In his own way, Fatos cared for him.
But that care had turned into a cancer.
Grinding his teeth to keep from lashing out, Luka said, “You tortured me.”
“Please. I helped you survive!” In the blink of an eye, Fatos had gone from startlingly calm to full-blown rage, an expression that Luka was all too familiar with twisting his face.
Ignoring the outburst, Luka shoved a hand through his hair, not caring that he was streaking blood throughout. “Why are you here?”
Clearing his throat, Fatos seemed to get his temper under control as he smiled once more. “I want to offer you an opportunity to come back. I’m sure with a little bit of work, the Organization will forgive you and there’ll be no need for us to speak of this further.”
By work, he meant more fucking torture. Despite how elegantly he put it, Luka knew how they worked, and forgiveness didn’t come without a price. “Or?”
Fatos looked confused, as though he hadn’t thought Luka would contemplate any other offer. “Or you’ll be brought back by force. We know about Bastian—not that I ever cared for the fat fuck—but rules are rules and you aren’t above them. Someone has to answer for his death and considering you left your mark all over him, that someone would be you.”
Two varying emotions had warred inside of him after he had lured Bastian outside of the Albanian bar over a year ago. Taking a knife to the man’s face and body, his mind seized on what had been done to him when he was to defenseless to do anything about it. On most days, he thought of that killing with fondness, replaying it over and over again in his head. He could almost feel the phantom silkiness of blood on his hands, but other days, he felt sick with the reminder that Bastian had succeeded.
He’d made Luka into the monster he was.
“Do they know?” Fatos asked interrupting his thoughts. “Does that Volkov know that you took a knife to someone else’s body with the intent to kill him? I don’t think he would be near as forgiving as I am…but that’s because I love you more.”
There it was…a real threat.
Luka didn’t care about being dragged back to Albania—though the thought of going there made his stomach turn—but he didn’t want his past outed. Especially to someone who would see him dead if he knew the truth. Luka finally felt the familiar stirrings since Fatos had walked into the warehouse.
“Are you blackmailing me?” Luka asked, his head canting to one side as the fingers on his right hand twitched.
Fatos, wisely, sensed the change in him, but unlike others, he’d wanted to cause it, enjoying the mayhem that followed. “Maybe…maybe not. But this offer won’t last very long. Either come with me and I’ll fix this for you or stay and learn why I moved up in our world.”
The logical move would be to take him up on this, knowing that it would be the path of least resistance. But if he did, the truth about who he was would come to light anyway, defeating the point of him harboring it for so long.
But what Fatos didn’t know was that there was someone who did know Luka’s secret and, more importantly, hated the Albanians more than Luka did. In that, he had an ally, and considering the knowledge of Fatos coming to the States would have gone unknown, it was safe to assume that Luka would be able to call on the mercenary to help him with this.
It was the only thing that made sense and the only thing that would buy him enough time to finally put his past to rest. And keep anyone else from finding out who he was before coming to New York.
“You might have moved up in the ranks, Fatos, but we both knew whose Bastian’s favorite was.” At that, Fatos lost his smile. “Here’s my warning, and you can ask this guy how serious I am,” he said with a head tilt in Snow’s direction. “You, and whoever you brought with you, head back to Berat and I’ll forget this ever happened. Just like you haven’t heard from me in the last five years, let’s make it another seventy. If you come for me, you won’t live to see the end of it.”
“Is that your final answer, Valon?”
“That’s the only answer you’re ever going to get.”
Fatos sighed, fiddling with his already straight tie. “By the end of my time in this godforsaken country, you’re going to wish you had taken my offer. I’m sorry it has to be this way.” Fatos glanced down at his watch, shaking his head as he turned to the door. “I’ll be seeing you very soon, Valon. I hope, for their sake, that they’ll forgive you for the hell you’re about to bring into their lives.”
34
____
Animals
Laying on her stomach, Alex listened to the pouring rain outside Luka’s bedroom window, the pelting water calming as it tapped against the pane. It sounded impossibly loud, the occasional thunder even louder, but in the eye of the storm, she felt at peace.
It was going on three a.m., and she’d dozed most of that time, but for the last hour, she had just lain there wondering where the hell Luka was. Loki had lounged with her for a bit, but then he too was off wandering around, leaving her to her thoughts.
While she knew now to call him, especially when he didn’t know what he was doing, she couldn’t check the impulse to pick it up every once in a while just to see if he’d called.
But as she was about to pick it up again, she heard the door open and slam shut.
Alex didn’t mean to seem so eager, but she was out of the bed in seconds, speeding out into the hallway, nearly slipping on the stairs in her haste to get to the ground floor.
“Tiger, I thought you—”
Her words caught in her throat as she got a good look at Luka, and the implications his clothes spoke of his night. He had a cigarette in one hand, not caring that the red from the blood on his hands had stained the filter. It wasn’t just on his hands, however, but covered his shirt in arcs, and even some of the front of his jeans.
There was also a noticeable tension about him that, no matter how many lungfuls of nicotine he drew in, didn’t lessen it. While his body was strung tight, his eyes were wild. A dark hunger swam in their depths, and now that she was here in front of him, all of that intensity focused on her.
This wouldn’t be the first time she had seen him covered in someone’s blood, and like the time before, it didn’t particularly move her. She had long ago accepted that men of the Bratva did awful things. Whether it made her a terrible person, she was more concerned with how Luka was doing than the unfortunate person who had crossed him.
But while she might not have feared Luka hurting her, not in a physical sense at least, she was wary. A distinct difference existed between the person he had been before he left and the person who now stood in front of her.
Laying her hand on the arm of the couch, she felt his gaze on her like a physical touch as she swallowed. “What can I do?” She knew better than to ask him what had happened tonight, but she did hope that she could help him.
His head canted to the side, like a predator sizing up its prey. “Are you afraid?”
The way he asked the question, the accent that he was always so careful to hide now twisting around his words, made her wonder if she should be.
“Of course not.”
“Snow wasn’t either.” Another long drag of his cigarette. “At first.”
Alex licked her lips, turning her face away at the sound of his name. First, the shame hit her, reminding her of what she had done some weeks ago, then came the implication of his words.
“Snow? You were with Snow tonight?”
Luka stubbed out the cigarette, moving—stalking towards her as he blew out a stream of smoke. He came within a hair’s breath of her, his fingers reaching out to stroke along her jaw. Dark emotion radiated out of him, but he was gentle with her.
For now.
“He didn’t last very long,” Luka said almost thoughtfully. “And I probably enjoyed it more than I should have, but…” He shrugged, cupping her face so that he forced her to look up at him. “It was worth it.”
“Luka—”
“I would have ki
lled him anyway. Thought about it, actually. This nameless, faceless person you were spending all your time with. I hated that shit. Hated thinking about it. Obsessing over it. But I would have let it go if he was making you happy. Even if it wasn’t me making you happy, I would have accepted it.” His grip on her face grew firmer, but it didn’t hurt. Even in his frenzied state, he wouldn’t hurt her. “But he wasn’t making you happy. And for what he did to you…spending three hours on him wasn’t enough.”
She didn’t have to ask where Snow was now. His presence here with her and the state of his clothes told her everything she needed to know.
But what she didn’t know was why, if he had done what he’d sought out to do, he was still brimming with pent-up emotion.
Before she had the opportunity to question him further, his lips slammed down on hers, forcing her to accept what he was giving. For a second, she was shocked to do anything more than just stand there, but her resistance fled, and she responded in kind, her hands fisting in the front of his shirt.
He kissed her as if he was starved, as if it was the one thing on Earth he needed. She felt consumed by him.
And yet…she could sense that he was holding back from her.
If this were what he needed to bring him back down, she would happily give it to him, so she had to make sure he knew that.
Releasing her hold on him, she laid her hands flat on his chest and pushed. Though he’d barely moved an inch, she widened the distance between them, gazing up at him boldly, waiting to see what he would do next.
His pupils expanded, that same predatory smile spreading. Every instinct inside her told her to run, even knowing that he would catch her.
And as that flood of awareness hit her, she realized that she wanted that too.
Alex refused to give him her back, wanting to see his next move, and the moment she took another step back. She didn’t have to say a word for him to understand.
He knew exactly what she was offering him.
There were no words spoken. Before she had even made it to the foot of the stairs, he was on her, practically tearing her clothes off, the material scoring her skin as he ripped it from her body.
She stumbled, crashing down to the floor, but he’d hooked an arm around her waist, blunting that pain.
His lips were everywhere all at once. Drifting over her jaw, his teeth bit down on the sensitive cord of her throat, wrenching a cry from her, but the sound only spurred him on further.
One hand drifted up between their bodies, pulling the cup of her bra down so he could palm her breast, then squeezing harshly, slapping, and pulling at her hardened nipple.
She tugged at his belt, making quick work of it as she got it and his jeans undone, reaching in to pull his cock free, making a fist around it, slowly moving up and down.
Grunting, a curse left his lips as he seized her mouth in another brutal kiss. Learning how best to pleasure him had taken some time, but now she knew just the right amount of pressure to maintain.
He pulled his other arm from beneath her, his hand going between her legs. He tugged her panties to the side, his fingers slipping along her sex.
From the second he had touched her, she was ready for him, her body responding to his brutality. She didn’t think she had ever been so wet in her life.
First, one finger was pushed inside her, then another, curling upwards to hit her sweet spot.
“Please fuck me,” she said in a desperate cry, squeezing his cock for emphasis.
Those words seemed to break the rest of his restraint. Slipping his fingers free of her, his hands latched onto her thighs with bruising force, dragging her closer.
One minute, he was lining himself up at her entrance, and the next, he was inside of her in one quick thrust.
Alex sucked in a breath at the sudden invasion, the pain momentarily making her all too aware of his size.
But that pain was quickly forgotten as he began to move. The frenzy was ever present in his eyes as he looked down on her, but rational thought seemed to have escaped him.
“Yes, more.”
He had always been careful with her, treating her like porcelain. But as he rammed himself inside her, using his hands and teeth to mark her all over, he finally seemed as lost to this passion as she had always felt.
Just when she was getting used to his sudden invasion, he was pulling out of her. He flipped her over, her breath leaving her in a rush as he pulled her up on to her knees, his hands squeezing her hips as he covered her back, thrusting right back inside of her.
With each jolt, a helpless moan escaped her, but he never let up. His hand was fisted in her hair as he pulled, exposing her neck to his mouth as he used his lips, and tongue, and teeth to send jolts of pleasure through her.
Even still, she didn’t think he was giving her everything because, with every noise that she made, he adjusted, as if he was attuned to find the best way to make this good for her.
With his hand twisted in her hair, he pulled her up until her back was to his chest, his lips at her ear.
“Will you cum for me?”
The words were guttural, punctuated by his sharp thrusts, and it was all she could do to answer his question. Not with words, but with a single jerky nod of her head—but that wasn’t good enough for him. No, he wanted her to verbalize her answer.
“Answer me.”
“God, yes…please!”
His fingers found her clit, rubbing in the same frantic rhythm as his thrusts, forcing her toward the edge she hadn’t been ready to reach.
But it wasn’t until he moved his hand, bringing it back with a firm slap, that she crested over, unable to fight the orgasm that had overcome her.
When she came down, awareness slowly piercing the haze, Luka was still just as hard, buried inside her.
She could feel his lips curve at the shell of her ear. “Not done yet.”
____
Luka was gone when she woke up the next morning, but it didn’t feel like it. It was almost like his presence took up the entirety of the room, and she could still feel him along her skin, inside of her like he had always been there.
Alex stretched, wincing slightly as she reached for the shirt she’d been wearing the night before, only to find it ripped, as were her panties.
When he’d said he wasn’t done, she hadn’t realized that he meant hours of him working out his aggression, using her body to do it. They’d gone from the floor to the nearest wall where she distinctly remembered the paintings hung there rattling and then finally up into his bedroom.
Blushing at the reminder, she headed to the bathroom to take a quick shower. She didn’t bother to look in the mirror until after it was done, and when she did, she had to blink a few times to make sure that she saw correctly.
She bruised easily, but she didn’t think she bruised that easily. Glaring purplish marks practically covered her from her neck down, a bite mark on her stomach, and she could just see where his fingers had gripped her. No wonder she’d felt so sore getting up. Last night, she didn’t remember it being painful at all.
Throwing on a dress that almost skimmed the middle of her thighs, she went in search of him, the sound of running water drawing her out the front door.
Luka was in a pair of low-slung jeans, a water hose in his hand as he sprayed down his Jeep, even hosing down the interior as well, suds forming with each pass of the water. His shoulders were visibly relaxed, and he seemed far calmer than he had the night before when he had come in…speaking of, Alex still didn’t know what had inspired that reaction in him, especially since he’d come back covered in blood.
Now, she was the one who was worried.
“Luka.”
He turned his head in her direction as she approached, and Loki trotted from behind the car as he heard her voice. When she was close enough to touch him, he turned off the water, dropping it on the ground near his feet.
When Luka wasn’t smiling, something was definitely wrong.
His fi
ngers curled around her chin, tilting her face up, his eyes drifting to the skin exposed there as her hair fell back over her shoulder.
“Should I apologize for that?”
Reaching for his hand, she moved it free from her neck but kept hold of it. “Apologize for what?”
Faster than she would have thought, he led her back into the house. Walking her to the hallway bathroom, he picked her up, setting her on the edge of the sink as his gaze swept over her. She might not have seen what had upset him about her neck, but she could clearly see the finger impressions on her inner thighs, the width of which fit his hands perfectly.
“It doesn’t hurt,” she explained, hoping to take away some of his worry, but her words seemed to fall on deaf ears.
He was careful as he traced the markings, seemingly hypnotized by them.
She chewed on her bottom lip for a second as she contemplated what he was thinking. He didn’t want to hurt her, she knew that for sure, and he could very well see this as hurting her.
Instead of pondering, though, she asked, “Luka, what are you thinking?”
Though he’d turned his face slightly away, she could just see his lips turn up. “Whether you’ll let me do this again.”
Luka finally looked at her when she shivered, his smile turning from amused to carnal.
“I can’t say I’ll always be gentle.”
And she wasn’t sure she wanted him to be.
“So is that what you did?” she asked uncertainly, playing with the ends of her hair as she looked past him. “When you were with Natasha, I mean. Is that—”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
No, she didn’t. But at the same time, she wanted to know the answer, not really the part about Natasha, but about how he handled stress. Whatever had gotten to him last night was obviously a big deal because she couldn’t remember a time when he had lost control that way.
He surprised her by answering with what she really wanted to know.
“Sometimes I’ll take a job that I know will get bloody, gives me another excuse to work it out. Other times, well you were there last night. Pain helps me focus.”
Hidden Monsters (Volkov Bratva Book 4) Page 26
