by Mary Stone
As she approached, Clayne shook the hand of another well-dressed, dark-haired man wearing a beautiful navy suit, the cut of which pinged Katarina’s internal radar. Sure, Clayne cleaned up nice, but she’d bet money that the newcomer’s suit was custom-tailored. If Katarina had to guess, she’d peg the price tag at five thousand. Easy.
Katarina licked her lips. Things were about to get interesting.
Tossing her hair, Katarina sauntered over to the well-dressed duo, adding a little extra swing to her hips. Clayne caught sight of her, and his face broke into a wide grin. Before she guessed his intention, his arm whipped out and wrapped around her waist. She didn’t need an explanation. She knew a man who was staking his claim when she saw one.
“Well, don’t you look good enough to eat?” Clayne’s blue gaze raked over her from head to toe before he turned to the other man. “Katrina, I’d like you to meet Lance Martinez. Lance, this is my girl, Katrina Cook.”
His girl.
Katarina shook Lance’s hand without so much as blinking at Clayne’s unexpected introduction. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” Lance’s gaze lingered on Katarina’s thighs a beat too long before he released her hand and stepped away. He looked down his long nose at her and gestured to the table. “Shall we sit?”
Katarina didn’t mind the peep show. On the contrary, Lance’s distraction equaled power. She eased into the chair that Clayne held out for her and studied the menu. As soon as she noted that neither man bothered, she snapped the embossed leather binder shut again. “Any recommendations?”
“Everything here is good, but the steaks are out of this world.”
When the waitress came to take their order, Katarina made sure to order a steak. The filet, medium-rare. Clayne and Lance both ordered the rib-eye. Clayne asked for his to be cooked medium-rare while Lance glowered at the server.
“Rare as in I expect the damn thing to be this close to mooing.” Lance held his thumb and pointer finger a fraction of an inch apart to demonstrate.
“Yes, sir.”
Lance flicked his hand in dismissal, and the waitress scurried over to fill their crystal goblets from a wine bottle near the fresh floral centerpiece. As soon as she gathered their menus and left them alone, Clayne jumped right down to business. “Good news. Lance here is looking to expand his Denver business and wants me to work under him. That means more revenue for both of us. Isn’t that great?”
Katarina sipped the white wine that Lance had ordered without her input and remembered how much she despised taking commands from other people. Men like Kingsley, for example. And Lance.
Always so arrogant, with the way they sneered down their noses in their expensive suits. She laid her hand on Clayne’s forearm. “Great, baby, but I can’t help but think this organizational chart is all wrong. You should be in charge of the business, and Lance here can work under you.”
Katarina hid a smile when Lance choked on his wine. “Excuse me?” The dark-skinned man patted his mouth with a linen napkin and pinned his bored smile back in place. His brown eyes burned into Katarina, though. “Clayne, you should educate your friend about the vast scale of my empire, so we can avoid embarrassing misunderstandings like this in the future.”
“Of course.” Clayne turned to Katarina and proceeded to do as requested. His closest hand slipped under the table, though, stroking her thigh as he rattled on. Appreciation, she guessed, for her vote of confidence. “Although, it might not be a bad idea to give me a little bigger chunk of the business to run. I have the contacts out here to make sure we’re successful.”
After a little back and forth, Lance stroked his chin and agreed. “Okay. We’ll give it a try. Better make sure you can deliver.” Mild tone or not, his warning was clear.
“Not a problem.” Clayne squeezed her thigh as he replied, making Katarina’s skin tingle.
The men were ironing out the details when the waitress reappeared, placing their meals in front of them. Katarina inhaled the delicious mixture of beef and garlic-mashed potatoes wafting off her plate. She sank her teeth into the first bite and almost moaned when the juices washed over her tongue.
“What’d I tell you? Good, right?”
Katarina finished chewing the tender bite. “Delicious.” After sampling her potatoes and finding them equally divine, she set down her fork. “I don’t mean to overstep, but I’d be happy to offer up a few ideas on how to grow your business if you’re interested.”
Lance’s hands stilled in the process of cutting off another bite of steak that appeared bloody enough to satisfy a vampire. He flicked her another condescending look before leaning back in his chair and yawning. “Sure, why not?”
When he checked his Rolex, Katarina’s eyes narrowed, but she kept her cool. She spoke for ten minutes, and his entire demeanor transformed. Maybe Kingsley had served a good purpose in her life after all. He certainly had taught her how to run a profitable business.
By the end, Lance hung on her every word, his bloody meat forgotten on his plate. He surveyed her with an appreciative gleam in his eyes. An expression Katarina much preferred to his snooty one.
“Aren’t you full of surprises?” Lance mused out loud. Katarina sank back into the plush burgundy and gold chair with both her belly and pride satisfied while he and Clayne shook on the deal.
After they finished eating, they headed outside, where a beefy man with sunglasses and close-cropped hair waited to usher Lance into an SUV with tinted windows. A driver with an identical brawny build sat behind the wheel.
Katarina studied the men, her internal radar pinging once again. These men were way too fit to be chauffeurs, not to mention the telltale gun-shaped bulge beneath the closest one’s jacket. Security detail, in Wyoming? Unexpected, to say the least. Her eyes narrowed. Maybe Lance Martinez hadn’t been inflating the magnitude of his operation, after all.
The bodyguard opened the back door of the SUV wide. Before Lance stepped inside, he turned to address them both. Katarina noted with satisfaction that he didn’t talk over her anymore. “You’ll be hearing from me soon.” His gaze lingered on Katarina for another few seconds, and then he ducked into the back seat.
Clayne tracked the SUV as the vehicle accelerated out of the parking lot, then picked Katarina up by the waist, planted a big kiss on her lips, and spun her around in a circle. “Woot! That went great, and I owe part of it to you!”
Even as she whirled through the air, her mood buoyed by Clayne’s obvious excitement, Katarina’s skin bristled over his short-sightedness. She waited until her feet touched the ground to ask the question burning her tongue. “Why didn’t you tell me that I’d be attending a meeting when you texted me?” One thing that Katarina despised more than anything was feeling unprepared.
Her irritation must have shown because Clayne flashed her his little boy grin. “Uh oh, is someone miffed at me? Sorry, darlin’, but I needed to watch how you’d handle yourself in a business situation without advance warning. That was the first part of the test, which you passed with flying colors. Now all that’s left is the second part.”
Clayne’s car pulled up before Katarina could respond. Probably for the best. Her mind was whirling with ideas over what the second part of the test held in store. Excitement crackled through her body, zapping any lingering remnants of irritation and boredom, and instead, it fired her muscles with pure energy. She spent the fifteen-minute ride feeling on edge in the most delightful way.
Focused. Alive. Full of purpose.
The car stopped in an industrial lot. Katarina climbed out, and Clayne guided her to a massive white warehouse. Using a keypad, he unlocked the outer door and led her inside. The first thing Katarina noticed were the men with semi-automatic weapons. By her count, no less than fifteen patrolled the building.
Her attention shifted from the men to the objects filling the long rows of shelves, which was when Katarina noticed the second thing. She stifled a gasp. Cocaine. Tons and tons of cocaine. More packets of th
e white powder in one place than she’d ever seen in her life.
She didn’t have time to take in much beyond those two details because Clayne kept walking, winding his way past the shelves. He led her toward an enclosed room in the middle of the warehouse and paused with one hand on the doorknob.
“I want to show you how we treat traitors in my operation.”
He opened the door with a flourish. Two men sat inside a bare room that reeked of cigarettes and urine, both of them tied to chairs.
Katarina’s heart drummed harder in her chest as she entered the room, only she wasn’t quite sure what was triggering her body’s reaction. Fear over what Clayne had planned for the men? Maybe a little, even though she’d taken part in plenty of similar scenarios in her life. Or stress over how her involvement in this could affect Bethany? Possibly. But as Katarina eased into an empty chair and watched Clayne remove his jacket and shirt in preparation, the electricity sizzling through her veins intensified, and she knew.
Katarina was broken. Undeniably. Permanently.
What else could explain the fact that sweeping and dusting made her feel like a withered, hollowed out old tree, whereas crime and pain lit a spark inside her soul?
She gritted her teeth, rejecting the idea. That was the old Katarina. Not Katrina Cook. Katrina had Bethany, and the two of them were a family. But the humming in her veins told a different story.
“If this gets too bloody for you, baby, holler.” Clayne tossed that comment over his shoulder as he approached the first man.
Katarina’s breathing quickened. She leaned forward in her chair as Clayne prowled around the cowering man and lectured him in his easy drawl.
“You really thought you’d get away with it, Luis? Steal from me?” Clayne cracked his knuckles, one by one. A sharp, ominous sound in the quiet little room. “Come on, buddy. How could you be that dumb? You should know me better by now. I’m a greedy man, and no one takes what’s mine without paying the price.”
His fists flew without warning, striking the man in the face and gut. When blood spurted from Luis’s nose, Clayne turned to the other man, who’d squeezed his eyes shut after the first punch. “And you, Shawn. You think so little of me that you’d steal from the business that puts clothes on your back? That feeds your family?”
The man shook his head, which only aggravated Clayne. He struck Shawn several times, until the man’s face began to swell and blood dribbled off his chin. By the time Clayne quit swinging and retreated, his knuckles resembled raw meat.
He turned to Katarina and squatted down. “See, baby? That’s how it’s done. You doing okay? Not too much blood for you?”
Katarina shook her head to reply. Horror held her tongue hostage.
Not horror over being a party to torture, but rather over the stark realization that struck her like a shovel to the skull. Katarina was bored again. The anticipation leading up to the first blood draw had faded away, leaving her skin itching to jump in and teach Clayne more artful methods.
Clayne rose and focused his attention back to the first man, Luis, and Katarina rationalized her next steps. To keep Bethany safe, Katarina needed to feed her inner monster. Her sharp edges kept her alive, and after weeks spent wasting her wits away, Katarina understood that the longer she was trapped in that little house, the quicker her edge would vanish.
Only the strong survived, and denial of this hard-learned lesson wouldn’t change that.
Katarina owed it to her daughter to be strong.
Acceptance flowed over her like a sun-kissed breeze. Katarina rose and walked over to the armed man guarding the doorway. His sneer as he stepped aside to allow her to exit told her he’d assumed she was weak and running away. A nasty grin curved her lips. Proving arrogant men wrong never failed to fill her with joy.
She reached beneath her dress and whipped the knife from the thigh sheath, relishing the widening of the guard’s eyes at the way the weapon materialized in her hand. “I came prepared, but I need you to grab me an additional knife and two sets of pliers.” When the doofus only stood gaping, she feinted closer, until the blade’s tip hovered less than an inch from the fleshy spot beneath his left clavicle. “Now.”
The guard’s sneer fell away, and he backed out of the room. He returned with the requested items quickly. Katarina didn’t bother to thank him as she plucked the tools from his hands and carried them back inside. Still shirtless, Clayne leaned against the wall, with his defined chest speckled red from other men’s blood. He watched her approach like a jungle cat, all lazy posture and predatory eyes.
“How about a little change of pace?” Katarina extended one of the pliers toward him. He pushed away from the wall and prowled over to her. She dropped the tool into his outstretched hand. “Right or left?”
Clayne tapped the pliers against his open palm. “Left.”
“That means Shawn is all yours, and I get Luis.”
Katarina sidled up to the man on the right and sighed. It felt good, no longer fighting to deny her enjoyment of his delicious, wide-eyed panic. “I was raised to appreciate torture for what it should be, an art form rather than brute force. When you’re strategic and use the right tools, inflicting pain doesn’t require great strength or effort. Only a plan. Watch.”
She inserted the tip of the man’s pinky finger between the grips of the pliers and squeezed. The man’s scream pierced the air as his nail cracked beneath the metal. Once the nail was crushed, Katarina released the pressure on the pliers. Lowering her grip, Katarina applied the curved tip to dig into the exposed pink skin. Luis’s screams intensified as she pried the entire nail away from his flesh.
“See? No injuries,” she flashed her pristine knuckles, “and I didn’t even break a sweat, and yet, by the sound of Luis’s screams, this method was more effective. You want to give it a try?”
Clayne smiled. “Hell, yeah!” He lifted the pliers and repeated the process on the other prisoner. Not as effortlessly as Katarina, but she expected him to be a little clumsy at first. When it came to torture techniques, practice really did make perfect.
When Clayne finished and faced Katarina, he was grinning from ear to ear. “That was fun, now what?”
She shrugged. “Weren’t there some questions you wanted answered?”
Clayne nodded. “Yeah, I want to know if anyone else was involved with these two peckerheads in the theft, among other things. I wouldn’t peg either of them as the ringleader.”
Twirling the knife, Katarina turned back to the men. “Look at me.” She waited until she had their attention. “Now, we’re going to play a game involving speed and timing. I know that sounds like a lot, but I promise it’s very simple.” She crouched in front of Luis so that she could look him right in the eye. “I’m going to ask a question. Afterward, I’ll count to three. Are you with me so far?”
Luis choked out a, “Yes.”
Katarina patted his head. “Good job.” She straightened and crossed the short distance to where Shawn sat. “On the count of three, you will both answer the question at the same time. When your answers match, then you win, and we skip additional persuasive tactics for that round. But if your answers aren’t identical, well…” Katarina tapped the knife against her open palm, and Shawn shuddered.
When she moved to stand between them, both men’s foreheads and cheeks were drenched in sweat. “Are you ready?” Katarina ignored the men’s shaking heads and whimpered noes. “The first question is…tell me the name of who came up with the idea to steal from your boss in the first place.”
She paused a beat and then kicked off the countdown. “One.” Katarina watched the men squirm. “Two.” One more second ticked by. “Three.”
Shawn blurted his answer a millisecond before Luis. “Andy!”
“Me!”
Katarina clucked her tongue. “Uh oh. That answer does not appear to match, sorry.” Without warning, Katarina lunged forward and plunged the knife deep into Luis’s thigh. He was still shrieking when she feinted to
the right and stabbed Shawn in the exact same spot. As she danced away, a sharp, ammonia-like odor stung her nose. She smiled. Loss of bladder control was a sign of success. Katarina returned to Clayne’s side and gave his bicep a quick squeeze. “Be a dear and pull those out for me, won’t you?”
Clayne did as she asked. Once Katarina held the knives, now streaked red with blood, she started over. “Now, let’s try that again, shall we?”
This time around, both men yelled the same thing. “Andy!”
Clayne’s employees turned out to be quick learners. Katarina only had to stab them once more in the opposite thigh before all their answers matched. Too bad. The session ended so fast, Katarina feared she hadn’t gotten a chance to showcase her skills to the max. Oh well, there was always next time. She shrugged as she turned to Clayne. “What’s your plan for them now?”
Clayne tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I was gonna off them, but maybe you have something better in mind?”
Katarina glanced over her shoulder at the two sweaty, bleeding men. “I thought we might use them to send a message.”
Clayne sucked on his lower lip. “Yeah, I can get behind that.” He barked at the door. “Get these peckerheads out of here, lock ‘em back up for now.”
Two of the armed men entered, slashed the men’s restraints, and dragged them away, trailing a path of bloody track marks behind them. As soon as they disappeared, Clayne grabbed Katarina by the shoulders and slammed her up against the wall. His fingers dug into her hips while his mouth ground into hers.
The violence of the last hour acted like an aphrodisiac, shooting liquid heat through Katarina’s cells and filling her with need. She raked her nails into his shoulders while she kissed him back, giving free rein to the frantic passion that arched her spine and plastered her body to his.
His teeth nipped at her throat, and she sighed as the pain-filled pleasure washed over her. She allowed her head to fall back, savoring the sensations while she still could.
She needed to commit the pleasurable feelings to memory now, because Katarina doubted she’d let Clayne live long enough to create many more.