by K. J. Dahlen
“Well, these are hundred years old, aren’t they?” Gator asked.
Sergi shook his head. “No, you don’t understand. These daggers are replicas of those worn by the earlier warlords of our country. Blades such as these would be specially forged when war was declared on another tribe. The stones you see in the handles declare intent. The first stone is the stone of the tribe itself, the one declaring the war. The second and third stones declare the allies tribes while the forth stone declares the tribe war is being raged on. Daggers such as these were forged every time a major battle was raged on our soil. But no one has forged daggers like this since the time before we acknowledged our first Tzar,” he breathed the words out reverently. “Blades such as these would take the life of the loser of the battle. The winner would slit the throat of those who opposed him. Often both sides would have daggers such as these made and the winner would confiscate the losers own daggers to show off his conquests.”
Misha sat down heavily in the chair next to his father. “What the hell was the Tzarina thinking when she had these made? Was Nikolas going to go to war against his own people?”
“Would anyone back in the day these daggers were made have known what these represent?” Sam asked.
Sergi turned his head to glare at the man. “Oh yes, they would have known exactly what these daggers represent. As would the men directly under the Tzar. Back then, Russia was proud of her history. Back then, as today we taught our children to respect our history and blades such as these would have been well known to the elders of our country.”
“Now you know why my great grandfather left Russia and settled here. Why he changed his name and kept these hidden for a hundred years.” Ana shook her head. “I don’t know how Michael even knew they existed or how he knew he would find them at my grandfather’s home. They were buried in a secret vault under my grandfather’s work bench.”
“Rumors of the daggers have been around since they were forged.” Sergi shrugged. “When they couldn’t be found, the rumors would die down but they never really went away. Every so often, the rumors would start up again. People embellish the truth until you don’t know what the truth is anymore and what is fictional. Whoever this man is, he’s done his homework. He already knew the daggers were real.”
Ana felt tears welling in her eyes. “And he tortured my grandfather to find out where they were hidden,” she whispered in a broken voice.
“We know child, we saw the security tapes.” Sergi assured her.
“What do you mean?” Sazon frowned. “What tapes?”
“He stabbed my grandfather in the back first, then he speared his side and when he was down, this man stabbed him more than fifteen times. Those stab wounds were non-lethal but with each wound, he grew weaker from the blood loss. There was so much blood. My grandfather was so weak he couldn’t move anymore by the time I found him.” She hung her head and in a low whisper she continued, “Some of his wounds were deep and I could see he twisted the knife before he took it out. Pops could barely speak to me before he died in my arms. He fought death off just to tell us who killed him. He gave me a little piece of himself while he lived and it was something I would cherish all my days. I wish I could have the chance to give this killer in return, the pain he gave my grandfather. I want to see if it’s pain in his eyes or if he will welcome it when he knows death will come for him.” Anna was weeping by the time she finished speaking.
Sazon went over to her and wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to him. Then he picked her up, carried her down the hall to the spare bedroom, and shut the door behind them.
No one else in the room said a word for the longest time. Then it was Sam who commented, “This guy needs a hurtin’ put on him, one that is as bad as the one he put on her.”
“That, my friend, would be impossible to achieve.” Nikoli sighed. “Her pain is something she will have to live with for the rest of her life. Pain like that never really goes away, it may lesson over time, but it will always be a part of her life as she goes on. His pain will never last that long.” He glanced at the paperwork on the table. “If he is who we think he is, he will never understand what he’s done, not only to her but to any of his victims. This man has no soul.”
“Then his death will be nothing more than an escape from his own reality.” Sergi shook his head. “Life is horrid sometimes.”
When the door closed behind them, Sazon leaned against it and listened to her heart breaking with her sobs. With one arm holding her waist, his other arm held the back of her head to his chest. After a while, her tears slowed then stopped but still he held her.
Sazon closed his eyes and wrapped both arms around her.
She raised her head to stare at him.
He stared into her tear filled eyes. The pain he saw in them broke his heart. So much pain and no hope.
Pulling back a little, she stared into his eyes. “You want me, correct?” Her misery seemed to fade from her eyes.
He nodded. If she only knew how badly he did want her.
“I want you too. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I may die before this is through. So take me here. I know I’m using you and I’m sorry for that but I need you to give me something else to feel right now. I could forget my own name in your arms and I want that.”
Sazon groaned. He could feel his body heat up and the blood rush to his cock. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
Ana stood on her tiptoes and kissed his jaw. “You got into bed with me earlier. You gonna back down now?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You challenging me, little woman?”
Ana smiled smugly, her earlier tears gone. “I wouldn’t dare. Just look at you. You could squish me like a bug.”
His fierceness faded. “I would never hurt you.”
She shook her head at him bemused by him. “To answer your original question…Yes, I want to lose myself in the awesomeness that is you. I apologize in advance for using your body but this is what I want, what I need.”
Sazon captured her mouth with his and he lost himself in her offering. She was right he dam well wanted her almost from the second his eyes landed on her. He moved over to the bed and they fell as one onto the mattress. He slipped her shirt over her head barely breaking the kiss they shared. His fingers pulled her bra down and his lips went to her hard nipples. Biting and nibbling her, he suckled first on one breast then went over to the other one and repeated his actions. Ana groaned and ground her hips against his. His hands slipped down to her waist and worked the button on her jeans. Pulling down the zipper, his fingers slipped into her underwear and he felt her heat. Then he felt her wetness and he groaned with his own pleasure while just touching her satiny skin.
Slipping his fingers inside her core, he caught the scent of her passion. Her scent fed his passion and blocked out everything but what he was doing at the moment. His blood went from very warm to lava hot in an instant and he could couldn’t contain his actions. He felt like he was burning up from the inside out.
He ripped her clothes off and then his own within seconds. He had nothing more on his mind than satisfying the intense need he felt for this small woman. In that moment, he knew she was the only woman he would ever feel this way about and the connection he’d felt for her earlier would last the rest of his days. Sazon could feel her walls gripping his digit and it made his cock harder than it had ever been before. He growled as his cock was rubbing along her wetness.
He didn’t want to wait as he used his muscles to slide inside her. She didn’t fight him in fact she opened her legs wider to accommodate him. He surged to bury himself within her. She was so tight—it was mid blowing. His fingers moved to her clit and began to touch her again.
Ana stiffened but didn’t move away. Her body responded to his touch. “You are so huge,” she whispered. Her own hands went to the place between her legs and covered his hands.
Sazon smiled down at her. She fit him so well. Too good in fact. Like they were made
for each other. He brushed her fingers away and surged up inside her by moving his hips. When he heard her exclamation, he began stroking his cock in and out of her core. She was tight and wet and he was in heaven as he moved inside her. He grabbed her hips and pushed himself deeper into her as his cock grew harder than he’d ever felt it before.
Ana whimpered and rose up against him repeatedly meeting his thrusts with greed as her body went crazy with need. Panting and writhing beneath him, she splinted apart, screaming out his name.
Sazon smothered her cries with his mouth eating up her screams. His hard cock sought her warm wet core and when he found his way to her again, he couldn’t help himself. He slammed into her deep and buried his full length in one stroke. Yes, Sazon was a big man and he normally took his time to work his length into his lovers but this time he couldn’t wait.
Ana gasped but didn’t pause. She wrapped her legs around his hips and locked her ankles in a tight lock. His thrusts were wild and with each stroke he lost a little more of his control.
His mouth crashed down on hers as he pressed his body into hers. When he broke the connection to her mouth, he growled, “I told you this before… you belong with me. Do you understand?”
Ana barely heard him but she felt his meaning. She moaned and lifted her hips to allow him to go deeper. She nodded but couldn’t say a word. The look in his eyes told her he meant every word he said.
Sazon began thrusting inside her again and with each thrust, he repeated his earlier vow, “We belong together and I will keep you with me.”
Ana felt her body ramp up again and her mind went blank even as his words sank into her consciousness. She couldn’t make her mind work now, as all she could do was feel him take possession of her soul. Her nerve endings began to tingle and her body tightened as she sped toward fulfillment. Sazon thrusts became deeper and harder than before and moments later, they both exploded. His mouth crashed down on hers before she could scream and he muffled the sound of her climax. When his body calmed down, he collapsed on her for a long moment, then he moved over to her side.
Ana came back online as her heartbeat slowed down to a normal level. She’d never had something like this happen to her before. It was truly an out of body experience. Now she laid wrapped in his arms. With her head resting on his chest, she listened to the rhythm of his heartbeat and the sound soothed her raging soul.
Anna wished she could stay with him. Be with him. He’d said they belonged together. She only wished that were true. But she had a burning in her soul to avenge her grandfather and that was her main priority, she knew she also might die trying to bring this justice. This is why she’d decided to be with Sazon. Who could refuse such a man? He was everything she’d dreamed too. Hot and sexy. He’d filled her like nothing and no one had ever. Too bad, it would probably never happen again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Sazon held her for a long time. He wondered where her thoughts were. He’d like to think they were about him, but he wouldn’t fool himself. He knew she was in pain and misery. He saw that tape of her grandfather’s murder. It would be in her mind for a long time to come. Finally, he nuzzled into her neck and whispered, “Are you okay?”
Ana smiled faintly. “I guess so.”
“You guess so?” he queried quietly. “You don’t know?”
Ana shook her head. “I may never be ok again and I will always hate what this man has done to my family but I know it must be faced. I must confront this man and find out why. Why did he have to murder my grandfather?”
“And the daggers?” he asked. “Don’t you want to know why he took the daggers?”
Ana shook her head. “I don’t care about the damn daggers. They are just material things. They don’t matter.”
Sazon scoffed. “Others might not think so.”
“But they’re not important to me. My grandfather raised Drago and me. He believed in family over everything else. Everything else is just material things, they weren’t important, only family mattered. He would say. ‘Family will be there for you when you’re down on your luck or need a helping hand. Family will protect you from the cold or from the fears that haunt you. Material things are cold and have no soul.’ ”
“Your grandfather sounds like a man I could admire. I was alone in the world until I met the men that became my brothers. We aren’t related by blood but by something more intense. We became blood brothers by choice but your grandfather was right, family does have your back and you can rely on them. How did you come to live with him?”
Ana sighed. “I remember it was the summer. I was seven and Drago was eight. It was another time when rumors of the daggers were going around and there were all these people coming around our house asking questions. To get away from all the crazy, my parents took us to Pops’ house. They were on their way back home when someone broadsided them. My father was killed outright but my mother lingered long enough for the bastard to ask her some questions. He demanded to know where the daggers were, how he could find them and where her other children were. We have said publicly since then that it was a drunk driver, but it wasn’t. It was someone after the daggers and we couldn’t tell people the truth.”
“Her other children?”
Ana looked at him with more tears in her eyes. “She was carrying our younger brother at the time of the accident. When he heard the sirens coming, the bastard took off and told her not to tell anyone he was there. She told most of this to my grandfather right before she died. It wasn’t long after that she joined my father in death and my grandfather was left to raise us. But he never let us forget who we were or who our parents were. He buried them in a small cemetery hidden on his property. His father and mother are there as well. Drago and I buried him there too, next to our grandmother.”
“Do you know who the man was that killed your parents?” Sazon asked.
Ana looked him in the eye and whispered, “Yes, we know who he was.”
“Was?” Sazon questioned.
Ana wouldn’t say anything but from her silence Sazon knew the bastard had faced justice, old fashioned Russian justice. He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead. “We should join the others and try to figure out what’s going on. They may have more information on this bastard by now.” Sazon went and got a warm washcloth and gently cleaned her up. He went into the bathroom and then came back out.
They got dressed without saying a word. As he escorted her back out to the living room, they saw the men gathered around the dining room table. On the table was the information Trudy had sent them by fax.
Yuri looked up when they returned and nodded at the table. “Your boy has been very busy.”
“What does that mean?” Ana asked.
Yuri grunted. “I don’t know where this Trudy got this information but she cracked this case wide open. The man who claimed his name was Michael Tabrone is really Caleb Stoner. He is also a serial killer known to the police and the press as the Ripper. From what we’ve been able to track, he began his murder spree fifteen years ago when he killed his stepfather Sam Weston in Port Arthur, Texas. We haven’t been able to find out his entire past yet, but I have no doubt that Trudy will find out everything about his past.”
“How did his stepfather die?” Ana asked.
“Caleb stabbed him fifteen times then when he was almost dead from blood loss he cut the man’s heart out,” Sergi informed them.
Ana gasped, her hand flew up to cover her mouth.
“What happened next?” Sazon questioned.
“Four years later, he turned up in Miami, Oklahoma. We don’t know how long he lived there before he murdered a young woman by the name of Gena Crane. He disappeared again for two years where he showed up in Kansas City. He murdered Michael Tabrone there and went underground again. She found out he’d been going under the name Michael Tabrone since the real Michael was murdered. He didn’t kill anyone else for seven years that we have found anyway. There was another murder in Cincinnati where he brutally murdere
d Glory Mattias. “
“Then what happened?” Ana whispered, not sure she wanted to hear the rest.
“It was two years later when he found your grandfather,” Yuri took up the story. “These murders have only one thing in common and that’s the way they happened. There is no link available yet to tie them all together.”
“Do we know where he’s been for the last two months?” Ana asked.
“Trudy did find another murder only weeks after he left New York,” Dewey stated. “This one was in Cave City, Kentucky. He murdered a young man named Jordan Willias. Then a few weeks later, he showed up here still using the name Michael Tabrone.”
“He’s come full circle hasn’t he?” Ana whispered.
“Full circle?” Sazon frowned.
Ana nodded. “He’s come home again hasn’t he? He started out in Port Arthur, Texas and now he’s here in New Orleans. He’s almost home.”
“But why?” Sazon asked. “Why did he ever come back here? He would have been better off to just keep going.”
For a moment, no one said anything as they thought about why the killer had come back here.
Suddenly, Ana turned around to stare at Sazon. “He’s coming home to kill his mother.”
“What? Why would he do that?” Sazon frowned.
“I don’t know, maybe he feels she betrayed him at some point in his younger life, but in a weird way it makes sense doesn’t it?” she said after reading the report about Caleb Stoner. “I mean think about it. His father died when he was three years old and it was just the two of them, then a dozen years later, his mother marries again and he doesn’t like the new man in her life. He kills him and goes on the run.” She shrugged, “Maybe he couldn’t stop killing once he started no matter how hard he tried. Over the last fifteen years, he murdered five more people.” She began to pace as she thought about the way her grandfather died. She frowned then looked over at Yuri. “Just moments after he stabbed my grandfather the last time he dipped his finger in one of the wounds and said a prayer over his body, then he made the sign of a cross on his forehead. Did he do that to any of his other victims?”
