by Raven Dark
Vincent shakes his head. “It’s fitting that after you’ve hated him for so long you should end up in his bed.” He drops his shoulders. “Please, just this once, behave yourself. Don’t give him trouble.”
“Vincent, no!” I scream.
Michael pats my ass. I thrash and twist and curse at him. He covers my mouth with his big palm. It takes up half of my damn face. Despite the cool of the glove covering his hand, the strength of his grip and the feel of the leather on my skin sends a spear of heat through me all the way to my toes.
“Your debt to me is absolved, Romano,” he growls. “We will not speak of this again, yeah?”
“Da.” Vincent’s tone is one of satisfaction behind me. “I would shake your hand, Michael, but you seem to have them full at the moment. Say hello to your father for me. Enjoy your stay in New York.”
The pleasantness in his voice is a little stiff. That’s the kind of relationship that exists between our families these days.
Gravel and ice crunch as the man who used to be my father walks with Gio toward the limo. I hear him clap Gio on the back.
Jesus Christ.
Michael watches the head of the Romano Family leave while the car rolls out of the docks. He’s pressing his hand to my mouth hard enough that, with his other arm wrapped tightly around my waist, I can’t move.
The sound of the limo’s engine fades, and is gone.
The man I once called Dad has tossed me into the hands of my single worst enemy and then abandoned me to him. I wish the ground would open up and swallow me whole.
Michael’s eyes lock onto mine, snagging all my attention, but he doesn’t take his hand from my mouth. “Are you going to behave, kravitsa?”
I make an angry sound against his palm, but go limp, letting him know I’ll cooperate, all the while, covertly assessing my situation. Taking stock of the boats that scatter the bay, the icy gravel that could trip anyone up if they aren’t careful. Taking in anything I can use to my advantage.
If I don’t get out of here before he puts me in that car behind him, I might lose my last chance to escape.
I deflate in his grip and give a nod.
He removes his hand slowly.
I throw my knee straight up into his balls. He grunts and releases me.
Hoping I didn’t just make the biggest mistake of my life, I make a run for it.
Chapter 3
Rules
I’d barely considered my actions when I’d run. I’d simply latched onto a single imperative. It was something my father had taught me.
Being the daughter of a kingpin meant I was a constant target, which is why I always had bodyguards growing up. But in the event that someone managed to kidnap me, he taught me a rule I never forgot. Once a kidnapper got me inside a vehicle, my chances of escape were cut down to less than half. Thus, whatever happened, I was to never let said kidnapper get me inside a vehicle.
So I’d run. Now that I had, I knew the likelihood of my getting away was almost nil.
The docks are a labyrinth of piers in between dozens of boats bobbing in the bay. It’s late, and dark. It’s going to be a long run, some of it up a long flight of stairs, before I reach a road or anyone I can flag for help. My wrists are still cuffed behind me, seriously affecting my balance and heightening the risk of a fall. Behind me, I hear Michael growl at someone to get after me. If he catches me, I don’t even want to know what he’ll do to me.
At the sound of his order, I pump my legs faster, ignoring the burn.
I wish to hell I’d gone to the gym more often than once every five months when the cost of a membership I’m not using starts to make me feel guilty.
Someone else shouts something in Russian. Michael swears in the same language. I risk a look behind me. A few hundred feet back, one of his men has his hands on his knees, red-faced and puffing like a winded rhino. But Michael is tearing after me with the speed of a champion track runner.
Fucking hell. The man is a like a damn jungle cat.
And I’m the mouse.
I run faster until my lungs burn and my legs threaten to give out. Michael quickly gains ground. He pounces, shoving me flat to the ground. I drop like a stone, the wind knocked out of me. His heavy weight crushes me into wooden planks that are ice cold.
I try to scream, but his hand clamps over my mouth.
“I see that you aren’t going to make this easy for me.” He brushes my hair from my forehead with his other hand, his warm breath tickling my ear. “Good. I like a challenge.”
The promise in his tone is dark and sinister and filled with delight.
I thrash once before he yanks me to my feet. “I would say I’ve no desire to hurt you, Aurora, but that would be a lie.”
I scream against his hand, a useless, muted sound.
He shoves a handkerchief into my mouth, then holds it in place with his palm, his other hand gripping the flex cuffs on my wrists so that my back bows and I can’t move.
Panic takes root, numbing my skin. A shaky, helpless whimper escapes.
“Spit it out, and I’ll whip you bloody. Understand?”
His voice is rough and dirty and filled with danger. I make a frightened sound, but nod. He never, ever scared me this much as a kid.
I’m over his shoulder in the next instant, and he marches back to his car, his long strides eating up ground fast. “If you fight, you only make this harder on yourself. Try to escape again, and you won’t like the consequences.”
It sinks in then. Michael is as ruthless as my father, if not more so. I’ll have to look for an opportunity to gain control of the situation before I try to get away again.
“We lost the girl,” the man who’d been chasing me says to his companion, both of them waiting by the car. “We’ll have to get another one.”
The kidnapped girl… My stomach roils. So it was him who wanted her.
Michael makes a disgusted sound. He puts me down, pushes me into the arms of the second man, a lanky one with dirty blond hair. As soon as the man grabs me around the middle, Michael spins around and throws his fist into the first man’s face.
The man slams into the hood of the car. He grabs his nose, blood squirting from between his fingers and into a thick beard the color of rust.
“Hey! What the fuck was that for?” he shouts.
Michael seizes the front of his coat and slams him into the hood. The man grunts. Michael whips a gun from a holster on his hip, cocks it, and puts it to the man’s forehead.
The bearded one raises his hands, his eyes huge, his face bloodless.
When Michael speaks, his voice is the low even tone of controlled rage. “The only reason you are alive is because your employment with my father means I can’t kill you. Do you understand me, Petro?”
Petro nods jerkily.
“If you ever, ever put your hands on an under-aged girl and I hear about it, I will put a bullet in your fucking brain. Is that clear?”
“Da, ser. Da.” He nods again.
Michael puts the gun’s safety back on and returns the weapon to its holster. He clamps a hand on my shoulder, hauling me tight against his side. His fingers pinch hard enough to make me wince.
When his blond cohort starts around the front of the car, keys in hand, Michael takes them from him.
“No, Adrian, let him drive.” He throws the keys to Petro. “I don’t want him near her.”
Petro visibly seethes, but climbs into the driver’s seat.
Michael opens the limo’s back door and guides me in, pushing my head down so that I have no choice but to cooperate. He slides into the darkened limousine, sitting in the seat next to me. Adrian shuts his door and gets into the front seat with Petro.
Great. I’m officially left alone with my captor, the man I’ve spent the better part of my life loathing with a fiery passion.
Michael presses a button on the door and the locks click into place. He flicks the car’s ceiling light on, illuminating the back of the limo.
I bare
ly have a moment to take in the gorgeous interior of his car—the plush seats, the dark teakwood accents, the bar that runs along the door—before the man beside me steals all my focus.
Limousines are not a new thing to me since my father rides nearly everywhere in one, but even if they were, the luxury around me doesn’t hold a candle to Michael’s magnetic presence.
Immediately, I try to get up and move to the seat opposite him. If I can’t escape, I’ll at least put as much space between us as possible. He sets his palm on my chest, pinning me to the seat and easily holding me in place. Even with his glove on, the feel of his palm sends a jolt of electricity through me. How that can be, I don’t know. This man disgusts me.
“Remain where you are. I want you close to me.” He only removes his hand when I deflate against the seat.
My gaze settles on the gun at his hip. He’s just proven he has no problem using it. There’s nothing for me to do but deal.
Then Michael takes the gun from its holster. Hope springs to life. My father had one of his men teach me to shoot. I’m no crack marksman, but if I can just get a hold of that gun…
No such luck. He checks the safety on the weapon, opens a compartment in the door, sets the gun inside, and locks the compartment with a key from around his neck. The flicker of hope extinguishes as he tucks the gold key and the chain it hangs from inside his shirt.
Catching my eyes on the door to the gun compartment, he smirks and touches me under the chin as if I’m being cheeky. “If you’re thinking of pulling my own gun on me, kravitsa, get that thought right out of your pretty little head now. No one touches my firearms.”
Well, so much for that idea. I know he’ll make sure I never get near a weapon.
Sitting sideways so that he’s turned toward me, he slips off his gloves and pushes them into the pocket of his coat. Tattoos mark his fingers and cover the back of one large hand. With the angle he’s sitting at and the way the light hits him, the big one on the back of his hand is reduced to a splash of black ink, but a number of those tats indicate at least some time in prison, making me wonder just how dangerous he is.
Michael presses a button on the door. The glass partition between the front and back of the limousine scrolls up while the car starts and rolls out of the docks. The tint on the window reduces the two men up front to shadows and cuts off any sound from them.
He sets his fingertips on my knee, as if to ensure he has my attention. The light catches the ink on the back of his hand. It’s a distinctive tattoo of a black raven with its wings spread.
My heart jumps. That’s the same tattoo I saw two days ago, on the back of that man’s hand at the bus stop. The one who bought me the bus ticket to Atlantic City.
I snap my gaze up to his. I refuse to believe he was in the same neighborhood by happenstance. Exactly what the fuck is going on here?
I flinch at his touch, and a smile toys with his beautiful mouth.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting to have you sitting there, Aurora.” Husky and deep, his tone is triumphant and filled with lust.
He’s also deliberately dropped the accent. Exactly like he did that night.
Holy fucking hell, has he been stalking me?
I huff in anger through the gag still in my mouth.
He looks right at the handkerchief, but makes no effort to remove it. On the contrary, the light dancing in his eyes leaves no doubt that he likes it there. Instead, he picks up a remote sitting on the bar and presses a button on it. “In case you decide to start screaming your gorgeous head off again,” he says conversationally.
I roll my eyes. He just soundproofed the back compartment, not unlike my father does when he’s doing business. The notion leaves dangling in the air all the possibilities of what he might intend to do to me that will make it necessary to avoid anyone hearing it.
Twisted fuck.
My captor leans closer to me and carefully slips the handkerchief from my mouth, then sits back, pocketing the cloth. I work moisture into my mouth. He lounges in the seat, the image of self-confidence and power. As hot and as arrogant as ever.
“Do you know why you are here, Aurora?”
“You fuck, did you plan this?” I snap.
He smirks.
“You’ve been stalking me,” I spit at him.
“How would it make you feel if I told you I was, kravitsa?” His accent is back in all its glory. It pisses me off that it still drives me a little wild. From most guys, his language sounds harsh, but in that honey-dipped voice of his, he makes it sound sexy.
“How long have you been watching me?”
“Why? Does it excite you?”
It disturbs me to realize the answer. The idea that such a dangerous, ruthless, powerful man is willing to do anything to have me, regardless of the law, sends a thrill through me. It also scares the hell out of me.
“How. Long,” I grit out.
“Long enough.”
God, I hate him. “Where the hell are you taking me?”
“You’ll see.”
Oh, shit, is he planning on taking me to Russia with him? My father left the country often on business, but he never took me with him. I’ve never left the US, not even to go with him to Italy. The idea of leaving the only country I’ve ever known, and with this man, terrifies me.
“If you’re planning on taking me out of the country, you’ll have a problem. My passport’s expired.”
It’s a flimsy excuse, but I’ll use anything I can to delay his plans, whatever they are.
“We will get you a new one.” The knowing glint in his eyes makes it clear that he recognizes my words for what they are.
“So, you are taking me to Russia, then.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Well, I heard my father tell you to enjoy your stay in New York, so I know you aren’t living here now. What are you going to do when you have to go back? Kill me?”
“Never.” He pushes a stray lock of dark hair behind my ear. “I always take care of what’s mine.”
The warmth of his fingers sends a bolt of electricity through me and I flinch. His eyes dance with delight.
Damn it, I can’t figure him out. On one hand, he just threatened to shoot one of his own men for being a sick pervert, in defense of that girl. Those actions don’t fit the boyhood bully I’ve hated for so long. But on the other hand, he’s kidnapped me, taking me from my father for his own use, as if I’m a piece of property.
“Will you at least take these things off?” I lean forward, indicating the flex cuffs on my wrists. My arms are starting to feel the strain of being pinned behind me for so long. “I can’t escape from a moving car.”
The sparkle in his gaze says it all. “Nyet.”
Unfortunately, that’s one of the few Russian words I do know. He said “no.”
“If you think I’m going to cooperate with whatever you’re planning to do to me, you’ve got another thing coming, Michael.”
“If you don’t, you won’t enjoy the alternative. You’ve betrayed the Mafia, Aurora. Stay with me, and I will keep you alive. There is no place that the Family can’t find you. Without me, you will be killed within a day.”
Jesus. The son of a bitch is right. My father had said he couldn’t protect me. By Mafia law, he’d have to kill me, and if he didn’t, one of the other four Families would. Like it or not, if I want to keep breathing, I have to stay with this prick. At least until I figure out an alternative that won’t get me killed.
A memory flashes through my mind, one that reminds me of what started our volatile relationship. It’s a small thing, silly, even, but it always sticks out in my mind.
The first time I met Michael Volkov, I’d been seven. We’d been staying in my father’s Florida mansion. I’d been in my bedroom when he strode in as if he owned it, which was impressive, seems as he was only eleven at the time and one of his legs was in a cast. His father had brought him down for the summer as he always did back then. Michael had sat down an
d propped his broken leg on my huge canopy bed until he saw the prized doll collection that lined my shelves.
My father had this habit of buying me expensive things, usually after we argued. One of those gifts happened to be gorgeous dolls, breakable, expensive ones from all different countries, some of them irreplaceable collectables. Michael didn’t laugh at the collection the way I thought an eleven year old boy would. No, he got up, went over to them and started fiddling with them. When I told him to stop, he didn’t. He started pulling the hair on a beautiful Russian wedding doll that happened to be my favorite. I’d made the mistake of starting to cry, which had been enough to tell him that one was special. He dropped it on the floor and “accidentally” stepped on it with the heavy boot of his cast. It smashed, and he grinned at me while giving a shrug and an apology he didn’t mean.
That’s how his torment started, and after that, it only got worse. And the most aggravating part of it all? I never knew why he targeted me, and he refused to tell me.
Here and now, in the back of his limousine, I try to picture him as that angel-faced, but smirking demon child, wiry and beautiful and evil. I try to shrink him down in my mind, imagining him weaker, smaller. Someone I can handle. It doesn’t work.
Michael isn’t small, and he isn’t weak. He’s so huge, he makes the limo feel claustrophobically small. What’s more, he has a presence of command, radiating experience he never had as a boy, and not as the twenty-year-old he’d been when I’d last seen him. He’s all man now, and I can see it in his eyes. He’s learned far more subtle ways of getting under a person’s skin.
“How long are you planning on keeping me, Michael?”
Without answering my question, he leans forward and shrugs out of his winter coat. I immediately wish he’d left it on. Without the bulk of the leather jacket, the white silk button-up shirt he wears shows off his broad chest and hulking shoulders, the ripples on his arms that stretch the material with the slightest movement. The top two buttons are undone, leaving a hint of his strong, tanned chest exposed.
Fuck, he’s beautiful. Beautifully evil.
“Are you comfortable?” He adjusts his snowy white cuffs.