“What about your parents?” I ask, pushing back and staring into her face. She shakily raises one arm to point to the stall next to us.
“They’re here, too. Right over there. These guys kidnapped them, too. They — they say they’re going to kill all four of us. They were just waiting for you,” she explains, fresh tears welling up in her brown eyes.
“No,” I breathe, shaking my head. “No, I-I won’t let that happen.”
But my heart is hammering away in my chest and I know deep down that there’s nothing I can do. It’s clear that even Caitlin, my eternally sassy and spirited best friend, has given up entirely. There’s no trace of her former spark remaining; all that she has left is sadness as she awaits a certain death.
“It’s over, Laney,” she murmurs, falling into my arms.
“She’s right, you know,” remarks a cold, cocksure voice from behind me. I look back over my shoulder to see a tall, pale man with curling red hair, dressed in all black. He’s leaning on the gate and smiling down at us viciously, like a shark circling its helpless prey.
“Why? Why are you doing this? And who are you?” I ask, heaping as much venom as I can manage into my tone.
He rolls his eyes. “None of that really matters, but since you ask — we’re doing this because there’s no better way to make money and cause a media frenzy than to execute four Americans on foreign soil. Once the authorities get their hands on the video we’re going to make… well, let’s just say you’ll all be famous.”
“Please don’t do this,” I beg softly.
The man tilts his head to one side, glaring down at me with a slight look of bemusement on his pale face. “You know, it would be a shame to let such a beautiful girl go to waste. That one over there doesn’t have any fight left in her, so that wouldn’t be much of a good time. But you, oh I can tell you would so much fun to break.”
My blood runs cold when I realize what he might be hinting at. “I could show you things you’ve never felt before,” he goes on, opening the gate and kneeling down slightly to gaze into my eyes.
“Don’t touch me,” I retort, spitting into his face. He winces and swipes at his cheek, smiling down at me with renewed ferocity.
“Ooh yes, that’s the kind of spirit I like to see. It would be such a pleasure to wring that attitude right out of your pretty little body,” he says, reaching down to cup his crotch lewdly. “How about it, my little whore? Want to have a little party before the execution? Just you and me?”
Caitlin’s hand tugs on my arm protectively, but I stand up in front of her, shielding her with my body and staring up defiantly into the redhead’s face. He sneers down at me.
“Eager, are you? Come with me,” he says, snatching me around the waist. He drags me out of the stall and shoves me to the ground. “Get on your knees!” he shouts, snapping his fingers impatiently.
Before I can even fully process the situation, there’s an ear-splitting bang as the door to the barn house opens and bullets zing through the air. Two of the men several yards away fall to the ground. The red-haired man turns on his heel and ducks down to the ground, heaving me into his lap to use me as a sort of human shield. This position, while horrifying, gives me a full view of the situation at hand.
Namely, the fact that Darios is bolting onto the scene with a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other. The red-haired man shouts from behind my shoulder, “Bastard!”
Another two guards come running from the back and Darios fires a round at one and hurls the knife at the other. Just like that, they’re dead on the ground and Darios has only a split second to turn his gun on Redhead before they’re on top of each other, grappling.
Darios doesn’t fire the gun so close, not with us in danger of getting hit by a ricocheting bullet, but my captor doesn’t have any such qualms, and he gropes for the gun vigorously while they struggle.
“Luka, you fucking traitor,” Darios growls in Georgian, and I realize I’ve picked up a little of the language over my time among the men. But Redhead, who must be Luka, says something back that I can’t understand, and he brings a quick punch around to the side of Darios’s head. Strangely, I hear the sound of metal connecting with his jaw, and he’s knocked away from Luka, reeling, and to my terror, I hear a clatter on the ground and realize that his gun has been knocked out of his hand. My breath catches in my throat as I watch Luka hold up Darios’s own knife with a grin and prepares to dive forward again.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance, Darios,” the man taunts in English, glancing at me with a cruel smile. “Maybe I’ll take your hand before I take your girl.”
“You should have taken my warning,” Darios retorts, “I’ve grown less merciful over the years.” With that, Luka lunges.
This time, though, Darios is ready for him, and he catches Luka’s wrist, jerking it down and pulling the man’s whole body along with it as he delivers a quick, strong jab to his throat. I hear the sound of him choking as he hits the ground. Darios’s body is as deadly unarmed as it is without weapons, and he delivers an ax kick to Luka’s back, knocking the wind out of him.
I watch Darios’s eyes flit to the wall nearby, where some old farming tools, rusted with age, are lying. His muscular arms reach for something, but my eyes are drawn to Luka’s furious, bloodshot eyes as he reaches to his side, drawing out his gun with terrifying speed.
“Darios!” I cry out, but before I can shut my eyes to await the inevitable...there’ the sound of metal sinking into flesh as Darios drives an old pitchfork into Luka’s neck, paralyzing him with wide eyes and a jaw hanging open as blood pools in his mouth and trickles out, the gun falling uselessly to his side.
Darios steps back, letting the pitchfork loom over the body like a gravestone while I let out a cry and run forward, and he catches me in his arms, lifting me off my feet as he brings me into a tight hug.
“Shush now, darling,” he says, that hot accent making my soul melt as I feel wave after wave of relief washing over me, “did you really think I’d let that rat kill you?”
“I thought I’d never see you again,” I sob into his shoulder, “and that was the most horrible thought of all!”
“You were right all along, Delaney,” he says, setting me down and looking at me sincerely, a smile on that hardened killer’s face. “I won’t make the mistake of disregarding your words again.” Tears roll down my eyes as I hug him tight, never wanting to let go, and he kisses my forehead before looking up at Caitlin and her family, who have been cowering against the wall, only now starting to cautiously stand up.
“Is it...is it over?” Caitlin’s mother asks, her voice shaky.
“Yes,” Darios says, holding me to his side like a war trophy, and it feels so right. “All of you are free now — your ransoms are null, consider them forgotten. Go back to your homes and forget my face. You all, you have lives to get back to.”
I wrap my arms around Darios’s waist, looking up at him with shining eyes, my heart filled with both adrenaline and admiration, utmost love for this dominant killer who’s claimed me and doled out vengeance in a single motion. “And we have a life to start,” I say, and he grins down at me, the Georgian showing in that devilish smile of his before he kisses me on the lips.
“Indeed we do chemo kargo. After all,” he says, leaning in to whisper into my ear as I feel a tingle run through my whole body, “I did tell you I might keep you for myself.”
Epilogue
My axe sinks into another log, and the smell of freshly chopped wood fills the air as the two halves of lumber fall to the ground with a solid ‘thunk.’ I wipe the sweat from my brow, smiling at the gracious forest breeze blowing gently over my bare chest as I turn my eyes to the car coming up the dirt road.
Delaney is pulling up in the new Fiat I bought her a few months ago. It isn’t my first choice of cars, but I told her I’d get her whatever she liked when we moved, so a Fiat it was. I didn’t think a new car was exactly the most fitting for a new leaf in o
ur new, more rustic residence, but there are a few creature comforts I find myself unable to deny the woman.
She steps out of her car with an anxious smile on her face, her swollen belly giving her some trouble as she stands up, and I approach her to wrap my arms around her waist. As I do, her anxiety melts away, and she meets my kiss with a gentle sigh.
“Welcome home, my love,” I say, putting my forehead to hers as she grins like an embarrassed school girl. “How did the meeting with your parents go? You’re here, so I can’t imagine it went too terribly.”
I start to lead her into the cottage I built for her as I talk. It’s a quaint little place, made from wood and stone I either obtained with my own hands or bought from the village a few kilometers away from here. We’re well out of the way from the hustle and bustle of life, and I’ve been teaching Delaney the basics of subsisting off one’s own land while we’re out here.
“It went...okay,” she says as I hold open the wooden door for her, letting her walk into the surprisingly spacious wooden interior, a crackling fire at the far end of the room and the smell of freshly cooked Spanish gazpacho filling the room a pot by the fire. Delaney smiles as she enters, taking in the aroma as I watch the worries of the day melt away.
“I didn’t expect them to be thrilled by the idea of you starting a life with a man like me,” I chuckle, rubbing her back gently with a large hand that’s been growing even rougher by the day as I work our land. “Especially considering your change of scenery.”
“They aren’t happy, no,” Delaney admits, turning to face me as she strokes her stomach, and I do the same, feeling our daughter kick in the womb, filling me with joy. “But I’m already pregnant, and they know how I feel about you — how we feel about each other,” she says, a confident smile growing on her face. “So it’s not the ideal life they had planned for me, but they’ve come to peace with the fact that it’s going to happen.”
“They can count on that,” I say, lowering my voice as I take her chin in my hand and plant a kiss on her lips before I whisper into her ear. “If they thought they could keep you from me, they should remind themselves I’m perfectly happy to kidnap you all over again.”
I feel a shiver go up her body, and her eyes grow lidded as she looks up at me, her hands working up my impeccable sides.
We’re living in the midst of a Spanish forest together, the nearest city being Barcelona, though even that is a long way from where we are. To my great surprise after we agreed to live together and start a life, it was Delaney who suggested getting away from the hustle and bustle of the big city.
There’s been a real change in her since she’s been in my company. She talks so much less about the empty pursuits of material goods and pastimes of the rich folk. The idea of getting closer to nature seemed to excite her, and with each passing day, she seems to enjoy herself more and more. The prospect of raising a little girl away from the cutthroat and wasteful culture she was brought up in seems just as exciting to her. She’ll finally have a chance to give her daughter — our daughter — the upbringing she never had but always wanted.
It’s all something new for me, too. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d fall in love, much less with a girl like Delaney, but since we’ve been together, we’ve grown into each other so much that I can’t imagine life without her.
I still have many connections in the mafia, and I still have not decided what will become of my little operation running out of that old villa in Barcelona, but right now, my thoughts are utterly consumed by the life I want to give Delaney and our daughter. My heart swells with pride at the thought that she’ll grow up in a world far from the hardship I knew, far from the violence of war and the ravages of poverty.
In the meantime, though, every night with Delaney has been filled with passion. If I fucked her wantonly and with abandon in the middle of our crisis, my lust for her has only been fanned by the quiet, and not a night passes without her cries of bliss as my solid cock rocks her whole body.
And on our honeymoon across Spain, I spent so much time inside her I hardly noticed the sights around us. She didn’t seem to mind.
She keeps up with her friends — Megan, Caitlin, and Lyssa, all three of them now safe and sound back in America. She tells me all of them are doing well, though most of them are going right back to the lives they were stolen from so briefly. Caitlin, however, had more of an impression made on her than the rest, and Delaney seems to be keeping up with her more than the others. She tells me the girl isn’t so willing to let the government corruption she witnessed go unanswered, and I hear she’s studying for law school to face it head-on.
I never heard again from the INTERPOL agent, and I prefer things to remain that way. Out here, I’m largely off the grid, out of the public and international eye. I’d be surprised if even the mafia can find me, if I don’t want to be found. Retiring is a thought that’s crossed my mind a few times — I certainly have the savings to do so and still live very comfortably with Delaney and our budding family. I certainly don’t plan on ransoming young girls anymore, but I worry that my men would feel lost without my direction, so I may keep up an administrative role from a distance, ensuring the Georgian presence in northern Spain is protected and respected.
Only time will tell.
“If that’s on the table,” she says, turning those endless blue eyes up to me, “then maybe I ought to try to run away again.”
I grin down at her. “Don’t try me, girl,” I say in that same growl I used when I first claimed her, and she arches her back into me. “But first…” I say, gently nodding back outside, “I have a surprise for you.”
She tilts her head to the side, following me as I walk back out the door. I have a workshop detached from the cottage, where I’ve taken up carpentry and woodworking as something of a trade. It came naturally as I started to build our homestead, and I found myself with a natural talent for it. That, and it is incredibly relaxing.
Delaney follows me inside, the smell of wood and varnish filling our senses, and her eyes widen at what she sees fresh off the bench, and she throws her arm around me with a delighted squeal. “Oh my god, Darios, it’s beautiful!”
I’ve made a crib from scratch, a sturdy thing made from mahogany wood and embellished with designs I remember from my homeland, where tradesmen are valued artisans. I’ve managed to keep it hidden for a week or so while I worked on it, but it’s finally finished, and I must say, it came out very well.
“It’s the pride and joy of my work,” I say, crossing my arms and gazing at it. “Only the best for the pride and joy of our love,” I say, smiling down at my young bride. As she hugs me tight, I can feel her heart pounding against me, our love like an aura of peace in this remote, serene, rustic place.
“I love you so much, Darios,” she says, her voice quiet, and I squeeze her against me.
“I’ve never loved anything in this cold, harsh world as much as you, Delaney,” I reply, looking down at her with a warmth I didn’t know I had in me. “I will prove that to you every day. I stole you from the gilded world of the rich, but tell me — are you happy away from it all?” I lift her face to mine, true concern on my face. “Would you be happier back in the city? Madrid? Barcelona? Seville?”
She buries her face in my chest, a soft giggle escaping her chest. “Those all sound like great places to go on a vacation now and then,” she muses before looking up at me as I run my hand through that light golden hair that I could get lost in forever, my other hand squeezing that firm ass that spoons into me every night. “But everything I’ve been through, every interesting thing about my life...I feel like it only started after I met you. I never want to go back to that old life.”
I kiss her deeply, all our worries miles and miles away into oblivion, the only thing that matters right here in this room. “As you wish, princess,” I tease, and she slaps my chest laughing as I wrap my arms around her, my own deep chuckle in harmony with hers as I pepper her face with kisses.
&
nbsp; As she steps forward to let me show her some of the finer details of the handiwork, a bird on the windowsill chirps, the sound of it and the gentle rustle of the forest just outside reminding us that at last, we can live together in peace, that we can make our own future in any way we want.
Together.
Glossary
Georgian
genatsvale : untranslatable term of endearment, something like “you before me”
Dila mshvidobisa : Good morning/afternoon (greeting)
chemo kargo : my good one (term of endearment)
sykhaara : my light (term of endearment)
dampalo dzaghlo : rotten dog (expletive)
chemo okro : my gold (term of endearment)
bavshvi : baby (term of endearment)
Mshvidad iqavi : Be quiet
Nabozvaro : Bastard (insult)
Ghmerto chemo : My god
patara gogona : little girl
Diakh : Yes
ghmert’i : oh god
Mosmena : Listen
Spanish
¡Cuatro cervezas, por favor! : Four beers, please!
Con un limón, también : With a lemon, also
la ensalada con fresas y un té, por favor : The salad with strawberries and a tea, please.
¿tiene un encendedor? : got a lighter? (cigarette lighter)
silencio : silence
bueno : good, okay
Señor, su masajista está aquí : Sir, your masseuse is here
Sangre de Jesús! : blood of Jesus!
Por favor, señor : please, sir
Hola, señorita. Haces aquí : Hello, miss. What are you doing here?
No te importa : It’s none of your business/It doesn’t matter to you (colloquial)
Cuida tus modales : Mind your manners
Tu novio : Your boyfriend
Also by Alexis Abbott
Romantic Suspense:
Hostage of the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Page 19
