Debase

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “No.” He his jaw flexed. “It’s not.”

  I didn’t argue with him. I could feel the anger roll in chaotic waves off his body as we walked down the hall again and made our way into the main VIP area. People were dancing, drinking, the music was pumping and most of the women who were with the men, getting paid for their services, were still sober, still laughing, enjoying themselves until they were once again forced to stand in that horrible place and get sold off to the highest bidder.

  “Andrei?”

  “Hmmm.” He led me past one of the couples making out on the black leather couch. “Do they all get sold? Eventually?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Some are sold, some make too much money to sell and prefer to make this their home, and others don’t stand a chance.”

  “What do you mean they don’t stand a chance?”

  He stopped walking and stared straight ahead. “They’re the fighters that don’t give in, the women who won’t sell their bodies for the sake of their soul. They are the ones I try to save.”

  “You can’t save them all…”

  “One day, I will,” he rasped. “One day, I’ll raze the walls of this place and never look back.”

  Andrei Petrov didn’t make empty promises.

  So, when he said he would never look back.

  I believed him.

  Ax suddenly appeared in front of us. “They’re here.”

  “Good.” Nervous energy pulsed from Andrei’s body. “Call the guys, make sure we have security at every exit, make sure he doesn’t drink too much, water down the liquor in his drinks so he feels everything.”

  “Yes, Boss.” Ax winked at me and then pulled out his cell and started firing off instructions as he walked off.

  “Here.” Andrei pulled out a barstool for me. We were still in the VIP area but not on the couches like last time. He held up two fingers.

  Two shots of vodka were poured.

  He held his up and smirked. “You ready for your revenge?”

  “Will it make me feel better?” I took the shot and clinked it against his glass.

  “Absolutely not.” He threw the shot glass back and slammed it on the table. “But it will make me feel better knowing he’s no longer here to claim you, to touch you, to think about you when he has no right to invite you into his thoughts. You’re mine. Mine.”

  “Yes.” I leaned toward him.

  He gripped my chin with his thumb and forefinger holding me there like he was memorizing every plane of my face, and then he tilted his head and pressed a kiss to my neck. I felt his teeth graze my skin as I gripped the side of the bar table, and then he kicked my legs open, shoving his knee between them. I let out a shocked exhale at the contact of his knee so close to my center, so invasive and public

  And then the corners of his mouth tilted up into a smile. “Wanna play?”

  I looked from him to the shot glass and held it up. “I may need one more of these.”

  “That intimidated?”

  “Why, yes…” I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his parted lips. “The great Andrei Petrov just asked if I wanted to play…”

  Heat surged between our mouths as he deepened the kiss, tugging at my hair with his right hand.

  Magically, two more shot glasses appeared.

  And as we clinked them together, he winked. “At least we both win.”

  I let out a laugh and took the shot just about the same time a shadow cast over us. No, not just one shadow. Two.

  I knew it was my brother before I even looked up.

  “Well,” the word sounded funny with a piece of his tongue missing. “You wasted no time.”

  I gripped Andrei’s thigh. “I don’t understand.”

  “I wasn’t talking to you,” he spat.

  I almost stood.

  Andrei’s expression was calm. “You’re in my club again. See something you like?”

  “We both know this should be mine. It belongs to the De Lange Family as much as the Petrovs!”

  Andrei frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you know.” He clenched his teeth. “Without us you wouldn’t even have this. I want a higher cut and I want partner.”

  “It’s never good to reach above your station.” Andrei shrugged. “Have some drinks and we’ll talk.”

  My brother must have been surprised because he stepped back a bit and put his hands on his hips. “How can I trust you?”

  “That’s just the thing.” Andrei grinned. “You can’t. Take it or leave it. My offer to discuss your terms expires in thirty seconds.”

  “Done.” He held out his hand.

  Andrei took it and then pulled him forward. “I forgot to say thank you by the way…”

  He frowned; his eyes flickered to me. “For?”

  “For your familial sacrifice of course,” He grabbed my hand and kissed it. “For my wife.”

  My brother gaped. The man I didn’t recognize behind him went completely pale. “You never asked my permission.”

  “I did, the day I cut out your tongue, did you need a reminder? You gave me her, so I let you live. You’re welcome.”

  Aldo looked ready to murder me.

  And I hated that he was angry because it was someone else that was touching me, someone else that belonged to me, someone else that wasn’t him.

  I started feeling sick to my stomach as he turned on his heel and walked off toward the opposite end of the room.

  I exhaled when he was gone but felt his eyes on me still. “Now what?”

  “Now.” Andrei gripped my hips and then lifted me effortlessly off the stool so I was straddling him in my short dress, the slits riding up to my thighs. “We kiss.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want him to burn.” Andrei nipped my lips and then tilted his head. “I want him to burn with so much jealousy that he forgets himself, that he doesn’t look at the exits for his enemies, I want him to go mad with anger and then when his blood pressure is through the roof, when he’s purple with rage, I’m going to slit his throat and dance in a river of his blood.”

  I had no time to respond as his mouth came down on mine hard, I could feel his arousal through his jeans as he tasted me, and I couldn’t help but rub my body against his in a vain attempt to get closer.

  He felt so hot.

  So good.

  I whimpered against his mouth when his hands jerked my body harder against him. The friction was almost too much.

  I was ready to rip off his jeans and beg him for it.

  And he knew it.

  He didn’t stop.

  I started to sweat, tried to control the building pressure between my thighs as his tongue moved behind my ear. “I’m imagining you naked.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “Yeah?”

  “Mmmm, I’m imagining putting my mouth on you and drinking you dry, I’m imagining thrusting deep.”

  I clenched my teeth as my most intimate places pulsed in rhythm with my pounding heart.

  “Your thighs wrapped around my neck…”

  I gripped his hair and tugged, hard.

  “Maybe I’d finish with you on your stomach… no, I would want to see your face, so I’d flip you over and put your ankles on my shoulders, I’d grip your thighs so hard your skin would bruise, and then I would do it again and again.” His tongue licked my ear. “And again.” His breath was hot on my skin.

  My body shuddered, needing release that he refused to give. I pressed a hand to his chest and lowered it until I touched the front of his jeans, my palm pressed against his length.

  He smirked at me like he knew I wasn’t just losing my mind but all sense of propriety as I wondered if we could get away with it, if we could just, undress in a dark corner.

  What was I thinking?

  I was in a haze.

  A seductive haze he’d created, with images I couldn’t stop thinking about, us sweaty, writhing together, in his bed.

  I jerked when he suddenly moved my hand a
way, his knuckles grazing my thigh as his fingers inched beneath my skirt.

  I stiffened.

  “Don’t lose your nerve now, Alice.”

  “But we’re in public.” Was that breathy voice mine?

  “That…” He grinned seductively. “…is the entire point of the game.”

  “People will see.”

  “Good.”

  “They’ll know.”

  “Even better.” He moved his hand higher. “Let him see your response to me, let it be the last fucking thing that miserable excuse for a human sees.”

  I nodded as our foreheads touched as his hand gripped the inside of my thigh beneath my dress, as his thumb pressed against my lacy underwear.

  I didn’t feel shame at my response.

  At the fact that I was so ready for him it was almost embarrassing.

  His thumb grazed the material so softly that I wanted to smack him on the side of the head.

  “I like your anger.” He wrapped an arm around me. “Now lean forward so I can give you exactly what you need…”

  “You.” I kissed his neck as his thumb moved inside me, one finger, a small amount of pressure and I was completely set off, lost to him and every sensation he gave me.

  Mine. He was mine.

  Maybe he’d always been mine.

  But tonight I felt it.

  Tonight I saw it.

  Tonight we were an us.

  My body shuddered all around him.

  I was still feeling aftershocks when Andrei moved his hand and ran his thumb around the rim of his shot glass, lifted it in Aldo’s direction in a mock salute and took the shot.

  I smiled down at him. “You don’t do things halfway, do you?”

  “It seems I can’t with you.” His gaze was lazy, his eyes hungry. “Tonight, dorogaya, I’m taking you.”

  “No.” I leaned in and whispered, “Tonight, I’m taking you.”

  He bit down on his lip and smirked. “So, it’s going to be a bloodbath?”

  “Isn’t it always when it comes to you?”

  “No weapons.” He winked. “In the bedroom.”

  I stared down between us. “Then what do you call that?”

  “Hard. So. Damn. Hard.”

  I burst out laughing as he pressed another kiss to my mouth and then Ax appeared again. “Nice show. Aldo got on the phone like he was calling in reinforcements.”

  “Let them in. Are the guys here?”

  “They are. Phoenix said you were doing it wrong.”

  Andrei rolled his eyes. “Phoenix should take lessons.”

  “Heard that.” A dark voice coughed behind us. “Hello, Alice, nice dress.” Was it my imagination or was he possibly blushing?

  The rest of the guys filed up toward the bar.

  Panic seized in my chest. What if my brother said I belonged to him? What if he claimed me in front of them? What if?

  “Don’t worry.” Andrei held me close. “He doesn’t speak well, can barely understand him as it was…”

  “He’s on the move.” Ax said in a bored tone. “Toward the first exit.”

  A security guard blocked it.

  Aldo frowned and then went to another one.

  All exits were blocked.

  He pulled out a gun, people started screaming.

  And that’s when I saw an older man walk right in and shoot Aldo in the kneecaps along with the guy I didn’t recognize with him.

  People screamed but didn’t run toward the exits, which made me wonder if this was common.

  Tex was on the move with Chase. they each grabbed a body and started toward the opposite end of the room.

  The elderly man who’d shot them made his way toward us. His black scarf was wrapped tightly around his neck, his black matching fedora gave him a very GQ look. “Don’t suppose you have any Italian wine here?”

  Andrei smiled. “Flew some in last week just for you, Frank.”

  “Knew I was liking you more and more.”

  Andrei motioned the bartender.

  Frank turned his blue gaze to mine. “Seems you were a lion tamer in another life, mmm?”

  “Or an angel sent from God,” Nixon muttered. “Let’s go chat with him about the girls so I can get home. We shut this down tonight.”

  “Agreed.” Andrei helped me off his lap. I wasn’t sure how he could go from that to ruthless killer in seconds. Then again, there were a lot of things I didn’t understand about Andrei, but I wanted to, more and more every day.

  Nixon put his hand on Andrei’s shoulder. “We should go back there.”

  Andrei nodded and snapped his fingers at Ax. “Keep Alice safe.”

  Ax nodded.

  Andrei leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Last chance. You want to pull the trigger?”

  I shook my head no.

  I didn’t deserve to have his blood on my hands and live with the nightmare or the guilt. Because no matter how horrible he was, he was still family.

  “Is that a no to your souvenir as well?”

  I smiled at that. “Leave his body intact. You’ve already given me his tongue.”

  He scowled. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “All right, Dr. Doom.” I shoved his chest. “Hurry back to me.”

  His eyes flashed. “You can guarantee it.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Andrei

  I COULD FEEL her on my skin.

  I tried not to grin in triumph as I walked with the rest of the Italians, large purposeful steps toward the back room.

  Not the purple room.

  No, this room was special.

  It had cement floors, sound proof walls, and chains that hung from the top of the ceiling.

  Both men were chained, standing on metal chairs, bloody and a bit beaten already.

  Aldo spit out a tooth.

  I sighed. “Really, Chase?”

  He just shrugged. “He was talking too much.”

  The other man eyed me and then looked away.

  “Ivan.” I crossed my arms. “I see you’ve been playing well with others in the sandbox.”

  He struggled against the chains but said nothing. His light hair had spots of blood in it and his eye was already turning black.

  “This is what we’re going to do,” I said sternly. “We’re going to torture you, and then we’re going to kill you if you don’t give us the information we need. If you give us what we need and Sergio can prove that the locations to your cells are accurate, along with your contacts, then we’ll simply shoot you. Make your choice gentleman, I have a date.”

  “Fuck you!” Aldo screamed. “How dare you think you can do that to my—”

  I sucker punched him in the gut.

  He couldn’t say her name.

  Or that she was his sister.

  Regardless of the way he talked, he could still make out the name enough for the Italians to question me.

  Phoenix cleared his throat behind me.

  “Make your choices,” I demanded as the door shut, keeping us all in.

  “You are weak.” Ivan gritted his teeth. “Your father would be ashamed of you!”

  I grinned up at him. “Do you really think I live for a dead man’s approval? That would be a wrong assumption, considering I was recruited against him the day I turned eighteen.”

  Ivan paled.

  “Ah, now you understand, these men are more family than my father ever was. It would be wise to stop talking before I take another tongue. I’ve developed a sentiment for taking pieces of every man I conquer, and believe me, before your dead body leaves this room, I’ll take something, maybe your eyes, your tongue, maybe the tip of your nose, or a finger, as a reminder to those who know me, who fear me, that I don’t fuck around when it comes to my business and my empire.”

  Ivan stared straight ahead and whispered, “Death. I choose death.”

  “And you Aldo? What have you picked off the menu for the evening?”

  Aldo glared. “I won’t tell you shit.”
/>   I tsked. “Chase, did you want to do the honors?”

  Chase grinned. “With pleasure.”

  Aldo struggled as Chase punched him across the face, and then kicked the chair away so Aldo hung by his bloody wrists. He screamed out in agony.

  And I watched.

  I enjoyed it.

  Because I couldn’t protect her then.

  But I could save her now.

  I could get her revenge.

  I could take his life.

  And I would.

  “We know it’s you. Elena was very informative. We just need a name for your contact, an address even of where you keep the girls before they’re delivered and then we’ll make it as painless as possible.”

  Ivan opened his mouth. “We’re dead anyway.”

  “Smart man.”

  The Italians waited in silence.

  It was my club after all.

  My business.

  My respect for them grew tenfold.

  “Well?” I crossed my arms.

  Ivan hung his head. “Viktor Stasevich is our contact, an old friend of your father’s. He keeps the girls until we make the pick-up. He and his team work with a—”

  “Shut the hell up!” Aldo roared.

  Ivan barked out a laugh. “We’re dead men! Do you know who these men are? We will not walk out of here alive, and I will not have my eyes lost to me when I am dead!” He was superstitious, interesting. “He and his team worked with Alexander, the De Langes took your contract Andrei, and when they started making more contacts within the family…” His eyes flickered from Chase back to me. “They asked for a meeting.”

  “They?” Chase said with clenched teeth. “Or she?”

  “Sh-she.” Ivan hung his head. “I gave it to her behind Andrei’s back and gave her Viktor’s number. The money the operation brought in was tens of millions. Alexander made sure that even in his death, the family would be taken care of, but he could no longer trust anyone, so when she—”

  “Mil,” I corrected.

  Chase looked ready to kill every single man in that room.

  “When Mil met with him, she was promised protection along with the money and the new contracts.”

  I knew Mil had gotten in deep.

  I didn’t know it was that deep.

  And by the look on Chase’s face, neither did he.

  “What else?”

  Aldo barked out a laugh. “This is rich. You don’t know, do you? For being so powerful, you don’t know shit that went down in our family!”