CHAPTER NINE
Erik
A few days later, I sit in the garden with Kat and Bullet sitting next to the fountain. Kat has her hand draped over his shoulders, a toothy grin on her face as she smiles in a freeze frame at Erin, who’s peering professionally at her easel as she lovingly strokes her paintbrush across it.
I feel something warm and airy filling my chest, something I have never felt before.
It’s new, entirely brand new. This was something I didn’t expect when I heard her voice and knew she was mine and mine alone. I knew that I was going to claim her.
I knew that she was going to bear my children.
But this feeling, this all encompassing need, this …
I don’t even know what it is. It fills me from the tips of my fingers to the tips of my toes.
I’m a professional, of course. I’ve gone into the city these past few days for work as normal. But I often find my mind straying back to Erin, to my desire to spend time with her, all the damn time.
“Uncle,” Kat says, trying her best to keep her lips shut as she speaks, a ventriloquist act that causes Erin to turn to me with a smile.
Do you think our daughter is going to be as cute as her? her look asks.
I smirk, near-smile, feeling more open and carefree than I have since I was a child myself.
“Are we doing a good job, uncle?”
“An excellent job, Kateyln,” I say.
“And Bullet.”
I chuckle. “Of course. And Bullet. Good boy.”
Erin looks at me a moment longer, bright in the morning sun. She’s wearing a polkadot dress that settles over her like mist, outlining every part of her body clearly, almost turning me into a beast right here.
Her breasts seem fuller these past few days, since I’ve been making ample use of them every single day.
I’ve painted them with my precome, dragging my manhood across them, sucked on her nipples until they’re red and begging for more.
Her crossed thighs look ready for another round, begging to be squeezed and pressed and adored.
Her blonde hair is tied up in a ponytail, screaming at me to fist it, to pull her back towards me as my manhood finds its proper place inside of her.
I think about last night, when she let me tie her to my bed with my silk ties, her ankles and her wrists so that she was splayed on her belly for me.
She looked so perfect as I stalked up behind her, my eyes fixated on the pink preciousness of her hole, her glistening, soaking wet hole, and when I plunged into her she started to shift back despite her bindings, moaning and then screaming for more.
She was reluctant to scream at first, but then I had my bedroom soundproofed, and now her screams ring out like the most beautiful music I have ever heard.
I pounded her into that bed, my belly crushing into those gorgeous round ass cheeks, fleshy perfection made real. And as I pounded into her I felt my whole body honing down to the tip of my cock, an electric buzzing right at the end of my shaft.
I started to fuck her so hard I could hear the wet squelching of her pussy, a gorgeous sound, and then she started to scream and I could feel her coming, the tell-tell way her pussy was twitching for me.
And then, fucking hell, I looked down and saw that her frothy whiteness was sliding up my cock and into her ass cheeks, painting them in her own desire.
I slid my hand over her ass and then my thumb slid close to her forbidden hole, her tight, come slick hole.
“Can I?” I groaned, as I felt myself almost exploding. “Let me finger your tight ass.”
“Do it, baby,” she cried. “Oh, God, finger it hard, finger it and then come inside me.”
Her confidence has flown high these past few days, as our sexual exploration has surged forward like the shooting star of our closeness.
My mind a haze of lust, I slid my thumb into her asshole, just a little bit, using the wetness of her juices.
Seeing that puckered hole part for me, her ass cheeks quivering at the sensation, was enough to send the come shooting like fucking lava up my hard length.
I smashed my cock into her, giving her no mercy, but my queen didn’t need any mercy.
She took every thrust, arching her back, pushing back against me.
My Bratva queen.
She took everything I had to give and gasped for me.
After, I untied her and we showered together, and I kissed every single part of her under the flaming water, and then as the water cascaded down her naked body I fell to my knees and sucked on her sensitive clit.
I sucked like I was worshipping her pussy, because I was.
It was – is - my altar, my home.
Mine.
Now, in the garden, I stand up and walk over to the oak bar, taking a deep breath to calm myself.
It’s a bad idea to allow my mind to stray there in the light of day, especially with my niece and my dog and my woman busy with her painting right in front of me.
I pour myself a soda and take a deep breath, and then turn around, sipping it.
Erin gives me a look, as if asking if I’m okay.
I nod.
She smiles.
And life gets that just little bit brighter.
Later, though, shit gets dark.
Really dark.
That night, I fall asleep like a man falling into a grave, my body content and relaxed after all the sex, and my mind just the same from the closeness.
When I wake, it’s in the middle of the night and the house is silent except for the creaking and whining it makes under the subtle breeze.
I look over to Erin’s side of the bed – it’s amazing how it’s become that, her side – and a prickly, uneasy sensation moves over me when I see that she’s not there.
No sound from the ensuite.
She could be in her room.
She could be somewhere else in the house.
She could be with Kat.
I check them all, and no, no, no.
I search the house.
I go to the surveillance room and, trying not to panic, I scan the last hour of the feed.
My mouth falls open when I watch her creep out of the bedroom and down the hallway, out of the front door and toward the side gate the delivery drivers use.
I watch as she stares down at my guard, my goddamn guard, knocked out and lying sideways from where the tranquilizer dart hit him in the throat.
She walks down the road and stops at the edge, and then a van pulls up.
Michael Jenkins, her stalker, the Irish mob’s whipping boy, steps out.
For a ridiculous moment I wonder if she’s betrayed me, if Erin has gone behind my back to work with the mob, if perhaps her very presence here was a trick all along.
But then I see her waving her hands, arguing, her gesticulations getting wilder and broader as she and Michael debate something near the back of the van.
I see them, but she doesn’t.
Her back is turned.
Two men in hoods and dressed head to toe in black sneak up behind her, one of them holding handcuffs that glint in the night, and the other holding a black bag.
My hands clench into fists and my heart starts to hammer in my chest as I stare, feeling powerless. For the first time in years, I feel so fucking powerless.
They grab her, cuff her hands, shove the black bag over her head.
They throw her into the back of the van and slam the door.
The van drives away.
The road is empty.
My breath comes raggedly.
They’ve taken my queen.
CHAPTER TEN
Erin
He lifts the black bag and I blink, adjusting to the light, already cursing myself for being the biggest fricking idiot in the universe.
“We have Kat. If you don’t get out here right now, we’re going to slit her throat. If you stop to do anything, anything at all, we’ll slit her throat. We have access to that Russian prick’s security feed and we’ll know if you’ve del
ayed. You have two minutes. We are at the side entrance, Erin, the delivery entrance. I want to trade you for her. It’s the way it always should’ve been. Me and you together.”
I was in my bedroom when it happened, collecting the charger for my electronic toothbrush, and I began to shake as I thought about Michael with his hands on precious, innocent Kat.
Then I heard her voice, whimpering.
“Help me, Erin. Help me.”
Something in me broke and I just sprinted from the house in my pajama bottoms and my hoodie, only stopping to pull on some sneakers, terrified that even that small gesture would warp whatever twisted code this monster had created in his mind.
I blink again and stare around what seems to be a half-wrecked boatyard.
The cold air of the late evening bites at me, everything is dark. The lights of the city blink in the background and moonlight bounces off the loudly sloshing sea.
My hands are secured behind me with what feels like duct tape, and right away my street instincts kick in. I start tugging at it as subtly as I can, wondering if there’s any give.
Gnawing, gnawing, like a rat caught in a maze.
Faceless men stare from the darkness, many of them holding guns, and the jagged silhouettes of broken boats lay on the shattered dockyard. I wondered what happened here, what mafia related war took place to render it so riddled with detritus.
Michael Jenkins steps back with the bag in his hand, a victorious grin on his face. He’s dressed all in black, like everybody else, but his hood is pulled down to reveal his freckled face and his mop of red hair, longer than the last time I saw him, unruly.
My own personal stalker, my own bogeyman.
Lucky me.
“You don’t have Kat,” I say simply.
“Nope,” he laughs.
“Then how …”
“Did we fake her voice?”
I nod.
He titters in a childlike way, that uneasy, insinuating way that made my skin crawl even back at camp. It was one of the things that first made me uncomfortable about him, the delight he took in the seemingly most insignificant of things.
In Kat, the all-encompassing enthusiasm is endearing.
In Michael, with his beady eyes and his lascivious grin, it makes me want to run, run as fast as I can, far, far away.
Which I’d done.
I had run. To the streets.
And yet here I was.
“There are computer programs that can do that these days,” he says, clearly pleased with himself. “It was easy.”
“At least you didn’t kill Erik’s guard,” I mutter.
He rolls his eyes. “I wanted to, hot stuff, believe me. But I was advised that it would be a bad idea. It would make old Erik more likely to get his pantyhose in a twist.”
“Why, Michael?” I spit, voice trembling with anger. “Why can’t you just leave me alone? You’re just some guy, some freak from camp who tried to perv on me when I was seventeen years old. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“We’re bonded together, Erin,” he whispers, creeping close to me, moving like a poor imitation of a big cat. “Don’t you understand? We belong together. Our bond was made in death. You don’t belong with that man, that Russian pretentious ass. You belong with me. It’s your destiny.”
I shiver as more creepy crawlies dance sickeningly over my skin, making me want to puke, to scream.
“You’re delusional,” I whisper, fear pricking me despite my desire to stay strong. “You’re sick in the head, Michael. To go to a camp as a counsellor and just randomly pick a girl – a child – and start trying to make her take pictures … don’t you understand how wrong that is?”
He laughs maniacally, dancing back, skipping over to one of his men in the darkness and exchanging a few whispered words. My body stiffens as I imagine him returning with a gun, placing the cold barrel against my head and …
Boom.
But instead he walks back over with a cell phone in his hand, the screen a rectangle of brightness in the dark of the dock.
“Random,” he mutters, bringing the phone close to me, the light stinging my eyes after so much darkness. “Is that really what you think you were, Erin? We were meant for each other.”
I turn my face aside, refusing to look at the photo, the horror of it.
I caught a glimpse.
I don’t want any more.
My heartbeat thuds and I think of Erik, my man, and Kat, who already feels like family to me. I think of Bullet and his big pink smile and I just wish this man would collapse and die, just die right here, just leave me the hell alone.
I work at the duct tape, my wrists burning with the pressure, my arms aching under the strain.
“I’ve found a man,” I spit. “And he’s ten, fifteen—no, a thousand times the man you are, Michael. You have problems. You clearly have something wrong with you. And I’m sorry, I really am. I’m sorry that something’s messed up in your head. But you’re a fucking monster, too, so I can’t be that sorry. Just leave me alone. Let me be happy. Erik. I’ve chosen Erik. Forever.”
I’m babbling now, the photo slicing into my head like a knife, making it hard to think.
“Look, Erin,” Michael says, all humor gone from his voice, jagged and cold. “Look or I swear to God I’ll do nasty things to you right here in front of the men. And when I’m done, you ungrateful slut, I’ll let them have a go.”
I shiver and something in me screams to spit at him.
But another part, the part involved in self-preservation, tells me that that would be the worst thing I could do in this situation.
“Look, Erin,” he growls. “Now.”
“N-no,” I whimper.
“Three …”
“Please.”
“Two …”
“Michael, stop. Stop.”
“You’re not going to like what happens when I get to one.”
I feel my head turning, though it doesn’t seem as if I’m the one guiding the motion.
I stare at the picture of my parents sitting in a crack den. I recognize them from the one picture I’ve seen before, two emaciated ghoul looking people, their cheeks gaunt, surrounded by filth. My father is aiming his middle finger at the camera and my mother is laughing, showing her drug ruined teeth.
If it weren't for the graffiti on the walls and the needles visible on the grimy floor, this might be a funny, endearing photo.
But it just breaks my heart.
“Do you know who took this, Erin?” Michael whispers.
“No,” I snap, blinking back tears. “Of course I fucking don’t. You know I don’t. How would I? I’ve never seen it before.”
“Ooh, feisty,” he titters. “I hope you’re the same in the bedroom, you whore. But humor me, Erin. Do you know who took this photo?”
“I’ve already told you I don’t.”
He sighs, almost sadly, and pockets the phone. “It was my dad,” he says. “My dad took that picture. You see, Erin, my dad and your dad had an arrangement. He loaned your mom out to people, and my old man, unfortunately, was one of them. Do you know what your whore of a mother did, Erin? She infected my dad with an STI and that’s what killed him. So do you see? You owe me. Your mother killed my fucking father.”
I reel back in the chair as much as I can, feeling the back legs tip, forcing me to sit forward unless I want to land on my hands.
There’s a quiet tear sound as I feel the duct tape give, just a little.
Or do I imagine the sound?
I keep struggling, hoping they don’t notice, hoping it’s too dark.
“I found you at that camp on purpose,” he goes on. “I knew that we’d have a connection. I mean, shit, if your mom’s disgusting druggie hole was good enough for my old man, then what about your young little thing?”
“You’re sick,” I whisper. “You’re evil.”
“Maybe,” he says, nodding. “Yeah, you might have a point there. But do you know what, Erin? I don’t care anym
ore. Boss.”
Boss?
“You can take her now,” he says. “Thanks for letting me do this. But I’m done with her.”
Out of the shadows, a man emerges, at least eighty years old with a cigar dangling out of his mouth. He wears slacks and has a silver tooth that winks light as he munches on the cigar, the smoking curling.
“This is the girl Erik Godunov has chosen to enter his household, to take care of his niece? Look at her. I thought she’d be more … well, more.”
I hold my head up high, fighting the warring emotions that attack me in an onslaught as I try to make sense of what’s happening.
Michael has been stalking me for years, then, if he knew I was going to camp. My skin writhes with sickening discomfort.
I fight the urge to scream.
The man takes a big puff of his cigar and then takes another step forward.
“Sebastian Crawford, sweetheart,” he says. “And it seems you’re my prize. I’m going to use you to hit that Russian fuck where it hurts. Then he’ll finally respect the Irish …”
He coughs and looks around, a confused tremor streaking across his features, as several small canisters bounce along the ground – ting, ting, ting – and then start to hiss and spew smoke out of their ends.
Smoke fills the air.
It makes the darkness even deeper, obstructing our vision.
Everybody starts to yell, to demand to know what’s going on.
I keep worrying at the duct tape, stunned by my own strength, strength I never knew I had even on the streets.
After straining for several seconds – the smoke so ubiquitous, I can’t even see a foot in front of me – I feel a tearing sensation. At first, I think it’s in my wrist, the digging pain is so invasive, but then my hands come free.
I leap up.
I run.
I don’t know where I run.
Panic chases me and in the swirling monolith of the smoke, amidst the raised voices and the general panic, I think about my father, passing my mom around like she was some sort of toy. And I hate him. I hate him.
I want to build a new family.
With Erik.
With my man.
But will I get out of here alive?
Or is this twisted boat graveyard going to become my resting place, too?
Bratva Boss's Babysitter: An Instalove Possessive Male Romance (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 192) Page 6
