by Raven Dark
“Shit.” I stared across the room at the large Jacuzzi tub.
Franks lay naked in the tub, water up to the middle of his chest. Jets ran, turning the water to a froth as it continued to rise. Water poured from the faucet, seconds from running out onto the floor. He didn’t look to have been wounded, but his eyes stared lifelessly up at the ceiling. Then I noticed what was laying in the tub.
“How did he—” my driver started.
“David, look.”
He cursed. A mini stereo lay partially submerged under the water, a thin electrical cord running from the submerged end up to a shelf above the tub where the stereo must have been sitting. Electricity wasn’t coming from it anymore, but I knew it would have been when it hit the water, sending out enough currents to kill him.
David holstered his pistol and moved to shut the water off, but I stopped him.
“Don’t. You still might get zapped. The power’s going to have to be shut off first, and we aren’t sticking around for that.”
David glanced at me. “Wait.” His voice was a hiss. “Sir, if the water hasn’t run over, Franks couldn’t have been killed more than fifteen minutes ago. If—”
Remembering the open door at the back, my blood chilled, and I put a finger to my lips, gesturing to the back door.
David yanked his gun back out and we crept back toward the living room. The floor creaked close to the bathroom door. I darted out of the room and slammed my fist into the face of a dark suited man standing at the entrance.
The man cried out and grabbed his nose, which sprayed blood through his fingers. He reached for me, and I sucker punched him in the gut.
The man grunted and fell backward across the floor. His hand went for the gun at his hip. Before he could fire and draw unwanted attention, I kicked the gun out of his hand and hammered my foot into his wrist, pinning it to the floor.
“Ah ah. Can’t have you doing that. This party’s by invitation only.”
“Davros, you shouldn’t have come here. This is Family business. No wannabe members allowed.”
So, he knew me. I didn’t miss the jab, or the irony in it. All my life, I’d been fighting my connections to the Mafia, and here this guy was, trying to insult me by implying those connections were so minimal, I wasn’t even fit to show up at a hit. It pissed me off even more that the insult rankled me.
“Keep shooting your mouth off like that, and we’ll fill it full of lead.” When I took my foot off his wrist to pull him off the floor, he reached for the gun. David stepped up and aimed his pistol at the man’s head.
“Don’t even.”
“You have no idea what you’re interfering with.” He looked at both of us.
“Suppose you tell us, then?”
When he didn’t answer, I hauled him to his feet and dragged him over to the open back door he must have used to get in. Well, the man certainly looked like he could have scaled the balconies. No more than early twenties, he looked spry and built for difficult movement, with the body strength and speed to take down any human target a hundred ways.
At the door, I released him long enough to push him through the entrance way. The hitman spun around and threw a skilled punch at my face. Too taken off guard to react fast enough, I only swerved half out of his way. His fist hit my temple. I stumbled back, and he jump-kicked me in the chest.
The wind knocked out of me, I grunted and flew backward. Since David was behind me, he couldn’t get at him, or I suspect he would have had the man on the ground before he ever got a lick in. He couldn’t shoot him, knowing he had information we needed. As soon as I hit the floor, David leaped over me and round-housed him in the face.
The hitman fell backward, then vaulted to his feet in one fluid move. Jesus, this guy’s skills were head and shoulders beyond mine.
David and he exchanged blows and blocks until at last David was able to grab him from behind. He pulled him into a small kitchen area. I followed in time to see David haul him over to a table and toss him into a chair. Somehow, David got behind him, and as the hitman tried to get up, he yanked his tie off, then, in the next instant, he had it wrapped around the man’s neck.
Slowly, I made my way to the table, watching David tighten the tie around his neck, jaw muscles flexing with the effort as he gradually cut the man’s air off. The young man thrashed and clawed at the tie, trying to get at David’s hands. David just stood there, continuing to tighten his hold, face impassive.
This was one of those times David’s skills proved his past held secrets, ones I had a feeling had nothing to do with FBI. Once of these days I would get him to tell me what the fuck he was before he was my driver.
“Please…can’t breathe...”
Tamping down the regret, I walked over to the young man, watching his eyes widen with horror when I didn’t help him. He was going to die, and he knew it.
Only when it looked like he was going to pass out did I nod to my driver. “David, stop. Let the poor boy breathe.”
David let the tie go slack. He held it there, still around the man’s neck, the ends wrapped around his fists, ready to tighten at a signal from me. The hitman’s chest rose and fell rapidly, his face chalk white.
“You wouldn’t kill me, Davros. You’d be gutted like a fish.”
“Actually, I will kill you. Trust me.” I crossed my arms. “But first, you tell me who hired Franks, and then who hired you to kill him when he didn’t get the job done on Montrose.”
“You stupid shit. If you’re gonna kill me, there’s no reason to rat. I’m not telling you a thing.”
“Oh, don’t play with us, boy.” I nodded to David. David jerked the tie tight and the hitman thrashed and bucked, grunting for air. Again, when it looked like he was on his last legs, David let the tie go slack.
The hitman huffed heavily. “You sons of bitches.”
I allowed a smile and knelt in front of him the way a father might with a misbehaving child. “Kitchens are great for this line of work, you know.”
“What?” His eyes widened in horror.
“There’s so many ways to cause pain.” I stood, picked up a knife from Franks’ table beside him, and held it up. “Cold. Hot. Glass. Steel.”
“Oh God. You fucking–”
I grabbed his hand and slammed it to the table, holding one finger still. Knife held above it. He started to scream and David covered his mouth.
I stood up, putting the knife down, but held his wrist to the table. “That’s what I thought. Now. I want the name of the bitch who hired both of you, or you’ll spend the next few hours with us playing one finger, two finger.”
“You’re not getting anything from me, Davros.”
Before I could do anything, he crunched his teeth together hard. Even before his throat worked on a swallow and the foam started coming out of his mouth, I knew.
“Ah, fuck me.” I grabbed his jaw, prying it open, but it was too late, the pill was already working its lethal magic.
“Shit. Cyanide pill?” David came around in front of him, pushing his head back as his body convulsed, and then slowly stilled.
“Looks like.”
“Well, that’s some high and heartlessness there. Whoever this woman is, she’s trained her assassins to kill themselves instead of tell her secrets.”
I bent over, looking closely at the hitman. “How the hell did he get the pill into his mouth without us seeing it?”
David opened his jaws and peered in. “It looks like he had a hollow tooth. He would have bitten down on it.”
“Seriously?” I dropped into a chair. “Who the hell is this woman?” I leaned over, elbows on my knees, then raked my hands through my hair. “When I get my hands on this bitch, I’m going to decorate her wall with her brains.”
“Fire a shot for me. This man couldn’t have been more than twenty-four. Whole life ahead of him. Such a waste.”
“Why do you suppose he didn’t take the pill immediately, when you started strangling him?”
“
Probably he thought he was going to get a chance to escape.”
I nodded and quashed the guilt that ate at me. He was a killer, a trained hitman who would have killed us if we hadn’t done it first. His age changed nothing. I hated that I would have tortured him, but it had been the only way to get the information I needed to protect Anika and her father.
In the car on the way back to the hotel, I leaned back against my seat, eyes closed, trying to calm the adrenaline and anger raging through me. Twice, this woman had sent killers after a man my woman loved. Twice, she’d tried to have the only family Anika had ripped away from her. The truth was, I usually tried to avoid killing women. Some gentlemanly part of me my father hadn’t managed to quash. But for this cold-hearted cunt, I’d make an exception.
The image of Anika rose in my mind and my cock swelled, straining against the zipper of my pants. Scrapping and other dirty Mafia business like this always made me horny, flooding me with the need to claim her, like a warrior’s prize at the end of a death match.
It didn’t matter that the young man had taken his own life, rather than my having killed him. In a way that just made me want to lose myself in her more. I wanted to wipe away my guilt in her perfection, living inside the one moment when I could feel like I wasn’t a monster, and getting darker by the day.
I hit the button to put down the glass partition between the front and the back sections of the limo. “David.”
“Sir? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, it takes more than a punch to the head to take me down. What’s my next appointment for today?” I was too tired to take out my phone and check my itinerary.
“Just a meeting with one of Elk Mountain’s Resort’s investors. You want to cancel it, sir?”
I couldn’t help but smile at how well David knew me. Best part was, this appointment, regarding a resort I was having built in Big Bear, wasn’t related to my father’s business, or anything to do with the Gavini family, which meant it could wait. Which was good, because I had another task that needed tending to.
“Yes, cancel it. Then take me to Lakewood.”
“Of course, sir.”
I thought about what would happen when I got Anika to my mansion. Warmth for her spread through me, but I shut it down. She still had a punishment coming to her. A punishment for something that, in any normal D/s relationship, she would never be punished for. Certain distance still had to remain between us, or I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to do what needed to be done.
I had to remain detached, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t let myself enjoy claiming her.
When Kane returned to Lakewood, I was sitting in at my father’s bedside, having fallen asleep at some point. There’d been no change in him when I dropped off. The panic and devastation that warred for headspace made me grateful I was so sleep deprived. If I weren’t so dead tired, sleep would have been impossible. Then Kane’s deep voice was pulling me awake.
“Anika. Anika, wake up.” His hand shook my shoulder.
A smile pulled at my lips for his gentleness. As if in reflex, I reached up and squeezed his hand. Then I looked up into the gorgeous face above mine. The stoic coolness of his expression slowly registered. Impatience bit at me and I almost sighed. On the plane, he’d been Mister Ice, but when we’d reached my father and he’d gone out of his way to get to the bottom of who was gunning for my dad, he’d changed, becoming the man I’d fallen in love with. Now, Mister Ice was back.
I sat up, glancing at my dad, still out cold, then at Kane. “What time is it?”
“Almost seven. Come on, let’s go home.”
“I can’t. Kane, I can’t go back to New York yet. I have another day off tomorrow, I need to spend as much time as I can with him to be here if—when—he wakes up.”
“I meant the mansion in Bel Air.” He stepped back, waiting for me to get up and follow him out. “You need some real food, and a comfortable bed.”
Damn. I couldn’t read him at all. He wasn’t being completely removed, he was still trying to take care of me, but he wasn’t exactly oozing warmth, either.
“Did Dr. Peters say anything more while I was asleep? Any change?”
He shook his head.
“Did you find Paul Franks? What happened?”
“Don’t worry about it, it’s not your business. I want to get home before it gets too late. Say goodbye to your father and let’s go.”
This time I did sigh. He sounded impatient. I’d thought we’d gotten past this whole man’s only thing he had, cutting me out of the darker part of his life. At least when it came to my father.
I got up and slid my hand into my father’s. What would he think about Kane now, knowing how much more he’d done for us? Hating the motionless, frail look of him, I pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Love you, Daddy. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Once Kane had left to go to his meeting, I’d returned to find my father on a different floor. The hospital personnel were already moving him to one of those top floor rooms, reserved for only the highest profile people. Funny, they treated my father and talked to me as if he was just as important as any rock star or presidential candidate. Because I was with Kane?
After leaving Lakewood, we stopped for sandwiches to eat on the way back to Bel Air. I hadn’t eaten since the plane, and I didn’t realize how starving I was until I smelled the fresh bread in the bakery we stopped in. We ordered steak on thick, delicious bread, with fried onions and a spicy mustard I’d never had before.
The whole trip back to Bel Air, Kane hardly said anything. Traffic was less at this time of night, so what had been an almost three hour trip up to Big Bear, was barely two hours home. In the stifling silence of the limo, it felt like six hours. At least he wasn’t making business calls like I wasn’t there. I resisted the sudden and absurd urge to throw myself into his lap and kiss him until he could think only of me. I hadn’t any idea what he’d do if I tried that, but I knew it wouldn’t go well. Kane gave of himself when he chose, and only then.
Bel Air was as gorgeous as I’d always imagined, with the luxuriant, gated mansions that lined the streets, none smaller than a hotel, with sprawling gardens and sparking outdoor pools. Staring out of the window watching the fanciful houses roll past, I tried to shut the thought of Kane out, but my thoughts only turned to my father. Suddenly I wished I’d just put on my big girl panties and asked him who my real father was. Now that he couldn’t tell me—now that he might never be able to tell me—everything I’d never said to him but should have became the most important things in the world. Guilt stabbed at me for wanting to know whose blood I carried in my veins when the man who raised me might never regain consciousness.
The need for Kane, for any compassion from him, hit me hard and swift, like a fist to the heart. I shoved it down, but I must have hidden it too late.
Slowly, Kane slid his hand over my back, his palm warm, heating me even through the silk blouse and blazer I wore.
“You all right?” He spoke in barely a whisper.
“I’ll be fine.” I couldn’t help the bite in my voice for the way he could shut his compassion on and off like a light switch. “Don’t pretend you care.”
He withdrew his hand as if he’d been stung.
Kane didn’t say another word until we got to the house. We got out, and for a moment, I forgot my irritation with his hot and cold act as I stared at his house.
“Holy shit. Did we take a wrong turn? I think we’ve ended up at Buckingham Palace.”
Solid walls of stone rose three floors, spreading for what seemed like a whole block, white widow’s peaks running along the middle and top roofs. Huge pillars flanked great oak doors emblazoned with the famous Davros “D”, and a cobblestoned walk led to the tall wrought iron gate at the entrance to the grounds. Fountains spouted water around the sprawling lawns. I whistled. My father’s house would have fit inside this mansion four times with room to spare.
A sliver of the usual revulsion hit me for his wealth w
hen I knew it was the same money that landed my father and I in this situation. I wanted so badly for that distain I kept feeling to disappear inside my secret love for him, but everything about this house was meant to show off. It wasn’t a place to live, it was a show of power. No one bought a place like this unless they wanted the rest of the world, people like my father, to know they could.
“Are you impressed, Anika?” His voice was a soft rasp in my ear. Mocking.
I was, and that only made my annoyance worse. No. No, I would not hate him. He wanted me to, but I wouldn’t. “Can we just get inside?”
Kane rose a brow at me. Then he took my wrist and stalked to the front door, let himself in and pushed me in with him. A butler set my bag on the floor inside, but Kane nodded to the winding, red carpeted stairs in front of us. “Take Anika’s bags upstairs and show her to her room please. I’ll be up to join her in a minute.”
“Yes, sir. Come with me, miss.”
But I knew what Kane was planning. On the plane, he’d said he’d punish me for my lie. I could see it in the glint in his eyes, he meant to make good on that promise the moment he had me alone.
That look made my pussy ache, but he couldn’t just expect me to turn my emotions on and off like him. At the stairs, I turned to him.
“There’s no need for you to waste time with me. I’d rather be left alone, and I’m sure you have mobst—I mean business men—waiting to hear from you.”
Kane’s smirk made my insides do crazy things. It promised all sorts of wicked ways in which he most certainly wouldn’t be leaving me alone. “You’re not getting out of this. Go upstairs, Anika. I won’t be long.”
Ugh. I hated that about him. He knew exactly how to make me burn for everything he gave me.
At the top of the stairs, the butler led me to a gigantic room furnished in teak and plush whites with gold accents. A huge bed sat in the middle of the room, the head and foot ends flanked by two-foot high metal boards. Each end had vertical bars, giving it the distinct look of a high-end cage. Of course, the moment I saw it, all I could envision was how many ways Kane could use those bars to tie me up, spreading me open for him.
