Gideon prayed for patience at the meaning of the man's words. "You mean to tell me you don't even know where he is?"
"We'll find him, Gideon, don't worry about that. In the meantime, we just need you two to come back home."
Standing up, Gideon took out a few bills from his wallet and threw them down on the table with disgust. "Oh, we're coming home, but Grayson, I will tell you this. You better find Ron before I do."
Chapter 18
Taking turns driving, they made it back to Stardust Cove in record time. Pulling down the familiar gravel path, Gideon slowed down the truck at the sight of eight other cars lining the long drive. Before he could even turn off the engine, Jade had hopped out first and was making her way around the front of the truck.
Standing with his arms folded talking to a guy Gideon recognized as one of Stardust's local contractors, Gavin Rosebank stood in the middle of the yard. Turning at Jade's approach, Gavin's hard expression softened, and he opened his arms to envelop her in a hug. Gideon couldn't stop staring past them. Numerous people he recognized from all over town were dotted here and there across the yard carrying out busted window frames and carrying in shiny new ones. Scanning his gaze across the wide gaping holes where windows once lined the outside of his house, Gideon realized with a fresh surge of anger that the piece of shit must have broken nearly every window in the house.
As if sensing his anger, Gavin looked up over Jade's head, who he slowly released, to meet Gideon’s gaze and gave him a tired smirk. Approaching his friend, Gideon watched Jade run up to Ebony, who appeared at the front door holding a rolling paintbrush.
"It's pretty bad," Gavin warned him, no doubt seeing the murderous rage in his eyes as he peered through one of the open window holes to see piles of trashed things. "But it's just stuff, and Tony told me the house itself is fine, except for a few places where Ron knocked a few holes in the wall."
"I'm going to knock a few holes into him," Gideon seethed, watching as another man carried out a broken door.
Gavin nodded and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Or you can let Grayson handle it and worry about getting this place finally fixed up the way you want it and starting your lives again."
Looking back at him, Gideon gave his friend a considering look. There was something different about the guy, a calm, resolute surety that had not been there before he left. Nodding in agreement, Gideon told himself he would find that out later and began discussing the long list of repairs the house needed. With the arrival of a few more cars filled with friends, they were able to get the worst of the damages fixed. A few toilets that had been purposely clogged with trash were replaced, all new windows, a few new doors, new locks, patched holes, and new flooring and fresh coats of paint. By the end, everyone gave a tired cheer as they finished the last of the repairs late that night.
Walking through the empty house, Gideon admired the clean white walls of the dining room and living area. It was late, nearly three in the morning now, the house felt somehow old and new at the same time and wholly different. Moved into a corner of the room, the few pieces of furniture that went untouched during Ron's rampage were huddled together under heavy painter's cloths.
"I swear it feels like a brand-new house," Jade's voice echoed off the empty walls as she came from the hallway from her old bedroom. Showered and dressed in her nightclothes, she looked soft and sleepy, which was understandable since, for the last forty-eight hours, they had been hauling ass across the country only to come back and have to rebuild their house.
Gideon let out a yawn and nodded. Thankfully, Ron hadn't touched her room, he thought. Her windows and things were just like they were when they left. The same, however, could not be said about Gideon's room. By the time they arrived, Ebony had already picked through and salvaged anything she could find and had Gideon's busted bed and the rest of the mangled debris hauled out and trashed. From the mess, it was evident Ron had taken a sick sort of pleasure from desecrating his adopted brother's room. It didn’t matter though, Gideon thought with a surprising amount of levity, all that mattered was standing right here in front of him. Opening his arms, he watched as Jade smiled tiredly up at him before sinking into his hold.
"The nurse at rest home says momma is still sleeping, but she will most likely be up early tomorrow," Jade explained. "She said she has been asking constantly about us and has been wanting her phone."
Turning her around, Gideon walked with her towards the empty den that connected into his room. On their honeymoon, they had talked about making this section of the house their private master suite, giving them not only the privacy and space they would need but also giving mom an extra room she could fill to her desire with craft supplies.
Shutting the door to his bedroom, they both looked at the blow-up mattress sitting on the empty floor.
"After we get momma back and settled, first thing's first, we go to the furniture store," she announced.
Gideon laughed. "I can agree to that."
For a moment, he stood there on the opposite side of the blow-up mattress and stared at her expectantly until her questioning eyes met his. With a raise of an eyebrow, he silently signaled his request.
Understanding dawned over Jade's face before she rolled her eyes. "First of all, I'm dead tired, and so are you. Secondly, do you think it’s wise to get fully undressed? You know, with Ron still out there?" she waved towards the bare window.
It felt odd not having curtains. The new windows were like giant black gaping holes looking out into the night, it felt as if they were just standing outside in the open instead of in their room.
Nodding at her valid concern, Gideon bent down and grabbed the big, black pump shotgun from under the airy mattress. While everyone was moving in and out of the house earlier that evening, he had unloaded it from the truck and put it in here. Seeing her eyes widen, he smiled reassuringly at her. "Don't worry. I highly doubt Ron would set foot back here, or he wouldn't have trashed the place and ran so goddamn fast. The last thing that little meth-weasel wants is a confrontation with me, which is crazy because that's all I want."
"Well, that's not what I want at all," she informed him.
"I know, and that's why I'm not out there helping Grayson track his little ass down. See?" he said, gesturing to himself with a smirk. “Look how far I've come, sweetheart. Now go ahead and take off those clothes and let me—"
"But the windows," she squeaked, pointing to the large window behind her, but Gideon could see the twinkle of amusement in her eyes and the hardening of the nipples underneath her nightshirt.
Putting the shotgun back down, he gave her a coaxing smile.
"No one is around, and you know that we live out in the sticks," he knelt onto the mattress, looking up at her. "And besides, I have got all the motion lights on in the yard, if anything bigger than a dog walks within a certain radius, the floodlights will come on, and the alarm we never used is turned on and active now. So, as I was saying…" he let his words hang meaningfully in the air.
With a narrowed gaze and a mean little smile, Jade reached for the light pull on the overhead fan-light and clicked it off, draping them in cool darkness. Sinking down onto the mattress, Gideon folded one arm behind his back and watched her undress. This was all he used to dream about, right here in this room, and now here he was. Through a series of insane turns and some dumb decisions on his part, he was somehow staring up at the one person who made life worth living as she stared back at him with equal hunger and love. Everything was going to work out, he knew that deep in his heart. Momma would be shocked, but he knew the woman well enough to know she would be elated. Their futures were like twin silver streams twinkling together in unison converging as one. They would finish college, they would start their business, and in a few years, he would lay in this spot—not on a blow-up mattress— and watch his pregnant wife tease him as she undressed and come to bed with her round swollen tummy filled with a new sparkling life.
Goddamn, his life was good, h
e thought with a sudden wolfish grin. A love like this was so good it had to be wrong, and he loved every minute of it.
Fin
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Take a sneak peek where Dimitri got is start in my first book Lost and Found: A Mafia Romance:
"When everything seemed to be at its darkest, he came into her life and rescued her."
She was an ever smiling innocent. Rescued from sleeping on the streets, Misha stepped into the dangerous family of the Russian mafia. Her smiling bright nature was in violent contrast with the mob boss. Mikhail Kulakov was quiet, lethal, calculative, --and ten years her senior.
As she grew older gratitude turned into a secret desire towards her hardened criminal guardian.
Forbidden feelings...
At first, she was simply just a distraction to his routine life. Then the years passed taking the young girl with them, leaving behind a beautiful young woman under his roof. It took everything Mikhail had to ignore his ward's sweet and innocent allure. His little Misha did not deserve a hardened criminal.
But he would be damned before he let another man have her.
Chapter one:
Just as always, the girl with the one ear was waiting for him. Mikhail Kulakov, one of Boston's two main Russian mob bosses, was quite intrigued by the wide-eyed girl. For a couple of months now, he has been visiting Milly's Diner for his morning coffee. Milly's was not only under his jurisdiction, but they also made the best blueberry scones in Boston. However, for the past few weeks he has been stopping by for more than just his sweet tooth.
The girl was no more than eight or nine, Mikhail surmised, she always wore the same outfit. A pair of too short jeans with flower embroidery, man-sized construction gloves, and a threadbare badly stained blue scarf. But her most recognizable piece of clothing was a small black puff jacket that rode high on her wrist. The jacket stood out the most, due to the fact that it had Mickey Mouse ears, or at least it had more than one ear at one time in its life. All the clues pointed to one obvious conclusion—she was homeless.
"Dobroye utro Mikhail." she sat on the curb near his black BMW with a large smile.
Holding his coffee along with a brown paper bag with his scones, he walked over to his car sliding into the front seat. As was his routine he rolled down the window and waited for her to come closer.
"Kak dela?" he responded in his mother tongue, watching the large brown eyes scrunch in thought as she carefully tried to come up with a response.
"khor...khora...no no wait it's khoro." by now she was desperate to get it right. Mikhail smirked while taking a sip of his coffee waiting to see if she could grasp the elusive word. "KHOROSHIY!"
"Good. Your pronunciation has improved a bit from last time," he said with an approving nod as he pulled out one of the two scones. Mikhail knew from experience that offering her a scone would only result in her polite refusal so he tried a new tactic. "I will trade you this scone for one of your hand warmers."
Her smile grew larger as she held the box she had been holding higher to his open window. Shifting her weight he watched her balance the box with one hand as she used her teeth to pull off the large work glove. Mikhail watched the surprisingly tiny hand slip from the giant dirty glove and hand him the warmers he really didn't want.
Tossing the warmers in the seat next to him, he handed her the scone.
"Thank you," he watched with veiled interest as she hungrily devoured her scone. Absently, he handed her one of his restaurant napkins he had laying in the car. The Rose was the restaurant he owned, located in the industrial side of town, but on the edge of the up and coming art district. After his morning meeting with the little urchin, he would join his captains for morning meetings in the back room at the Rose.
As if catching herself for showing her hunger, she sheepishly looked down while changing subjects. "I looked up some information about the tattoos on your forearm.
"And what did you find?" he sipped his coffee while checking his phone for messages.
"Well I only saw a couple tattoos, but it seems like your pretty high ranking in your organization." When he didn't answer she continued, "I found the information online at the library, the same time I listened to the Russian beginner videos."
The fascination she had with his tattoos reminded him of how he first met her. It was one of the few days he let one of his men drive him to the office. Mikhail was surrounded by his men practically day and night, he enjoyed an occasional drive by himself. But it simply wasn't done, to have the boss without protection was ludicrous, that's why Nico, one of Krill's boys drove him that morning. Sending Nico out to pick up his order, Mikhail sat in the backseat of the black SUV and answered emails. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched the little girl get closer and closer to the vehicle. The black tinted windows kept her from seeing in, but that didn't seem to stop her. Holding a large dented box, she shuffled closer and closer until she was right beside his door.
The loud knock on his window ruined his intention to ignore the encroaching girl. Sighing he pressed the button to lower the window.
"Sorry to bother you sir, I just wanted to know if you would like to buy some hand warmers for two dollars." A red packet was already through the window, dangling from her gloved hand.
Her boldness was shocking and a little amusing. Mikhail couldn't remember the last time someone was so bold. Turning his head, he looked down to get a better look at who exactly was sticking their hand in the car of a criminal.
Big brown eyes stared up at him expectantly as she held the warmers out, her light brown skin was slightly red due to the below freezing winds. From the little hair he could see around the tightly synched hood it looked to be wavy jet-black hair. Her small slightly upturned nose was covered in small freckles. The large smile she offered was all teeth, which were surprisingly white considering her lack of a home. But it was her eyes that drew his attention, they were huge. Large innocent brown eyes full of hopeful happiness, despite her current situation.
"No thank you," a brief flash of disappointment went across the vivid eyes but was quickly replaced with curiosity.
Though she withdrew her hand, she remained in the same spot. "I like your accent. It's not German and it's not French. But judging by your driver, the neighborhood, and your tattoos on you knuckles I say Russian." when he didn't answer immediately, doubt settled in. "Am I wrong? I'm sorry. I have been reading detective books and I have been trying to notice more stuff like the detec..."
"You’re right." He had to stop her before she went on any further. It was evident that she didn't talk to many people. Though he was surprised by her aptitude, Mikhail never hung around too many children but he would hazard a guess that she was quite sharp for her age. "What's your name?"
For the first time during their conversation, a hint of wariness came over her. It seemed the age-old adage of don't talk to strangers was beginning to filter through.
"Misha," she began hesitantly, "Misha Abosi. What's yours?"
"Mikhail Kulakov." Her waning smile returned full force as he pronounced his name. She repeated it a couple of times, seemingly liking the sound of it.
"I like your tattoos. Do they mean something?" Mikhail wasn't sure how to respond to such an abrupt change in subject, not to mention such a dangerous topic. However, Nico's return saved him from responding to the innocent question.
"Aye! Get out of here!" the harsh yell from his driver startled the small urchin. The cheery face was replaced by a brief note of fear. Just as quickly as she appeared, she left, Mikhail watched the one-eared coat disappear around the neighboring building.
R
olling up his window he waited for Nico to begin driving.
"Nico."
"Yes sir?" he could see the man's awaiting eyes though the rear-view mirror. Nico was actually a couple of years older than Mikhail. His hair was slightly longer than it should be, along with his seemingly permanent five-o-clock shadow Nico always seemed to have a casual look.
"Don't ever interrupt me like that again." Mikhail made sure to make eye contact with the enforcer. He wanted to make sure Nico could see his cold displeasure.
"Of course, sir," a shadow of fear crossed Nico's face, just as the one he caused on Misha.
Since that day, he has made it a point to see the urchin every day. With every passing morning, she became more comfortable around him, even with Nico who she wrangled into buying some warmers once.
A Love So Wrong: A Forbidden Romance Page 28