Make sure I’m comfortable? I’m just beginning to frantically piece together what that could possibly mean when there’s the heavy pounding of footsteps from around the corner. Darios comes bolting into the alley, and as soon as he lays eyes on what’s happening, he warns, “Let her go or I will break every bone in your miserable bodies.”
The wealthy man tips his head back and laughs, then looks at me with an almost piteous expression. “Tu novio? Señorita, you could do much better.”
Darios doesn’t waste another moment, rushing forward and pinning the wealthy guy’s arms behind his back. The man’s eyes go wide and he commands for his guard to help him. The second man immediately releases me and steps back, holding his arms up in surrender. But Darios isn’t done yet.
“This will teach you not to lay a hand on that which doesn’t belong to you,” he snarls in the man’s ear. The next second, there’s a sickening crack and the wealthy man screams in pain. Darios shoves him away and the guard hurries over to help his employer, who is cradling his limp wrist and howling.
“Let’s go,” Darios tells me imperiously, and I follow after him. He takes my hand and we all but run back to the apartment, taking the stairs quickly in our rush to safety. And solitude.
Because now there’s only one thing on my mind, and I know it’s on his, too.
As soon as the door shuts behind us, Darios picks me up and pins me against the wall, peeling off his shirt and mine within seconds. I wrap my legs around his waist as he kisses me fiercely, his teeth grazing my lips and making me moan. His fingers tangle in my hair, pulling my face to one side so he can get to my exposed neck. He dives in and begins sucking heated, tingling bruises into my skin, causing goosebumps to rise along my arms and legs.
“Tell me, do you go looking for trouble, or does it simply find you wherever you go?” he whispers raspily into the shell of my ear. His warm breath sends a shiver down my spine and I feel myself getting wet, so easily manipulated by even his slightest movements.
“I think trouble has it out for me,” I reply softly, and Darios pulls back to look me hard in the face, knowing that I’m referring to him and the way we met.
Without a word he pulls both of my arms up and pins them over my head with one hand, reaching down and deftly unzipping his trousers, hoisting up my skirt. When his fingers brush over my naked sex, his mouth falls open ever so slightly, his jaw going slack as he realizes that I’m not wearing any panties. Almost with a kind of animalistic instinct, he groans his appreciation, hurriedly positioning the swollen crest of his shaft at my already-slick opening. He ruts against me, his cock rubbing tantalizingly into my clit. I gasp, starting to lower my arms, but Darios stops me, pinning them back above my head.
“No. This time you’re going to do exactly what I tell you,” he commands in a low, gravelly tone.
I nod obediently, feeling my pussy ache with need for him.
“Who do you belong to?” he growls, leaning in to hiss the words into my ear. I’m very sensitive in that area, which he seems to know without even asking. I shudder deliciously.
“I belong to you,” I answer, a little breathlessly.
“Good girl,” he says, pushing into me slightly, his cock barely breaching my aching cunt. I need him to fuck me. I need him to push all the way inside and fill me up. This teasing is cruel.
“Do you want more, chemo kargo?” he asks, almost mocking me. I try to roll my hips forward to take more of him inside of me, but he braces me back against the wall so I can’t move.
“Yes, oh please,” I whimper. “I want more. I want all of you.”
He gives a low, almost cruel laugh, but then he pushes slightly deeper into me and I moan. Every nerve in my body is on fire for him, begging for him to take me and make it rough. I need him to ruin me.
“Please, Darios. I need you. Tell me what I have to do,” I plead, every stitch of self-conscious dignity washed utterly away in the tidal wave of my desire for him.
He doesn’t answer, simply lifts me up and spears me down onto his cock, pulling away from the wall so that he totally supports my weight with ease. He wrenches my arms down and behind my back, holding both my wrists at the base of my spine as he uses his other arm to bounce me up and down on his shaft. I cry out with ecstasy as I feel the tip of his cock pistoning repeatedly into that deliciously sensitive place deep inside me, hitting it perfectly again and again until I’m arching my back and murmuring his name like some kind of filthy prayer.
“Darios, Darios,” I mumble, so wrapped up in awe at how effortlessly he can hold me up and thrust into me. It’s like I weigh nothing at all. He fucks into me harder and faster until tears are springing to my eyes with the overwhelming bliss of the moment, my body incapable of withstanding such pleasure, until finally I cry out as an orgasm shatters over me.
“Very good,” Darios remarks, his voice thick with need, too.
He carries me over to our mattress on the floor and kneels down so that I’m straddling him, my ass bouncing up and down on his thighs. We’re face to face now, and he leans forward to kiss me deeply, his hand releasing my wrists to reach up and brush the hair back from my cheeks. He carefully leans me backward so that I’m arching my back, supporting myself on my palms.
At this angle, I can feel him so deep inside me that it’s almost painful, like he might tear me apart with one wrong move. But instead of fear, this thought only makes me wetter, and as soon as he starts to move against me, I have to clutch at the bedsheets.
“You feel so fucking good, bavshvi,” he groans, pushing me back so he can reach my breasts with his lips, nipping and sucking at the soft, pale flesh there. His thrusts pick up the pace until we’re both rutting against each other with abandon, grunting and moaning desperately as we both careen closer and closer to a shared release.
I lean back, giving into his relentless pace as my own pleasure threatens to rise up and swallow me whole. I’m breathing raggedly now, and Darios is grasping my hips tightly, his fingers digging into my skin. I hope it leaves a mark. I want to look in the mirror later and see the signs that he has been there, marking me as his own with purplish bruises and red lines.
Finally, he bellows my name, “Delaney!” as he shoots his hot, sweet honey deep within me, and I’m crying out only a split second later, my pussy clenching with orgasm. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close, the two of us pressed against each other with his cock still leaking inside of me.
We stay like this for a minute or so, until there’s a sharp knock at the door. I hurriedly move aside and pull the sheets up to my neck to hide my naked body. Darios stands up and quickly puts his clothes back on before answering the door. It’s one of his guards.
“Darios, we have a problem,” the guard says urgently.
21
Darios
I step out of the room with my guard, glowering at the man who interrupted my time with my woman. He’s a tough man, but I stand a good head taller than him, and even he can sense the anger simmering under my surface as I glare at him and close the door behind us.
“I assume you have a good reason for interrupting me?” I say in a low tone, but my man is undeterred, steeling his nerves and nodding.
“Of course, sir, I wouldn’t step in if it weren’t an emergency. One of our phones received a call we weren’t expecting.”
“What?” I say, surprise in my voice. I’d taken precautions to ensure that we had utter privacy here, and if our phones could be traced, that meant this location might not be secure much longer. But that depends entirely on one thing. “Who got a hold of us? What do they want?”
“We can’t get an ID, sir,” he says hesitantly, “but I don’t think it’s one of our rivals. At least, not one that we know of, unless they’re going through a strange middleman. It’s a Frenchman.”
I furrow my eyebrows, for the first time in a long time genuinely surprised as my mind races to figure out who in the hell might be calling. “A Fren-?”
I’m
cut off as the door opens behind me, and Delaney’s face appears in the crack of the door as I look over my shoulder at her. “Hey...um, Darios?”
“Not now, Delaney,” I say calmly, putting out a reassuring hand towards her with a firm expression that says I mean it. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“This is kind of urgent too,” she says, her face blushing a little bit. She looks slightly pale, at the sight, I raise an eyebrow and turn to face her.
“What’s the matter? You’re pale, do you feel okay? Do you need something?”
“I think I’m alright,” she says, glancing behind her before opening the door wider and slipping out, now fully dressed. “But do you mind if I run to the corner store across the street real quick? I just need to pick something up. I’m feeling just a little queasy.”
I stare at her a moment, something nagging at the back of my mind, but finally I nod, looking to my guard again, who’s been waiting patiently. “You. You will take her to the store safely. There and back, no stopping for anything else, do you understand me?”
“Of course, sir,” he says, standing at attention as though we’re back in the Special Forces together. I smile.
“Good man. I’ll have your teeth if you fail me,” I add, half-jokingly. “Now this call-”
“He’s still on the line, in the room across the hall,” he says, gesturing to a door not far from here. I chuckle.
“I must be an important man for him to be so patient. Alright, off, both of you, go,” I say, ushering my guard away, and Delaney gives me a grateful smile as I pause her a moment to give her a kiss, and our eyes linger on one another for a couple of moments. She knows this isn’t something I would have allowed her in the not-so-distant past. Strange to think how far we’ve come since we’ve first met. Yet as we break our gaze and she runs off with my guard, I can’t shake an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Nevertheless, I step into the room indicated to me, where I see a number of my guards standing around a phone on the table. My lieutenant gives me a relieved look as I step in, and without hesitation, I pick up the phone and put it to my ear.
“You’re a brave man,” I muse in French, putting my other hand into my pocket as I stride over to the filthy window of the place while my men watch from behind. My eyes scan for shady vans or signs of gunmen, but the din of the streets is the same as ever.
“You’re a careful man!” comes a higher-pitched Frenchman’s voice from the other end of the line. “Do you have any idea how hard you are to get a hold of? El Raval on the first day, a dead slumlord the next! Ha! Here I was starting to think the illusive Darios Esadze was going soft, but you can swim with the sharks as good as ever. It was tempting to use the office equipment to track you, but keeping this off the official record let me flex my skills a little, so thanks for that, I guess.”
I hold the phone away, making a face at it in confusion. “You talk too much,” I finally say curtly.
“Well, you know, the suits at INTERPOL get a little dull to work with from time to time,” the man says, and my eyes widen. If the international European police force is interested in my activities, then things are in hotter water than I thought. “Don’t worry,” the voice quickly adds, “you’re not on their radar, not in a big way, at least. In fact, we’re a little grateful to you for dealing with Palomo. But when I saw your name come up, I just had to get a hold of the one man my friend Maksim couldn’t kill.”
That name hits me like a sack of bricks, and my eyes widen. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. There could only be one man he’s referring to: Maksim Pavlenko was a Russian hitman with the Bratva in France. Every bit as tough as me and every bit as fierce. We crossed paths what feels like a lifetime ago. I got someone’s attention when I was still a small fry, and there was a hit taken out on me. I escaped and laid low for a while, but Max is responsible for one of the scars on my body. Just as I’m responsible for one of his, I recall with some measure of pride. There’s something to be appreciated about another hitman’s work, just as there is in giving one a wound he’ll remember.
“Who is this?” I ask slowly, my tone measured.
“Call me Felix,” says the flippant voice on the other end, “I’m a friend of Max. Oh, and don’t worry about him anymore, he dropped the Bratva like a hot potato.”
“You’re both bold and strange,” I remark, glancing back at my men, most of whom don’t speak French as well as me and can’t follow the conversation closely.
“Yes, well,” Felix muses, “you’re not the first hitman to tell me that. But I’m not keeping out of official channels just for personal reasons,” he goes on, his voice getting more serious. “I’ve done a little digging on this case of yours, the raid on your compound.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Well, for one, I’m good. For two, because there are police records of it — as in, it was ordered by the police, Mr. Esadze.”
My face goes red, and I feel my jaw clench against my will. “The police. Are you sure?”
“Well, I am the police, I guess, so yeah. But this comes from a more local police force, not INTERPOL. Spanish authorities paid for those mercenaries, through a healthy chain of mediums to make sure everything was kept quiet.”
“What?” I rasp, my voice thick with anger. If this is true… “The mercenaries were after blood when they attacked! Are you trying to tell me the government wants those girls dead?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Felix says grimly. “I’m afraid it’s not that unusual. Poor children going missing in the sex trade is just a statistic, small potatoes to the international community. But a handful of rich daughters get taken? That’s worth some attention. Ah, but what’s worth more? A few rich daughters getting killed in violent gang warfare.”
I feel my blood boiling as Felix’s explanation lets the pieces fall together in my mind.
“The government wants a violent end to the hostage situation,” he says. “If those rich American girls turn up dead, the media will go crazy, it’ll be a feeding frenzy. And American money will come pouring into Spain to help drive out eastern European gangs like you Georgians.”
“And the money lines the pockets of the richer officials,” I say with a grimace.
“Spot-on, big guy,” Felix says. “If I were you, I’d hightail it out of the country and lay low with whoever you’ve got left. And I say that just because you and I both know how despicable it is for these rich fucks to make a buck off innocent lives.”
I let out a low murmur of agreement, not glad to have my suspicions confirmed. “Thank you. If you run into Maksim again, tell him I won’t try to kill him.”
Felix gives a low whistle. “Damn, high praise. I’m not saying I’ll stick my neck out for you, so don’t get cozy.”
“Don’t make things too easy on me,” I say bemusedly, and before Felix can answer, the door bursts open, and all our heads turn to the doorway, hands going to the guns at our sides.
But in the doorway is not an enemy. It’s the guard I sent with Delaney, clutching a bullet wound in his chest and looking at us with a face strained in pain.
“Sir! Delaney!” His voice is choked with agony as blood pools at his feet. “A black van, they...they took her! There were too many, I…” his voice becomes faint, and my men rush to his side as he collapses.
22
Delaney
I wake with a start as the world around me jolts violently. Was I asleep? I thought I was walking down the street with one of the guards. Where the hell am I? Why is everything so dark? I try to open my eyes, but there seems to be something pressing against my eyelids, like there’s a blindfold wrapped around my head. I try to speak, but my throat feels rough and I’m too weak and tired to summon my vocal cords into action. And when I attempt to lift my arms, I find that they are bound behind me, my shoulders and wrists aching painfully.
Even with my senses numbed down to nearly nothing at all, my brain slowly wakes up
and pieces together that wherever I am, I’m sitting down — but still moving. The world is moving. Fast.
I listen hard and notice the whirring of an engine and the familiar crunch of tires rolling down dirt roads. Back in Georgia, my parents have a vacation home in the foothills we used to visit all the time in the summer when I was a child, and my bleary mind automatically transports me back to the memories of riding along in the backseat as our tricked-out Jeep rumbled down the long dirt roads to the house. That’s exactly what it feels like right now, except that instead of excitement and anticipation, it’s terror that’s spurring my heart to beat ever faster.
Where the hell am I going?
And who’s taking me there?
“She’s waking up,” mumbles a male voice somewhere in the vicinity. I gasp in fear and move my head around, helplessly searching for the source of the sound, in vain. I can’t see anything with this strip of fabric tied across my eyes, and my head is pounding. It almost feels like a hangover — but a thousand times worse. A wave of nausea builds up in my chest and I have to swallow back the bile rising in my scratchy throat.
What did they do to me?
“Nice of you to join us,” quips another, louder male voice. There’s a certain cockiness to his tone that sets me on edge. “We’re almost there. Have a nice nap?”
“P-Please, help me,” I manage to croak out, not even sure why I’m saying it. I may not know my location or my company, but I sure as hell know there’s nobody here who’s going to help me.
There’s a faint round of cruel laughter and then the cocky voice continues, “Oh, too late for that, I’m afraid. Nobody is going to save you this time. But don’t worry, you’re going to see your friend very soon. We’ve got a sweet little reunion planned for you, just wait and see.”
“Turn here,” instructs another voice, and I can vaguely sense the vehicle turning around a corner, and the car moves more slowly now, obviously coming to a halt somewhere up ahead. When it finally stops, I feel a pair of rough, calloused hands grab hold of my shoulders and I yelp in panic. Wordlessly, I am dragged out of the vehicle and set on my feet. But I’m still wobbly and weak from whatever these guys did to me, and I nearly collapse as soon as my feet touch the ground.
Hitman - the Series: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Collection (Alexis Abbott's Hitmen #0) Page 91
