by Shandi Boyes
My focus shifts from the swinging kitchen door to Roman when he stops at my side. His brows are dotted with sweat, and his sleeves are rolled-up to his elbows. With his suit jacket nowhere to be seen, I’m going to assume he got blood on it while moving Officer Prentice’s body from the alleyway of Justine’s building to his final resting place.
“Everything good?”
Roman jerks up his chin. “He won’t be found anytime soon.”
“And the surveillance we uncovered?”
He tilts closer to me to ensure we don’t have any unwanted ears listening to our private conversation. “Trey is placing it into the right hands. If the rumblings are anything to go by, his colleagues will consider his quick death merciful.”
My jaw ticks. I hate that his death was quick and unsatisfying, but Viktor had advised he was on route with Justine, so I didn’t have much choice. I doubt jealousy would have heated Justine cheeks if she knew I had murdered a man for her.
Some of my annoyance slips away when Roman discloses why the men who worked alongside Officer Prentice won’t mourn his death. “One of the girls on the tape was Bill Hammond’s niece. She wasn’t a prostitute. She merely took a shortcut down an alleyway on the way home.”
A grin tugs on my lips. I’m not happy Detective Hammond’s niece was assaulted, but it feels good knowing one less rapist is on the streets.
My smile slackens when Roman hands me a sheet of paper. “What’s this?”
He keeps his eyes front and center. His face gives nothing away. “You asked for additional information on Maddox’s arrest. With his criminal record doctored to the point of being worthless, I dug a little deeper.” He drops his knowledgeable eyes to the sheet of paper I’m grasping. “This isn’t exactly what you were after, but I figured you’d be interested in what I uncovered. There could be rules in play here we were unaware of.”
Through fettered brows, I take in the document he handed me. It’s a grainy photograph, however, no amount of pixilation can hide Justine’s alluring features. She appears a few years younger than she is now, and her shoulders aren’t weighed down with burden. She’s standing across from a man with eyes as icy as mine, and blood tainted with just as much evil.
“Is this it? A shared umbrella on a rainy afternoon?”
The chances of me ignoring my tightening jaw fly out the window when Roman shakes his head. “No. There were a handful of dates. Dimitri seemed to have quite the fascination with her.”
I work my jaw side to side to loosen up my next set of words. “How long ago?”
“A couple of years.”
With Roman not getting to the point as quickly as I like, I force him there. “Around the time of Justine’s hospitalization?”
He waits a beat, unsure how to confirm my suspicions without sending me into a rage. “It appears as if they were on a date the night of her admission.”
Air whizzes out of my nostrils as I suck in deep breaths, endeavoring to cool the fire incinerating my veins. “He hurt her.”
I’m not asking a question, I’m stating a fact.
Well, so I thought.
“No. From the intel I’ve gathered, Dimitri isn’t at fault here.”
“She was hurt under his watch, Roman. How is this not his fault?”
He peers at me with pleading eyes, imploring for me to calm down. “I’m not saying his conscious is clear, but there’s more to this than either of us know, so jumping to conclusions won’t help anyone.” He shifts on his feet to face me. The worry on his face is the same it was when he unshackled me from my torture chamber thirteen years ago. “You’ve only just met this girl, Nikolai. Are you sure the benefits will exceed the repercussions?”
“Yes,” I answer without pause for thought, speaking truthfully for the first time in years.
I can’t explain my immediate desire to protect Justine any more than I can deny it. She riveted me from the moment I saw her, and the more I unearth about her, the more captive I become. Her scars, the fight in her eyes, and the way she should be scared but isn’t are as appealing as her angelic face and cock-thickening body.
When I look at her, I remember a young, naïve teen who tried to do the right thing and was chastised for it in the most unimaginable way. We’ve endured the same torment, she just chose good over evil. I picked whichever team guaranteed I’d live.
For years, I believed that was siding with the devil.
Now, I’m not so sure.
My life isn’t any better than Justine’s.
I just pretend it is.
Unease highlights my tone when I say, “I need more information. Times. Dates. If Dimitri’s fascination is still current.”
Roman nods, acknowledging he understands my request without me needing to spell it out for him. I need to know if Justine is in debt to the Petretti’s.
“I’ll do that while you catch up on some sleep.”
I shoot Roman a wry look. Sleep is the last thing on my mind.
He tries to act unaffected by my scorn. He’d have a better chance of me believing him if his Adam’s apple weren’t bobbing up and down in rapid concession. “You either sleep while the devil is appeased or later when he’s walking the gallows. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather the former.”
He has a point—regrettably.
Upon seeing the agreeance in my eyes, he tosses my dismantled ankle bracelet into my chest before making his way to the living room. I stop him before he gets two steps away from me. “Make sure Justine is aware she either stays in the kitchen or her room until I wake, and ensure the men know those domains are off-limits.” Roman smiles like the hard-ass warden he is, more than eager to hand out my rulings. “Ensure they understand the order is coming directly from me. I don’t want them messing with Justine. If they mess with her, they mess with me.”
I trust my men, but there’s a churning in my gut that won’t quit—even more so after what Roman exposed. If the Petretti’s consider Justine their property, my fight just took on an entirely new meaning.
Doesn’t mean I’ll back down, though. Good soldiers fight for the system. Bad soldiers fight for themselves.
Can you guess which team I belong in?
Chapter Twelve
My teeth grind into the rod of wood Roman shoved in my mouth to muffle my screams. The pain ripping through my body has me on the verge of collapse. I want to die. I want the blackness to takeover, but more than anything, I want to show him that he didn’t win.
He can beat me.
He can order my demise.
But he will never be rid of me.
I will haunt him when he is awake.
I will haunt him when he is asleep.
And I will haunt him in the hell I plan to bury him in.
Vladimir Popov may have created me, but I will end him.
As the devil within in me rises from the ashes, I lock my eyes with Roman. “Keep going.”
He looks torn, certain I’m one bolt away from passing out. The doctor setting my shattered ankle isn’t qualified, his barely a few years older than me, but when proper medical aide comes with consequences, you must lower your standards.
The displaced bones in my foot are stopping it from healing. It’s becoming infected and reeks of rotting flesh. If we didn’t do something drastic, Roman was on the verge of amputating it. Since I refuse to be an invalid, we did something we both said we’d never do. We forced an innocent into a world he doesn’t belong in.
The once-unknown medical student isn’t studying to be an orthopedic surgeon. He wants to deliver babies, for fuck’s sake. I’d laugh at the lunacy if my punctured lungs were up to the task.
Instead, I groan through the pain of him drilling my bones back together with equipment most households have in their garages. Then I groan again when his focus shifts from my shattered ankle to the crotch of my pants.
Bile scorches my throat when his dainty hand circles my cock to stroke it through my pants. Even on the verge of collapse, I lunge f
or him. His death will be quick but as violent as the punishment Vladimir’s men instilled on me weeks ago.
He will lose his tongue first to ensure he can never share how my cock reacted to his touch, then I’ll slit his throat with the bloody scalpel resting in the stainless steel kidney dish next to my thigh.
Once I have the doctor’s throat in my clutch, my spare hand creeps across the mattress for the scalpel. My eyes blink in rapid concession when my hunt comes up empty. The make-shift surgical dish is gone, and the pulse weakening under my touch doesn’t belong to a first-year medical undergrad. It is owned by one of my men’s favorite whores.
Luyca is peering at me with tear-filled eyes. She’s naked, and her mouth is as circled as the rosy pink disks on her breasts.
What the fuck?
As reality dawns, my anger skyrockets. I’m not recovering from my attempt to tiptoe onto the right side of the law when I was sixteen. I’m in the guest bedroom of Justine’s apartment, being manhandled by whores who should know better than to touch me without asking.
After releasing Luyca from my hold, I push her away from me by her surgically enhanced chest. Her eyes shoot to Alyna, who’s naked body is heating the right side of mine. I don’t know why they’re surprised by my anger. Touching me without permission is as punishable as disrespecting me.
Both result in death.
When they remain frozen in fear, mute and blinking, I shout, “Get the fuck out. You were told this domain was out of bounds.”
Trapped between the past and the present, I leap out of bed to throw a shirt over my sweat-clammed skin. I feel sick. My stomach is cramping so intensely, I almost want to bend in two. And I’m angry, really fucking angry. The dreams I face around my birthday are already horrific. I didn’t need molestation added into the mix. Vladimir is a monster, but the only dabbling he does to his children is mind-fucking them.
With my mood hostile, I drag Alyna and Luyca off the bed, march them to the door, then toss them into the living room with the other whores—where they belong.
When their perfume-drenched clothing overtakes Justine’s pure smell that had me nodding off like a baby after a warm bottle of milk, I gather it up and throw it at their feet.
Alyna looks like she wants to say something, but before she can, I warn, “Disobey me again and I’ll send you to live with Yakor.” My voice is hoarse from just waking up, and brimming with uninhibited anger. “He’ll beat the disrespect right out of you.”
Yakor is one of Vladimir’s first soldiers. He learned all his best traits from the man he’s worked under the past forty years. If he couldn’t beat disobedient whores into abiding housewives, no one could.
Alyna looks at me as if I have a screw loose. “Nikolai, darling, it’s me, Alyna. I brought Luyca—one of your favorites.”
“I’m. Not. Interested.”
I take a big breath between each word, hopeful it will stop me from retaliating to their stupidity now. I recorded my first kill at the age of eight, but I usually reserve multiple casualties for rogue sanctions and takeover bids. Their disobedience has me wanting to ignore that. I’m itching to kill, and I only ended a life a mere three hours ago.
When I slam my bedroom door shut in Alyna and Luyca’s faces, the feeling of being watched overwhelms me. Vladimir’s men had his surveillance equipment installed in a record-setting time this morning, but this isn’t a depraved watch that makes my skin crawl. It speeds up my pulse as quickly as the light fading from Officer Prentice’s eyes thickened my blood with adrenaline, and has me convinced an angel is on the cusp of making a deal with the devil.
The heat of a humid night roars through me when I glance up at the blinking contraption in the corner of the room. Justine is watching me, I know it. I’ve never been wanted, not even by my mother, so the foreignness of Justine’s promiscuous stare dissociates it from Vladimir’s hate filled one.
As the rage in my gut switches to roguishness, I smile up at the camera before hot-footing it out of the room. I barely register the party-like atmosphere in Justine’s living room. My focus is on one thing only: convincing an angel even the purest minds can have wicked thoughts.
I’m not surprised when my blast through the swinging door is greeted with an empty space. Roman would never leave an imperative piece of equipment out in the open. He would have hid it in a place men in my industry would never look. In a place where whores go to retire and limp-dicked men go to feast. The kitchen.
A grin curls my lips when Justine exits the door she nudged her head at this morning. Clutching a packet of instant pasta, she walks by me, acting as if every fine hair on her body is standing to attention from my watchful gaze. “Hey. Hungry?”
After dumping the sour cream and chives concoction onto the counter next to the stovetop, she heads to the fridge to gather milk, butter, and a jug of water. The cool air pumping out of the dated appliance fades her heated cheeks, but it does little to the hue creeping up her legs. She’s so hot, her bloomed coloring hides the scars on the back of her knees.
I watch her for several long seconds, taking a minute to recover from the aftershocks of a nightmare, while also drinking in how she can make something so mundane appear as if she’s performing on stage. She moves with such grace, not even the low hang of her shoulders can lessen my fascination.
Once I’m confident sweat is no longer clinging to my skin, I make my way to Justine’s half of the kitchen. Her breaths come out in a purr when I sneak up on her so agilely, she doesn’t register my approach until my torso is heating her back. I want to take her now. I want to relight the fire in her eyes while also marking her as mine, but since not all the spike in her pulse is from excitement, I’ll place her needs above my own—for once.
“You went to the store for an hour, and all you came back with was a box of pasta?”
“No.” She licks her dry lips before continuing, “There are ample supplies in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
I drag the stubble on my chin down her neck, loving the trail of goosebumps left behind from my touch. They’re not produced in fear. They are from her muscles tightening in excitement.
“You smell good enough to eat. Perhaps I should eat you?”
“I doubt I’d be nutritious enough to sustain your appetite for long.” The jealousy is her tone is highly anticipated, and very much appreciated. Only someone disinterested would be unaffected by the scene I’m confident she just witnessed.
While tracing my finger over a bulging vein in her neck, I ask, “Is this sexual tension or anger?”
“Both,” Justine grumbles, seemingly incapable of holding back the truth when my hands are on her.
“I can fix that.” I lean into her more, ensuring she can’t mistake the best form of therapy in the world. Fucking won’t stop global hunger, but it sure does make the world seem not so grim. “All you need to do is ask.”
My lips raise against her neck when she mutters, “And my other dilemma? What’s your solution for that?”
I assume she’s referencing the whores she saw me with, but her quick nudge to the door doing a bad job of concealing the near-orgy occurring in her living room reveals I still have a lot to learn about this woman.
“They’re my men, Ahren. They go where I go.”
“And the women? Do they go where you go as well?”
There she is. The sweet little temptress, ready to lay claim to her man. I knew she’d eventually crawl out of the trench her shyness placed her in. I just had no clue it would occur so quickly.
“You're as sexy as fuck when you’re jealous, Ahren.”
She huffs as if I’m being outrageous. “I am not jealous.”
I drag my finger from her ear to her collarbone, secretly growling when her skin hues more with every inch I travel. “Your skin flames with heat when your little green monster raises its head.” My voice reveals my internal struggles. Patience is not a strong point of mine, and I’ve never wanted something as badly as I want her beneath me, so this is
n’t just testing my patience, it’s steering me straight toward failure. “Most men would think you are embarrassed, but I know the real cause for your blooming color and seductive scent.”
A sigh expels from her mouth when I brush my hand down the marks on the back of her right knee. If she’s panicked I’ll be turned-off by her scars, she has no reason to fret. I’m five seconds from devouring her where she stands. That’s how much she clouds my judgement.
“Unlike your face, this area only flames when you’re angry.” I pause, mortified about the sappy fuck I’m portraying, but incapable of giving her the lines I use on my whores. “Or turned on.” I tilt my neck so we meet eye to eye. “I sure fucking hope you’re blushing now because you’re turned on, Ahren. I’m not a patient man, and I’m beyond ready to have you beneath me.”
Justine opens her mouth before closing it again. Her eyes reveal her conflict—her torment. She wants this, but at the same time, she’s afraid by what that means.
She’s also still overcome with jealousy.
I spin her around to face me to ensure she sees the honesty in my eyes when I say, “If I were a man who took what he wanted without asking, I’d be fucking you where you stand, proving there is no reason for your jealousy.” As I step closer to her, my nostrils flare to drink in her aroused scent. The sharp, quick breaths I’m sucking in are released with a growl when I say, “There is only one woman I want wrapped around my cock, Ahren. It isn’t my sister.”
“The brunette was your sister?” she splatters out, her pitch high enough to pierce my eardrums.
I could answer her, but the generous tilt of her tits expose I don’t need to. She is relieved, horny, and on the verge of giving in to the tension gripping every inch of her.
While gliding my index finger over a peaked bud I’m dying to sample, I mutter, “The good girls always want to tame the bad boys, but what happens when the good girl likes the bad boy just the way he is, but she’s too afraid to admit it?”
