by Shandi Boyes
Roxanne
My steps out of the bathroom are reduced to half their natural stride when I spot an outfit splayed across the mattress I’ve shared with Dimitri the past four nights even with us not sharing a word between us. I’ve climaxed on that bed, laughed on it, and shed tears on it more times than I can count, but this is the first time I’ve ever had an outfit laid out on it.
It’s not a fancy dress like the many in the walk-in closet, nor is it an innocent outfit. It’s modest yet sexy if that’s possible. The cut of the full-length leather pants assures me they’ll hug my butt in all the right places. The shimmery beige material of the strapless crop top adds glitz to the ensemble while the denim jacket promises to keep me warm even if my bosoms spill over the skimpy material that’s meant to cover my midsection.
With my gut twisted in confusion, I seek answers from the last person likely to give them to me. “Smith…” He has been as silent as Dimitri and Rocco the past four days, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t watching me. Other than my thirty-second lapse of judgment days ago, the red light in the corner of the room has continuously blinked.
My eyes snap to the other side of the room when a rough, gravelly tone says, “Smith is no longer in charge of the surveillance for this room.” Dimitri doesn’t need to say who’s helming the watch. His eyes are very telling.
Even with my body showing signs it’s missed his voice the past few days, I act as if he isn’t in the room with me. I dart for the walk-in closet, eager to switch out my dressing gown with something a little cooler. The heat bouncing between Dimitri and me is too much. It’s as fiery as it has always been, but since it is also fueled by anger, it is unbearable.
It is the fight of my life to hold in my scream when my race for the closet reveals it’s as empty as my chest feels. All the clothes have been removed—even Dimitri’s. I want to say he knows I’m a stubborn ass, so he put steps in place to force me to submit to him, but I won’t give him the satisfaction.
“I need you to get dressed and come with me.”
I’m torn. With a sudden knowledge that I hate enclosed spaces, I’d donate a kidney to leave these four walls, but if I give in like I did my hunger strike, how bad will my next test be? Perhaps it will be a kidney? I’ve faced every other injustice in my short twenty years, so why not throw organ trafficking into the mix.
Proof he’s as bossy and domineering as ever is showcased in the worst light when Dimitri barks out, “What’s our agreement, Roxanne?”
Over him and his stupid mind games, I march to the mattress, snatch up the leather pants as if I’ll skip chaffing from wearing them sans underwear, carefully pry open my dressing gown, then stuff my feet into the opening of my pants.
Once I have them over my butt, which I’m embarrassed to say took longer than two minutes, I snap up the skimpy strapless top Dimitri picked for me to wear before I spin around to face him.
When I nudge my head to the door, requesting privacy, he has the audacity to do his infamous half-smirk. I don’t know why. The slightest peek he got of the back of my knees when I tugged the rigid leather up my legs is the only piece of my skin he’ll ever see. Again. I can’t do anything about our previous exchanges.
“Fine.” He throws his hand into the air to display his annoyance before he pivots to face the door.
Wanting to ensure there’s no chance he’ll get a sneaky peek later, I face the bathroom door before removing my dressing gown. I could get dressed in the bathroom, but considering my room now has multiple cameras, it wouldn’t do me any good.
After ensuring my nipples aren’t showing, I slip my feet into the boots at the end of the bed, then join Dimitri by the door. Sensing my approach, he spins around to face me. I won’t lie, even pissed, I relish the way he can’t help but glide his eyes down my body.
His gaze is so white-hot when he suggests for me to grab my jacket, I shake my head.
A brick lodges in my throat when he says, “It’s cold where you’re going. I don’t want your lips turning a shade of blue.” However, he doesn’t see my panicked response since he gathers up my jacket on my behalf.
The last time he spoke those words to me, my world was upended.
Although petrified I’m about to meet with my maker, I won’t beg. I’m the one who suggested for Dimitri to give me to his enemies, so how can I act shocked by him doing exactly that?
An eerie feeling bombards me when Dimitri guides me down the staircase at the end of the hallway our room is located in. His home isn’t silenced by unusual quiet. Energy is bristling in the air, and I’m reasonably sure only some of it is compliments to Dimitri’s hand hovering above the unconcealed skin on the lower half of my back.
When we enter a room two spots down from Dimitri’s downstairs office, the reason for the hum of chatter is exposed. There are three to four dozen men filling the space. Half are seated around a large oval-size boardroom table, and the rest are standing toward the back.
“Take a good look at this face,” Dimitri says when his suffocating aura deprives the room of oxygen as effectively as his next set of words steal the air from my lungs. “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors that this face is worth seven point six million dollars.” He strays his eyes across the men eyeing him with as much interest as me. “I’m here to tell you this face won’t earn you millions if you attempt to cash in the bounty on her head. She will cost you everything. Your life. Your wife. Not even your children will be spared. I’ll destroy you and anyone associated with you. If you don’t believe me, I’m more than happy to display how foolish you are.”
My eyes bounce between Dimitri’s narrowed gaze and his ear when the faintest trickle of a unique accent sounds in my ears. Smith is guiding Dimitri’s eyes around the room as he did mine weeks ago, honing him in on his targets—which is reduced by one when Dimitri lines up his gun with a man at the back of the room and fires one shot.
The man slumps to the floor in an instant, the bullet wound between his eyes as unforgiving as Dimitri’s anger when the cell phone that clatters out of his hand reveals my image on the screen. My outfit proves it was just taken, although it remains unsent in the man’s outbox.
“I understand the bounty is impressive, and that you believe it’s worth the risk, but is it more valuable than your family?”
My eyes don’t know which direction to look when a large screen at the side of the room commences broadcasting a raid in progress. The balaclava-clad faces conducting the raid aren’t members of the FBI or local law enforcement office. Their eyes are familiar. I’ve seen them multiple times the past few weeks, most notably the murky green pair that executes three men kneeling in front of a large brute with a clover tattoo on his cheek.
When Clover lifts one of the deceased man’s heads to face the camera, a collective hiss rolls around the room. The victims’ matching bullet wounds aren’t their only familiarities. If you wiped three decades off the age of the first victim’s face, it would be almost identical to the one Clover is holding up.
“I have men at the front of all your houses.” There’s too much honesty in Dimitri’s tone to discount. “Is anyone else willing to test the authenticity of my threat?”
Most of the men shake their heads. Only one is stupid enough to add words into the mix. “You need to be reasonable, Dimitri. We’re only trying to support our families.”
Dimitri gives the gray-haired man a look as if to say he isn’t as stupid as he’s implying. The bounty on my head isn’t the only mine these men are drilling. They’ve got their hands in as many pots as Dimitri.
“I’m well aware what you need money for, Mark. It has nothing to do with that pretty little wife of yours and everything to do with the underaged girls you beat and sodomize once a week.” His lack of denial exposes Dimitri is on the money. “As for the rest of you, I’m willing to negotiate more suitable terms. How does fifteen million sound?” The excitement building in the room skyrockets as high as my blood pressure when Dimitri adds, “That’s the amount I’ll pay
when you bring me the people responsible for the bounty on Roxanne’s head. If they’re brought in alive, I’ll double it.”
“Dimitri…” I can’t say more. I’m too shocked. He’s put thirty million dollars on the line for my safety. That’s insane. I’m not worth that much.
Before I’ve worked through half my shock, Dimitri instructs Smith to do a final once-over of the room. Once he’s confident his offer is more enticing than that of his enemies, he grips the top of my arm and drags me out of the room. I don’t think he means to hurt me. He’s just too doped up on adrenaline to realize how strong his grip is. I’m feeling superhuman, and I did nothing but stand at his side with my jaw hanging open.
Halfway down the hallway, Dimitri’s brittle tone snaps me out of my shock. “Take them out to the Hole. There are men out there waiting.” His comment exposes he knew at least one of the men would test him. “We should arrive in around thirty minutes.” During the ‘we’ part of his statement, his eyes drift to me. “Is everything ready?”
I discover the reason he suggested for me to take a jacket when he throws open the front door of his compound and guides me outside. Although it isn’t as cold here as it was in New York, there’s a brisk coolness in the air.
The goosebumps coating my skin augment when Dimitri assists me into the front passenger seat of a fierce-looking sports car. It’s warm in the cabin of his sleek ride. My body just couldn’t help but respond to him leaning across my frozen frame to fasten my seat belt. Even with the smell of a recently fired gun lingering in my nostrils, his scent is scrumptious. It grips my senses for the next several minutes, only relinquishing its hold when Dimitri pulls down a familiar-looking road twenty minutes later.
Although this isn’t the most direct route to my grandparents’ farm, it’s the one people use when they want to be discreet. My mom went this way when she abandoned me, and I used this off-beat track when I snuck back home after my failed meet-up with my father. My nanna told me not to go. I thought I knew better as I do again now.
“Why are we here?”
Dimitri flashes his headlights three times before he drifts his eyes to me. “My enemies think this is friendly territory. They’d never believe I’d shelter anyone here.”
“You just put up thirty million dollars to guarantee my safety. You don’t need to hide me anymore.”
My shock shifts to panic when Dimitri says, “I’m not hiding you, Roxanne. I’m letting you out of our agreement.”
“Why? Our agreement was supposed to end once you got your daughter back.” I don’t know whether to scream or cry when a reason for his unusual bend of the rules smack into me. “Is this a test?”
“No.” His curt reply does little to slacken the noose in my stomach, but before I can continue to interrogate him, the quickest flash in the corner of my eye steals my devotion. “Sniper,” Dimitri informs like it’s an everyday occurrence to have men lying in wake in overgrown fields. “There are two covering the front and back entrances and one on the main gate. They’ll remain until the threat has been neutralized.”
I’ve barely gotten over my shock when I’m smacked for the second time. This surprise doesn’t come in the form of violence. It’s too beautifully sweet to have an ounce of disdain attached to it. Or should I say, she is too beautifully sweet.
“Estelle.”
I throw open Dimitri’s car door before he comes to a stop. Not even the slop of a recently dug-up ground can slow me down. I race Estelle’s way, my feet moving as fast as my heart.
The collision of our bodies is as brutal as the rain falling down on us when the heavens open up. Although it has nothing on the wetness that fills my eyes when it dawns on me why Estelle’s hair appears as red as my natural hair coloring.
Dimitri’s car is no longer rolling toward my grandparents’ ranch. It’s heading in the opposite direction. His eyes aren’t seeking potholes in the sloshy road, though. They stare at me in the side mirror, watching me as adeptly as he did in the alleyway all those months ago. It’s a beautiful stare that could only be more appealing if it weren’t cloaked with darkness. It feels so final like tonight will be the last time I’ll see him.
If the dip of his chin before he pulls onto the main road is anything to go by, I’m reasonably sure it will be.
Eighteen
Dimitri
Paranoia can make the sanest man feel unhinged. It eats away at you worse than low self-esteem, depression, and all that other whacked-up shit therapists toss around when seeking new patients. It sees a once-stable man freeing the only person who’s ever made him feel normal, so he can become a creep who crawls into voids above seedy restaurants to spy on his enemies.
When you lose the ability to tell the difference between your rivals and your comrades, you should consider shutting up shop. But since this is me, and nothing ever comes easy for me, I’ve done the opposite. I opened my doors and invited my enemies inside, aware that a meal shared with a rival is often less disastrous than one shared with family.
My focus shifts back to the present when Rocco’s boorish tone sounds down the earpiece lodged in my ear canal. “Clover’s big ass will have you receiving company in five… four…”
The manhole I closed after crawling into a roof of a restaurant that’s heydays are long behind it pops open just as Rocco hits three. The lack of concern in his tone weakens the itch of my trigger finger. If he were worried about my pop-in visitor, he wouldn’t have announced his arrival only seconds before it was set to occur. He wants us to meet up. For what reason? I don’t know. But I will find out. You can put your money on it.
Once my guest squeezes through the tight opening like his shoulders are the width of mine, his identity is immediately unearthed. All agents have the same putrid scent, but Brandon James is more perverse since he attempts to mask the smell with a pricy cologne.
“You need to change your aftershave. I could smell that shit long before you crawled through the vent.”
I’m lying, and Brandon fucking knows it. I can feel the arrogance beaming out of him, much less see it on his face when he switches on the torch mounted to his Bureau-issued pistol. “You know I’m well within my right to shoot you, right?”
A pfft vibrates my lips. “If you wanted to shoot me, you would have done it the instant I turned my back to you. That’s how most agents operate, isn’t it?”
Incapable of denying the truth, he houses his gun onto the holster on his hip before he joins me above the hub of the restaurant I’ve been watching like a hawk the past hour. It isn’t every day a booking is made in the name of a notorious gangster, especially in a town he has no right to be in without permission, so I don’t need to mention the fact this restaurant is way below Cartel standards. It has me suspicious Theresa’s claims about an alleged Russian takeover were gospel. That frustrates me even more than my enemies’ belief they can arrive in my town without notice. I’d usually kill a man for less. Alas, some of Roxanne’s quirks rubbed off on me—most notably her inquisitiveness.
“He’s smarter than he looks,” Smith mutters in my ear when Brandon asks, “Who’s he meeting with?”
For all he knew, I could have been scoping potential clients for the prostitution conglomerate the Petrettis have mingled in for decades. Only someone in the know understands the boss only gets his hands dirty when the target is top grade.
Albert Sokolov may not be feared as he was once, but his murder count alone ensures his respect remains high enough if he were to be killed, it wouldn’t be done by a foot soldier. He’s Vladimir Popov’s number two, and up until ten minutes ago, I was convinced he was here on behalf of Nikolai. Now I’m eating more than my words.
“An old Russian sanction was here a few years back, but there’s been no rumblings from their barracks in almost a decade.”
I smirk when Brandon cringes about the cobwebs on his jacket before replying, “He’s not meeting with a fellow Russian.”
Feeling generous, and a little bit lost on how to
absorb what’s happening today, I nudge my head to the scope of my gun, offering Brandon the chance to cream his pants. He thinks he has a vault-load of weapons at his disposal. He’s dead fucking wrong. The guns the Feds are playing with have nothing on my arsenal of toys.
“What the fuck?” Brandon mumbles under his breath a few seconds later, expressing my exact sentiment when I discovered the reason for Albert’s visit. He isn’t here to stake a claim on Nikolai’s birthright, he’s here to schmooze Isaac Holt—the very man who ran Russians out of his town only a couple of years ago.
“Party Pooper,” Rocco murmurs when Brandon’s brief perusal of the room below is quickly chased by him, removing a handkerchief from his pocket so he can scrub his fingerprints from a weapon the Bureau would give anything to log into evidence. “Who the fuck carries around a snot-rag in their pocket these days? What is he? A hundred!”
I have no reason to hold in my chuckles about Rocco’s witty comment when Brandon warns, “Unless you want to be stuck up here all night, or better yet, detained in a holding cell, I suggest you leave now. This place is about to be raided.” The concern in his voice has me wondering which team he bats for. Right now, the odds aren’t swinging in his favor. I don’t have anything against gay men, I just can’t understand how some of them give up the holy grail without first sampling it.
I guess I can’t talk. I’ve never tasted a cunt as sweet as Roxanne’s, and I let her walk away from me. Am I regretting my decision? Ask me again when I’m not stationed outside of her ranch every night, monitoring her every move. I might be in the right headspace then to give you an accurate answer.
After dismantling my customized M-4, I remove a single sheet of paper out of my duffle bag and thrust it into Brandon’s chest. “With the government eager to do some digging on my businesses, I commenced some of my own.”
I lower my eyes to the photograph of Isabelle I snapped earlier this week. With Theresa’s claims of a takeover ringing in my ears and discovering multiple drawings of Isabelle in Roxanne’s sketchpad, I looked a little deeper into Isabelle’s connection with the Russian Mafia. It isn’t pretty, and it pains me to admit, the controversy isn’t coming from Isabelle. She’s on my father’s radar, and he’s making costly mistakes to ensure both she and Isaac know it.
