by Lea Griffith
Her head fell back and he gazed at her, a wanton in her growing need. Her legs shifted sinuously and he was reminded of the way she’d grabbed the pole in St. Petersburg.
“Wrap your legs around my waist, Etzem,” he urged.
She did and he was right there at her entrance, the heat of her calling to the steel of him. He pressed forward, his cock sliding through her folds and bumping against her clit. Her eyes and mouth fell, breath hissing in, and he smiled.
“You are wet and hot. Your pussy calls to me but you should be gentled first, eh?” He shifted again, mimicking his previous move but he was the one groaning, nearly losing himself in the hot, wet heat of her.
He kissed between her breasts, her collarbone, her chin and then her mouth. He stayed there, dipping in and out of her mouth for a long time, doing as he’d promised. Her heart beat heavy beneath him and her legs moved restlessly, her hands grabbing and releasing his back.
He grabbed her chin in his hand and forced her to meet his gaze. Her eyes were glazed with pleasure, the green splinters bright in the darkness.
“I will need the truths you hold inside you, moye. But tonight I will show you pleasure and it is as it should be. No one is more deserving than you. Are you ready?”
“Your body calls to mine. I would deny my need for you but I am not a liar,” she whispered at his lips.
Dmitry lifted up, took his cock in his hands and dragged it through her folds. Her breath broke and she arched up, hips rolling, beckoning.
“Ti mne nuzhen,” she said on a groan.
“Then you shall have me,” he told her and pressed a single finger inside her body, feeling her slickness coat him, feeling her warmth.
He hissed in a breath, added another finger and her internal muscles flexed. He bit the crest of her hip lightly, and her hands dug into his hair, pulling as her body continued to rise, seeking more of what he would give her.
“Please, Dmitry, this is torture,” she gasped.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he returned as he lowered his mouth to her pubis.
A strident knock on the door and his muscles locked. For a second all he could hear was the blood pounding through his veins. Another knock and everything sharpened into focus. Dmitry covered her, stood and grabbed his gun. No one should be here this late.
“It is Arrow.”
“Give me a minute,” he answered gruffly.
He looked to Bone. Her eyes were round and her lips were parted. She chose that moment to lick them. Dmitry groaned. “Do you want me to answer it?”
Her face cleared and she nodded, getting up off the bed, tugging on her pants. He threw her another T-shirt and she dragged it on, hiding the bounty of her body from him. He rubbed a hand down his face, frustration eating at him.
“I am sorry for this,” she muttered as she made to move around him, her gaze downcast, her cheeks rouged red.
He lifted her chin with a finger. “But I am not. And we will begin this again, later. When you are finished with your sisters, return to me, moye.”
“Maybe it is as it should be,” she argued.
“I will not force you, Bone. You must come to me free of your fears or this will never be what it could be,” he responded.
He held his breath.
“I have no fears and this,” she motioned between them and then toward the bed. “Is more pleasure than I have ever known. It is more than I’ve ever deserved. Thank you, Dmitry, for sharing yourself with me.”
Then she stepped around him, opened the door and left.
He punched the wall again. He wanted to curse Arrow but realized her interruption was fortuitous. Dmitry had his own truths to impart to Bullet, Arrow, Bone, Rand, and the rest of Trident Corporation.
And until all the slates were clean, he and Bone would have no foundation. They would have nothing more than a shared pleasure that would disappear the moment she left. Dmitry had settled his entire life. He was going to have Bone, all of her, or he would have nothing.
Chapter Eight
“I am sorry, sister,” Arrow quipped as they headed down the hallway.
Bone did not look at her because the biggest part of her was still in the room with Dmitry. He had been on top of her, inside of her and light had shone in the midst of her eternal darkness. “It is for the best.”
Arrow sighed. “Bullet waits for us on the ridge.”
“Mother,” Bone guessed.
“It is also the one place we get complete freedom from ears listening to every word. This house is a home of sorts but still a prison,” Arrow murmured.
“Until Joseph lies rotting in his grave, no place will be home for us. Prison is all we will know. But it will be good to see where Mother rests,” Bone replied.
They walked in silence, lightning ripping cracks in the tenuous fabric of the night sky and thunder rumbling in the distance. She saw the headstone atop the ridge and her heart stopped.
Mother had been Bone’s favorite. Jesuit had been Bullet’s. Neither Arrow nor Blade had dealt with the young ones for very long. Most of their contracts took them away from Arequipa for months at a time. For ten years the babies, as Bullet called them, had been mostly under Bone’s watch. She dispatched her kills with a quick thoroughness that allowed her to return and keep her eye on them. Though she had been unable to save them, she watched over them, keeping them alive as long as she could and daring Joseph to take what she considered hers.
That Mother lay cold in the grip of the earth replaced the calming pleasure she’d known in Dmitry’s arm, filling her with volcanic wrath and reaffirming her purpose. Mother was but another life taken in Joseph’s quest to re-create the perfect killer.
She walked to the headstone, saw that it read the child’s name in her native Hebrew and went to her knees. She bowed before the stone and said the Death Prayer. She had not spoken the words the night her mother and father had been murdered before her—they had not deserved it. She had not spoken them the morning Ninka had died. She had been too angry at the God who had abandoned her. But she said them now for a child who’d been taken before life had a chance to begin. Her voice was broken, the words stilted and at times so low she couldn’t hear them herself, but she said the prayer and when she was finished, she kissed the dirt above Mother’s body and lifted her face to the dark sky.
“For Mother I would don sackcloth and throw ashes over my head. I would wail to Heaven and tear at my skin. But You do not listen to my prayers. If ever I earned a favor, Hashem, please walk with her to the Tree of Life and give her peace,” Bone said to the roiling clouds above her.
The wind stopped, the thunder ceased and the darkness held sway. Then a single bolt of lightning ripped the veil of the night. The jagged illumination a clear indication to Bone of how God felt about her.
“If that is your answer, I must accept it. But you will see me eventually. I would brave even the halls of Heaven for Mother. We will have our reckoning,” Bone whispered.
“Sister, we must go inside. The storm is growing worse,” Bullet said from behind her.
Bone stood and the wind once again whipped and tossed her hair and clothes. Arrow’s dark hair was a silky ebony curtain against a backdrop of midnight. Bullet’s face was drawn, sorrow written on her features and Bone was sure her own held the same emotion.
“Ninka was Dmitry’s sister,” she said above the rising noise of the whipping trees.
Bullet and Arrow both looked at her, eyes narrowing. But they did not question why she had not previously given her sisters this knowledge. Perhaps this was nothing more than verification of things they had already guessed. Though they were a unit, each of them remained individuals and each of them had secrets. Nothing that could harm the others—their bond wouldn’t allow for that—but definitely things the others didn’t know.
Bone nodded. “He has searched for her from the time he was eighteen. If you could, give him your remembrance of his sister so he will have something to carry of her through his life.”
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“Does Trident know?” Bullet asked in a dead voice.
Bone narrowed her gaze on her sister. “It is not our truth to tell. He had his reasons though if I know him even the smallest bit, he is even now telling your men the truth of it all.”
“I will speak to him of his sister,” Arrow promised. “Watashitachi ni ushinawa reta mono wa, wareware ga mottomo oboete iru monodesu.”
“Yes, they are. His search led him to Joseph and once he happened upon Trident, he joined them but always there was the hope he would find her,” Bone affirmed.
“You took her punishments, Bone,” Bullet reminded her. “Does he know what you suffered for his sister?”
Bone glanced at Bullet, trying to understand what her sister wasn’t saying. “He knows what we all did for his sister.”
“He is yours now?” Bullet asked.
“He is his own. The things I hold back from him will destroy any trust he has in me. But it will be as it is meant to be. My path has always been difficult to walk, but I will not cease the journey until my duty is done.” Bone didn’t know how to process the feelings coursing through her—possession, pain, rage—they were debilitating.
“Have you seen the woman following our steps?” Arrow asked.
Bone drew in a deep breath. “I haven’t but Grant was in St. Petersburg with me. I warned him if she continued and did not make her intentions clear, I would kill her. He became angry, threatened me and I reiterated that she was an unknown.”
“Do you still think it might be her?” Bullet asked, looking over Bone’s shoulder back toward the house.
Bone nodded. “I feel in my heart she did not die that night. I can give you no concrete proof though I’ve searched. I would say Blade knows for sure but it has always been her secret to hold, not ours. My best guess is the girl was moved somewhere. Once the children she carried in her body were no more, Joseph would have moved her to be trained or he would have tried once again to get her pregnant. Something about her was important to him—it is just a feeling but everything I’ve seen leads me to that conclusion.”
“I haven’t heard from Blade, but I know Rand would have told me if he had information on the boy.”
“It is her,” Arrow said, glancing at them both before she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “There have been times when I smelled her and I thought it was my mind reminding me of my duty, getting me back on track when the darkness called too loudly.”
“She’s been close enough for you to smell?” Bone asked in disbelief.
Arrow pinned her with that eerie amber gaze. “When I was shot here weeks ago, she was in the woods. I do not think Damon was aware of her because he never said a word.” She looked away, up into the darkness, her face tight. The silence grew between them and then Arrow’s ancient, death-smothered voice split the blanket of night that covered them. “Do you remember that night so long ago, Bone?”
“I remember everything, sister. I remember the screams, the blood, the absence of light. I remember the cries and the sobs. I remember the pain and I remember her curses,” Bone responded sadly. “I remember it all and yet I do not know her face or her name. The black was too much that night—the terror too complete.”
“Yes,” Arrow said sadly. “It was.”
“Nameless,” Bullet said softly. “Grant protects this woman who follows us?”
“Yes.”
“Then it is her. Grant was playing both sides then as he continues to play them now. I have no doubt that as he was helping us hide the son, he was helping Joseph save the mother. And now we have another player on the board, another one who has suffered God only knows what at the hands of Joseph,” Bullet mused.
“But is she ours?” Arrow tossed out the question that was in all their hearts.
“She was never ours. But the boy is—we risked our lives so he might live,” Bone asserted. “Grant protects her much as he did the boy when Blade took him to Grant that first night. But I will kill her if she hurts any of you.”
Her sisters nodded and thunder rent the sky.
“Gretchen!” A male voice called from the darkness.
Rand Beckett.
“Saya,” another voice joined the first.
Adam Collins.
But no one called Bone.
“You do not seem to like the names I call you, so I came to you instead,” Dmitry said, his deep voice stirring her in ways she wanted to deny.
She turned and walked to him, not questioning how the man knew what she’d been thinking, simply entering his embrace without wondering the why of it all; acceding to the need to do so. He was warmth. He was fast becoming her port in the storm.
Bone did not know how long they stood there. It wasn’t until he shifted that she raised her head from his chest.
“It is raining, moye.”
Mine, he called her. It was as good a name as any she supposed.
Bone stepped from him, recognizing her need for him was a weakness that would be used against her. Joseph was a master manipulator and though he was on the run, trying to cover all his bases, he was a plotter seeking every way to hurt them and bring them to heel. Bone wasn’t ashamed to say she thought that even in death Joseph Bombardier would seek to destroy them.
Dmitry grabbed her hand, pulling her from her musings. She allowed him to tangle their fingers and as she glanced down at their entwined hands there was a curious wrenching in her chest. She shook her head, ignoring what her mind demanded she recognize.
She followed him into the house, up the stairs to the west wing of the house but then she dropped his hand and walked to her room.
“It will happen,” he said at her back.
She gave her response to the door in front of her. “Ja slishkom mnogo poterjal, ot menja nichego ne ostalosj.”
“Then I will give you me to replace what you have lost,” he told her simply.
She stood there, forehead on the wood door, heart in her throat. His door closed and still she stood, unable to move lest she break into a million pieces.
She had never known love but as close as a killer could come to the emotion, she was there.
“I will not break,” she whispered.
And the truth mocked her. She entered her room, sat on the floor, and began to pray as she had never prayed before. Maybe in her time of greatest need, He would listen.
Chapter Nine
Dmitry woke to the mother of all storms. He glanced outside and in the intermittent flashes of lightning witnessed trees swaying so hard their canopies touched the ground. Leaves and dirt spun in every direction and thunder roared in the night sky.
His clock display confirmed it was pretty fucking early—two in the morning. He rotated his shoulder, decided against working out and simply threw on some jogging pants and a T-shirt before heading to the library. He’d just poured a snifter of vodka when Rand walked in, dressed similarly to Dmitry and rubbing a hand down his face.
On his heels was Adam. He had avoided talking with them earlier, telling them only he needed to speak with them soon. It looked like his reckoning had arrived.
“We having a party I wasn’t aware of?” Adam asked as he scratched his chest.
“No?” Dmitry answered the question with one of his own before tossing back the cool, clear liquid.
“You asking me or telling me, Russian?” Adam said, his eyes clearing of sleep instantly.
“Neither. Pour yourself a drink and let’s chat,” Dmitry said. He couldn’t keep the tone of command from his voice.
Rand glanced at him as he poured a shot of bourbon and carried it to the window. “The National Weather Service says the storm is weakening and moving up the coast at a fast clip. We’re in for more storms, but nothing like what we thought,” he mused before he tossed back his bourbon and headed to the bar for another.
Dmitry took a seat near the window and gazed into the tempest. He had resolved himself to feeling more for a killer than he’d ever experienced for anyone else. It wasn’t going t
o be an easy path, he was sure. Yet he could not shake the feeling she was worth it.
Whether he called her Bone or Togarmah, she was going to be his.
“What is on your mind, Russian, that you’re prowling the halls this early in the morning?” Adam questioned as he took the seat opposite Dmitry.
There was a small light on Rand’s desk that illuminated the room with a soft, yellow glow. Not that Adam required light…the man had a hell of a set of eyes on him.
Dmitry really needed another vodka. He took a deep breath instead. Better to get it over with now. “You are both aware I was Russian Secret Service prior to signing on with Trident?”
Both men, men he considered not simply co-owners of Trident, but also friends, nodded.
“And you are aware that I brought to the table certain information on Joseph Bombardier that led to us capturing at least two of his assassins, thereby bringing us more information?”
Rand and Adam glanced at each other. “We are,” Rand said firmly.
“There is more to the story of how I came to be here with you. I had motivations I have not shared before and would do so now,” he told them plainly.
“Go on,” Adam said in a dark voice, full of warning. If he didn’t like what Dmitry said, he would try to kill him.
All the men of Trident were evenly matched, but Dmitry wasn’t going to die today.
Not today.
“I was born in the Ural Mountains of Siberia. My father, Sacha Asinimov became a prominent leader of the Russian mob and retained his position for years. When I was young, my sisters and mother were taken from us. My father searched but was unable to find who was responsible. It wasn’t until I was eighteen that I took up the search myself and it was that search that led me to The Collective.”
He remembered locating a single operative who’d given up information about The Collective and what he’d told Dmitry still had the ability to send chills down his spine. Child prostitution, slavery, death, arms dealing—all of these were the bread and butter of The Collective’s operations and at the head? Joseph Bombardier.
