This story contains situations some readers might find objectionable. If you don’t like darker romances, this mafia love story might not be the book for you. However, if you enjoy a possessive Alpha male engaged in a spirited battle with a defiant woman determined to resist his demands, get ready to meet “Alexei.”
Chapter One
Tara recognized the bouncer on sight. She thought his name was Reggie, but she wasn’t certain. She just knew she’d seen him several times before. He must have recognized her too, or the glower she directed his way dissuaded him from trying to stop her, because she sailed through the entrance of “Flesh” with no problem. The place was swanky and classy, at least for a skin club, though she didn’t know for sure if they all looked like this on the inside. Thankfully, “Flesh” was her sole experience with strip clubs. If she could persuade her sister to change careers, she’d have no further familiarity with such establishments.
Unfortunately, Tonya was resistant to the idea of leaving the club. She claimed she would miss her friends and the easy money, and Tonya also maintained that the atmosphere did nothing to make her want to relapse to using heroin again.
Tara wasn’t too optimistic about that, but she had been keeping a close eye on her sister for the last fifteen months, and she had not yet seen any signs of her little sister taking up that horrid habit again. That didn’t mean she should be working in a place like this, because it was only a matter of time until she fell back into that lifestyle again—at least that was Tara’s view.
She knew Tonya didn’t share it, and she imagined her little sister didn’t appreciate having Tara breathing down her neck all the time, but it was in her nature to look out for her younger sibling. There were only six years separating them, but their mother had died when Tonya was just eighteen months old, and Tara had taken over a lot of her care. She felt more like a mother than a sister to the young woman, and sometimes she hated the futile position in which that left her.
If she’d actually been Tonya’s mother, there was a chance the woman would have listened to her and stopped working as an exotic dancer. She wasn’t too confident about that though. Tonya was a stubborn woman, and Tara knew that was partially her fault too. She had encouraged her sister to be independent and a freethinker without realizing how much she would hate that in later life, when she had little influence on her sibling.
She was put out to have to come back to the strip club again though. Last time Tonya had pulled a disappearing act for a few days, Tara had come searching for her every night here. Tonya had never explained what she’d been doing during that time, but she had promised it wasn’t drugs. She’d also promised there would be no more disappearing for days on end, at least not without checking in with a quick phone call at least once a day.
It was going on four days since she had seen or heard from her sister, so Tonya had lied to her. The only time her sister had ever really lied to her before had been when she was deep in her addiction, and Tara was afraid her sister had backslid. It was only concern for her sister that could bring her to this seedy place, no matter how glamorous it looked on the surface.
She didn’t know much about the owner of the club, but she knew he was probably not a legitimate businessman just from a few hints Tonya had dropped. She also knew he liked to watch, or at least watch her from the shadows. Every time she entered the place, she could feel his gaze creeping over her, though she was never quite certain from where it originated.
The logical side of her dismissed that as simple paranoia and reminded her she couldn’t possibly know who was watching her if she couldn’t even see them, let alone if someone was truly watching her or not. The more primitive side of her, the one that still listened to animal instincts, told her she was being hunted, and it urged her to stay away from this place. She would gladly do so, and had done for the past few months, but now Tonya was missing again.
She slipped past the dance floor and the tables and booths scattered around, keeping her eyes averted from the stage after she ascertained the current dancer in her pink platforms and bubblegum-colored thong was not her sister. She slipped backstage, making her way past cords for the lights and sound system, overseen by a couple of men in black T-shirts who probably did something behind-the-scenes, but just seemed to be ogling the dancer from her perspective. With a small shudder of distaste, she moved past them to the dressing room area.
When she stepped inside the room, shared by all the dancers on-shift, she recognized five of the six dancers right away. The unfamiliar girl was having her makeup done by one of the dancers who had been there since before Tonya, though Tara didn’t know her name.
She had eyes only for her shorter, redheaded sister as she strode across the dressing room toward where Tonya was sprawled on the couch talking to two other dancers, a clear drink in her hand. It was probably mineral water or the like, because Tonya had supposedly given up alcohol at the same time she’d stopped taking drugs.
Tara loomed over her little sister, glaring down at her. “Where the heck have you been, and why haven’t you called me?”
Tonya jumped, but the drink didn’t spill. She looked up at Tara, her expression revealing exasperation. “I’ve been busy doing stuff. Stuff that’s not your business, Tara.”
Tara wanted to throttle the younger woman, but she somehow resisted the urge. “Is the stuff you’ve been doing at least legal? Does it involve drugs?”
Tonya smirked at her. “No, Mother,” she said sarcastically, eliciting a giggle from the other two dancers. Apparently she was going to be in showoff mode tonight rather than conciliatory. “If you must know, I was partying with this really hot guy for the last few days. He paid me a bundle to spend time with him.”
Tara gasped, shaking her head. “He paid money to have sex with you? You know what that makes you, don’t you, Tonya?”
Tonya lifted a shoulder, looking unconcerned. “It makes me rich, dear sister. While you’re slaving away doing whatever it is you do, trying to pay off your mortgage and be a responsible citizen and shit, I have enough saved to almost buy my own condo outright. It will be a joy to escape you.”
Tara struggled to hide her hurt behind a mask of indifference. “You’re moving out?”
Tonya nodded. “Soon enough anyway. Consider this my thirty days’ notice.”
Tara couldn’t help snorting. “Only tenants give notice, and tenants pay rent. I don’t think you qualify, dear sister,” she said in the same sarcastic way. “Whatever. I’m just glad you’re okay, though I don’t know why you thought it was okay to break your promise to me.”
Tonya arched a brow. “What promise?”
Tara lifted her phone unconsciously, shaking it at her sister. “You promised to call me if you weren’t going to be home. I’m not trying to mother you, Tonya. Just trying to make sure you don’t fall back into your addiction. If you remember when you got out of rehab, you asked for my help.”
Tonya sighed. “Yes, I did, but that was then, Tara. It’s time for you to live your own life and not worry so much about mine, okay? You don’t have to come running down here every time I’m not around for a couple of days, and you don’t have to call me and leave a zillion voice messages or text me all hours of the night.”
Tara nodded brusquely, keeping her expression impassive. Clearly, Tonya had had her phone available if she knew she’d been texting, and she had chosen to deliberately ignore her. While it was normal for the twenty-three-year-old to be on her own, Tara wasn’t confident she was actually ready for full independence. Still, what could she do? If her sister didn’t want to be watched over, there was no point in trying to do it. “Okay then. I’ll see you whenever I see you, Tonya.”
Without waiting for a reply from her sister, who seemed disinclined to give one, Tara exited the dressing room. The idea of going back through the bar and the stage turned her stomach, and she curved to the right instead of the left, confident there must be a back exit to the club. She walked down the hall, half-expecti
ng to find dancers servicing customers in various positions in darkened corners and the opened rooms, but apparently that all took place in the VIP rooms—a place she had never visited.
A grunting sound caught her attention, and she thought perhaps she had dismissed illicit sex acts too quickly. It certainly sounded like someone was having sex. As she drew closer though, Tara realized they were grunts of pain, not pleasure, and her first instinct was to help. She sped up her step, but paused at the doorway when she identified the room from which the sounds were coming.
Her eyes widened at the sight before her, and she barely bit back an instinctive protest. Two men held a third one between them, though he looked close to slumping to the floor. The third man was busy punching him, alternating between his face and his stomach.
She was ashamed that it wasn’t the fists or the man getting beaten that caught her attention. Rather, it was the man who was doing the hitting. He had a beautiful face, full of perfect lines and smooth angles, topped by light-blond hair, and paired with an impressive build. He was tall and muscular, but with a lean waist displayed perfectly by tight jeans and a red tank top.
She shook her head, trying to break the trance, and started to back away. Once more, Tara froze when the man stopped hitting the other one. She hesitated, wondering if she should try to call nine-one-one right there. Her phone was still in her hand, after all. The wisest thing to do would be to just walk away, but she had a hard time ignoring what was going on in front of her.
While she debated, apparently the one who’d been beating the other had come to a decision, because he pulled a gun from a holster strapped to his side.
“I told you no more of that shit, didn’t I, Slava?”
The other man nodded frantically, sobs escaping him. “Please, Alexei…”
“No second chances, especially when it comes to that kind of shit.”
He turned his head slightly at the same time he brought his gun up and shot the other man between the eyes.
She gasped, unable to choke back the sound, and was horrified it wasn’t the murder that had caused her to gasp. Instead, the thin white scar marring the left side of the shooter’s perfect face had been the catalyst that had made her betray her presence.
She clapped her hands to her mouth, dropping her phone in the process, but it was too late. Even as the body was falling, the man who had shot him looked up and met her gaze. Time seemed to stand still for a minute as she stared into his dark eyes, temporarily suspended between any sort of response. He stared at her in a disconcerting fashion, and it was difficult to gauge what his reaction was to her presence.
He uttered something harshly in Russian, and it broke the spell paralyzing her. She didn’t speak Russian, but she was a linguistics expert and knew enough about languages to recognize the sound patterns behind the language. She didn’t need to translate to know the man had issued some kind of command to his comrades, a command that clearly didn’t bode well for her.
Tara broke into a run, eyes locked on the exit less than a hundred feet away from her. She put forth all her effort, pumping her legs and making her sneakers slap against the tile floor as she ran. She was almost to the exit, in fact had her hand on the bar, when hard hands fastened around her arms and jerked her backward. She fell heavily, colliding with a solidly muscular chest, and she didn’t even have to look to know it was him. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew it was him holding her, not one of the other two who had been with him.
He had just used those hands to beat someone before shooting the man to death. She shuddered and tried to pull away, even as his enticing scent surrounded her. He smelled faintly of vodka and peppermint, with a woodsy undertone that might have been his soap. Add in a dash of his own unique maleness, and it was a potent combination.
She was freaked out to be noticing how he smelled, and she tried to struggle away from him in her panic. His arms clamped around her, holding her tightly against him, and she started shrieking. If Tonya saw this, her sister would call the police.
His hand fell over her mouth at the same time she fell silent, realizing she didn’t want her sister to witness this. It seemed likely she was about to die, and her sister didn’t need to go out with her.
Another set of hands took hers, stretching her arms forward and in front of her. She tried to fight as yet another pair of hands put zip ties around her wrists, tightening them to the point where tears came to her eyes when she tugged against them.
As they bent to confine her feet, she tried to catch the men by surprise, leaning back against the man who held her and lifting both feet at the same time to slam into the chest of the man bending closest near her ankles. He fell with a grunt, sliding a few feet on his ass and hitting the door as he glared up at her.
Fear beat heavily in her, making her entire body shake with anticipation of retribution as the bald man with a thick mustache got to his feet and rushed back toward her. He lifted his hand, looking like he would strike her, but harsh commands from the man holding her had his hand freezing in midair.
She was moderately grateful that the man holding her hadn’t allowed his partner to hit her, but she couldn’t help fearing that what was coming for her was even worse.
She tried to fight again, but both of the men subdued her, binding her ankles together as efficiently as they had her hands. To her surprise, the man holding her spun her in his arms and lifted her over his shoulder in a parody of a rescuer’s embrace. He was no firefighter, but she had a feeling she might be a victim caught in an inferno she couldn’t escape as he strode through the exit door and out into the night.
They were in an alleyway behind the club, and there were three cars parked nearby, all expensive models from what she could see. The closest was a limousine, and she was somehow unsurprised when the man opted for that, waiting until one of his companions had opened the back door before tossing her in carelessly. She hit the bench seat and rolled slightly, her knees hitting the floorboard, but that actually worked in her favor. It allowed Tara a little momentum and to get somewhat on her feet. She waited until the man had slid into the car, the door closed behind him, before she rushed him. Her intent was to hurt, and to knock the breath from him, and she collided heavily, planting her head in his solar plexus.
He grunted, but didn’t seem as incapacitated as she had hoped. Her feeble plan had been to render him immobile and then what? Had she planned to scrabble over him, open the door, and hobble away on her zip-tied ankles? It was a feeble plan, but at least she hadn’t laid down and just accepted her fate.
He cursed, and she didn’t recognize the word, but she certainly heard the quiet anger underneath it. She expected him to retaliate by either hitting her, or perhaps even just shooting her right then, but instead, Alexei—that was what the other man had called him before being shot, she remembered suddenly—spun her around in his arms and held her on his lap.
His arms confined her against him in a parody of a lovers’ embrace, and she struggled to escape. She was twisting against him, trying to find some leverage to push herself away, but she froze when she realized his cock was growing hard against her ass.
“Please keep struggling, lisichka. It feels very good.” He spoke with an obvious accent, but his English was clear enough to be coherent and easily understood. She didn’t know what lisichka meant, and she probably didn’t want to know either.
For the moment, she forced herself to remain immobile, not wanting to provoke a physical reaction from the man about to kill her. It would be bad enough to be murdered, and she’d like to skip being raped beforehand.
“What is your name, American girl?”
Ridiculously, she thought of the line of dolls that her sister had liked and admired, the type that had usually been out of their budget. She clamped her mouth shut, refusing to engage him, and not wanting him to know of her connection to Tonya.
As though he had read her mind, he chuckled softly. “I don’t know your name, but I know you are related t
o Tonya Noland. You look like a much hotter version of her, and you come to the club to check up on her like a mother hen. You are too young to be her mother, but that doesn’t keep you from acting like one.”
She stiffened, her breath leaving her in a ragged exhalation as she realized this man knew all about her, or at least enough to know her weak spots. “Don’t hurt my sister.” And he thought she was more attractive than Tonya? Yeah, right. What bullshit.
“Ah, she speaks.”
“Please. Tonya has nothing to do with this.” He nodded, and she could feel his chin brushing against the back of her head when he did so.
“I agree. This is between us.”
She didn’t like how he said us. It implied a level of intimacy that just did not exist. But she was hardly in a position to argue with him, and she was no doubt imagining things due to the terror of the situation. “Would you please just let me go? I won’t say anything to anyone.”
He chuckled, and he sounded genuinely amused. “Of course you won’t.” His tone was mocking. “There are two kinds of people in this world, lisichka. There’re my kind of people, and there are yours. My kind of people follow the code and shut their mouth, and they can keep secrets that aren’t theirs. Your kind feels the need to interfere with everyone. You might intend to keep your mouth shut, but your ridiculous conscience will weigh on you, and soon you’ll talk yourself into doing the right thing. You’ll be convinced you must report this horrible murder you’ve seen even if it disrupts your entire life and endangers your sister. You’re the upstanding citizen-type, and you can’t be trusted.”
In her anger, she forgot what response she was eliciting by struggling, and she renewed her attempts to escape. “I can’t be trusted?” She dug her elbow against his rib. “I’m not the murdering criminal here.”
His arms tightened firmly around her, and his hand pressed against her stomach, keeping her anchored against him. “If you were, it would solve our problems. There is no solution that I can think of at the moment, short of shooting you. That is undesirable, so you will become my guest for a time.”
MAFIA: Dark Romance Collection Page 24
