Saved by the Outlaw: A Bad Boy Romance

by Alexis Abbott

  It's one thing to break into his cabinet, but his desk is more personal.

  Especially when I find my hand wrapping around his phone and looking at the illuminated screen.

  Incoming call: Slava Romonov

  I drop the phone back to the desk and fear creeps into me.

  He's involved with Slava again?

  My blood grows cold and I step away, all of my thoughts of espionage fading as I walk back into my office in a stupor.

  What's he doing involved with him again? Especially after the hell he went through last time?

  My mouth is filled with cotton as I sit at my desk. There's another four hours left of the work day, but I have no idea how I'm going to make it through.

  Not now. Not knowing the information I just found.

  I was just a kid when Dimitri and Slava first started hanging out, and everyone tried to protect me from it, I guess. They didn't want me to know about the trouble they were in, but I could hear Rebecca shouting in Russian all the time at Dimitri.

  I didn't know what they were into, not really. I just figured they were being boys, running around and just teasing girls or something. Not until I fell asleep in the back of my dad’s truck one night and woke up to them pounding a guy’s face into the pavement.

  I was so naive.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  I startle, looking up at the door as if whoever was on the other side could see my private thoughts. I clear my throat and try to regain my composure as I shove the stolen papers into my drawer.

  "Come in," I say clearly, and then there's Dimitri, his huge frame filling the doorway as he holds out a piece of vanilla cake with extra icing smeared on the side.

  The dichotomy of Dimitri.

  Getting calls from a thug like Slava.

  Bringing me cake, just as I like it.

  I wish I had more self-control than to smile at him so excitedly.

  "Dimitri, you shouldn't have."

  "I shouldn't have had to. Where were you? You should've come and celebrated Carl's birthday with us. I saw you there, watching me perform," he says, his brows raising and his grin growing. "You should've stuck around."

  "They don't care for me," I say, trying to be nonchalant.

  "Don't be silly," he says, putting the plate on my desk as he smiles down upon me. Reaching out, he touches his fingers to my forehead, pushing some of my messy, platinum waves away from my face, tucking it behind my ear. "You lose your bobby-pin?" he asks, and I'm suddenly defensive.

  He can't know.

  "I didn't feel like wearing one today," I say, and he simply nods his head, but I can see there's suspicion lurking beneath his brown eyes. Or maybe that’s just my imagination running away with itself.

  "Well, you should come out with us for drinks tonight. We're just going to kick back, and it'll be a chance for you to get to really know everyone," he says, and I am so damned tempted I could lose my mind.

  But I know better than to be in the dark with him, watching as he drinks.

  "I'm not twenty one yet," I remind him, and he grins.

  "I know that, Sarah. But I also know a place where that doesn't matter."

  I roll my eyes at him, but it's only to hide my temptation.

  "I know what types of places you like to hang out in, Dimitri, and I'm not interested."

  "Ah, but you don't know the types of places I like to take my employees after a long week of work, and I bet yours was a long one. Familiarizing yourself with all my accounts," he says, and his hand is still touching my hair, caressing it in a way that's so inappropriate for work.

  But I'm just staring at him in shock, not knowing what to make of any of it. Of his touch, of his cruel abandonment, of his relationship with Slava...

  I swallow, and my throat still feels dry and constricted, but I shake my head no.

  "Another time, maybe," I say, and his hand withdraws, and all I want to do is feel those rough fingertips touching me again. It's so wrong, I can't believe it. Especially knowing what types of things he's involved in again.

  "Well, if you change your mind, you have my cell," he says, and for a moment I stiffen.

  His eyes narrow as he backs away, and I know I'm going to have to be a lot more cautious around him. He's known me for so long that he can tell all the littlest things about my behavior and what they likely mean.

  That's the big problem with trying to spy on someone who knows me so well.

  "Yea," I say, and he heads back into his office, but not without first hesitating and sending me a curious look that I don't quite know what to make of.

  5

  Dimitri has been acting strange for the last two weeks. Not just to me, either. Every day he comes into the office, shuts his door, and barely comes out. Even going so far as to lock the door that connects our offices a few times, leaving me unable to get the files I need to update my digital copies.

  Luckily for me, the day goes quickly. Even without the whole spying aspect of the job, I'm kept plenty busy, and each day brings with it its own set of problems and concerns.

  I've been so absorbed in that, and Dimitri has been so weird, that I haven't even had a chance to look at the files I stole.

  But it's Friday afternoon at four thirty, and everyone is taking off a little early, so I think it's the perfect time to pull them out.

  I stretch out, clearing my desk before going to my doors, locking them both. The last thing I need is someone to stumble in when I’m doing this. I then return to my desk cabinet, pulling them out. I hadn’t had a chance to even see what they contain, but now I know they’re graphs, of our revenue and expenses.

  At a quick glance, it all looks right, balancing out at the end, and I sigh. I just broke into my step-brother’s office and stole some out of date income reports that look like they were probably headed to the shredder.

  Confidential is stamped in the bottom corner, and I sigh. So much for finding anything interesting.

  I push it aside and I’m just about to stand up and toss them when I look a bit closer at the date in the upper corner.

  July? These are from my first week working here, and they’re not the same numbers I got. I know because I always have a thing for patterns in numbers, and these aren’t the same. I sit back down, scanning over the graph again, my eyebrows furrowing curiously.

  Does this mean that Rebecca’s right? Is Dimitri really stealing money from his own company?

  From her?

  It doesn’t make sense.

  I look at what other months are there, and find one from February. Turning to my monitor, I call up the budget for that month, and once more they don’t reconcile.

  It might not mean anything, I chide myself. You’re just looking for proof so that you can get your payout. This is likely just an old estimate.

  But it’s stamped Final Copy and I can’t ignore my gut instinct that there’s something going on here. Especially with Dimitri being back in the company of Slava. That brute is bad news, and he’s dangerous as hell.

  But if he is running a money laundering scheme, who is he doing it for? And why?

  Oh Dimitri, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?

  6

  I can’t ask Joyce about what I found. That woman has had it out for me since day one. I didn’t realize at the time that I’d stolen her job out from under her, but ever since, she’s been cold and almost cruel. Nothing that I can really report on, just things like jamming the copier before I go to use it and making me sort it out, or going to lunch and not inviting me.

  Little, passive aggressive things. Plus, it’s not like I haven’t noticed that no one will barely look at me when she’s around. I can only imagine the things she’s saying about me behind my back.

  But it’s not my business, and I’m only supposed to be here for a short time, until I figure this Dimitri thing out. Then she can have her job back.

  If there’s still a job for her afterwards. It occurs to me that if she’s been in on this scheme, tha
t she could go to jail as well. Though the idea of Rebecca calling in the cops on Dimitri seems unbelievable. Truthfully, though, I never would’ve believed that she’d hire someone to look in on his finances either.

  I pace the length of my office, back and forth. It’s after eight now, but I haven’t had it in me to leave. I still feel like I’m missing something. Something big.

  Everyone has gone home hours ago, and the silence of the building is driving me crazy. My doors are both still shut and locked, and I’m not sure if I feel trapped or safe.

  I go to Dimitri’s door, touching against it gently, not sure if I want to go further. To find the things my stepbrother has been trying to hide from me behind his charming smile and crude suggestions. He promised me he was going to get out of this life, get away from the thrill of danger.

  A pit forms in my stomach.

  If Rebecca’s right, this is way worse than him stealing money from her. Does she even know?

  I don’t know why I chose to sleep in the truck that night. The mansion just felt too oppressive after losing my father, and I needed to get out. It was my dad’s pet project, an old truck he was in the process of restoring when he died.

  I didn’t realize the truck was moving, not until we were already miles from home. It was like a dream, and through the open window, I could hear Dimitri’s voice.

  “Anton’s fucked up for the last time.” Dimitri’s three years older than me, and his words send a chill through my spine. I’ve never heard him so angry.

  “He’ll be at the warehouse, dropped there by Viktor.” Slava’s rich, Russian accent is harder to understand, but I recognize it well. He’s a bit older than Dimitri, and a lot colder. Whenever he’s nearby, I feel a little ill.

  “That shestyorka?” Dimitri’s voice comes back, a strange, Russian word I’ve never heard rolling off his tongue.

  “Da,” Slava responds in the affirmative. “The Avtorityet is hoping he’ll be promoted soon.”

  Promoted from what? To what? It’s not making any sense. The wind rushes past my head, and I stay low. I don’t know why I’m so scared. It’s only Dimitri. He’d never hurt me.

  But my gut tells me that I can’t be caught. That whatever’s happening tonight is something I don’t want to see.

  We pull up into a warehouse. It’s so dark, but the shaky streetlights spill enough of its dim light along the abandoned parking lot. Concrete is half torn up, like construction had started and then got abandoned half-way through. I don’t know where we are, not really, and a cold breeze nips at my skin.

  Dimitri and Slava leave the truck with me still in the back and my instinct tells me they have no idea I’m here. I can’t see them as they walk out of my view, but I can still hear as their steel-toed boots impact on the gravel. Their steps are slow and measured, not so much cautious as simply biding their time.

  “Where’d Viktor put him?” Dimitri asks, a few feet away.

  “Tied to a pole,” Slava replies, and there’s a pause. “There.”

  I want to go home. I’m scared. It’s a nightmare, I know it, and I’m trying my best not to scream. I pinch my naked arm, but I don’t jolt awake in my warm, comfortable bed. I’m still on the hard, ribbed flatbed of the truck, listening as Slava and Dimitri’s footsteps draw further away.

  What will happen if they catch me?

  Dimitri would never hurt me, I promise myself, but the words are falling a bit flat, even in my mind. I never would’ve thought that Dimitri would be out in the middle of the night, doing who-knows-what.

  “You fucking donoschik,” comes Slava’s growling voice, his words a mix of English and Russian. He’s probably thirty feet away, but I can still hear the crack of fist impacting on a body. There’s a grunt of pain, and I put my hands over my mouth to suppress a scream.

  What is Dimitri doing out here? Why are they beating that man up?

  Despite having lived with Dimitri and Rebecca for over three years, my Russian is still lacking at best. They rarely speak it in front of me, and when they do, their words are so foreign I can never even get enough to make sense of it.

  There’s another sound, fist meeting somewhere fleshier, and I curl my legs into myself. I have no idea how long we’re there, losing myself in the sounds of grunts and punches, kicking and screaming.

  And then the voice that I don’t recognize — Anton — starts to wail in another language altogether. It’s softer than Russian, more lyrical.

  “Pieta!” he screams, and I wonder if it’s French or maybe Italian. “Mercy! Mercy!”

  The kicking stops, and Dimitri’s voice is a growl, “You were supposed to bring us information on your boss, not the other way around!”

  There’s more kicking, and I wonder for a moment if anyone can hear us. If anyone will come to save this man from his misery. I can picture him, black and blue, bruised and hurt, and still he can only blubber half-apologies.

  “They were going to kill my wife!”

  “I’m going to do worse than that,” swears Slava, and I can tell he means it.

  What’s happening? Dimitri and I live in a huge house, we have everything we could ever want. My dad had more money than he knew what to do with, and the second Rebecca came into his life, that’s all she saw him for. But Dimitri and I never want for anything.

  So why is he in a parking lot with a man swearing to do worse than murder this guy’s wife?

  I wake up in a cold sweat, staring at the ceiling. I haven't had that nightmare in years, but with all I've been seeing and hearing, it makes sense that it'd be at the forefront of my mind.

  Especially after I looked up Slava and found that he'd done time after being a Kryshas — an enforcer — for the Russian Mob.

  My stomach roils and I'm not sure what to do. I can't trust Rebecca, and I know it. I have no idea how much of this she knew, but she's never cared about me. She only kept me until I was eighteen so that she could feel the martyr after my dad died.

  But if there's one person I know I can get through to, it's Dimitri. It just means I have to suck up my pride and try to get him to open up with me. No more games, no more beating around the bush.

  He has to tell me what he's into, or I'll threaten to...

  To what, Sarah? Go to the cops? Put him in jail? I shake my head. I know I can't do that, especially if Dimitri's working with the Mob.

  Maybe it's not what it seems, I try to convince myself, but it's in vain and I know it. If he's into it with Slava and there's money missing in his company, there's no way the two aren't related. I just can't piece together how.

  I slip on some jeans and a clean t-shirt. It's two in the morning, but I don't care. This can't wait anymore. It's driving me crazy, and if I can't figure it out, then Dimitri's going to help me figure it out. I just have to make him do it without exposing the fact that Rebecca hired me.

  But it's not strange that a new bookkeeper noticed some irregularities and came to her boss with it, is it?

  I don't have time to decide, because I'm already on the move. My roommate is already asleep, and I walk quickly to the subway, the night wrapping around me like a blanket. I love the night. I don't know what it is, and I know I should be more frightened walking alone at two in the morning, but it feels peaceful.

  Serene.

  I make my way to the heat of the subway tunnel and wait for the next train. I found out where Dimitri's new condo is, not far from the office, off a piece of mail he'd left on his desk. I sink into the plastic seats, and I wonder how pissed he'll be for me waking him up.

  If he's even home.

  Damnit, it's two in the morning on a Saturday, after all. What if he's out?

  What if he's with someone? The thought makes my blood boil and I can't help but feel a little righteous interrupting him if he is with someone. A rush of possessiveness runs through me without my permission.

  He's your stepbrother, Sarah. You're not supposed to feel jealous if he finds someone. Rationally I know it's right, but it doesn't do anyt
hing for my worries, and the trip suddenly seems so long in comparison.

  Just worry about what he's into, I try to remind myself, but now that the thought of him being with another woman is on my mind, it's like everything else has just stopped mattering, and all that's left is the paranoia that he really doesn't care about me.

  It's not a long walk from the subway to his condo, though every step just reinforces my own anxiety. I should just turn around. Just forget this crazy endeavor. I was shaken up by my dream, by the memory of what Dimitri and Slava did to that man, but it's no reason to wake him up in the middle of the night.

  But I know it's all bullshit. I'm being a coward. I want an excuse to turn around so that I can pretend none of this has happened.

  I walk into the large lobby of his condo building and startle a little at the presence of a guard.

  Oh no. I inwardly wince.

  I had pictured marching up to his door, barging in unannounced and throwing him off guard. Somehow I'd forgotten that Rebecca may have kicked me out on my ass and taken all of my father's money, but Dimitri is a C.E.O. and still rich as sin.

  Especially if he's into what I think he is.

  I walk up to the security guard with his stern, blockish face and try to give him my most charming of smiles.

  "Hi, I need to be let up to room 1510."

  He stares at me, not as groggy as I assumed he'd be for the late hour, and he crosses his arms expectantly.

  "To see Mr. Brokov?" I add, my voice jittery, but he reaches for a phone.

  I have a bad feeling about this. I should have just gone home, taken the money I made from Rebecca and just... got out of this. Got away from him.

  And here I am, going to his condo at two thirty in the morning.

  What do you think will happen? I chide myself, but my belly flutters with hidden excitement. Regardless of what he's into, I can't deny how he makes me feel, at least to myself. But I'll deny it to the end of the world to him.