Big Bad Neighbor: A Single Dad Next Door Romance

by Tia Siren

  “Come on, Iakov, you know what she's like. I only got involved with her to please you. I can't stand her anymore.”

  “That doesn't excuse what you said. You insulted me, and you insulted her. Good-bye, Grigori.”

  Grigori fell to the floor, rolled over, and produced a gun before Iakov had time to cock his gun and fire it. Iakov fell to the floor, dead, but it wasn't Grigori who had killed him. The shot had come from the hole in the wall. Grigori got up and looked outside. Lucy was laying on the ground with a pistol in her hand.

  “So, you came to free me,” she said.

  “What the hell's going on? Yes, I came to free you, but you were gone.”

  “Come on, before all his men descend on you.”

  “I can't get through this hole.”

  Lucy put her feet to the wall and kicked a few more bricks away. “Big enough now, fatty?” she quipped.

  Grigori squirmed through the hole and ran along the side of the house with Lucy. When he saw the coast was clear, they ran to his car and sped off up the driveway.

  *****

  “I killed him,” she said shakily. They'd just reached Grigori's mansion.

  “He deserved it. He was going to kill you.”

  “But what about the police?”

  “They won't call the cops. They know you shot him in self-defense. Don't worry, nothing will happen to you. Would you mind telling me what he did to you?”

  “He put me in that horrible damp basement. You saw it. It wasn't fit for a pig to live in. In the middle of the night, I felt something that really freaked me out. Something fury crawled over me. I thought it was a rat, but it turned out to be a cat. It hadn’t been there when I was put down there, so I wondered how it had gotten into the basement.”

  “How?”

  “Through a hole in the wall. I hadn't seen it the first time I looked because it was dark. The hole was quite small, but the house is old and the bricks are rotten, so I managed to make the gap big enough to get through.”

  “I ran to the road, managed to get a ride, and eventually got back to my dad's house. He told me you'd gone to Iakov's. He pleaded with me not to leave, but I had to make sure you were okay.” Lucy reached for him and pulled her to him. “I need you. I never intended to fall for you, but I did, despite your brutality toward my father.”

  He held her and kissed her gently on the lips. “And I need you. Is the gun your father's?”

  “Yes. When I insisted on going, he gave it to me.”

  “You're quite a lady. Tough as old boots,” he said. “I came to the house thinking you were still there. I was going to offer myself in exchange for you,” Grigori said.

  “I saved you a job then, didn't I?” Lucy said as she put her arms around his neck.

  “Yes, you did.”

  They embraced, and he kissed her passionately. The thought that he might have lost her hadn't really hit home until now. Now that he held her in his arms and smelled her scent, he realized how lucky they had been.

  “You'd better call you father,” he said.

  He walked upstairs and left Lucy to call Lenny. When she was finished, she shouted to Grigori.

  “Where are you?”

  “Upstairs, waiting for you.”

  When she got to the bedroom, he was lying naked on the bed.

  “Grigori, you don't seriously expect me to screw you after the night I've just had? I'm tired, and I'm filthy.”

  “You know where the bathroom is. Go and clean up. You can sleep after I've finished with you.”

  She looked at him and began to undress. His cock seemed to grow with each piece of clothing she took off. When she was naked, he was hard and throbbing. “I love your body. It's so sexy,” he said.

  “And dirty. See you soon,” she said as she headed for the bathroom.

  “Don't be too long. I'm desperate to fuck you,” he commanded.

  Lucy stood under the shower and thought through what had happened. She'd been lucky. Thank heaven for cats, she thought. Despite escaping, she'd killed someone, and that didn't feel good. She was also worried about being charged with murder. Listen to Grigori, she told herself. He's probably right. After all, Lord knows how many people he's killed.

  When she was finished, she walked back into the bedroom and knelt on the bed next to him.

  “What do you want, Grigori? What do you want with me?”

  “I want to fuck you.”

  “No. I mean do you want a relationship or just sex now and then?”

  Grigori didn't hesitate. “I want a woman in my life who I love and who I can take care of. I want that person to be you.”

  Lucy felt a lump in her throat. He'd said exactly what she'd wanted him to say. “Take me, Grigori. I'm all yours.”

  He pulled her down onto the bed and entered her immediately. He didn't want foreplay; he needed to feel her body wrapped around his as he made love to her. His lovemaking drove her wild. His thrusts were so strong, she came time after time, clinging to him like a limpet to a rock.

  When he took them over the edge, he shouted her name and she whispered “I love you” into his ear.

  They spent the day in bed. He managed to satisfy her twice more before she was so exhausted she fell asleep for hours. When she woke up, she heard voices downstairs. She put on a robe and went down to see who it was.

  “Dad,” she exclaimed.

  “Thank god you're safe,” he said as he embraced her. “You have no idea how much I love you.”

  “I know, Dad. Me too.”

  “I only stopped by to see how you were,” Lenny said. “I'll be on my way. I know you two have something going on, so I'll leave you to it.”

  “Lenny, before you go,” Grigori said, “I'm sorry about the incident the other day. It was stupid.”

  “I don't think you would have cared if I hadn't had such a wonderful daughter,” Lenny said.

  Grigori thought for a while. “No, you're right. If it hadn't been for Lucy, I would have blown your brains out.”

  Everyone laughed, and Lenny departed.

  *****

  The newspapers reported the death of “A Russian Businessman,” but that was the end of it. They heard no more. Natasha was killed a few months later in a motorcycle accident.

  Grigori and Lucy were married, and when their first child was born, Grigori stopped all his illegal activities and went straight. He built up a huge real estate portfolio, which he willed to his son and daughter.

  Lucy spent a happy life painting and seeing to her family. She was such a good painter, she managed to sell many pieces to collectors from all over the world. But her biggest love wasn't art. It was Grigori, her children, and her father.

  *****

  THE END

  MAFIA Romance – Bought by the Hitman

  1

  It was Saturday, and it was my first off day on a weekend in a really long time. I couldn’t remember having a Saturday off since I started working for Mr. Black. That wasn’t his real name, of course; I was pretty sure there wasn’t anyone in Russia with the last name of Black, and my boss was as Russian as they got. His accent was so thick it was hard to understand him sometimes.

  I was Russian in the sense that my great-grandfather came over and built a life for himself. His name had been Pitor Anismov. He did pretty well for himself, the old guy. My own grandfather told me a lot of stories about him. Grandpa was Alan Anismov. Alan was as American a name old Pitor could come up with. He wanted his son to be American. He hated Russia. It was cold; it was hard living. America represented something to him: an opportunity.

  Grandpa had two daughters. My mom he named Rebecca, and her sister was Rose. I never met Rose; she died when she was only five. My mom married a guy named Mike Jones, and they had me, Peter Jones. Doesn’t sound very Russian, and it took me a while to convince Mr. Black that my family came from there. Having Russians, it was important to him.

  I was named after Pitor, but with the American spelling. When he came over, he mad
e money any way he could. I’ve taken that up too. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, and a lot of things that could land me in jail, but hey, a job is a job. I keep my head down, steer clear of cops, and make sure the guys I rough up really have it coming to them.

  Mr. Black is a fair guy, believe it or not. He’s big and round, with a bald head and a fat stomach, but he calls it like he sees it, and he plays everyone straight. There’s something honorable about that, really: a criminal who tries to do right by his own ethics and moral code. I’m the same way. I won’t knock over some mom-and-pop shop unless they’re laundering money for another guy or something like that. My boss is the same way.

  But he works us a lot. I do this, I do that. I’m on call twenty-four seven. That’s why I was looking forward to that Saturday.

  I slept in. I didn’t wake up until after noon. I lounged in bed for a bit until my stomach told me I needed food, and then I got up. I was halfway through my second bowl of Frosted Flakes when my cell rang. I grabbed it and sighed. It was Mr. Black.

  “Peter, my boy,” the old man grumbled, “I need you.”

  I knew better than to argue. “What can I do for you, Mr. Black?” I asked.

  He gave me an address and told me I was working security at nine that evening. I hung up and finished my cereal. Nine wasn’t so bad. Of course, if Mr. Black told me nine, he expected me there by eight thirty. But I at least had the day. I went back to bed.

  At six I climbed out of bed and slowly got ready after wolfing down a sandwich. By eight twenty I was parking across from the address I had been given. It was a place downtown, in a seedy-looking neighborhood. The building was squat and wide, just one story, with no windows that I could see. It was all gray and closed off. The door was large and metal, and a man in a suit was loitering outside it.

  I locked my car and made my way across the street. I realized I knew the man standing by the heavy door, and he nodded to me as I got closer. His name was Marco, and he worked for David Zinga, a Mexican arms dealer Mr. Black was friendly with.

  “Marco,” I said, stopping for a minute to chat with the guy. He was smoking, and he took a long drag on the cigarette he held between two fingers before answering.

  “How goes it, Peter?” he asked, his voice low, like a tiger’s growl. He was a big guy, muscles upon muscles, with a scar running down one cheek.

  “All right. It was my day off,” I complained, and Marco laughed, but his eyes were sympathetic.

  “What’s a day off?” he asked, and it was my turn to laugh. I slapped him on the back and stepped inside. I expected the building to be dark, but it was well lit. There was a small hallway right at the entrance, a door propped open at the end, and beyond that was a large open room. Lights hung from the ceiling, buzzing softly as I passed underneath them. At the far end of the room was a small stage of sorts, a raised section of flooring that came up to my waist. There was a door there, built into the wall on the rear of the stage. A friend of mine stood there, another guy who worked for my boss, someone I had pulled a few jobs with. His name was Vlad, and he was about ten years older than my twenty-five. His last name was Nikitin, and he was like Mr. Black, right from the mother country. His accent wasn’t as pronounced, however. He had apparently moved to America with his family when he was only three. He was tall and angular, with a long crooked nose that had been broken more than once.

  “Hey, kid,” he said to me as I found the steps to the stage and moved up to greet my friend. He always called me kid.

  “Hey, Vlad,” I said. “Mr. Black coming?”

  Vlad shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows,” he said. “I think a lot of big hitters will be here, though.”

  “What is this?” I asked. “Arms deal?”

  Vlad laughed and shook his head. “Not quite, kid,” he said. Then he nodded to the door that stood off to the side, leading from the stage. “Go check it out.”

  I looked at him, wondering if he was trying to get me in trouble. I was just working security. Mr. Black, and the others like him, they didn’t like us small-timers getting our noses where they didn’t belong. I was muscle, plain and simple, with my gun in a shoulder holster under my suit jacket. Mr. Black always had us in shirts and ties.

  I made my way to the door at the back of the stage and then looked over my shoulder, back at Vlad. He laughed and waved me on. “It’s fine; just us grunts here so far.”

  I nodded and opened the door. It was dark in the back room, and it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the dim light. There were fewer lights here, their bulbs orange and slight instead of bright and yellow. In front of me was a cage, big enough for a man, but it was empty. I moved on.

  I found another cage, but this one wasn’t empty. It was six feet high and four feet wide, and two women stood in it, holding one another and crying. They looked young, both of them no older than twenty. They had fair skin and dark hair, and their eyes were dark and hard to see in the low light. They looked at me and shrank away. It made me feel terrible. I was a bad guy—I did bad things, I knew that—but these two women, as scared as they obviously were, seeing me and reacting physically like that, it made my head swim with shame.

  “I won’t hurt you,” I said as I walked by. Beyond that cage were others, each with one or two or sometimes three young women inside. I felt nauseous, and I hurriedly turned back to the door, rushing out onto the stage.

  Vlad saw me and laughed. I felt a wave of anger roll through me. “First rodeo?” he asked.

  “What is this?”

  “What do you think, kid? Come on, you’ve done too many bad things to be naive.”

  I knew what it was of course. Those women were going to be sold—sold to rich weapons dealers and drug kingpins for their beds. They were sex slaves. Young women, twenty, nineteen. God, one had looked fifteen. I shook my head. I wanted to leave then and there, just walk out the door. I would have if I hadn’t stopped and thought about what Mr. Black would do if I did. If I walked out on a job, there was a chance my legs would be broken. And broken legs was the best-case scenario. I could also wake up at the bottom of a river, cement blocks strapped to my legs.

  I didn’t say anything to Vlad. I didn’t know what to say. I moved to the edge of the stage and sat for a moment. My adrenalin was pumping, my heart beating a thousand miles a minute. I had been calmer in gun fights. Something about those cages, those women, it really got me. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat.

  Half an hour passed and men started streaming in. Not grunts like me, but rich guys. Mobsters, crime lords, all in expensive suits. Old guys, fat guys, one guy with a giant scar running from eye to chin that made Vlad’s look like a scrape a kid got falling off his tricycle. These guys were big time, though I noticed none of them were good looking. They were the kind of guys who had to throw their money around to get chicks. And what was an easier way than just buying a woman outright? I tried not to think about what was about to happen around me as I stood off to the side of the stage. Vlad was at the other end, and a few guys from different crews were dotted around the room. I didn’t expect trouble. In all it would be an easy job, if not for the fact that I was about to see women sold into sexual slavery.

  Mr. Black wasn’t there, and I was thankful for that. Though if I was there, I knew he had his fat fingers in the pie somewhere and was profiting off the night. I tried to push it from my mind as the first woman was brought out.

  I was expecting them to pull the cages out, but they didn’t. A man walked a woman out, bound at the wrists with thick rope. She was beautiful, wearing a short dress with a plunging neckline. I guessed she was thirty or a bit older, and then the bidding started.

  Men in the audience, standing in front of the stage, held up small paddles. An auctioneer was onstage, standing next to the woman. It was over in a matter of minutes. An old man with a lazy eye I didn’t recognize bought the thirty-year-old for thirty thousand dollars. It was a lot of money to me, but somehow it didn’t seem as though it was enough for
someone’s life.

  The night wore on; women were paraded out, one after the other. All of them were pretty, and none were older than that first woman. I tried not to look at them, and I didn’t for the most part, but as they were led through the door at the back of the stage, I would steal a glance. I couldn’t help it. I had to see them, if only for a moment.

  Then she walked through. I didn’t know her, of course, but something about her struck me. She was gorgeous. She seemed a few years younger than me. She had dark olive skin and dark hair. Her eyes were the brown of coffee with too much milk in it. She wasn’t American; I could tell that just by looking at her. She was Mediterranean. She had to be from Greece or someplace similar.

  The young woman was wearing a short dress, much like the first one had been. She was curvy, with well-defined hips and large breasts that pushed at the top of her dress. Her nipples were hard—natural in the chilly warehouse. She looked terrified. Her lips were plump and sensual, and they were pulled into a tight frown. I saw her, and I felt as though I had known her for years.

  The bidding was fast and furious for her. It got up to fifty thousand, and the next thing I knew it was at seventy thousand. I thought quickly. I had a couple hundred thousand in the bank. Not bad for a grunt like me; I knew how to save. The bidding was up to one hundred and fifteen thousand when it started to slow. I stepped forward just before the auctioneer could award the olive-skinned woman to a fat guy with a bad comb-over.

  “One hundred twenty thousand,” I said.

  Silence. Every face turned toward me. I ignored them and I looked to the fat man with the bad hair to see if he would bid more. He didn’t.

  “Sir,” the auctioneer started, “that’s quite a sum.”

  “I’m good for it,” I growled. Vlad made his way over to me from the other side of the stage.

  “What are you doing, kid?” he asked.

  “What I can,” I said. I was saving that beautiful woman, saving her from that horrid fat man, from a horrible life. I had to do something. I had to do something for her. I pulled my checkbook out of my pocket. I wrote a check and handed it to the auctioneer, and then I took the woman by the hand and undid the rope at her wrists. When she was free, I took her by the hand and pulled her off the stage.