So a few months into what must have been one of the worst engagements ever, I knew that the only way that I would ever be able to escape him, before the wedding or afterwards, would be if he was dead.
Now he was going to have me watched over, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. And while a red-hot hunk of muscle in jeans stuck to me like a sweat twenty-four-seven, and I couldn’t so much as touch him, the slug that he worked for could have me any way, anywhere, and any time he wanted.
~~
The sound of the doorbell brought me back into the room. After a moment Tony looked over at me, expectant. He was standing right by the buzzer, but he told me, “Get that,” in a voice like he was talking to an ignorant child.
For some reason, him treating me that way, it hurt more, than it would have if Luka hadn’t been there to see it. His eyes, burning holes in the floor, made me really want to cry inside. Still, I had to walk past him and not act like I knew Luka, or that there was anything between him and me.
I knew not to argue with Tony, so I slipped by him and lifted the intercom handset. On the screen was a thickset, bullet-headed man at the door. Tony’s elbow jabbed sharply in my back ribs. It knocked out my breath and the pain made it hard to force myself not to cry out.
Tony stood between me and Luka, so Luka probably hadn’t seen it happen. Tony would have arranged it like that. “Let the man in,” he snapped. I pushed the button to release the door. It was a typical lose-lose setup for me.
If I had simply let the man in, Tony would have been furious that I opened the door to a stranger. As it was, he was angry that I kept the visitor waiting. I didn’t deserve this. But it was my present and it stretched out into my future, stretched as far as my mind’s eye could see.
I opened the door to admit man into the apartment building. Tony barged me aside to greet him at the door.
The elevator sounded and I heard the swish of the doors. Tony said, “Bruto,” and welcomed the man with a typical exaggerated hug. Arms wrapped all the way around each other, leaning together and lots of back patting, no expression on either of their faces.
Bruto was thin-lipped with sunken eyes and much taller than I expected. He didn’t speak to me. The way that he looked at me made me feel like he was looking at a thing. An object.
Seeing his bulk on the entrance cam, I thought I was looking at a much shorter man. In fact he was maybe an inch or so taller than Luka. He must have looked shorter on the screen because he was much heavier set. He was easily head and shoulders above Tony. It had me wondering, not for the first time, what it was that made Tony able to dominate men the way that he did. Much bigger men, stronger men than himself.
Bruto gave Luka a look as he came in, a look like a military man might give to a subordinate. Perhaps that’s what Luka was—a subordinate. If he was, there was no trace of it in the look that he gave Bruto back.
Bruto moved nearer to Tony and hunched, talking to Tony with his hand over his mouth. It’s hard not to listen when someone makes a display of trying to keep what they say secret. Like when people whisper on public transport. It’s so weird.
I’m sure that if you spoke in a normal voice, you could stand in the middle of Grand Central and tell someone the codes for secret accounts in the Cayman Islands, the emergency password for the White House, and the winners of all tomorrow’s races, and nobody would pay any attention.
Whenever someone cups their hand and whispers, nobody within twenty feet will miss the smallest detail of what they’re certain Suzanna did with her cousin on the ferry.
Tony ushered Bruto to the dining table in the glass bay as they talked about a message from the Russians and a deal that involved a cargo of some kind. While they talked, Bruto’s eyes flickered several times up at me. It was furtive. Not like I was part of their conversation. More like he was helping himself to a snack, like a creepy guy grunting and shuffling in the corner of a subway car.
Tony made a call on his cellphone. “Mikey. Bring the car around front. We’re going to take a drive.”
He told me, “Get a jacket.”
~~
As soon as we stepped out onto the sunlit sidewalk, a big, black SUV slewed fast and screeched into the curb beside us. The doors flew open and four men in fatigue pants and leather jackets jumped out. They carried short, dull gray guns with long ammunition clips poking from them.
The biggest of the men, who seemed to be in charge, spoke in a heavy accent. He said, “Your ride awaits,” and he gestured to the opening back doors.
Tony scowled as he started to speak. He said, “We’re just on our way to see Mikhail,” but the man held the gun high and he shoved the end of it in Tony’s eye.
“We save you cab fare.” I was terrified, but I couldn’t help enjoying Tony’s discomfort. The man shoved the gun harder in Tony’s face, pushing his head back. “Get in.”
Tony clambered in through the back doors and crouched in the space behind the bench seats.
Tony’s eyes blazed with rage. Luka’s smoldered. Bruto climbed in behind Tony. The Russian looked at me with a leering spark in his narrowed eyes. “We find special entertainment for you. When we get there. Maybe you stay with us.”
He pointed the gun at Luka and gestured with the barrel, telling him to get in with the others. Luka looked at him slow and hard for a moment. The Russian’s lips tightened as Luka stared him down. Luka held my hand tenderly and helped me into the car. He kept me close to him.
As I settled in, the Russian watched my ass. “Yes.” He growled appreciatively. “We have work for girls like you.”
He shut the back doors behind me and sat in the seat in front of where Luka crouched. I hunched as low and as close as I could beside him. Gently, he touched my shoulder. With him so close, I felt safe.
The other Russians climbed in, the car lurched, and horns blared as the driver hauled us across the traffic and sped away.
Tony snarled at the Russian in front of him. “When Mikhail hears about this, you’ll be hanging upside down in a meat freezer.”
The Russian in charge laughed and said, “Who do you think sent us?”
The man in front of Tony turned and pulled his gun over the seat. He poked the short, nasty-looking gun on Tony’s nose. “Would you like to die now, American thug? We aerate your brains and dump you out in the traffic, huh? You like that?”
Luka reached over with his left hand like he was picking a flower and took the gun. Like an afterthought, he whacked the stock onto the bridge of the man’s nose.
At the same time, he locked his right arm around the neck of the Russian in front of him and yanked his head back hard over the back of the seat. Again, he cracked the gun on the head of the startled Russian he’d taken it from. As the man slumped, Luka reached forward to put the barrel against the driver’s ear.
His voice was a growling rasp. “This is our stop, Tovariches.”
The leader, with his head still bent back in the crook of Luka’s arm, his face reddening, fetched up his gun and squirmed to try to turn around. Luka jerked harder on his neck. The man’s eyes popped wide as Luka applied a sustained pressure and his neck turned purple. Then a sickening, wet crackling sound and an ugly gurgle came from his throat.
Luka pressed the gun harder in the driver’s ear, bending his head to one side. His voice was sharp. “Don’t make me tell you again.” The leader’s head lolled unnaturally against the seat. His startled eyes were still and dull.
The car screeched to a stop in the middle of the street. Luka collected the gun from the dead man and fired twice at the lock on the back doors. He told the driver, “Maybe you’d like to drop your boss off here in the middle of the traffic.” He held the door for me to get out. “I’ll leave it to you.”
We all climbed out of the back of the SUV in the middle of the street. Luka had both the guns in one hand and his other hand was on my shoulder. Bruto told him, “Good work.”
Luka gave him a long look. Then he said, “I was just protec
ting Alexa.” He looked at Tony, then back at Bruto. “I don’t know what you two were doing.”
The tires squealed and the back doors flapped as the driver took off in a hurry. Luka looked at Bruto with a question in his eyes, but he didn’t say anything. He handed Bruto the guns.
I burst into tears the instant we were out of the car. Luka held my shoulder with a care that I drew strength from. He obviously didn’t know I had turned the sobs on and his concern felt so sincere, I almost let out a real tear.
Tony was looking around, smoothing his jacket and his hair. I gave Luka’s jacket sleeve a tug, and through sobs, I said, “Tony, you know I have to go for my hair appointment.”
“Now?” he yelled. “Now you’re thinking about your hair?” And he looked from Luka to Bruto, wide-eyed. That man-to-man look that says, See? See what I have to put up with? I told him I’d only just remembered.
“What’s wrong with your hair?” he said, blustering. “You went last week.”
“The regular stylist wasn’t there, and the girl made a horrible mess of it. I told you I had to go back. You must remember.” Then I shook, sobbing more. Tears streamed down my face.
He bounded over to me and clenched his teeth as he said, “Of course. Whatever you need.” He took my chin in both hands. He smiled sweetly as he lifted me by my chin. He made a thin grin and said under his breath, “Contradict me. Anytime.”
With all of my weight hanging from my neck, he gave my head a little shake from side to side. “Don’t be late now, sweetheart,” he said for show.
Then he let me go. “Luka? Make sure she isn’t late.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE MOMENT WE turned the corner, she stopped crying. She took a wet wipe from her purse, and in less than a dozen efficient wipes, she cleaned her face as we walked.
She looked up, and her fresh face shone like she was a teenager. “I hate to do that,” she said. “It’s degrading and I’m sorry you saw it. I just know that it works on Tony most of the time.” She bit her bottom lip. “I had to get away from him as soon as I could.”
“Believe me, I’ve done way worse.”
Her eyes gleamed She looked up at me. I could see her waiting for me to go on. Considering some examples, maybe. The transformation was astonishing. Beneath the makeup, she was another woman altogether. More vulnerable, but somehow, she looked more worldly too.
There seemed to be no end to how surprising this woman could be.
“I had to be away from Tony before he started swinging. I’d be surprised if he hasn’t thrown a punch at that Bruto guy by now.”
“He’ll regret it if he does.”
“You know him from somewhere, right? Or he knows you.”
“We were in service together. He was in command of the troop I was in last.” I trailed off. I didn’t want to get into the stuff about my being discharged with her. Bruto’s part in it, and all that.
She said, “I got a bad feeling from him.”
“He’s a soldier, through and through. Old habits die hard. When you saw him, when he walked in the room, he was probably checking for potential threats.”
“You think he saw you as a threat?” I wondered why she would say that. Filed it away.
As we got away in the sunshine on the sidewalk, I told her, “I don’t know if you’re completely crazy or if that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. The Russian Mafia hijack us with Uzis, and your first thought is your hair?”
“My first thought is to get away from Tony,” she said. “After that, he’s going to be swinging at anything and everyone, but most of all at me.”
“I saw that stunt where he elbowed you in the ribs. That must have hurt.”
“You didn’t let on.”
“What?”
“That we met. In the bar. You didn’t let on.”
“Do I really look that dumb to you?”
She softened and said, “You look a lot of good things.”
She hadn’t quite answered my question. I watched to see if she was favoring her side where that ass jabbed her ribs. Did it so he thought I wouldn’t see. These guys, they get a position, a place in the crime families, they lose all their respect for everyone. Start to think everyone around them is an idiot.
Says more about how they see themselves. They got some power, some rank, and they know they’re idiots, so they start to think everyone else must be even dumber than they are. Saw it more than once in training. The SEALs they’re smart. They give recruits some rank early on.
Some rookies are grateful, see they’ve got an opportunity and work hard to deserve it. Others, they just take it and straightaway think they’re golden. They don’t usually finish the training.
Out here on the street, though, it’s different. Man like that can go far. Till someone sees through him. Then he’s got nothing to back it up and it’s all over.
Her ribs must have hurt. A crack on those can be hell, especially in the back. Didn’t let it show, though. She walked tall, light, and proud, just like a dancer. Some poise she’d got.
Discipline, too. I wanted to say to her, “You’re tough, covering it like that,” but at the same time I didn’t want to take it away from her.
“We have to talk,” she said. “Okay?”
“While you get your hair done?”
“Let’s take a cab uptown.”
I shrugged. In New York, you don’t have to travel to be out of sight—you can turn a corner and disappear. Just as likely you’ll walk right into someone you know in a Broadway diner or on Columbus Circle as you will a block from home.
Still, Alexa wanted a cab, so I put my thumb and forefinger together and whistled. She covered her ears and ducked. Cute. When she looked up, she said, “I didn’t even see a cab.”
I smiled. “Me either. Do that loud enough, they’ll find you.”
A yellow cab hauled up alongside of us, and she looked up at me and said, “Could be something to learn,” as I held the door open. Instinctively, I put my hand on her back to guide her in.
The feeling of her back under my hand made me think of all kinds of things. Things that were not helpful to concentration.
When the driver asked where to, she told him, “Strawberry Fields.”
The cab slewed lazily through the traffic. We sat in the back and she talked. I liked the sound of her voice. She was like a cat, sleek and sure. I wondered how she got herself involved with a guy like Fat Tony. But I didn’t ask.
Even more, I liked looking at her. Watching her was a real kick. The way that elegant skirt rode up her stupendous thighs, the rise of her soft breasts. I swear, if it hadn’t been for the discipline I learned in my SEAL training, I wouldn’t have been able to sit there next to her, breathing the sweet perfume of her warm body under the waft of a luxury scent.
I practically had to sit on my hands. There wasn’t any way to keep the pictures in my head from turning over what it would feel like to unwrap her, to peel her clothes off slowly, forcefully.
Right there in the back of the cab would have been a fine place. To undo her blouse, unhook her bra, breathe the hot, sweet fragrance between her breasts. Taste the honeyed sweetness between her thighs. Feel her tremble on my lips.
She said, “So, he doesn’t have to know.” I nodded. Whatever she had been saying, I definitely agreed with her. Her eyes were pleading at me. “Do you understand?” she said.
“Okay, you got me,” I told her with a laugh. “Tell me again.”
Perfectly Damaged: Luka : A bad boy mafia romance Page 4
