Bad Russian Boss: A Billionaire Office Romance

by Bella Rose

  “Ah!” Vasily’s countenance brightened as he looked toward the room’s wide entryway. “There you are! I was wondering if you were getting cold feet.”

  Creighton entered the room, but not really under his own power, or at least not of his own volition. One of the giant ham-fisted men who had snatched her off the street was prodding Creighton into the room at the end of his very large, very dangerous-looking rifle. Creighton looked sulky at best. He actually glowered at Courtney as thought it were all her fault. Within minutes the men had him trussed up in a chair too.

  “If you had just done what you were told, none of this would have happened!” Creighton burst out, pointing at Courtney. “This is your fault!”

  “My fault?” Courtney started to stand before remembering that she was literally tied to her seat. “Look at me! I was kidnapped and brought to your family home by Russian mobsters, who have now informed me that they intend to see me marry the biggest asshole on earth just so they can somehow magically acquire my father’s business”—she glared at Vasily—“which by the way my father no longer owns, so I have no freaking clue how they think this farce of a marriage scheme is going to help them at all!”

  Vasily was looking very amused by all of the goings-on. Several more of his men moseyed into the room. They spoke to each other in Russian, and the mood was almost jubilant. They were practically laughing as they pointed back and forth. Maybe they were imagining what married life at Creighton and Courtney’s house would be like. A constant freaking war, that was what!

  “You know,” Courtney said irritably, “I don’t know who to blame anymore. I don’t even know who to be angry with. Creighton, because you,” she snarled at him, “can’t take no for an answer and totally can’t keep your dick in your pants, my father for being too stubborn to face facts, or Mikhail for dragging me into this to begin with!”

  Vasily gave a sage nod. “You’re right, malenkaya, you really are stuck in the middle. It is the fate of women to be pawns in a man’s game.” Vasily shrugged. “That is simply life.”

  Courtney ground her teeth together. Life? This man thought it was her lot in life to be nothing more than a play piece on some man’s game board? No way. Not happening. She was going to get out of this somehow. And she was going to find someplace far away from all of this crap to raise her child. Her baby was not going to suffer the same fate. He or she wasn’t going to be stuck living out someone else’s dreams and aspirations like Courtney had been. It had taken her most of her life to realize that she’d never actually lived for herself. She had been the eternal good girl. That stopped now.

  * * *

  Mikhail stared at Gordon Piers-Cameron. Gordon stared right back. The time drew out. Tension filled the air, and Mikhail wondered exactly how long he was going to have to face off with this man before he gave up the battle, cut his losses, and walked away.

  “I hate you,” Gordon said honestly.

  Mikhail didn’t respond. The muzzle of the gun had started to shake. No doubt Gordon’s arm and hand were getting tired from the position he was forced to hold. It wasn’t like the man was trained with a weapon. It wasn’t as if he spent a lot of time handling one. That wasn’t in the wheelhouse of a man like Piers-Cameron. He hired his dirty work done. The only reason the man was sullying his hands right now was due to his reduced circumstances.

  Gordon’s chin began to quiver. “I should kill you.”

  “But you don’t even want to,” Mikhail murmured. He was taking a chance, goading this man who danced so perilously close to the edge of sanity. But Mikhail was used to gambling. And he was even more accustomed to trusting his instincts to win the day. “You want me dead, but you don’t want to pay the consequences because I’m not worth it. Obviously you have some plan in mind. You’ve made a deal. So don’t screw it up by spending the rest of your days in jail. That would be handing me the win, don’t you think?”

  “You bastard!” Gordon began to squeeze the trigger. His finger flexed. Mikhail tensed, but the shot never came.

  Gordon dropped the gun. It clattered to the pavement, and Mikhail quickly kicked it away. The weapon spun and wound up beneath Mikhail’s car. Gordon was focused on that. So much so that he never saw Mikhail move. Before the angry man could react, Mikhail had him by the shirtfront and had lifted him off the ground.

  “What did you do?” Mikhail demanded roughly. “What deal did you make?”

  “Some Russian thug,” Gordon wheezed. He scrabbled against Mikhail’s hold, his slim uncalloused hands uselessly pushing at Mikhail’s powerful grip. “You should know him. Isn’t he part of your inner circle? We all know that’s the only reason you built your business. You’re not legitimate! You’re just a low-life criminal!”

  Mikhail heaved a sigh. “You all keep believing that if it makes you feel better about your own failings. I don’t even think I have to tell you that you’re wrong. You already know that you are.”

  “The Russian came to me. All I had to do was keep you busy long enough for Creighton and Courtney to marry. It’s too late!” Gordon struggled to point to his watch. “She’s out of your reach forever.”

  “What is with you people?” Mikhail grunted. “Don’t any of you realize that this isn’t the sixteenth century?”

  With those final words, Mikhail flung Gordon Piers-Cameron into the gutter and got into his car. It was nearly an hour’s drive to Creighton’s family home in the country. He was no doubt going to be cutting it pretty damn close.

  * * *

  Courtney cleared her mind of everything but the need to escape. There was nothing else. She let her eyes flutter closed and tried to shut out Creighton’s constant whining and the foreign chatter of Vasily’s men. She sought the calm she had carried inside her since she was a little girl. Her breathing slowed and her heart calmed. She could do this.

  She opened her eyes and gazed around. There was no way she was going anywhere until her hands were unbound. But she was pretty sure they were going to have to untie her to let her get “married.” She had only to be patient. The time would present itself and she would act. And then she was getting the hell out of here for good.

  “This is stupid!” Creighton’s tone was practically an infantile wail. “You can’t boss me around like this.”

  “Funny,” Vasily mused, his face an exaggerated mask of thoughtfulness. “But according to your family, you are a worthless piece of shit that they have washed their hands of. You do recall exactly how far you are in debt to us, do you not?”

  When Vasily let that slip, a few things began to make sense to Courtney. She gave Creighton a look of derision. “You went in debt to the Russian mob? Are you a complete imbecile?”

  “Shut up!” Creighton snapped. “Your father went bankrupt. He was trying to sell you off just to get enough money to keep his company afloat for another quarter.”

  “Yes,” Courtney agreed. “But none of that is my problem. This is the twenty-first century. Women in America don’t get sold to pay off their parents’ debt.”

  Creighton’s cruel laugh only stoked her anger further. “Oh, honey, where have you been? It happens all the time. Just look around you. You think your little friend Bella really wanted to marry that loser Toby?”

  “Loser?” Courtney snorted. “I know, right? How awful is it that he makes a million dollars a year, runs a successful company, and acts like a nice human being.”

  “And her family only wanted her to marry him because he’s rich and her loser brother needs a benefactor that her mother can push around.” Creighton’s smug tone only pissed her off more.

  Courtney cocked her head, refusing to let him get to her. “Yeah, and how’s that working out for them? Seems to me Toby is doing what he wants. Bella is happy. And the rest of them are still wallowing in their own crap. Pretty much the way you’re going to be.”

  A flicker of doubt showed in Creighton’s eyes. “Is that right?”

  “Yes. Because the only way that a woman in this day and age can
be used the way you’re describing is if she allows it.” Courtney set her jaw and gave him her best dirty look. “And I’m done letting all of you walk all over me, Creighton Kemper. Why don’t you go ask that wedding planner Elsa to save your pathetic ass?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said lamely.

  “Seriously?” Courtney would have gestured to their surroundings, but her hands were still tied. “Look at us! Why would you lie now? Do you really think it matters? Besides, we have photographs!”

  “So?” Creighton said defensively.

  It probably didn’t help matters any that Vasily and his men were laughing their asses off at the exchange between Courtney and Creighton. One of the men said something in rapid Russian. Vasily answered back, and then Courtney suddenly found herself with her hands free.

  She stared at Vasily in shock.

  He shrugged. “My men suggested to me that this whole thing would be more amusing if the two of you weren’t restrained. Or at least if you weren’t. Perhaps you would like to get a few hits in?”

  “You guys are messed up,” Courtney told him. She rubbed her wrists, keeping her gaze carefully focused on Creighton.

  There was movement at the entrance to the room once again. A man dressed in a suit with a gold-and-purple scarf-looking drape around his neck walked in. All of the attention swung to his entrance. Courtney chose that moment to bolt.

  She sprinted the four steps to the room’s back entrance. If memory served, this was the entry and exit point for the staff when they were serving at social functions. It led into a butler’s pantry and then on into the kitchen.

  Behind her Courtney heard shouts in Russian and Creighton’s incessant screaming not to let her get away. There were heavy boots pounding in the hallway. She slid through the kitchen in her thin-soled shoes and scrambled to find the latch on the door. She had to get outside. There was no time to waste if she wanted to get lost in the dark outside. And if she stopped to even think for a moment about how terrifying that idea should be, she would lose her nerve and give in.

  The kitchen door finally opened. It felt like an eternity. She dashed out of the house and onto the stone patio that stretched the length of the back of the house. Tripping on the uneven flagstones, she went down on her hands and knees. Tears stung her eyes but she didn’t give up. She got to her feet and kept running. Down the steps she went toward the shadowy tree line looming in the darkness.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The scene that Mikhail walked into at the Creighton estate would have been comical had he not noticed almost immediately that Courtney was conspicuously missing. The level of fear he felt for her was phenomenal. Mikhail had always considered himself goal focused and driven. But he would also be the first to admit that most of his life had been spent selfishly pursuing his own ends. Now for the first time, he was far more concerned about the fate of another person, no matter the impact it had on his own situation.

  Creighton was throwing what amounted to a tantrum in the middle of the estate house’s large central room. He was swinging his arms in large circles while shouting angrily at Vasily and his men. There was a priest in the room, a man Mikhail had not seen in long years. He was the local Russian Orthodox priest, a man indebted in more than one way to Vasily Romanov and his mafia cronies.

  Mikhail ignored Creighton and spoke directly to Vasily in Russian. “I’m assuming you’ve lost Courtney.”

  “I must admit that the woman is clever and determined,” Vasily commented casually. “However, my men will catch up with her soon enough and bring her back here.”

  “Meaning that they’re fumbling around outside in the dark trying to find her,” Mikhail guessed. “Sounds like a haphazard plan at best.”

  Vasily’s men were eyeing Mikhail as though he might be in danger of exploding into sudden violence. Mikhail didn’t care. Sometimes it was handy to have such a black reputation. It kept people out of his way.

  “This plan of yours is ridiculous,” Mikhail told Vasily. He made a gesture toward the priest. “You cannot bully an American woman into marriage. Even if she said yes, there are a hundred ways to undo the marriage before the week is out.”

  Vasily’s jaw was set. He was determined. “Pierson Security is ours.”

  “Why?” Mikhail wondered aloud. “What does it matter? Start your own company. A security company is a ridiculous notion for a mobster anyway. Who would trust you with their secret information when you would be so likely to try and sell it back to them at a blackmailed rate?”

  Vasily’s eyes gleamed and Mikhail realized what he was missing. He began to laugh, the chuckle growing until it was a belly laugh and Vasily was looking rather disgruntled. The older man frowned. “The protection game was the way our organization grew in Russia and Siberia. It will be our legacy here in the US as well.”

  “You’re forgetting something about the United States, Vasily,” Mikhail said with amusement. “Here in the US you’re considered a criminal organization. Homeland Security is looking for reasons to deport you, your citizenship is shaky at best, and there is too much competition for dominance of even the mafia market.”

  Vasily’s gaze narrowed. “Which is why we need a man like you to head up our new enterprise. You’re a citizen. You have access to places we do not. You owe us, Mikhail. We were the beginning of your career.”

  “You were the beginning of nothing,” Mikhail spat. He made a gesture to indicate the empty chair where they had obviously held Courtney earlier that night. “And at the moment you don’t even have leverage.”

  Mikhail was already texting Frank, giving him the latest on Courtney’s proposed whereabouts and asking him to move in with a team to search the woods and find her. He didn’t care about Vasily. He didn’t care about Creighton, or Gordon. The only thing that mattered was getting Courtney out safe and sound. The two of them had much to talk about. He had so many things to apologize for. Then she would forgive him and they could start over.

  Vasily snapped his fingers and three men began to close in on Mikhail. Vasily looked grim. “You would be surprised what I have.”

  Creighton looked panicky and irritated in turns. “What’s going on? Would you all speak English, dammit? We’re in America! This isn’t Russia. You can’t just come in here and act like some criminal thug and get away with it! We have laws here.”

  Vasily looked at Mikhail. For the span of one moment the two of them had one thing in common, a complete distaste for Creighton Kemper. “How can you stand dealing with men like him on a daily basis?” Vasily wanted to know. “He is weak and ineffectual as well as completely without pride.”

  “As I recall, there were plenty of men in your organization who were equal or worse,” Mikhail pointed out. “And I don’t deal with him. I squash him beneath my boot heel on a daily basis and move on.”

  Vasily looked amused. “Hence your acquisition of Pierson Security.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I should not like you. I should not respect you. Not after you murdered my son.”

  “I didn’t kill Uday,” Mikhail said quietly. He shook his head. “Think back to that night. There were so many bullets flying. And where do you get off holding me responsible for the murder that you ordered me to commit? You told me to kill Uday. You ordered me to do it.”

  “No.” Vasily’s voice died. He shook his head. “I did not do this thing you claim. I loved my son.”

  Mikhail frowned. “But the order came from you.”

  “No. Never!”

  The hard, unflinching note in Vasily’s voice confused Mikhail. “Who else was there that night?” he asked Vasily.

  “Dimitri,” Vasily murmured. “Dimitri was there.”

  “Dimitri who just married his son to your daughter?” Mikhail reminded him. Suddenly the night that had haunted him for so long took on a whole new meaning. “Gee, I wonder what it was he thought he had to gain by making sure that Uday was out of the picture?”

  * * *
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  Courtney crouched beneath a tree and shivered a little. The thin blouse and skirt she had put on for work that morning was not an outfit intended to wear when one trekked around in the woods at night. There were things moving out here. She could hear a rustling somewhere behind her as if an animal was creeping along through the woods.

  She’d never spent much time outdoors like this. There had been a few picnic trips with friends of prominent families who owned places in the country just like the Kemper’s estate. But for the most part, Courtney’s life had been lived in the urban jungle. She was woefully unprepared to spend a night in the middle of the trees, brush, and most notably—the critters.

  Her hand strayed to her belly. It was odd really. She had considered terminating the pregnancy more than once. Yet here she was worrying about the welfare of her unborn child. Was that demented, or was she simply reacting to the primal call of motherhood like the rest of the female population had been since the dawn of time? It was almost impossible to decide. She only new that right now she was worried for her baby and that she desperately wanted out of this untenable situation.

  “I’m going to make things better for you,” she whispered. “I promise.”

  Was it true that unborn babies could hear their parents’ voices even from outside the womb? Maybe it didn’t matter. Perhaps the reality was that she felt less alone when she remembered that she wasn’t alone anymore. Not really. Life was about far more than the right clothes or who had the most money or the oldest name or the bluest blood.

  There were voices. Courtney held her breath and wondered if they were friend or foe and how she would even be able to tell. Then she realized that the voices were speaking Russian. That sort of made the whole question moot. She had to stay off the Russians’ radar long enough to get real help.

  Keeping her body low and close to the ground, Courtney carefully moved back toward the path. At this point the voices were coming from a point about fifty yards or so to her left. The path was to her right. Perhaps there was a way to circle around behind the men and get out of the forested area. Although she was at a complete loss as to how she was supposed to get back to civilization. As she recalled, the Kemper estate was a good hour from the city. Most of the towns out here were just rural dots on a map. The land was used for hobby farming and country getaway properties for the affluent families in the city.