by Ruby Laska
Chelsea gasped. She couldn’t believe he would do what he threatened, that he would cut himself off from her forever. Except that she knew he was serious.
“But you do trust me, Chelsea,” he continued. With his free hand he traced a fingertip very slowly and lightly from her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, over the cupid’s bow of her mouth…down her chin, along her neck, her collarbones…and then slipping inside her shirt, and very lightly circling her nipple. Chelsea bucked and struggled, but he only lightened his touch further, until it was as if a downy feather had been electrified with a thousand volts.
Then he pinched, hard, and a moan escaped her lips.
He withdrew his hand and relaxed his grip on her hair so that she slumped against him. He slid his hands down her back and cupped her ass, grinding her against him so that she could feel every inch of his rock hard erection.
“This is your trust in me. This is your faith. This is your knowledge that I will never hurt you, that I will always protect you.” One of his hands slid into the cleft of her ass, reaching to thumb her pussy through the quickly drenching fabric of her pants. “When you submit to me you make us both stronger. I can’t be my best without you, Chelsea. I—I never knew who I was meant to be until God gave me you. To use. To make you mine.”
To love, Chelsea finished the sentence in her mind. Because as the memories of being in his arms morphed into the need to be there once more, Chelsea realized that in the complex tangle of her submission was her own identity. If Ricardo needed her to fulfill his own promise as a Dominant, she needed him even more to be her safe place to let go. To rest from a world that had demanded her to be strong since childhood. He offered, with his control and his fiercely executed play, a safe haven for a woman who had never been allowed to be a girl, a chance to let go when she’d never stopped looking over her shoulder.
She could love him. If she didn’t put a stop to this soon, she would love him. And that was a danger even greater than those that waited outside the walls of this hidden suite. Because there was always a faint chance that she could escape the bullets or the blade of the bratva…but she would not survive falling in love, only to lose again.
She had lost her beloved father to an accident when she was six.
She lost her mother to drugs in the years that followed.
She lost her innocence to the monster who invaded their lives.
Now she had her gallery and she had Rufus and Donny and she had the series of anonymous men who stayed long enough in her bed to distract her for a few hours. For years that had been enough…until she met Ricardo.
Gently, Ricardo held her apart from him and caressed her cheek with his fingertips. But she didn’t want caresses. She didn’t want gentle. She needed his hard hand on her flesh, striking her, choking her, forcing her. She needed her choices taken from her until her own will was just an extension of his.
She needed, more than ever in her life, to submit.
Recognition dawned in Ricardo’s eyes. He knew her. He saw her…all the way to her soul. He needed it too.
“Mi querida,” he whispered. “We do not need to decide today what we will do tomorrow. But tonight you are mine. You will stay here and I will protect you.”
It wasn’t a question. Chelsea nodded numbly.
“Now I must go, for a few hours. Do not ask me what I will do. It’s what needs to be done, no more and no less.”
Chelsea shivered, wondering what those ominous words meant for those who had taken his friend’s life. And while she had decried violence, while she abhorred bloodshed, she found that she wanted vengeance for the gentle man who had brought her the spiced cookies and flavorful coffee of Russia, who had taken her into his home, who had called her daughter.
She wanted his killers brought to justice. And if it had to be dark justice meted from the shadows by a man who answered to no authority but his own conscience…then so it would be.
He brushed his lips against her mouth, an echo of the kiss she had stolen and been punished for. “I will be back by tonight. Mr. Smith is here, but you will not see him unless you need something. If he needs to talk to you, he will use the name Ignacio. Can you remember that?”
“Ignacio,” Chelsea whispered.
“Do not answer the door for anyone else. Do not answer the phone. No matter what happens, do not leave this room. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Chelsea said.
She wanted another kiss, another reassurance, another hour to convince herself that she was doing the right thing.
But Ricardo released her. He walked to the door, and after giving her one tormented glance, he was gone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Vlad Aksyonov drove to the abandoned school with some trepidation. Maybe he should have brought someone with him. After all, the old man was dead, and he’d taken evidence to prove the job was done. But killing Boris Solonik had been less than ideal, and everyone in the bratva knew it. And Vlad desperately wanted to take the focus off his failures and prove to Sergey and the others that he had the matter under control.
The rapidly changing landscape of cocaine trafficking was not his fault. How could it be? He was not a part of decisions made at higher levels, a fact that filled him with bitterness whenever he thought about it.
The Chechen threat was not his fault either. They were ruthless animals, answering to no one, unimpeded by honor or fear.
The more he thought about it—and in the secret recesses of his heart, Vlad occasionally considered himself a bit of a philosopher—it seemed that the very nature of existence had changed, at least here in Los Angeles. With so many factions vying for dominance—not just the Russians and Chechens, but the South Americans, the Chinese, the gangs of all stripes spilling blood in the streets—a man had to divide his loyalty into only two parts: his brotherhood, and his own interests. The latter was best kept a secret.
Vlad had killed the old man to prove to Sergey that he could be trusted. Now, he was expected to deliver de Santos, at least to hear what the bratva could offer him. To persuade him to shift his loyalties. But then what? Would Vlad dutifully bring Ricardo into the fold, only to be forced to live under his shadow? Would he be prolonging his own time in this limbo of powerlessness, answering not only to Sergey but to the others, those with more seniority than he, those deadly or lucky enough to bask in the approval of the avtoritet?
Vlad ground his teeth in frustration and pushed the pedal down, dodging in and out of traffic. Such recklessness courted trouble, and he could not afford to be pulled over on such an important errand. But maybe it was time for him to be a bit reckless. To make his own decisions. To live or die by his own sword.
It had been Sergey’s idea to threaten the woman. But it hadn’t worked. Now, Vlad was calling his own shots. Killing the old man was only the start. Luckily, not twenty minutes after he put a bullet in the old man’s head, he’d received a call from de Santos himself. What further proof did Vlad need that he was doing the right thing?
Vlad had been calm but ferocious, as he saw it, promising to kill everyone de Santos cared about until he agreed to cooperate. A meeting had been set up for an abandoned school Vlad knew about, on the crumbling edges of Palmdale, far from the bustle of downtown Los Angeles. Naturally, Vlad did not expect de Santos to appear unarmed. He wasn’t stupid, even if he was arrogant and overdressed. Vlad might not be as sophisticated, but he had come up through the ranks, stealing his first gun at the age of eleven and making his first kill at seventeen. He would wait and see how the meeting went. If de Santos was repentant, maybe Vlad would bring him in, leading him like the trophy he was. If not—well, it would be easy enough to claim that he’d had no choice.
De Santos threatened me, he would say. He fired first.
The brotherhood would take note. His status would grow.
And if de Santos failed to show? It was only a matter of time before Vlad found the girl. She couldn’t hide from him forever. Meanwhile, Vlad would take the old wom
an from that miserable little shop. When he called de Santos, he would hear the old woman’s screams.
He arrived at the school and parked his car behind a boarded-up gymnasium. He’d used the site before, an advantage de Santos didn’t have. He knew the best places to hide.
That gave him an unfair advantage, perhaps. But Vlad had long ago given up believing that anything in life was fair.
#
A knock at the door caused Chelsea to practically leap off the sofa, where she had been trying—and failing—to read the fashion magazine she’d found on the coffee table.
She threw the magazine down and padded to the door, moving as quietly as she could. Her bare feet on the impossibly plush carpet made no sound. She put her face to the peephole, wondering if she would be shot through the door.
The man standing on the other side was distinguished looking, with short silver-laced hair and wearing an understated suit and tie.
It was Mr. Smith, the driver who had taken her home after the first night she spent with Ricardo.
Chelsea was under no illusion that Smith was his real name. But she did trust that he worked for Ricardo. And Ricardo had told her that she could open the door to him alone.
She kept the chain on the door, knowing the few ounces of metal would mean nothing to someone like Smith.
“Hello, Ms. Ryder,” the man said calmly, as though they had run into each other at the post office. “It is I, Ignacio. How nice to see you again.”
“Oh, hello.” She managed a small smile for him. “Imagine running into you here.”
As ridiculous as it was to make small talk under the circumstances, it made Chelsea feel just a little bit better. A little more normal.
“I understand you are feeling, perhaps, very anxious,” Mr. Smith said. “I only wanted to let you know that I am close by and perhaps reassure you that you are safe.”
“I…thank you.”
“In the meantime, I took the liberty of picking up a few things for you downstairs. In case a fresh change of clothing might make you more comfortable.”
She glanced down and saw that he was holding a silvery bag emblazoned with the name of an expensive boutique in the hotel lobby. No doubt Ricardo had let Smith know that Chelsea hadn’t been home for two nights…and he could see for himself that she hadn’t exactly left home in her best clothes.
She accepted the bag gratefully, squeezing it through the gap in the door. “Thank you, truly.”
“Are you hungry?”
Food was the last thing on her mind, but Chelsea supposed that she ought to eat. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a pizza up your sleeve.”
The smile he gave her was fleeting, but genuine. “Sadly I do not. But you’ll find basic provisions in the kitchenette. And if you need anything else—”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
He nodded briskly. “Well then, Ms. Ryder, I’ll return to my post. Always a pleasure.”
As Chelsea shut the door, she wasn’t sure if he was joking.
#
Ricardo watched the Russian walk around to the steps leading up to the second-floor balcony of the old gymnasium and nodded to himself. It was the same location he would have chosen himself if he were in the other man’s shoes. From a narrow space between an HVAC unit and the stairwell, one could remain hidden and still see almost the entire campus.
Then again, the spot Ricardo had chosen, though considerably more difficult to reach, held the same advantage, plus one more. Namely, that Ricardo had gotten here first, and methodically determined all the possible scenarios before selecting his own place to wait.
The meet-up time was still an hour away, and Ricardo was in no hurry. Rushing things, in his experience, rarely improved the outcome, and patience was an underrated virtue. It had taken him years to develop his own as it ran contrary to his nature. But growing up at his father’s knee had taught him the value of discipline.
Ricardo watched and waited, aided by a small, powerful scope that let him track his enemy’s smallest movement and gauge his attention. When only ten minutes remained before the arranged meeting time, Vlad made the mistake he had been waiting for. He stood and stretched, working the kinks out of his knees and shoulders.
Ricardo fired three times in quick succession. The first shot destroyed Vlad’s right hand. The second, as Vlad struggled to reach for his weapon with his left, knocked the gun to the edge of the overhang, where it teetered for a moment before falling to the ground. And the third struck the center of his kneecap, exactly where Ricardo had aimed.
Climbing down the side of the marquee sign, which had once announced news of homecoming dances and congratulated graduating seniors, was just as difficult as scaling it in the first place. Ricardo took his time, ignoring the screaming issuing from the gymnasium
Once back on the ground, he sprinted across the school grounds, treading over broken asphalt and splintered glass. He took the stairs two at a time, and soon he was standing over the fallen gangster.
He looked into the pale, watering eyes of the man who’d brutally murdered a helpless old man…who had dared to threaten Chelsea. Ricardo had prepared a few words for the occasion, but as he took note of the unrepentant sneer on the Russian’s face, he decided that Vlad wasn’t worth the effort.
He finished him with one last shot to the forehead.
He stalked down the steps, his feet ringing on the metal, scanning the campus for movement. But the stupid thug had come alone. There was no one to pursue him. Sergey would learn soon enough that he had entrusted the wrong man with the job, and he would not be pleased.
It remained to be seen whether the efforts to recruit him would now turn into a vendetta. But Ricardo’s message would be delivered. Should harm come to someone Ricardo cared about, the consequences would be swift and final. Violence would be answered in kind. Stupidity would not be tolerated.
This was not the way that Ricardo had envisioned his life turning out, all those years ago when he took over his father’s business. But life had made him who he was. Overnight, he went from favorite son to head of household. His mother had not been the only one who depended on him; the workers his father employed would have had nowhere to turn to if he let them go. When the matons came around, with their petty threats and demands for protection money, Ricardo learned to deal with them too.
Ricardo had learned at a tender age that some choices would never be his to make. And he did not turn away from the hardest ones.
But it made the things he chose in his life all that much more important.
And he had chosen Chelsea. He had tried to let her go when he couldn’t guarantee her safety. But it was too late for that. Now, with blood on his hands, he would go and claim what was his.
#
He knocked before letting himself into the hotel room, an unnecessary courtesy: Smith had assured him that all was well. Ricardo knew that Smith had wired the suite, and kept tabs via the hidden cameras. He also knew that Smith would have given Chelsea as much privacy as possible, ensuring only that no harm befell her while Ricardo was away.
Now, the cameras were turned off and Mr. Smith had been dismissed.
Ricardo waited, giving Chelsea time to look through the peephole and see that he was alone. When she opened the door and let him in, he was unprepared for what awaited him.
It wasn’t just that she had showered, that her long hair lay straight and silky around her shoulders, that she was wearing a loose, flowing dress and silver sandals that Smith must have picked up for her downstairs. Smith didn’t have Ricardo’s discerning taste, but he’d done well enough, choosing a shade of blue that brought out Chelsea’s eyes, if not her wicked curves.
It wasn’t just her scent, a spicy mix of soap and citrus and notes underneath that were her alone, although inhaling the air near her was enough to stir his arousal.
It wasn’t any single element that made him want to pick her up and carry her to the bedroom, but the combination of everything about her. Her st
rength and her vulnerability. Her hard edges and her soft spaces. Her unspoken desires and the needs that only he could see.
“I killed a man tonight,” he said, drawing her close to him while he watched her carefully.
She blinked. But she didn’t pull away.
“You have to know this about me,” he said, wondering if he was about to sever the connection that bound the two of them, to destroy the best thing that had ever happened to him. “He isn’t the first man I’ve had to kill. I wish I could promise you that he would be the last.”
“He was the one who…killed Boris?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes sparked with fury. “Then he deserved to die.”
He reached for the sash knotted at her waist, rubbed the fabric between his fingers and thumb.
“Mr. Smith was kind enough to bring this,” Chelsea said, turning shyly to show him. “Does it meet your standards?”
Ricardo raised an eyebrow in wonderment that this woman—unlike any he had ever known, a fragile mix of determination and scars and softness—did not know what he saw in her. Did not know that she had ensnared him and that he was helpless in her spell.
But helpless did not mean weak. Ricardo was fully prepared to be strong for her. To give her what he needed.
But first he would finish what he started. He would tell her almost everything so that there would be no surprises, so that she would know exactly what he was capable of. When she came to him, he wanted her to come in the full knowledge of what he was.
“I would like to tell you a story,” he said softly. “It isn’t a long one. I will get you a drink, and we will watch the sunset together.”
Her eyelids fluttered down as she nodded, her hand holding the folds of her dress together where the skirt split. Her modesty was arousing.
“Yes…” she said, and then her gaze traveled up, coming to rest on his face, the hint of something dangerous in her eyes.
