Ensnared: The Mafia's Prisoner (Book One) (A Dark Mafia Romance)

by Raven Dark

  As soon as he says the words—as soon as I see the light in his eyes—I know he’s baiting me, but it doesn’t matter. I’m slapping at his chest and his face, thrashing against him before I’ve thought about it.

  His fists catch my wrists.

  “Do you want me to take you upstairs right now?”

  He means to that torture chamber of his.

  I freeze and go limp.

  “Don’t. Hit.” His hands remain on my wrists until I lower my eyes, letting him know I won’t fight him.

  He releases my hands and presses a kiss to my temple, inhaling my hair deeply. “I like your fire, kravitsa, but I don’t want you clawing my eyes out while I fuck you.”

  Knowing that if I say anything, I’ll explode on him, I huff my anger out into his chest. Michael sucks my earlobe into his mouth. My sex creams. He licks the shell of my ear and I squirm, inadvertently rubbing myself against his cock.

  “Lie on the table.”

  I obey, hoping my expression looks as mutinous as I feel.

  The way his eyes fixate on that collar tells me that the look of it on me is at least part of the reason he wants me so badly right now. As soon as I’m spread out on the table before him, his cock twitches against my pussy in response.

  “Hold onto the table. Keep your hands there until I’m through.” He fists the sides of my panties, pausing. Waiting for me to obey.

  I glare at him, gripping the end of the table. Good thing for him, because it’s the only thing keeping me from scratching his face.

  He yanks my panties down to my knees, stepping from between my legs only long enough to pull them off. The soaked scrap of cloth disappears into the pocket of his slacks.

  With my head back, the top of it is brushing the wall behind me. He must realize this is going to be a problem when he gets going, because he jerks the table toward him a few inches from the wall.

  Those fiery blue eyes never leave mine as he then lifts my legs onto his shoulders. His silence speaks volumes. It’s deep and dark and makes me feel shameful, an object to be used for his pleasure.

  Oh, my God, this is so hot. I grip the table for dear life.

  There’s a clink of his belt and the sound of his zipper going down. He grips my hips, his cock teases my soaked core.

  Anticipation builds, mixing with anger that makes a poisonous mixture. He’s a train wreck, a world of damage about to collide with me, and there’s nothing to do but lie there and watch him ruin me, just as he has so often before.

  My fingers grip the table until they hurt.

  Michael’s jaw muscles twitch, and he thrusts into me with a single stroke.

  Pleasure lances through me like white hot fire. I let out a whimper between my teeth.

  He doesn’t stop or slow down, fucking me savagely. With my legs up on his shoulders, there’s nothing I can do but lay there and take him.

  Tears sear my eyes, tears of rage at my own response to him. He jerks my hips against him hard, his fingers digging into my flesh. The bite of pain makes me wild. While his hips slap mine, the sting returns to my thighs where they’re still bruised, and somehow that makes me hotter still. My pussy clenches greedily around him, loving the way he fills me no matter how much I’m supposed to hate him.

  I pant, gripping the table so hard my fingers threaten to snap.

  I love his silence, and I hate it too.

  The table shakes and scrapes the floor with his savage thrusts.

  With every stroke, he’s reminding me that he owns me, that he is all there is for me, and I’m never, never getting away.

  An orgasm claws at me and I toss my head and buck helplessly against the table, crying out as white lights streak my vision. Michael growls in his throat and his control snaps. He gives me a handful of sharp thrusts.

  “Fuck, kravitsa.” He pulls out, pushes my legs so that their spread to either side of him. His fist pumps his cock right over my pussy until hot come jets across my pussy and belly.

  Michael steps back to give me room and rakes his hand through his hair. “Damn, woman, you make me crazy.” He does up his pants and belt.

  I jerk upright, massaging my cramped fingers and looking around for something to wipe myself up with. Were the situation different, this would be sexy as hell, but shame makes the feel of his come dirty and vile.

  “May I go now, Sir?” I snap, starting to shimmy off the table when I see a box of tissue on a table across the room.

  “Yes. But don’t wipe that off. I told you, I like my come on you.”

  I lower myself from the table and snatch up the shirt, though I won’t put it on until I’m dry. Instead, I settle for putting skirt back in place while he watches.

  The slight sting on my thighs keeps me from clawing his eyes out. “It’ll ruin these nice, expensive clothes, you know.”

  “I’ll buy new ones.”

  “Whatever, Sir.” I start to cross the room, intent on putting this entire lodge of distance between us as soon as possible.

  Michael captures my elbow as I pass him. I sigh and wait, eyes averted.

  “Look at me, kravitsa.”

  I force my eyes to meet his. All the heat I saw while he was fucking me is still there, only now there’s a deep satisfaction in them too.

  “Do you know why I fucked you just now, Aurora?”

  “Because you’re an animal?”

  His lips quirk. He pinches my chin between his fingers. “I wanted you to go to bed tonight remembering that you’re mine.”

  “I’m not going to forget it, Michael. You won’t let me.”

  His hand on my jaw tightens. “That’s right. I won’t. You didn’t try to send for help today because you were afraid, kravitsa. If fear is the only way I will keep you, so be it. But one day, it won’t be. One day, you’ll stay with me because you can’t stand to be anywhere else.”

  As soon as he releases me, I hurry for the door, while trying to make it look like I’m taking my time.

  “Never going to happen,” I mutter to the empty hall. “Never.”

  Chapter 18

  Imposter

  My fucking knee feels like it’s on fire.

  My feet pound the ground, long strides eating up the snow-covered ground at a good pace. My knee twinges, but I focus on the rhythm of my breathing, push through the pain, and run on.

  Since I’d broken my leg when I was eleven, I’d pushed myself to the max, refusing to let the injury affect my life. As soon as the leg had healed enough to allow it, I worked out for hours a day, lifting weights, running until my muscles screamed. Until I was stronger than older boys who would have seen it as a weakness. Until I was too strong for the man who broke my leg to do it again. A proficiency in fighting helped, too. People tended to avoid hitting me when they realized I knew how to stop them.

  I breathe smoothly in and out, finding my rhythm. The cold bites at my cheeks, but I hardly notice, focusing on the getting through the next mile. Keeping my mind on that instead of on the woman waiting like a caged bird inside my lodge.

  There’s an indoor gym on the third floor of the lodge. My father had it put in when he had the place built, but I’ve always preferred to work out in the outdoors. Instead of using the track inside, I follow the flat shoreline around the small lake a mile from the lodge’s back door. I love the nip of winter when I run, the way the cold keeps away the heat. It’s not nearly as cold as it would be in Moscow right now, but it’s enough to keep the sweat off my face.

  Up ahead and to the left of the shoreline on a bank, Jack’s house comes into view. He’s not out today. It’s a little after one on a Saturday, so he should have been sitting in his rocking chair on his porch, smoking his pipe or cleaning his hunting rifle with Wolf at his side.

  There’s no sign of Wolf, so maybe the old hunter is off in the woods hunting deer with him. He never goes out without that dog. Or he’s inside having a nap. He’s often complained that his knee aches in the cold, much like mine, so it’s probably too cold for him t
o be out.

  My legs muscles are starting to scream, my knee throbbing, but I push myself harder. Only another two miles to go and I’ll reach the lodge. I’ve never been one to give into pain, and I’m not about to start now.

  It’s a funny thing. My leg had busted at the knee, and even years after it healed, it still sometimes hurts like a bitch, but unless it’s too cold, it only acts up when I run up hill or do high impact sports. Give me a flat surface, and I can pound the ground for miles without pain, but a hill means a double shot of whiskey and a cortisone shot.

  Footsteps crunch on the snow behind me and I turn, jogging backwards. Adrian jogs up to me along the shore.

  “I wish you wouldn’t do that, sir,” he says, tireless as I am and not even puffing.

  “Are you going to lecture me again, Adrian?” I grin. “You should know by now, it’s pointless.”

  “Are you forgetting there’s a mark on your back, sir?” He falls into step with me, keeping pace when I speed up.

  I offer his words a shrug. “Is Grigory with Aurora?”

  Irritation flickers across his face, but he doesn’t argue. He knows doing so is a lost cause. “Of course, sir.”

  For several minutes, he keeps an eye on me as I run. “You going to tell me what’s on your mind?” he asks at last.

  “What makes you think something’s on my mind, Adrian?”

  “You only run this hard when you’re pissed off.”

  Shit. It annoys me that he knows me this well. Or that I’m being this transparent. I’m usually better at hiding my emotional baggage shit than this. I say nothing.

  “You should stop, sir,” Adrian says. “Rest that knee.”

  It says how well he knows me that he knows my knee hurts. I’ve trained myself to hide when it’s bothering me, walking without a limp unless it’s real bad.

  “Why? Having trouble keeping up, old man?” I tease. At fifty, he’s hardly old, but as my trainer as well as my bodyguard, I like to keep him on his toes.

  Adrian snorts. “Hardly. I just don’t want you pushing yourself so hard that Aurora could get away from you if she runs off.”

  I turn to him and give him a smug grin, “Won’t happen. Come on. Less talking, more running.”

  He says nothing more for a while, pacing himself just the way he’s taught me, maintaining low, even breaths, changing his pace to keep up with me.

  We run for a while in companionable silence. Adrian knows me well enough to know I’m not big on conversation, especially when I work out. I like to keep a laser-like focus. Unfortunately, the silence leaves my mind plenty of room to wander to things I would rather not think about. Namely a woman who shouldn’t be able to distract me this much.

  After almost a week, I should be bored of her, the novelty of the conquest having worn off. Instead, I’ve spent the nights sleeping with a raging hard on even after I’ve painted her skin with my come. It’s been two days since I took her in that library, and I’ve spent that entire time fantasizing about taking her to my bed.

  I’ve never held a woman after sex, much less spent the night with one. I prefer to send them away with a kiss and a closed door as soon as I’ve had my fill. My life is a world of one night stands, never letting anyone get close. It’s easier to keep secrets that way. Easier to keep my past buried and Rusy out of the public eye.

  Instead of heading for the lodge, I turn back the other way. Adrian follows, keeping one eye on the tree-line.

  About five minutes from his cabin, I spot Jack walking along the tree-line, probably checking his traps. Adrian slows, watching him for a moment before keeping pace with me again.

  “Feeling paranoid today, Adrian?” I ask.

  “I’m always paranoid, sir.”

  I laugh. “I know.” I open my mouth about to tell him he needs to learn not to be so uptight, but stop, throwing a side-eye at Jack as we pass.

  He’s dressed the way he always is, with a scarf pulled up over his face against the cold, and the thick coat he wears, with its florescent orange stripes meant to make him stand out to other hunters and let them know he’s not an animal. He doesn’t wave to me as he always does when he sees me, instead bending over to inspect a trap.

  Watching him, two things jump out at me immediately. One, Wolf’s not with him. And two, he’s not limping. Not even a little. I know how it works when you have an injury like he does. It takes a lot to train yourself to hide it, and Jack doesn’t know how. And he never, never leaves the house without Wolf.

  Adrenaline shoots through me.

  I stop and look up the shoreline, as if interested in something there. “Adrian, go back to the lodge.”

  “Pardon, sir?” He sounds confused.

  “Might be nothing, but I want you keeping an eye out for trouble. Go.”

  His brows knit together, but he nods. “Sir.”

  As soon as he disappears from sight down the shore, I turn around.

  Jack is gone.

  Yeah, a man like him can’t get out of sight that fast. He’s probably disappeared into the forest. That he’s vanished that quickly can mean only one thing. Whomever that man is, it’s not Jack.

  Fuck. Heart racing, I take off toward Jack’s house, shutting out the worsening twinge in my knee.

  Honestly, I don’t know the man all that well. Adrian is the closest thing I have to a friend, but if I was the type to have close ties, I would probably consider Jack one. He’s friendly, always offers to have me over for drinks when he sees me, and he doesn’t ask too many questions. And right now, every instinct in me is screaming that he’s in trouble.

  I run faster.

  At the front of the house, smoke from the chimney swirls toward the sky. There are no lights on. The fireplace wouldn’t be going unless he was home, but if he was, lights would be on.

  Running up the steps, I try the door, but it’s locked. Then I notice the blood, a large red smear on the old, wooden doorframe.

  Picturing Jack tied in his basement or worse, I bang on the door. “Jack!”

  Nothing. He doesn’t answer, and I don’t hear him, or Wolf inside. If Wolf was there, he would have started barking his head off.

  I throw myself against the door. It cracks easily in the frame and crashes to the floor.

  “Jack!” I shout.

  No one answers.

  Taking my pistol from inside my boot, I cock it and make my way stealthily through the small, darkened cabin, gun cupped between my palms.

  All the shutters on the windows are closed, not a single light on.

  When I don’t find anyone in the main rooms of the cabin, I head for what must be a back bedroom. At the door to the room, I freeze, my breath hitching.

  There’s a motionless lump lying on the bed under thick blankets. One of the man’s arms sticks out from under the quilt, almost to the floor. A large spot on the old blue quilt is stained red right where his head should be.

  I rush to the bedside and yank the blankets back. Jack lies motionless, his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. There’s a penny-sized bullet hole in his forehead.

  There’s no point in even checking for signs of life. He’s dead. I check his wrist, finding him stiff and cold. He’s been gone at least a day, maybe more in this cold. There’s a telltale hole in a pillow that’s been tossed aside on the bed.

  “Fuck. Jack.” I close his eyes with my fingertips. Whomever killed him knew enough to put a pillow over his face before they fired the shot, using the thick cushion to silence the sound.

  “Shit.” I toss the pillow aside and pull the blanket over Jack’s body, giving him back the dignity his killer took from him.

  It doesn’t take a lot of thinking to figure out what’s happened here. Whomever killed him hadn’t been some random drifter looking for a place to bunk down out of the cold, killing Jack to get rid of the cabin’s occupant. Using that pillow to silence a shot… This was a pro.

  Probably the same one sent by whomever put out a hit on me.

  If
he’s this close to the lodge, having been hiding out here to watch me, he has to know about Aurora. My fists clench on a bolt of unwelcome protectiveness.

  I glance around. Jack’s long gone, but where’s Wolf?

  But I can already guess. A professional hitman would have studied his target. Studied him enough to know his habits and wear his clothes. A pro would have killed his target’s dog to prevent him from making a fuss or running off for help.

  An unlikely concern for the dog pricks at me. “Wolf!”

  I start through the house, searching every room. Hoping to hell I don’t find the animal dead. “Wolf. Here, boy.” I whistle.

  There’s no barking, and the dog doesn’t appear. I don’t find him anywhere, inside the house or out. He’s not in the large pen built for him out back. When I come back inside the house, I still don’t see him. If he was lucky, he managed to get away when the fucker showed up and he ran off.

  Making my way back through the house, my eyes catch sight of what’s on the wall between the living room and the bedroom. Photos line the wall, dozens of them. It’s dark with the shutters closed, but some of them look like…

  I cross the room and flick on the lamp.

  My heart leaps into my throat and I let out a few Russian curses.

  Half the photos are of me. There’s one of me getting out of my car the night I came back from Denver. There’s another one of me, taken while I was talking to Katerina before she left the lodge. Both shots are taken from someone who was standing in the thick trees near the gate. But it’s the other images, the ones that aren’t of me that have my attention. Most of the others are of Aurora.

  I snatch several of them off the wall. One of the images shows her sleeping in her bed, curled up on her side. It looks like it was taken through the window of her bedroom, by someone who was in the tree that overhangs the back wall. Another shows her coming out of the bathroom, towel drying her mess of dark curls. Her gorgeous body is wrapped only in a towel.

  Possession makes my fists tighten until the paper crinkles, an unwelcome protectiveness toward Aurora riding me hard. It pisses me off that someone got that close to the lodge without the cameras or Adrian or Grigory noticing him, but it makes me far madder that the fucker who took the photo was staring in on my woman while she slept without her knowledge. Without my knowledge.