by Raven Dark
“Come with me.”
Without a word of elaboration, Michael leads me upstairs.
Shit, what’s going on in that sick head of his? Is he going to pay me back for hitting him? He threatened to use a belt on me once. The thought makes my throat tighten with panic.
He walks to a room at the end of a hall. A few paces from the double doors, I freeze, my feet suddenly feeling as if they have lead weights on them.
Michael grabs the chain linking the cuffs and yanks me to his side. There’s nothing to do but wait for whatever’s coming.
He opens the doors to reveal a splendid room. The massive bed is covered in red linins, the floor wall-to-wall-white carpet, the room accented in red, white, and gold. There’s a large mullioned window taking up one wall. I widen my eyes at what I see erected in front of the glass pane.
“Michael, there’s bars on the damn window.”
He nods into the room. When I don’t move, he crosses his arms. “Walk in or be carried. You’re choice.”
Damn it. I’m certain that the moment I walk into that room, I’ll have walked into a whole other level of hell, but one look at his burning gaze, and I know he means it. The bastard will throw me over his shoulder just as he did when I tried to run at the docks in Jersey.
Letting out a shaky sigh, I step into the room.
As soon as I’m inside, I expect him to take off the cuffs, but instead he nods to the bed, a wordless command to have a seat there. Weakness rushes to my legs as I lower myself down onto the mattress.
Standing with his legs astride and towering over me, he crosses his arms again, making the sleeves of his sweater bulge.
“Since you don’t know how to keep your hands to yourself, Aurora, they’ll remain cuffed until I say otherwise.”
“What?” I stare at him.
“Furthermore,” he continues, “you will remain in this room, with the door locked. Dinner will be brought to you. There is a bathroom there.” He gestures to a large room to the left of the doors. “You will not be allowed to speak to or socialize with anyone. You’ll remain here until further notice.”
“Michael, that’s insane. You—”
“I don’t tolerate physical attacks or threats, Aurora. If you weren’t suffering from altitude sickness, you’d be getting whipped across that gorgeous ass of yours.”
Jesus Christ. Score one for Colorado’s high altitude. But the thought holds no humor, and real queasiness makes my stomach clench.
I close my eyes, reining in my anger. The last thing I need is to piss him off more. “How long will you keep me in here?”
“As long as it takes for you to learn your lesson. Trust and privileges are not rights. They’re earned.”
“You can’t be serious. This has to be some sort of joke.”
It’s stupid, but part of me is waiting for some asshole to jump out from somewhere and shout that I’m part of some whacked out reality TV show. One where the prize is millions of dollars.
“I don’t joke when it comes to punishing my women, Aurora. This is your life now. The sooner you learn to deal with it, the happier you will be.”
My thoughts race with a mind-numbing panic. As soon as he leaves and closes that door, I’ll be completely at his mercy. I won’t be able to do anything, even eat, without him allowing it. I can’t allow myself to become that vulnerable, but honestly, what choice do I have?
“Michael, please don’t do this.”
Great, I’m reduced to pleading with him. Humiliation twists my insides into knots.
Saying nothing, he steps forward. I tense, expecting him to get physical. Instead, he touches me under the chin with his fingers. The hint of an upward curve of his gorgeous mouth mocks my anger.
“Perhaps now you will think twice about trying to strike out at me, yes?”
Fear morphs into rage. I twist violently in effort to escape his touch.
He ignores my reaction entirely and goes to the doors.
Son of a bitch, as soon as he locks them…
“Michael,” I snap, bolting after him. “You prick, don’t—.”
“Enjoy your stay, kravitsa.” He grins. Then, before I can get close enough to touch them, he steps out and the doors shut.
“Michael!” I pound on the doors, rattling my cuffs, and yank on the knobs. They don’t give.
There’s a click. He’s locked them.
“Michael!” I scream.
His footsteps fade, and I swear I hear him whistling faintly.
I slam my fists into the doors so hard that they ache, but it doesn’t do any good.
The whistling fades.
He’s gone.
Chapter 9
Distraction
Meetings keep me busy most of the afternoon and into the early evening. Such obligations make it easier for me to ignore the constant source of temptation that calls to me from the other side of the lodge.
It isn’t until after six that I have the first chance to relax since leaving Denver’s airport. Call after call has kept me on the phone or in video meetings on my computer, some of them with the kind of guys that would make the hardest man consider taking his own life rather than deal with them. It should be easy not to think about her when engrossed in such dangerous affairs, but it’s not. Through most of the calls, I could barely focus.
These are the men my father dealt with for years, the men whom he spent my entire life grooming me to make deals with until he ended up with lung cancer two years ago. They’re men I have to handle more and more often of late while he grows progressively sicker.
It would probably sound strange to anyone else, but I love dealing with them. I love the Bratva. I love the lawlessness, the dangerous and dirty deals, and the comradery that you find only among those in the brotherhood. The rush of facing men who know death on such an intimate level is like nothing else. This is my life, my world, and the only world I have ever known.
My father made me this way, but I know he didn’t expect me to love it. He didn’t expect me to love being a monster. It’s the only thing that makes me feel alive.
Or, it was.
Until last night.
Following my last business call of the day, I sit in front of the computer screen, at a desk in what Adrian likes to call the Control Room, watching the four camera feeds that monitor the lodge. My eyes are on them, but without really seeing any of them, save one.
One of the feeds looks out onto the large, expansive back yard. Thick foliage lines the edge of the yard, a perfect place to hide, and even sneak onto the property if you’re agile enough to climb over the back wall. Another looks in on the garage, where the limo and a couple of other vehicles sit. Another shows the front of the house, where Adrian is in the middle of collecting the mail from the box by the gate. None of those three monitors shows anything of importance happening. It’s the last one that has all my attention.
The fourth monitor’s camera is hidden in the ceiling of one of the guest rooms—the one I’ve assigned to the little minx who’s stolen just about every thought I’ve had since weeks before I tricked her father into giving her to me.
Aurora.
My obsession. My poison of choice. My Krasavitsa.
My Beautiful One.
At the moment, she’s curled up on the huge king-sized bed, asleep. It doesn’t go unnoticed that she’s not sleeping the same way she usually did whenever I watched her in that shithole she calls an apartment in New Jersey. Most often, I’d found her sprawled out across her rumpled bed on her back. When the dry, heavy heat in that place got to be too much, she’d throw her blankets off so that by time I found my way into that place, I was rewarded with a perfect view of her tight little body, usually covered in an oversized tee. Or nude. Now, though, she’s curled up in a fetal position, knees pulled up. Her wrists are still cuffed, her hands under her soft cheek.
I’ve watched her in slumber often enough to know she only sleeps like that when she’s distressed. It’s a protective position she
goes into when she doesn’t feel safe.
Adrenaline jolts through me like a hit of the heroine at the idea that I’m the one causing the sense of danger she feels.
I pour myself a glass of whiskey and sit back, feasting my eyes on my prize.
She’d stopped screaming at me to let her out of the room, stopped cursing my name and banging on those doors hours ago. She’d also stopped trying to look for a way to escape, looking for a way to get the doors open, checking the barred window, only to find it locked and the bars impossible to get past. Little did she know, I could see everything she did. Not that it would have mattered. A woman like her didn’t submit easily. She would have found not trying to gain an advantage an act of weakness. I hated admitting it, but I liked that about her. I liked that she didn’t just break down or fall apart.
I sip my whiskey and lick a drop from my lips, smiling at the memory of her hand nearly slapping my face. Even thinking of that now makes my dick raging hard.
Aurora gives a little moan that barely makes it through the audio feed. My cock jerks at the sound, growing even harder. It presses against the front of my slacks as I imagine her making that tiny sound while I pound myself into her sweet pussy. Only I can’t do that.
If not for Colorado’s pain in the ass habit of making people like her sick, I’d be losing myself in her perfection right then and there.
Her altitude sickness is the only thing that’s allowing me to keep my promise to myself that I’d maintain my distance from her for tonight. That I’d prove to myself I could control myself around her.
It’s not an easy task. Temptation to possess her in every conceivable way calls to me like a fucking siren, a constant, seductive croon in my damn ear.
She’s been under my skin for so long, one more night without her sweetness wrapped around me should be easy, right?
Wrong.
I down the rest of the whiskey, letting it dull my body’s reaction to her. I’d spent five years in prison away from her, with nothing to do but jack off thinking about what I’d do to her when I got out. Five years without a woman’s touch, much less hers. I know nothing if not how to be patient.
No. I want to break her, but I want to do it slowly, enjoying the careful, methodical corruption of her innocence until she craves my touch. Until she craves all the twisted things I do to her as much as me.
Setting the glass down, I lean back more comfortably in my seat. It doesn’t amuse me one bit that I can rub elbows with the worst criminals in the world, that I can wheel and deal with men who have killed for the pure pleasure of it without my even twitching, and yet, one glance at that woman sends all my senses into overdrive.
I’ve had a single taste of her, and it’s like the most potent drug. I can’t get enough. Through a culmination of circumstances, of actions whose impact she didn’t seem to understand, she’d gotten so deep under my skin that for those nine years away from her, I’d been unable to get her out of my mind.
My father spent years forging me into the brute I am today, a hardened criminal whose heart has long since turned black, and yet last night, for those few moments while I claimed my prize, I’d felt more alive than I had in nine years.
More alive than I had since I’d seen Aurora that summer when she was sixteen. Right now, as I sit here watching her curl tighter in on herself, it takes all my willpower not to lock myself in that room with her and show her just how dangerous I can be.
Shit, I’ll have to eat alone tonight. If I sit across a table from her, I won’t be able to keep from throwing her down and using every hole she has. She’s lucky she’s not well. This kind of all-consuming need is the sort of thing that gets a man like me killed. It’s a weakness, a vulnerability that’s deadly in the wrong hands. I need to get her out of my system before she undoes me.
Aurora is not some sweet, innocent little angel I’ve stolen from the perfect life. She carries the blood of my sworn enemy in her veins. Impatience to possess her yanks at me, stroking my cock so hard I nearly stalk off to her room, tie her to that bed for my pleasure, and use her perfect body for hours. I shove the images aside. I have her now; there’s no need to rush and risk making mistakes.
Total power over someone, the kind where they can’t live without the poison you feed them, is a gradual thing. After what she’d done all those years ago, I’ll settle for nothing less than her complete loyalty and submission. And for that, I need to squeeze every ounce of her independence from her one sweet drop at a time.
And that means, right now, I need to give her time alone, to stew in her own fear. I have our whole lives to pay her back for sins that can never truly be absolved.
“Sir?” Adrian’s voice pierces my thoughts, along with a rapping on the door to the Control Room.
“Enter.”
The door opens, and then closes.
“Sir, we have a problem.” Adrian sits in the chair next to me at the desk.
I glance at him, noting the slight crinkle between his brows. It’s the only emotion his expression shows, but for him, it’s as good as a four-alarm bell.
“What’s going on? Did you find another letter bomb?”
I’m only half joking. It’s never happened to me, but my father has received letters that were set to explode on him. This is why Adrian collects the mail, so he can go through it for threats and other dangers. If any of the letters from today had contained a bomb, it would have gone off in his face. I don’t envy him his job.
He shakes his head. “I received a call from one of your father’s associates.” He leans toward me, hands clasped between his knees.
The somber tone makes me sit up straighter, waiting for him to elaborate.
“Someone’s ordered a hit on you, sir.”
I scowl. “Just one? I’ll have to work on that.”
Adrian gives a wry smile before he puts his head down for a moment. “Sir.”
“Adrian, if I panicked every time someone put a mark on my back, I’d have died of a coronary years ago. Downside of being the son of Shurik Volkov.”
“I know. But this one isn’t from anyone we know. It’s not sanctioned by any Mafia affiliation. It came out of nowhere. And there are rumblings that they know about a certain individual whom you’d rather keep under the radar.”
That makes my heart speed up. There’s only two people who fall into that category. My eyes flick to the screen, to the monitor that looks in on Aurora, one of two such individuals. It annoys me that I immediately want to march into that room and never let her out of my sight.
When I look at Adrian, he shakes his head again. “Not her.”
I jolt. That leaves… I’m already reaching for my phone sitting on the desk. “Is he safe?” I snap.
“He is. I’ve already had someone check in with the home. He’s fine.”
I let out a breath. I’d already called him earlier today at two, just as I always do on Tuesdays, and I have to fight the urge to call again.
“Was he threatened directly?” I ask.
“Word is, whomever put the mark on you was snooping around and may know where he is. You may want to consider moving him, sir.”
I let out a string of Russian curses. Were we talking about anyone else, there would be no decision to make. I’d be setting up plans for relocation immediately. “No. I don’t want to traumatize him. Not while there are other options.”
“I thought you’d say that, sir.” Adrian’s voice is low with protective understanding.
“I want extra guards put on him at all times.”
“Already done, sir. There’s men all over that place watching his every move.”
I squeeze his arm in appreciation. “Tell them that they aren’t to disrupt his routine any more than necessary, Adrian. He isn’t to know they’re even there. Understood?”
“It’s all arranged. He won’t know anything is different. Shall I notify your father?”
I scoff. “Don’t waste the call. He won’t care. I’ve spent my whole life gaining
his trust, and all my father does is undermine it. He only upsets him, and everyone else.”
Anger with my father and concern for Ruslan makes my fists tighten on the arms of the chair until I’m surprised I haven’t broken them off. Whoever put this fucking mark on me… If I get my hands on him, I’ll snap his neck before he can get close to Rusy—or me and what’s mine.
Adrian scowls. “If you’ll permit me saying so, sir, with a father like yours, I’m glad I don’t know mine.”
I grin.
“And what about her?” He nods to the monitor. “Do you want anyone on her?”
“Is there any chance that they know I have her? Or where she is?”
“No. And it looks like no one even knows where you are.”
“Let’s keep things quiet for now. I don’t want to give her another reason to bolt, and the fewer people involved where she is concerned, the better. If there’s any hint that she’s in danger, send another man out here to watch her, but until then, just leave her to me.”
“Done, sir.”
I clap him on the shoulder. Once the door shuts behind him, I put my head back on a sigh, hating the protectiveness for Aurora that screams in my veins.
When we were kids, before I’d had the capability to pay her back as I would have now, she’d done the unforgivable. Her actions had caused a wound from which I still bare real, physical pain. Then, over the years, she’d wormed her way into a part of my heart, a part that, no matter how much I hated her, became twisted with emotions a man like me was never supposed to feel. Then she’d betrayed me. With her actions and words, she’d put a dagger through a heart I wasn’t supposed to have. And worse, I wasn’t even the only one she hurt. She’d caused an emotional wound for someone else, a wound that took years to heal.
But it’s not just what she did. The cold, harsh reality is, I’m no white knight. I don’t protect women. I corrupt them until they’re shells of their former selves and then cast them aside, broken. I use them, nothing more. Aurora will be no different.
The memory of her betrayal shrieks up from the past across my thoughts, as unforgiving as it is unforgettable. My fists clench on the arms of the chair again. Her father’s actions only made her own mistakes worse. The need to punish her for her actions, for the sins of her family, warps itself into a desire so intense it’s frightening. The notion of what I could do to her awakens a need that rages through me like fire.