by Snow, Lucy
I chuckled back. “You know, detectives, you’re always welcome in the evening. We’re always willing to extend a warm hand to the long arm of the law around here.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, some time. But, you know, the wife probably wouldn’t like it so much.”
“Bring her around, will set you up with a nice table, and you both can enjoy a night on the town. Maybe a good change of pace.”
Breckenridge thought about that for a little longer than I expected them to, then grinned. “I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe the wife would like a night out once in a while.”
“Sure beats worrying about you, doesn’t it?”
“That’s for damn sure.” Breckenridge straightened up all of the sudden, like you just remembered that he wasn’t alone. He turned to the other detective, and pointed me. “This is Ronan. He runs the club, and a bunch of others around here.”
The other detective stepped closer and took out his hand, and I shook it. This one had an edge to them. I knew by now that Breckenridge was a great cop, and that he always got the job done, or as close as he could, but Breckinridge also had an affable personality about him that I had taken to immediately. This guy, I could tell, would not be quite so easy to deal with.
“Detective Frank Stevens,” he introduced himself. “Ronan, is it?”
I smiled. “Yes, that’s correct. It’s a little strange, I know.” I stepped back and addressed both of them. “Shall we go to my office? Or stay down here?”
Breckenridge pointed out the window to my office. “Let’s go up there, get out of the way of the rest your staff.”
“Follow me.” I let them upstairs to my office, and pointed to the chairs in front of my desk, where both of them sat down. Breckenridge immediately made himself at home, but Stevens was a little bit more circumspect, looking all around, as if trying to find the right place for him to perch himself.
I offer them both a drink from the bar next to my desk, but both declined. They sat down in my comfortable chair and looked them over. Both wore suits, Breckenridge is fitting just right given his size and bulk, while Stevens looked a little uncomfortable in his. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
“I’ll get right to the point, Ronan,” Breckenridge started. “There was a thing a couple nights ago at a warehouse nearby, and we’re looking around to see if anybody knows anything.”
Of course, the police would be investigating someone getting killed at a warehouse down by the docks. The police were often hamstrung by bureaucracy and rising tensions that the population of the city, but they still didn’t take kindly to murder. “Ahh, I see,” I replied, “and you’re wondering if I had anything to do with it?”
“So you did know about this?” Stevens jumped on me.
I held up a hand, my palm facing toward Stevens. “That’s not what I said. I just asked how I fit in to your investigation.”
Breckenridge held up both hands and rubbed them together. “My partner here got a little ahead of himself.” He shut Stevens a glance. “No one is saying you had anything to do with what happened at the warehouse. We’re just asking questions.” He grinned. “We’re just trying to get to the bottom of this.”
“No offense taken, detectives. As you, Detective Breckenridge, know, I am absolutely interested in keeping peace in the streets. When bad things happen, it reflects badly on all of us.” It was funny, dancing around my choice of location with the police. Breckenridge, of course, new what I did, and I’m sure Stevens did as well, but this little cat and mouse game we used to play with each other was always entertaining.
“Of course, we both know that,” Breckenridge said, trying to make things nice again. “We actually don’t think it was you, or anyone in your organization. We think it was the Russians.”
I leaned forward. That was interesting that the police were already looking at the Russians for this. What was more interesting, was it Detective Breckenridge was telling me this. I wondered if this signaled a new phase of our family’s relationship with law enforcement. “The Russians?”
Detective Breckenridge looked happy that he had gathered my interest. “Yeah, the whole thing looks like a Russian job to me. Just a hunch I get, and our investigating thus far has only confirmed that.”
The way Breckenridge had said ‘investigating’ made it clear what he meant. He was talking about surveillance. So the police were tapping the Russians, seeing what they were up to. That might be a hand to the same thing was coming for our family as well. That was an important piece of information. My father, especially, would love to know that, though I wondered, given the circles that he traveled and, if he didn’t already know.
“That is all interesting news, gentlemen, but I don’t quite see how it involves me, or my business, or my family.”
Stevens piped up again, Leaning forward and pointing a finger at me. “Just because we can’t pin anything on you right now, Ronan, doesn’t mean this doesn’t involve you. Or your people” He almost that when you said my name, and I didn’t appreciate it. Breckenridge shot Stevens a look, telling him with his eyes to calm down, but Stevens did not pay him any attention. “ And the minute we find something, will be back here with the bracelets for you, and anyone else that we can find that’s involved.”
“I think this meeting is over, gentlemen. I am ready to show you out.”
“Hold on a second, let’s simmer down just for a moment here. I’m sorry for that outburst, Ronan, but were not done yet. We think the Russians are the ones that killed the guy in the warehouse, but we think they’re not done with it quite yet.”
“I’m listening.”
“We hear some rumbling, from uh, unconfirmed sources, that they’re looking for somebody in the city in connection to the warehouse thing.”
Oh shit. Breckinridge was talking about Kara. Suddenly, this conversation was a whole lot more interesting. But I couldn’t just give that away. “How so?”
“The way we figure it, someone saw what went down there, and the Russians are looking for them. Probably for no good reason. You know as well as I do that they don’t like loose ends.”
They get that part right for sure. And I was actually impressed with how much the police knew after such a short amount of time. I knew that the wheels of law enforcement often eventually got their man, but I didn’t expect them to turn this quickly. Though, to be fair, a murder with family connections usually did the trick is getting them up to speed.
“Any idea who it is?”
“Yeah, we got a hunch. The stiff, the guy killed in the warehouse, he was a low level dealer, no consequence. The world won’t miss him.”
“And this low-level dealer connects you to go the Russians looking for…how?”
“We talked to a few of his best customers. He’d recently switched where he was dealing from. Moved over a little bit. Told the customers he was staying with an ex-girlfriend of his for a little while.”
I followed the next logical step in the conversation. “So you think -“
But then Breckenridge cut me off. “-We think the Russians are looking for the ex-girlfriend. We think she saw what happened at the warehouse, and that there are now looking for her.”
I decided to play it a little naïve. “To what end?”
Detective Stevens could no longer contain himself. “To her end!” He looked at Breckenridge, exasperated. “These wise guys, I thought they’d be a little wiser.”
“Can it, Frank. Ronan, that’s what we found so far. We think the Russians are looking for the ex-girlfriend. Her name is Kara. You know anything about this?”
Detective Breckenridge was a straight shooter. He wouldn’t be asking me this kind of question, phrasing it like that, if he knew that Kara and I were at one point related by marriage. So they hadn’t dug into things that far yet.Still, they were getting close. I didn’t have much time.
I shook my head. “Don’t think I know anyone named Kara, detectives. Wish I could help you there. Anything else?” I need to wra
p this up, and figure out what to do next.
“Yeah, there’s one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
Breckenridge and Stephen still looked comfortable in their chairs, like they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, so I took their cue, and settled back in. “Things are changing a little bit around here.”
“Tell me more, this sounds interesting.”
This time it was Stevens. “That’s all we can say right now. Really, the point is that we are watching you. Things aren’t can be as easy for people like yourself any longer. The mandate has come down from on high – keep a tighter reign on things.”
“That sounds wonderful, gentlemen. I salute your newfound sense of civic duty.”
“Don’t get cute with us. We know what you do for a living, and it’s not gonna last forever.”
“I think that’s enough for today,” Breckenridge added, standing up. Stevens followed, though I could tell he wanted to keep going. I stood up with them.
“Thank you for coming, gentlemen. It’s always nice to hear from the police. I trust you can show yourselves out - have a nice day.”
I shook their hands, even Stevens’, and smiled tightly as they left my office. I messaged Sam that they were on their way out and sat back down.
Things were swirling all about in my head. It felt like the walls of my once-spacious office were starting to close in on me.
Not a feeling I was used to, and not one I particularly cared for.
Chapter 18 - Kara
I couldn’t tell Ronan about what had happened. I knew Arkady would have the house watched and I knew that if I told Ronan about Arkady’s visit, he would flip out and try and take me away.
Arkady would come down with his goons on Ronan like he’d done with Greg, and I just couldn’t risk that happening. I didn’t know what to do. The only thing in my mind that made any sense right then was one word: escape.
I needed to escape. And I knew I couldn’t do that alone. Not anymore. The walls were closing in and I needed someone on my side, someone who would help me, someone who needed to get out of this city as much as I did.
The only person that I could think of was Ronan. He alone knew what I was going through. And he’d helped me so far, maybe he’d come away with me if I could show him that’s what he really wanted?
We’d only spent a little time together over the last few days, definitely not enough to make up for years apart, but I couldn’t help but feel something special about him. Something about Ronan was different than any other man I’d ever known. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but that quality of his made him more appealing than anyone I could remember.
And then, of course, there was that sexy body of his. Ugh, just being around him made me lose all control of myself. I felt like I’d spent all my time with him these last few days with a huge dumb grin on my face. I’m sure I must have looked stupid. If I did, though, Ronan didn’t seem to notice or mind.
The way he looked at me, though, when we were in bed together and just before, just took my breath away. He looked like he was seeing me for the first time each time, and without fail, my heart went out to him each time. I didn’t know what cosmic force had pulled us together, but now that it had, I didn’t want this whatever we were doing to end.
Arkady had called it ‘playing house,’ and I knew now that’s exactly what it was. What I hadn’t realized until just now was that playing house with Ronan was exactly what I wanted, what I’d always wanted if I was honest with myself. Maybe the man in my dreams was a little murkier and hard to recognize until now, but when I daydreamed about having a house in the country with a gorgeous and wonderful man, that gorgeous and wonderful man started to look like Ronan more often than not.
When Ronan and I last talked, it felt like I could feel cracks in his resolve about staying with the family. It felt like he had been harboring misgivings about the work and the life he had chosen, and those misgivings were starting to come to the surface. Maybe I had had a hand in that, I didn’t know.
All I knew is that I wanted to create a life with him, away from all of this, and all I needed to do was convince him, or rather show him, but maybe that was what he really wanted as well. As powerful as he was, as close as he was to being the head of the family, I never got the impression from him that he truly enjoyed what he did, or considered it the right and honorable path for a man to travel.
In fact, the thing that I most admired about Ronan was his honor, and his commitment to doing the right thing. I just think that somewhere along the way, he had gone down the wrong path, and felt hemmed in by it, like he couldn’t try and choose a different path for himself. I don’t think he understood that he wasn’t passed the point of no return yet.
I was sure there were other things that he could do. Hell, he could even run a nightclub, as long as it wasn’t mob-affiliated. They were so many things he could be good at, and none of them had to be mixed up in violence or intimidation. I could see it in his eyes that those things wounded him, that he did them out of a sense of loyalty, out of a sense of respect for his father and for the legacy his father had built.
I just wondered if he was sure that that legacy was something Ronan wanted to dedicate his life to upholding. A week ago, if you had asked me that, I would’ve agreed without hesitating. But now, I honestly wasn’t sure what he would answer. And that gave me hope for him.
It gave me hope for me; for us.
So my path was set. I needed to convince Ronan to leave the city with me, to leave this life behind, and start a new one with me. I needed to show him that he could do whatever he wanted with his life, and then I needed to ask him if he wanted his life to include me in it, and if it did, just how closely involved did he want us to be.
Because, I had realized that being with him was what I wanted. It had taken a while for me to come around to that way of thinking, but now that I accepted it, it made everything else much easier to deal with.
I sat at the same table that Arkady and I had eaten at, realizing only just then how tired I was. Spending even a little while with the crazed murderer really has a way of taking out of you. I look at the clock and saw that Ronan would not be home for a couple hours, and I decided to take a nap, falling into bed with my clothes still on.
I woke up about 20 minutes before Ronan got home, and cleaned up the place a little bit, resolving to myself that I would not tell him what had happened that day, only that I would try and impress upon him the need for me to get out of town, hopefully with him alongside me.
I was just finished freshening up when Ronan came in and set his things on the table. I came into the main room and started to make small talk, like I would any other time, but apparently Ronan had other ideas.
He didn’t reply when I asked him how his day went, and when I stepped toward him to see what was wrong, he grabbed me by the arms and pulled me close, kissing me with a fury that I had not seen before. The only thing I could do, the only thing I wanted to do, was melt into his arms and throw my hands around his neck, and hold on as he kissed me.
In between kisses I started to open my mouth and speak, but Ronan put his finger against my lips and I nodded at the growing smile on his face. I understood - the time for words was over.
Now was the time for us to do what men and women did with each other. The food could wait till later. We were both hungry for something else now.
Ronan didn’t even wait till we were in the bedroom. In fact, we didn’t even go there at first. He undressed me slowly right then and there in the main room, and the sheer naughtiness of it all made me even wetter.
He took his time, savoring each moment as I became more and more exposed, and pushing my hands away when I tried to undress him in return. When I was completely naked he took care of his own clothes, getting naked right beside me.
I stared at Ronan, admiring the contours of his tattoos as he sat down in the chair and motioned me toward him. I climbed onto his lap, my pussy already soakin
g wet. Ronan slid his hard cock into me easily as I lowered myself onto him, bracing myself with my hands on his strong shoulders.
We settled into a rhythm, Ronan’s cock stretching me out and making me moan with pleasure as I pressed my face into his chest as it trying to join our bodies together. He pushed me back after a few moments and licked my breasts, teasing my nipples with one hand and his tongue.
His other hand was on my waist, guiding me up and down on his cock, changing the pace every few seconds, faster and slower and back. I loved the amount of control he took over me, that sense that he was guiding me how he wanted, using my body to pleasure himself, turned me on to no end.
We sat like that, fucking slowly and kissing each other, each taking turns pulling the other one in as we lapped at each other, and I felt the heat rise up in me as my orgasm approached.
I stretched out my arms, my hands still wrapped around Ronan’s neck, and smiled. “I’m cumming,” I whispered as the waves overtook me and I started shaking in his lap. The pulses made me lose control, and Ronan tightened his grip on my waist to keep me from falling over as I rode my orgasm to it’s wonderful end.
“That looked amazing,” Ronan whispered to me.
“It felt amazing, you have no idea.”
He smiled, his eyes crinkling. “I have a little idea.”
I giggled as he kissed me. I was still coming down off the orgasm, but I could still feel how hard he was inside me.
We weren’t done yet.
Ronan lifted me off his cock, his powerful hands gripping me tight and moving me with ease. I looked at him questioningly, willing to do whatever he wanted as long as I got that incredible cock back inside me as soon as possible.
It quickly became clear what Ronan wanted as he stood up himself and put my hands on the edge of the table. I smiled and bent over, sticking my ass out toward him, and he rewarded me by putting his hands back on my waist and sliding his cock back into me.
As he thrust into me I moved forward, and pushed back at the end of his stroke, feeling the delightful friction between us. We found a new rhythm, which Ronan reaching around with one hand to alternate between playing with my tits and teasing my clit. He was a master at this, and I found myself reaching a new orgasm just as his cock started to convulse inside me.
