by Shandi Boyes
I don’t know what my father says to Isaac when he reaches him, but it changes the expression on Isaac’s face in an instant. He’s wearing the same haunted look he had the night Ophelia and I organized for him to fight at our father’s underground fight circuit.
We rigged the fight schedule, knowing our father would never value Ophelia’s life enough not to use it as a bargaining chip. We were right. He offered her up as if she was worthless. We just had no clue CJ was fighting that night until it was too late.
Isaac won their match as anticipated, but his victory came at a cost I never anticipated. Ophelia didn’t handle his win well. She was so distraught seeing CJ lying bloody and lifeless on the boxing ring floor, she took her anger out on Isaac instead of our stupid ruse.
Her anguish was nothing on what I felt when Tobias arrived at our family compound only hours later. Ophelia and CJ were in a car accident. CJ was wearing a seat belt. Ophelia wasn’t. She didn’t survive her sail through the windshield, and our family has been in tatters ever since.
After signaling for my father’s goon to follow me, I join my father on the curb in front of Club 57, a famous nightclub in the heart of New York, where he’s undertaking a pissing contest with a man undeserving of his wrath.
I should have accepted Isaac’s answer when I attempted to recruit him to my family’s fighting circuit when he was still in college. If I had, perhaps my life would be starkly contradictory to what it is. Karma has a way of biting back, and she’s been gnawing my ass nonstop the past seven years.
“What has it been?” my father asks, acting oblivious to the fury radiating out of Isaac’s gray eyes. “Six years and I don’t even get a greeting from you.” He snarls like Isaac should be bowing at his feet, unaware the millions of dollars he lost after Ophelia’s death wasn’t solely Isaac’s doing. I had a hand in his demise as well.
How do you think I funded CJ’s retirement to a wood cabin in the middle of whoop whoop?
When my father’s attention shifts to the brunette plastered to Isaac’s side, Isaac pulls her behind him in a protective stance. It doubles the arrogance slicking my father’s skin with sweat, whereas it triples my inquisitiveness. Isaac cared for Ophelia, he may have even loved her, but I never saw him act as possessive with her as he is with this unnamed brunette.
Before I can work through half my curiosity, several voices bark down my earpiece in one go. They’re so loud, I almost want to rip the device out of my ear. The only reason I don’t is because one voice is instantly recognizable. It too angelic to be wrangling two angry mobsters.
“She’s not FBI, Smith. She’s part of the Russian Mafia.”
Although Roxie’s voice is crystal clear, it’s obvious she isn’t talking to me. I don’t even think she’s aware I can hear her.
“She was featured in a crime documentary last year.”
I slant my head to the side, inconspicuously cupping my ear with my shoulder to ensure I don’t miss Smith’s reply. “That documentary was filmed three decades ago. It isn’t possible for her to be the same person.”
I’m drawn from their debate when my father’s beady eyes burn a hole in my temple. I raise my head immediately, lost as to what the fuck I missed. My father is glaring at me, Isaac looks smug, and Murph, my father’s goon, looks relieved all the focus is on me.
“Go!”
My father’s roar startles several partygoers mingling in the distance to watch a battle of mafia kingpins. I’m just as shocked, but instead of freezing to watch the charade unfold, my hand itches to slide into the back of my trousers to retrieve my gun.
I’ve been embarrassed by my father many times—chewed up, spat out, and used more times than I can count—but this is the first time he’s disrespected me in front of an enemy.
His disregard will open a floodgate for many more incidences. If you’re not respected by those in your realm, you’re not respected by anyone. I can’t explain it any simpler than that.
He broke the ultimate rule, and it’s taking everything in me not to retaliate with the same amount of inanity. I wouldn’t hold back if it weren’t for Fien. As much as this pains me to admit, her survival rate is hinged on my father’s immortality.
Roxanne’s virginity is the key to unlocking my daughter’s freedom.
My father owns the lock.
I can’t do this without them.
With that in mind, I pivot on my heels and walk away as per my father’s request. My anger is so stubborn, I grip my date’s arm with more force than needed to guide her to my car I requested for the valet to keep close by. Leah doesn’t seem to mind. She’s as worked up as I am after witnessing my father’s conversation with Isaac.
“He won’t let bygones be bygones, will he?” Her guilt is as palpable as mine. If she hadn’t encouraged Ophelia to consider my ruse, her college roommate/best friend would still be here.
After sliding into the back seat of a rented SUV on Leah’s heel, I rip the earpiece out of my ear, yank my cell phone out of my pocket, then dial Smith’s number.
He answers two rings later. “I’m still cross-referencing—”
“What was that?”
The noise of his chair clicking into place sounds down the line before his confused hum. “What was what?”
“The argument between you and Roxanne.”
A brief stretch of silence teems between us.
It agitates me to no end.
“Smith—”
“She must have accidentally hit the mic button.”
Leah’s pretty hazel eyes float from the scenery whizzing by her window to me when I snarl, “Why was she there to begin with? She should have been in her room.” She’s fine with women being traded as long as it’s of their own free will. Only when you hold them captive, as I have Roxanne the past four days, does she have an issue.
I don’t know if it’s anger skating through my veins or worry when Smith replies, “She found my hub when looking for her father.”
“You didn’t think to lock the door?”
His laugh has me itching for a blood bath. “She didn’t exactly sneak up on me, Dimi. I knew she was coming before she entered.”
“Then you should have escorted her back to her room.”
He scoffs like I’m being irrational. It’s barely heard over Leah’s disappointed sigh when I say, “I put a price on her virginity tonight. If she’s wandering around unsupervised, someone might be tempted to claim it without paying for the privilege.”
“Fuckin’ hell, Dimitri.” Smith’s relapse to my full name exposes his annoyance. “You were supposed to use Ian’s information to get your foot into the industry, not dump Roxanne knee-deep in it.”
“I couldn’t get my foot in the door without using Roxanne’s virginity.” When he remains quiet, I stack some reassurance onto my ploy. “She won’t be touched under my watch. I won’t let anyone hurt her.”
“You wanna fucking hope so, D.” This gravelly tone doesn’t belong to Smith. It’s the voice of an undeniably pissed Rocco. “Because if she gets hurt, you’ll have to load your own bullets into the gun you want to kill your father with because I’ll be done.”
It takes everything I have not to smash my phone when Rocco ends our call by doing precisely that to Smith’s cell. The only reason I don’t is because Smith’s face on the screen of my phone is quickly gobbled up by the symbol I use for my father—a reversed pentagram.
Col: Meet me at Chasity’s at midnight. Come alone. It’s time to expand the family franchise.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Roxanne
My eyes lift to the door when the creak of overworked hinges sounds through my ears. Relief engulfs my senses when Dimitri enters my room. I haven’t laid my eyes on him in over twenty-four hours. He didn’t return to our room after he snuck out yesterday afternoon, and none of his staff knew of his whereabouts when they brought in my meals. It was as if he vanished into thin air.
Even though I shouldn’t have worn a hole in th
e rug fretting about him, I did. The last time we were together, he was a raging, neurotic caveman, but I still get a weird sense of comfort from sharing a bed with him. Seeing his bad points firsthand awards me the knowledge that he is able to protect me if needed. It arrives with a heap of possessive idiocies, but I’d rather those than to have him sit back and watch the carnage unfold like my father would.
The more my conversation with Rocco yesterday afternoon filtered through my head, the sturdier my disdain for my father became. He tried to sell my virginity—more than once. That burns. I’ve known for a very long time that possessions are more valuable to him than anything, but still, I’m his daughter, his flesh and blood. He isn’t supposed to profit off me.
My thoughts snap back to the present when Dimitri crosses the room. When I drink in his features, the knot in my stomach tightens. He looks exhausted—that isn’t unusual, he always looks exhausted, but it’s more prominent this morning. Dark rings circle his eyes, a crinkle is burrowed between his brows, and he’s wearing the same tuxedo he snuck out of the room with last night—but he also looks as sexy as hell. His scruffy beard has been replaced with an almost clean-shaven chin, and his dark hair has been slicked back off his face. With a teasing number of tattoos peeking out of his impressive-looking tuxedo, he’s showcasing the ultimate bad-boy persona—brooding mood and all.
“Hey,” I greet him when he stops at the end of my bed. I’m not a fan of his quietness. I’d rather he pin me to the bed and scream in my face than tackle the bad aura suffocating his usually vivacious personality. “Are you just getting in?”
I loathe the jealousy my question was asked with, but it can’t be helped. I know he didn’t attend his function alone. I spotted a pretty redhead hovering in the wings of the surveillance footage Smith wasn’t quick enough to shut down before I saw it last night. Before Dimitri left her alone to speak with his father, she was fawning all over him.
“Yeah. It was a long one.” Eager to skip the awkwardness of a martial-like conversation when we’re not close to being in a relationship, Dimitri lowers his eyes to the stacks of drawings on the mattress. “What are these?”
His inquisitiveness is understandable. I usually only sketch erotic nudes or cute animals. The twenty-plus works of art I slaved over for hours last night are life-like portraits.
“These are the faces of the people I remember seeing at Joops the night your wife was kidnapped. I drew the ones I couldn’t cross off from Smith’s database.” I copy the scan of his eyes. “Most are entire faces, but a handful are a mix of side profiles or the angle I saw them at. It isn’t much, but something as simple as an odd-shaped nose or a risqué haircut could add a name to your list of suspects.” I lean over to snap up a drawing of a woman’s hand I finished just before he arrived. “Like this one. Her ring is a custom piece. Perhaps Smith could locate the designer who made it? Or this one…” I snatch up the picture of a man with a military squadron tattoo on his arm. “His tattoo is only for current or previous servicemen and women. An everyday civilian can’t get it.”
My eyes float up to Dimitri’s face when he asks, “Why are they separated into two piles?”
“This pile…” I point to my left, “… are the people who left before you arrived with your wife. These ones…” I shift my hand to the stack on my right, “… were still at the restaurant after I left.”
I grow worried I’ve overstepped my mark when a brief stint of silence stretches between us. I’m confident Dimitri is appreciative of my help, but I doubt he’s ever been given it without a heap of stipulations attached.
The hammer hits the nail on the head when Dimitri asks a few seconds later, “Why are you doing this, Roxanne? Why now?”
I lick my dry lips, hoping a little bit of wetness will help ease out my next set of words. “This is why I’m here, isn’t it? To help get your daughter back?” Although my presence doesn’t eliminate the reason Dimitri had Rocco follow me for the nine months after my accident, my offer of assistance was the only chip I had during our negotiation. “You don’t want my help in the way Rocco suggested, so I’m trying to find another way to be helpful.”
“It isn’t that I don’t want your help. I just…”
When his words trail off to silence, I help him out. “Blame me for what happened?”
He shakes his head, but his eyes say differently.
When he realizes I’ve spotted the truth in his eyes, he rakes his fingers through his dark locks. “She was right there, Roxanne, right fucking there, but I stopped to find you, and I couldn’t take back the time I’d lost.”
Unease twists in my stomach. “You stopped for me?”
He doesn’t need to nod, I can see the truth in his eyes, but he does, nonetheless. “You made it two miles from where you were run down.” A pfft vibrates his lips. I don’t know if it’s a good or bad pfft. “Your effort that night should have been applauded, but all it did was create months of misery. I lost contact with my daughter for nine months. There were no demands for ransom. No proofs of life. She was gone, and I was convinced I’d never see her again.” Although this hurts to hear, I’m loving his brutal honesty. “Then you showed up again… and so did Fien.”
Reading between the lines, I say, “I didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance or reappearance, Dimitri. You have to believe me.”
Our conversation ends as quickly as it begins when he mutters, “Belief takes trust. I don’t give that to anyone.” His eyes bounce between mine for several heart-thrashing seconds before he adds, “And neither should you.” He dumps the drawing of a petite blonde with big blue eyes onto the stack on my right before he heads for the bathroom. “I’m going to wash up before having a drink downstairs.” I’m anticipating for him to announce he’ll have his staff bring a nightcap to my room, so you can imagine my shock when he says, “You can join me if you’d like.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dimitri
While exiting the bathroom I’ve shared with Roxanne the past five days, I dry my hair with more aggression than needed. Roxanne is stretched across the mattress, picking shards of pencil shavings out of the bedding. One of my shirts she’s wearing as sleepwear is riding up high on her thighs. Since she isn’t wearing any panties, inches upon inches of her delectable ass are on display. The exposed regions of her body reveal where her spanking marred her skin, however my handprints don’t deter her sexiness.
A woman’s virginity is supposed to automatically cloak them in innocence. They’re usually seen as pure and unadulterated, the unsullied angels of a dark and twisted world.
Roxanne blows those theories out of the water.
She’s ridiculously sexy, so much so, I’ll have to tame down her looks for tonight’s ruse to be effective. Important guests are arriving for festivities this evening. They’re not the Arabian tycoons I usually cater for. They’re just as rich, arrogant, and self-proclaimed, but instead of paying out the eye for a hooker for a night or three, they purchase wives specifically trained to their specifications.
I’ve had suspicions for months that my family was dabbling in this industry, but only last night did I receive official confirmation. For longer than I’ve been born, the Petrettis have been distributing mail-order brides, trained sex slaves, and the absolute kicker, babies.
Don’t let your mind wander too far just yet. I almost killed my father where he stood when he disclosed how many children our family had sold over the past four decades. My mind instantly went to the gutter, aware if it brought in an income, it was to be explored—the pedophilia market included. It was only after inconspicuously passing on a handful of names to Smith did I learn otherwise. The purchasers of the newborn babies appear to be average, everyday Americans, although in the highly-craved two percent of the population. They had money—enough they could buy their way into parenthood.
Did the information lessen my agitation? Hardly. I’m still pissed, and it has me taking my anger out on the wrong person.
; “Did you wear panties while lying on our bed with Rocco last night?” Think of the most possessive, disturbed prick you’ve ever met, then you’ll have an indication on how bluntly I asked my question.
My foul mood can’t be helped. Being an asshole sucks the life right out of me, so you can imagine how hard the fight becomes when the faintest whiff of the woman I should hate stirs my cock in a way no other woman has. Although Roxanne didn’t hold the knife to Audrey’s throat when she was marched out of Slice of Salt, nor to her stomach when she was forced through a dangerous caesarian, I can’t help but still blame her.
It’s ten times easier than shunting all the blame onto myself.
As Roxanne spins around to face me, she pulls down on the hem of her shirt. “I was wearing panties then. I took them off when I showered.”
The honesty in her eyes does little to ease my annoyance. “Then why didn’t you replace them when you got dressed?” Eighty percent of my staff are men, meaning the odds her meals today were delivered by a male is highly probable. The thought of them seeing her as I am now pisses me off. They were eager before her virginity was unannounced. Now they’ll be blood-thirsty.
Roxanne’s throat works hard to swallow. The liquor I guzzled down to keep my expression neutral while my father revealed his bag of tricks has me picturing her swallowing my cum while staring up at me with her pretty eyes out in full force. “The idea of drawing the people I saw smacked into me in the shower. I was so eager to start, I borrowed one of your shirts so I could get straight to work.”
“Did you borrow my shirt or steal it?” I ask, looking for any excuse to punish her. Punishing her may be the only way I’ll make it through tonight without killing everyone in attendance. That’s how worked up I am.
Roxanne’s reddish-blonde brows join as confusion crosses her features. “I didn’t steal it, Dimitri. I’d never steal from you...”
Her words shift to a gasp when I interrupt, “Take it off.”