“Get up boy! On your knees!” His head fell back, tilting the bottle up while he gulped loudly. He wiped his mouth with his tattooed forearm.
I scrambled up to my knees from a fetal position. The man’s stance was wide, and he swayed as he dropped the bottle, fumbling with the front of his jeans.
It was ingrained in my behavior to immediately kneel or turn around on my hands and knees so that he, or the older man could assault my body anyway they wanted. But something snapped in my brain that day as I listened to his heavy breathing and watched him fumble with the zipper on his jeans.
I was quick. I sprung to my feet, baring my teeth and sank them deep into his throat. I tasted warm blood as I tore into his flesh, tearing a chunk off and spitting it to the cement ground. His eyes opened wide with shock as I twisted him around. I wrapped the metal chain around his neck and the gaping wound, blood splattered all over the two of us. I gripped the metal chain with both hands and jerked him back violently, wringing him from side to side and snarling like a wild animal. He fell back on top of me. A gurgling noise came from his throat and mouth, the scent of blood, shit, and piss permeated the air. Then the tall, dark-haired monster’s body went limp.
I sat up, shoving the heavy lifeless body off me. I fumbled for the key ring as I listened for the older man’s footsteps on the stairs. I saw the whites of his eyes as he rounded the corner. The metal collar fell from my neck, clanging on to the cold cement floor. I howled, charging at the man, and crashed into his midsection. I heaved him up off his feet, slammed him to the ground and climbed on top of him. Both my fists smashed and pounded into his face over and over again. Bits and pieces of teeth flew as his face became a bloody pulp. My knuckles were raw and covered in blood when he finally stopped breathing. I climbed off him and rushed up the stairs. The hinges on the screen door screeched as I yanked it open and ran. I stumbled and fell onto my knees and breathed in as much fresh air as my lungs could hold.
I ran from that house far into the woods. I walked for several miles and just wandered around, not knowing where to go. I searched to find other people like me, with no family and no home. I ate and slept with homeless people that lived in tents made of tarp, paper, and anything that would keep our bodies warm. Sometimes people came into the woods, people who I felt no threat from. They gave us food, clothes, soap, and things that most people in the modern world take for granted.
Osamu Takata caught me one day in the back alley of a small oriental food market in Chinatown, in DC. I dug through the dumpsters, scavenging for food like a feral cat. He called out to me and spoke in a foreign language, that I now know was Japanese. I was frightened and I ran away, of course. The next day, Osamu had left a cardboard box in the back alley for me to discover. With my keen sense of smell, I rummaged through the box to find that he had filled it with all kinds of food I had never tasted before. He suddenly appeared from behind the back alley door. The look in his eyes showed no threat, only empathy or pity. He beckoned with his hand to come to him and so I did.
He took me to a magnificent house outside the city limits of Washington, DC. My jaw dropped as he walked me through his impressive home and unfamiliar smells wafted up to my nose. It felt like I was walking on a different planet. He had several maids and they took good care of me; showing me how to use the shower to wash myself and constantly feeding me. He sat me down in the massive living room decorated in black, white, and red. He told me his name was Osamu. When he asked me my name I began to tremble, reliving all the horrors I had experienced. I still could not recall where I came from. I told him I could not remember my name. Then Osamu did something so foreign and unimaginable to me: he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and sat in silence as I cried. He told me that he would not ask me about my past or where I came from and understood if I never spoke of it again.
He spoke to me in his calm, but firm voice, “Men like us exist and breathe in this savage world like sharks swimming along an ocean current, or along a flowing river. Circumstances and people will obstruct our path, but the current never ends, always pushing or pulling us along.”
“That is my name. Push.” My voice was deep and steady.
Osamu smiled then. “You have been given another life, and everyone will know you as Push.”
Osamu’s son had died not too long after he found me and he was grieving. To him, I was like a son, and I looked up to him more as an older brother, the only person I felt a kinship with. He took me on his private jet and we flew to Nagasaki, Japan. It felt as though I was walking and breathing on another planet, where people sounded, smelled, and looked different than me. I earned my education through private tutors. And I learned how to fight, training with men who were lethal with their bodies, their hands, and with weapons. I was surrounded by Japanese men in business suits, covering the ornate tattoos all over their bodies. They were the infamous Yakuza. They inked their skin with humility, it was a sacred thing to them.
Osamu was a well-respected Yakuza boss and controlled various prefectures, similar to what Americans would consider territories. They dealt in drugs, gambling, prostitution, and all other organized illegal activities. That frequently included the local government and politicians.
I had sex with prostitutes and made my way to underground fetish and kink clubs. In discovering my own sexuality, I began to explore my sadist nature. I was sexually aroused by inflicting both pain and pleasure to women, as long as it was with agreed consent between the both of us.
There were a few gruesome attempts to have Osamu killed by rival Yakuza families. One time a man who was skillful with a knives slashed Osamu’s chest as we walked the city streets of Shinjuku. I fought the man using the skills I was taught, but I eventually succumbed to my savage nature. Using my teeth, I tore into his flesh, biting off his ear and his shoulder muscle. Then I thrusted the blade of the knife into his own chest, through his heart, and he dropped dead.
“I made my way back to Washington, DC with Osamu as a new man and a loyal brother to Osamu Takata. I will die to protect him from his rivals in Japan and here in Washington.” Push’s brows relaxed as ocean water splashed onto our calves.
My breasts were pressed up against his hard chest when I reached up to touch his jaw, rough with a week’s growth of beard, “You are my savior, Push. I owe you my life. I belong to you.”
He was so strong, crushing me harder against him. “Yes, Nadia. You belong to me. Mine to own, mine to cherish, and mine to ruin!”
I cried out in pain and it aroused me when he leaned in and sunk his teeth into the side of my neck. He bit down and my knees buckled, but he held me close. When he let go, he lifted me into his arms, carrying me back to the mansion.
He placed me back on the bed, and pulled my nightgown off. He stood over me as I watched him undo his faded and torn jeans. “I’ve held myself back from you for way too long. It is time now to be both gentle and brutal with you.”
His bold arousal sprung free as he pulled his jeans down. I let my eyes drink in the sight of Push’s magnificent body. There were scars along his pectoral muscles and broad shoulders, along with small circular scars on his forearms. The scars were a reminder of how much pain and violence was inflicted on his body long ago. But In my eyes, he was a magnificent beast. He covered me with his heavy body as I opened my thighs for him. He shifted and wrenched my hands up, pinning me down. He crashed his mouth onto mine and with one hard thrust, he sank himself deep inside me. I cried out against his lips.
“It’s painful. I know, Nadia. I can’t control myself”
“Please don’t stop Push! Hurt me!” I begged
He began to move, pulling out and pushing his massive girth roughly back in. He grunted and moaned as I cried out. He was relentless and brutal, giving me waves of pleasure and pain. I clenched my walls around him. He growled as his hand enclosed around my throat and squeezed. I grasped his wrist with my free hand, but he was too strong and it was useless to struggle.
He kept a tight grip on my
throat, his dark fiery eyes glaring as my mouth hung open. It was exhilarating and frightening at the same time. Cutting off air to my lungs, my body tingled, and a burst of electrifying pleasure came over me as I climaxed. He eased his grip on my throat and I sucked air back into my lungs. Push thrusted relentlessly and roared as he exploded deep inside me.
We laid together calming our fast beating hearts. Push held me close to him, brushing his fingertips over my sedated body. I drifted off to sleep, feeling safe in his arms.
CHAPTER 14
PUSH
I climbed out of bed just before dawn to let Nadia sleep. I spent the whole day and night ravishing her, pushing her limits of pain and pleasure. I was so in-tune with her body and the expressions in her eyes during those moments that I thought for sure she would shut down with fear. But she didn’t. Instead, she fully surrendered to me. The first time I saw Nadia in Gabe’s parlor, I felt her untamed energy. She had belonged to me ever since. I told her all about the nightmarish life that I used to live. Before that, Osamu was the only person who knew of my past. Not even Nolan knew everything.
I sat at a table, overlooking the Pacific Ocean from the immense terrace of the mansion in Maui. I stared down at my half-eaten breakfast as I listened to Nolan through the phone. Lucas had let loose his taste for violence, putting hits on key business partners in different organizations up the east coast from the metropolitan DC area to Atlantic City and into New York. He was taking over Gabe’s entire empire and when a man gets greedy, he makes mistakes. That’s precisely when I planned to strike back. Nolan called in men we knew and trusted from the FBI down in Quantico to get Gabe’s dead body out of the Georgetown mansion, and to clean up the mess I left. Osamu and Dane from Atlantic City kept the mansion and what was left of Gabe’s business contained.
I could sense Nolan’s anger even from six hours away. “Lucas has some balls to bring his new Russian counterparts into my fucking Casino, flexing muscle!”
“Kumiko, she’s not safe – “
“Your Japanese maid is safe with Takata. She’s been with him from the moment you got on that plane and flew to that Hawaiian paradise.”
I exhaled with relief. “Good.” If something had happened to Kumiko I would never have forgiven myself and neither would Osamu. “How is Mac?”
“Some bruises, cracked ribs and some stitches, but he survived the beat down by those two meat heads. It’s a good thing you wasted both of those motherfuckers.”
“I’ve had my sights on them for a long time now.” I clenched my jaw remembering how those monsters brutalized Nadia on that pool table. “It felt really good putting a bullet in their heads.”
“When are you flying back into DC? We need to end this. Take Lucas down.”
“I’m going to have a talk with Nadia today. See where she’s at in her head. She knows the truth – that Gabe was not her father. She’s going to want to know who her father is and the truth about her mother.”
“Yeah. We’ll get all the answers for Nadia. I guarantee it, my friend.”
“Yes. She deserves the truth and her vengeance.”
Just then, Nadia stepped onto the terrace from the sliding glass door. She was dressed in a white silk robe, her hair messy. She tilted her head and smiled at me, “Good morning…”
“I’ll talk with you soon Nolan.” I hung up my phone, and looked up at her. “Did you sleep well?”
Her smile tugged at the beating muscle inside my chest. I didn’t give her time to answer, seizing her around the waist and planting her soft little body onto my lap.
She gasped, combing her hands through my hair, “Oh, Push! You’re a feral beast! Please be a bit gentle with me today?” The look in her eyes was pleading.
I kissed her forehead, “Yes, my little savage.” I cradled her in my lap, smelling our sex mingled in her hair and on her skin.
I leaned away, “I just spoke with Nolan. It’s time we return to DC, Nadia.”
She pressed her cheek against my chest, “But I cannot go back. It’s not my home. It never was.”
“You belong to me now. I am your home. You deserve to find out the truth about your mother and your father. Isn’t that what you want?”
She didn’t reply, nuzzling my chest with her soft cheek. I pulled her back, and looked into her eyes “Nadia, everything was taken from you. But you are a savage, remember? I will help you find the truth, so that you can slay your monsters, as I did mine. Lucas’s days are numbered. You deserve your vengeance. You will take back all that was stolen from you!”
“I’ve been isolated and kept in the dark my entire life. What do I have left? I have no family. I’ve lost everything.”
Her messy hair tickled my chin, “Gabe’s business empire now belongs to you. I will be by your side to guide you and to be your business partner if you that is what you want.”
She leaned back, peering up at me, brows knitted together. “I need you beside me, Push. Always. Teach me. Guide me. Help me find the truth and take back all that belongs to me. All that I deserve.”
She pulled me to her and crashed her soft lips against mine. I pressed her tighter against me, consuming all of her fiery passion for vengeance.
CHAPTER 15
NADIA
Flying back to Washington with Push gave me feelings of anxiety and anger. We left the warm temperatures, clear blue skies, and palm trees to come back to frigid cold and bare trees. Mac greeted us at Reagan National Airport. I let go of Push’s hand and I ran to Mac, wrapping my arms around him and sobbed.
“Please don’t cry, Miss Russo.” His big arms came around me.
I leaned my head back to looked up, “But it’s all my fault that those monsters hurt you! They could have killed you, Mac! I would have never been able to forgive myself!”
He smiled, “Well, that didn’t happen. And those men will never hurt you or anyone else ever again, thanks to Mr. Push.”
Push stood there, the side of his sexy mouth lifted, “I enjoyed it.”
Mac drove us to the mansion in Georgetown that I grew up in as a lonely girl. It now belonged to me. I would not have been able to walk up the steps and enter the immense foyer if Push and Mac were not beside me. It smelled and looked the same, but felt different in some way. So many memories, most of them making me feel sad.
It was Christmas night as I stood in the bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror. My mouth hung open in awe as I looked at the woman staring back at me, naked, wearing only a full-length Chinchilla fur coat. I rubbed my cheek against the soft fur and breathed in. It was so soft and so wrong to wear it. But Push insisted I do, and that it was his first of many gifts to me. I stepped back into the parlor and walked toward the lit fireplace. The smell of burning logs mingled with our own scent of sex, permeated the entire room. Push opened a $2,000 bottle of champagne earlier and we toasted to a new beginning for the both of us.
Push laid on the floor next to the fire, propped up on his elbows with only a blanket thrown over his hips haphazardly. He eyes roamed over me with hunger as I walked toward him in the soft fur coat.
“You look good enough to eat in that fur, Nadia. Come here.”
I gasped and giggled when he reached out and pulled me down onto the floor next to him. I laid underneath him as he hovered over me, moving down my body, “Raise your arms above your head and keep them there.” I did as he said. “Now spread your thighs for me, sexy little savage.”
I arched my back and cried out as he ran his warm firm tongue up along my center. He moaned, his lips planted soft kisses up and down my slit, then blew cool air across it. “I love how your body responds to my touch.”
His lips and tongue were relentless, teasing me, making my hips move, but I kept my arms above my head as my hands balled up into fists. That tingling intoxicating feeling rose from within and I cried out as an intense orgasm rushed through my body.
Push moved above me, shifting his hips and rammed all of his hard length into me. I gripped his broad shoulders
as he thrusted, my nails digging half moon shapes into his flesh. He growled driving into me with hard strokes and exploded, filling me up as I felt his bold manhood pulsate inside my wet warmth.
He held me as we laid next to the fire, running his fingers through my messy sweat-soaked hair. “Nadia, there is someone I want you to meet tomorrow. I had Nolan check him out first. He claims that he knew your mother and your real father.”
I felt a flush run through my body. I jerked suddenly, staring up into his eyes, “Who is he?”
“His name is Alik Barinov. He’s from Russia.”
I sat in a royal blue velvet wingback chair behind the huge mahogany desk that Gabe used to sit at. It felt strange and foreign at first, but I had the chair designed especially for me. Push leaned up against the desk, one ankle crossed over the other, his solid arms folded in front of him. He looked like a sexy scoundrel in his grey shirt and maroon neck tie.
The side of his mouth lifted, and he had a gleam to his eyes as he looked at me, “The blue velvet chair suits you, my little savage.”
I reached for his muscular thigh, “I’m nervous to meet this man - Alik. How can I trust what some strange man tells me?”
Push brought my hand to his lips. He had shaved the scruff of beard he let grow out in Maui. “It’s ok to be nervous. I’m here with you. And Nolan will be here too. Alik lives in Atlantic City and our business partner, Dane, is escorting him here to us.”
Just then, the deep tone of the doorbell rang. Push leaned in and kissed me on the forehead and stepped out of the office to answer the door. I heard male voices, one of them with a distinguished foreign accent. The heels of their shoes tapped on the marble floor in the foyer as they walked into the office. Nolan looked as handsome as he always did, wearing a plum-colored suit with a grey tie, his dark hair unruly.
PUSHED (Capitol Corruption Series Book 1) Page 6