by Lana Sky
The man chokes out a laugh and then grunts, clutching his nose. “And you don’t?” he mumbles around his fingers. “Funny, because the fucker is one of yours—”
“Go on,” Maxim goads, his jaw clenching.
“Yeah. Blond guy. Same fucking accent as you. He your boy or something? From what I hear, he’s been going around to everyone, ratting out your positions on everything.”
Maxim goes rigid. He and the British man lock gazes and I get the sense that they’re having a full-blown conversation without a word spoken between them.
“Him?” the British man asks, his tone hard.
Maxim says nothing. Before him, the thug grins, too smug to notice the alarming shift in his captor’s posture. “Your warehouses,” he sneers. “Where you do your runs. All that shit. I even heard that he’s been asking about some bitch you fuck with by name.” He nods in my direction. “This her? Francesca—”
“Go.” Chisel in hand, Maxim is instantly transformed. His eyes darken, icy and flat. I can see my soul reflected in them as they gloss over my position in the corner. “Now, kotyonok,” he tells me. The muscles in his forearms flex, a dangerous omen.
I start to move, but I only take a step before something in me falters. I stop. Maxim shoots me a glance, his eyes like midnight. There’s a warning in them. A dare. This is who I am.
A monster.
Can you really accept me?
Seconds pass before my body makes the decision for me. I stay.
Turning from me, Maxim extends his arm, clenching his hands into fists. Wham! The violent thud of flesh striking flesh echoes like a gunshot, churning my stomach. In a sick arch, blood flies, painting a trail over the marble.
“Tell me more,” Maxim demands as the man before him cowers, coughing up scarlet liquid. “Does he have a name, this ‘fucker’ of mine?”
The biker shakes his head. “I dunno,” he croaks.
“Shame. Then I suppose our conversation has concluded.”
Silver streaks the air and my mind takes a belated second to identify what it is: the chisel. Thwack!
It strikes skull. Bone. Flesh.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Maxim and his victim congeal into a shapeless blur of black and red as my eyes lose track of the violence. I can hear the noise. Taste blood.
Then it’s over, and a harsh touch on my shoulder snaps me back to reality.
“When I tell you to leave, you leave.”
I blink to find Maxim in front of me. His thumb shoots out, stroking my cheek. It’s red, smelling of salt.
“Or do you think now that you’ve had a taste, you can handle this, kotyonok?” His eyes hone in on my quivering throat as I swallow to fight back bile. “You can’t,” he decides tonelessly. The chisel flies from his grasp as he turns away. “Go. And this time, do not make me tell you twice.”
When he returns his focus to the helpless man on the floor, I dart into the hallway before the next blow lands with a sickening thud.
Then I run.
“You know it’s him.” The British man’s voice chases me, a low, contemplating murmur. “Must our past keep haunting us because of your family?”
Hours pass before the whimpering finally dies off. From my position on my bed, I hear the front door open and then slam shut, which creates a chilling prelude to the slow, steady steps advancing on my room a second later.
He takes his time, turning my heartbeat into a rapid melody of surging blood and a hammering pulse. Just as it reaches a crescendo, my door opens.
These four white walls can’t contain his bulk. They strain at the seams like an overstuffed birdcage and I’m the fucking canary. The half of my prison he dominates becomes shadow, swallowed in darkness. My little corner contains the only hint of light seeping in through a nearby window, while my racing heartbeat floods the air. Only one of us can survive the impending collision.
Him?
Me?
What a stupid fucking question.
My knees knock together, but I can’t move. I just wait. In a vain attempt to ground myself, my fingers flutter over my white duvet, cinching chunks of it.
“Look at me.” One step brings him closer.
I smell him, choking on the scent of sweat and lust as my eyes adjust, seeking his shape out. His eyes glow, adding a chilling contrast to the bulge straining against the front of his pants. Instinct warns me that he’s erect. Violence gets him off. So does fear.
So does this.
“You didn’t run,” he tells me, anger deepening the words into a guttural hum. “Not even when you saw the worst. You stayed. Do you think that makes you brave?”
I blink. The worst? He must mean torturing people in front of me, apparently—more than once.
But he’s wrong.
The worst horrors he inflicts on me are what he’s doing now: switching personas like hats. One man claims I was made for him. And the other? Made to spite him.
The only weapon I have in my arsenal is deflection. “Why did he say my name?”
He frowns, his head cocked. Just as quickly, he recovers, crossing over to the bed. With a well-placed swipe of his thumb against my lip, my body shivers, resonating with his possession. It’s the strangest feeling imaginable—terror and need. It’s like being on the edge of a high. Like bleeding out. Hemorrhaging.
“He was mistaken.” His accent chops each word into several harsh syllables. “Forget him.”
“What about that guy?” I croak. “The one I…” God, I can’t even say the rest.
“Are you worried?” he counters. “Do you think I won’t protect you?” He makes it sound so dangerous, doubting him.
A reply I can’t swallow down springs to my lips. “What happens now?”
“Now…” He rolls his head along his shoulders, the closest I figure he can get to a casual shrug. “Have you consider what I asked you before?”
“What?”
“You can watch me beat a man to death…but can you give me your trust?” The way he speaks—strained and guttural—makes a part of me tremble. “Could you trust your life to me? No, I don’t think you could.” He shakes his head. “But the day you give me your trust—your full trust. There is nothing that I would deny you.”
A dare? It’s easier to focus on the mocking dip in his tone than the rest. His honesty is like a shotgun blast—lethal at point-blank range. I could test him like he said. Ask for something insane. Outrageous. Make him give me a response.
“So…” I swallow to clear my throat. “So, if I asked you for a million dollars—”
“You ask me for what you need. I will give it to you,” he warns.
So, in other words, yes. If I needed a million dollars, he’d give it to me, in theory. The thought of that blows my mind.
He can’t possibly mean it.
But the funny part is that, the longer I stare into his gaze, the more it seems like he does.
“So…how do I?” I croak. Trust you.
He comes to stand before me, his head cocked slightly to the side, those eyes fathomless. “Come here.”
Holding my breath, I stand and approach him.
“Trust means nothing more than surrender,” he explains. “I’m not asking for anything more than that. You. So get on your knees. Prove it to me.”
On my knees. Prove it. He doesn’t have to spell it out. My tongue slides along my lower lip, even as my instinct goes to war with logic.
Instinct wins: obey. I sink to my knees and shift toward him. He stays standing, though he spreads his legs wider when I reach for the fly of his slacks. With one tug on the zipper, his cock springs free. He’s hard already. I can barely fit my lips around the swelling crown.
The moment my tongue cradles his shaft, I realize that this isn’t like all the other times I’ve sucked him off. I hesitate for the space of a second, but he never grunts out any harsh commands. No orders to deepthroat. His hand grips my scalp instead, more for reinforcement th
an anything, driving the truth into my skull.
He’s here. My goal is to pleasure him. Nothing else…
There are no dollar bills to mask my shame with. No salary to make it worth it. Just the slim knowledge that as long as I give him what he wants, he’ll do the same.
Trust, I guess.
Slowly, I let my tongue drift up and down his length before spreading my lips around him again.
“Fuck,” he grunts, the vibration rumbling through him.
With each suck, his grip tightens, pulling loose strands of hair. Ripping them out. It isn’t long before he’s pulsing at the entrance of my throat, demanding I take him in. All of him. Deep. Deeper…
For the second time, I have the same suspicion: Violence must turn him on. He’s even thicker now. Straining. Some rabid impulse spurs me on, making me hollow my cheeks around him. I know he’s at the edge when a burst of precum floods my tongue, ripe with his taste. Just when he starts to tense beneath me, his grip on my hair becomes a vise.
“Enough.”
Before I can let him go, he drags me upright. My eyes flutter, taking in bits and pieces of the room—but he’s already shoving me face down onto the mattress.
“Stay like this,” he growls into my ear.
Drugged on anticipation, my brain struggles to interpret what he means. Oh. Like this: prone, at his mercy. His.
“Just like this…”
A sharp nip on my earlobe sends a jolt through me as his erection throbs against my inner thigh. Grasping, his hand travels down my hip to nudge my legs apart before guiding his length inside me.
One hard thrust and he’s as deep as this position will allow. Fathomless. I can’t even begin to silence my cry. So I don’t, letting the sound ring out.
I squeeze my eyes shut, surrendering my body to the pace he sets. Fast. Slow. Slower. I come even before he spills himself inside me, and then I float back down to Earth just in time to feel the bed shift with his weight.
With his fingers in my hair, he tugs me toward him. Gnashing teeth meet my lips in a flurry, prying them apart, tearing me open. Kissing him always feels more penetrating than the sex. More intimate.
I’m breathing his air, inhaling his scent, and there is no boundary to negate the intensity.
He crushes me down, claiming my mouth with more ruthless need than he ever has my body. Harder. Deeper. I’m a writhing mass of sensation as muscle and bone react to his touch like a magnet. We’re intertwined, skin on skin. Eager for more, I shift against him, sinking my fingers into his hair.
His words echo in my skull, a mocking taunt. I can give you what you need.
And maybe I want it: all of him.
Every inch.
Everything.
Something broken and unwarranted slips from my lips, mingling with his satisfied growl as his teeth nip at my jaw. “Maxim…”
Panting, he draws back, his gaze meeting mine, and my heart stops. He’s beautiful like this. He’s terrifying like this—because he’s too close. My thoughts scatter and I almost forget the truth of why I’m here. Why he’s kept me with him.
Necessity.
This is just a game, but I can’t stop myself from dragging my fingers along the planes of his face anyway, adding more bullets to the barrel of this dangerous round of roulette. There’s no pain in this moment to get me high. No thoughts of money in my head. Just him. And he’s enough. I’m not just a desperate hooker anymore.
“Maxim—”
“No!” Suddenly, he wrenches back as if electrocuted. Within seconds, he’s at the other end of the room. His chest heaves, muscle rippling with every breath he takes.
Our gazes reconnect and my blood runs cold at what I find in his: nothing. Not lust. Not hate.
Just shadow, dark enough to paralyze me despite the haze of sex weighing me down like a cloud.
His lips twitch, preparing to say something.
But, without a word, he turns and leaves, slamming the door in his wake.
My heart won’t stop pounding and sweat pours off my skin, dampening the sheets beneath me. The man is bipolar—I know that.
Even so…I did this.
Someway, somehow, I crossed a line.
And I know he’ll punish me for it.
Chapter Five
I wake up alone. Without Maxim.
Without anyone.
When the sunlight starts to stream in through the windows, I get dressed, picking out a simple gray dress that seems like the safest choice. For what feels like hours, I sit on my bed, waiting. The second I hear the door to the suite finally open, I’m on my feet, creeping into the foyer—but rather than Maxim, I find Lucius waiting for me.
“Mr. Koslov thought you’d enjoy spending time with your family today,” he says, smiling.
It’s funny. I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like: spending time with them.
When I finally reach the house, they’re sprawled over the living room, spilling snacks all over the floor—crumbs that Ainsley promptly grinds into the floor as she rushes to greet me.
“You’re back!”
Back. Like I was away long enough for my absence to be noticed. But maybe I was…
Ollie and Ray clear a space for me on the couch while Daisy and Mikie launch into descriptions of their new school, and the reminder cuts into my psyche like a lance. Maxim.
All of this is possible only because of him.
They’re safe, only because of him…
Hours later, Ainsley’s in the middle of reading me a story when Lucius receives a phone call. One look at the screen and he chooses to answer it in the hallway—but even from the living room, I catch snippets of his conversation.
“What? So soon?” He sounds startled, and he lowers his tone. “No. You shouldn’t go alone, but I will go with you. Sir, I—you know that these matters are private. Delicate. No, I’m not questioning you, sir. I… Are you sure?”
He repeats that last phrase at least three times. Are you sure?
To Lucius’ credit, he’s smiling when he appears in the doorway and motions for me—but it’s one of those strained smiles typically worn by a used-car salesman who knows that the old Buick he’s trying to sell you might blow up if you take it for a test drive.
“Mr. Koslov requests your presence,” he says, leading the way to the door.
During the ride over to the suite, he says nothing. Though, when I finally climb out of the car, I find him watching me through the windshield. He’s frowning, his mouth taut, and recognition runs down my spine as I trip onto the curb. It’s an expression I’ve seen only once before: after Maxim beat a man to death in front of an entire roomful of people.
That helpless, resigned sort of look. “Goodbye, Ms. Marconi.”
My stomach is in knots when I stagger into the building, but I try to shake the feeling off as I head up to the suite. A minute later, the elevator doors part to reveal a figure pacing in the hallway.
Maxim snarls, each syllable reverberating like thunder. “Do you think you can dictate to me?”
Instinct overrides everything else. I stagger back, but before I can choke out a pathetic defense, I notice the cell phone pressed against his ear. He’s dressed casually—another warning sign. On second thought, maybe the look is more ironic than anything. The black shirt and slacks help him cut an imposing silhouette against the wall and accentuate his blank, hard expression: a fallen angel in limbo.
“I’m not a dog,” he growls into the speaker of the phone, directing the venom at whoever is on the other end. “No one calls me to heel. Tell him that I will come in my own time.” In a violent motion, he winds his arm up like a baseball pitcher and hurls the phone. A second later, it shatters against the wall. “You.” His gaze hones in on me, trapping me against wood and metal.
I swallow hard, rocking onto my heels. There are so many things about this man that I’m beginning to understand. Like when he’s furious. Or when he’s uneasy. Surprise, surprise, both emotions waft from him now. Which
one is more dangerous?
Who the fuck knows.
“Come.” Without another word, he heads for the private stairwell rather than the elevator. One of his hands wrenches the door open so hard that it slams against the wall, which startles out the breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. “I said come.”
My fingers rush to smooth the skirt of my dress as I follow him down to the bottom level: the garage. Rather than approach his own car, Maxim leads me out to the front of the building, where Lucius’ driver has pulled another vehicle around. Without hesitation, Maxim claims the back seat, motioning for me to as well.
“Sir?” the driver asks once the door closes behind us.
Minutes tick by before Maxim answers. He sprawls out over his end of the seat, glaring at the nearby buildings and streets the same way he eyes his battered blocks of stone, chisel in hand. That cold frown tugs on his lower lip; it’s the one he typically displays when he’s looking for a weak spot to pummel into submission.
“The house in Black Briar,” he says before the suspicion can finish unfurling in my mind. His eyes flashing, he rests his head back against the seat, radiating exhaustion and annoyance in one swift motion. “You know the one.”
“Yes, sir.” The driver nods, and not even ten minutes later, we arrive before an imposing brownstone—this one in an even more exclusive part of the city, secluded behind an iron gate.
From the front of it alone, I can’t tell what sort of person might live here. Just that they value their privacy. A lot, judging by the men lurking around the edges of the estate. They eye the car warily, their hands on their pockets.
If I thought Maxim might explain why we’re here, I was wrong. He simply observes the property before finally climbing out of the car. One of his hands snatches my wrist, pulling me after him.
“Come.”
It’s a short trip up a narrow stone walkway to reach the front door. Maxim knocks once. Not even a second later, a woman wearing a black uniform opens the door. Her graying hair neatly tied back into a bun.
“Mr. Koslov.” She bows her head in respect and then scurries deeper into the house. A whispered statement floats back to us, uttered cautiously. “He’s expecting you.”
