The two men have an ominous stare-off, both huge and looking ready for a fight. This new guy is wearing leather, and has the appearance of a more traditional thug though, some motorcycle gangers. I have no idea what to expect, so I just hold my breath and hope for the best as I get out of the car. Mikhail wouldn’t take me to someplace we were both in danger, would he? Maybe he assumed the wrong things about these people...
This new guy cracks his knuckles, drawing my eye to the many rings on his fingers. Mikhail moves a hand towards his hip where a gun is hid, and then, in a flash everything is going down! The new thug moves his elbow up to smack Mikhail in the nose, and Mikhail jabs right for the kidneys.
I shriek!
Both guys are frozen though, stopping just short of impact on one another before they wrap their arms about the other and embrace. Meanwhile, my heart is racing like mad. Great first impression, Allie.
“Leon! You’re quicker than ever,” Mikhail says with a smile.
“Quick enough to put a fright into your Old Woman,” Leon says, shooting a half-smirk over towards me before breaking the embrace with Mikhail. “My most sincere apologies, ma’am,” he says, sounding rather contrite for a gangster.
“I was just the audience,” I spit back, embarrassed by my own fear. This whole situation has me more on edge than I want to admit.
“Sorry, my timid kotika,” Mikhail says, releasing the other guy and stepping around the car to extend his hand to me. “Come, meet Leon—he is a brother to me. Leon, this is Alicia,” he says, putting his arm around me, holding me close.
“Ahh, she is indeed a pussycat,” Leon says, taking my hand, and despite his gruff appearance, lifting it up and kissing my knuckles like a prince. “Welcome to Bayonne, Alicia,” he says so dashingly.
I’d probably have a schoolgirl crush on him if it weren’t for the fact that Mikhail is finally showing some affection back. All I can think about is the sensation of his arm draped around me, and I can feel the flush rising to my cheeks.
“Thanks,” I say to Leon before smiling up at Mikhail. “I’m excited to meet some friends of Mikhail, let alone a brother.”
“Now hands off of her,” Mikhail says in a lower voice, pushing away Leon’s arm, though the two clearly are being playful with one another. My guardian leads me inside as the other bikers clamor around while we head on into the club. A few of them grin and cheer excitedly for Mikhail’s return, others look on as if watching a very important person arrive for a political stop.
The energy in the room is strange. It’s similar to when I was working for Mr. Gallego in some ways, but with him, I never felt people were truly happy to see him. It was more like they needed to see him but wished they didn’t have to.
With Mikhail, these people want him to be here, even if they are being respectful. He’s being treated like an important person, and I have to admit... I like it. It makes me feel proud to be on his arm.
“Some people you know?” A pretty but somewhat unkempt woman asks, stepping close to Leon’s side, draping an arm over his shoulder. But hey, I’ve not had a chance for a good sprucing up in a while either, so who am I to talk?
“Yeah,” Leon chuckles, “it’s been a hell of a long time, but I like to think I know him. He’s the walking, talking reminder of my past, in more ways than one, but dammit, he’s family. You two, meet my gal, Cherry.”
She looks like a Cherry, all fiery red mane and soft features.
“You mean…” Cherry murmurs.
“Yeah,” Leon replies, stepping forward to give Mikhail a tight hug. “This towering giant is my brother, both by blood and by the Bratva,” he says, looking back at Cherry with a rugged smile.
“She’s a beauty, I can see why you want to keep her safe, brother. We both have excellent taste,” Leon says, slapping Mikhail’s shoulder and smiling pleasantly over at me.
“You should see me when I haven’t been locked up for an eternity without a lick of makeup or a decent shampoo,” I say with a grin, though I feel far more flattered than I’m letting on. Leon’s definitely a ladies’ man.
But the warmth coming from Mikhail is what’s really driving me wild.
We head to the bar, with Mikhail stopping to give passing greetings now and then until drinks are brought over and poured.
“Uh, let’s go in the back and discuss this, eh?” Leon says with his arm around Cherry’s waist. He has little hint of an accent, just a harsh voice and way of talking.
“I need you to help me hide Alicia, bratishka,” Mikhail says as we enter the enclosed back room, just the four of us. “A few months should do the trick. Then I’ll come back and see she’s sent along safely,” he says, and my heart stops.
“You’ll come back?” I ask without thinking, my head turned towards him and my brow raised. I can feel the anger start to boil within me, and even the weight of his arm wrapped around me can’t stop this sick feeling from rolling around in my stomach.
But he ignores me.
“Mikhail, I don’t know if we can do that right now,” Leon says sadly, shaking his head. I can tell it pains him greatly to disappoint his brother. “The FBI is on our backs, brother, and there’s not a single place in this town we could hide her without them sniffing her out. It just isn’t safe here in Bayonne. It’s not like it used to be when we were boys.”
“Pozhaluysta. I beg of you,” Mikhail answers, a pleading edge to his tone.
“What happened to the usual safe houses?” Leon asks, frowning.
Mikhail looks aside as though embarrassed. “They’ve been…compromised.”
“What? How did that—” Leon bites his tongue, and I wonder if he doesn’t want to know. If what Mikhail does, if who he is, is so unpalatable, then it’s just better not knowing. I’m on the brink of tears, but I hold it back. I’m not going to be a blubbering mess.
“I need to get her somewhere. She won’t last in the city.”
“You’re going to leave me for a few months? Just like that?” I ask, and even though I’m holding back tears, I don’t bother trying to contain the hurt in my voice. The anxiety I’ve felt since this morning is just rising up within me, and I can’t hold it back it anymore.
“It’s what has to be done. If I’m missing from the city for a long time, then it’ll raise suspicions, which endangers you further,” Mikhail says to me in his deep, husky voice. He’s frustrated with me, I can tell. His brow furrows, and he looks about to say something harsh. All the same, his hand and arm squeezes tighter.
“I am no good for you, kotika,” he says to me in a low, gravelly voice. “You slept with a killer. That was a huge mistake. Do you really want to compound it by sticking around him and risking it becoming more?” he pushes, those dark eyes of his wide, taunting me with the truth. “You are a good girl. And when this all blows over, you can go back to living a good girl’s life. Not hanging out with thugs in a bar, hanging off the arm of a contract killer.”
He steals the words from my mouth, the thoughts from my mind. Part of me knows he’s right. That he’s giving me a chance to move on, to find something else in my life.
But everything I know has been tossed upside-down. I have no job, and I can’t talk to any of my old colleagues, and I’m supposed to sit here for a few months with these people I don’t know...
And the thing that’s bothering me the most is that I don’t want him to leave. What does that say about me, after what he just said? Why didn’t that repulse me like it should? It does, partly, but it also fills me with a lustful heat that I don’t want to acknowledge. But my hand moves to his jaw, and I stroke it tenderly, because I don’t know what to say but I don’t want him to go.
“I need your help, too. I think… maybe we can work out a deal,” Leon says, intruding on our private moment.
“I will help you in any way I can. Whatever you need,” Mikhail says, and his tone sends a chill down my spine. He sounds so serious. So dire.
“I need you to eliminate someone for me.”
> “Leon, what’s going on? What do you mean, ‘eliminate’ someone?” Cherry’s voice sounds far away, shrill and distant, and then all sound is lost to me. I move to a chair, placing myself down carefully. I can’t hear, I can’t think. It’s all too much to bear.
All that I can see and think of is a flash of a memory that I couldn’t remember, the man looking at me in the room of red, a gun pointed in my direction. Mikhail. Right before he decided to spare me.
Is this what having a breakdown feels like? I never thought a person could be aware of so much and nothing all at once. It’s like my life has come to razor focus, and it has to cut out all the noise for me to process what this all means. Who Mikhail really is.
He’s the guy that people hire to kill. He’s everything he warned me he is.
The sound of my name pulls me from my spell, and I look up at the three of them. I have no idea how much time has passed, but based on how concerned Mikhail looks, I must be pale as a sheet.
“I promise to find a safe place to hide Alicia in the meantime. I have friends and connections all over town. Don’t worry, moy brat.”
“Spasibo, Leon,” Mikhail says, but his eyes don’t leave mine.
I’m a fool who’s fallen for a bad man, just like that. And I’ve fallen hard. I don’t know how to pull myself from this. Blonde hair tickles my burning cheeks, and my heart thumps heavily in my chest. I should let him go, forget what we did last night, the passion I feel for him. Just walk away from it all.
“Don’t worry about Alicia,” Leon tells Mikhail as if I’m not right here. I feel like a child being led around by my teachers, unable to speak up for myself or even put a voice to the jumbled thoughts rumbling through my mind. “I know a club up in Jersey City that owes me a favor and has a safe house where I’ve personally lain low a few times. She’ll be safe and comfortable. My vice-prez will take her there. Eva? Got anything going on tomorrow?”
“Nah, I can tell my techs to handle things ‘till the afternoon.”
“Good. Do that—I’ve gotta call in a favor from someone I know I can trust. My brother here has a lady he needs taken to the safe house the boys up in Jersey City run. Some of them will still be awake at this hour. If not, here’s some cash for a motel overnight. Get her in there first thing in the morning. Tell them things are even between us if they get this taken care of, alright?”
“Been a long time since I’ve been uptown... So am I following you, big guy?” Eva says to Mikhail.
“I appreciate it,” Mikhail says to Eva before turning to his brother. “Leon, you should know of all people that I act swiftly and quietly. Once I’m off to handle this situation, it won’t be long before it is done.”
“I know. Tomorrow night, I’m guessing?”
Mikhail nods.
“Alright. I can work with that. It’s been good to see you again, Mikhail.”
“Da svidaniya, Leon.”
“Fsyevo harosheva, moy brat.”
The night air gives me a hint of life again, but as Mikhail helps me into the car, I don’t feel at all like myself. Since he’s held me captive, I’ve felt a gamut of emotions for him. Hatred, anger, annoyance...but underpinning it all has been something that I haven’t been ready to grapple with.
I’m alive because of him. Because he couldn’t bring himself to kill me. Because he wanted me to live, even if it meant taking away my life and my freedom. And some part of me knows that it wasn’t an easy decision for him.
Did he feel something for me from the very start?
I glance over at him as he drives, his expression serious and lost in thought. The lights cast deep shadows along him, but it only makes him look more rugged.
I relax in my seat, exhausted from the long day and too worn-down to even fret about the fact that he wants to abandon me. I know he thinks it’s for my own safety, but now, I can’t help but want to be near him. In a weird way, I feel safer with him nearby.
What a laugh that is. He’s my captor, right? I should be wanting him to leave me so I can make an escape and check in on my mom, but instead, I feel connected to him in a way I’ve never felt before.
The drive feels short, but I know it’s only because I keep dozing off. When we pull up to the place we’re staying, though, I look over at him.
“Will you at least stay with me a night?” I finally ask, my voice sounding so faint as I reach over and touch his muscular arm.
He stares over at me in the dim light of the streetlamp, determination written upon his gorgeously rugged face. Determination that is quickly becoming wavering resolve.
11
Mikhail
We pull up to the motel and Eva explains a few things to me.
“Keep inside as much as you can—we’ve got a crew nearby, but best she’s not seen. Head off any trouble, right?” she says after pointing out a few things. I take the keys to the room.
“Thank you, I’ll make sure she understands the importance of it,” I say before turning back to the starry-eyed woman, so in over her head. I put a hand upon her back and guide her upstairs into the building. It’s a motel, but it’s clean. And most importantly, it comes with a back exit, in case they come for her.
I want to be gone, but she’s clinging to me like she never wants me to leave her sight. It’s quite a shift from when she first woke up in my safehouse and tried so desperately to build up walls around herself. I don’t know if I should be happy or terrified by the change.
I should just leave and break her heart. Make the motion quick, like removing a Band-Aid, but the second I said I’d stay, it was like her soul lit up the car. I’ve never had that kind of effect on people. I’ve never let myself get close enough to anyone...
“Better than my place,” she says as we close the door behind us. I lock it, then start to look around the room. I have to be able to navigate the room in the dark, just in case.
Alicia, meanwhile, heads right to the bed and takes off her ridiculously high heels.
“I don’t know how trophy wives do this. Six inch stilettos are for dinner and dancing only, not sitting in a car forever,” she says, but her voice is light and airy.
I can’t help myself, my gaze taken from the task of surveilling the room to look her over again. Her beautiful body is hidden beneath the pink yoga outfit I bought her but doing little to keep me from the memory of how she really looks beneath it all.
“There are worse things such women have to do,” I mutter, knowing where this is going. And knowing even more intimately what it is I have to do. For her own damn good.
“Yea, I’m sure spending sprees on someone else’s credit card is exhausting,” she teases with a flip of her long, blonde hair. She seemed so tired in the car, but now she’s perked up, her sense of humor returning. I force myself not to grin, though, and she cocks her head at me, her beautiful green eyes twinkling with mischief.
She thinks she knows what she’s doing, but she doesn’t. Sitting there like a vixen, leaning back just enough to show off the outline of her breasts beneath the stretchy fabric, her legs crossed so that I can see the curve of her ass, she feels like a temptress.
But I’m a man she doesn’t want to tempt.
I stride over toward her, reach out a hand. My calloused, ringed fingers sliding along her smooth, ivory cheek and back into her blonde hair. She tempts me, but she shouldn’t. I need to show her that.
“The kept woman of a mobster like me doesn’t just get to spend and relax,” I growl at her, my voice deep and menacing. I should know, I’ve seen many a man wet himself to my threats. “She has to earn it. Not just on her back, kotika,” I lick my lips, because as much as I’m being threatening, the thoughts are exciting me, “but on her knees.”
I watch her thoughts as they pass over her expression. Her curiosity melds into fear and desire all at once. It’s an intriguing mix, and her emerald eyes watch as I lick my lips and say the crass words. As a hitman, I have to be perceptive of everything, to every last twitch of a human face.
Usually it’s because I need to know when and how to kill someone.
This time it’s helpful, because I can see how excited she’s becoming, just by the flush in her cheeks and the way her chest rises and falls more quickly with her light breaths.
“Is that what you want?”
“That’s how it is,” I say, not exactly a direct answer, but it’ll do. I let my long fingers toy with her hair, my thumb brush her cheek and trace along her pretty face. “You didn’t think going down this road with me would be all sunshine and fairy tales, did you?” I ask, arching a brow and stepping in closer, my height advantage making me tower over her shapely form so menacingly. “Men like me demand a lot of their women.”
I’ve never been like this with women. In fact, I loathe the way the other mobsters push their girls around, cheat on them, use them. It’s the actions of tiny, insecure men.
But this isn’t for my benefit. It’s for hers.
She’s still trying to be brave, but I can feel the little tremor that tenses at her temple. I can see the way she looks towards the door, just for the briefest of moments before a smile touches her lips.
“I already survived round one, Mikhail.”
She’s still brazen, and I know I have to break that from her if I’m to knock any sense into her. So I move my hand around to the back of her head, knitting my fingers through her blond hair as I take hold. Then the pressure starts as I push her downwards, my free hand going to my waist, undoing the zipper on my pants.
“Then show me,” I husk. “Show me you’ve got what it takes to be a killer’s woman.”
Her body tenses for a second at the added pressure as she drops lower, but then she’s reaching out, one hand on my thigh, the other going for my cock as I let the thick, growing shaft loose of my pants. Her breathing gets harder, but she licks her full lips, and then she’s licking the tip of my crown, her eyes fluttering up to look at me as she does so.
It’d be the prettiest sight in the world, if it weren’t for what it means.
Hitman - the Series: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Collection (Alexis Abbott's Hitmen #0) Page 44
