Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4)

by Nancy Haviland

  Lucian’s regular muscle, a nasty-looking sonofabitch named Sorin was at his back, looking as if an invisible wire connected them. Markus had also come over, and even though all wore identical frowns, Markus’s was that much deeper because he and Eva had grown close over the last six months since they worked together every day.

  Gabriel quickly recapped while—imagining Eva was going to come around soon and become self-conscious—Alek waved them toward the exit. He went first, creating a path through the crowd, and they hit the near-empty lobby in no time.

  He turned on Gabriel. “What the fuck is this? I had no idea this was happening.” He waved a hand over Eva’s prone body. “Why didn’t either of you share this information? What if you weren’t here?” he whispered fiercely as a couple passed by. “I wouldn’t have had a fucking clue what was wrong with her. Is she on insulin?”

  “What the hell happened?” Vasily pushed into the group, bringing with him the sweet scent of cigar.

  Gabriel rubbed his jaw on the top of his wife’s dark head. “Sugar,” he said to his father-in-law before responding to Alek. “Yes, she is. We’ll talk tomorrow. I want to get her home.”

  “Christ Almighty,” Vasily muttered as he laid his inked hand over his daughter’s forehead. “You’re so much like your mother it’s infuriating.”

  Eva smiled shakily, and as though it were meant as a compliment, she murmured, “Thank you.” When she closed her eyes, tears hovered on her lashes.

  Alek leaned in and kissed her on her damp temple. Fuck. He was spooked by her uncharacteristic lethargy. “You scared the shit out of me.”

  “Sorry.” She didn’t open her eyes. “I’m still trying to get used to having to be more careful.” She was rubbing her belly and seemed to be talking to the baby more than anyone.

  Lucian waved forward a guy who was either wearing Kevlar or who spent a lot of time at the gym. “This is Isaac. He will take you. Do not hurry back,” he said to his driver before turning to Alek. “Are you planning on leaving?”

  Vasily, who’d been ready to go with his daughter, sent the others off and hung back after hearing the question.

  Alek’s nape got tight at the tension that suddenly sat between them all. “No. I have personal business here.”

  Lucian nodded once and made a quiet sound that could have meant anything before turning away and disappearing back into the ballroom.

  “I’m not privy to the information,” Markus said with his hands upraised when Vasily gave him an inquiring look.

  “Why didn’t you tell me she was dealing with this?” Alek demanded, going back to Eva. “Either of you. You obviously knew, if your lack of surprise is anything to go by,” he said to Markus.

  “You know Eva, she doesn’t want the attention that comes with it,” Vasily explained.

  Markus added, “Gabriel told me—without her knowledge—so that if he wasn’t around at the office, I’d be able to keep an eye on her in case something like this happened. I’ve heard the reminder on her phone go off. She curses worse than her husband because she’s forgotten to stick her finger and fill in the chart her doctor gave her.”

  “Her mother was type two.” Vasily was looking into the ballroom, his gaze unfocused. “Since diabetes is genetic, Eva made sure to let her obstetrician know to keep an eye. We’re just hoping it remains gestational because that means it will disappear after she has the baby.”

  Alek felt like a dunce because he’d never heard of the condition. But then, why would he be aware of something like that? It wasn’t as if he’d personally known many pregnant women in his lifetime.

  “I remember Kathryn used to inject insulin right into a pinched portion of skin on her belly,” Vasily murmured. “She didn’t like it when I told her I’d rather deal with a decapitation than watch her do that.” He had a small smile on his face as he walked away.

  “Think they have any idea how it freaks us out when they speak so casually about the unspeakables?” Markus’s hazel eyes were laughing, showing he wasn’t all that bothered.

  Alek slapped his boy on the back and led him into the ballroom for another hit of misery. “I’m sure it’s all part of the fun.”

  FOURTEEN

  With her head pounding and her limbs still weak from the adrenaline that had filled her after her altercation with Alekzander, Sacha gave up pretending to be unaffected and tapped Justin’s arm.

  “I am going to use the restroom,” she whispered as the people around them continued to discuss a Republican senator who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. All Sacha was getting from the conversation was a craving for Oreos.

  “Would you like me to go with you?” Justin looked around. “I lost sight of him.”

  “He had a prior engagement,” she muttered, picturing him and the blonde wrapped around each other. “I will not be long.”

  She didn’t bother smiling or offering an excuse to the others. She simply drifted away. It was no wonder Justin hadn’t wanted to come alone tonight. Though what her being here did for him she wasn’t sure. Could be he was still faking the boy/girl dating for his father’s sake.

  As she walked through the crowd, hearing snatches of conversations here and there, Sacha vowed to watch more CNN. She was out of touch. She and Alekzander used to spend an hour on the paper every day, him speeding to the last page, her going much more slowly as she navigated through unfamiliar words. He’d always been so patient about her constant inquiries. Now, spending her days chatting with babies made it unnecessary for her to follow the depressing things going on in the world. But it also made her uninformed.

  As she left the ballroom and traveled down the wide corridor, her heels tapping, a dark shape appeared right in her path. She jerked to a stop just before impact. “Excuse me.” She looked up. “I am sor—”

  Alekzander.

  “Let’s try this once more, shall we?” He grasped her arm and tugged her back the way she’d come. But instead of going to the main room, he pulled her through a swinging door and down another corridor. This one empty and echoing. She yanked on her arm and protested the entire way, and didn’t even care that a man she remembered as Alekzander’s friend and employee was walking in front of them as if leading the way.

  “Let me go! You are such a trouble-maker! Why are you doing this? Why now? I do not want to talk to you!” Especially alone!

  Markus opened a door and winked at her as she was taken through. She wanted to slap him for not coming to the aid of a helpless woman. They crossed an empty reception area and aimed for a set of closed double doors made of glass.

  “So don’t talk,” Alekzander drawled. “I need to say my piece, and you’re going to listen.”

  “I do not want to hear you.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Let me go,” she snarled. “Or I will…I will scream.”

  He stopped. “If you do anything to prevent this from happening, I’ll have Maks let loose a virus that will compromise every fucking electronic file Sheppard, Lupin, and Sheppard has in their system. There must be millions.”

  She stomped her foot in frustration as he threatened Justin’s firm. “Stop this, you big bully! Why would you do that to him? He has done nothing to you.”

  He looked her directly in the eye. “He. Is. With. You.”

  If she were a better person, she’d have told him the truth right then. She didn’t because she was mean and hurting, and she wanted him to feel the same pain she felt when he exchanged keys with women Sacha could never hope to compete with. She wanted to hack away at him the way he kept hacking at her.

  And at the same time, she didn’t.

  She swallowed convulsively to get past the lump rising in her throat. Until this man had come into her life, she’d done okay. Yes, she’d struggled under the weight of her grief after her parents had died, as anyone would, but she’d rallied and began to build a life for herself worlds away from where she’d grown up. She’d been an average, sane person. Now? She felt as if she were
a sniveling, mean-spirited puppet, her emotions and physical reactions so easily dictated by a man who’d brutally disrespected her. And there was nothing she could do to prevent it from happening again and again because she would always gravitate toward him. Even now, his appeal was almost impossible to ignore.

  “You cannot do something to Justin’s family’s law firm, Alekzander. That is not fair.”

  “I can do anything I goddamn please.” His voice was laced with conviction. A new superiority was there, too, and it had a weighty darkness to it she couldn’t help but find disconcerting.

  He tipped his head toward the door. “Coming?”

  No. But I remember how spectacular it was when we got there together.

  She gasped, and he got a clear view of her shock as that stupid thought flitted through her mind.

  “What?” he asked suspiciously.

  She held herself still and felt her cheeks begin to heat. “Nothing.”

  “That didn’t sound like nothing,” he insisted.

  That’s because it hadn’t been nothing. It had been something. Something so amazing. The perfect way his mouth had fit over her, the way he’d used just the right amount of suction even while his tongue had done its magic. Then the way he would rear up and enter her just before she came apart…

  She shook her head and forced herself not to push her thighs together to quell the ache that had sprung up. What was wrong with her?

  “Sacha…”

  “You said you wanted to talk,” she forced out. “So talk.”

  With his lips tightening, he took her arm again and led the way into a much smaller room than the one they’d be eating dinner in—if they ever got around to it. It was silent and shadowed with only one chandelier lit, and that was in the far corner. They came to a stop next to an uncovered table and two stacks of chairs.

  She jumped when the door closed. Looking back, she saw Markus standing guard on the other side of the glass. Anton was now next to him.

  “You remember Markus? And Anton you met yesterday.”

  She nodded and attempted to extract her arm. Alekzander wouldn’t release her. It was one thing to feel muddled when near him. But when he touched her, she became lost. As wrong as it was, as humiliating as it was, he touched her, and she craved more. She didn’t want him merely gripping her arm. She wanted him to draw her in, caress her back, his hands to travel down. She wanted him to cup her ass cheeks and drag her against him the way he used to do.

  She’d been such a different person with him. So open. So free.

  So physical.

  I miss who I was then.

  “You’re going to stand here and allow me to touch you now.”

  She took a step back as self-preservation kicked in.

  He followed and made it so she couldn’t take another. “I won’t go too far. I just need to feel you as I talk.”

  Warning bells clanged in her head. “I do not want—”

  “Shh. Enough with the lies. I can see in your eyes exactly what you want. But then you start thinking again.”

  He bent and lightly skimmed his nose across her cheek as he inhaled deeply. His lips touched her jaw and a small sound of desperation escaped her. She leaned back, half-heartedly trying to pull away, but at the same time gripping his tuxedo jacket at his waist so she couldn’t get very far. She wanted to pull him in and rub all over him. At the same time, she felt the need to shove him away so hard. She wanted to have the strength to put him through the wall. To break him. The way he’d broken her.

  In the end, her head aching with confusion, she pushed him away and accepted the cold that enveloped her. “I am afraid I cannot play the mindless bimbo for you. Maybe the woman whose key is in your pocket will satisfy your craving for obedience.”

  His confusion was apparent as his arms fell to his sides. “What are you talking about?”

  His indulgent tone scraped her nerves raw. “The blonde woman who would make Barbie sit in front of a mirror and cry. I saw you accept her key minutes before you forced me to dance with you.”

  “Sydney? Maks was in the middle of something, so he asked her to bring me the key to my truck. She’s the distraction I was telling you he found. The one with the kids.”

  Surprise was followed by the warmest sense of relief Sacha had ever experienced. “She carried a child in that body?” she blurted before she could stop herself. How unfair! “Oh. Oh, dear.” The things she’d said to him on the dancefloor came back to her. The beautiful things he’d said to her. “I was so rude to you. I am sorry. I thought she was another of your girlfriends.”

  He winced. “I don’t have girlfriends, Sacha. I told you, it wasn’t real. I actually paid that girl the night you saw me. I paid her a thousand fucking dollars to play the part of my lover. I touched her only enough to make it look convincing. But none of it was real. I did not have sex with her.”

  Her remorse died, and before she threw it into his face, she placed her evening bag on the table. “I do not believe you when you tell me that. Would you like to know why? Because I saw you. I saw your hand on the skin of her bare thigh as you held her. I saw how she was enjoying your body. She was not faking that. I heard her. I still hear her, Alekzander. Why would you lie when you know I was right there? I was there! You looked at me, and you did nothing as I stood there and bled to death!” she screamed.

  As the echo of her voice faded, her panting breaths filled her ears as surely as tears filled her eyes. She blinked them away as he shook his head, his face tortured.

  “I am so fucking sorry.” His whisper was more powerful than if he’d matched her shout. “For all of it. Goddammit, I’ll never be able to verbalize the scope of my regret. Not if I had a million years.” His hands were out, his tone imploring.

  She looked at the way his dark blond hair fell over his forehead. At the silver streaks interspersed in the iridescent blue of his eyes that appeared bruised, as if he no longer slept well. At the shape and softness of his firm lips. Her hands itched to touch him and she wanted to cut them off. She was drowning in agony, and she still wanted to reach for him. To draw comfort even while she offered it.

  When he shoved a hand through his hair to push it back—a pointless habit he’d always had—revealing his face in all its beauty. She died that much more.

  He appeared to brace himself before saying, “You have to know that Sergei lost Renee and Evan the day before I ruined you and me. I didn’t tell you when they were first taken because I didn’t want to frighten you. The assumption was, we’d get them back and things would be fine. It didn’t work out that way.”

  He was doing it again. Openly speaking about “that” part of his life. There had been countless references made, code words, silent, meaningful looks exchanged between him and his uncle. But never a direct, open statement about a particular situation.

  With goosebumps flowing down from her nape, she absently went to reach for her bag to silence the vibration of her phone. Alekzander gave her a severe look meant to pin her in place. It worked.

  “I was with Sergei when he got the call from a member of the Baikov organization.”

  She locked her knees when that jerked the strength from her muscles. She had no trouble remembering the rivalry between the Bratvas. She’d been warned time and again the Baikov family wasn’t to be trusted. Not the women, children, and especially not the men.

  “Never have I seen a man so tortured. And it never left; that expression in his eyes remained the entire time we pulled shit together and tried to get his wife and son back from those cocksuckers. When we failed, I reacted.”

  Just that suddenly, Sacha didn’t want to know anymore. She pictured Sergei’s wife; a cheerful brunette. And his son; a quiet, intelligent boy. Since they’d come from Russia only a few years before her, there had been an instant connection. But because they’d lived outside the city, Sacha and Renee hadn’t spent as much time together as they’d have liked. But Sacha had still missed them when things had fallen apart.
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  “We failed to get to them in time, and they were brutalized and sent back to Sergei in pieces. I remember sitting in his kitchen and Reynard coming in with delivery boxes. I’ll never forget it. UPS.” His voice grew rough. “Those sonsofbitches sent them back by UPS. Hearing the sounds he made— Sacha, I stood there and watched my cousin’s hysterics as he scrambled to put his family back together again. He eventually fell to the ground, holding their hands—”

  He stopped and coughed, his eyes squeezing shut as he turned away to scrape his palm over his face. He was quiet for a long moment, and then a harsh laugh pushed from his throat. He came back around to look at her.

  “I couldn’t risk you. I wouldn’t. I came home afterward, I loved you as hard as I fucking could for one more night, and then I got you the hell away from me. I couldn’t get rid of you fast enough. I didn’t think any further than wanting to keep you safe from something like that ever happening to you.”

  On legs that felt like rubber, Sacha stood in the shadowy room, silently crying over the tragedy even as a cowering sliver of hope worked itself free of the tangled mess in her heart. It wanted to break through the sadness his story caused but couldn’t. The horror of it was just too great.

  “Why did you not tell me?” she eventually asked. “Renee was my friend. And Evan… I did not even know they were gone.”

  He shrugged, the action helpless. “I didn’t think,” he repeated. “I just reacted in the worst possible way. But I did not have sex with that fucking woman. I couldn’t have. Not with anyone but you. I swear on my uncle’s life, I’ve never looked beyond you, Sacha.”

  She stepped forward and reached up to cup his cheeks, everything in her wanting to soothe the pain radiating from him. A low-level buzz shot through her at the first voluntary contact she’d had with him in so long.

  As the day’s growth along his jaw prickled her palms, something cracked and a small beam of light filtered into her dark world. “I am so sorry for you. If it is suitable, please give Sergei my most heartfelt condolences. To your uncle, as well.”