Grievous (Wanted Men Book 5)

by Nancy Haviland

  Hearing that note of true love in his voice had Yasmeen bringing her fist up to press it against her mouth. She was crushed by his story. Flattened.

  “I was fourteen when I became the man of our house. Fifteen when I made Markus an orphan.” He finished the braid without unraveling it and used it to turn her head. “You may ask one question, and I will answer it.”

  She didn’t move. Didn’t speak. She just sat there with her profile to him and tried to control the emotions he wanted no part of.

  “Come here, pet.”

  She moved into him, going on her knees so he could pull her up into his lap. She curled around him, hugging him with so much compassion in her heart she didn’t think it was possible for him not to feel it. She felt closer to him just then, and sorrier for him than ever.

  “You have confused me. Why am I not hearing a question?”

  “Don’t have one.” And she didn’t. She understood now. After losing his father and sister, he’d held his one remaining sibling as close as he could. He loved and sheltered Markus to the point where she was sure they’d gotten into more than just a few shouting matches.

  She kissed his jaw and hugged him harder, so proud of him for opening up to her. So grateful that he’d finally allowed her some insight into what this obsessive need to keep her hidden away from life was about. He liked her, and he was worried something might happen to her. That had to be it. He must have been terrified he would lose his brother, and he did.

  “Life is such a bitch,” she said when she was sure she wouldn’t choke. “She never really gives us what we want, does she? Just dangles it in our faces for a while before yanking it away.” She laid her head on his shoulder, murmuring, “You just wanted to keep him safe, and she didn’t let you. How fucking unfair.”

  As he held her, accepting her comfort, Yasmeen resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn’t voluntarily cause him more pain by leaving him alone. If he wanted to keep her for a while, she would stay. When he was better, who knew? But for now? She was his.

  She felt the weight of her collar and knew by accepting all of this, any pain waiting on the horizon was going to be hers.

  SEVENTEEN

  Lucian held his pet close, feeling no ill feelings toward her for this need she felt to coddle him. He’d asked for it by sharing that particular story. Couldn’t deny he was relieved she hadn’t taken him up on his offer. He wasn’t up for answering even the one question he’d given her, let alone the many she, of all people, must have.

  “The wine made me sleepy.”

  He peered down at her but could only see her chin because her head was tilted. Such a good girl, knowing to move things along so as not to linger in a place he hated visiting. Her generosity made their quiet time a relaxing place to be.

  “I don’t know why you have such an aversion to cuddling, Mr. Fane,” she murmured a long while later. “You’re very good at it.”

  Come, boys, Miruna. Get up here and cuddle with Papa before I head to school. Nothing brightens my day more than hugs from my clan.

  Lucian waited to finally feel the need to shove her to the floor. He waited for that suffocating urge to flee from the tenderness she was inflicting on him, forcing the shit into their dynamic that was supposed to have been dirty, hardcore sex with minimal personal interaction.

  Nothing came.

  Until the sound of voices reached his ears. His head swiveled, and he glared at the door. “Gheorghe,” he said under his breath, recognizing his cousin’s voice. He should be back in New York by now, not Romania.

  Yasmeen sat up. “That’s your cousin, right?” She went to slide off his lap, but he held her in place.

  “Yes. Stay. I want them to see they are interrupting.”

  She tried harder to move as footsteps came closer. “No. Finding us like this will make everyone uncomfortable.”

  “They should be uncomfortable. They know better than to invade my private time.”

  Sorin was the first to appear in the doorway. His beard twitched when he saw Lucian and Yasmeen’s intimate position at the table. But when his sharp gaze passed over and then shot back to Yasmeen’s choker, his mouth became a tight slash. Censure dripped from his words. “Please forgive the interruption—that clearly should have come sooner—but you have company. One of which has some interest in your guest.”

  Lucian was finding the language barrier more and more convenient. Yasmeen even seemed to be getting used to being excluded from certain conversations.

  Gheorghe shoved by Sorin, his eyes dark with annoyance. He was Lucian’s height and shared his coloring, but where Lucian generally kept his appearance neat, Gheorghe was the opposite. He forever looked as if he was a day late for a shave, and a few months late for a haircut. The dark mass currently reached the collar of his black suit jacket. His black shirt was open at the throat, and he looked as if he hadn’t been sleeping well lately. He still had a blood-red pocket square over his heart. Lucian knew it would remain there for the traditional forty-day mourning period.

  When Gheorghe moved to reveal who he’d brought as protection on this trip, Lucian couldn’t have been more surprised. Claude Moraux. Markus’s partner. Markus’s lover. Secret lover. Claude stood at a rock-solid six-foot-four, had a steely gray stare, and was as French as they came. He’d worked for Lucian for a lot of years and was one of his best shadows. Deadly. Just the way Lucian like them.

  “So you do have her here,” Gheorghe said without greeting them.

  When Yasmeen moved, Lucian allowed it. Though his need to protect his private sanctum was growing by the second. He got to his feet and didn’t care in the least how strange it appeared when he tucked his pet behind him so the others couldn’t see her. He briefly savored the moment when her hands settled on his waist and her cheek pressed into his spine. What did they call people like her? Touchy-feely? Another surprise; he was coming to appreciate the character trait more and more.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” he greeted as a proper host should. His gaze settled on his cousin. “Give me one reason why I should not have you both taken from this room and brought back to the airport at gunpoint?” Unless Markus had taught Claude his language, the Frenchman wouldn’t know what was being said any more than Yasmeen would.

  Gheorghe’s mouth twitched. “Since Vex couldn’t get through to Sorin anymore, he’s taken to calling me. Said Melinda is on him again about you kidnapping the beauty you’re trying to hide. Yasmeen, right? Isn’t that her name?” He craned his neck as if trying to catch a glimpse.

  The hair on Lucian’s nape sprang up in the same way his Dobermans’ did when they heard an unfamiliar voice in the Hampton’s house. “Her friend’s name is Miranda. And my beauty is a touchy subject we should avoid discussing.” At hearing the name, Yasmeen lifted her head and came around.

  “Are you talking about my Miranda?” There was a sleepy note in her voice, the raspy threads much too intimate a sound for Lucian to be okay with other men hearing them.

  “Sorin, take Yasmeen upstairs.”

  “Are you not going to introduce us?” Gheorghe drawled.

  “No.”

  Paying no attention to the exchange, Yasmeen placed her hands on his chest. “Wait. Is Miranda okay?”

  “Yes. Your friend is fine. She is worried about you. We will take care of that when I join you in a few minutes. You can call her and reassure her you are not being tortured in my dungeon.”

  Happiness burst to life before him. Her smile was so genuine, small lines fanned out in the corners of her eyes. “Really?”

  “Yes, pet. Really.”

  She stood on her toes and kissed him full on the mouth in front of the others. “Thank you.” After daring to squish his face between her hands, she skipped to the door. She waved at Gheorghe and Claude but saved her smile for Sorin. “Lead on, Heimdall.”

  Sorin gave her a funny look as he turned.

  “What.” She questioned it—of course. “You don’t know who Heimdall is? Guardian
of Asgard? Thor? Loki? Come on, Sorin. You don’t live in a cave.”

  As they left, Sorin merely grunted.

  “So, be honest.” Her voice drifted back as they went down the corridor. “Have you had any personal interactions with any of the ghosts who live here?”

  “Only the ones I killed myself,” Sorin muttered.

  Yasmeen’s shocked laugh faded as they moved further away.

  Gheorghe was looking at the empty doorway. “Is Sorin making jokes with your playmate?”

  Lucian picked up the poker, but rather than take out his cousin’s knees, he stoked the dying fire. “Aside from my personal business, what brought you here, Gheorghe?”

  “I wanted to see for myself how you were doing.” He added to that when Lucian slowly turned cold eyes on him. “Also, the time has come to decide how we will deal with this situation once it unfolds.” He took a seat at the table. Claude stood rooted to the spot just inside the door. Lucian knew better than to ask the sentry to sit. If they were women, he’d have asked Claude how he was doing.

  “You were right when you said Pivchenko wasn’t done,” Gheorghe said. “He is planning on striking one last time at his family. You were also right about the means he would use. Artur Baikov received a call.”

  Lucian hung the poker on its hook and turned. “Artur is your contact? Is he a reliable one? What does he have to lose?”

  “I dispatched Zlatan yesterday morning to pick up a young girl by the name of Karina. She is sulking her bitchy ass off in a safe house in Newark. Her surname? Baikov. Loving brother? Artur. He can be trusted.”

  Satisfied with that, Lucian moved on. “And what did Sergei ask of him?”

  “He requested a small team brave enough to go up against Vasily and Alek. Artur told Sergei he would get a crew together and would be in touch. He is waiting to hear back from me before he does anything more.”

  Disgust filled him, sickening Lucian’s stomach. Disloyal people had that effect on him. “What is happening in Vasily’s camp?”

  “The Tarasovs are doing as we were doing. Waiting. They have found a trail of bodies Sergei left behind, but their hands are tied because the coward has gone to ground. None of our hounds have picked up his trail, which means he buried himself and hasn’t come out since.”

  Nothing new. That was frustrating, but Lucian got past it to outline exactly what he wanted ready when the time came to move on Sergei. Actual plans couldn’t be made until the time came, but being prepared was smart.

  He remained in the room with his brother’s partner for as long as he could before excusing himself. Thirty minutes was all he could take with such a trigger. He took the back stairs two at a time, slowing once he reached the second level and had gone halfway down the south corridor.

  Six days had passed since he’d identified Markus’s body at the morgue. Six days since he’d made that call to Claude, telling him of Markus’s death. Six days since he’d brought Markus’s body home, welcomed Claude into his house and led him to Markus’s bedroom where a fucking coffin had taken the place of his brother’s bed. He’d closed the Frenchman into the room and stood on the other side of the door, listening to a grown man weep over his dead lover.

  Would he have to wait another six days before he could feel Sergei Pivchenko’s bones break by his hand? Another six days before he could watch Pivchenko’s blood pool on the floor at his feet?

  He paused as he rounded the final corner and stood looking down the hallway. His distraction was in a room fifty feet away, and he was out here trying to steady his erratic breathing and racing heart. He took out his phone. He had to do more. He shouldn’t be blocking this need he had to react. Markus deserved…

  Black spots danced in his periphery. He bent to rest his hand on his knee. “Goddamn you, Gheorghe,” he whispered, cursing his cousin for bringing this back. He’d been getting through the wait just fine, concentrating on his pet. She’d been fulfilling her purpose. Keeping his mind occupied. “I will personally deal with your murderer, brother,” he vowed again. “I swear on this empty life I now have; I will cause that man pain unlike anything anyone has ever survived. I will keep him. And I will break him. So many times I will break him. I swear to God. Not even his mother will recognize him once I get started.”

  His phone clattered off to the side when his knees hit the stone floor. His skin flamed, and his air choked off. He felt as if he were burning in hell. If only. If he were lucky enough to make that journey, he would offer his soul to Satan in exchange for that fucking Russian’s location.

  “Markus. I do not hear you anymore, but I hope you can hear me when I beg your forgiveness for my weak imagination. It cannot produce a punishment harsh enough to honor you. I do not know what I will do when I have that man at my feet. I fear I will kill him before I can make him pay.” He slammed his fists into the stone floor three times, each time harder than the last. “I am terrified I will kill him. I want to kill him so badly. I want to kill all of them. I want to take the life of everyone who was spared. I want you back, and I cannot have you!”

  His roared bounced off the walls, the echo of it fading into silence, his panting breaths all that was left as he knelt there alone. He dug the heels of his palms into his wet eye sockets and tried to gain his composure. What would make the pain of losing his baby brother bearable? He looked at his phone. His contacts were illuminated, his pilot’s number at the top. He reached for it. He would return to New York. He would personally go through the families. Baikovs. Tarasovs. Didn’t matter anymore. Someone must know something. He would kill them in pairs. No. In groups of three. He liked that number. He would line them up. By the time he got to the third in the bunch, the man would reveal whatever information he knew, if only to save his own life. And he would lose it anyway.

  “Lucian?”

  His thumb hovered over the contact. He raised his head and felt a relief he didn’t understand wash over him as an ethereal image floated towards him. She was once again in white. But this gown was only the one thin layer, the shimmering silk clinging to her long legs. She still wore his mark of ownership around her slender neck, and he could see it clearly because she’d put her hair up.

  “I heard…you shouted. Are you okay?”

  Yasmeen. His pet. An obsession he’d never expected to have. She’d readied herself for bed. For his bed. Where he would undress her. Study the perfection of her body. Taste it. Feel it. Impale it. Take pleasure in it while offering the same.

  He had men to kill first.

  “Lucian?”

  He focused on her exotic eyes that were shadowed with concern. They should be hooded with desire as he thrust into her wetness. If he licked her pussy, the concern would leave and they would hold what they should; a yearning for him. She would open herself and take him away. Keep men he liked and respected safe. They were victims just as he was. Markus had been taken from them, too.

  But to kill some of them would feel so fucking good because they were responsible by association. To watch them die as Markus died would be a start. Wouldn’t it? Would that not make him feel better?

  His demons were silent, their attention on the woman coming down in front of him. That mouthwatering scent he would remember forever filled his nose as her knees met his.

  “Did you fall?” She cupped his cheek and lifted his head. He closed his wet eyes against the open and honest kindness that fell over her features. “Oh, Lucian. What happened?”

  “The Russian stole my brother from me,” he blurted. “I must avenge him. I want him back. Like a child, I want Markus with me again even though I know that is impossible.”

  He shook his head and brought his hands up to cup her breasts through the lightly beaded bodice of her sleeping gown. His knuckles were bleeding, but he wasn’t careful. He smeared blood over one covered nipple and then the other, ruining the purity of the white. He ruined its purity. Just as he was doing with the one who wore it. The one who was saying something he couldn’t hear.

&nbs
p; “Can’t have him back. He is gone, my pet. But you are here.” He bent and kissed the shadow of one nipple and then the other. He tasted his blood. “I would be happy if they were all dead. I would be so happy. Then I would not be the only one suffering.” He sucked the tight peak into his mouth and pressed her closer by sending his hand back to rest between her shoulder blades. She tried to resist, but he didn’t allow it. “But I would also be unhappy because Vasily and his men are…my friends. Gabriel and Vincente…I could not kill them.” He pulled the material aside to expose one round globe. He tested its perfect weight as his shoulder was shoved.

  “Lucian!”

  “So perfect. Your body was made for a man like me. I will never tire of its perfection, Yasmeen. I own it. Tell me again that you understand that. I own you.” He clamped his hand on her throat and stilled her struggles. He brought her flawless face an inch from his and looked deep into her eyes. “You cannot deny me what is mine. I will not let you.”

  “I’m not trying to. But can we get out of the hallway? What if someone walks by?”

  “Then they will witness something beautiful; my pet climaxing on her owner.”

  “Uh, not only no, but that would be a fuck no. Absolutely not.” She slapped his hand off her breast and covered up. “I’ll give you what you need, but not in front of others. That’s a hard limit for me.” She looked at his knuckles. “Will you let me clean that? What did you hit?”