by Maura Rose
Still, he couldn’t help but feel a bit of warmth inside. He’d won Kelly over, at least partly, and it gave him an immense sense of satisfaction—one that he’d never quite felt before. He knew that he’d had to work to earn even a part of her good favor, and knowing that she was teaming up with him now, going to her father, openly supporting him and agreeing with him… it meant a lot.
“I’ll be leaving in the afternoon,” Ivan added. “So try not to start any wars until I get back.”
“We’ll do our best,” Kelly replied, grinning at him.
He found himself, to his own surprise, grinning back.
“I’m impressed, by both of you,” Sean admitted. He looked at Kelly. “I think, perhaps, I underestimated you.” He nodded at Ivan. “Off you go, then, I suppose. I must say… it’s good to see that you two are working so well together, it bodes well for the future.”
“Father,” Kelly snapped, almost as if she was embarrassed.
Ivan decided he wasn’t going to try opening that can of worms. “I’ll be in touch. We’ll exchange phone numbers, text me if something’s wrong.”
“Ah, the modern day age,” Sean grumbled.
“I suppose you’d prefer carrier pigeon?” Kelly asked.
Ivan left them to bicker about technology. He had to get to Moscow. If he was fast enough… he’d be back before the Murphys struck.
Chapter Twenty
Kelly stared at her father. “Did you mean it?” she asked.
She probably shouldn’t have waited until he was back in his office and going over his papers, but still. It had been a bit of a shock. It took time to digest what he’d said.
He looked up at her. “Yes, of course I did. You two have more in common than you think, love. I told you that you just had to give him a chance.”
Kelly felt herself blushing. “I didn’t mean about Ivan. I meant about you underestimating me.”
Her father set aside his papers. “Yes. You’ve handled yourself well throughout this whole thing.” He paused. “Perhaps I should’ve made you lieutenant and kicked Bates to the curb.”
“Please don’t joke about that.” The betrayal of one of their own still stung. “Will you let me be the one to go after him?”
Her father frowned. “You’re not one of my hitmen, Kelly, you’re my daughter.”
“He killed Connor,” Kelly hissed, her hands clenching into fists. “Shane’s barely hanging on and you’re going to let Vinnie or Ralph do it? They were my family, Father, our flesh and blood. And we treated Bates like family too. Anyone gets to kill him, it’s me.”
Father stared her down, but she stared him down just as hard. She wasn’t backing out on this. He thought he could intimidate her? He might be the big bad boss to everyone else but he was her father. Like hell she was going to back down on this one.
At last, Father was the one to break away and look down. “Only if someone accompanies you. Like Ivan. Take him when he gets back.”
Kelly folded her arms. “I don’t need backup.”
“You’re also my only unharmed child,” Father said quietly. “If you’re going to insist on doing this yourself, then I insist that you take someone along to make sure that I get you back in one piece.”
Kelly relaxed, nodding. She’d been a little hard on him in all of this. She’d lost a brother but he’d lost a son.
She came forward, pulling him into a hug. They didn’t really do this much, the whole touching thing, but she supposed this could be a good exception.
“Thank you.”
Father brought his hand up to stroke her hair. “It feels like it’s all going so fast,” he admitted. “My baby girl is getting married.”
“I love that’s what you’re focusing on. You know we have a war we’re about to launch, right?”
“Ah, wars happen all the time,” Father replied. “My daughter only gets married once.” He pulled back, examining her face. “You do like him, don’t you?”
Kelly swallowed. She felt embarrassed, exposed. She didn’t want anyone, least of all Ivan, to know about this stupid bout of feelings she’d developed for him. But at the same time… would it hurt her father to know that she actually did like the man that she was going to spend the rest of her life with? He was her father, after all. He just wanted the best for her.
“Yes,” she told him. “Yes, I do like him. A lot.”
Her father smiled, hugging her tightly. “Good. That’s all I want, really. I want you to be happy.”
Kelly nodded into his shoulder. “I know.”
If she got to kill Bates and Shane woke up… she just might be.
As for Ivan—well, she just tried to shove that thought aside as something to deal with later. When they weren’t all at each other’s throats.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ivan left Pavel in charge while he went to Moscow. “It’s only for a few days,” he said. “But stay in contact with Sean. If anything changes, you let me know. I’m giving you authorization to mobilize us if there’s a surprise attack, but we don’t strike first. If I hear any of the men—or Yana for that matter, I know she’s got a temper—started anything, then there’s going to be Hell to pay.”
Pavel nodded, watching as Ivan finished packing. “Sir. Are you sure you want to throw our lot in with the O’Gills?”
“You want a monopoly on the docks?” Ivan replied. “Besides, you were the one who told me to ally myself and get a mentor.”
“I also want to see you happy,” Pavel admitted.
He was probably the only person in the entire organization who could get away with talking so openly. Ivan zipped up his suitcase. “What makes you think this won’t make me happy? We’ll get a good deal on the docks, we prevent a monopoly, my terms of the mentorship are fulfilled…”
“I meant the union with Miss O’Gill, sir,” Pavel corrected gently.
Ivan wasn’t an idiot. He knew that was what Pavel was getting at. He just hadn’t wanted to answer. “I think that we’ll get along just fine, Pavel. She’s a smart girl, I could do a lot worse.”
“But you don’t love her.”
“I—” Ivan realized he didn’t know how to answer the question. “I don’t think this is any of your concern.”
On the plane to Moscow, he slept so that he wouldn’t be jet lagged. That really didn’t leave him a lot of time for thinking, but when he did have time, he was planning what to say in the various meetings he attended.
He hadn’t been to Moscow in years. An in-person meeting, however, was due now that he was in charge of the family. It was good to establish his presence and make himself and his personal touch known to the others back in the Motherland. Not to mention his physical presence would impart to everyone just how serious he was about this whole O’Gill-Murphy issue.
In between, however, he found Kelly slipping into his thoughts.
He hadn’t expected to think of her at all. At first he thought that it was just because her family was on the line and the big reason why he’d come to Moscow, and of course Pavel’s little talk with him just before he headed to the airport.
But then he started to suspect it was more than that.
He found his thoughts drifting to her in between meetings. He found himself wondering what she would say. He’d start to make a smart remark, and then almost like she was a ghost, he’d feel Kelly’s disapproval at his being flippant during such an important meeting.
He didn’t even eye the secretaries in their stupidly short skirts (protocol instituted by their bosses, he had no doubt). Normally he’d take the opportunity to chase a little tail, unwind in that way after a long day of politically maneuvering with a bunch of Cold War leftovers who didn’t realize that the goddamn dick measuring contest with the U.S. was over now, thanks, and could they please just focus on the profit margin?
But he just… didn’t feel like it. He caught sight of thick blonde hair and for a second his heart actually skipped a goddamn beat, but then he realized the hair was too ligh
t in color. Kelly’s was a little darker, honey in color. This was pale, ashy blonde.
He finished yet another day of relentless ass-kissing and bowing and scraping and veiled insults about his father and his own lack of experience, and went home to his cold, empty hotel room.
God, what he wouldn’t give to have someone there waiting for him, someone to take the tension away after dealing with those pricks for hours.
He wanted… he wanted Kelly.
She wouldn’t just be lying there on the bed, all compliant with pouting lips. She’d demand to know what had happened. She’d hiss when he told her about some of the things said, would try to storm out of the room to march over and teach those assholes a lesson, protesting when he grabbed her and playfully dragged her back, asking her to please not start a war with all of the Russian bratva, please.
They wouldn’t let her come with him to the meetings. It was still men only around here. But he could ask her for advice, show her his notes from the meeting, watch her scribble her ideas into the margins because she had to have ideas, he knew she had to.
And then she’d playfully lead him to the shower or the bed, help him take all that stress away. Help him forget that he was stuck far away from home in this damn cold city surrounded by men who acted like they were better than he was even though their entire empire had been handed down to them from birth and they really had to fight for jack shit.
Ivan took a quick shower in real life, though, because he wanted to wash the grime of those meetings off as soon as possible.
You’d think, wouldn’t you, that it would be easy to just tell them, hey, we don’t want a monopoly on the docks forcing us to pay through the nose for parking our ships while we unload shipments. Ivan rolled his eyes at himself in the bathroom mirror. No, that was way too much to ask of them.
His father, of course, would’ve just demanded that they listen to him. His father was from here, though, he could probably get away with that demanding stuff. Ivan had been born here but moved to the U.S. when he was really still too young to remember, and Viktor was American born and bred. They couldn’t get away with shit because they weren’t from Mother Russia, and he definitely wasn’t going to win friends by striding in there and just demanding that they listen to him.
It meant he had to play the flattery game. He had to show such gratefulness, and of course talk about how sad it was to lose his father, and spend time reminiscing about him, and hearing about his father’s younger days, and talking about how superior Moscow was to everywhere else on the planet, and then let them tell him all the things he should be doing with his business and how to run things—which, yes, all right, he could use the advice, but not when it was given in such a condescending manner.
But it looked like he was finally getting somewhere. Everyone agreed that a monopoly on the docks was the last thing that they needed. Ivan took the opportunity to renew various contracts and to renegotiate some deals that Father had left gathering dust. The amount of things that his father had mismanaged… it didn’t even bear thinking about.
He toweled off, already feeling better, and climbed into bed.
If only it didn’t feel too big. He could feel Kelly’s weight on him if he closed his eyes, feel her skin underneath his fingertips, his hand tangled up in her hair.
He missed her. It hit him like a gut punch. He wanted her there. Her presence over the past few days had become something that he was used to, he’d sort of realized that, but more than that—it had become something that he craved. He wanted her snark, the way that she challenged him and pushed him, not just accepting whatever he said as law. He wanted to kiss her, hold her, let her be playful and passionate with him the way that she had their one time together.
Usually one time with a woman was more than enough. But he was starting to worry that even a few more times wouldn’t be enough to get Kelly out of his system.
He slid his hand down between his legs, already feeling his dick stiffening, filling as he thought of Kelly, of what it had been like to be inside of her.
She’d been so active, so responsive, raking her nails across his back, biting into his shoulder. He still had the bruise, purple, marring his skin. He pressed his free hand to it, hissing at the tenderness, his other hand wrapping around his cock and starting to stroke.
The way she’d teased him, licked her way up his shaft, taking him in her mouth like she’d been born for it… he got even harder at the memory, his hand moving a little faster as precum started to leak out, easing the way.
He wished she was here, hovering over him like she’d been before, those hips working, twisting, her dark blonde hair falling around her face, framing her. She’d had this smile on her face for part of it, until it had faded into wanton gasps, but that smile had been wild, ecstatic, and he wanted to see more of it.
Fuck, when he got back—if they had time—he was going to pin her to the nearest wall and kiss her until she didn’t remember her own name anymore he was going to lift her up and fuck her the way he’d thought about for a moment in the shipping crate, right there up against the wall, slamming into her until she screamed.
And he was going to make her scream, this time. If he had her in bed with him right now he’d roll her over, maybe tie her down just so that he could work her over, tease her until she was begging for him with even more desperation than before.
He’d loved how she’d begged for him, demanded more of him, the filth that had fallen out of her mouth as she’d told him to fuck her harder, fuck her until she couldn’t even walk the next day.... It had nearly made his brain short-circuit. He wondered what lovely things she’d beg and spit out if he kept her on the edge for hours, licked into her soft, slick folds, bit at the inside of her thighs, sucked at her breasts—kept her there until she was an incoherent mess, until she couldn’t even speak to beg.
Ivan arched up, tightening his hold as he spilled all over his hand, the image of Kelly burned into his eyes.
He half wondered if he should call her… he had her number, just in case, and had Sean’s as well. She was supposed to text him if anything went wrong while he was gone. But he couldn’t just randomly call her up after he’d just pulled himself off thinking about her. What the hell was he even supposed to say? And what time was it even, in New York City? She was probably just starting her day.
He sounded like a lovesick puppy, even in his own head. He just needed to put her out of his mind. It was good that he missed her, good that he saw her value as a partner, and good that she was attractive to him. He didn’t have to make it into anything more than that.
But he just kept thinking about her all through the trip. He missed her, damn it, and eventually he couldn’t even deny it to himself anymore. He missed her and wanted to go home and see how she was doing, make sure that nothing had gone to shit for her while he was gone.
He wrapped up the meetings, smiling grimly when he ended them and was told that he would be doing his father proud.
Ivan had to disagree. These… civilized meetings, this alliance with the O’Gills—with an Irish family of all things, not a Russian one, but an alliance in general—being polite, letting the other men around him take the lead, not pushing for better deals… Father would have hated all of it. He would have said that Ivan was getting soft, that he was doing discredit to the family name.
But Ivan kept his mouth shut. If these men wanted to see a different version of his father, remember a different version than the one that had actually existed… Ivan couldn’t get on them too much for that. He wasn’t going to start speaking ill of the dead.
“You fit in here,” one of them told him, smiling and clapping him on the shoulder. “You should think of visiting more often, Vanya.”
Ivan didn’t know whether to object to the diminutive form of his name or the idea of visiting Moscow more frequently, and decided not to object to either. It would be a shame to get into a fight and offend someone and ruin it all now that he was on his way out the door.
“Thank you,” he said instead, shaking the man’s hand.
“To be honest,” the man—Poletski, head of the family of the same name—said, leaning in, “You’re doing better than your father would be. This other old timers… they like to remember things the way that they wish they were. Especially when someone is no longer with us. We were all schoolboys together, your father and the rest of us, they like to think that he was like us. But he was… bloodthirsty. No head for the business. Didn’t know how to handle things with a more delicate touch at times. You’re succeeding where he couldn’t, Vanya. I would think a little better of yourself. You’re doing well.”
Ivan was taken aback. He had thought that these men were tolerating him, for the sake of his father, but at least one of them seemed to, apparently, genuinely like him and wasn’t blinded by his father’s memory.
It meant more to Ivan than he was expecting.
“This wife, you’ve mentioned, the girl you’re marrying to secure the alliance,” Poletski went on. “She’s a smart woman? A good head on her shoulders?”
“She’d sure like to keep me in line,” Ivan admitted with a rueful smile.
“Good,” Poletski said firmly. “Don’t let some of these men fool you. If you want a pretty doll, that’s what mistresses are for. Your wife helps to raise your children and might take over for you if something happens. You want someone who you know will handle things well.”
Ivan nodded. Kelly would definitely handle things well. The idea of her just being a pretty doll made him want to laugh. She was so much more than that.
Oh, he realized, turning that thought over again in his mind as Poletski walked out the door.
Oh.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kelly was with Shane when it happened.
She’d been with Shane for the past few days. There wasn’t much else that she could do for now. She couldn’t move against Bates until Ivan got back and they were able to move on the Murphys all at once. If she killed him too early, the Murphys might figure that something was up and attack before Ivan’s forces were in place—and they’d be slaughtered.
