I suck in a deep breath of air, walking slowly and looking for anything that might lead me to where Dimitri is.
I don’t see his car, and I keep to the side of the buildings, trying not to draw any attention to myself, even as my heart pounds in my chest. I’ve gone from my biggest stress being filing season to stalking my brother.
It didn’t even seem like a long fall.
No street lamps line the road, and I can barely make anything out. I slump against the wall, considering what to do next. I can’t just barge into any of these buildings, looking for Dimitri. It’s useless.
I make my way back towards the marine terminal and the flickering, yellow light, when the alarm behind me stops. I can suddenly hear my own steps on the sidewalk, but worse than that, I hear someone else’s. I can’t see them, even when I glance around, and my pace quickens.
Dimitri warned me they’d kill me if they found out I was spying before, and if they catch me here, in the middle of the night...
Panic grips my chest, and I’m practically running down the side street, but the heavier steps behind me quicken to match my pace. And then faster. He’s not far behind me, those thick thuds getting closer and closer.
I nearly run into a platform, lifted off the ground by a couple of feet, used by trucks for unloading material. My fingers grip it, and I find, blissfully, it’s not solid. I have no idea what’s beneath it, but I duck under in a crouch, hoping to throw whoever else was in the alley off my scent.
I hold my breath as I hear the footsteps near me at a jog. My heart is pumping so loud I’m afraid it might draw attention, and I squeeze my eyes shut. I’m so near to the main road, to the lights of the marine terminal, but I’m still submerged in darkness within my little hiding space.
The footsteps pass me, and I let out a brief sigh of relief. But then, for just a split second, he turns and I get a glimpse of who it is. A face I’ve forever remembered, and longed to forget.
It’s Anton. The same man my brother beat up all those years ago. The man that Dimitri threatened to do terrible things to after he snitched on Dimitri’s boss.
My stomach sinks. If Anton’s free... what does that mean for Dimitri?
He glances around, and I hold my breath again, tears stinging my eyes but I quickly squeeze them away. I don’t have time to get emotional about it, not if Dimitri’s in trouble. I wait and watch, my legs burning from my awkward squatting position but I’m too afraid to shift and draw attention to myself.
My hand goes to my purse, grabbing my gun lightly in my hand, just in case.
Thank God there’s no need.
He continues walking, back into the inky darkness of the alleyway. I watch him until he’s far enough away from me before I move from my hiding place. My legs feel so good stretched out after being so cramped, but I don’t have time to enjoy the sensation. Instead, I follow Anton into the dark.
I’m quieter this time, now that I know someone else is here, and even though he looks over his shoulder a few times, he never spots me. Slowly, slowly I make my way towards the building he enters.
Several minutes pass before I feel comfortable enough to enter. I have no idea what’s awaiting me on the other side. He might be standing guard just inside the building, gun at the ready, so I hold mine up to my chest.
If they have Dimitri, I’m going to have to do what it takes to get him back. Luckily, dad used to take me shooting and Rebecca insisted on self-defense classes, but that hardly makes me feel any bit more comfortable. It could be the end.
I beg myself to turn back, to just go back to Dimitri’s condo and hope for the best, but I’ve always been stubborn and curious to a fault. My dad used to call me his little daredevil.
Kneeling, I touch the handle of the door, cautiously turning it. Every second feels like an eternity, but I have to go slow. Quick movements draw the eye and create more sound, two things that would definitely attract trouble. Staying down helps so that if they do shoot, they’d not be shooting down, hopefully.
I begin the tedious process of opening the door, and when I finally get inside, there’s no one there. Simply a large room filled with crates.
I close the door behind me, moving in with cautious footsteps. Even though my blood is racing, my breathing is deep and calm. Keep cool under pressure. I have to keep cool.
But when I hear the unmistakable crack of fist on skull, I can’t help but cringe as I picture Dimitri’s gorgeous face taking a pounding.
I quicken my pace, rounding the nearest stack of boxes only to find a staircase leading down. The stairs are iron, and sure to echo, so I can’t chance it. Instead, I get down on the flat of my belly, leaning in so that I can glance down from above. I’m in the dark, so I pray they can’t see me as I peek out.
But what I see is not what I expect.
There stands Dimitri — his fist bloodied, his face fierce — looming over a man I don’t recognize with dark hair and olive skin. Anton’s at his side, wringing his hands, and a truck of a man stands to the side, watching over the proceedings.
Dimitri brings his fist to the bound man’s face again, his eyes already swollen and his lip bust open.
“Who had Rebecca Fairfax killed?” he asks, his voice very clear and deliberate.
Anton then starts speaking in another language I vaguely recognize as Italian, his voice quicker and more frenzied.
The man tied to the chair looks at Anton, replying back in the same language. They were using Anton as a translator? But he’d betrayed Dimitri. Was a snitch. Why would Dimitri trust him again?
“He says it wasn’t the Italians!” Anton translates into English, but Dimitri clearly doesn’t believe him.
“You said she was using our laundering scheme to get money to the Italians so that they could invest it for her without anyone being the wiser,” Dimitri snarls.
“It’s true! She was!”
“And you said that this guy is the money guy.”
“He is!”
A few more brutally quick jabs of Dimitri’s fists into the guy’s torso, and he’s coughing blood. Then the bound man starts speaking again, and Anton translates once more.
“He said he worked with your mother, that she owed him money, but he’d never kill her. She was always good for her loans. It’d be a bad business decision.”
“Viktor,” Dimitri says, and I recognize the name. That’s the man who had arranged for Anton to be picked up by Dimitri and Slava. The one that was to be promoted.
“Da?”
“I need to talk to Anton in private. Take this izhets,” Dimitri spits the Russian word as if it were acid on his tongue, “into the back room and let him think it over.”
Viktor lifts the man up easily, chair and all, as if it didn’t weigh a thing. He has to be almost seven feet of solid muscle, and he has a certain aura around him that terrifies me. They disappear and Dimitri looks to Anton.
“I heard something in the alley when I was makin’ that call,” Anton says in a hushed tone.
I can’t make out Dimitri’s face as he turns away, but my blood runs cold and I pull up so that my head isn’t visible from their position any longer.
“You see anyone?”
“Naw, just shadows is all. Could’ve been a stray bitch for all I know.”
There’s silence, and I take a deep breath, but then the conversation changes.
“I’m real sorry, boss. He’s the only guy that we got that talked to her. She was always real certain on that, that she only ever dealt with one guy. I guess it was so that it didn’t get back to you and the Russians. Even I didn’t find out until after she was dead, or I would have told you, I swear.”
“If she’s in debt, he’s going to try to collect. From me.”
It doesn’t seem he’s gotten any closer to Rebecca’s killer than I have.
I take a chance, glancing down again, and Dimitri is looking right at me. I go cold, and quickly stand up, gun still in hand. I’m about to head for the door when I hear some
thing that chills me to the spine.
Three gunshots echo through the warehouse. For a second, I think that it’s Dimitri, punishing me for spying. Am I dead?
I check my body for bullet holes, as if I’d be more easily able to feel it with my hands than with my pain receptors, and when I find myself whole, all my calm escapes me and I run for the door. I have no idea who it was who fired those shots, or upon whom, and I don’t know if I want to find out.
Curiosity really would kill the cat this time.
Curiosity still might have.
19
Waiting for Dimitri in his condo is the worst decision I’ve made in the last five hours, since I hightailed it out of the alley. I haven’t been able to sleep, the stress and anxiety churning in my stomach.
I should just run. I have no idea what he’s going to do to me now that he knows I was following him again. He warned me that I could be killed, but he didn’t mean by him, did he?
But I also didn’t know he was a killer before tonight. Not for certain. I thought he’d gotten away from those people, and yet here he is: in even deeper.
It makes me want to throw up, but instead I sit on his couch, anxiously wringing my hands. I don’t even know why I came here, other than the fact that I have nowhere to go. My life is linked with his, whether I like it or not. If I run, he has the money and motive to find me.
And if I run, who's to say he wouldn’t think I’m even guiltier than I am?
That I haven’t run to the cops?
Seconds tick by like hours, and when I finally hear his key in the lock, it’s sunrise. My back is so tense, I’m not seeing straight. My brain is an absolute fog, and I feel like ducking down, hiding under the couch, just putting off seeing his face for a little while longer.
What if he really kills me? What if this is it? A short, brutal, unhappy life that ends in agony just like Rebecca. Just like my mom and dad.
Tears blur my eyes, and when he pushes the door in, he looks exhausted and enraged. His face is a bit sweaty, his shirt marred with blood, and I hold my breath. He looks at me, daggers in his eyes as he closes the door, locks and bolts it behind him.
The air is sucked out of the room, and we just watch one another. I’m shivering with terror, and when he reaches beneath his jacket and removes a gun, I close my eyes. I’m sure this is it. This one, horrible moment, and it’ll all be over.
And then it’s not. There’s only silence, but for the shifting of his clothing as he walks.
His hand wraps around my bicep, tugging me from the couch so that I’m pressed tightly between him and the edge of the sofa. I can’t move, can’t get away, and he’s glaring at me like I’m the worst person in the world.
This morning I was convinced I was in love with him, and now I wonder if I know him at all.
“How’d you find me, Sarah?” he growls, and when I look down, his other hand collects my chin, making me look up at him.
“Your phone,” I murmur, too ashamed to speak any louder. He warned me, didn’t he? Why was I so damned stupid as to follow him? I should have just left it alone, especially after finding out that Rebecca was ripping me off.
“You put a tracker on my phone?”
“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Damn it, Sarah,” he growls, and I’m shaking, wondering what he’s going to do. He takes out his phone, handing it to me. “Take it off of my phone. Now.”
I unlock it, finding the app and uninstalling it, handing him back the phone. He sets it aside and looks down on me.
“Do you know what would have happened if Viktor saw you?”
“No...”
“You would be in the water with that fucking goombah. And do you know what they’d do to me?”
“No.”
His finger and thumb hold onto my chin, tightly.
“Viktor would’ve taken me back to the Avtoritet. Do you know what that is?”
I recognize the word, but I shake my head. I have no idea what it is.
“The authority, da? The man in charge. I will be seen as a fool for trusting you, and they’ll doubt my loyalty to the bratva. They would torture me to see if I was actively trying to undermine them. They would use me as a toilet, take a hammer to my fingers, my toes. They would burn me, and when they finally believed me that I had nothing to do with you being there, they would,” he pauses, removing his finger from my chin, instead pointing his index and middle finger at his head like a gun. “Grokhnut. Just like that, Sarah. You could’ve gotten yourself, and me, killed tonight. Is that what you wanted?”
I shake my head, my entire body trembling like crazy. I can hardly breathe, and the reality of what has just happened comes crashing down on me. I’ve had my suspicions, but now I know who — what — Dimitri really is. And what I’ve just put at risk to find out.
“You’re... you’re in the mob,” I say dumbly, because there’s nothing else I know to say. It’s all too intense, too terrifying, for me to really comprehend.
His jaw clenches, and I regret asking. When he breathes out, he looks only slightly calmer.
“I am Bratva. A Boevik. I run my business, they take what they need. My father was the Avtorietet before those Goombah bastards brought the cops down on him. They swore to take care of mother and I with the promise that we’d take care of them down the line.”
I feel like I’m going to be nauseous. Why’d I ask? And why’s he telling me so much, so freely? That feeling that he’s going to kill me once more hangs in my stomach, and I close my eyes just so that I can stop being so dizzy.
His hand tightens around my upper arm, and I can smell the scent of grime and dirt on him.
“What will I do with you now, Sarah?”
“I... I don’t know. Please don’t kill me,” I whimper, the words bubbling past my lips without filter. “I’m so sorry. I never figured... I worried, I was just so worried, especially when I saw you were back with Slava and you asked for my help then pushed me away.”
“Because I realized it might’ve been the fucking Italians, Sarah. I wanted to keep you out of their crosshairs.”
“Then why’d you even ask me for help?” I practically scream, tears rolling down my cheeks.
His arms wrap around me, and though it’s not gentle, his force, his strong arms, are comforting in their own way. They feel real.
“I thought it was just that dumbass she was dating, or maybe one of her business associates. When I found out she wasn’t just skimming money off me but putting it through the Italians? That’s the wrong way, Sarah. We launder their money, not the other way around. She was into something deeper than I imagined and wanted to keep you safe. I should’ve known better than to think you’d stay where I left you.”
I flinch at the disappointment in his voice, and when he pulls away from me, that hardness in his expression is back.
“I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.”
There’s no humor to his voice, and as much as his words confuse me, they send my heart beating harder in my chest.
“Teach me a lesson?”
“Da, Sarah. You apparently didn’t take me seriously last time. Apparently telling you that you may be killed isn’t enough for you. So you’re going to go into my room. You’re going to strip. You’re going to lay on your stomach, and you’re going to wait for me.
My brows knit and I wonder if he’s joking. It sounds like some strange, dark, sexual... thing. Teaching me a lesson is one thing, but being naked just adds a level of vulnerability I’m not prepared to cope with.
“Dimitri, I’m really sorry. I get it now. I do. And I’m not going to talk. You know I’m not going to talk.”
“If I thought you were going to talk, Sarah, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
It sends a chill down my spine, and he points to his room.
“I’m not going to tell you twice, Sarah.”
His tone is dark and commanding, and I can’t refuse it. I’m exhausted, my entire body screaming in agon
y, but I make my way into his dim, sunlit room and toss my hoodie onto the chair. Next comes my t-shirt and bra, then my dark jeans. My socks and underwear were last, and goosebumps run down my arm with the chill of the air.
Or is it the chill of waiting for what happens next?
I crawl onto his bed as he demanded, but the second my chin hits the mattress, I yawn. I’m so exhausted. Every time I start nodding off, I try to jerk myself up, to be ready for whatever he has in mind.
It’s getting to the point where it’s impossible to stay awake, though. Where is he? Everything is starting to feel like a terrible dream, like something I’m going to wake up from the next day. Maybe that’s all it was. Just a strange, fevered dream.
When I hear his footsteps, I straighten, blinking my groggy eyes open. He’s shirtless, changed from his dirty jeans and looking freshly showered. I didn’t even hear the water running. Did I doze off?
I gulp, and his dark eyes travel down my body, tracing over the curves of my shoulders, down into the valley of my back, and over the hills of my ass. He’s caressing them with his gaze, memorizing the curves, and I don’t know what to make of it but he’s making my body burn with desire.
He watches me for so long, and it’s driving me crazy. I’m afraid to move, to budge even a muscle and risk displeasing him. How different this is from yesterday, when he held me and kissed me with such tenderness. Now there’s just a primal hunger in his gaze, something that I’ve never seen before.
“Spread your legs.”
There’s no option for refusal in his tone, and I pull my feet apart, my legs spreading open. I’m so exposed, and it feels so uncomfortable, especially bathed in the early morning light.
He paces to the foot of the bed, and I know he can see me splayed, in a position I’ve never quite been in before. I have no real idea what he’s seeing from his position, but I can imagine.
“Roll back onto your hands and knees.”
I do so, and it heightens my awareness of my body. The sensation of a draft passing along my stomach, the way my breasts give way slightly to gravity, my nipples stiffening to the air. But most powerful of all is his invisible gaze, filling me with molten heat.
Saved by the Outlaw: A Bad Boy Romance Page 33
