revealed no manipulative intent, but she’d shown herself to be just as good as he was at masking her emotions.

  He waited.

  She stroked a finger along the seam of the chair arm. “You’ll want heirs.”

  Dmitri froze. He hadn’t outlined the need for children specifically during their previous conversations, but it was something that would be required of her…eventually. Never in a million years had he thought she’d broach the conversation herself. “Yes.”

  “You’ll have them.” She lifted her gaze, her hazel eyes cold. “But you’ll have them when I say so. We aren’t having sex until I choose it.”

  “I am not going to force you to have sex with me, Keira.” The fact that she seemed to think he would…

  She waved that away. “No shit. You’re a monster, but you’re not a total piece of shit.” She met his gaze again. “But let’s not fuck around—it’s going to happen one way or another. You know it. I know it. You set your mind on seducing me, and I might not topple like a domino, but I’d be fighting both myself and you to hold out.”

  He bit back his first response and considered her. It was no secret that she wanted him. They’d had several near misses over the last year, though he had been the one putting on the brakes at the time. With Dr. Jones’s warning about her emotions ringing through his head, he hadn’t planned on broaching that subject for at least another week or so. To have Keira state it so baldly intrigued him. He leaned forward. “You want me.”

  “I’m not going to say it twice.” She shook her head. “My point—my addendum—is that you will not try to sway me to sex. When I decide it’s time, I’ll let you know in no uncertain terms.”

  That surprised a laugh out of him. “No.”

  “What the hell do you mean, no?”