The Russian

by Isabella Laase

  It had been a balmy thirty-five degrees when she’d left her house the previous day, but she’d lived in western New York her whole life and understood better than most how quickly the weather could change. A shift in the jet stream had twisted the icy winds from Canada to a frenzy, ripping across Lake Ontario to leave blizzard-like conditions in its path. In a world where any significant snowstorms were measured in feet, she was always prepared. Pulling the heavy parka she’d had since college a little tighter around her neck, she slipped into a bright blue wool hat and gloves, grateful for the old boots that would make her trek home a lot more comfortable than the thin sneakers she wore around the ER.

  The hospital was located near a brightly lit popular restaurant and bar scene, but she was one of only a few people out and about after midnight on a Sunday. She kept her head low, watching her step as she negotiated the thick slush and keeping a sixth sense on her surroundings with a skill she’d acquired during her tumultuous childhood. By the time she’d crossed the river and turned onto her residential side street, the cold was winning and her feet were damp. When she saw her porch lights reaching through the darkness, she picked up her step.

  The nondescript four-door sedan caught her attention as soon as it turned the corner behind her. Demons lurked in all the dark crevices of the world, and she kept an eye over her shoulder, judging its speed and distance against the remaining paces to her front door. It appeared to be innocent, slowly driving past her and the heavy tint on the windows blocked any acknowledgement from the driver. Dismissing her fears, she started to search for her keys in the oversized bag.

  Without warning, the car pulled in front of her at a sharp angle, slipping a few feet on the icy road, and a man left the passenger side too quickly to give any appearance of normalcy. Fear closed her throat, but the high snowbanks lining the sidewalk caged her to a few feet. She turned to run back to the brightly lit main drag, but he was too quick. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her around until she faced the dangerous stranger from the elevator, his powerful glare causing her stomach to somersault in dramatic waves.

  “Let go of—” she started to scream, but he clamped his gloved hand firmly over her mouth. Twisting her body, he pulled her arm behind her and backed her against his chest. The bitter, salty leather filled her taste buds, and his wool coat brushed her cheek. She was trapped, close enough to feel the warmth from his breath on the back of her neck.

  “Hush, Dr. Anderson,” said the same heavily accented tone. Eastern European. Russian, maybe Ukrainian. Despite her vulnerability, she tried to take in every detail about his person to report to the cops, but his grasp dug into her wrist with increasing strength as she fought for her life, even scratching his face through her gloves with no effect.

  He pulled his head away from her reach and secured her spare arm, fully pinning her back to his chest. “Stop,” he demanded with an almost surreal politeness. “I have a proposition. I need a doctor to come to my home. You will be well paid for your services and for your silence.”

  “Hurry, Luka,” said another voice from the darkened car, reminding her there were more enemies close at hand. How many? Did they have weapons? The rest of their shouting came in a foreign language but presented a sense of urgency.

  The dark man pulled harder on her arm, tensing her shoulder muscles until a sharp pain registered past her fear barrier. Survival often meant giving up, at least temporarily. She stopped struggling to show her compliance, and he continued to speak calmly. “My cousin reminds me we can’t stand on a street corner all night to have this conversation. I am going to let you go, and you will get into my car. You won’t scream, or I’ll tie and gag you before I throw you into my trunk. It is a long, cold drive to my house, and I am assuming you would rather ride inside the car with leather seats and a working heater. Do you understand?”

  Mia nodded slowly, still evaluating his movements to calculate her escape. He removed his hand from her mouth and loosened his hold, but she pulled away sharply before he grabbed her wrist, pulling a gun from the inside of his jacket. “I am not going to lecture you again. You will come. Now.”

  The shiny metal drew her entire focus, freezing her into place and destroying any thoughts of escape, his unsmiling face and his dark eyes even more ominous than they’d been in the public elevator. As hard as she tried to process an alternative, she couldn’t think of a single option. “Do you plan on killing me?” she asked, struggling to form the words. “Because honestly, I’d rather take my chances on the side of the road than get in a car with you. There is a limit to what you can do to me here.”

  The driver of the car spoke again, his tone rising and his meaning unrecognizable. With a growl, her captor pushed her into the back seat, smacking her knee against something hard and further increasing her terror as the pain pulsed down her leg.

  “Just do what you’re told,” he warned, climbing in behind her, “and nobody is going to get hurt.”

  * * *

  Sheer panic trumped her earlier exhaustion, and she pushed herself as far away from him as the small space allowed. She pulled her bag closer to her chest as though it offered some sort of protection, trying to take in every detail of her kidnappers, the car, and their direction. The possibility the two men would rape or torture her was not her only fear. With the reality they were making no attempts to hide themselves, she was convinced they would kill her as soon as they had the chance. Steadying her nerves was the only way to find an escape.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” demanded the dark stranger with unnerving insight. “We have no plans to hurt you as long as you do what you are told.”

  “I don’t know how else to stare at kidnappers,” she responded bravely. “And you don’t have a lot of credibility with me right now.”

  “I didn’t kidnap anybody,” he said with a sigh, slipping the gun back into his holster. “This is a business decision. You will be paid for your services.”

  The huge man in the front seat offered her a weak smile before returning his attention to the snow-covered road. “I’m sorry for the drama, Dr. Anderson. We’re not kidnappers, and we aren’t going to hurt you. My name is Yuri Petruskenkov, and this is my cousin, Luka. We need medical attention in a private matter. Luka was supposed to ask you nicely to come with us, but he doesn’t always have a good grasp of what ‘nice’ is. It’s a personality fault we’ve recognized since childhood.”

  “She started to run before I could say a word,” dismissed Luka. “I wasn’t going to lose her.”

  “Then you forced me into this car at gunpoint,” she insisted. “That pretty much meets the definition of kidnapping as far as I’m concerned. And if you want to prove yourselves, take me back to where you found me, and we’ll try this all over again.”

  The two men exchanged a look in the rearview mirror before the big one in the front seat burst into laughter, but the humor was lost on Mia. “You bastards think this is real funny, but you won’t when I call the cops. You can’t just go around forcing women into your car.”

  The laughter stopped as quickly as it had started. Luka reached back into his coat to retrieve a large steel knife. “Let’s get something straight,” he said with an even, cold tone. “You will be a guest at my house, and you will care for my young cousin who has been wounded. You will be treated with respect and paid appropriately for your services. We will give you five thousand dollars in cash for treating him and another five thousand for your silence. When I am satisfied he is safe, we will return you to your home, but...”

  The cold knife rested against her cheek before delivering a small, painful bite. “If you ever speak of this day to anybody, I will find you. And I will be angry, which will make you very unhappy. Do you understand?” She nodded slowly, her eyes round with fear as he withdrew with a satisfied grunt. Moving her hand to her face, she expected to find he’d drawn blood, but he hadn’t. There was only the slightest hint of a scratch.

  Any noise or movement would provoke her endless scream
s, and Mia stared out the window at the passing expressway and tried to focus on steady breathing. The swirling, angry snowfall had increased dramatically, making it difficult to see more than a few feet in front of the car, but the driver continued at an unsettling speed as she processed what limited information she had.

  Ten thousand dollars. In cash. Despite the sketchy circumstances, the financial possibilities were endless, including a new car and maybe even getting her brother to a spring baseball camp he desperately wanted to attend. He needed more than food stamps and trailer park drama if he was going to have a chance, and Karrie and Rosie would need new clothes for the warmer months. She needed the money, but just as important, these two men weren’t presenting any options for refusal.

  This was a terrible idea, but she had neither the emotional nor the physical resources to refuse him. “Fine,” she said, swallowing hard. “I’ll take the chance on you, but you have to promise me you won’t bring out that gun or knife again. I’ll help your cousin, but I don’t want to be intimidated.”

  “Unfortunately,” said Luka without a hint of a smile, “I don’t make deals, Dr. Anderson. I decree them. Behave yourself and don’t disappoint me. It’s simple.”

  Chapter Three

  She would be the perfect doctor for Anton. She was petite, no more than five four and maybe a hundred and twenty pounds, but she’d commanded respect at that hospital and had no trouble dealing with trauma. Luka had watched her in the emergency room, giving orders like a general in total control of her battlefield and her feisty attitude was even more apparent when she’d tried for the upper hand in the car.

  But that brief moment in the elevator had clinched it for him and settled her fate. Despite her spurts of bravery, she’d easily submitted to his well-placed glare, lowering her chin and trembling slightly. Her fear was her weakness, and she would be his to control until he sent her on her way with a vow of silence she’d never have the power to break. He’d been raised in a patriarchal clan where even strong women understood their place, and men would do what was necessary to advance their family. She’d do what he demanded in order to survive. They all did.

  It had taken them over an hour to get back to the big house bordering the icy waters of Lake Ontario. The expansive property belonged to Uncle Pavel and Aunt Zoya, but had become an integral part of his business as they pushed their influence westward from the five boroughs of New York. Everybody assured him the neighboring lakeside village of Sodus was a much more beautiful location in the summer than the frozen tableau laid out in front of him, but he didn’t mind the cold. Russia had been built from frigid temperatures, creating a natural barrier to the rest of Europe that defeated both Napoleon’s and Hitler’s ill-timed invasion attempts. Cold ran through his veins in more ways than one.

  Slavic met them at the front door with a serious expression. Acknowledging Dr. Anderson with a nod, he spoke in Russian. “He’s quiet, but she needs to get the bullet out of his thigh. It looks like the shoulder wound grazed him, but it should be checked. If she clears him, we should move him back to New York as soon as possible, and Zoya will know what to do.”

  The three men led her up the massive oak staircase, updating each other in their native language, but the tiny doctor explored her surroundings with overly wide eyes. When they reached Anton’s bedroom, she stared at Luka, but he nudged the small of her back to get her through the doorway. The expansive second-floor bedroom was dark with heavy curtains covering the floor-to-ceiling windows, but Aunt Zoya had decorated the space in relaxing tones of gray and white.

  Slavic turned on the bedside lamps, causing the wounded man to stir uncomfortably in the king-sized bed. Luka spoke to him in Russian. “Lie still, Anton. I’ve brought you a doctor.”

  She slipped out of her heavy winter coat to reveal hints of curvy breasts and a rounded, firm ass under her scrubs. At the sight of her patient, some of her terror-filled expression was replaced by the emboldened general he’d seen at the hospital. “What medications has he had?” she asked. Her businesslike attitude contradicted the quiet submissive so quickly and so strongly that the effect left him unsettled.

  “He’s had two shots of morphine, the last one about fifteen minutes ago,” said Slavic, pointing to the small box of supplies. “The shooting happened over three hours ago, but the bleeding stopped almost immediately. I used both pressure and the tourniquet on his leg.”

  Clearing his throat, Luka asked, “Do you require anything before you begin, Dr. Anderson? Food? Water?”

  “Is there someplace where I can wash my hands?” she asked, pulling her beat-up bag closer to her chest.

  “That’s a bathroom,” he said, pointing toward a closed door, “You will leave your bag here, which we will search along with your coat. And if you choose to shut the door, we will search your person for cell phones or other electronics.”

  “I don’t know how you do things where you come from,” she responded with another burst of unnecessary attitude, “but around here, we shut and lock bathroom doors for privacy. I promise I won’t call anybody. I said I’d do this.”

  “Those are my rules,” he said with a shrug, “and I am paying you well for following my rules. I would warn you to watch your tone with me. I am not a man of patience.”

  “First you said you weren’t going to hurt me. Then you pull out a gun and then a knife and here you are, threatening me again. I just want to understand what I’m up against. Which is it? Do you go around beating up women who tick you off or are you a gentleman?”

  “I assure you I am no gentleman,” he responded, rubbing a single finger down her cheek to send an adorable red blush to follow his touch. “I said in the car that I had no plans to hurt you. But plans can change and hurt can take many levels, so do not push me. Do we understand each other?”

  She nodded, but could not meet his gaze nor could she add any more sass. With a simple touch of his hand, the general inside of her disappeared again, leaving the natural submissive who pulled her thighs together as though that would hide her arousal. He wondered if she’d had practice and training or if her instincts were bred naturally, the latter making her even more of an enticement.

  Taking the pink duffle bag from her clutched hands, he handed it to Yuri. “Check for any electronics,” he demanded in Russian. Returning to English, he pointed at the doctor. “Put your hands out to your sides. I’ll make sure your presence is acceptable.”

  “Look,” she mumbled. “Could I ask you guys not to speak in whatever language you keep using? I’m cooperating. You can search me all you want. Just don’t make this any weirder or more stressful than it already is, Mr.—” She stopped and frowned in deep thought.

  “Petruskenkov.” Luka appreciated her bravery but his palms itched to seek retribution for her attitude. Her chin was too high and her gaze too direct to be considered respectful. She needed to be tied and trussed to his bed with a few good spanks against her ass, her light brown hair released from that utilitarian ponytail to frame her breasts.

  But she wasn’t his to fuck. It took a special woman to join him in his bed. Dominance and submission was more than a game, it was his way of life, and he expected his women to live by the same rules. This little doctor obviously fell into no such category, and he didn’t have the luxury of training an arrogant slave in a foreign country.

  “We were speaking in Russian,” he said. “We won’t do it again, unless of course, we don’t want you to understand what we are saying. Now, do what you’ve been told.”

  He placed his hands on her shoulders to begin his search, but she jumped away, forcing him to arch an eyebrow in silent displeasure and freezing her in place. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, swallowing hard and closing her eyes. “This is all just a lot for me right now. I won’t move.”

  His cock hardened with his victory, and his cousins chuckled. They were far from innocents in the skills involved when dominating a submissive, but their gawking rankled his temper. “Leave here,” he ordered the
brothers with a rumble of authority they wouldn’t dare deny. “Give her space to work.” They reluctantly complied, nodding to Anton who remained too drowsy to respond.

  But exploring her curves over the thin cotton scrubs was far from a chore. He increased the pressure until he felt the warmth from her sculpted lines and across her ass, her compliance soothing his temper. Her eyes remained tightly closed with a subtle nervous trembling that was almost indiscernible, but it was the way she licked her lips, leaving a shiny wet dew that fulfilled him the most.

  He increased his intensity, but instead of pulling away from him a second time, she subtly moved into his grasp, giving herself up in more ways than one. Sliding his palm between her thighs, he nudged her legs wider to gain a wisp of her musky scent. The soft whimpers were a far cry from any kind of protest, and he drew closer to her sex until he palmed her pussy, discovering she’d left a telltale wet response.

  With his dominance firmly established, the quiet little submissive instinctively played her role. The closer he traveled toward her breasts, the more her trembling increased, but she remained where she’d been placed as he enveloped her fullness with his fist, sliding across the soft cotton camisole before slipping his fingertips between her mounds. Her erect nipples were molded into the fabric to further encourage his journey, but he stopped, giving her the chance to take deep breaths as though she were steadying her nerves.

  Looking to regain his own control, he finished searching her lower body, first one leg, then the second but when he approached her left ankle, he found something hard and instinctively reacted with a growl. His glare should have melted her in fear, his anger coming in waves, knowing he’d been played by a woman.

  “It’s a knife,” she said in a clear, steady tone. “I carry it with me at the hospital to make me feel safe, but I’m thinking it’s probably a stupid idea since I forgot I had it until about twenty minutes ago, then I was afraid to tell you. Truthfully, it kinda scares the shit out of me. Cowards shouldn’t carry weapons.”