His belly knotted. His arms tightened, trying to surround her with his strength. He wanted to shelter her next to his heart, the feeling of tenderness nearly overwhelming him. Simultaneously, he wanted to rip out her uncle’s heart and feed it to him. He wouldn’t mind spending a few hours making the man’s life unbearable until he begged for death. The two emotions warred with each other, and he worried that she would see that in him as well.
“He doesn’t have multiple sclerosis. That’s why he wouldn’t allow my father to talk to his doctor, or for me to ever see him ill. He went into his wing of the house and left to go to his family. I had to study night and day. Languages, reading maps, everything that could possibly help me along with my regular studies. Every type of weapons training and styles of martial arts, boxing and street fighting. I didn’t play with dolls or watch television, not unless it was a training exercise. All the while, he ranted about going after those responsible and how no law would ever bring them to justice. All along I thought I was the patient one, insisting we go slow and make everything look like an accident, but looking back at the conversations, he led me in that direction.”
Casimir nodded. He was certain her uncle had the patience to carry out a long-term plan to reach his ultimate goal, which was to be the sole power of both families. Luigi wouldn’t have been able to take over both families immediately. If Aldo Porcelli and his father had been killed right away, even his wife would have suspected him. By slowly reducing the old guard, and then going after the men in charge, Luigi had positioned himself, over time, to be the natural choice for head of the family. He would have had to plant the necessary lies in his niece’s mind in order to make her think it was all her own idea.
“He sometimes sent me to boarding schools. Not for very long, but he said it was to gain an insight into other people. It never made sense to me. I was with other children. Gaining insights to how a child’s mind worked didn’t seem as if it was going to help me later down the road. Of course he was with his family during those times. It was his idea that I go to the States. Again, he needed me out of the way.”
“You’re intelligent, Giacinta. He couldn’t take the chance that you might see or hear something he didn’t want you to. You trusted him implicitly, but he still didn’t dare chance it.”
She took a deep breath and her gaze dropped to his throat. “Maybe you should get clear of all of this, Casimir. I have to see it through. I started something a long time ago, and I’m going to finish it.”
He shook his head, his hand sliding up her back, beneath her long hair to curl around the nape of her neck. “Look at me, golubushka.” He waited until she lifted her gaze back to his. “I’m not going anywhere. We’re in this together. You may not want me right now, or trust me, but you need me. You’re mine, and I’m going to protect you and help you through this. The best way to do that is to show you who and what I am. You’ll see into my mind. I won’t be able to hide from you. Not anything. You have to be able to count on at least one person right now. Your sisters are a long way away, so you’ve got me. Only me. And, Giacinta, I’m more than up for whatever has to be done.”
He was looking forward to it. No job had ever been personal for him. This was. Still, he was a man of control. He was fire inside. He always had been, but he could twist those flames to be whatever he needed. He’d learned restraint from the many lessons of his youth. He was able to use the fire to his advantage, keeping it smoldering and under control all these years. The first loss of control he’d experienced since the days of his boyhood had been this night with Lissa in his bed.
Once more he took her wrist and turned her palm up to him, laying it over his bare thigh. He didn’t wait for consent. He didn’t want her to struggle with her decision. She was trying to protect him, and he didn’t need that from her. He needed trust. He turned up his own palm and took her other hand and pressed her thumb hard into the exact center, then repeated the action with his own thumb on her upturned palm.
At once the connection arced through both of them, much like an electrical current. The sizzle started in their palms and forked outward, spreading along pathways, nerve endings, straight toward their brains. He felt her in his mind and deliberately, he forced himself to open to her, to allow her access to his memories, to everything he was, both good and bad. He wanted her always. He didn’t hide that from her. He wanted a home and a family with her. He wanted everything with her, and he was ruthless enough to take it. To protect it. He didn’t try to keep that from her either.
His past flooded her mind. Memories of his mother and father. He’d been so young, but he’d been traumatized, just as she’d been, by their ugly deaths. He’d been ripped from his brothers, so frightened, just a young boy, beaten and threatened, humiliated and tortured to keep him off-balance and afraid of those who held power over him. Unashamed, he left himself open for her to see everything.
Casimir Prakenskii, like his brothers, had been forged in the fires of hell. Lissa wanted to weep for the young boy – for all of them. She’d suffered trauma when her parents and those she loved had been murdered, but her torment had been swift and then over. Casimir’s hadn’t ended for years. He’d been caned, whipped, had electrical shock applied. He’d even been water-boarded.
Training sexually should have been at least pleasurable, but it was all about performance and control. If he failed to control his arousal, he was beaten severely. If the woman failed to arouse him, she was beaten. Sickened, Lissa nearly pulled her thumb away, but then his memories of work were there. Years of being alone. Lissa had never really felt completely alone, not like he did.
She saw the many roles he’d played in order to get close to his targets. He’d hunted with great efficiency and patience. He’d refined his skills over the years, relentless in his pursuit and yet never hurrying or making a mistake. Consequently, he had a perfect record. He was sent out and didn’t stop until the job was done. She couldn’t help but admire his skills.
Still, along the way, with as many hits as he’d made, things had been bound to go wrong. He bore those scars. The worst were on his face and scalp and had come from a fellow student targeted because the man had switched sides. He’d begun working for the Russian mob, using his skills for monetary gain. The elder Sorbacov hadn’t liked that.
Lissa held her breath as that particular memory unfolded and she saw the weapon the target had used to try to take Casimir’s head off. The man had forged the blades, curving them to fit over a skull and face like a mask. He wielded it as a sword, slamming the cage of sharpened steel onto his victims in order to hold them in place for the kill. The more they struggled, the deeper the blades penetrated.
Casimir hadn’t struggled. He’d allowed the assassin to pull him close and he’d struck with his own blade. It had taken longer to remove the mask of blades from his face and skull than it had to kill his opponent. Who had that kind of discipline? What would it take to be that man who could have his face and skull slashed to pieces, blood running everywhere, and calmly kill his attacker and remove the horrible device?
Then she was seeing past the roles, into Casimir, where he hid that last little piece of himself. He was loyal to a fault. He’d chosen her. His angel. He thought of her that way. His angel of justice. A sword honed for a good cause. He considered himself the darkest devil, a demon forged in the fires of hell. He had that fire burning in him, never to be put out. She shook her head at the way he looked at both of them.
Still, for all that, he wanted no other woman. There was only the real woman – Giacinta Abbracciabene – in his mind. In his soul. Somehow, she had crawled in where no one else had ever been. She’d slipped past his guard and was firmly entrenched. She was his choice. He gave her his heart completely. Utterly. Absolutely. His loyalty to his brothers ran deep, a choice he’d made long ago, but his loyalty to her was all encompassing. There was no way to deny it. He couldn’t fake that.
Lissa didn’t understand the connection between them. Why he would
want her. Why she would be his choice so completely. How he knew and accepted the fact. But she couldn’t deny the connection, nor could she deny the way she felt about him. Maybe it all happened too fast, but she didn’t care. She’d wanted him before the mess she was in, now she wanted him even more. Someone in her life had to be real. He saw her. He thought her extraordinary. He accepted the real Giacinta.
He’d made himself completely vulnerable to her so she refused to do less. She gave him – her. Everything she was. He was her choice. She had made that decision when she gave him her body. This was different. This was more. She made the choice to give him her heart and soul. Her loyalty. All of it. No matter how little time they had, or how much, she wouldn’t take that back.
She let him see her childhood. Luigi had been cold at first, unable to even kiss her or comfort her, but she’d put that down to the awkwardness of a man who didn’t have children or a family. His affection came over time, slow and distant, occasional hugs, with Lissa always initiating contact. She had thought she was teaching him how to show affection.
She gave him everything. The terrible loneliness. The guilt that she couldn’t find all those who had participated in killing her family. The love she had for her chosen sisters. The fear when Luigi sent her away to the United States. The careful planning of each target and her reaction after. Casimir walked away coolly, the job done. She spent hours throwing up in the bathroom. Still, her determination to bring the killers to justice was every bit as strong as his resolve to do his job to the best of his ability – and stay alive.
She gave him how she felt about him. The chemistry. The exhilaration of feeling such an attraction to him. Of having him recognize and see her. The emotions burning inside of her, fiery hot, passionate, blazing with hunger for him. Just him. Fear that it wasn’t real. Fear that like everyone else in her life, he would disappear. Fear that her sisters would find out who she was and think her a monster.
Casimir closed his eyes and let himself relax for the first time since he’d realized her uncle had to be behind the killing of her family. Lissa accepted him as he was. The real Casimir Prakenskii with his unredeemable sins. She saw into him and still had that fiery craving for him. His woman. She would take the bad with the good.
He lifted her palm to his mouth and kissed the faded mark very gently. He was a man forged in hell. There shouldn’t have been gentleness or tenderness. The fire in him alone should have precluded those emotions, yet with Lissa, they were his first emotions. He was already an addict when it came to her. The craving for getting as close to her as possible, for her taste, for her body. It was all there, but wrapped up in his deeper emotions.
She leaned into him, still holding his palm, her thumb pressed there. Her long lashes fluttered. He loved her lashes. Thick. Red gold. Feathery and turned up, surrounding deep blue, very vibrant eyes. Her hair fell around her like a curtain of fire. “Thank you for being here. I would never have suspected him and in the end, he would have killed me. You saved me.” In more ways than one.
He heard the echo of her thought just as if she’d spoken aloud to him. He was very aware of the legacy in his family, the ability to talk to each other telepathically once they were connected by that psychic thread. He hadn’t realized just how intimate that would be, her voice whispering in his mind, touching him inside, driving away every vestige of loneliness.
That soft whisper brought his body to life, his cock stirring hungrily. He lifted her off his lap and tucked her under the covers. She was exhausted mentally, emotionally and physically. “You need sleep, golubushka.”
She shook her head, not lifting it from the pillow. “I can’t sleep here. He can’t know about us. He’d come after you, Casimir. You know I’m right.”
“I know I have to keep you safe. I want you with me, so there’s no chance he tries to arrange an accident early. I’ll watch over you, let you sleep a couple of hours, and then I want you again. After that, you can slip back into your room and we’ll get ready for the day. You’ll have to insist on Tomasso being with you, not Arturo. Find a reason.”
Casimir slid down in the bed, curling his body around hers, hooking her around the waist and pulling her into him until she was partially under him. He waited for her to relax, to melt into him in the way she did when she accepted him. It took a little longer than he expected and he found himself smiling. Lissa wasn’t a woman to blindly obey. She would think out every decision for herself. He knew he was a controlling man, but he liked that she wasn’t a woman to be controlled. It would make for fireworks, occasionally, but he could live with that.
She fell asleep fast, drifting off with a small sigh, leaving him wrapped around her, indulging himself by letting his fingers caress her skin just below her breasts, occasionally brushing the undersides just because they were so soft and he could. Her hair smelled wonderful, a faint, almost elusive scent he knew he would never grow tired of.
First, before any of the others, they had to get to the dog handler. He had a few questions for the man. He wanted absolute confirmation before they proceeded with any plans. He was positive he was right and Luigi Abbracciabene was a treacherous snake of the worst kind, but he wanted proof for Lissa. He would get that proof for her – for both of them. If they were correct and Luigi was guilty, then while she reported her successful removing of Cosmos Agosto, he was going to take care of Arturo. He didn’t want to be nice about it either. With Luigi being Lissa’s alibi when Arturo died, her uncle wouldn’t suspect her of making a move against him.
Lissa moved, her body pulling in on itself, knees curling, drawing up so that she was in the fetal position. He tightened his hold possessively. She made a soft sound of distress in her sleep.
“Shh, lyubov moya, you’re safe. I’ve got you. You’re safe with me.” He stroked caresses down the back of her head in an effort to soothe her.
Another small sound escaped and with a sinking heart, he realized she was weeping in her sleep. That tore him up. He lay there in the dark, holding her close, whispering to her in Russian, tempted to sing her a Russian lullaby, and all the while he planned out Luigi’s death. If he’d ever once thought to prolong a death, or torture someone, it would have been Luigi.
“You’re breaking my heart, Giacinta,” he whispered against her ear. “You have to stop.” He was growing desperate. He wasn’t a man who felt desperate, and yet, there it was, she was turning him inside out.
He cupped her breast, his thumb sliding gently over her nipple while he nudged the thick mass of hair from the nape of her neck so he could kiss his way across that tempting strip of skin. The soft weeping continued, but she turned from her side to her back so he could make out the distress on her face. The deep sense of betrayal. Grief for her lost family. She’d accepted the fact that her uncle had been the man behind the murders of her family. She knew Luigi had spared her in order to shape her into a weapon to use to further his cause. She also knew he had no choice but to kill her when the last obstacle in his path to become head of both families was removed.
Casimir wanted to weep along with her. That kind of treachery was beyond measure – beyond comprehension. He found it took all of his discipline, every bit of his control, not to stalk downstairs and put a bullet in the man’s head. Instead he bent his head and brushed his lips across hers. Her face was tear-wet.
“Giacinta. Lyubov moya, open your eyes for me.”
The terrible emptiness swallowing her whole receded just a little, pushed aside by the velvet caressing voice breaking into her endless loop of a nightmare. Lissa wanted to reach for the voice, but she couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t break free, not when she was so broken, pieces of her scattered on the ground all around her. Luigi had done that. Her beloved uncle.
She had worried about him for so long. Every time she came to see him, he had to spend time alone in the wing of his house suffering with his bout of multiple sclerosis. Now she knew: while she worried, he spent time with his wife and family so he would have an
alibi when she took down another member of the Porcelli family. He’d left her with nothing at all.
“Come on, malyshka, look at me. I’m right here. Nothing can get to you. They’ll have to walk through me to do it. Open your eyes. Come back to me.”
That voice. Mesmerizing. Hypnotic. Impossible to ignore. Rough and sexy. Pitched low so that the sound sank through skin to her bones, branding her. Forcing out the nightmare – only it wasn’t a terrible dream. Betrayal and treachery were realities in her life. If she opened her eyes, even for him, for Casimir, she would have to face those things. She would have to admit defeat, that her uncle had won. He’d broken her when not even the deaths of her parents had done that.
“Giacinta.” The voice changed tone. Commanding. No longer coaxing. “You have to look at me.”
She didn’t want to obey. He would see she was an empty shell, that Luigi had managed to destroy her. Still, there was no way to ignore that tone. Lissa lifted her lashes, her heart so heavy she feared it was a stone in her chest. She felt him there. Casimir Prakenskii. Her rock when the world had shifted out from under her so hard and fast. A deep chasm had opened under her feet, threatening to drag her under, drowning her, and there he was.
She stared up at his face. Strong. Masculine. Cut beautifully, like a Greek sculpture, every line perfect. Strong jaw. That hint of a dark shadow. Long lashes. Glittering eyes so mercurial they stole her breath. His mouth drew her attention, his lips sinful, a wicked promise of pleasure she knew he was more than capable of keeping. Mostly, she saw strength in him.
Fire Bound (Sea Haven Sisters Page 13
