I love this man.
I love everything about him, even his bad side, his scary side, and his mean side.
I just love—him.
After spending the entire day wrapped in Oksana’s slim arms, I find it hard to get up and get dressed for my meeting, but it needs to be done. The sooner we can find this head El Jefe, the sooner I’ll have my wife completely to myself, with zero threat of her being taken away. With my hand around her waist, I guide her toward Ziven and Quinn’s room.
“You don’t get into any trouble today,” I warn as I knock on the door.
“What do you mean?” she asks, looking up at me innocently.
I grunt as the door opens and there’s Ziven looking between us, a grin playing on his lips.
“He means you girls are trouble, so stay indoors and give our anxiety a rest while we concentrate on other things, yeah?” Ziven rumbles.
Oksana gasps and looks at me with her wide eyes, attempting to be innocent, but nothing can hide the coyness behind her eyes. She knows exactly what she is. My lapochka is trouble. I chuckle as Ziven steps to the side and we walk into his suite.
Quinn is settled on the couch, and I smile at her. She looks so much better than she did just a few months ago, when she came to me, skin and bones, battered, bruised, and abused. Now, she’s married to Ziven, her body gaining all of the weight she’d lost, plus a little more. She finally looks settled and happy.
I walk over to Quinn and wrap my hand around her shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze. We’ve been through a lot, and not just with me finding her. Ziven went to jail for a while, and I made it my goal to take care of her during that time. I spent sleepless nights focusing on how to get my Pakhan out of jail, which wasn’t necessarily the easiest thing to do, considering he went to trial for allegedly committing murder.
“C’mon in,” Ziven offers. I watch as Yakov, his wife Ashley, Dominik, his wife Inessa, Timofei, and Konstantin walk through the door. Then, last but not least, Ustin and his woman walk in.
“Leonie,” Oksana cries. I watch as she runs over to the little woman and wraps her arms around her. “What are you doing here?”
“Mika brought us with him. He knew I would be worried,” she whispers. I still hear every word.
I watch the women embrace, and their voices lower as they talk between each other. My eyes then drift over to Ashley and Inessa, who are holding their new babies. It makes me think about Oksana, and if she’s pregnant with my child or not.
I can’t help but think that she’d make a beautiful pregnant woman, and an even more beautiful mother. Considering her own mother was out of this world sophisticated and lovely until she took her dying breath, I know that my Oksana will be the same.
“We thought we’d do lunch,” Inessa says with a grin. “I had to get out of the house.”
“When was she born?” Oksana asks as she and Leonie walk over to Inessa.
“Only a week ago, but I’m going stir crazy,” she says as she sits down.
“Can I?” Oksana asks. I swear to fuck, my heart squeezes as she reaches for the little girl.
I watch, my complete focus on Oksana and the little bundle as she sits down and looks at the baby. Her finger reaches out and she traces the side of the baby’s face. I can’t see anything, but it doesn’t make the sight of her and a baby in her arms any less beautiful.
“What did you name her?” I ask as I clear my throat.
“Devora,” Inessa murmurs as she looks up at Dominik with watery eyes. “Shit, I’m going to cry.”
“Oh, no, why?” Oksana asks.
“I’m just hormonal, never mind me,” she says and waves her hand.
We all say goodbye to our women, and each of us asks that they don’t leave without giving one of us a call so we can send Byki to go with them. They agree, but not without rolling their eyes. Once we’ve left them alone, we make our way to Timofei’s suite, where we hold our meeting.
“Do we know anything about the Cartel’s El Jefe?” I ask as soon as we’re locked inside.
“Nyet,” Yakov admits.
“They had some leaders here. We killed some of them, but not all of them. They’re scattered, as far as I know—all over the world. He could literally be anywhere. But if I had to guess, he’s somewhere like Florida, or a southern state near the border. Maybe even over the border,” Yakov murmurs.
“Goddamn,” I grumble.
“There are some in California,” Timofei announces.
“How’d you know that?” Yakov asks.
“That MC we work with. Their women were being taken, sold off. The Aryans were part of it, but they were buying the women from the Cartel,” he explains.
“Fuck,” I hiss. “Now we have to worry about the fucking Aryans, too?”
“They killed a whole house full of them. As far as I know, they’re still hunting them down, one by one,” he says with a grin. “I would never fuck with the Notorious Devils. The shit they do, it sometimes scares even me.”
“Maybe we can call their leader—MadDog, is it? See what he can give us, if anything,” Yakov suggests.
Timofei nods and pulls out his phone. It doesn’t take him long to get a hold of the president of the Notorious Devils. He answers with a gruff hello. Timofei informs him that he’s on speakerphone and then explains our situation and what we are looking for.
“We’ve been pussyfooting around enough with this threat of war looming over us all. We need this handled, over and done with,” MadDog announces.
“We agree,” Ziven nods, as though MadDog can see him. “Do you have anything?”
“Your man, Oliver, he’s given me great intel. We’ve been focused on the Aryans, though, trying to find the women they’ve bought from the Cartel. We’ve yet to find where they’d taken the pregnant women, but I feel like we’re close. Unfortunately, that means we haven’t been focused on the Cartel,” he admits.
“Understandable,” Ziven says. “Your focus should stay on that.”
“That being said, we did kill some Cartel members, but they were living here. Blew their houses to hell,” he chuckles.
“At least we don’t have to worry about the California ones anymore,” Timofei laughs.
“Not Northern Cali, at least,” MadDog replies. “You guys find that El Jefe, call us, we’ll be backup. I’ll send my closest club to you. Your guys here helped us out a hell of a lot, and we owe you a marker,” he offers.
Timofei thanks him before he hangs up, and I feel as though we’ve gone nowhere. Fucking nowhere, and we have nothing to go off of to get somewhere.
“I don’t know that Oliver can even find something,” Yakov murmurs.
“We have nothing for him to find,” I say, running a hand through my hair in frustration.
“What if we lured them in?” Ziven asks. “They were going to buy Quinn; I killed that one fuck. They’re around, and the only way they come out is the promise of making money off of pussy.”
“Bate operation?” I ask.
“Yeah. I mean, fuck, that’s the only way they’ve been caught. They take the women and they sell them, or train them to sell,” Ziven growls. His eyebrows knit together as he thinks.
“So we put word out that we’ve decided to bring back Ivan’s ways? I don’t know that they’ll buy that,” Yakov says, speaking of his father.
“No,” I blurt. “We use someone, just one person is all it takes to turn. Konstantin, you could act pissed. You were promised a marriage to the printsessa, and I fucked you over—Pasha fucked you over. They know what happened at the wedding, but they don’t know exactly our inner workings, and we don’t know what Gavril told any of them.”
“That could work. Pasha made it clear after I brought Oksana home that her hand in marriage would be my reward,” he shrugs.
I try not to growl or let my anger take over at his words. He didn’t act on them. He came to me with concerns.
“Now we just need to find one of those fucks to talk to,” I say.
“What about that place we met them a few months back. I doubt they’ve all run off from the city,” Yakov offers.
“Wait a minute—wasn’t there a woman? The local El Jefe’s woman, right?” I ask, snapping my finger.
“His mistress,” Yakov adds with a lift of his chin.
“Bet she could find us some information. Get her info and we can talk to her,” I suggest.
“Paloma is still very much under watch. She would be easy to bump into, but it would be easier to just break into her house,” Yakov chuckles.
“Let’s do it tonight,” Ustin rumbles. The men look at him in surprise but nod in agreement.
“We’ll break in around midnight as to not terrify her children completely,” Yakov grins scarily.
“And if she doesn’t have anything to give to us?” Dominik asks.
“She will,” Yakov says, lifting his chin.
We finish planning how we’re going to break into Paloma’s home, who will be doing the talking, and who will be the men watching out. We decide to keep everything between the six of us, and not even bring Byki with us. Instead, Dominik says that he wants all the women at his home with Inessa and his new baby, surrounded by as many Byki as they can spare, just in case.
“Matvey will watch after them as it is his life’s duty,” Dominik grunts.
“I’ll stay with the women, too. Oksana is my duty to watch over,” Ustin announces.
We break and go back to the suite where the women are, knowing we only have a few hours with them before we have to go.
When we arrive, the women are just finishing up some room service, and they’re all in fits of laughter, which makes my lips twitch. I love seeing Oksana laugh. She’s a sight to behold usually; but when she’s got a genuine smile on her face, she turns into something even more gorgeous. Its indescribable.
“Ready?” I ask as I make my way to her side.
“Already? I thought this would be an all-night thing?” she asks as she takes my hand and stands next to me.
“We have some things to do later tonight. I’ll be dropping you, Ustin, and Leonie off at Dominik and Inessa’s later, lapochka. You can continue your visiting then,” I rumble.
She looks up at me with a smile, and I know, without a doubt, I’ll deliver the severed head of the El Jefe to her father to keep her. To keep that smile on her face and to keep her in my bed. To fill her with my babies and to keep her at my side—forever.
THE WOMEN WERE ALL somber when we left them at Inessa’s with Ustin and Matvey, plus several other Byki for protection. They knew that something was up, and they were all on edge and worried. We didn’t tell them anything, for everyone’s safety. It’s better that they know nothing. Once everything is done and finished, then I’ll tell Oksana. I’m sure the other men will tell their women, as well.
“The house looks quiet,” Dominik points out as we pull up to the end of a dark street.
Our eyes are focused on the fourth house on the left, Paloma’s residence. Yakov has kept tabs on her the past few months and ensures us that there won’t be a man there. She’s not been seen with any since her lover died. She’s only twenty-five, so I’m not sure how much longer that will last.
“Ready?” Yakov asks.
“Let’s do this,” I rumble.
We walk, swift and with purpose, sticking to the shadows as we take in the neighborhood. The houses are mostly dark, the owners probably fast asleep in their beds. Other than a barking dog here or there, no other movement or noises fill the surrounding area.
The backdoor of her house isn’t even locked, and we all just walk right in, except for Dominik and Timofei, who are watching the perimeters. Dominik at the back, and Timofei hidden in the shadows at the front.
There’s a glow from a television in the living room, and we silently walk toward it. There is Paloma, curled on the couch, a blanket wrapped around her, her long hair draped over her shoulders. She doesn’t even startle as her eyes cut to us. She looks younger than twenty-five, and yet, the knowledge in her gaze would lead me to believe she’s much older. She’s a contradiction, for sure.
“I was wondering when you would come for me,” she murmurs.
“We don’t want to hurt you. We actually just want to talk,” Yakov states.
She nods and stands up, motioning us back into the kitchen, the room we entered when we broke in.
“What is it you want?” she asks as she walks over to the freezer and pulls out a bottle of tequila.
I watch as she opens a cabinet and takes out a shot glass, filling it, throwing it back before she fills a second one and does it again. My lips fight a smile, twitching at the sight. This woman is, indeed, strong.
“The head of the El Jefe of the entire Cartel,” I announce.
I watch as her head slowly turns to face me, and her eyes widen in surprise before she bursts out laughing.
“Good luck with that,” she says between bursts of laughter.
“I have less than a month to find him,” I continue.
“Even if you did find him, he’s under heavy guard. You could never get to him,” she explains, though I already figured that much out.
“Why don’t you let us worry about that part,” Yakov offers.
“Ernesto was the highest position in the city. His territory was large, but he answered to someone, someone not in the US. He referred to him as El Patron,” she shrugs.
“Any way to get a hold of him?” I ask, arching a brow.
“Not if I want to keep breathing freely,” she says. “But Ernesto’s wife, she might know.”
“Why would she know?” I ask, wanting to understand everything I can.
“If I tell you, will you protect me?” she asks as her eyes shift from me to Yakov before landing on Konstantin.
“We will.”
Yakov lets a low growl grow in his throat, but doesn’t say anything for a few moments. Then he speaks.
“Yes. We will if your intel is worthy of our protection.”
“Ernesto’s wife, I always felt bad for her. Ernesto did things to her, and let others do even worse things. I was always scared that I’d end up like her. He didn’t hide the horrors he put her through. In fact, he would tell me and laugh about them. I was fourteen when we started our affair, if that’s what you want to call it. He scared me to death, but it was safer to please him then to fight him, so I made it my mission to be exactly what he wanted me to be,” she says. Her voice turns from strong, to sad and almost weak.
“She was El Patron’s first. She was his slave before she was Ernesto’s wife. He told me that when he was still in Mexico, when he was climbing ranks, he was El Patron’s right hand man. He lived in his house; he was his friend. Anyway, Alicia was beautiful, but she was a slave amongst dozens. El Patron used her personally, but he would use others as well. Most were shared amongst the men, but Alicia never was. When Ernesto was high enough that El Patron decided he trusted him to run his own operation in New York, he gave Ernesto Alicia as a parting gift.”
We are all quietly listening to her story. It’s rather enthralling, actually. It’s then that I realize the Cartel and the Bratva aren’t vastly different, as I’d always decided they were. Women, sex, trades, drugs, and guns. We’re much the same, the Cartel and us.
“So, to make a long story short. Ernesto didn’t like that Alicia wanted to go back to El Patron; mainly because, although she was a sex slave, El Patron treated her a hell of a lot better than Ernesto ever did. He never told El Patron this, but he’d caught her trying to run away more than once, so he would torture her. He’d share her amongst his men, humiliate her, and fuck her ass. Then he’d come to me. I, for the most part, got the nicest part of him, which still wasn’t all that great; but he didn’t purposely hurt me, he didn’t share me, and he was a father to our children. He cared for me in his own way, I suppose,” she shrugs. “So, if you find Alicia, you have a chance of possibly finding out at least the name of El Patron.”
I tha
nk Paloma before I turn and walk outside. I close my eyes and think about these poor abused women. So many of our own women have been abused, and it doesn’t even end there. The Devils have women that were taken, and the Cartel is known for their slave trade. It all makes me fucking sick.
“I heard the story,” Dominik mutters.
“Are we just as bad?” I ask. “We still have whore houses.”
“I know,” Dominik shrugs. He knows because he is in charge of one here in the city. “It’s different now. We’re changing and evolving. Our whores do it now because they want to. They make great fucking money, and they’re safe. They don’t do it because they’re forced to anymore. Maybe some feel it’s their only option, but it isn’t really. So, no, we’re not just as bad. Our women are no longer slaves.”
I close my eyes for a moment, thinking about my sister. She was a slave, her choices stripped at the age of ten, her children taken, both her and their bodies riddled with disease. Fuck. It makes me want to bring down this El Patron even more.
“Konstantin is in charge of protection of Paloma from now on,” Yakov announces as he walks out. “We’re going to meet with Alicia now. As far as Oliver can tell, she’s still residing in the home she shared with Ernesto.”
I look back and notice that Paloma is tucking some hair behind her ear while looking up at Konstantin with a doe-eyed expression.
“That looks like trouble,” I mention, lifting my chin at the couple.
“Maybe, but Konstantin needs something. He works constantly,” Yakov shrugs.
“He can’t order a call girl?” I ask.
“He won’t. Against his moral code or some shit,” Yakov chuckles.
“That’s a disaster waiting to happen,” I rumble.
“I don’t think so. Konstantin is pretty focused on his job. He’ll want to draw up a contract soon. This would be for fun only. By the looks of her, Paloma could use some fun, too,” Yakov murmurs. I grunt as my response. A few minutes later, Konstantin joins us outside.
Forever my Badman (Russian Bratva Book 7) Page 13
