Torrid

by Nikki Sloane

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  Thank You

  IF YOU ENJOYED THE BOOK

  ABOUT NIKKI SLOANE

  COPYRIGHT

  S O R D I D

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  For anyone who supported Sordid.

  Prologue

  Three Years Ago

  AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is a special release week edition and includes the first book in the series as a free bonus. If you want to start with that book, please click HERE.

  My father’s office made me uneasy. Today it was worse, because Ilia walked in as I was cleaning the desk. He was twice my age and married, but it did nothing to stop the way he looked at me. His blue eyes raked over my body and made my skin crawl.

  He’d been warned not to touch me again.

  The first time it happened, I didn’t know what to do. He was my father’s employee and had a temper. He’d kissed me with slimy lips, and when I pushed him away, he apologized.

  The second time, he didn’t. He grabbed me and pressed me against the hallway wall while my father was out, and the tongue shoved in my mouth was invasive. Ilia’s hands pawing at me made me buck and squirm away.

  I reminded him about his wife, but all he’d done was laugh and say it was my fault. I was too tempting to keep his hands off.

  Somehow, no matter how hard I tried to avoid him, he found a way to get me alone, and his unwanted advances escalated. I stopped wearing skirts after he’d put his hand up one while my father and brother were meeting with the Italians one afternoon. Ilia was my father’s right hand man, but the Italians were old fashioned and would meet with family only.

  He threatened me, saying he’d tell my father I was trying to seduce him. Only a few people knew I wasn’t actually a housekeeper, but Sergey Petrov’s illegitimate daughter. My father hated me, and I wasn’t going to let Ilia give him any more ammunition. I gathered my courage, marched into my father’s den, and pleaded for help while my eyelashes were wet with tears.

  He didn’t believe me.

  And it broke me almost as much as the day my mother died. I felt like there was nothing left of me.

  It was a blessing in disguise, though. It focused my fear of Ilia, condensing and polishing it down until it was a sharp point of anger I could wield. I fought back against every unwanted stroke or caress, every time he put his mouth on mine, even as he became more aggressive and I knew my time was running out.

  Soon, touching me wasn’t going to be enough for him.

  My half-brother Konstantine must have sensed something was wrong the day he’d come into my room, or maybe he’d seen Ilia go in there. I’d been changing and was down to my bra and underwear when the source of my constant torment slipped into my room and shut my door.

  “Get out,” I said, grabbing a blanket off my bed and using it to cover up.

  Ilia gave me the sly smile he always did when he was going to ignore my protests and do whatever the fuck he wanted. He stalked to me, wrenched the blanket from my grip, and had his hands on me a second later. His disgusting lips flattened over mine, muffling my cry. His rough fingers wormed their way beneath the waistband of my panties.

  “Stop,” I said in a shaky voice.

  My door burst open, and although Ilia moved fast, he was too late. My brother had seen everything, and his face turned to ice. Konstantine was barely twenty, and although he appeared skinny, he had a swimmer’s build and was deceptively strong. It took him minimal effort to drag Ilia from the room and down to my father’s office.

  This time, when my father heard the story from Konstantine, he had no choice but to listen. My brother told my father to handle it, or he would. So Sergey gave Ilia a lecture, capped off with a throwaway threat not to touch me again, and Konstantine felt satisfied. My father’s orders were supposed to be law.

  It kept Ilia away . . . for a while.

  Then, his desire-filled glances my direction were back. He stood too close whenever we were in a room together, and he lingered. He slid back into his behavior so slowly, I couldn’t say anything about it. There was no specific moment when Ilia defied my father’s order, but I felt it increasing every day.

  Building toward something terrible.

  I dreamed he died in a horrible, bloody way, and it wasn’t a nightmare. It was a fantasy. I pictured different scenarios of his death in my head, and let them comfort me. Maybe I was naïve, but I believed bad people got what they had coming to them.

  It was late morning when Ilia came into the office and I froze, the damp washcloth mid-wipe on the desktop. Alarm spiked and tensed my muscles. My father and Konstantine were out, and my stepmother and half-sister were in the garden in the back yard. It meant no one would hear me. I was alone, and the sly smile on Ilia’s face told me he knew this.

  “How are you today?” he asked casually, strolling toward me.

  I stiffened and backed away, abandoning my task. “I’m fine. I’ve just finished.”

  When I tried to go around the far side of the desk and avoid him, he switched directions. “So, you have a few free minutes now?”

  It hurt to breathe, and I sucked in shallow sips of air. “No, sorry.”

  “Come on. Don’t be like that.” He put his hands on my hips, one then the other, and pulled me up against him. I hated his touch so much, it burned. It scorched against my skin like a hot iron. His face was right in front of mine and his thick breath was stifling, using up all the air I wanted.

  With his hands on me, I couldn’t run. I had to fight instead, and my voice was full of warning. “Ilia, stop. You’re not allowed to touch me.”

  There were weapons stashed all over the office. I’d cleaned this room every week for the last year, and knew the hiding places. There was a loaded gun Konstantine had showed me how to use hidden behind the books on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. A knife beneath the center couch cushion.

  “I can’t help myself,” Ilia said. “I can’t stay away.”

  He buried his face in the side of my neck. Shivers of disgust rolled down my spine as he sucked and licked. I put my hands on his chest and pushed as hard as I could, but he was so much bigger. I was a fly, barely of notice to a bear.

  “No,” I said, loud and angry. How many times had I said it to him before? How many more times would I have to say it, and would it ever mean anything to him? “My father gave you an order.”

  “He won’t care. We both know he doesn’t give a shit about you. Hell, if I asked, h
e’d probably give you to me.”

  Horror flooded along my skin. I knew in my heart what he was saying was true. “Konstantine—”

  “You think I’m afraid of your brother? I’m your father’s right hand. I can do whatever the fuck I want.”

  His hand snaked up my shirt, searching for my breast. No more. This will stop. I couldn’t tolerate his touch another fucking second, and slapped him across the face so hard, my palm stung. He grinned his sick, cruel smile. He seemed to enjoy it when I fought back.

  “You fucking bitch,” he said, throwing me against the side of the desk. My knee cracked painfully against the solid wood. An angry sneer streaked across his face as he began to undo his belt buckle. “Now you’re going to get it.”

  My knee ached, but I dashed around the desk, narrowly avoiding his grasp. I tore at the books on the bottom bookshelf, flinging them aside. My mind went blank with panic as I grabbed the gun. It was cold and dangerous in my hand. I wheeled around, aiming at his chest, and Ilia pulled to a stop.

  He blinked, staring at the barrel. His reaction was pure disbelief.

  The corner of his mouth lifted hesitantly.

  His lips tugged slowly upward into that same sickening smile. Was this how he’d look as he raped me? He’d never stop until he had.

  The gun was heavy and rattled in my trembling grip. I could read his thoughts in his eyes. He didn’t believe I’d use it on him. I was just a stupid girl, bluffing. Neither my threat or the chamber of the gun were empty.

  “Oksana.” He said my name in a demeaning tone and took a step toward me—

  The kick on the gun was almost as surprising as the puff of red mist and fabric fibers exploding outward from his chest. He groaned a sharp sound, stumbled forward, and landed on his hands and knees. As blood began to drip from the hole I’d put in him, splattering onto the hardwood, I didn’t feel horror or regret.

  I felt absolutely nothing.

  Empty.

  The only thought running through my mind was I had just cleaned the floor this morning.

  1

  NOW

  Vasilije

  Aleksandar bounced his knee as he stared out the rain-soaked window, and the noise got on my fucking nerves. Why was he so twitchy? This was the third meet and greet we’d done. I sat beside him in the back seat of a Lexus SUV and thought about making him stop by pressing the barrel of my Glock to his kneecap.

  Not that I’d shoot him.

  I mean, this Lexus just came into the dealership yesterday.

  “Alek,” I barked.

  His knee stopped vibrating, his head swung to look at me, and I got a view of his stupid face. His forehead was too big and flat, and his eyes were small.

  “What?” he asked. His leg went back at it, jackhammering his heel against the floorboard. Could he not hear how fucking irritating he was? I glared down at the offending leg, and it slowed to a stop. “Sorry. I had a Red Bull right after you called.”

  Great. He was jittery from too much sugar and caffeine, which meant he’d find some other way to annoy me in thirty seconds.

  I couldn’t stand unnecessary noise. Fingers drumming on a table made me clench my jaw until it ached. A pen clicking incessantly filled me with rage. And when Alek opened his dumb fucking mouth to say some dumb fucking thing, everything went red.

  “How much further?” I raised my voice to John, my driver.

  He glanced at the navigation system. “Five minutes.”

  Rain pelted the car, but otherwise the interior was quiet. The Lexus was a nice ride. Maybe I’d tell the dealership not to put it on the website for a few weeks. I was getting tired of the Porsche I’d loaned out to myself, and I needed to move it soon. Smart people didn’t buy sports cars during the winter in Chicago, and smart people usually had money.

  It was dark on the street. Either there weren’t any streetlights, or they’d been disabled. Either way suited me. I didn’t want anyone looking too closely at what was about to go down. I shouldn’t even be here. This was beneath me, but my son of a bitch uncle had ‘asked’ me to oversee the Russian meet and greets, so I had no choice.

  When Goran Markovic gave an order, it got followed.

  I was going to change that someday, but for now I obeyed. I played my part.

  John pulled up to a curb, put the car in park, and glanced out the passenger window. “You want me to leave it running?”

  “No,” I said, staring at the warehouse. I had a feeling this was going to take a while.

  Alek got out on the sidewalk and looked up at the sky as if surprised it was raining on him. “Vasilije, you want me to get an umbrella?”

  Even the way he said my name was irritating. He said it Vah-seal-eh, putting weird emphasis on the middle syllable, when everyone else said Vah-sill-eh. Because it was my fucking name.

  I ignored him and got out of the car. It wasn’t a downpour, but huge drops fell like they were being hurled at us from the moonless night sky. The warehouse had one yellowy light perched over the door, which barely lit the keypad beside the handle.

  While Alek banged his fist on the door, I scanned the surroundings. No lights on the street, and no cameras, either. We were on the south side of the city, but it looked deserted and miles from any kind of life. Almost something out of a post-apocalyptic movie. I’d bet my left nut most of the warehouse space on this block hadn’t been leased in the last decade.

  The door swung open and Filip, my uncle’s head enforcer, stuck his head out.

  “We’re getting rained on,” Alek whined.

  Filip wiped the raindrops from his bald head, shoved his gun in the front of his pants, and pushed the door open further, moving out of the way. “You got here fast. Wasn’t expecting you for another ten minutes.”

  I ducked out of the rain and stepped into a shitshow.

  The first body was only a few feet inside. The guy was face-down with half his head splattered on the wall. “This one,” Filip flicked a finger at the body, “tried to run.” He spoke in Serbian. “Little Russian pussy.”

  Filip’s men chuckled and murmured in agreement. There were at least seven of them I could see, and the other two were probably off herding the women. Including himself, Filip always ran a ten-man crew. He’d been working for my uncle for a long time and was sharp as a knife. I respected him, but had to be careful. Every action or phrase was reported back to Goran.

  My uncle didn’t trust anyone, including his own family.

  Of course, there were a lot fewer of us these days. His son was four years into a twenty-year sentence at Wabash Valley Correctional. My father was dead, and my brother fled town. My aunt’s husband wasn’t blood, and he didn’t have the stomach or the head for the business, anyway. I was a twenty-four-year-old college dropout and general fuck-up, and next in line, much to my uncle’s displeasure.

  If Goran had his way, he’d live forever as the reigning king of the Markovic empire.

  Yeah, well, fuck that.

  The only light on in the cavernous space was by the door, and it took my eyes a moment to adjust to the low visibility. There were two more dead Russians, laying in heaps on the bare concrete floor. Cleanup should be easy. It looked like tonight was the first time this place had seen any action in weeks. Brown beams stretched up as columns, supporting the roof.

  “Did we know any of them?” I asked.

  “No.” Filip watched me carefully as I looked down at the body by my feet. “I don’t recognize them.”

  “Where are the others?”

  The talking between the crew stopped abruptly, and Filip’s unease was visible. “That’s it.”

  The rain must have soaked through my jacket and shirt, because I felt cold. “Just three? How many girls?”

  “Fourteen.”

  I could hear them deeper in the warehouse, probably sitting on the floor in the darkness, quieting coughs and sniffles. I’d get to them in a minute. Right now, we had a serious issue. “Who the fuck sends three guys to handle all this?�
��

  Filip reseated the gun in the waistband of his pants as if uncomfortable. “This was my concern as well.”

  I texted my driver to start the car. I wasn’t taking any chances. My father had taught me if you got a hint of a setup, it was probably already too late for you. “Fuck this shit. Let’s bail.”

  We were potentially walking away from a lot of money, but at least we were walking away. Filip nodded in total agreement with me and told his guys to roll out.

  Alek looked surprised. “What about the girls?”

  He wasn’t asking about their well-being; he wanted some pussy. I glared at him. “Glup ko kurac.” It was Serbian for stupid as a cock. “Grab one and let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  He didn’t need to be told more than once. What Alek lacked in brains, he more than made up for with loyalty and obedience, and I wanted to keep it that way. So I went with him, in case the girl put up a fight. We’d move quicker that way.

  The women were huddled together, some clutching suitcases and bags like everything they owned was inside. Which was probably true. They were nearing the end of their trek from Moscow, or Saint Petersburg, or who the fuck knew what Russian city. Most of them had been traveling for days, and they sure as hell smelled like it.

  Glassy, fear-filled eyes peered up at me and Alek, and two of the girls skittered backward on their hands and knees, wrapping their arms around each other. Sisters, no doubt. Every time we struck the Russians’ fresh shipment of girls, I swore it’d be the last time I’d do it. These girls left their shitty lives behind for the false promise of America. Some even thought they were coming here to become models.

  Too bad most of them were too skinny to have tits. Or hadn’t ever seen a dentist.

  Watching their dreams crumble into dust was a drag.

  I also didn’t like dealing with the girls because I never knew what level of quality we were going to get. Drugs and cars were products where I could rely on consistency. But I got why Goran was in the business of girls. Besides the money, there was a poetic justice to having the Russians do all the leg work to bring the women to America, and then we swooped in and reaped the profit of selling their whores.

  I despised the way the girls looked at me, like I was their savior. They’d watched the Russian men they thought were helping them turn into their captors. When all hope seemed lost, the Serbians showed up and slaughtered the men. The girls thought we’d come to liberate them.