I let out a deep sigh as I he hands me the phone.
“I’m calling Vassily Zhurov.”
* * *
The man takes his time to answer the call. I swear to myself that he’ll pay for every second if something happens to Van. When finally takes it, he sounds irritated.
“Are you calling me to gloat?” he asks in his thick Russian accent. “Your girlfriend plucked me good. Just enjoy the money and leave me alone.”
“I have no time for pretending, Vassily,” I say impatiently. “You lost a billion dollars. You can have them back if you free her.”
A silence on the line. I counted the seconds as if they were days.
“A ransom? For your Russian girlfriend?” he said, finally. “But sadly, I don’t have her. I wish she were here with me now. She’s a looker. And have you seen the way she walks? Yes, I’m sure you noticed.”
“Fuck off,” I say. “She was kidnapped by the Brotherhood. We know the guy who did it and we know he’s a pakhan for the Bratva. What’s your price?”
“Oh, no, no,” Zhurov says. “You have it wrong. It almost offends me that you think I could have kidnapped your beautiful girlfriend. When I want a woman, I make sure I make her want to be with me.”
“So you don’t know Piotr Plokhoy?”
“I’m afraid not, my conflicted friend. I happen to know some guys in the Bratva, just not this one. I have nothing to do with this...”
I have no way to know if he’s telling the truth. We haven’t dealt a lot with the Russian mob. Maybe there are a bunch of small groups without any contact with each other. Maybe it’s a loose organization. Maybe he’s lying and trying to raise the price.
“... but if you double the amount, I can give you some men to fuck him up,” he finishes.
29. PLAN B
VAN
I wake up to Piotr’s voice. “Come on, it’s time,” he says. Only then I realize I’ve somehow been able to sleep, but my night has been full of nightmares with barely any rest. Also, I haven’t eaten anything in a whole day. One of his guys brought me a sandwich in the previous afternoon, but I threw it to his face.
“Where are we going?”
“Home.”
I follow him out of the room and into a poorly lit corridor. There’s no point in trying to devise an escape; I don’t even know where in New York I am, if I’m still in New York. I can only hope that the bug is working, and Ace is alive to pick up the signal. It’s still grappled to the backside of a button in my blouse, small and inconspicuous. If it’s not working, or if Ace is dead, nobody will find us.
I’m not sure that the police are looking for us or even know we exist. They must have found all the dead Chinese guys on the parkway, along with Harlan’s body; and maybe Ace’s. They may be searching for the big ass truck from which the motorcycles jumped out like deadly hornets. But the truck lies abandoned somewhere now. We switched vehicles twice before getting here. Long before I could realize where we were heading, they blindfolded me. “Forgive me for this, my princess,” Piotr said as he slipped the cloth over my eyes; “it’s for your own good.” He ran the back of his hand down my face and put a light kiss on my lips. I tried to kick him in the balls but I missed.
Now that I can peer outside through the windows, I realize we’re on a second or third floor, but not in Manhattan. I can see the skyline in the distance; this must be Staten Island or something like that. Some of Piotr’s men join us in the descent as he gives them quick instructions.
We exit the building and start making a beeline to the shore. There is a big boat waiting there, and resting on its deck, a small helicopter.
“Are we flying somewhere? Just the two of us?” I ask Piotr.
“Keep walking,” is his answer. “We’re taking a ride.”
Two men are guarding the boat. Both of them are clad in black, just like the rest of Piotr’s guys that are walking with us. One of them waves his hand indicating that everything’s clear; as we walk past them, they look away as if to check the boat to make sure there will be no surprises.
Piotr nods and we step into the boat.
Then I hear the rumble.
Piotr turns around, alarmed. I turn around too, hopeful.
There are more men around the building now, besides Piotr’s own guys. The others have appeared suddenly from somewhere. They came in the night on some other boat, I guess. They must have stayed watching in the dark as they waited for us to come out.
I hear gunshots. A battle has started in the area between the building and the boat. I can’t make out who’s who, but as Piotr’s loyals have been taken by surprise, they are the ones who are falling down the most.
Piotr squeezes my arm and turns around again, rushing inside the boat and screaming orders in Russian. “You, cover them! Sergei, turn on the engine! You two...!”
And then we both realize something at the same time. We know the guys who are guarding the boat. They go by the names of Jack Starr and Pip Glover. The original Russian thugs must be floating somewhere nearby, with hole-riddled chests.
They don’t have time to reach us. Piotr runs towards the helicopter, dragging me behind like a rag doll. I pound on his arm with my free hand, I claw at his neck, I try to bite his hand, but all of this accomplishes exactly nothing. I start screaming and yelling but the sounds of gunfire and the motor of the boat bury my voice.
Piotr pushes me into the helicopter by the pilot’s side, then climbs inside without giving me the time to open the other door and run away. He sits in position and turns on the ignition.
There’s someone else in the helicopter. He presses a gun against Piotr’s neck and tells him that it’s not a good idea to take flight just yet.
Now I find the tears that have eluded me for a whole day. This man... I love this man so much.
“She came to America to get married, asshole. You won’t make her say her vows in Russia. I spent two billions dollars to keep her here.” Ace Hart looks me in the eye with absolute aplomb, as the whole world seems to go down around us in a hail of gunfire. “Vanina Vokhtazin, will you marry me?”
30. THE RUSSIAN BRIDE
VAN
A happy ending is... not very Russian. But what can I say? I’ve never been a typical Russian girl.
I once thought that the world was very, very badly designed. That life was out to get me, so that it would knock me down every time I stood up and let the guard down. Now I see that I was wrong. All I see in the world speaks to me about a beautiful, intricate design in which every tear and sorrow, every smile and joke, every kiss, every letdown, every plane ticket and every ace of diamonds has its particular place.
Some call it fate, some use other words. In any case, when you look back, it’s beautiful.
Speaking of beautiful, this dress is the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever put on. Or that someone has put on me, anyway. It flows, it shines, it folds and plays with light with its perfect whiteness, as I walk along the aisle to meet the toughest guy I know.
Ace Hart, the ace of my heart. Even though his real name is something ridiculous like Ovidius.
It’s been barely a month since we said goodbye to New York and Little Vegas and everything else. He bailed out and I bailed out with him. We took that trip to Panama, then Mexico, then somewhere else. We live in Bali now, in a nice villa in the middle of a natural paradise where nobody can find us... unless we want to.
“I will do it for love. I will do it for you,” Ace said back then, and revealed that he had been working on his plan for months. His way out, with me.
Tara set it all up so that the money Ace decided to keep couldn’t be traced. He took only a part of the billions he had made through the years. Not nearly enough for the authorities to wonder about it, but more than enough to live comfortably in this paradise for the rest of our lives, doing whatever we want to do with our time together.
Tara is here with us, close to her friends, away from danger. I will always be grateful for what she’s done, and I can’t believe that I
was jealous of her once. In my defense, at that time, I only knew that she was gorgeous. Which she is. Gorgeous and adorable. And a really good friend of ours. Jack Starr is here too, always at hand, always grateful and loyal.
They smile as I walk past them with tears of joy pooling in my eyes. Both of them have left their lonely lives in Manhattan to come with us and find their future in Bali. I hear Jack is already dating a local, and I don’t think Tara will have any trouble finding someone.
Others have stayed in the States, and now keep Little Vegas going. Pip Glover (or, rather, Ace Glover, following the tradition) now manages the business with an iron hand wrapped in a velvet glove, just like he taught him. He refused at first, saying that Harlan should have been the one to rise to the top. But Harlan’s death put him on the fast track. He’s dealt with the Chinese and for the time being there’s no immediate trouble on the horizon. I’m sure he will be a brilliant criminal mastermind... but we’ll keep well away from it all.
I finally break down in tears when I reach the front seats and I see Misha there, tucked into an exquisite suit, looking at me with loving eyes. I might be even more happy for him than me. I saved him. We saved him. Now he’s found a new life beside Ace, as one of his closest aides, a world away from the frozen Russian streets where the gopniki roam incessantly, wasting their time and talents in a downward spiral of self-destruction. I only had to reach out to him, give him a call, and discover how sorry he was, how ashamed at the way he had talked to me. He was coming from the worst place, but everything is forgiven. His smile widens as his eyes meet mine, and in that split second we tell so many things to each other...
The church is a tiny thing, a stone building at the top of a small hill. As I walk along the aisle, I can see the valley sprawling in the distance through the big ogival windows. But it’s ahead that I want to look. Ace Hart is there, all neat and dark in his black suit and impossibly shiny shoes. He is smiling, his blue eyes as limpid as the sky, all worries forgotten. I stand beside him, hold his hand, wipe a tear.
As the officiant says his lines, I allow myself to drown into those eyes, and I promise myself I won’t ever be the reason they become cloudy with sorrow.
Everything after that is like a dream.
“I, Ovidius Hart, take you, Vanina Vokhtazin, for my lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward...”
“I, Vanina Vokhtazin, take you, Ovidius Hart, for my lawful husband, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health...”
And the rings, and the kiss, and the cheers all around us. And the laughs and the tears and Ace lifting me like a barbell and taking me outside, and everyone following us as we go to our boat and sail away. Moments to remember forever.
I didn’t know then and I didn’t know it for a long time, but right from the moment I stepped into that pub in Manhattan, reeking of despair, alcohol and dried tears, I was set on a path of happiness. It’s all in the cards. It’s always been.
THE END (... but read on!)
* * *
Thanks for reading SOLD: A billionaire bad boy mafia romance!
What you’ve just read is the second volume in the Goldenhearts series of bad boy romance novels. Every story is a standalone book and can be read without having read any of the others. But if you follow the series, you’ll find some characters from one book popping up or being mentioned in the others.
Read ahead for an excerpt from BOUGHT, the first story in the series, and subscribe to Molly Thorne’s mailing list to be among the first to know when the third book, OWNED, is published!
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
NATASHA TANNER
Natasha Tanner is a hopeless romantic. She loves to write about bad boys and her stories always wind up with a happy ending and some steamy moments. She resides in Vermont and hopes you enjoy every one of her books as she strives to become a full-time writer.
ALSO BY NATASHA TANNER
BAD PATIENT (with JB Duvane)
CROTCH ROCKET (with Amelia Clarke)
TEMPTING ME (with Roxy Sinclaire)
HIT AND RUN (with Vesper Vaughn)
SHOTGUN WEDDING (with Ali Piedmont)
Please see her Author Central Account on Amazon for a full list of her titles.
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MOLLY THORNE
Molly Thorne is a new voice in the literary romance landscape. She likes her fiction with a rough edge, and that’s why she teamed up with Natasha Tanner to write about bad boys.
Stay tuned for more stories by Molly!
Follow her on Facebook
Please see her Author Central Account on Amazon for a full list of her titles.
Would you like to join the exclusive Molly Thorne Street Team and receive free advanced copies of her latest releases in exchange for an honest review?
Sign up here!
ALSO BY MOLLY THORNE
BOUGHT (the Goldenhearts series / book 1) (with Danielle Slater)
Read on for an excerpt!
COMING SOON BY MOLLY THORNE
OWNED (the Goldenhearts series / book 3) (with Natasha Tanner)
* * *
An excerpt from
BOUGHT
Five minutes later, he called me into his office.
“Frank Mill comes at eleven, you say?”
“Yes.”
“To be punished?”
“For botching the contract in Washington.”
The punishing thing was a joke that was not a joke after all. Theo Lambert could be as ruthless with his own people as with the competition. Sometimes he’d ask me to set up a meeting with some manager “to be punished”. The punishment was no more than a long, concentrated dose of verbal abuse, ranging from irony to irate yelling, invariably ending in a cold dismissal. He never fired anyone, though. Not for this, at least. I knew his girls (well, his assistants) were always in rotation, but they were always the ones who decided to leave. And that was a completely different thing.
“So, that’s the first meeting. At eleven,” Theo said. “What time is it now?”
“Nine thirty,” I replied after glancing at my watch.
“We have some time, then,” he said, and sat up.
“For wh—?” I started to ask, but I stopped dead. I knew exactly what he was talking about. I read it in his eyes, clear blue eyes that were looking at me as eagerly as a hungry lion looks at his prey.
Suddenly, I felt as if the room were filled with a strange energy. I wondered if Roentgen, the scientist who discovered the X rays, had felt something like that when he made his discovery. I was discovering a new ray, a form of energy emanated by men like Theo Lambert. It was overwhelming and alluring, and left me with no energy of my own except for an intense desire, the desire of being taken by him. If I had been a scientist, I would have named this energy alpha rays, but I think the name was already taken.
“For this,” Theo said, and suddenly he was kissing me. The first thing that took over my perception was the aroma of his expensive perfume, barely covering the smell of man that was beneath it, a primal smell that put all my senses in overdrive. The second thing was the wonderful texture of his lips, pressing on mine like an animal immobilizing its victim. Then the warmth and wetness of his tongue, making its way into my mouth, exploring it, filling all the cavities, dueling with my own tongue and always winning, making me lose my breath as the kiss continued and his hands started running up and down my back.
“Mmmmh,” is all I could say, as my arms embraced his magnificent torso through the expensive fabric of his suit and his fine shirt. Our bodies were touching each other now through the layers of clothing, trying to ignore them, to nullify them. My nipples reacted immediately to this new intimacy in which our skins
were rubbing on each other even when we were still fully dressed.
“Mmh,” he mimicked, and started undressing me. He pulled up from the rim of my tight dress, moving it up inch after inch, with his own body getting in the way and complicating the procedure. He just didn’t seem to be able to detach from my body, both of us wanted to keep the intense contact of man on woman, woman on man, as the kiss went on and on.
“This is... ooooh,” I started and stopped again, because he had pulled up my dress up to my waist now, and my ass and crotch were fully exposed except for the area covered by my slim panties. His hands had stopped messing with the dress and were firmly grabbing my buttocks now; as I had interrupted the kiss to be able to talk, his lips were now running up and down my neck, rising goosebumps all over my face and chest.
“Wrong. This is wrong,” he said, and he somehow made it better, turning me on even more. I thought of how wrong it was (even more wrong than he realized), and felt incredibly dirty. I was such a bad girl! I was lying and betraying everyone all the time. And I wanted to be punished so much. He would be the one to punish me. Right there. Right then. With his manhood. He would push inside me with such force that he would make me scream.
And of course, he did. He didn’t even try to rid me of my panties. He just set them aside with one of his big hands, unbuttoned his tailored trousers with the other, and slid his member inside me without so much as a warning. I gasped, but his mouth covered mine and the gasp died in a new hot, wet kiss. He grabbed my legs and held me in the air, keeping me impaled in his cock. I held myself putting one arm behind his neck and tugging at his tie with the other. It was a fine tie, voluptuously silky, but strong as all hell.
“Damn,” he said, and he turned around until my ass touched the edge of his desk. He passed his arm over the surface, throwing papers and other things to the floor. I felt the touch of the cold glass in my buttocks as the warm mass of his virile member irradiated heat all inside me. My arm started sliding down his neck as I drifted back, then I let go and tugged at the tie with both hands, like a rider who mounted a horse from below instead of above. I hung from his tie as I started moaning and screaming in pleasure, contemplating Theo’s body against the sun that bathed the city through the glass, Theo still dressed, Theo looking more a bad boy and an alpha leader than ever, Theo pushing, pounding, time and time and time again, until I had to let go with a scream that must have been heard in all the fifty-two floors of the Lambert Tower. I lay there on the cold glass, feeling the delightful weight of his privileged body over mine, and fell asleep as I caressed the hair in the back of his head, as I felt the tender kiss of his lips going up and down my neck, marking it with his saliva as any savage beast would do.
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