by Leah Wilde
She walked in front of me meekly, hurrying to get past me. I smiled to myself. I figured she probably thought I was going to try to hurt her after what she saw in the interrogation room with Dimitri. As long as she played by the rules, she didn’t have anything to worry about, short of teasing me too much by swaying that pretty little ass of hers as she climbed the stairs in front of me.
Once we were back in the shop, I led her into the office so we could go upstairs to the clubhouse. We renovated the second floor of the building, taking out all of the offices and opening it up from one end to the other, creating what was essentially one large lounge. We had pool tables, dart boards, weight benches, a large flat screen TV mounted to the brick wall with a few couches in front of it, and a fully functional kitchen with a stocked bar. Sure enough, when we walked through the door to the clubhouse, we found where everyone was hiding out.
“How big is your operation?” Julia asked when we walked in.
“You don’t need to know all that,” I told her. “You just need to know what you’re here to do. The less you know, the less you learn, the easier it’s going to be for you to return to your quiet academic life when all of this is over.”
I led her to one of the round tables at the bar and pulled a chair out for her. “I’ll be right back. Is beer okay?”
“Wine?”
I looked her up and down again. I pictured her as a red wine kind of girl. It was probably her guilty pleasure, like the things she did to herself at night when no one else was around. “Wine it is,” I told her, turning to the bar to grab our drinks.
I handed her a glass of red wine and sat down with a pint of Guinness.
“So, what did you learn?” I asked.
She took a sip of her wine and closed her eyes. I knew that look. That glass of wine was exactly what she needed after talking to Dimitri. “He’s not going to talk with you in the room,” she answered. “I don’t know if he’s intimidated or what, but he insists on talking without you. He’s convinced you’re going to kill him.”
“I am if he doesn’t start talking,” I teased her, but she didn’t seem to find it funny. She tensed up on me. “I’m kidding. He has too much information I need. If I could get it another way, he wouldn’t even be here.” What I failed to tell her is that we would have killed him instead of bringing him in. It seemed important to her for this just to be a simple procedure and not part of something bigger and uglier than I was letting on.
“And what is this about staying until I get something out of him?” she snapped after another sip of wine.
“You agreed. You came along.” I took a long drink from my beer.
She shook her head. “I didn’t realize I was getting into this at the time,” she said.
“Well, once you get him to talk, you can go back to your quiet, boring life a little wealthier and forget any of this even happened.”
“I don’t know about being able to forget,” she said as an afterthought.
“It’s easy to do. You just push it back and out of your mind, until one day, something comes up to remind you, and you realize you’d forgotten all about it.” I gave her my best warm smile.
She just shook her head. “Well, I guess if I’m going to be working on him for a while, I need to go ahead and meet with him alone. I might be able to get something out of him if I approach him alone.”
“Just don’t get any ideas,” I warned her.
“What do you mean?”
I looked at her over my glass as I took another long drink, finishing off the dark beer and relishing the deep flavor of it. “Just, before you go in there alone, you have to agree to tell me everything he says to you. I don’t think you understand what all is at stake here. In fact, for your sake, I hope you don’t.”
She set her glass down on the table and sat back in her chair, uncrossing her legs slowly—or maybe that was my imagination slowing time down to let me stare at her delicious skin in an attempt to see what was hidden up her skirt—and re-crossing them, switching which knee was on top. “I’m starting to get an idea of what’s going on here, and I don’t like it.” She leveled her eyes on me, forcing me to look up from her legs.
“Well, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but all you need to know is that I need you to get information from Dimitri. I need to know where his boss, Ivan, is and what his next move is. You don’t need to know why. You just need to get that information for me if you want to go home,” I told her plainly.
“Oh, so now you’re going to hold me against my will? Just like you’re doing to poor Dimitri down there?” She tapped her fingers impatiently on the table.
“No one is being held against their will,” I told her. “I’m just not letting anyone leave.”
“How the hell is that any different? And besides, I saw the straps and ropes on Dimitri’s arms and legs holding him to that chair downstairs. You’re holding him here, and now you’re not just telling me to stay, you’re telling me you’re not going to let me leave.”
“Right. And the restraints on Dimitri are for his own good. I don’t want him roaming around in that room down there. It’s dark. It would be a shame if anything happened to him,” I responded.
She shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m involved in something like this.”
“I know it’s got to be quite different from what you’re used to. You’re used to the quiet academic lifestyle, aren’t you?” I tried to sound reassuring. I figured I’d try to distract her by getting her to talk about herself, and that way I’d learn a little bit about who she was as well.
She narrowed her eyes at me, suspicion all over her beautiful face.
“What made you so interested in Russia to begin with?” I asked her, not backing down. I was determined to break through her walls.
“I think we need to focus on the matter at hand,” she said, dodging my question.
“Help me out, then. Tell me a little about who you are.” I looked at my empty pint glass and thought about getting Ricky to pour me another.
“I think the less you know, the easier it will be for you to let me go back to my quiet academic life when all of this is over,” she fired back, using my words against me.
“Ouch. You know, I didn’t have you pegged for being a smart-ass,” I told her.
“Oh? Did you think I was this sheltered little nerd because I have obviously devoted my life to scholarly pursuits?”
I had her. “Well, yeah,” I admitted. “I expected a quiet, naïve woman I could easily trick into doing whatever I wanted, but that’s obviously not you.”
“No, it’s not. And thank you for noticing,” she said.
I fought back the grin trying to spread across my face. It would have given me away. “I couldn’t help but notice. You made it very clear you’re not completely clueless like so many other professors and researchers.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time out in the field,” she said. “You gain a lot of worldly experience that way. It gets you out of your head and out of your books.”
I’d obviously struck a chord with her. She wasn’t above flattery, and I was going to use that fact to get what I needed from her.
She finished her wine and stood up.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked, trying to sound like I was teasing. My deep, husky voice had a tendency to always sound menacing. I wanted her to realize when I was being playful. It didn’t help that I was a little suspicious that she was going to try to leave again.
“I figure I need to go ahead and sit back down with Dimitri for you,” she said, stretching. “The sooner I get some answers from him, the sooner I get to leave, right?”
“Sure.” I didn’t want her to leave. I wanted to keep her around so I could figure out what made her tick. Plus, I didn’t trust how willing she was to help me. Something didn’t seem right, like she was playing along just to find a way out. “Let me walk you back down there,” I told her.
“No, I’m fine,” she insisted, starting
to walk away from me.
I got up from the table and followed her, cornering her at the top of the stairs. I grabbed her by her hips and pushed her against the wall, positioning myself between her and the staircase. I could feel the curve of her hips under my hands. I stood close, almost touching her.
I could feel her anxiety growing like vibrations emanating from her body. I heard her breath quicken. She was scared and nervous, and her fear was delicious. I leaned in to whisper in her ear, and she pulled her hands up to block me from getting too close.
I smiled at her feeble gesture. “I’ve got the key,” I reminded her. “You’re not getting in that room without me.”
She laughed nervously. “Right. I forgot.”
I couldn’t explain the hold she had on me, but every time we were close to each other, I felt my desire for her growing. She didn’t fit the description of the hellraising women I normally went after—the free-spirited women who wore their sexuality on their sleeve, usually inked up with dark eyeliner, in blue jeans and leather. Julia wasn’t any of that. She was a good girl, but there was something under the surface that my primal senses picked up, something that wanted to be set free.
Normally, pushing someone against the wall and holding them there was simply an effective way to intimidate someone. Instead, I was just torturing myself by putting this prim and proper college professor in a compromising position, giving myself the perfect opportunity to take advantage of her.
“You weren’t thinking of trying to get away, were you?” I asked.
She winced at my words and pushed against me with her petite hands. I grabbed her thin wrists and pinned them against the wall, fighting myself back, resisting the urge to plant myself against her and let her feel the desire growing between my legs for her.
“You’re not leaving until I say so,” I said forcefully. “Get used to that idea.” I let go of her, backing away, not because I was finished with her but because if I’d stayed like that, I would have taken advantage of her.
I watched her hurry away from me, heading downstairs. The ache in my crotch convinced me I had to have her, but I was going to do it right. I wasn’t going to just take it; she wasn’t the kind of woman who seemed receptive to that sort of aggression. If I wanted her, I was going to have to seduce her and make her want me.
I followed her downstairs.
Chapter 5
When I reached the pit, I found Julia waiting patiently by the door to the interrogation room. She leaned against the wall with her hands crossed beneath the swell of her breasts. I walked up to her, deciding I wanted to keep her around a little longer. I decided not to give her another chance to talk to Dimitri right away, on the off-chance that he might have actually given her some information, bringing our work arrangement to an end. I couldn’t risk letting her walk out of here before I had the chance to work on her myself.
“I don’t think you’re ready to talk to him again,” I told her, watching the disappointment weigh down her features. It was obvious she’d been thinking about the possibility of getting information from him and getting out of here. And it felt good to see that hope stolen from her.
“But I thought that was what you wanted,” she argued.
“Not yet. Get back upstairs. I want to talk to you before you talk to him again. I want to know some specific information.” I figured if I let her in on what she was trying to get out of him, I would have a better chance of getting through to her.
She tilted her head. “I don’t get you. One minute you’re telling me to get down here to talk to him, and the next you’re telling me it’s not time, that you need to basically brief me on what you want me to ask.”
“Just go upstairs and wait for me,” I ordered her in my best patient voice.
“Yes, sir,” Julia snapped, pushing herself off the wall and walking toward the stairs.
“Oh, and, Julia,” I called after her.
“What, Gage?” She turned and spit the words out at me. My God, she was mesmerizing.
“Don’t go anywhere. If you leave, I know how to find you, and I will find you,” I threatened her. “And when I find you, you’ll regret it.”
She didn’t say anything else. She simply turned and finished crossing the pit. I watched her take the stairs back up to the garage before turning around fishing out my keys.
When I entered the interrogation room, Dimitri looked at me with questions in his eyes. He was obviously wondering where his little friend, the professor, had gone. I smiled at him. It was a humorless smile. There wasn’t anything kind or funny about my visit. The smile on my face came from malice. I wanted nothing more than to go ahead and hurt this man.
I knew the only thing causing him pain would accomplish was my own sick pleasure. I knew I wouldn’t get any information out of him. He didn’t speak a lick of English. But maybe pain would be a good teacher.
“You thought you were going to get to talk to your little friend again, didn’t you?” I taunted him.
He just stared at me, deaf to every word I said. He said something to me in Russian, but, of course, I understood him about as well as he understood me. And I had the upper hand here, not him. His eyes tracked me closely as I walked over to the chair I’d knocked over earlier and picked it back up. It didn’t take a Russian scholar to know what he was thinking behind those expressive eyes.
“You’re wondering why I came back in here alone, aren’t you?”
He just stared and blinked.
I walked around to his side of the table and wrapped a hand around one of his wrists, pulling out my pocket knife and holding it where he could see it. “Well, I’m here to get more information from you, of course. You know what I need to know, but if you continue to refuse to talk, I’m going to have to hurt you. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’m going to have to cut off your fingers.”
I held the small, sharp blade over his knuckles.
“Where is Ivan?” I asked slowly and loudly, speaking as clearly as I could.
Dimitri just looked at my blade over his fingers and moved frantically in the chair, as if he were trying to scoot back and away from me. He panted something over and over, begging me not to do it. In Russian, of course, but I could still understand the sentiment in his tone.
I shook my head and laughed in his face. “I can’t understand you, you sorry sack of shit. You’re going to have to try harder.”
I pressed the blade against the middle finger on his right hand and slowly drew it across his skin, slicing open the knuckle. Dimitri strained against the straps and ropes holding him in the chair and groaned against the pain, letting out a string of expletives, all in Russian.
I knew it was pointless to try to talk to him or get anything out of him. I knew I wouldn’t be able to understand what he was telling me, no matter what it was. But it felt good to see him writhe in pain, especially since he was just as unable to express himself to me as I was to understand it.
“You know, Dimitri, I’m starting to like our little arrangement,” I told him. “You can’t understand me. I can’t understand you. You can say whatever you want, and it doesn’t make a difference, and I can just treat you the way you deserve to be treated without feeling bad. For all I know, you could literally be begging me to do it again.”
But no matter what I did, I wasn’t really getting anywhere with him, and that was frustrating. He had the info I needed, but Julia was my only hope of getting any of it out of him.
Dimitri worked for Ivan, the most powerful and ruthless mob boss in the city. We’d been gunning for each other since day one. Ivan had the whole Russian mob thing going for him. He had connections back home supplying him with funds and muscle whenever he needed it. There were even rumors that he was involved in human trafficking, bringing Russian women over with the promise of a better life only to sell them off to American men like pieces of property.
Dimitri was his right hand man. If there was anything to know about Ivan, Dimitri knew it, but the languag
e barrier made him invaluable. He was like a walking safe. The information he protected was only accessible for a select few. The rest of us who didn’t speak Russian were out of luck.
Dimitri had been sent by Ivan to assassinate me. One of my brothers had intercepted the information on the street and alerted me to the threat posed by Dimitri. When he made his attempt on my life, we were waiting for him.
“I haven’t forgotten how you tried to kill me,” I taunted him, leaning down so that I spoke directly into his ear. Though he couldn’t understand what I was saying, I hoped my voice was still unnerving.
We’d gone out for a ride to draw him out and force his hand. What he hadn’t realized, of course, was that when he’d set up shop in one of the old abandoned buildings nearby, he’d been spotted by a couple of my guys. By the time we hit the road, we had people in place to take him down and bring him in.