“Come, Little Dove. Boss is not happy. ”
I asked before why they all call me such a silly name. Beau says it’s because I’m like a tiny bird who was caged but belongs free. He says I deserve to fly when I want to. Does this time count or will I be scolded?
Seeing him is reassuring, but not nearly as much as when Victor’s solid frame enters. He steps over the now-dead Sicilians spread out on the floor like he’s attempting not to get his expensive shoes dirty. Victor’s older, but he’s still strong like Beau and very handsome in his own way. I would guess when he was a younger man, he looked just like Beau.
He holds a hand out toward me, and I place my small palm in his. He’s never touched me before, and I see it for what it is, a peace offering and to give me a sense of comfort. I’m grateful more than he can imagine.
“You’re not mad?” I gaze into his stern eyes, mine full of caution. He has every right to be furious, to punish me. I know the Master wouldn’t have shown me kindness. He most likely would’ve killed me as an example to the others for thinking about being free, maybe worse—torture of some kind.
“Nyet.” He tugs me a bit closer to him, towing me toward the door. On our way outside, he gestures to my room, making a sweeping motion with his hands and his men go to work cleaning up the bodies and blood like it never even happened. An easy feat for them with their training to make it all disappear.
There’s a shiny new, dark gray Cadillac SUV idling at the curb. It’s a flawless vehicle and screams wealth. None of the shady people standing about outside and around the hotel glance our way. They all stare at the ground like one look at us will seal their fate, and with Victor, perhaps that fear is true.
Another guard climbs out of the driver’s side and opens the door closest to us. Victor steps to the side so I can scramble into the back first, then he follows. The door closes quietly after him, and we’re encased in silence and darkness from the nearly-black tint on the windows. The air’s rich with a heady leather scent from the interior and his spicy aftershave.
“The men in the back!” I suddenly remember, and he shakes his head, raising his hand to calm me.
“They’ve been taken care of. No one will harm you,” he responds with finality as we pull away from the cheap motel.
“Why aren’t you angry?” My gaze is still wary as I twist my hands in my lap. My experience with men has me on edge nearly all the time, well, except with Beau. He calms my anxiety that I’m always fighting with inside.
“You belong to moy sin. I will do anything to keep you safe for him.”
“Spaseeba.” It leaves me quietly, my eyes falling to my hands.
I’m feeling unbelievably childish for making him chase down and rescue me after being somewhat ungrateful for all they’ve done. I should never have tried to leave. I may be a free bird, but my wings are more or less clipped. They always will be. I’m not meant to go off exploring on my own. Some may think it’s weak, but it’s just truth. Not all of us are meant to be strong. Some of us are weaker and the stronger ones—like Beau—balance us out.
“Nyet.”
“No?”
“He will hear of this. Do not thank me.” There’s no negotiation. It’s a promise, and I know Beau won’t be pleased to hear about this little venture.
“Now Spartak!” I order as I hear the first explosion go off, so he’ll grab Don Franchetti and stop him from escaping.
One shot to Yema’s forehead and my clips empty. I don’t reload, holstering and grabbing my other gun from the opposite side. It’s loaded as are the other two I’m packing. With Cappeloni’s death, my heart speeds up, excited one piece of scum is out of the way forever. Not very cop-like of me, but I’m no longer that person.
I won’t go around killing innocent people in the future or anything, but I can easily admit that the death of these men will not weigh on my conscience. Good fucking riddance is my thinking after witnessing all the women we have the past few days. These guys are lucky Vik isn’t capturing them all to torture them with his blow torch like he enjoys doing to the worst of men.
A bullet flies beside me, and I flip around quickly, finding Viktor had shot a guy behind me. This place is a goddamn madhouse with shots being fired from all directions.
“Fuck!” I shout and glare at Franchetti. His stupid men charge after us like a bunch of goddamn cowboys or something, and we have to kill them all so they don’t kill us.
This is not what I wanted—at all. I was planning less casualties overall with more witnesses and freed women. I don’t give a shit if the President has spoken to Tate about it or not and given his blessing with our plans. We’re the lesser evil, yes, but I hate having so many dead bodies popping up everywhere. My soul is already black enough from killing the criminals I did while I was undercover. I need to concentrate on the worst of the worst.
These Italians are acting like they’re at a freaking shootout in the Wild West rather than a takeover from another Boss. Hell, it’s more of a takeover from all the Russians, not just one boss.
“We have to get out!” Tate yells. “Now! Reinforcements will arrive any minute, here’s our window.”
“The women!” I shout back as we trade fire with a few more guards. They hit the ground with all of us on them, shooting to kill. We have many more hours of training and are extra lethal when we’re together like this.
“Alexei, Spartak, and Finn can help get them to the vans and the airport. Tate’s right, we need to leave. We have to get to the jet with Don Franchetti while the path is clear. We may not have a better chance.” Viktor agrees, and I pull the zip ties from my pocket.
Franchetti’s men would check our guards at each new place, but I never let them touch my cousins or me. So we carried the equipment we needed to pull this off. Tate with the sonar devices, me with the zip ties and smoke bombs, and Viktor arranged all the backup, transportation and infiltration of our own weapons to be ready for our men to do a hostile takeover.
Shit’s been crazy.
I rush toward the Don. Yanking him around, I secure his hands behind him, in the same fashion I did on the force. Once we’re all boarded safely on the jet, I’ll be securing his feet as well. No way am I letting this asshole get away from me now.
Jerking him along, we head out the back where we have a hummer on standby. It’s reinforced to take the brunt if we come under more fire, which we do immediately as we head toward the entry gate. Viktor figured we’d need a bigger vehicle in case we ended up having to squish a bunch of us in here to escape an ambush.
One of the fuckers armed at the gate has what appears to be a mini rocket launcher propped on his shoulder, pointed at us. Franchetti laughs jovially as he sees it—stupid fucker. They won’t shoot, though. We have the head of their organization with us. In Miami coming out of this mini-compound, I feel as if we should be in Cuba or something right now. These fuckers are crazier than Russian soldiers who’ve been up all night drinking.
“Sei uno stupido, desperato e illuso,” Franchetti mutters, shaking his head.
“Did you just call me stupid?” I glare at him, and Viktor chuckles.
“He called you a fool, a desperate one,” Viktor informs me, and I glare over at Franchetti again. Of course, my cousin knows multiple languages. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to ask him if he knew what the hell they were saying around us.
Viktor speeds as much as he can without calling too much attention to us in the massive beast of a vehicle. We don’t want the cops on us. Who knows who’s in Franchetti’s pocket down here. This isn’t our territory.
I mean theirs; this isn’t my cousin’s territory. I’m becoming too comfortable, obviously.
“You’ll be desperate once we’re ready to extract intelligence,” I mutter, peeved this cocky fucker’s so smug still.
“You will get nothing,” he bites out, and I slam my elbow into the side of his head, making him swear loudly.
“Oh, but we’ve nearly taken everything already,�
� Tate counteracts. “We have your locations that are all being taken over as we speak, you’re losing a ton of men, you haven’t received a penny from us nor will you. Oh yeah, and we have you and all the women. It sounds like you're a poor sport a—what do you types call it? A schmuck? Such funny names. In Russia, you’d just be called trash.” He shrugs like it’s the craziest thing to him and makes me chuckle.
“We’ll take good care of Victoria Franchetti too. She damn sure won’t be my cousin’s wife either. Is she your daughter or your niece? I haven’t quite figured it out yet. Regardless, we’ll have fun with her.” He presses on. Tate himself is an arrogant man at times.
The Don keeps his gaze trained forward and remains silent, ignoring us. He’s going to be a fun one to break.
I prefer him not speaking right now. My mind’s going a million miles a minute. I have a missed call from my father, and that weighs on me. He only calls if it’s important when he knows I’m busy like this.
I’m sure it has to do with Sasha, and that makes me nervous, knowing she was on her own for the first time. Well, she thought she was on her own anyhow. I know my father, and he would’ve made sure she was overly-protected since I asked him to keep a watch on her. The thoughts still have my fingers twitching with the need to dial both of their numbers though.
With all the drama and the need to be in a hurry, it makes the trip to the private airstrip seem as if it takes forever. What is it with shit taking longer when you’re in a hurry?
“Serpente di Masterson,” Franchetti mutters, practically spitting the words as he glances in my direction for a brief second.
I have a good idea of what he said; pretty sure he just called us snakes or something. I couldn’t give a fuck. I am a snake when it comes to his type of business. I hope they all suffer and I’m pleased I’ll be helping bring him to our personal type of justice.
“Zatknis’,” Viktor growls from the front, telling the Don to shut up in Russian. I guess he figures if the Don’s going to speak in Italian, he may as well speak Russian. At least that language I actually understand.
“We’re here,” he says after a minute, and I release the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding these last few moments.
“The men are on their way, they just texted,” Tate replies and my chest feels even less tight with the double dose of good news. I never would’ve been able to make it up to Finn’s mother had something happened to him during all of this.
Now we just have to get Franchetti out of here and let the men take care of the captive women. The only one we weren’t able to get our hands on was the Don Franchetti’s brother. We’ll get to him eventually; he can only hide away for so long.
We picked up Victoria Franchetti back in Russia as well. She’s on a flight to us right this moment. We won’t harm her, but she’ll be placed under supervision at Viktor’s cabin. Maybe her dear old uncle or father—whichever he is—will come out of hiding once he hears she’s with us and we can nab him next. The less of the Franchetti mob out in the world, the better it’ll be for everyone.
Hearts reunited.
I didn’t think I’d missed him that badly in the week we were a part. When he comes racing into my room, my heart pounds so hard it may burst free. He looks tired, worried, and most of all beautiful—like my own exhausted dark angel.
Those words are reserved more for women I think, but it’s what comes to mind when I look at him. That and warmth. This man makes me feel warm all over. My soul knows his like it’s an old friend from another life.
“Beau.” The word leaves me on a woosh, and then I’m in his sturdy arms, my body pressed to his. He holds me as if he can’t get close enough, like I mean everything to him, as he does to me.
I’m such a fool for trying to leave, for thinking I wouldn’t miss him if I left. I thought of him constantly, and I’m lucky to have his attention. After all, he could’ve chosen any woman at the auctions, but he picked me over them all. After the recent drama, it put things in better perspective for me. I don’t ever want to lose him.
“Thank God, you’re okay. Victor told me what happened while I was away. I’m so damn sorry I wasn’t here to protect you.”
“I’m fine. Your father stopped the men before they got to me.”
“I don’t know what I would’ve done if they took you or you were harmed.” His caring words have my skin tingling all over in a pleasant way. I don’t think he’s mad after all. When Victor said he’d tell Beau what happened, I wasn’t expecting Beau to be this way, more annoyed or fed up perhaps.
“How was your trip?”
“You’re changing the subject.” His face grows stern, but there’s still a happy glint in his gaze.
“I don’t want you to think such things, I’d rather hear about you traveling. Was Russia as beautiful as I imagine?” It feels funny asking and admitting that I can only get glimpses of my homeland.
“You don’t remember it?”
“Only pieces, not much.”
“Russia was a different experience this trip, but I promise we’ll go someday and we’ll see all the beautiful parts of it. We’ll explore it together.”
A smile breaks loose; I can’t help but be excited at his promise. “And the women? Are they free?”
“Not exactly.” He sighs, and my stomach flips.
“What is it?”
“We got them out of each place; there were multiple locations. But we’re going to have doctors look them over before anything happens or they go anywhere. We can’t just send them out in the world without making sure they have a plan or help. My cousin Tate has a large facility set up for women that go through traumatic events. It helps them readjust to regular life, and he usually finds them work so they have a way to make money legally. They are free from the horror, but they all have a long road ahead of them, that’s for sure.”
“Good, I’m glad your family is helping them.”
“You haven’t asked about him.” It comes out with a scowl. He hates thinking about the Master. He did accuse me of loving the man after all.
“Mr. Capelloni?”
“No,” he growls, not happy thinking of Yema either. “Although I did shoot him, you should know.”
“Oh.” I don’t dare say his name. The last time was the huge fight, and I don’t want to argue or cry with him right now. Hearing Yema’s dead makes me want to jump around for joy. He was an evil man who hurt many people.
“Don Franchetti,” he finally says.
“That’s his name?”
“Yes. Do you want to know what’s happened to him? What I did to him?”
“As long as you are here with me and okay, then no, I don’t want to know. He is nothing to me in this life with you.”
He kisses me then, his lips on mine, moving deliciously. I melt into his hard frame, giving myself over to his tenderness. His tongue swirls with mine as he embraces me to him, not letting me escape, not that I would want to leave his arms—ever.
Sweet moments pass, and he pulls away, holding my biceps, his nose lightly pressed to mine, his forehead resting on mine. He whispers, “Good because I killed him and there’s no going back. You’re completely mine, Sasha. None of those people exist anymore, my cousins and I took care of them.”
After so many years and there’s not an ounce of sadness at his proclamation toward the man known to me as Master. If anything, it’s more like an imaginary weight has been lifted off my shoulders that I wasn’t even aware was resting there.
And the best part of all, he called me his. Others have said it, but the seriousness in Beau’s tone—in his powerful gaze—has me believing him with everything inside me. I love thinking of myself as his and him as mine too. We belong to each other.
My soul has already fused to his, and I’ve vowed to kill anyone who comes between us. I may be weaker than some and not a violent person, but I would change that when it comes to him. Beau is everything.
Time has passed like nothing. Six weeks gone and my b
ody swears it needs this man to keep breathing, to keep existing, to live for once. He makes me feel free inside, and with him, it’s enough.
“I’m yours,” I agree, nodding as I push my lips to his chin, each cheek and then following the skin along his neck that’s slightly scruffy from his lack of shaving. He’s sexy like this: disheveled and needy.
His body’s wound tight, no doubt ready for a release. I know how to please him, and with that, I drop to my knees in front of him. He groans, his eyes closing briefly, knowing what’s about to happen—that his cock will be deep in my throat in mere moments.
I’m going to welcome him back in the best of ways I think as I undo the five buttons holding his jeans together. They’re the faded Calvin Klein brand that makes his long, strong legs look as if they belong to a model.
“You’re going to make me explode with that tongue; it’s sinful,” he mumbles, gazing down at me with heat dancing in his sparkly, hazel-colored eyes.
“You wish for me to stop?” My hands fall to my sides, and his mouth kicks up in a playful grin with my teasing.
“You stop, and I’ll have to taste you first. You decide.” A delicious sounding threat that I’d definitely enjoy happening.
I love his lips and tongue on me everywhere, but I want to give him pleasure first, so I pull his pants down his thighs slowly, until he steps free of them. His body is mesmerizing with the colorful swirls of ink covering him like a canvas. I’ve never seen so many tattoos on a person like this, and it makes him even more beautiful. I have none, so the contrast in our skin is hypnotizing.
“I think I would like to get something on me someday.” I stroke his length with one hand and gesture to his ink with the other.
“Your skin is perfect, baby.” He gasps with the long pull from my hands.
The bruises I had all over when I first arrived have finally gone away. A few I thought would never disappear. That’s the kind of colorful patches I don’t want on me. Thankfully my skin doesn’t reflect them any longer, and I think a colorful tattoo of some sort would make me happy to look at each day. Maybe a dove as he calls me?
Undercover Intentions Page 18