by Cat Porter
Adri’s hand squeezed mine. Her breath quickened. Was she panicked, upset, or was she turned on? Was she burning like I was? With her body pressed to mine, her curves splaying out of her dress, her perfume all over me, the taste of her tongue still on mine, raw desire swelled in my blood, tearing through my veins, ripping through my flesh. Her breasts crushed against my chest as she molded herself around me.
Turned on.
My hand slid down the back of her dress over her hot, bare flesh, and she trembled, letting out a cry. I found the swell of her ass and stroked her there, my heart pounding, my pulse going crazy.
A rush of heat blew through me. We were down some goddamn Russian rabbit hole and part of me just didn’t care. The only thing that was real right now, the only thing that mattered was Adriana’s touch on my body, her hands, her lips.
She stroked my chest. Skimming up, pressing down. Up and down. I wanted to rip off my shirt and feel her flesh against mine, the hard metal beads of her dress scraping down my skin as my tongue invaded her mouth, her hair in my fist. Her hand slid down my torso and palmed my erection.
My body seized, I stung. “Adri.”
Her hand pulsed and stroked firmly over me. She turned into my chest and with her free hand, pulled my head down, and our lips finally touched. Warm and searching. Insistent and restless. We kissed to fuck. Need, spiraling need and raw desire bound us together. I clutched her ass and brought her in between my legs, nestling her right where my ache and hers demanded.
Taking her mouth, I swallowed Adri’s cries and groans. The moans and whispers that had been lodged in my throat finally rose all around us. The crack of the cane, the snap of the whip made her body jerk in my hold and open to mine. Muffled grunts, excited giggles, greedy demands razored past us.
I wanted nothing more than to pound into her and make her body ripple with pleasure, and for her to tear me in two. But that would be giving into the Russian madness, to Luca’s manipulation. To Gennaro’s smug indifference.
My heart raced painfully, my stomach roiled. For the first time in a long time, I felt paralyzed, as if I needed someone to tell me what to do. My need for her skyrocketed as the friction we’d created threatened to combust.
I nuzzled her lips, kissing the edges of her mouth.
“Turo, Turo…” her ragged voice clawed at my flesh, her warm lush lips opening under mine.
What I needed to do was to protect her, keep her safe. At all costs.
“Shh.” I brushed her lips with mine.
Stop. Stop.
“Lovely…” Was that my voice? Husky and choked. I nipped at her bottom lip to get my sanity back, to stay connected to her. To keep her alert with me.
My hands cradled her face. Her jaw was set, cheeks streaked with red, skin damp. “Not now, baby. Not here,” I pleaded. Yes, I was pleading before I exploded and pushed her against the wall. Before I lost it. “Here they have us where they want us. And I’m not sure what that is yet.”
She smashed her face in my chest and a breath heaved from me, my arms wrapping around her, holding her tight. Inhaling the flowery scent of her hair, digging my fingers into her silky waves, I shut my eyes and dragged in a deep breath.
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” I muttered.
Before we went too far.
Before—
I pulled her out of the room, the two of us cemented to one another and moving fast. Fragrant, thick cigar smoke wafted in the hallway from the room opposite. Another party was in full swing inside—girls twisting around stripper poles, lap dancing to pop music, sucking cock.
How very ordinary.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Luca’s deep voice penetrated my skull. Adri skidded on her heeled sandals, and I steadied her.
“Aren’t you done with the tour of this fun boat?” I spit out. “We are.”
“No, there’s more. There is always more.” Luca gestured toward another stairwell. “Come.”
We climbed the stairs to the upper deck. Adri and I both sucked in the cool, salty air. An enormous swimming pool was lit up with lights and four naked girls cavorting in it. Several ice sculptures stood guard over a huge buffet table laden with tiered platters of shrimp, crab legs, lobsters, and shellfish. Jumbo bottles of Armand de Brignac champagne were everywhere. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of bubbly. My muscles clenched together, my stomach twisted, my head swam.
“This way, please,” said a man with a crisp British accent dressed as a classic butler. He led us to a huge banquette where a man held court at the center. That man being the one and only Evgeny Berezin.
Berezin and a few partners had jumped on the dissolution of communism in the Soviet Union by buying up government owned natural gas and oil refineries, a ton of formerly government owned real estate in Moscow, and here he sat, the king. He couldn’t have been over forty-five. A slight paunch to his belly was the only thing that belied an indulgent lifestyle. Berezin was tall and clear eyed, well-dressed and well pleased with himself.
His blue eyes landed on Luca and he rose from his seat. “My friend, you have come!” He gave Luca a bear hug.
“You should have come to my brother’s party. It was quite a scene,” Luca said.
“Marina is there now. She’s a big fan of that idiot DJ, Kaspar.”
“Marina is his daughter,” Adri whispered to me. “They say he’s buying her her own yacht for her twentieth birthday.”
“I don’t like that electronic music shit. And I like my parties better.” Evgeny laughed as he gestured toward the shoreline. “All night we hear that crazy music and we see the lights from here but no crowds for us. Come sit.”
Room was made for us on the thickly upholstered sofa. The low, long table in front of us was decorated with white stripes and spirals—ribbons and mounds of cocaine.
I put my arm around Adri’s shoulders and she nestled close to me. “Don’t drink anything,” I said, and she nodded.
I couldn’t take any chance where Adriana was concerned. I wouldn’t put it past Evgeny’s party people to drug women’s drinks, and I didn’t trust Luca either.
Luca leaned over the table and took a long hit of coke from one of the many spirals of powder. Leaning back again, sniffing in deep, his tongue swiping over his gums, he slid a hand down a thigh and crossed one leg over the other. A figure in satisfaction.
Luca had Evgeny talking yachts, how impressive his was, how tall his carbon masts were, what his summer plans were. I wanted this fucking over. As they talked, Adri’s and my breathing got hooked in a rhythm. Intense, heavy. The heat from our bodies melded. Every moment that passed stretched us toward something unknown, kept our bodies tense. We were on edge, together.
I’d been in situations like this many times before on Mauro’s behalf, this waiting for the ball to drop, the wire to be cut. But this was different. My chest tightened painfully, a cold sweat prickled over my skin, nausea rode me. I was literally feeling this situation. I sucked in a breath. I couldn’t lower the volume or shut it off. This was a fucking first. Why?
Adri. That was why.
Protecting her wasn’t simply a job. The thought of anyone taking advantage of her, of her in danger, had me ticking along with my watch to get us off this goddamn monstrosity of a cruise ship. She was better than all this. She was another world from this, my world.
Luca’s hand landed on Adri’s bare thigh and he stroked her skin as he spoke with Evgeny about Italian soccer teams and Ducatis. She let out a tiny yelp, her body stiffening at my side.
And there it was.
Evgeny’s eyes darted to the movement of Luca’s hand, his gaze traveling up Adriana’s leg, resting on her face.
Tick, tick, tick.
Adri grabbed onto Luca’s wrist, stopping him. He didn’t miss a beat, though, continuing his discussion of Juventus versus Real Madrid in an upcoming match as his thumb circled a spot on her thigh.
Bitter venom filled my mouth. “Luca—”
He ignored
me.
Evgeny interrupted. “Who is this fantastic woman with you?” His eyes were lit. Appetizer served.
Luca released his hold on Adri’s leg. “Adriana is a special friend of mine. I thought you might like to meet her.” His voice was unusually silky and warm.
My pulse hammered in my head, my jaw ground together.
“Ah, a real Greek beauty, eh?” Evgeny shook a thick index finger at Luca. “How you know me, you motherfucker.”
“I don’t forget,” replied Luca.
Berezin’s gaze took in the three of us. He was turned on by our portrait of a ménage.
“Gospodny Berezin—”Adri said, and a chill stole up my spine. Luca and Evgeny’s eyes narrowed at her while she spoke to Berezin in Russian. Evenly, confidently.
Go, baby.
“We’ve met before,” she continued in English, her voice clear.
Evgeny’s eyes grew larger. “Oh?” He was almost amused that she’d spoken to him. After all, pussy wasn’t supposed to talk. Only giggle, moan, and open wide.
“My father introduced us. Petros Lavrentios. It was last year in Paris,” she said.
Berezin’s hard eyes darted at Luca for a beat then back to Adri. “Ah, yes.” His arms stretched out in the air then came together on a clap. “I remember. That small restaurant by the Ritz. Terrible food.” He made a clownish face.
Adri laughed softly. “Yes, it wasn’t very good. Marina and I were at the same table. We talked about her plans for her birthday party in Greece. So full of ideas. It was wonderful to see her again tonight at the party. Is she coming back here tonight?”
Not a tremble in her clear, smooth voice. Only a feminine strength in a gentle inquiry, an inquiry that held weight, had substance. Evgeny crossed his arms. Luca remained still. With one swoop, Adriana had defused the situation, put us all on a different game board.
Had Luca intended to offer her to Berezin as a sexual favor or to use her name and his association with her? Whatever it was, I hated him for it. Fucking hated him.
“No, she’s staying at a resort on the island with her friends,” Berezin said, sniffing in air. “Come. Dance with me,” Evgeny said, standing up, adjusting his suit jacket.
“Adri—” I didn’t get much further.
“It’s all right,” she murmured, letting go of me, rising from the sofa.
The loss of her heat beside me, the sight of her striding toward Evgeny made my chest crush together. She didn’t take his outstretched hand but walked beside him to the dance floor by the pool talking, surely in Russian, as they went.
I moved next to Luca. “I’m going to cut your balls off the second we get off this boat, do I make myself clear?”
Luca met my hard gaze with one of his own.
“You need me and Adriana to grease his ass for you, is that it?” I asked.
Luca let out a breath, pressing back into the sofa. “My father has been buying petrol from Evgeny for years. Last New Year’s he caught me with his daughter and he’s never forgiven me. He wants her fucking aristocrats, not working class southern European men like me. I’ve got too much dirt under my fingernails for him. He forgets where he came from.”
“Ah, Luca.”
“Oh, she’s no innocent. The point is, I need to smooth things over with him.”
We both focused on Adri and Evgeny talking as they danced. “How do you plan on doing that?” I asked, my voice tense watching Evgeny’s arm around Adri’s bare back.
“Offering him a cut of my new business venture. Counterfeit designer goods—handbags, sunglasses, wallets, belts, shoes. Used to be that shit was sold only on the streets in certain neighborhoods of big cities by African immigrants. But now with the internet exploding, that is all changing.”
“Online shopping.”
“Yes. People want bargains and they want the top brands from the privacy of their own home. Demand increases, and if you make it available, they will buy.
“And you can’t tell the difference between a fake and a real piece on the computer screen.”
“That’s the best part. You have to be able to inspect the stitching, feel the material, smell it. Can’t do that on a computer. Even so, fakes aren’t as obviously shitty as they used to be. Now, it’s hard to tell the difference between a real one and a imitazione.”
“The products are coming from China?”
“Yes.” He let out a dry chuckle as he lit a cigarette. “Sometimes from the same factories where the real goods are being made.”
My gaze fell to the coke splayed out on the table. Gone was the pure narcotics trafficking of old. Luca and Alessio’s father and grandfather had risen to power and notoriety on their cocaine and heroin distribution successes in southern Italy and Europe. Now Luca was taking the business into multinational corporate mode. That was vision for the future.
“Does Alessio know about this?” I asked.
His eyes slid to mine. “I don’t involve my brother. He wanted out years ago, he got out.”
“So, you only do business at his parties? Are you making copies of his jewelry too?”
“Of course not.” Luca made a face at me as he took a long hit of his cigarette. “Only Cartier and Tiffany.”
“What do you need Evgeny for?”
“Shipping. He’ll make sure my product gets through to Turkey where I pick it up. And he’ll make sure they get seen in Russia and a few of the former Soviet countries in the region for a share of the profits.”
“Does he sell you interesting weapons, too?”
“Only if I ask nice.” Luca let out a long stream of smoke.
“Why do you have to get Adriana involved, an innocent civilian, especially when she’s your brother’s girlfriend?”
“I didn’t know Adri knew Evgeny. She played the daddy card and the I’m-your-daughter’s-friend card. No matter. He likes them young and glittery.” He leaned over the table, dabbed a short line of coke into formation and sniffed. “He has no morals, so she’s only made herself more attractive to him. Now she’s a true trophy.” He rubbed his tongue across his gums.
My heart thudded in my chest as Luca and I watched Evgeny insist on dancing a second song with Adri, holding her flush against his body, hand splayed on her back.
“Your moral compass is pretty fucking stellar too, Aliberti.”
“I’m a businessman, DeMarco. Same as you.”
“Keep Adriana out of this.”
“The minute you boarded this boat with me, she was marked as mine to give,” he breathed. “So were you.”
My heart shot into overdrive, pummeling against my ribs, churning ice into my veins at his words, at what he implied. At his fucking easygoing tone. My body flinched as the man next to me on the sofa bumped into me as he and his friends snorted blow like college kids on spring break. Their loud laughter jarring, their wild chattering in Arabic intensifying the ache drilling through my skull.
Evgeny and Adri returned, and my lungs began to ease. She took a step toward me, but he gripped her hand, stopping her, and her face tightened. Evgeny slid a thick arm around Adri’s middle, pressing her against his body, and she swallowed hard, her eyes finding mine. Spooked. Anxious. My heart collided with my ribcage, my pulse jamming.
“Let’s play, Luca,” said Evgeny, his tone decidedly different. “That’s what you came here for, isn’t it?” His dark gaze slid to mine then back to Luca. He knew I was on edge, he liked it.
“It is, yes.” Luca put out his cigarette in an enormous gold plated ashtray with three naked cherubs humping each other along the rim. Luca rose from the sofa, his poker face firmly in place.
“Let’s play.”
21
Turo
Berezin led Adri off the deck and through an archway, Luca and I behind them. My chest was heavy with lead.
“What the hell is going on, Luca?” I muttered under my breath.
“Obviously, he’s still pissed at me. My father wants me to make it up to him. Any way I can. ”
“Whatever way, you keep Adri out of this.”
“You might have to work for that.”
I grabbed the collar of his expensive T-shirt. “Do not involve her, you fuck. Use me if you want.”
He patted my cheek as if I were his brother. “Bene.” A dark grin flickered over his lips. That had been his plan all along, hadn’t it?
We entered a dark room, smaller than the others, the odor of vodka thick, sweat and perfume streaking through the humidity. The walls were different here from the other rooms, textured. Soundproofed.
People were clustered in a circle, one spotlight beaming down harsh white light over a round table where a wide smear of blood was smudged on the surface. Evgeny held out his free hand, and another white-gloved butler placed a revolver in his palm. He released Adriana and took bullets from his pocket and loaded the revolver, spinning the chamber. His audience buzzed. Not anxious or agitated, they were fucking excited.
Evgeny’s hand went to Adri’s bottom and pulled her up against him. She visibly stiffened as he brushed his lips across her jaw.
A low growl ripped from my throat.
Berezin raised the revolver for all to see. Staring at Luca, still holding onto Adriana, he placed the gun ceremoniously on the center of the table.
Russian fucking roulette.
The raucous jabbering of the spectators grew louder at Evgeny’s challenge. An excited, impatient babble of foreign languages.
“Prove yourself to me,” Luca breathed, his voice steely, low. Just for me. “Prove yourself to her. Now is your time, DeMarco.”
My heart slammed in my chest, my eyes jammed shut. Do this one thing for me.
“Luca. Time to play.” Berezin’s voice sliced through the air, silencing everyone. Everyone but me.
He’d unloosed the pin in the grenade.
Adriana’s fierce gaze held me in its grip. She remained rigid. She needed me.