“I told you never to come here,” Kristina said with force.
“I didn’t listen.”
Natalie shook her head. “Keith… I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“Then stop doing this,” Keith said abruptly. “Stop dancing. You can move on from this life, Natalie.”
She shook her head, as though Keith didn’t understand anything. “I can’t just move on… this is my life. It’s the only means I have to support myself.”
“I can support you,” Keith said immediately.
Her eyes snapped to his face. “I don’t want your money or your pity,” she said with more fierceness than she had shown in the four months they had known each other. “Did you think I was the kind of girl who would accept charity?”
“It’s not charity, Natalie,” Keith said gently. “I just want…”
“What?”
“I just want you to be happy,” Keith said finally. “If you’re happy doing this… then I won’t say another word about it. Are you?”
Natalie looked down, and Keith had his answer. “I never should have told you what I did,” Natalie said at last. “I knew you would start seeing me differently.”
“I don’t see you differently,” Keith said firmly. “I just… don’t want you to have to do this if you don’t have to.”
“Keith,” Natalie said softly. “You can’t support me… you don’t have the money either.”
“But I will,” Keith said confidently. “Miles and I are getting the hang of this business... we’re going to be ok, I promise.”
“That’s not a guarantee, Keith,” Natalie said. “And anyway… it’s pointless talking about it. I’m not going to be dancing for much longer.”
“You’re not?” Keith asked with some relief.
“No,” Natalie said, and her face changed visibly. “I probably should have told you this a long time ago… but I wasn’t sure how you’d react.”
“Just tell me,” Keith said hoping it was nothing.
“A few months ago I was approached by this guy… he’s running a business too, and he wanted to recruit me.”
“Recruit you?” Keith said, his instincts pinging with worry. “What business would this be?”
Natalie seemed to take a deep breath before she spoke. “I… he… the thing is—”
“Natalie!”
She was quiet for a moment. “It’s like an… escort service.”
“Prostitution?” Keith gasped. “Prostitution?”
“Don’t say it like that,” Natalie pleaded. “Don’t say it like that.”
“You’re going to sell your body?” Keith demanded, as he rose from his seat. “You’re going to fuck a bunch of strangers for money?”
“Keith,” Natalie said, as she grabbed his hand. “Please don’t leave… this was before we met… I didn’t think I would ever meet someone like you.”
“Ok,” Keith said slowly. “So get out of it.”
Natalie’s face fell. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Keith demanded.
Natalie’s eyes filled with tears, and when she spoke, Keith could hear the fear in her voice. “The man who recruited me… he scares me. I don’t think he’ll let me go now that I’ve agreed.”
“What’s his name?” Keith demanded. “Tell me his name.”
“Kovic,” Natalie replied, as a tear slipped down her cheek. “His name is Anton Kovic.”
Chapter Thirty One
Kristina
Kristina lay in the back seat of Kovic’s car, staring up at the vehicle’s ceiling. It was a dusty gray that held a number of odd stains, and she couldn’t help but wonder what had caused stains at that angle. She had gotten used to the musty, stale smell of the car, but there were moments when Kovic rolled down the windows and Kristina realized what fresh air tasted like. It was like jumping into a pool of water after a year of heat and thirst.
He brought her food periodically, and he took her out into large thickets of greenery so that she could relieve her bowels, her initial sense of embarrassment had long since disappeared. She didn’t care about anything other than getting out of the car and getting away from Kovic. He kept a close guard on her however, and if he left the car for any length of time, he tied her down, tied her hands up, and locked her in the car.
Kristina would sit motionless, uncomfortable, and unable to move. After a point, she actually started wishing that Kovic would come back just so that she could move around a little, perhaps even talk for a moment. It surprised Kristina how much the silence weighed on her. She realized that she needed human contact, even if it was someone like Kovic.
Ever since he had told her about Natalie, Kristina had been unable to think about anything else. She was filled with questions, but she didn’t want Kovic to know how interested she really was. The back door of the car opened and Kovic slipped inside, next to Kristina. She sidled as far away from him as she could manage and fixed him with a cold stare as she stretched her arms out to him.
“Can you untie me?” Kristina asked. “My hands are numb.”
“At least they don’t hurt,” Kovic replied without moving an inch.
Kristina didn’t want to beg. She put her hands back down and turned her face away from Kovic. “You are the biggest asshole I have ever met.”
“Thank you,” Kovic said with a smile.
“I don’t understand how Natalie didn’t see that.”
“Natalie was a fool,” Kovic said. “She was looking for a golden opportunity to come her way, and she thought I was it for her. If she’d been a bit smarter, she would have realized that people like her don’t ever get opportunities like that.”
“She was unhappy and you took advantage of that.”
“Of course I did,” Kovic said, as though he thought Kristina was stupid as well. “Life is made up of wolves and sheep, Krissie. You have to decide early on what you’d rather be. Would you rather be eaten or would you rather do the eating? For me, the answer was simple.”
“Some people see life differently,” Kristina pointed out.
“Those people are deluded,” Kovic said. “Or… they’re people like you.”
“Meaning?” Kristina demanded.
“People who’ve only ever lived in a lily white world where nothing ever goes wrong and everything always goes their way.”
“Are you serious?”
“Oh sure, you’ll have your sets of problems,” Kovic continued as though he hadn’t heard her speak. “You’ll have your cheating boyfriends and your thieving housekeepers and your odd fender benders. But let’s face it; you don’t have to think about survival. People think it’s easy—it’s not. It’s an art, and if you’re not smart about it, you won’t survive. Natalie certainly didn’t.”
“She didn’t think she had any other choice,” Kristina said, defending a woman she had never met or spoken to. “She thought she was stuck dancing for the rest of her life on a shitty pay, so she took the only out she had.”
Kovic shook her head. “That was not her mistake,” he said. “That was her smartest decision. If she had kept faith with me, she would have been a rich woman.”
“Rich how?” Kristina demanded. “By selling her body to lowlifes? I know you pitched it to her as though it was an escort service, but let’s be honest, it was an illegal prostitution ring, and there wasn’t anything redeeming about it.”
Kovic shrugged. “Details. The point is that she would have been far better off fucking a bunch of lowlifes than she would have been dancing naked on tables. But she made the mistake of falling in love and trying to get out of her commitment to me, and that I just couldn’t have.”
“So you killed her to teach her a lesson?” Kristina spat, wondering if anything weighed on his conscience.
Kovic looked at her in surprise. “The deal was simple. It was ironclad, and it was not the kind of bargain you could just walk away from. She was the one who broke it. I didn’t kill her. She killed herself. She killed herself
the moment she decided Keith was more important than me.”
Chapter Thirty Two
Keith
Two Years, Six Months Ago
“Guess what?” Natalie exclaimed, as she rushed through the door and jumped into Keith’s arms.
“What?” he asked in amusement as he held her legs in place around his waist.
“I got a job,” Natalie replied sounding elated.
“That’s great news,” Keith said fervently. “What’s the job?”
“Waitressing at this crappy diner on West and Pine, but who cares, it’s a job! A job that doesn’t involve any nudity or sex!”
Keith laughed. “I’ll drink to that.”
Natalie laughed with him, and they collapsed onto their bed, kissing and savoring the scent of joy in the air. Once their laughter had subsided and a contented silence settled in between them, Keith turned and kissed Natalie’s forehead.
“Soon we’re going to be out of this shitty apartment,” he said. “I’m going to build you a real house… with a garden and a fence and a real plumbing system.”
Natalie smiled. “I’ve never really lived in a house like that. I don’t know if I’ll fit into that picture.”
“I never thought I would either,” Keith admitted. “But just because we didn’t come from wholesome family backgrounds doesn’t mean we can’t achieve it at some point one day.”
Natalie shot him a searching glance. “You think we’ll have a family one day?”
“Why not?” Keith asked. “I never once thought about it… until I met you. Now everything seems possible. Why shouldn’t we have normal lives?”
Instantly the smile slid off Natalie’s face, and Keith knew that he had reminded her of something she would rather have forgotten. “What are you thinking of?” he asked.
“Kovic.” She whispered the name as though it held power. Keith hated when she did that, but it was so deeply ingrained that he knew she couldn’t stop it.
“I’ve dealt with Kovic,” Keith said confidently. “I told him that you were not going to join his little business and that he needed to stay away from you.”
Natalie looked up at the ceiling and her grip on Keith tightened. “It’s just…”
“Yes?”
“The last time I spoke to him… he wasn’t so happy,” Natalie said as though she doubted Keith’s words. “He’d already promised me to a bunch of different men, and apparently they were all powerful men. He told me that he lost business because of me.”
Keith rolled his eyes. “He’s in the business of prostitution,” he said. “It’s not like that line of work will ever dry out. He may have lost a couple of clients, but there’s going to be a dozen more to take their place. You don’t have to worry about a thing, Natalie. I sorted it with him.”
“How was he?” Natalie asked. “What did he say? How did he seem?”
“He’s scum,” Keith said without mincing his words. “He was cold and insulting and proud… but he agreed to leave you alone.”
Natalie still didn’t look as though she believed him. “I know… and why would he lie?”
Keith kissed her again. “Stop worrying about Kovic. You’re free now, and that means you get to start over. We can build a new life together, Natalie,” he said fervently. “We can build a better life together.”
“I guess I just… never thought I would have this,” Natalie said, placing a hand on Keith’s chest. “So it’s hard for me to believe that I’m just going to be able to walk away from a bad decision with no consequences and just… be happy.”
“But that is exactly what you’re going to be from now on,” Keith said. “Happy… and I’m going to make sure of that.”
“You promise?” Natalie asked playfully.
“I promise,” Keith replied without missing a beat.
Chapter Thirty Three
Kristina
“My hands hurt,” Kristina, complained, unable to bare the sting that shot through her arms from the knot that Kovic had tied. The skin around her wrists had been rubbed away, and she had started to bleed. “I’m losing circulation.”
“Has it left a mark?”
“Of course it’s left a mark,” Kristina snapped. “I’m bleeding.”
“Good,” Kovic said with a smile. “I did promise Keith that I’d return you with some gifts. I’m just keeping to my word.”
“What the hell are we doing here?” Kristina demanded.
“We’re playing a little game, Krissie,” Kovic replied, flashing her an intimidating smile. “We’ve dangled the bait. Now we’re going to make Keith writhe and sweat.”
“You are a psychopath.”
“Again…thank you,” Kovic said flashing her another smile. “You know, I—”
His own phone interrupted him; he picked it up and answered it as though he were annoyed at being interrupted. “What?” he demanded. “I thought I gave you clear instructions about…. what?”
Kovic fell silent, and Kristina could hear the voice on other line go into a tangent that she couldn’t quite understand. She thought she heard her name mentioned in the slurring of words however, and she pricked up her ears, hoping to gain some information.
“Was it Keith?” Kovic asked. His tone was deadly serious now. “Fine… yes… this changes nothing.”
He hung up abruptly and looked at Kristina as though she had just insulted him. “It looks like the police are searching for you,” he said.
That surprised Kristina. She didn’t think Keith would have gone to the police; it was too risky for himself and the Iron Dragons. Plus, it was unlikely that the police would take him seriously, considering the shady reputation he had earned for himself.
“Keith wouldn’t have gone to the police,” Kristina said immediately.
“He didn’t,” Kovic said. “It was your roommate.”
“Marie,” Kristina whispered the name.
“Marie, is it?” Kovic sneered. “I’ll have to pay her a visit once this is all over.”
Kristina bit her lip and cursed herself for saying the name out loud.
“You haven’t even been missing twenty-four hours,” Kovic said as though he were talking to himself. “Why would they be searching for you already?”
“My roommate is not an idiot,” Kristina said. “She knew someone had been following me these past few days.”
Kovic looked unconcerned. “I guess it’s time to speed up this process. This would have been much easier without the police on my tail. As it happens, you’re the one who’s going to suffer for that.” He picked up his phone again and dialed a number. After a moment, he nodded. “Keith,” he said, and Kristina’s body went cold.
“I’m sure you’ve seen the news by now,” Kovic went on. “And because of it, unfortunately, I’m forced to change my plans just a bit. This battle has always been between you and me, and I think it’s time we sorted it out. Just remember one thing, I have your woman. If you show up with so much as a bug on your shoulder… she’s dead. I don’t make promises I can’t keep, motherfucker. You know that better than anyone. So when I say I’m going to hurt her, I will.”
With that, Kovic leaned in and grabbed Kristina’s hands. He got a hold of the bloody skin of her wounds and pressed his nail down into it. Kristina tried to fight the pain, but in the end, there was nothing she could do but scream.
Chapter Thirty Four
Keith
Two Years Ago
Keith always savored his rides home. It was the perfect blend of stillness and speed that allowed his mind to go in every direction it found. Usually, he started off thinking about Lee and Seton, Miles and the other boys, the business and every small victory they had won in favor of it, but eventually, inevitably, his thoughts would land back onto Natalie.
Within the space of a year, she had become the most important thing in his life. It amazed Keith only because he had never thought that kind of normalcy would be his. He never expected to come home to a loving partner, he never expected to s
it down to meals together at the dinner table, he never expected to wake up to the same face every morning and find so much pleasure in it.
He was baffled by his own luck and shocked by his own good fortune, and that carried him through each day in a fog of happiness he had never thought he would feel. It helped that he could share that with Natalie. They were both broken animals that had been cast out early on, and both of them had believed they would never find peace or happiness in their lives. It seemed to be the kind of thing that was meant for different people.
Tempted: The Numb MC Page 47
