Nadia's Salvation

by K. A Knight

  “Reassuring,” she snaps, and I arch a brow but don’t look at her.

  “I won’t make promises I can’t keep. I’ll bring these people down, but I don’t know if it will be too late for her,” I reply distractedly, as I grab scenes from the video, especially the plate number.

  “Alena, her name was Alena,” she yells, and smashes her hand into my wooden desk and kicks my chair, sending me spinning to see her. “You say her fucking name, you knew what was happening, you knew and you didn’t stop it.”

  Fury races through me as I leap to my feet and crowd her, pushing her back to the wall and forcing her to look into my eyes. “I couldn’t! I’ve been tracking these men for weeks, months even, and I can’t stop it! I’m trying, I warned you, I warned you I had a bad feeling, but did you fucking listen? No, because you’re a spoiled, insufferable little girl, and now because of you—”

  “Because of me you have images, plate numbers, and more than you had before,” she interrupts, her voice filled with venom as she refuses to back down, stepping closer and pressing her finger to my chest. “So don’t belittle me or shut me down or out of this, I want to know. I want to help make this stop.”

  I laugh humourlessly. “You? And what could you ever do? You’re nothing. The only thing you’re good for apparently is a quick fuck on a desk with a man you clearly know nothing about.”

  She gasps, her eyes narrowing, and before I even see it coming, she slaps me, my cheek stinging from the force. I glare at her as she swallows and steps back, her eyes wide as she shakes her head, fear flashing through those depths. “Keanu—”

  I grab her hand hard, and she gasps again as I yank her across the room. She fights me, punching and kicking, but I ignore it, nothing more than moth bites as I throw her onto my desk. She smashes into the wood, bent over and breathing hard. I grip her hair and lean down. “You want to help? You want it rough? You want to fight? Fine.”

  I press her head down to the wood as I step back and rip her dress up to expose her peachy fucking ass, my cock already hard from our fight. It always is around her.

  “You want to act like a spoiled brat, then you will get treated like one,” I say coolly, as she kicks out at me.

  “Get off me, you fucking pervert!” she yells, as I kick open her legs, unbalancing her so she has to hold on to the desk to keep from falling.

  I rub at her arse with one palm as she freezes, not even daring to breathe. “Don’t you fucking—”

  I spank her and she gasps, flinching as I rub where I hit. “What were you saying, Brat?”

  “Fuck you! Get off me—”

  I spank her harder and she jerks away from me, fighting still. “You sick bastard!” she screams, grabbing things on my desk and flinging them away like a petulant child.

  “Finished, Brat?” I tease, her ass red from my hands as I continue to caress her inflamed flesh.

  “Fuck. You,” she spits, trying to crane her neck to see me.

  I spank her twice and she gasps again as I grin, watching her cheeks grow redder and redder from my rough punishment.

  The sick bitch is enjoying this even as she protests, tears racing down her face, but her thighs are slick with her cream, her arse red from my handprints...and I’m enjoying it too. Watching her finally submit, seeing my mark on her skin, knowing she’s as filled with need, anger, and hate as I am...all because of her.

  “Are you going to behave?” I ask her calmly, even as a storm erupts inside me, my skin hardly able to contain it. My cock is jerking in my pants, precum leaking out as it presses against the zipper, wanting to be free...craving to be buried inside her. Here, on my desk, as she fights me, wanting her to scream for me, beg me to let her come. To see her finally give in and become mine, the very thing we both keep resisting. Dancing around it, our lust turning to hatred for each other and causing fighting. Venomous words spewing from our lips, even as we move closer, drawn by a force stronger than us.

  “Never, fuck you, you little pervert,” she snaps, even as she pushes back into my hand, begging for more.

  I slap my hand across her skin in quick succession and a moan slips from her lips, making me smirk as I rub it, stroking the pain into her soft, unblemished skin. My finger accidentally catches on her panty-clad pussy as she gasps...so I do it again, unable to help myself. Her cream coats my finger, and before I know it, I’ve raised it to my mouth and tasted her.

  Groaning at her silkiness on my tongue, I close my eyes for a moment to savour it. She tastes like heaven.

  So I punish her for it, punish her for tasting so good. For making me want her, crave her, need her like I have never needed anyone or anything before. She moans, low and deep, the sound vibrating through me to my cock as I almost come in my pants.

  Her cream is dripping down her legs now, her panties drenched...for me. My dirty fucking girl. “I think you like it, like it when I’m mean. I think you like to fight me, push me to see how much you can get away with. To see me rage and take it out on your skin. You’re enjoying your punishment, aren’t you, Brat?”

  “No,” she denies, her voice breathless with need.

  “Liar,” I whisper, leaning down and licking the shell of her ear as I trace my fingers over her wet panties. “I can see how turned on you are, feel it, see it dripping down your thighs. You’re fucking drenched.”

  She shivers against me as I cup her panty-clad pussy. “And I won’t do anything about it. Bad girls don’t deserve a reward,” I whisper into her ear. “Now stand the fuck up and go back downstairs like I told you and wait there,” I demand, forcing myself away from her, my hand lingering on her pussy before I stumble back. I right my clothes and take some deep breaths to remain in control before she can see how deeply she has affected me.

  How close I came to taking her.

  Fucking her.

  I let her slide to the floor. She winces when her sore arse hits the hardwood floor, her eyes locked on mine and filled with anger. “I want to help,” she says again, defiant even now.

  “You can’t,” I counter, as I straighten my desk, unable to look at her anymore. What the fuck just happened?

  I snapped is what.

  I shouldn’t have touched her, but I couldn’t help myself.

  Even as I ignore her, going back to watching the video, she climbs to her feet and steps closer, still unafraid of me. She should be. When it comes to her, I have no control, as I just demonstrated, yet she leans in, her hand on my shoulder as she watches the video.

  My own attention is split between it and her, smelling her. Feeling her soft touch, wishing it was against my bare skin. “There,” she declares triumphantly, pointing at the screen. I hit pause and follow her gesture, almost groaning at what I missed before because of her.

  A black mark on the driver’s hands. “Tattoo maybe,” I tell myself.

  “No, it’s a stamp to a club on the other side of town. The Green light,” she states, and when I look at her, she grins. “See, you need me. Guess that makes us partners, Nunu, because I’m not leaving until we get that girl back. You might not care, but I do.”

  What a fucking brat.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Nadia

  I wince again at the ache in my sore ass, trying not to let him see how weak he made me. How close I was to coming, to begging him to fuck me even as anger filled me with each strike of his hand.

  I hated my body’s reaction to him, to how wet he made me even as he was hurting me, punishing me, trying to break me. Why do I want him? Why do I crave him? He’s a cool, egotistical asshole.

  “You know this club?” he queries, his voice once again cold and unaffected. Prick.

  “Yes, and it’s members only, so once again it looks like you need me,” I taunt, leaning back and away from him to stop myself from touching him. “Admit it, you need me.”

  “No.” He frowns, almost glaring now, his green eyes colder than the arctic.

  “No?” I repeat, crossing my arms under my breasts. His eye
s drop to them, causing me to grin, even as they dart back to mine, filled with anger at himself. “You need me to get into that club, you need me. I can get close, I can get us more information. You want to stop these people? So do I. Either we work together or I’ll go anyway. We both know I will and then you will have to chase me down instead of doing what needs to be done. So what will it be?”

  He stares at me, trying to intimidate me, and I just stare right back until eventually he looks away, to his computers, and ignores me, searching the video and pictures once again.

  “From what I understand, he’s drugging women he finds alone, pretending to sleep with them to isolate them, and then he drags them out back. He’s paid for the women, so it would make sense if other people or club owners were as well. The kidnappings so far…where have they been? We could map them and search each club, starting at The Green Light,” I suggest.

  I hear him grinding his teeth. “That’s a good idea.” Oh, how I bet it pained him to say that.

  “Good, print me a map, I’ll make some coffee and work on that while you do the computer thingy.”

  “You mean track the van using CCTV, as well as run the two men through databases to try and track known associates and their everyday moves, where they live, where they eat, and how often they shit?” he grumbles as he types.

  “Exactly, computer thingy, we make a good team, Nunu.” I grin and head out of the room, ignoring him as he mutters under his breath about annoying women. I feel better, more...alive now with a purpose. Not just moping over Gammie and helpless. I have something to do, something to work and live for. It just so happens to come with an annoying, asshole partner, but hey, I go to university, that’s pretty much every group project.

  I do know that if we don’t kill each other first, we actually might be able to stop these men. Wouldn’t that be good?

  As I make coffee my mind wanders...I’m coming, Alena, keep fighting. I throw that out into the air, hoping wherever she is, whatever is happening to her...she knows she isn’t alone.

  If there is one good thing about the man upstairs, it’s that I know he will never stop, never give up, until he has them...until he kills them. I’m strangely okay with that. What these people are doing is monstrous and evil, so maybe it takes a monster to hunt a monster?

  Heading back upstairs, clutching the two mugs, I find he’s spread a map of the city onto the wall behind his computer, and when I place both mugs on the desk, he nods his thanks. I still think he’s trying to find a way out of working together and I know he’ll try and stop me.

  But he doesn’t know me. Once I have my mind set on something, I’m very much unmovable. I guess we have that in common. As Gammie used to say, I’m as stubborn as shit on a heel.

  Well, Keanu, get ready for me to stick to you like shit.

  He carries on ignoring me, typing away as I open his desk drawers, grinning at the perfect way everything is organised. It’s petty, but I mess it all up, pluck a marker from it, and slam it shut. He hands me a list without looking. “These are all the places where I know someone has been taken.”

  Shit, the list is huge. I scan it and glance up at him. This is bigger than I ever thought. I won’t let him know that though. Instead, I head to the map, almost laughing when I hear him open his drawer and grumble as he rearranges it again.

  “Brat,” he hisses.

  Just to be annoying, I grab my phone and load up my radio app. It comes on loud, startling us both as we stare down at the device as the woman carries on talking. One sentence catches my attention like no other.

  “I-Is it Christmas?” I whisper and look up at him.

  He frowns and peers at his screen and then at me. “It’s the twenty-fifth,” he answers.

  “You don’t celebrate Christmas?” I inquire, confused, and he frowns.

  “No, I don’t see the point in it. I have no need for presents, as I have no family or friends, and why on Earth would I want those god-awful decorations crowding my house?”

  “Sounds lonely,” I reply, and he freezes, his eyes lasering into me as he remains silent.

  “Shit, Scarlett,” I whisper, covering my eyes. “We usually spend the day after Christmas together, I even got them presents.”

  “What did you buy them?” he questions.

  I snort. “That would ruin the surprise.” My smile drops away then. “Do you really not have any friends or family? What about Max? Donald?”

  “Max is a co-worker, Donald is my boss.” He shrugs, leaning back in his chair and steepling his hand under his chin as he watches me. As always, under his scrutiny I feel the need to fidget, but I stand up taller instead. “I don’t feel the need to fill my life with people, I find they only let you down or die.”

  “Not always, they can bring happiness. They stop the loneliness, the one everyone has deep inside, sometimes without even noticing. They suffer through this shit world with you and they make it better, make it worth living. Worth fighting,” I explain, and he tilts his head, considering me.

  “Scarlett does that for you?”

  “Yes, when I lost—” I suck in a breath. “I was drowning, barely able to break the surface and breathe. She pulled me from the depths and floated with me, helping me heal. Yes, people can let you down, and yes, they die and it hurts, but the time you had with them makes it all worthwhile.”

  “If you knew from the start you would lose her, your grandmother, wouldn’t you have loved her less, tried to distance her so it didn’t hurt as much?” he asks, and for once he sounds truly confused.

  “No, no, that hurt…this, this feeling inside my chest lets me know it was real. Every time she threw up and I had to hold her hair, every pain, every doctor’s visit hurt, but nothing as much as losing her. I would suffer it all again, I would gladly take the pain because that pain was love. She made my world a better place for the time that she was here, and one day this pain will lessen and all that will be left is the good, the lessons she taught me. The love and laughter we shared. The Christmas days spent in pyjamas, eating junk food and watching stupid movies, the long talks at night, the times we shared our dreams instead of everything I can see now...”

  “Which is?” he prompts.

  “The bad, the suffering. For some reason, the time she was throwing up, it was around two months after she had been diagnosed, she was so strong even in the face of her imminent death. I broke down and crumbled, but she took it in stride, never once complaining. But that night…” I look away, unable to face those green eyes that see too much. “That night she cried, curled up around her toilet, and begged me, begged me to save her. She showed me her fear and weakness. I remember her saying she was afraid of dying.” I look up then, tears falling down my face. “I couldn’t save her, I couldn’t even comfort her then because what would I say? I did the only thing I could do, I lied to her. Keanu, even now I see it, the pain, the fear...the humanity she huddled around. She let me, she let me see that, even in her darkest time she leaned on me. That’s what family does. That’s why it’s so important, they pull you from the dark when you can’t pull yourself out.”

  He watches me as I wipe my face, embarrassed to have broken down so completely in front of him. “She sounds like an amazing person and she raised an equally strong woman,” he tells me, and I glance back at him...did he just compliment me? “But you mistake me, Nadia. I don’t need pulling from the darkness, I like it here. I made it my home. I’m comfortable, do not make the mistake of thinking you will be the person to save me. To change me and pull me free. I’m already free and I don’t need saving.”

  “Maybe you don’t need saving, maybe you’re right. Maybe instead you need someone to stay in that darkness with you,” I counter, before turning back to the map and stepping towards it, list in hand. I feel him staring at my back, his calculating gaze no doubt assessing me as I uncap the marker, draw a circle around the first location, and add a date before moving on to the next. Eventually, I hear him go back to work and a breath leaves
me.

  Why does he draw so much from me? The truths I don’t even tell Scarlett? Why does this man twist me up so much inside?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Keanu

  A couple of hours later, we’re both still working. I sit back and stretch, my eyes going to Nadia to see her making her way down the list, the marker held between her lips as she stares at the map intently.

  She’s fucking beautiful.

  Swallowing, I look away and back to my computer, her words from earlier running through me. Christmas, family, presents. Before I know it, I’ve bought her something. Fucking hell. I tell myself it’s logical, practical. I can add a tracking chip into it, especially seeing as though she’s serious about investigating alone if I don’t let her help. This way I can keep track of her...right?

  Yeah, I don’t even believe myself.

  She’s so lost in her work she doesn’t even hear me get up as I head downstairs and make us both more coffee. As I’m waiting for the machine to warm up, I clean up her mess from earlier and then open the fridge. I guess I better feed her.

  I yank some ingredients out and start making us a quick dinner. At the last minute, I change my mind and make chicken wrapped in bacon with homemade chips and gravy...that’s sort of a Christmas dinner, right?

  I go to take them upstairs and groan, this fucking woman is getting to me. I won’t make the table, but I do lay the plates on the counter with cutlery and coffee before calling for her. She comes down, confused, and when she spots the food, she laughs.

  “It’s not your normal Christmas, but…” I shrug, rubbing the back of my head.

  She smiles at me, so big and warm that I swallow, unsure I deserve it. I’m an asshole to her all the time, yet she easily forgives and forgets, hopping on to her stool and turning to face her meal. “It looks great, thanks, Nunu.”

  That fucking nickname.