by Tia Siren
“I'm only twenty-two, and I've already got a house most sixty-year-olds can’t afford. It's all down to my father. Most of his money comes from crime, but I want to take the family on the straight and narrow when he's gone. I don't sleep too well when I think about how my bed was bought with the money of some junkie college kid.”
“That's very moral of you,” she said.
He took her bag and opened the front door. “It's a big house for one person. It's nice you're here to keep me company,” he said. “The only other people who ever come here are the cook, Betty, and the cleaner, Flossie.”
“An army of women to look after you. You're a lucky man.”
“Wait until you've tasted Betty's beef.”
A few days passed and Jessie began to settle into Milan's home. He noticed a few feminine touches around the place, flowers in the dining room and a bowl of potpourri in the downstairs toilet.
Each day he'd drive them to the casino and wait until Jessie's work was finished before driving her home again. Not a moment passed when she wasn't close to him. The more time they spent together, the closer they became. Jessie began to appear in Milan's dreams, and he found himself spending hour after hour thinking about her. He felt extremely protective of her and relished his job as her bodyguard.
Most of all, Jessie's more frequent use of the swimming pool played on Milan's mind. She'd appear from her bedroom, wrapped in a pink robe she would seductively discard at the edge of the pool. Then she'd proceed to do stretching exercises, which included touching her toes, invariably and quite innocently, with her back to the window Milan observed her from. The view of the thin material stretching over her behind and the sight of her gorgeous legs made him so hard he was hardly able to bear it. He knew he shouldn't be spying on her. Voyeurism wasn't a particularly charming attribute, he thought. But how was he supposed to stop himself? He was addicted to watching her, but he knew it had to stop.
One evening she arrived home from work and began her usual routine. He watched her from the normal place, and as she stretched he waited until he was fully hard before he opened the patio door and walked with purpose toward her. The sound of his footsteps on the tiles surrounding the pool drew her attention, and she turned to him. The purpose with which he was walking toward her led her to conclude he only wanted one thing. When she saw his erection pushing inside his pants, her thoughts were confirmed.
“Why has it taken you so long?” she asked as he pulled her to him.
“Shut up,” he said.
When their lips locked, a fire began to burn in each of them. It was soon apparent that neither of them wanted to bother with the niceties of the sexual act. There was to be no gentle foreplay, no petting, stroking, or caressing, just raw sex.
Jessie gasped as his strong arms ripped her bikini bottoms off her and tore open her top. His lips clasped onto her nipple and sucked hard. She held his head and pulled him tighter. Her hands slid his zipper down and searched out his penis. He was her protector, the man she wanted and needed, and she was going to make him take her with all he had.
She led him seductively, his penis still hanging out of his pants, to the diving board. She lay down on top of it and opened her legs in an indolent gesture that left him with no doubt that she wanted it, and wanted it now. Standing in front of her, he took off his shirt and discarded his pants and shorts. When she looked at him, she felt a wet wave engulf her center. His upper body looked so strong. There was not a gram of fat, just muscle and beautifully bronzed skin. It looked so smooth; she couldn't wait to run her hands over it.
“Fuck,” she gasped when he pulled her toward him and threw her legs over his shoulders. When he thrust into her, she cried out and dug her nails into his arms. He didn't stop to look at her or kiss her, he stood and thrust into her raised body until she began to pant. With each thrust, he hit that spot inside her, the place no other man had ever found.
“Harder,” she groaned. He did his best to accommodate her wishes, but he was already taking her as hard as he could. “Harder,” she moaned again. Then he saw her whole body tighten and her eyes roll as her pleasure swept over her.
Far from relaxing, she wanted more of the same. Insatiable for him, she put her hands on his hips and rocked him in and out of her. She came again, this time bellowing his name across the yard. He was young, fit, and very strong, and she wanted him to prove it to her.
When he flipped her on her belly, she gasped. Her legs dangled on either side of the board as he thrust into her. She reached behind herself and grasped his thigh. She loved the feel of the soft hairs that tickled her palm. She loved being filled by him. He wasn't stopping now. She could feel he wanted the finish line. She came once more as his penis raked over her G-spot time and again.
“Fuck,” he said as he got closer.
“Come on, give it to me,” she squealed.
When he came, she felt it inside her. Out of breath, they clung to each other. Jessie had an overwhelming feeling of triumph, and Milan felt a deep sense of satisfaction.
“You're mine now, Jessie. No more fucking about pretending to be your boyfriend. From now on, I am your real boyfriend.”
She felt him growing softer inside her and reached up to kiss him. It was their first tender moment, the passion spent.
****
The next morning they woke in the same bed for the first time. Milan stretched and looked at Jessie. “Good morning. Sleep well?”
“Very, but I'm a bit sore, you know, down there.”
Milan laughed. “Well you were the one who insisted on me doing you twice more. It's your own fault.”
“Don't you have any sympathy for me?” she asked in a playful way.
“Of course. Come here.” He pulled her to him, and they cuddled for a few minutes.
“Gotta get going,” Milan said eventually.
His Ferrari roared to life, and he drove down the drive to the man on security. The man nodded and opened the gate. When they'd gone just a few yards up the road, a boy of around eleven flagged them down. He was small and wore a pair of blue jeans with a yellow Batman T-shirt. He looked slightly apologetic for having to stop them.
“What's up?” Milan said. The boy didn't say anything. He just handed him an envelope. “What is it?” Milan asked. The boy shrugged his shoulders. “Why are you giving it to me?”
“A man gave it to me. I live down there on the corner. He gave me fifty bucks and told me to give it to the man in the red Ferrari.”
Milan opened the envelope and pulled out a white sheet of paper. It read, “I know where you are, bitch. I'm coming to get you.”
“What did he look like?” Milan asked the boy.
“Shaven head. Funny eyes.”
“Dritan,” Jessie said.
“Okay, kid, thanks. If you see him again come and tell me. I'll give you a thousand bucks.” The boy’s eyes lit up at the prospect, and he began the walk back to his house.
Milan looked at Jessie. “I think you should go away. He clearly knows you're here. I'll make arrangements for you to go abroad for a few weeks until we've settled the issue.”
“No. I don't want to leave you. I feel much safer here, by your side.”
“He's an Albanian. They are crazy. People call us Russians crazy, but we fight fair. Those guys don't.” It was going to be much easier to root him out and deal with him if he didn't have to continually look out for Jessie. The best thing for her to do was to disappear to another country for a while.
“I don't care. I'd rather die than leave you,” she said.
“Why are women so darn stubborn?” he said as he sped off again. “You'd be far safer abroad. I could concentrate on sorting him out. But if you insist on hanging around here, then don't leave my side. Okay?”
“I don't want to leave your side.”
Weeks went past and nothing more happened. They waved to the kid who had given them the note from Dritan whenever they saw him. They found out he was the son of the local doctor. He was
twelve and loved astronomy.
Milan settled into his role as head of the casino business and made sure Jessie traveled with him wherever he went.
“What's with you and this Jessie girl?” Limonov asked. “Are you gonna marry her or not?”
“Maybe. I love her, so I suppose I should.”
“Well, get on with it. Your mother wants to know why it's taking so long.”
Milan laughed. “Women, eh, Pops?”
“They love a good wedding. She's a nice girl. Get a ring on her finger. You shouldn't let a good woman like her slip through your fingers.”
Milan gave it a lot of thought and always came to the same conclusion. He wanted to marry her, but was it all a bit too fast. They'd only been dating three months. He thought for a moment about how she would react when he asked her to marry him. Would she even say yes? Maybe she'd been too damaged by the Albanian to want to marry anyone.
“Are you finished yet? I want you when we get home,” Milan asked Jessie.
“I'll only be a minute. Then you can take me home and fuck me senseless,” she whispered. Milan felt something in his pants move at the prospect. “I'll just go to the ladies’ room, and then I'll be right with you,” she said.
“Hurry up then. You just turned me on so much that I don't think I can wait very long,” he said.
The ladies’ restroom was down the corridor at the end of the building. Jessie made her way there, opened the door, and went into a stall. She locked the door, hitched her skirt up, and squatted over the toilet. Before she had time to doing anything, she felt something cold around her neck. She put her hands to her neck and tried to free herself of what felt like wire. But it got tighter, and she began to choke.
Milan sat chatting to some staff members for ten minutes. She's a long time, he thought. He gave her another ten minutes and then began to worry.
“Jan can you go to the ladies’ and see what Jessie is doing? She went ages ago.” Jan, one of the best croupiers in the casino, nodded and went to find Jessie.
When he heard a scream, Milan ran down the corridor and thrust the door to the ladies’ room open. Jan was standing at the open cubicle door, looking at a pool of blood on the floor. The window at the rear of the stall had been smashed, and there was no sign of Jessie. He looked out the window and down both sides of the street but saw nothing at all.
“Fuck,” Milan said. He alerted security and ran to the room that housed the video surveillance equipment. He wound the tape back and watched. Around the time Jessie had gone there, he saw a man standing outside the restroom window. He then saw him smash the window and reach inside. The tape rolled a little more, and Milan saw Jessie being dragged out through the window by whatever was around her neck.
“How the hell did he mange to do that?” Limonov asked after Milan had explained what had happened.
“I don't know.”
“How did he know she was in the toilet?”
“I haven't got a clue.”
“Fucking Albanians. You know, when we came to the US, they were still in that cesspit they call a country. Now they're all over, like some kind of venereal rash,” Limonov said. “We're gonna have to take him out, aren't we?”
“Be we don't know where she is,” Milan said desperately.
“Do you think they'll kill her?”
“I don't know,” Milan said.
“They are greedy bastards. If, as you say, he knows you two are an item, he'll ask for a ransom rather than kill her. If he kills her, he gets nothing.”
“I hope you're right.
The next morning, the doctor’s son came rushing up the drive to Milan's house. “I've got another note,” he said, shoving it under Milan's nose.
“One p.m., Seven Mile End. Only you need come,” it read. Milan stared into space and forgot the boy who was waiting eagerly for a tip. He gave him a hundred-dollar bill, and the boy walked away looking as if he'd just won the lottery.
“We can surround the place and take him out,” Vladimir said when they met in Milan's office.
“But he expressly asked me to come alone,” Milan replied.
“Seven Mile End is an exposed spot. There's nowhere to hide a sniper,” Limonov said.
Milan was standing with his father's top men, the same guys who had welcomed him after he’d returned from college. “I don't see what we can do, other than I go there,” Milan said.
“I want you to go with him and hide wherever you can,” Limonov said, pointing at Dima and Valentin.
At twelve thirty the three set off for Seven Mile End. It used to be a freeway interchange, but since the city administration had implemented their new traffic plan for South Las Vegas, the interchange had become redundant and was now a large area of disused tarmac with weeds growing through it.
Milan told the others to get out and find a place wherever they could to watch. He drove onto the waste ground and parked in the middle of it. At 1 p.m. a van appeared and stopped opposite him. He got out and waited.
Jessie stumbled out of the back of the van and turned to Milan. She had a wire in the form of a lasso around her neck. Nobody else appeared, but someone did speak via a megaphone.
“If you want to see her alive tomorrow, the price is five million dollars in cash.”
Milan clenched his fists and began to walk toward Jessie. He'd made a decision. There was no way she was going to suffer at the hands of this fool anymore. He walked slowly but purposefully toward her.
“Stop. Stop now or she gets it.”
“You won't shoot her. If you do, you'll get nothing,” Milan shouted back as he continued his walk. A bullet hit the ground just in front of him, but he didn't stop walking.
“Stop, Milan. They will kill you,” Jessie shouted.
“They won't. They are too yellow. They know what my father will do to them if they kill me.”
He continued until he reached Jessie. Two men jumped out of the back of the van. They were confused. They didn't seem to have considered that Milan would act so unpredictably, and they certainly didn't want the death of one of Russia's top mafia sons on their hands. One of them pointed his gun at Milan.
“I'm unarmed. Let her go and take me. Do you know how much more money you'll get for me?”
They were both jittery and confused, and Milan didn't want to be shot just because some guy's hand was shaking too much. “Calm down, guys. I'm gonna swap myself for her. She can go. Take me instead.”
He reached up and took the wire from around Jessie's neck.
“Run to the car,” he said.
“What are you doing? They will kill you.”
“They won't. Now go to the car,” he said. Jessie looked at him and saw the determination in his eyes. Milan jumped into the back of their van and sat down. “Come on. Let's go.”
*****
“You fucking idiots. You complete fuckups,” Dritan shouted. “What the fuck were you thinking? I'm surrounded by imbeciles.”
“But he just kept walking and jumped in the van,” one of the men said. “There was no way we were going to shoot him. He's too valuable.”
“Do you know what his father will do to us if he finds us?” Dritan asked.
“Then kill the fucker and let's get the hell out of here,” the other said.
Dritan looked at them both. They had worked for him for a couple of years. They were his enforcers, the men he used to break peoples' fingers when they decided not to pay. But Milan had outfoxed them. Now Dritan had a hostage who was almost too hot to handle. He would soon have the whole Russian mafia down on him like a ton of bricks unless he did something.
He'd been extremely upset when he'd found out that Jessie was seeing Milan. He'd only taken her hostage to get Milan to pay him a few million for the inconvenience of losing his girlfriend. In his estimation, there had been a good chance Milan would have paid for her and left it at that. But he knew, even if he returned Milan, that now Milan's father would come after him with a vengeance. He had to decide what to do,
and fast.
“Okay, here's what we are going to do. Got to the bank in the morning and withdraw the maximum you can. Book three tickets on the next available flight to Tirana.”
“But what are we going to do with him?”
“We're going to kill him,” Dritan said.
“Okay. I'll do it now,” one of them said.
“No, you fool. Don't you know anything? He's still of value to us until we're out of here. We'll kill him just before we leave.”
Milan, who was tied to an iron bed and gagged, heard all of this.
*****
“Jessie, think,” Limonov said. “Think what happened. How long did you drive from here to the place where they held you?”
“Er...about twenty minutes.”
“Did you hear anything close by? Trains, a school, airplanes, anything that could point to where they kept you.”
Jessie was desperate. Milan had been such a fool. What was he doing swapping himself for her? She would much rather have sat tied up, worrying about her own life, rather than worrying about Milan's.
“I can't think of anything. There was no discernible noise of any kind.”
Limonov slammed his fist onto the table. “I'll kill the asshole. I'll cut off his balls and stuff him with them. How's the wound?” he asked.
Jessie put her hand to her throat. “Okay, I suppose.” She'd been cut when they'd pulled her from the toilet. It had bled profusely, but it wasn't serious.
“I'm gonna call this asshole's bluff,” Limonov said. “Toni, call every TV news channel in Vegas and tell them I am giving a press conference.”
Toni did as he was asked. The TV channels were very interested in a story from such a prominent man, and all agreed to come. For them, Mafia meant viewers.
They chose a corner of the casino as a makeshift studio, and when the TV people arrived, they set up their cameras and microphones. At six in the evening, Limonov sat at a table and spoke to the world.
“I am addressing a man named Dritan Polyakov. He is an Albanian citizen, and I know he has been active in the underworld in Las Vegas. Mr. Polyakov, you have my son in captivity. I have the following to say to you. I assume you are probably going to kill him. That's what I would do in your situation. However, you must think carefully, because I'm going to make you an offer.
