by Shandi Boyes
“Toss your gun to the ground.”
Although Ryan isn’t happy about Dimitri’s demand, he plays along. He’s standing across from Dimitri’s hospital room’s now open door, so he’s more than aware how far Dimitri is willing to go to escape.
“Now step back.”
Dimitri’s shouted command is for Ryan, but it’s followed by every person in the corridor but Ryan. “Dimi—”
“I said step the fuck back.” His roar excites me more than it scares me. He’d never hurt me. Not in a million years. He merely wants Ryan to think he will.
As Ryan’s eyes bounce between my drenched ones and Dimitri’s narrowed ones, he takes a step back. He can’t help but be a hero because he has no clue I’m not a damsel in distress who needs saving.
He soon learns the truth when I bob down to gather his gun from the floor.
With my stance replicating the one Dimitri has shown me time and time again in our range at our family ranch, I flick off the safety of Ryan’s gun, then line up the barrel with his head. I won’t shoot him. Despite him being on the opposite side of the law to Dimitri and me, Dimitri respects him.
That alone will save his life.
That alone will see him walking away from today with only a bruised ego.
Ryan’s red face exposes he is pissed as fuck we played him, and his anger grows when I blow him a kiss before shadowing Dimitri’s walk to the elevator at the end of the hall by sauntering backwards. Dimitri’s mean scowl has our approach well-guarded, and Ryan’s gun is more than capable of handling the back.
“What floor?” Dimitri asks when we make it into the elevator car unscathed.
“Any,” I reply loud enough for Detective Carter to hear. “Because they’ll never find us once these doors close.”
Confirmation Ryan has faced a similar set of circumstances before confronts me when he roars, “Not again!” a mere second after the elevator doors snap shut with Dimitri and me on the other side.
Then, even quicker than that, the panels above our head are pulled out and Dimitri and I are hoisted into the elevator shaft by a group of men dressed head to toe in black.
When the faintest hum of helicopter blades rotating in the distance purrs into his ears, Dimitri shifts his eyes to me. “We play to play. We kill to kill…”
“And we take down any fucker stupid enough to get in our way.”
Epilogue
Dimitri
Four months later…
* * *
When Roxanne’s trace of the circle wound in the middle of my stomach continues past the standard three-second embrace, I scoop her hand into mine then lift it to my mouth. I feel her smile more than I see it when my teeth graze the tips of her fingers. She’s nuzzled in my chest, enjoying the last of the sun on a day that would usually be cold if we were anywhere but here.
We’re not lazing beachside at Hopeton. We’re soaking up the sun at Cefalù, a coastal town in Sicily. It was my favorite place to get away to when life became too much before Audrey was abducted. Now it is my favorite place to live.
We’ve been here since Henry’s luxury yacht dropped us off a little over three months ago. The first two weeks of our trip was nowhere near as glamorous as the final two on Henry’s chartered yacht.
In case you were wondering, shipping containers aren’t solely used to transport stock. People smuggling has been a part of the cartel as long as drug manufacturing and gun distribution. When you need to move between countries unaware, it makes sense to jump onboard one of the massive cargo ships men in my industry use on a monthly basis.
I complain like we slept on cots in damp, wet boxes. That wasn’t close to facilities we had at our disposal, but nothing compares to a top-of-the-line yacht, and don’t get me started on the sprawling mansion Roxanne and I purchased with cash our first week here. It has everything our family could ever need. Coastal views, numerous bedrooms I plan to fill with heirs, and a one-of-a-kind surveillance system that keeps me up to date on all things happening in Hopeton.
Our flee from the country we were born in doesn’t mean we’ve permanently cut ties with it. We’re just taking a breather for a couple of months, letting the dust settle, so to speak, then we will return to our realm bigger, better, and badder than ever.
I had initially planned to run operations from Cefalù until my second son is born in a couple of months’ time, but a delivery earlier this week has had me reconsidering my objectives. It wasn’t a threat, ransom, or any of those fucked-up things I faced my first two years of parenthood. It was an invitation to a wedding—an invitation from the last person I ever anticipated receiving an invitation from.
Nikolai and his Ahren survived their takeover bid. It wasn’t pretty, and it took Nikolai a couple of months to lick his wounds, but once his scars scabbed over and his woman’s wounds healed, he took a step back and looked at the whole picture.
Because of Roxanne’s somewhat infuriating nosy-parkering, that picture included me.
We’re not anywhere near being civil. We have too much baggage from our past to ever truly let bygones be bygones, but I will admit, inviting me to his wedding lowered my guard by a smidge. Was it enough for me to decline his offer for my conglomerate to have full prostitution distribution rights on both the east and west coast? No, it was not. But it did have me contemplating a change-up I thought would be years away.
I knew from the moment my eyes landed on Roxanne that she was a badass. She dressed how she pleased, cried in the middle of the street like no one was looking, and held a gun to a law enforcement officer’s head just to ensure I wouldn’t miss seeing our children grow into adults. She has more than proved she has what it takes to be the wife of a cartel leader, and I’m about ready to shout it from the rooftops.
While raking my fingers through Roxanne’s glossy locks, a now favorite hobby of mine, I ask like it’s no big deal, “Do you want to get your dress here or risk a Black Friday stampede in Vegas when we land?”
Strands of red hair peel off my chest when Roxanne props herself onto her elbows. As our unborn son makes it known with my thigh he isn’t happy about being squashed against it, Roxanne’s eyes bounce between mine. “You’re accepting Nikolai’s invitation?” She’s hardly gotten out her first question when a much more direr one stumbles out of her mouth. “And I’m going with you?”
The ghost-like smile she forever wears when taking my dick between her lips would have you convinced our children aren’t on the sandy shore mere feet from us, building a sandcastle. It has me hard in an instant and fighting like hell not to take her where she lays.
I’d get inventive beneath the beach towels if she didn’t jump up to her feet like she doesn’t have six months’ worth of baby growing strapped to her front.
“Where are you going?” I ask when she races for the French doors of the master suite. My tone leaves no doubt as to how I had planned for her to pay for my unusual bend of the rules. I want her cunt filled by me anyway I can get it. My fingers. My tongue. My cock. I don’t care what she chooses, I just need her to get her ass back here so I can do one of the many wicked thoughts in my head.
The odds of Nikolai and me patching things up fly out the window when Roxanne replies directly to the source demanding her attention. “There’s no time for that,” she says while staring at my cock. “I need to book flights, pack, and advise Smith that we will need the kids’ passports by the end of the week.” I’m not surprised she automatically included our children in her plans. If we go, they go. No fear. “Then I have to organize a pet sitter for the animals. Should someone come here, or should we put them in a kennel?”
Since she isn’t speaking to me, I don’t answer her. It’s for the best. If I had replied, I may have missed her mouthing for me to meet her in the bathroom in five minutes. My wife saw her mother in many compromising positions when she was a child but that doesn’t mean she wants to subject her to the same thing.
Sailor has worked hard the past four months to show
Roxanne she’s a changed woman, and I give her another shot to prove her worth by straying my eyes to her instead of the children’s nanny to request permission to thoroughly fuck my wife until supper.
We could sneak away for a quickie, but where’s the fun in that?
My wife wants to be ravished by a merciless, coldhearted bastard, and I need more than an hour to slip into character.
Nikolai & Justine
* * *
In a world of pain, but forever in love!
Chapter One
Almost two years ago, I told Justine I’d protect her no matter what. I promised to slit the throat of a thousand men before I’d ever let anything happen to her and that I would stop at nothing to ensure she’d never face more pain than she already has.
Today, I’m not fucking close to keeping my promise.
My Ahren’s brows are beaded with sweat, her face is as red as the blood that drained from the men who bid on her, and her nails have clawed at my hands like they usually do my back when I’m filling her greedy cunt with my cock. Still, instead of reaching for my knife as I have many times the past two years, I’m repeating the words of the man with his head between her legs while fighting like fuck not to slit his throat once he’s done what he was brought here to achieve.
He isn’t attempting to steal the devotion away from me like Vladimir did multiple times when I was a child. He’s not even looking at my wife’s mouthwatering slit with the eyes of a man not in fear for his life. He’s striving to keep the rod in her back as hard as it’s been the past two years, and for her confidence to remain at the level needed to rule her reign without the slightest bend to her spine.
He’s helping my queen become a mother and giving the Popov entity two brand new heirs.
“Just a little longer,” Dr. Goyette assures Justine while peering at her over her extended stomach that shrunk dramatically only minutes ago. “I’ve almost got it removed.”
Our daughter, Mila, was born without too much fuss. She charged into the world like a stubborn princess ready to rule her monarch almost six minutes ago, and she’s been testing out the durability of her lungs ever since.
Our son, who to this day remains unnamed, isn’t as eager to join his big sister in the humidicrib on my left. The midwives were already concerned when he flipped to a breech position partway through Mila’s delivery, but their fret skyrocketed when every push Justine did caused the monitor strapped to her stomach to sound an alarm.
I was facing an uphill battle to ignore my itch to kill as it was, but the effort tripled when the head midwife announced they needed to bring a doctor in to assist. No female obstetricians are rostered on today, and since Justine went into labor weeks earlier than her due date, her obstetrician isn’t just out of state, she’s out of the country as well.
I almost told them no, but then I remembered nothing is above me when it comes to protecting her—my Ahren, my slice of heaven in a hot and temperamental place. She went to the depths of hell for me, so the least I can do is set aside my wish to kill any man who dares to make her feel less superior to ensure she doesn’t endure more pain than necessary.
The urgency of the midwives claims were unearthed when the doctor arrived in under a minute. He eyed me like he knew all my secrets when he entered the delivery suite at a private hospital in the middle of Las Vegas, but the shrill of the equipment next to my Ahren’s bed saw him leaping into action.
He’s spent the last few minutes working on removing the cord wrapped around my son’s neck, meaning not once has he returned my gawk.
The expression on Justine’s face reveals she’s in pain, but she is putting on a brave front. She’s a fighter through and through. The toughest woman I’ve ever met.
“There we go,” Dr. Goyette announces before he quickly adds a request for Justine to push.
As my queen resurrects from the dark hole her panic pushed her in, she tucks her chin in close to her chest, re-digs her nails into my tattooed hands, then bears down as per the doctor’s instructions. I count to ten in her ear, my voice growing huskier the more the fine hairs on her nape bristle. She’s been trapped in a fiery hell for hours; I'm confident her body feels as if it’s being torn in two, yet she still can’t help but respond to my closeness.
It proves I chose well when I picked her over everything after only knowing her for days. Wealth. Infamy. Family. She comes before them all. For years, anything I loved, Vladimir took, but not even he can take Justine from me. Angels are immortal, so when one convinces a fallen angel he’s worthy of love despite his many fuck ups, his love for her lasts longer than immortality. He will love her until the day he dies, and he will continue loving her until he regains his wings solely so they can meet again.
“Good, Justine, keep going,” encourages an elderly midwife at the doctor’s side.
She has a blue blanket at the ready, and oxygen on standby. I don’t know if the oxygen tank is for my son or me. I faced horrific abuse in my childhood. I’ve been stabbed, shot, scalded, and beaten, yet not one thing I’ve endured has been as gruesome as this. My wife is hurting. Tears are welling in her eyes, and she appears on the verge of collapse, but there’s nothing I can do to help her. Not. One. Single. Fucking. Thing.
I’ll protect her no matter what. I will have her back as she does mine. I just need to get her and our children out of danger first. “You’re so strong, Ahren. So fucking strong. You are a queen worthy of her throne, and you’ll never want for anything.”
When Justine peers up at me with the same adored look she wore when I freed her from Vladimir’s clutch with only the slightest carnage, my wish to go on a murderous rampage is immediately set aside. Only she can strip the carnage from my mind with one glance. Only she can break through the evil I was born shrouded in.
With her hand curled around my bristled jaw like my closeness fills her with more strength than the piercing of her nails in the calloused skin covering my hands, she bears down for the final time.
Our son’s entrance into the world is silent. He doesn’t scream like Mila did, nor does he move. He remains perfectly still—as motionless as my heart.
“What’s wrong with him?” I ask anyone listening, my voice a roar.
I’ve faced takeover bids, killed the man who raised me without any remorse, and slaughtered men in the thousands before I reached my twenty-fifth birthday, but nothing could have prepared me for the turmoil that hits me in the gut when I realize I’m incapable of saving the one thing I want to protect the most.
My children.
“Go, Nikolai,” Justine begs when they race our son to the other side of the room.
I command my legs to move, but for some fucking reason, they refuse to budge. His arms are flopped to his sides like Justine's were when she was raced into an operating theater with blood-soaked pants and a white, ashen face. His eyes are shut, and the blue mottling of his skin looks like bruises.
Those facts alone already have my hand creeping toward my knife, so there’s no fucking chance in hell I’ll hold back the urge to slit the doctor’s throat this time around. Especially if my fucked-up childhood has me mistaking the compressions he’s doing to my son’s chest as him hurting him. It’s clear he’s fighting for him as I’ll forever protect him, but it’s rare for a man born in hell to understand not everyone is evil.
I just need to remember that:
The battleline between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.
-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Relief snuffs my desire to go on a murderous rampage when I spot the faintest flutter in my son’s neck after only a handful of compressions. It's barely noticeable, but when it’s followed by the cries of a warrior clawing his way out of the trenches, it’s as satisfying as the heat of Justine’s cunt wrapped around my cock.
He fought Satan and won—more than once.
After rubbing off the murky white gunk coating my son’s skin, Dr. Goyette says, “The cord compressed his airways enough to limit
his oxygen supply, but his vitals are now good. I’ll order additional tests, but for now, how about we warm him up with some skin-to-skin contact.”
Since the doctor is more barking out orders than making a suggestion, a midwife wraps our son in a blanket before handing him to the midwife who delivered Mila.
The shudders wreaking havoc with Justine’s tiny frame soothe when our twins are placed onto her chest. To maintain her modesty, the midwife then drapes a blanket over the three of them. “There you go, Mrs. Popov. Two beautiful healthy babies.”
The foreignness of being called Mrs. Popov increases Justine’s grin when she glances down at our children for the very first time. We only got married three weeks ago. Justine wanted to wait until after the twins were born to wed, but I was born into a loveless, fraudulent marriage, so I did everything in my power to ensure my children wouldn’t start their lives the same way.
It was an affair much to glamourous for a man with a heart as black as mine, but everyone in attendance enjoyed themselves—even Dimitri, who arrived a week before our nuptials with news of his own to share.
This kills me to admit, but I had no fucking clue Dimitri lived an entirely different life than what his mafia ties led me to believe. He has a wife, two children, and another on the way.
Did discovering the real reason he left Justine to face the wrath of his father alone have me forgetting everything he put Justine through? Not one fucking bit.
Regretfully, I can’t say the same for Justine.
Our children were kicking up a storm when Dimitri’s daughter unexpectedly placed her hand on Justine’s stomach. While looking into eyes identical to Dimitri’s in every way, Justine forgave Dimitri. It wasn’t the half-pledged forgiveness she offered him months earlier. She fully forgave him, because in an instant, she understood her nightmare had purpose.
