by Leslie North
“Does this conversation have a point?” Kaz said, his voice flat despite his pulse slamming loud in his ears. He had no doubt Salko would savor each moment of his pain and suffering. The sick fucker. Still, he was beyond caring if he was being disrespectful. Any respect he might’ve had for Salko had disappeared a long time ago. He stared down at the straight flush in his hand then at the large pot of poker chips at the center of the table, raking in another two grand from his win. “I’m kind of busy. If you think you can take me, have at it, asshole.”
Salko chuckled, a rough guttural noise brimming with insanity. “Don’t be an idiot. Torture, my friend, takes many forms. I don’t have to hurt you directly to make you suffer. I know you’re fucking the girl, Danny’s sister. Allie is her name, yes?”
Kaz stiffened in his seat, a muscle ticking near his tight jaw. “You watched us? You’re even more depraved than I thought.”
“You think you can outsmart me, Volkov, but you can’t. Even now, as you sit in that filthy lounge playing poker, I see that you have a good hand. I know what you’re going to do even before you do it, you pathetic piece of shit. So here’s how this is going to go down.”
Swallowing hard, Kaz placed his cards face down on the table and stood, walking to a far corner of the room to hear better, adrenaline pumping hot and fast through his bloodstream.
“Someone still has to deal with Danny Charman by his deadline. And seeing how the rest of his shithead family dotes on him, I’m guessing they’re going to be pretty upset when he winds up face down in a gutter somewhere, drowning in his own blood. So, I suppose I’ll have to take them all out too. Wouldn’t do to have them making a stink about the murder.”
“I swear to God, if you fucking touch one hair on her head I’ll—” Kaz growled, not caring who heard him.
“You’ll what?” Salko taunted. “Beat me up like you did Danny? I’m not scared, Volkov. Not at all. You’re weak and you’re soft and you’re pathetic, just like the rest of your family. Your father was like that too, such a fainthearted bastard. I couldn’t stand the fucking sight of him. The day he died was the best day of my life. Good riddance.”
Kaz gripped his cell phone so tight the plastic protective case cracked. Salko had just signed his own death warrant with those words. Bad enough he was threatening the woman Kaz cared for. To insult his father was to insult Kaz personally. They might not be as close as they once were, but in the Bratva, family was everything. Vengeance would be his and Salko would pay.
Shaking with rage, he hung up, not bothering to say anything more. He had to protect Allie first and foremost. Avenging his family’s honor would come later. But in order to do that, he needed to get back to her apartment.
He quickly walked back to the table and collected his winnings before taking a last drag off the bourbon bottle. Strength and fortitude. That’s what it would take to beat Salko. That’s what he prayed for as he walked to the door and through the pawn shop, heading for his Chevy in the parking lot. As he weaved his way through evening Chicago traffic back toward the north side, he kept glancing at the dashboard clock. It was going on six p.m. now. His deadline to deal with Danny Charman was noon the next day. Friday. Which gave him eighteen hours to come up with a plan to save both himself and Allie and get Salko off her brother’s back for good. He’d also need ammo and as much back up as he could muster from his loyal friends in the Bratva and also his half-brothers if he planned to make a stand. There were several shotguns and a couple of semi-automatic handguns in the trunk of the Cutlass, along with a box of bullets and extra magazines, but maybe that wasn’t the best course of action. The last thing he wanted was for Allie to get caught in the crossfire.
As he headed across the Chicago River and toward her apartment, he passed a travel agency. Maybe they could get out of town. Living on the run wasn’t ideal—he knew the Bratva would never stop looking—but if it kept them alive until they came up with something better, he’d do it. By the time he’d parallel parked near the curb several blocks away from Allie’s place and made sure he had his sidearm fully loaded from the rear of the car, Kaz made his way down the sidewalk, glad for the cover of night and shadows to make it harder for anyone to follow him.
He took a circuitous route, not wanting to give Salko any advantage, though given the fact Salko obviously already knew where Allie lived if he’d watched them make love—which made Kaz’s skin crawl—he wasn’t sure it would do any good. He entered Allie’s building through a back service entrance and used the stairs instead of the elevator to avoid detection. Standing on her doorstep, out of breath and out of time, he ran a hand through his disheveled hair then knocked twice, praying he’d reached her before Salko had.
She answered the door slowly, peering out at him through a crack left by the security chain. “What do you want?”
“We need to talk.”
“I’ve got nothing to say to you.” She glared at him, her hazel eyes sparkling bright olive green and her cheeks flushed. “Danny’s not here.”
“Then we need to find him fast. Salko’s going to kill him on sight, so we need to get out of town.” He tried to push her door open further so he could get inside, but she wasn’t budging. Frustrated and rattled, Kaz leaned close catching a whiff of her expensive floral perfume and savoring it despite the circumstances. “Now, let me in, goddammit.”
Several tense seconds passed before she reluctantly reached up and slid the chain free so he could enter her apartment. When he walked in, he saw the mess he’d made earlier fighting with Danny had been cleaned up. He also saw her brother still there, sleeping on the couch his bruised and battered face looking far worse than it had that morning. The black jagged zig-zags of his stiches contrasted sharply with his pale skin and dark purple bloomed from beneath the bandages on his swollen nose. Kaz looked back at Allie over his shoulder, scowling. “You lied.”
“Yeah, I did,” she said, walking over to stand beside her brother, clearly stating her side. “Now start talking before I throw you out.”
The flicker of hurt in Kaz’s eyes squeezed Allie’s chest, but she refused to give in. She was too pissed off at him. Yes, they’d discussed him beating up Danny to put on a good show for his boss, but they’d also discussed not causing her brother any permanent injury. After Kaz had stormed out earlier, she’d pulled on her clothes and hauled her brother’s ass to the nearest urgent care clinic for treatment. Thirty-seven stitches and a resetting and splinting of his broken nose later, Danny was in no fit shape to feed himself, let alone get into another brawl with Kaz. He was bruised and battered and on some pretty strong pain meds.
“Why are you back here?” she demanded, putting herself between Kaz and her brother. The thought she’d spent the night with Kaz, shared her body and her bed with him only made her feel more conflicted and confused. “If you try and hurt him again I’ll call the cops.”
Kaz exhaled slowly, his harsh gaze never leaving hers. “I’m here because we need to get out of Chicago.” His eyes flickered to Danny, who was snoring on the sofa now, his head back and his mouth open, bruised eyes closed. “All of us are in danger. Salko wanted to punish me.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Bad enough my business is in jeopardy. I won’t lose my home too.” She crossed her arms and gave him a stubborn stare. “Besides, thanks to you, Danny’s in no condition to travel. Anyway, it’s his loan, not yours. Salko would kill him whether you were involved or not because he hasn’t paid it back.”
“Nyet.” Kaz walked over to nudge Danny’s leg and wake him up. Danny returned to consciousness slowly then scrambled away from Kaz quickly to get to Allie’s side. “Dead clients don’t pay. Salko might be cruel and violent, but he’s also greedy. Normally, he wants his money, so he doesn’t kill those who owe him. Not until they settle their accounts. But this case is different.”
Allie put a comforting hand on her brother’s shoulder and didn’t budge, despite Kaz moving closer to her. So close, in fact, that his heat and the spicy
scent of his cologne mixed with the faint smell of cigarettes surrounded her. She wondered where he’d gone after he’d left her apartment but didn’t dare ask. Most likely she didn’t want to know. “Why is this case different?”
At her question, he cursed under his breath and turned away. “Because of me.”
“Why?” she asked again, sensing there was more to his story.
“Because Salko has discovered I’m vulnerable. He knows he can use you and Danny to hurt me.”
“Hurt you?” She frowned. “How could what happens to us possibly hurt you?”
Kaz gave a sad chuckle and slumped down into an empty chair, dropping his head into his hands. “Salko thinks I’m soft. He’s been with the Bratva a long time and he knows my past. He knows about my father walking out on my mother and me to start a new family, a better family. He knows how that affected me, how I’ve spent my life since then trying to prove myself.”
His words broke her heart, for the abandoned little boy he’d been and for the wounded man he was now. Still, she kept silent, her heart pounding and her nerves zinging as she waited to hear the rest of his story. Her instincts told her whatever he was going to say next would be important.
“The day I walked into Charmante, I knew you would be trouble for me. You were too smart, too successful, too beautiful for a man like me, yet still I wanted you. I never should have touched you, never should’ve met with you after that. I should have given you my warning, given you an ultimatum, and been done with it. You pay or your brother will. The end.” Kaz raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “But I couldn’t. I couldn’t seem to stay away from you, Allie. Even though I knew it would be better for both of us if I did. Then I kissed you and I knew.”
“Knew what?” she asked, her voice shaking nearly as bad as her knees.
“Knew that I was in far more danger from you than I ever was from Salko.” He looked up at her then and from the emotion in his gaze—repentance, affection, desperation, need—she knew the truth, knew that he cared, even if he didn’t want to. Even if it might mean death for both of them. He cared. A lot.
All her life she’d waited for someone to make her feel important, make her feel like she mattered just as much as Danny did, maybe more. Now, here was the last guy on earth she should ever want to get involved with saying all the right things. “I-I don’t know what to say.”
Allie collapsed into the chair across from his, vaguely registering Danny’s alarmed expression as his eyes darted between the two of them.
“Wait a minute,” Danny said. “The two of you are romantically involved?”
“Your sister and I have slept together, yes.”
“Son of a—” Danny snarled, launching himself at Kaz again, only to have Allie grab his arm and haul him back down onto the sofa.
“Stop it!” she yelled, heat flaming in her cheeks. “There’s been enough violence here today. Kaz and I had sex once. That’s it. It was mutual. Now it’s over.” She didn’t look at Kaz as she said it, not sure she’d be able to fool him as easily as she could her brother. There was a lot of chaos between her and Kaz right now, but one thing was certain. Whatever that connection between them was, it most definitely was not over. At last she turned back to Kaz, her gaze lowered. “I still don’t see how your personal feelings would factor into Salko’s decision, unless you told him how you feel about me, which I highly doubt you’d—”
“He saw us. In bed together.”
It took a moment for the words to penetrate Allie’s beleaguered brain. “What?”
“Salko has spies everywhere, watching me. He saw us and he knows I care for you. He’s planning to use that against me to settle his beef with me over how I handle business for him. He doesn’t agree with my collection practices, of me paying for my clients when they can’t. In Salko’s eyes, that makes me soft and weak.”
She shook her head, stunned. Any normal, rational person would see those traits in Kaz as strengths—compassion, loyalty, kindness. Then again, obviously Salko wasn’t normal or rational. He was a violent, psychopathic scumbag who enjoyed hurting others. “Can’t you go to his boss, the rest of your Bratva and explain the situation? Tell them Salko’s gone crazy and is trying to kill you? You said your family has been loyal members of the Bratva for years. That has to count for something, right? Surely they’d choose your side over his.”
“It doesn’t work like that.” He pushed to his feet and began to pace the room. “First of all, snitches are frowned upon in the mafia. Second, Salko holds a higher position than me. There’s no way they’d choose to believe me over him.”
Allie caught his arm as he passed her, needing to touch him, needing to reassure him. “Maybe they would.” At his incredulous look, she faced him, placing her hand over his thudding heart. “Listen, I’ve only known you a few days and already I can see that you’re tough and strong and brave. You have a good head for business and good instincts in a fight.” She glanced over at Danny and winced. As badly as he’d been beaten, even she had to admit it could’ve been so much worse. Kaz had pulled his punches. He’d told her the truth and kept his promise, no matter how much she’d tried to claim otherwise. “These men in the Bratva have known you their whole lives, they knew your father, have watched you grow into the fine, capable man you are today. Why wouldn’t they choose you over a scumbag like Salko?”
Kaz pulled away from her, his expression flat. “You didn’t choose me either. You picked Danny this morning after the fight, and you would pick having your shop open and thriving over me any day of the week. As it should be.”
“No.” She blocked his path when he tried to turn away from her again. “You’re wrong, Kaz. I didn’t choose my brother over you. He needed my help and I was angry, yes. But that doesn’t diminish the connection between us. And while I love my shop and enjoy running my business, it doesn’t keep me warm at night.”
He blinked down at her fingers on his chest, then up at her, the look in his eyes inquiring, gentle, hesitant. “I don’t understand.”
“Believe it or not, my heart is big enough for all three of you—my brother, my work, and you, Kaz.” She smiled, her eyes stinging with tears. She never cried, but damn. This was making her far more emotional than she ever would’ve imagined. “Until a few days ago, I never dreamed I’d give up my shop, but for my brother, for you? I would in an instant. Danny’s my family, I will always care for him, no matter what.” Danny cleared his throat then got up and moved to the kitchen to give them some privacy. Kaz started to pull away again, but she stopped him, cupping his cheeks this time to force him to look at her. “I care for you too, Kaz. I never would’ve slept with you if I didn’t. That’s just not me. And I won’t ever give up on you either, do you understand that? I fight for the things I care about and I will battle tooth and nail for you from now on. You and Danny and my business. You’re all in my heart together.”
Kaz remained silent for so long, just looking at her, that she feared something might’ve been lost in translation. But then he swept her up into his arms and kissed her so deeply and thoroughly that she felt it all the way to her toes. When they were done, Allie peeked over to see Danny watching them with a resigned look.
“Really, sis?” He shook his head, then winced and raised a hand to his nose. “That’s who you pick?”
“Don’t give me any shit about my life choices, buddy.” She turned in Kaz’s arms, her back to his hard, warm chest. “In fact, after all the crap you’ve put me and our parents through over the years, I’d say you lost your vote on what anyone else does with their life a long time ago. You’re the reason we’re all in this mess to begin with, so if I were you, I’d shut my mouth and start following orders. Got it?”
Danny scowled and crossed his arms, then nodded. “Fine.”
“Fine.” Allie turned back to Kaz again. “Right. So, what do we do now?”
“I don’t know yet, kotenok.” He took a seat and pulled her down into his lap, ignoring her brother’s dis
gusted glare. “If we go after Salko ourselves, we risk angering the rest of the Bratva.”
“But if we don’t, then they’ll come after us, after you.”
Kaz held her gaze.
“No. I won’t let you sacrifice yourself,” Allie said, her tone vehement. “There has to be another way. We just have to find it.”
5
Allie
The next morning, Allie awoke alone. She’d been hesitant when Kaz had offered to spend the night at her place. Not that she didn’t want him there, but with Danny staying with her too, it made things a bit awkward. But they’d needed to plan how they were going to deal with Salko, and maybe it was just her, but she felt safer with Kaz around.
She got up and made the bed, then hurried through a shower and dressing before heading out of the kitchen, the tantalizing smells of bacon and eggs drawing her closer. Not sure what to expect when she walked into the living room, Allie was surprised to find Kaz at the stove, whistling as he worked and Danny nowhere to be seen. The sheets and blankets she’d left him to use on the sofa last night were all neatly folded and stacked, with his pillow on top, just like they’d been when she’d given them to him.
“Where’s my brother?” she asked, coming up behind Kaz and slipping her arms around his waist, pressing a kiss to his spine through his black T-shirt. “Don’t tell me he took off last night again.”
Kaz continued to plate their food as he answered. “He was leaving as I started breakfast. He said he was going to see your parents, but I made him swear to be back by noon today.”
“Noon, huh?” She got silverware and filled glasses with orange juice then set them out on the breakfast bar while he carried over their plates.
