“Oh fuck, Niko!” Her cries are nothing but a symphony in my head, playing on repeat as I devour her. The taste of her is addicting, and the more I have, the more I want. Wrapping my lips around her clit, I pump my fingers one last time before sucking it into my mouth and biting down. Ava screams so loud her voice shatters, and her body violently convulses around me. When she finally stops shaking, she collapses on the table, tears flowing freely down her cheeks.
“Who are you?” she whispers.
“You know who I am, Ava.” I stand between her legs, licking my lips. “You just don’t want to see it. But you will,” I say, trailing my damp hand across her thigh.
With a twist of my hand, I flip her over on her stomach and drag her to the edge of the table. Keeping one hand on her back, I rip open my jeans and shove them down my thighs. Grasping the base of my hard cock, I give it a few strokes before pressing the head against her entrance. She sucks in a sharp breath, and I lean down against her ear.
“Mine,” I whisper before sinking into her in one hard thrust. I groan, and Ava’s knees buckle and she cries out my name.
As she whimpers underneath me, I close my eyes and breathe. It’s the calm before the storm. I’ve waited eight long years to feel her tight walls grip my cock, and I want to soak in every moment of it.
But the monster is impatient.
He bends my will, delivering a series of vicious drives that force Ava up on her toes. Her nails dig into the table, dragging jagged marks through the dark wood. I smile as she begs for mercy, not because I want to hurt her, but because I know she doesn’t mean it. For every plea that falls from her mouth, her hips push back, meeting me thrust for thrust.
I’ll never let her go.
“Don’t ever fucking run from me again,” I snarl, grabbing a handful of her hair. “Where do you belong?”
She gasps for air. “With you!”
“Who. Owns. You?” I demand, punctuating each word with a slam of my hips.
“You do!”
“Who do you love, Ava?”
“You!” she screams as her body detonates. “I love you!”
Her words trigger my release. Throwing my head back, I roar out her name as I come so hard, I can’t see.
Exhausted, neither one of us dare speak a word as we both sink to the floor. Ava closes her eyes, afraid what she said will set me off, and I close mine, afraid she’ll take it back.
She’s too tempting. Each day I spare her life is another day I risk my own. However, as much as I don’t trust her, I can’t deny the overpowering need to feel her body submit to my touch. To taste her skin and hear the words I don’t deserve.
I don’t make deals, but against my better judgment, I’ll offer her one with a thirty second window. I’ll promise her forever, if she promises me everything. She won’t like it, but she’s smart enough to see this isn’t about winning. It’s basic survival.
Ava
I’ve never felt freer.
Or more vulnerable.
Lying face down, I’m drained but strangely at peace. Under his watchful gaze, I take a shallow breath and close my eyes. The old Ava is dead, replaced by a woman I convinced myself no longer existed. One I foolishly locked away eight years ago, determined to cleanse myself of the tainted blood running through my veins.
After last night, everything has changed, and it’s not just because I submitted control of my body to another man, allowing him to draw blood from me. It’s because when Niko unleashed his inner monster, so did I.
And now that she’s out, there’s no going back.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Niko’s fingers thread through my hair, his other hand resting low across my back.
Do I?
Is the depravity of the act we shared dark enough to speak the words aloud? To admit that after stabbing my step-brother to death, I became obsessed with knives. That I got myself off night after night to the memory of slicing his flesh open and watching the life spill onto my hands. That the craving for blood became so unbearable that instead of indulging in it, I punished myself. That I absolved myself of all sin and villainized my father because deep down, I knew a more twisted evil dwelled within me.
And now, after watching someone I’ve loved my entire life murder an innocent man in cold blood, do I want to admit that the bloodthirsty creature I’ve held back for so long reveled in it? To confess I became so overcome with lust, I wanted to hurt and be hurt.
“No,” I say, brushing my lips against his warm skin before turning and resting my cheek against his chest. “Not yet.”
He doesn’t push me, simply nodding as we lay quietly in the still light of his bedroom. Anyone else would question my sanity, but Niko has always accepted me as I am, flaws and all. Even when I didn’t speak up for him when he needed me the most, he still holds me like I’m perfect.
Trailing my fingers up his bare chest, I trace the intricate tattoo that starts below his left pectoral muscle. The design is bold, a double headed crowned eagle holding a scepter in one talon and an orb in the other. In the center of the tattoo is an image of a mounted knight slaying a dragon. It’s as terrifying as it is beautiful.
“What does this mean?”
“It’s the Romanov family crest.”
I blink in confusion, my hand stilling its path. “But your last name is Garetovsky.” I curl my fingers, remembering it isn’t anymore. “Or Gaheris. Forget it. I guess I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.”
Niko chuckles, his chest rumbling against my cheek. “Romanova is my mother’s maiden name, and this tattoo is the Romanov family crest. My mother’s family came to America when she was eighteen. Unfortunately for her, they settled in Miami. She felt like a fish out of water, so she sought out other Russians. It wasn’t long until she met Vadim Garetovsky. It was love at first sight, and nine months later, I came along.”
“Somehow I don’t think this story has a happy ending.”
“My father told her he managed a club, although he neglected to say what kind.”
“A strip club.”
“Not just any strip club, pchelka. My father managed Seven. He was an unfaithful, drunk son of a bitch who beat the shit out my mother on a regular basis. She took it, thinking if she let him treat her like a goddamn punching bag, he’d leave me alone.”
“What happened?”
“I grew up, that’s what happened. When I was seventeen, I came home from school to find her beaten half to death with a whiskey bottle. Before he could sober up, I pumped five bullets in the motherfucker.” I press my lips against him as his body shakes with anger. “I was about to take Mom to the hospital when a car pulled up outside the house.”
“The police?”
“Worse. Your father. It seems mine had been laundering money for him and the whiskey had gotten them both on the Feds’ radar. Sergei had come to get rid of him, and I beat him to the punch. He was so impressed, he offered to fix up my mom and hide my dad’s body on one condition.”
“You come work for him,” I say quietly. His shift in breathing is my answer. So that’s how he ended up working for my father. As much time as we spent together when I was young, I suddenly realize how little Niko spoke of his past, and how little I thought to ask.
“I still don’t understand how you ended up with the name Gaheris.”
“When I joined the Tabella Della Morte, Arthur felt it was best to sever my ties with the outside world. After everything that had happened, I was more than ready to start over, so once I signed the contract, Nikolai Garetovsky died, and Niko Gaheris took over.”
“And the tattoo?”
“To remind me who I am and where I came from. No matter what name I call myself, I’ll always be a man who will do anything to protect the people he loves.”
“Do you ever see your mom?”
“Only once,” he divulges, a strain in his voice. “After I made it out of Sergei’s prison, I hid her in North Carolina, but when I left for Moscow, somehow your father
found her. He sent her a letter saying as long as I hunted him, he would hunt me. Once I made it out of Columbia, and joined the Tabella Della Morte, I took her somewhere she couldn’t be found and never visited her again. It was for her own safety.”
“Must have been hard for her.”
There’s a faraway look in his eyes. “My mom is resilient. Besides, there’s enough swamp to keep her feeling at home and enough eyes on her to keep me sane.”
I want to ask more, but when Niko’s lips press tightly together and his hand falls from my hair, I know the discussion is over. He’s finished sharing, and if I push him, I’ll break this truce we’ve built.
Continuing my exploration of his body, I run my hands down his ribcage and up his sides, enjoying the soft grunts as his erection swells against my stomach. When my fingertips brush over a rough dip in his shoulder I stop. Lifting my head, I rub the spot again, feeling the dented and bumpy scar tissue that mangles his perfect ink.
“Battle scars?” I ask, skimming my thumb over the obvious bullet wound.
“Friendly fire.” I lift my chin in shock, smacking his arm as I catch the amused crinkle forming at the corner of his eyes. “Ava, the Cavalieri Della Morte are faceless men. No one knows who we really are. Not our names. Not our alliances. Nothing. There could come a time where our paths cross with an enemy, and we have to be prepared to save each other’s asses while appearing to be taking them out.”
His confession shocks me. “So you’ll shoot an ally just to kill an enemy?”
He shifts, careful not to jostle my still tender breasts as he tucks his arm behind his head. “Sometimes you have to take a bullet in a fight to knock your opponent off their game.”
“Won’t you die?”
“Not if the bullet misses anything important.”
I stare at him for a moment, still trying to process if he’s being a smartass or if the Cavalieri have a whole toolbox full of screws loose. “That’s psychotic.”
He shrugs. “It’s the Kansas City Shuffle.”
“The what?”
“You know, when they look right, you go left.”
No, I don’t know. I have no fucking idea what’s he’s talking about. I suppose my bewilderment shows because he groans and slaps a hand over his face.
“Ava, come on. I know you’re sheltered, but you can’t tell me you haven’t seen Lucky Number Slevin? It’s a classic bait and switch movie. See, the Kansas City Shuffle is a con Bruce Willis sets up. It’s where the mark knows they’re being conned, and they think they know how, but they’re wrong. When they try to throw a monkey wrench in what they think they’ve uncovered, BAM, they’re hit with the real con.”
Well, that makes a little more sense. Sounds like basic Bratva stuff. “What’s that right and left thing?”
“It’s the basis of the con. When your mark is distracted and looks right,” he explains, pausing to point out the window. When I look, he flips us over until I’m flat on my back. “You go left. You strike. You hit.”
I run a hand over his thickening beard. “Sounds simple.”
Niko groans and rocks his hips against mine. “It is, if it’s done right.”
“And if it’s not?”
He lifts my leg and kisses his way up my inner thigh before dropping it over his shoulder. “Then the bullet doesn’t miss.”
Ava
“I need to go to Seven today.”
Niko stops dead in the doorway, the sweat on his forehead dripping over his narrowed eyes. He’s holding a bent shovel in one hand and is covered in mud from the lower half of his ripped T-shirt down to his caked brown work boots. I don’t have to ask where he’s been. I know. He left three hours ago, determined to make it look like Milton Jennings never existed. I’ve been pacing the floor ever since.
Dropping the shovel on the porch, he bends down and lets out a low laugh while unlacing one of the boots. “You need your head examined.”
“Niko, come on!” I beg, squatting beside him and untying his other boot. “What am I supposed to do, hide out in this house for the rest of my life while you travel around the country doing hits for Arthur Calthorpe?”
“No, we’re leaving today.”
I lift my head to find him staring at me, his jaw locked and his hands fisted by his side. “You’re kidding, right? Tell me you’re kidding. You said yourself I’m supposed to be dead right now, and you’re supposed to be supplying the proof. My father won’t let this go. He’ll turn every contact you have against you, including your precious Calthorpe.”
“We have to leave thanks to your phone call last night. Your little FBI boyfriend is probably on his way here now.”
I leap to my feet, positive I heard him wrong. “I made sure not to stay on the phone more than a minute. It takes at least three to trace a landline.”
He lets out a sardonic laugh and rises to his feet as well. “Yeah, maybe in 1982. You watch too much television, Ava. Everything’s electronic now. All he had to do was dial fifty-seven and it triggers a request to the phone company to trace the call. Normally, with the FBI involved, it’d be instantaneous, but since it seems your boy toy has gone rogue on this one, I highly doubt he name dropped Uncle Sam. For the rest of us, it can take up to forty-eight hours.” Letting out a harsh breath, he kicks off his boots and tosses them on the porch beside the shovel. “I’d say pack your shit, but you don’t have any.”
“Where the hell are we going to go?”
His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’ll find out when we get there.”
I’m about to open my mouth for a rebuttal when he reaches a hand over his shoulder and pulls his shirt over his head. My mouth hangs open, completely disconnected from my brain as my eyes trail down the defined V sculpted in his lower abs. In my stupor, all I can manage to do is repeat my request.
“I need to go to Seven first.”
The anger in his voice is palpable. “After all this, you want to sneak into your father’s club, get your counter-blackmail, and meet your boyfriend in two days. Is that it?”
“Will you get over yourself?” I yell. “Ethan is not my boyfriend! Before those gray eyes turn any greener with jealousy, no, he’s never touched me. It’s not like that.”
“I’m not fucking jealous,” he grumbles, pushing past me toward the shower.
Following him, I cross my arms and glare at him as he unbuttons his jeans. “What would you have done if I’d said we’d slept together?”
Niko looks up, not an ounce of hesitation on his face. “Buried him alive.”
“I rest my case.” Risking waking the monster, I take another step and place a hand on his chest. “Look, I need to end this. I’ll take care of what has to be done, talk to Ethan, and we’ll be free.”
“That doesn’t mean Arthur still won’t kill me when he finds out I lied.”
“Let me go to Seven. Trust me. There’s a whole house of cards inside that club waiting to fall.”
He shakes his head and twists to turn on the water. “We won’t get within fifty feet of that place.”
Okay, plan A failed. Time for plan B.
“Dmitry doesn’t work during the day,” I say, unbuttoning the first two buttons on the oversized men’s shirt I’m wearing. “He hired a new daytime guy.” Two more buttons, and Niko’s eyes darken as I part the shirt and reveal his artwork. “I can say I’m auditioning, and then slip into the office while you keep everyone distracted.”
“That’s the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard.”
“Or, I could wait for Ethan to track us down.” Dropping the shirt to the floor, I press against him and slide my hand inside his jeans. A guttural groan rumbles from his chest as he picks me up and carries us both in the shower, pants and all.
“You’re going to need a disguise.”
* * *
I do my best to act nervous. I know these guys. They get off on the fresh faced—I have to take my clothes off to pay the bills, but I can still suck a dick like a Hoover—act. Whe
ther it’s true or not, that’s what sells around here, so I toss a shy smile over my shoulder and grasp the pole.
“Name.”
“Rub—” Crap! I almost said my regular stage name. Not that it’d mean much to this guy, but if he repeats it, everything will be blown all to hell. “Uh, I mean, Sapphire. My name’s Sapphire.”
Ruby, Sapphire, Diamond. What’s the damn difference?
The skinny man in the shadows waves his hand. “On with it.”
I like my song selection to make a statement, so as the beginning beats of Buckcherry’s Crazy Bitch play, I complete a full swing around the pole. Usually, I’d let my long hair fall back, but I’m not one hundred percent confident this brunette wig won’t go flying across the bar. As the tempo picks up, so does my speed. Eventually, I hook a leg around the pole, spinning as I climb.
It’s like riding a bicycle—if the bicycle is made of vertical steel and you’re balancing on it upside down and naked.
I perform my usual routine with ease, spinning, sliding, twirling, climbing, and crawling my way to perfection. I end with a standing split against the pole, smiling as I pick up the fallen pieces of my costume and face the new manager.
He’s not happy.
“Sweetheart, I don’t know what kind of other clubs you’ve auditioned at, but I need to see those tits before I hire you.”
Fuck.
I lower my lashes and sneak a quick glance to the back of the club, where Niko stands smirking like a motherfucker.
“I can’t take my bra off yet. I… Uh, had a boob job and the wounds are still healing.” Scooping up my breasts in both hands I give them a little jiggle. “Have to keep them supported until the stitches dissolve.”
God, he’ll never believe that.
The creepy new manager tilts his head, first right and then left. “Doctor did a good job. Nice full C cup.”
They’re a D, but whatever, asshole.
“So, does that mean…” I lift my eyebrows in mock hope.
Darkest Deeds: Cavalieri Della Morte Page 13
