She met Alek’s stare and then Quan’s and Jak’s as they passed by them, her eyes imploring them to help her.
“G, let me talk to her.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. Alek’s voice was so ridiculously calm it scared her more than if he’d put a knife to her throat. Could they be so blasé about this because holding a hysterical woman against her will was a common occurrence for them?
“I got this.” Gabriel sidestepped another of her kicks. “Calm down, Eva. No one’s going to hurt you.”
He was lying. She heard it plainly in his voice, that trace of but-I-have-no-choice. She doubled her efforts, twisting and squirming wildly, which only made him grip her harder, squeezing until she could barely breathe. Little fireworks went off in her periphery from lack of blood or oxygen. Who knew which?
“I’m out of here,” she heard Quan announce. “I can’t watch this.”
“Go. All of you. I’ll call later.” Gabriel wasn’t even breathing heavily as he entered the bedroom. He back kicked the door shut and lowered her to the floor when they reached the foot of the bed.
“Are you going to relax enough for me to take my hand away?”
In response to his lame question, she peeled her lips back from her teeth and sank them into his palm, her foot going back again for another heel kick. He grunted and hissed when it connected, then brought the back of her head to his shoulder and squeezed her waist so hard she moaned.
“Your spirit is impressive as fuck, but pointless. Now stop this before you hurt yourself.”
The command paired with the expectation that she would obey made her see red. She shrieked in outrage behind his hand. Couldn’t do much else because he was too fucking strong. She shrieked again with what she knew was nearing her last breath.
That’s when he sighed and muttered, “Fine. Here goes nothing.”
† † †
Gabriel braced himself as Eva bucked against his hold yet again. His temples pounded with dread. If she was acting this way and she hadn’t even heard the story yet. Fuck. She was gonna fucking hate him when he was done. He knew it.
Regardless, he shoved the words from his throat. “I’ve known your father since I was thirteen years old.”
She stilled instantly but for her chest rising and falling as she sucked for air. Her precious heart slammed against his forearm so strongly he almost didn’t go on.
But he no longer had a choice.
“His name is Vasily Tarasov. He’s the leader of one of the most powerful Russian crime syndicates in the United States. He brought me in to watch over you two months ago while he was out of the country. He didn’t want you left without protection in case his enemies got to you…” Shit. He did not want to do this to her. “The way they got to your mother. Kathryn’s car wreck wasn’t an accident, Eva. She was deliberately run off the road. She was murdered.”
The sound that came from her throat was something Gabriel knew he’d never forget as long as he lived. The anguished cry ripped into him like a white-hot blade as her head moved slowly from side to side, her legs crumpling so that he had to take her full weight on.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” he whispered through his tightening throat. “I’m so fucking sorry.” He removed his hand from her mouth and turned her around to face him, half expecting a fist to fly at his jaw.
But all she did was move into him, her hands grasping the front of his shirt to help hold herself up.
“Please tell me you’re lying,” she pleaded.
“I can’t do that.”
“Why…why her? Why my mom? She was all I had. All I ever had.”
Helpless didn’t come close to describing what he felt as she began to cry, her gut-wrenching sobs shaking him, the tragic questions burning his ears. “I swear to God I would take this for you if I could,” he whispered into her hair. “I’d give anything to save you from this pain.” Meaningless words to her, no doubt, but true all the same.
After what seemed an eternity, her grip loosened and she pushed herself back so she could see his face. He dropped his arms, hoping her need to bolt had passed. Her red-rimmed eyes were still shimmering. Her face raw with emotion. But it was the cold, detached look she leveled him with that chilled him to the bone.
She braced her shoulders and demanded hoarsely, “What else.”
“Eva—” He raised his hand, but she stepped back with a jerk.
“Don’t. You. Dare. Just finish what you have to say so I can get the hell out of this nightmare you’ve dragged me into.”
So she could get out?
Right then he knew he had a choice to make. Continue this while feeling every single emotion she was feeling. Or revert to the man his father had raised with pride so many years ago—that cold, ruthless being who’d been taught to kill his emotions before they got in the way of what needed to be done.
Gabriel moved so that he stood between her and the door, and when he looked at her again, it was through the lens of a lethal man who’d made a promise to a deadly Russian leader.
“You are not leaving here.”
She spun to face him, grief and anger all over her face. “The hell I’m not! You can’t stop me. So quit all of this screwing around and finish this!”
A pitiless smile curved his lips. “Don’t for a minute fool yourself into thinking I can’t do whatever the fuck I want. From here on out, you’re mine, sweetheart, and you’re not going anywhere.”
Her gasp was sharp, her expression icy in her outrage, those eyes hardening to the same dark azure Gabriel saw every time he was in the room with Vasily. “Since you clearly have more to say, why don’t you start talking.”
Gabriel did, but not because she’d ordered him to.
“For the past couple of months, I’ve been your father’s eyes and ears where you’re concerned. There hasn’t been one second of one day since Vasily came to me that your movements haven’t been monitored by me or one of my boys.”
She stumbled until the backs of her knees hit the bed and she went down heavily, bouncing slightly on the mattress.
“Caleb Paynne is on my payroll. You were right. We know each other. He agreed to go to New York to keep an eye on you when I couldn’t be there.”
She shook her head. “That can’t be. He would have told me.”
“Call him. He’ll confirm it.”
A spark of betrayal flashed in her eyes before she bowed her head to hide her expression.
He went on. “Everything I see is put into a report. Everyday stuff that your father used to see himself before he left. I know about your penchant for double-raw-skinny-lattes from Starbucks. I know you prefer OPI nail polish to Zoya. Like your father, you’ll sit with your back to the wall rather than the room, every time. You drive carefully but like speed. Your favorite color is blue, unless we’re talking clothes—then it’s black. Leggings and a tank top are your choice when going casual, jeans and too-small shirts if you’re going for a ride on that asshole’s bike. When a man checks you out, the second his back is turned you roll your eyes because you never fail to notice. For some reason, you enjoy cut green beans the way others enjoy an expensive steak, and you’ll almost always stop when you pass by a store that has shoes in a window display. If someone is walking a dog, I’ve yet to see you go by them without mauling the thing for at least a minute.”
“Oh my God.” A lone tear trailed down her ashen cheek as she tented her hands over her mouth.
Closing his eyes against a wave of self-loathing, he recalled some details Vasily had given him during a call they’d shared about a month after Gabriel had started watching Eva. “Your father has known you your whole life. He may have left to keep you and your mother safe, but he was never far away. He told me about the day you lost your first tooth, said you were in a park. You were five, and he was there. And the day you had your first haircut when you were three? He was standing in the shadows across the street watching because he didn’t want to miss it.”
She shook her he
ad and pressed her hands over her ears, so he raised his voice.
“He was there every year on your first and last days of school, birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving. Told me it nearly killed him watching you and Kathryn cry together the time she brought you and Nika to some girl’s summer camp you’d insisted on attending. You were thirteen. And that fat estate deposit you receive every month? The one your mother used to get before her death, from the wealthy uncle that passed away without a next of kin? The uncle never existed. It’s from your father. Just one more way he arranged to take care of you two.”
“Stop it,” she whispered, dropping her hands. She was visibly shaking. “Please, stop. Oh my God. What are you doing? How do you know these things?”
He didn’t stop. “Vasily chose me to protect you because he trusts me. He knows I’m more than capable. But what neither of us realized was that your connection to me might bring you into more danger than your connection to him.”
She pushed to her feet, but that didn’t stop him from talking.
“My father was the head of our crime family, and the last job I did for him was to leave a truck filled with explosives in front of a factory owned by one of his enemies. Long story short—my brother’s woman was in the building that blew up. The day I left New York, he vowed to kill any woman I got involved with the same way I’d killed the woman he loved.”
With Eva now directly in front of him, her expression tormented, Gabriel skidded down the last stretch.
“The man you met at Caleb’s place the day you left New York.” He paused, frowning when her eyes fluttered. “Stefano Moretti is my brother, Eva. And he’s coming for you.”
He caught her as she went down.
As he lifted her into his arms, he cursed in every language he knew, placing her on the bed and brushing her hair away from her face. He pulled the covers from beneath her to tuck her in, terrified by the icy feel of her skin. Straightening, he jogged out to the living room to grab his phone from where he’d dropped it earlier. He whistled for the boys as he hauled ass back to Eva, knowing one of them would have stayed on his door.
In seconds, Alek, Jak, and Micha were all barreling into the bedroom, their steps pounding like thunder.
“What happened?” Micha asked as he went to his knees beside the bed.
Gabriel was about to level him for his gall, but then remembered the guy had been medically trained in the army back in Russia. “She passed out. Dead faint.” He also remembered that Stefano’s underboss had escaped their custody, critically injuring a man in the process. He turned to Jak. “How’s Abel? And you’d better tell me someone found Furio.” He snapped the throw blanket from the chair in the corner and stalked over to drape it over Eva’s still form.
“Abel’s in surgery. Jerod said he’d call but it doesn’t look good. Furio is still MIA.”
Gabriel saw red. “That cocksucker. If Abel dies, too, I’ll…Jesus Christ,” he growled, deflating at the thought. “I should have sent someone else out with them.”
“The twins have never needed a third, G,” Alek said. “That’s why we have them. This isn’t your fault. You can’t control everything.”
“I haven’t controlled shit since this one came into my life.” His voice cracked like lightning bolts in the quiet room as he flung his arm toward Eva. She didn’t budge.
“Her pulse is slowing.” Micha got to his feet and looked down at Eva. “I wouldn’t worry too much, Moretti. She’s Vasily Tarasov’s kid. This is totally doable for her.”
Fuck, he hoped so. He sank onto the edge of the bed and slowly counted to ten. Very gently, he rested his hand on the flat expanse between Eva’s hips and measured her breathing.
“I sent Vito and Bobby T to the airport, and Maks is monitoring everything else under the sun. We’ll find him.”
He looked up at Jak and was grateful the guy was getting on with it. “Furio is as experienced as we are. I never should have underestimated him.”
“We’ll find him,” Jak repeated as he waved at the others to head out. “I doubt she’ll want an audience when she comes to.” He halted mid-step and palmed his phone. He read what had to be a text and then sighed in a way that could only mean one thing. “Abel’s out, and barring anything unusual, should be fine.”
Gabriel sent up a silent prayer of thanks. Jerod would have been lost without his brother.
Jak slapped the doorjamb on his way out. “We’ll call if we hear anything else.”
“Not if it’s her,” Gabriel stipulated, causing three sets of eyebrows to go up. “She’s going to need to let the steam out. And I have a feeling it’s going to come in the way of a few hundred choice words in my direction.”
“Set your phone up in the corner; video and audio,” Micha instructed with a straight face. “Maks will want the footage.” The asshole closed the door behind them.
† † †
Awareness returned slowly to Eva as thick layers of darkness separated, stretched apart, and then dissipated altogether. An odd sense of comfort battled with anxiety as she opened her eyes.
“Come on, sweetheart. You’re killing me here.”
Well, that explained the warmth. Gabriel was holding her, and she was wrapped up in his bed like a Christmas cracker. She shifted and he reared back. Their eyes met.
“Finally.” He sounded so gut-wrenchingly relieved that her stomach tightened.
“What’s wrong…” She stiffened when it all came rushing back.
“Shh. It’s okay,” he murmured, cupping her cheek. “Please stay calm. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Fine? How could anything ever be fine again after all the shit this psycho had told her?
Her father? Gabriel expected her to believe he knew her father? Who happened to be a Russian mobster? And not just any Russian mobster, like that wouldn’t be enough, but the head of some deadly syndicate?
The last few months swiftly played through her mind.
Her mother’s accident…Caleb showing up in New York…right around the time Gabriel said he’d been contacted…seeing Gabriel at TarMor…then at the gala…him being her boss…
Everything suddenly clicked into place.
Caleb’s apartment that day. Stefano Moretti knowing who she was. Unknown men with their unexplained warnings and messages. Gabriel always showing up at the right time.
Her mom, murdered.
Her father, protecting her.
Gabriel and Stefano Moretti, brothers.
Gabriel, the son of a mafia boss.
People were trying to kill her.
With a swift shove, she slipped out of his arms and leapt from the bed. She barely made it to the bathroom before her stomach unloaded. She wretched and wretched, but not having eaten anything in hours, she basically had dry heaves that wouldn’t quit. She felt Gabriel pull her hair back and settle a cool, damp cloth on the back of her neck. His warm hand stroked her back, the touch seeping through her shirt to heat her clammy skin.
Pulling away, she fell on her ass next to the toilet and stayed there, wrapping her arm around her knees as she wiped her mouth with the cloth. She stared up into Gabriel Moretti’s immobile features as he squatted in front of her.
“Eva.”
She shook her head fiercely, nearly waving the damp fabric in a sign of surrender. “Please,” she croaked. “I can’t take any more.”
“There is no more, sweetheart,” he assured her gently.
Hit by a wave of dizziness, she dropped her pounding head to her knees. She was suddenly too exhausted, too confused, and so scared she would have gladly welcomed a hard punch to the temple if it would have guaranteed another reprieve from the mess jamming up her brain.
She stayed slumped over and curled in on herself for who knew how long, until Gabriel’s strong arm burrowed under her knees. The other braced her upper back as he gathered her to his chest and rose to his full height. With no more fight left in her, she let him carry her back into the bedroom.
After all,
according to him, she was trapped. A prisoner. Even if she tried to run, they would be watching. The same way they had been for the past two months.
She was too numb to react to it anymore.
When he laid her on the bed, she had just enough energy to roll over so that her back was to him. She curled her legs up and hugged a pillow to her chest as she stared at the wall.
Her father, a man she’d never even seen a picture of, a man she hated, a man who’d walked out on her and her mom, had in fact been somewhere in the background of their lives, protecting them, watching over them, providing for them, without either of them ever having been aware of it.
“Where is my f-father now?” Her voice came out froglike as she struggled through a word she’d never before used in conjunction with my.
“In Russia.”
Russia. “The people responsible for my mom’s accident. Does he know who they are? Where they are?”
“They’re dead. By his hand.”
Her heart slammed into her ribs. Dead? Her father had killed them? Because they’d killed her mom?
How evil did it make her for finding more satisfaction than censure in that?
But they’d murdered her mother, causing a beautiful, selfless woman to burn alive while trapped in her car by the seat belt—
Eva squeezed her eyes shut and forced herself to continue her effort to make sense of it all.
Stefano Moretti.
At Caleb’s apartment, he’d assured her they’d meet again. Now she knew it was because he wanted to kill her. She couldn’t even touch on Caleb and why that other lying, sneaky, betraying jerk had kept such a potentially deadly secret from her.
“You knew I met your brother at Caleb’s apartment the day I left New York?”
“Yes.”
Of course he had. “The man with the long hair. He was with Stefano. Do you know him?”
“He’s one of my best friends. His name is Vincente Romani. Aside from Paynne, he was another of your shadows when I couldn’t be in New York to keep an eye on you.”
Vengeance Unleashed (The Wanted Men Series Book 1) Page 17