Christmas Tsar (Blood and Thunder 1)

by Susan Stephens

  Her imagination begged to differ.

  Chapter Two

  Fuck, she’d made him hard! Clutching his straining cock as the door closed behind the latest potential recruit, he grimaced and shut his eyes to blank her out. He had work to do tonight, and he could not afford to be distracted by the girl.

  Half an hour later, the entire Blood and Thunder polo team had assembled on deck. All of them were fabulously wealthy and all of them bound by the same code of honor, which was to clean up the mess that the authorities of various countries had neither the time nor the resources to deal with. Tonight, it was Alexei’s turn to head up the mission. He hailed from the steppes of Russia, where riding a horse was as natural as walking and the fight for survival was real and often vicious. His second in command tonight was Dante Formosa, an Argentinian born in a stable to a Romani mother—a stable Dante now owned, together with an inherited landmass the size of Great Britain. Diego Vidal would be acting as point man. Diego was a fearless warrior from a region of Spain high in the rugged Sierra Nevada, where men were hard, and women were passionate, and their horses were second to none. Last up was Cesar, a cold, distant man, who called no place home, and whose history before they’d come together to play polo was a blank. But it was Cesar who had bought Isla Celeste, an island in the sun that served as their base, and not just for polo. After tonight’s mission, the team would reconvene on the island for debriefing.

  They went over their tactics one last time. Confident they had every angle covered, they tooled up and headed out.

  ~o0o~

  Amber had no intention of staying in her cabin all night. Nice though it was, with its polished wood and clever design, she needed fresh air, as well as some time away from the ship to think how she was going to get the inside story on Alexei Riga for Dana. He wasn’t exactly the open, friendly type. He was more the archetypical strong and silent type, with a bit of BDSM potential thrown in. This was, of course, only a theory, as her experience was confined to her imagination, but he did love his discipline.

  Pulling on her jeans, a fleece, and a pair of sneakers, she glanced at the crew instruction folder. There was nothing to say she couldn’t leave the ship, though she didn’t want Mr. Chatty trailing after her. She could eat on board in the crew’s mess, but as she wasn’t on duty until seven o’clock the following morning, she wanted to see what was happening on shore. The trick would be to find a café where she could actually afford to eat. Hard News hadn’t been exactly lavish with expenses, and Monte Carlo wasn’t noted for its cheap eateries, but maybe a sandwich bar would be open.

  Slipping over the side of the yacht was easy. Getting back again might be a problem, but it was a problem that would wait until later. Climbing onto the pontoon from the ship without getting a dunking in the sea or being spotted by the guards or by one of the many cameras was another challenge, but it was one she relished. She had undergone many similar tests in the army and had proved a tricky adversary for her instructors.

  It was dark on the side streets of Monte Carlo, apart from the occasional street lamp and a reluctant moon. It was pointless searching the main drag for somewhere she could afford to eat, so she headed up the narrow side streets in search of affordable food, reasoning that workers like her had to eat somewhere.

  From a trash can?

  Shocked by the sight of a young girl rifling through a Dumpster behind a pizza restaurant, Amber backed into a doorway to watch. The girl had already made a small pile of discarded boxes containing scraps of half-eaten pizzas, and she was looking for more. Digging out her money, Amber counted the thin wad of notes. She made some swift calculations. She could afford to buy more than one pizza. Walking over to put her proposal to the girl, she was startled when the girl reared back as if terrified of Amber. Wheeling around, the girl looked for somewhere to hide.

  “Hey—no!” Catching up, Amber tried to explain. “Please don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you. What’s your name?”

  The girl looked at her warily before deciding to speak. “Celina,” she confided in a whisper.

  “I was just on my way to buy a pizza, Celina.” Amber mimed eating a pizza as she pointed at the café. Celina obviously spoke some English, but Amber had no idea if she understood enough to realize what Amber intended to do.

  “I understand you,” Celina explained to her relief.

  “Will you let me buy you a pizza?”

  Celina looked as if she’d rather disappear, and said nothing for a while. She was shaking like a rabbit. Rake thin, with long, straggly hair, she was grubby and half-starved. A noise made Amber swing around and stare up. She was shocked to see more women leaning out of an upstairs window. “Your friends?” she asked.

  Following her glance, Celina grimaced. “We’re all locked in. I managed to escape to find food.”

  Amber assessed the situation. The house was part of a block with a fire escape running down from the roof. Celina had taken an incredible risk to get out. The only way she could have done so was by edging along a narrow ledge to reach the fire escape, and from there, down to the street.

  “No! Don’t do that,” Celina exclaimed in panic as Amber cautiously tried the front door. “They’ll hear you.”

  “They?”

  “The men.” Celina’s eyes had widened with fright. “The men who brought us here,” she explained, her gaze darting anxiously around the shadows. “We paid them to bring us here,” she admitted in a small voice. “We all answered the same advertisement for well-paying jobs and a chance to better ourselves.”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” Amber said, firing up inside on behalf of the women as she tried to work out how best to help them.

  “The pizza?” Celina pressed softly in an imploring tone.

  She sounded so desperate, Amber knew she couldn’t refuse, though every second they remained in the open added to the danger of discovery.

  “You stay here, and I’ll be back as fast as I can,” she promised. “Don’t go anywhere. I’m going to help you.”

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Celina implored. “You’ll put us all in danger if you tell the authorities.”

  “But we have to tell someone,” Amber insisted.

  “Just not yet—we’re all so hungry.”

  “All right,” Amber agreed. “But throw those boxes of pizza away. You don’t know how long that food’s been rotting in the bin.”

  There was hunger, and then there was this, Amber thought as Celina reluctantly did as she asked.

  “Stay back in the shadow of that doorway and wait for me,” she instructed.

  Amber paid for as many pizzas as she could afford. She’d sort out her finances later. Balancing the boxes in her arms, she backed her way out the door. She looked around for Celina, but there was no one in the doorway, and the window from which the women had been leaning out was closed—

  Amber exclaimed in fright as a big hand slammed across her mouth, then her survival instincts and training kicked in, and she fought with her elbows, her heels, and her teeth, but the man was too strong for her and started dragging her toward the house.

  “How thoughtful of you to bring us pizza,” he snarled in an ugly accent.

  ~o0o~

  Alexei and his team spread out silently, taking up position in preparation for the raid. A thirst for danger had always united them, and their goal was simple tonight. There were female captives inside the house, whom they intended to free. And not just free but repatriate, or find them safe havens. Failure wasn’t an option. If they weren’t rescued, the older women would go as domestic slaves, hidden and forgotten in some plutocrat’s mansion, while the younger, prettier women would be washed and groomed and dressed in tiny bikinis before being offered up for auction on the dark web. It was a multimillion-dollar enterprise controlled by a network of men that Alexei and his team had sworn to eliminate. Alexei’s spy at the pizza restaurant had alerted him to this latest cell, which was why Alexei’s yacht was berthed in Monte Ca
rlo at such an unfashionable time of year.

  He’d just been told through his earpiece that the women had been moved from the locked attic to the cellar. “Because of some young English girl walking into their trap,” his spy on the ground had told him, ending with a brief description of the girl.

  Amber Smith. He swore viciously. He’d had no report of her leaving the ship, but the description fit her perfectly.

  “And we didn’t even have to pay for her transport here,” his spy now reported one of the gang members boasting.

  Fucking idiot! As if they didn’t have enough on their plates tonight without having to rescue Amber.

  “I got a quick look at her before they dragged her away,” his spy told him. “She’s valuable stock—young and fresh. Even her long red hair is an advantage because it’s so unusual. They’ll put a premium on her when they put her up for sale. When they manhandled her into the house, I heard one of them say, ‘Let’s see how you like the rats in the basement when you join the other sluts,’ which is why I think that’s where the other women are being held.”

  Alexei’s thirst for justice had just become personal. “Understood,” he murmured.

  He glanced at the house. Lights were on in the front rooms. He made a gesture to indicate that his team must watch the front door while he slipped around the side.

  The back of the house was in darkness. He wore protective bands around his fists and was carrying a pack containing the tools he’d need. Keeping his gun cocked and ready, he chose a window to crack. Using a glass cutter and glass suckers, he silently removed the pane and climbed inside. The cellar door was right in front of him. Bolted. No problem. The only hitch he anticipated was that the women would start screaming when he burst in wearing night vision goggles and brandishing a Glock.

  As always, timing was key. He relied on his team to keep the gang pinned down while he freed the women. He waited for the first round of gunfire, then shot the bolt and plunged into the steaming damp and oppressive darkness.

  ~o0o~

  At the sound of the first shot, the women crowded around Amber started to scream. Shoving them behind her, she told them to crouch low while she stood in front of them, shielding them as best she could.

  “We don’t know what’s happening yet, but we need to be ready to move,” she impressed on them. “It’s no use screaming and crying. Do you want to die in here?”

  She could only hope her tone got through to them, and Celina helped her to translate.

  Amber flinched like the rest when the door burst open and a huge, black-clothed figure burst in. Recovering quickly, she took up position to defend the women.

  The man reared over her, intimidatingly close. “Amber?”

  “Alexei!”

  “Stand down,” he ordered quietly.

  She obeyed instantly. This was not the time for rebellion. Alexei stared past her, assessing the number and condition of the women. She assessed the quality and type of body armor he was wearing, together with all his state-of-the-art equipment. Black combat gear with night vision goggles over his balaclava told its own story. Away from the plush surroundings of his superyacht, Alexei Riga was a tough, hard-bitten soldier of a type Amber was accustomed to and felt an immediate affinity with.

  “Are you okay?” He glanced at her once through the slit in his mask.

  “Yes, sir.”

  His stare lingered for a millisecond on her face. “I’ll lead the women upstairs, while you take up the rear. Make sure no one gets left behind. We need out of here fast. Someone from the gang will be down here checking inventory at the first possible opportunity.”

  “Backup?”

  He nodded. “As soon as I give the signal, my team will draw fire.”

  He murmured a single word into a hidden mic, and the gunfire intensified overhead. Gun cocked, Alexei went ahead of her, while Amber turned to the women and laid her finger on her lips. She ushered them up the steps and into the room above, where Alexei had barred the door into the main part of the house. All that remained was to hustle the women through the broken window.

  She recognized the guy from the pizza restaurant waiting outside. They exchanged brief nods of recognition, and then he hurried the women into a van with blacked-out windows and drove them away.

  “Aren’t you coming?” she asked Alexei.

  “I’m staying to help clean the place.”

  She guessed he wasn’t referring to mopping floors. “Then I’m staying too.”

  “No, you’re not,” he said fiercely.

  She glared into eyes that held all the warmth of ice chips behind his sinister mask and stood her ground.

  “I take it you can remember how to handle a gun?” he bit out seeing she had no intention of moving.

  “Military training? And I’ve grown up handling a gun. I used to shoot on the farm all the time, though unarmed combat’s my preferred method of self-defense.”

  Reaching down, Alexei pulled a small gun from an ankle holster. “Point and shoot,” he instructed. “Just don’t shoot me. Or yourself,” he added as an afterthought.

  Alexei worked smoothly with his team to trap the gang in a pincer movement, while Amber watched his back. They made a good team, though she didn’t take her first decent breath until all the gunfire had stopped.

  “It’s done,” one of Alexei’s colleagues informed him, with the briefest of glances at Amber.

  “How many of you are there?” she asked when Alexei stood down.

  He ignored her question. So did his friend. So she answered it for herself. There were four members of Alexei’s team tonight: Alexei, Dante, Diego, and Cesar, otherwise known as the Blood and Thunder polo team.

  Chapter Three

  It was only when Alexei leapt into the driver’s seat of the sleek black SUV and tore off his balaclava that she noticed the dark patch on his sleeve. “You’ve been hit.”

  “Just a scratch.” He took off from the curb at speed. “You can clean it up when we get back to the ship. If your stomach can take it?”

  “My stomach can handle a graze,” she assured him. It wasn’t tending Alexei’s wound she was worried about, but the prospect of touching him.

  “You got the standard medical training in the army and a little more besides when you joined Special Ops. Don’t act the fool with me,” he warned. “I’ve read your CV—the authorized version, as well as the bullshit you served up to me.”

  His mouth seemed crueler and his harsh accent more pronounced as he flashed a glance at her. “When were you going to tell me the truth? Or are you going to deny that you graduated close to the top of your class?” Alexei’s icy stare bored into her.

  Lifting her chin, she remained true to her training and said nothing.

  “Do you want the job on my ship or not?”

  ‘I want it,” she confirmed tensely. “But could you please look where you’re going when you’re driving?”

  With a humorless laugh, Alexei sped up, taking them on a tour of the principality’s winding streets like a race car driver.

  “Where are your colleagues?” She checked the wing mirrors for a possible tail.

  “They can look after themselves,” Alexei said tersely.

  She braced herself against the dash as he abruptly swung the wheel. “What will happen to those women now?”

  “They’re safe with the relevant authorities and well cared for. The principality won’t risk anything that might taint its brand. This is a playground for the rich and famous. Imagine how it would look if some of the less worthy citizens found their dirty linen being washed in the public square.”

  “Are you saying there are people here who would keep slaves like those women?”

  “What do you think, Ms. Smith? A lot of boats move in and out of marinas all over Europe without anyone asking the right questions. Except for you, Amber Smith,” he observed, “and you ask a lot of questions. I’ll debrief you in more detail when we’re back on board. How did you disembark, by the way, wit
hout anyone seeing you?”

  Smiling faintly, she said nothing.

  Alexei hummed. “Your take on upping security could be useful.”

  “It’s all too easy to become complacent,” Amber agreed. “Even the most advanced technology has difficulty keeping pace with the complexities and determination of a human mind.”

  “You don’t say,” he murmured, sliding her a look.

  Alexei’s cold stare warned her to be open with him from now on, or she’d be off the ship with nothing to show for her stay, apart from the few scrapes and bruises she’d gotten tonight. But she’d learned enough to know there was a dark world beneath the everyday, and that no country could handle all the action. Alexei Riga, and men like him, took up the slack. He was a fearless vigilante, operating on the fringes of the law. Was that what Dana had been hinting at? Should Amber write about it in her article? Or were her loyalties divided now? She wanted to keep her job, but she didn’t want to jeopardize Alexei’s valuable work. Act in haste, repent at leisure sprang to mind, but she already knew that she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she betrayed Alexei. Keeping her job was going to be harder than she’d thought unless she could come up with something else to write about.