Marrying the Mobster: American Gangsters 1 (Leave Me Breathless)

by Victoria Vale

  “Hello there, krasivyy,” purrs an accented voice from the other end. A voice that I recognize instantly.

  “Viktor,” I whisper, dread chilling me to the bone. “What the fuck do you want?”

  My phone vibrates in my hand, and I find a video message has come through. Viktor remains silent; the message is from him. My hands shake as I open it and brace myself for what I might see.

  The video is crystal clear and shows a huddle of dark-haired men marching up the stairs of an unfamiliar building. I pick Jovan out of the bunch first, his height and the swagger in his steps making him stand out. Beside him is Diego. I choke on the bile burning my throat when I realize that the two black lines zeroed in over the back of Diego’s head are the crosshairs of a scope. There’s literally a gun to his head and he has no idea. His pace is confident as the camera follows them to a set of double doors. He kicks them open, and his soldiers flow in behind him, guns raised.

  “What did you do to him?” I demand, trying to steady my voice as I put the phone back to my ear. “If you hurt him, I swear to God—”

  “Relax, dorogoy,” he murmurs. “I haven’t done anything to your husband … yet. Whether he gets to live is entirely up to you.”

  It takes a minute for me to reply, my head spinning and my heart racing. I can hardly breathe with the image of Diego in those crosshairs burned into my mind. After taking a few breaths and steadying my trembling hands, I push away the emotions making me want to do irrational things—like search for one of Diego’s guns and go searching for Viktor. For one thing, I’m a terrible shot. For another, I have no idea where he is.

  “What do you want?” I ask, my voice steadier now.

  “It’s very simple,” Viktor says. “You are going to tell your husband’s security to stand down. I’m at the end of your driveway. When I pull up, you’re going to put the phone down and walk out—cool and collected. If you do something stupid, Diego’s dead. Got it?”

  I calculate the benefits and the risks of going along with Viktor’s demand. The video could have been taken an hour ago, or it could be a live feed. Diego might be locked up somewhere, being beaten and tortured by Yezhov thugs. He might be dead already.

  “Don’t you dare hang up this phone!” he screams, sensing my hesitation. “The second this line goes silent, your husband’s a dead man! Do you hear me, Elena? Stay on the phone and do what I said, right-fucking-now.”

  I flinch at the explosion of his voice in my ear, anxiety spiking through me. What the hell am I supposed to do? Jaime’s two floors above me, and even if I managed to get up there before Viktor suspects what I’m doing, I can’t talk to him without being overheard. Muting the phone will deaden the background noise and Viktor will take that as defiance.

  “How do I know he isn’t already dead?” I fire back. “Or that this isn’t a set-up? The second I step foot out those doors, you’ll probably kill me, too.”

  Viktor lets out a harsh, humorless laugh. “That’s the risk you’re going to have to take if you really love Diego as you’ve claimed. What’s it going to be? Take a gamble with your husband’s life, or follow my orders?”

  Do I really have a choice? If Diego’s in trouble and I can save him, I have to try. If he’s already dead, then it doesn’t matter because I won’t want to live without him. I doubt I’d even put up a fight if Viktor tries to kill me. I’ve been living on the edge of life and death for months now, so it’s unsurprising to feel so apathetic about marching to my own demise. Either way, I’m screwed and so is Diego.

  “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  “You’re making the right decision, dorogoy,” Viktor replies. “Now, get moving.”

  Leaving the room with casual strides is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do … especially when I pass Marcella on the stairs. My entire body goes stiff, and the words to warn her what’s happening burn in my throat. But if I’m blind and helpless, Marcella is even more so. Diego would be furious if I involved her in this, and I wouldn’t blame him. His sister is young and has a bright future ahead of her. She’s set to graduate this coming spring. I won’t do anything to jeopardize that.

  “Hey, hon,” she chirps at the sight of me. “Going somewhere?”

  I force a smile and point at my phone. “Business call. I’m tired of being cooped up in the house, so I’m going to take this out by the pool.”

  She returns my smile and moves on past me. “Enjoy. See you later for our movie night? Fifty Shades Darker is on the menu and I’m soooo ready for some more of that sexy-as-fuck Christian.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  We go our separate ways and when I hit the first floor, I hang a left and head to the control room. Nicolas is at the desk, a collection of monitors showing him different camera feeds. He gives me a confused look, but then fixes his face into a smile as he comes to his feet. The difference in how they treat me now that I’m Diego’s wife is a complete change from when I was his prisoner.

  “Something I can do for you, señora?”

  I glance at the feed showing our endless driveway. If Viktor is really there, he’s been careful to park outside the camera’s range.

  “Yes,” I reply, leaning against the door frame. “Radio whoever is patrolling the grounds and tell them to stand down. A car’s approaching and they’re to let it through, no questions asked.”

  He furrows his brow and glances at the monitor. “If someone’s coming, they have to be vetted. Diego’s orders.”

  “Diego isn’t here,” I snap, growing impatient. I can’t predict how long Viktor will wait before getting annoyed. “Do it. Now.”

  Nicolas clenches his jaw and gives me a defiant look, but he keeps his tone level as he reaches for his phone. “I’ll just call him first, to make sure—”

  “And how do you think it’ll go over when you tell him you refused to accommodate his wife? I’m not a fucking prisoner here, I’m the goddamn queen of this castle. When I say tell the guards to stand down, you do it without making me wait. Got it?”

  Nicolas grinds his teeth but looks uncertainly at his phone, second-guessing his instincts. I hold my breath, hoping my bravado will be enough to earn his compliance.

  With an annoyed huff, Nicolas plops down at the desk and calls up the line feeding into the guards’ earpieces. I don’t wait around to listen, confident Viktor will be able to pass through unimpeded.

  I leave my phone on the entryway table and pause to look at my reflection in the mirror. I look like shit—as worried and frightened as I feel. Squaring my shoulders, I smooth my face into a blank slate. It’s a skill I learned while playacting as Diego’s girlfriend, and one I hope will come in handy now. I’m playing Viktor’s game only long enough to figure out where Diego is and whether he’s still alive. From there, all bets are off. I might have been unsuccessful in escaping Diego, but then a part of me eventually lost the will to fight.

  To get back to Diego, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do. There’s no way in hell Viktor can stop me once I’m ready to run.

  By the time I make it down the front steps, a silver Audi is rounding the driveway toward me. Viktor sits in the driver’s seat, staring at me through the open window. A pair of sunglasses are pushed low, his piercing blue eyes boring into me over the rims.

  “Get in.”

  I obey, pushing aside the urge to look back at the place that’s become my home. I won’t let myself think I may never see it again. For the sake of my sanity as well as the hope pushing forward, I choose to believe I’ll be back by the time the sun sets.

  I slip into the car, slowly putting on my seatbelt and glaring at Viktor from the corner of my eye. He takes off, racing down the driveway so fast I’m thrown back in my seat. Hostility radiates off him, and when I turn to fully look at him, I notice his mouth is pinched and his hands are clutching the steering wheel in a death grip.

  “Where the fuck is my husband?” I demand.

  Viktor glances at me with a chilling smile, then reaches out to
grip the back of my neck. I rear against his hold, snarling and batting at his arm, but his grip is too tight. His fingernails bite into my nape, and moving my head sends a sharp ache down my spine.

  “Don’t worry, dorogoy,” he says, his voice all hard steel. “You’ll be reunited with your husband soon … on the other side of life.”

  I’m catapulted forward with the flex of his hand, and my head slams against the dashboard hard enough to make me see stars. Viktor releases me and I slump, swiftly losing my grip on consciousness. My face is throbbing and my visions swims in a frightening haze.

  My final thought before losing my hold on wakefulness is that Diego is likely dead. There’s no need to fight the blackness blotting out my vision and pushing me under.

  30

  Diego

  Four hours. That’s how long it took Elena to make her escape while my back was turned. After combing the city for any sign of Viktor and turning up nothing, I returned home hoping to regroup and come up with a new plan. Viktor’s on the run and finding him before he can do more damage is my number one priority—after assuring Elena that I’m all right.

  Only, I’m greeted at the door by Nicolas, who can’t look me in the eye while relating the story of how Elena came into the control room and ordered him to have security back off. Not long after, she walked right through the front door, leaving her cell phone behind—likely so she couldn’t be tracked. I’m on the verge of ripping Nicolas’s eyes out of his skull, when Jovan yanks me off him and reminds me that my men were ordered to cater to Elena’s every demand. After the wedding she stopped being a prisoner and became my queen. The entire thing is my fault, and everyone knows it. I was too free with my affection, too loose with security, and too stupid to see that she was playing me all along.

  I leave Nicolas with nothing worse than a busted lip and a black eye—his reward for letting Elena talk him out of calling me to verify that her orders were legit. Then, I storm into the control room and have Jaime pull up the security footage from every camera leading the way from my bedroom to the front door. Gripping the back of the chair as I stare at the squares lined up on the screen, I watch as she walks the hallways with the phone to her ear. She stops on the stairs for a few seconds to chat with Marcella, still giving the impression that everything is as it should be—and she’s not about to tear my heart out of my chest and feed it to me. The cameras follow her to the control room, then to the foyer—where she takes a moment to check her appearance in the mirror, set her phone on the decorative table, and walk out.

  The front cameras capture the car and the driver from enough angles that leave no question or doubt. She left with Viktor … purposely, willingly.

  My fist crashes into the nearest monitor and I tear from the room, feeling as if I could pull the entire house down brick-by-brick. Jaime and Jovan follow but I ignore them, making my way straight to the bedroom. While they stand in the doorway, watching me with pity all over their faces, I strip off my leather jacket, rolling my injured shoulder and cracking my stiff neck.

  “Boss,” Jovan ventures. “What do you want us to do?”

  The obvious answer is to keep trying to find Viktor. His cell phone isn’t trackable, and none of his contacts seem to know where he is—either that, or they’re covering for him. Even knowing that Viktor’s life is forfeit, the bratva will be loyal to him out of love for Oleg. He won’t be shunned until the manner of his punishment has been made public … if he even survives it.

  There’s another question beneath the one Jovan poses out loud, and it’s whether I want Elena back. Part of me hasn’t changed—raging that she belongs to me and always will. It wants to finish Viktor off and drag Elena back here by her hair, throw her on the bed, and remind her that she will never be without me.

  But the part of me that fell in love with her rebels against the idea. If knowing I love the shit out of her isn’t enough to convince Elena to stay, then no amount of force or security is going to keep her here. She wanted to be away from me bad enough to plot with an enemy behind my back; the person who nearly got me killed and caused the deaths of my loyal soldiers. I feel sick thinking she might have been in on that plan. Were her tears and declarations that night all part of an act meant to lull me into a false sense of security? Has she been seducing me into letting my guard down so she could make her getaway?

  It’s too likely not to be true, and knowing that only makes me feel like a first-class idiot for falling for it. Falling for her.

  “Diego!” Jovan snaps, jolting me out of my own toxic thoughts. “What the fuck are we gonna do? They couldn’t have gotten far. Timestamp on the security video shows they’ve barely been gone an hour.”

  Jovan has his doubts about Elena, too. I can hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes when our gazes meet and he wrinkles his forehead in concern.

  I smother the flames roaring in my belly so I can think clearly. That’s been my problem this whole time—thinking with my dick and my heart instead of my head. My instincts have been dulled and I’ve gotten soft.

  “Find them. Viktor should have a safehouse somewhere outside the city. He knows I’m looking for him, so his best bet is to get to an isolated area where we can’t sneak up on him. I want them alive … both of them.”

  With a quick nod, Jovan leaves the room. Jaime lingers in the doorway, a slender tablet hanging from one hand. He approaches with careful steps—like he’s sneaking up on a hungry lion—and offers it to me.

  “I think you need to take another look at the footage,” he says.

  I narrow my eyes at him when he doesn’t elaborate, hands still clenched at my sides. Jaime shrugs and tosses the tablet onto the bed before backing away.

  “You’ll regret it if you don’t.”

  Once I’m alone, I can’t hold in my fury anymore. With a guttural roar, I swipe the contents of Elena’s nightstand onto the floor—her romance novels, her glass, refillable water bottle, her booklight, a framed photo of her with her sister and nephew at our wedding, her design book and pencils. It isn’t nearly as satisfying as I’d hoped.

  My fist crashes into the wall, leaving an apple-sized hole, then another and another. The walls rattle until the framed art crashes to the floor, the glass shattering and littering the rug. A half-empty bottle of Scotch slams into the window, which hasn’t been boarded over for a month. Because I trusted Elena and believed she wanted to stay with me.

  Huffing and snorting like a demon, I stare through the hole in the window, the last rays of sunlight making trickles of liquor glow with amber and gold prisms. The color reminds me of her eyes.

  “Fuck!” I bellow, going back to pacing with restless energy that makes me vibrate from head to toe. My shoulder throbs and sends shooting pains down my arm.

  I consider taking a handful of painkillers and losing myself to numbness. The pain in my chest is far worse than my arm, and it makes me want to carve my own heart out with a knife. My mother’s words come back to me now, taunting and cruel.

  “No woman is worth compromising your empire. Not your girlfriend, not your sister or any daughters you might have. Not even me. A boss with a weak heart doesn’t deserve to wear the crown. He’s a pussy and a wimp and deserves everything he gets for letting himself be led around by the dick.”

  The bitch would laugh at me if she were here and remind me that she told me so.

  Sinking onto the bed, I let my head fall into my hands and try to chase Mother’s voice out of my thoughts. Nothing that woman ever did was for my own good; it was always for her benefit. Her lessons weren’t meant to make me strong, but to keep me from replacing her with another woman. She was determined to rule the underworld through me, and couldn’t have a pesky daughter-in-law or grandchildren getting in her way.

  I glance at the tablet resting near my hip, the screen gone dark. Jaime’s warning smothers the unwanted memories of my mother. What else is there for me to see on the security footage that I didn’t already witness? I saw Elena walk through those doo
rs and get into that car with my own eyes. What reason would she have for her actions other than what I’ve already figured out? Elena wanted out and saw Viktor’s lust for her as the perfect escape route.

  Still, the need to make sure I’m not wrong makes me snatch up the tablet and unlock it. The same videos feeds from the control room are framed in the screen, and each one plays in sequence. For the first few viewings, I can only see a woman executing the perfect plan to gain her freedom. I white-knuckle-grip the tablet with an aching jaw, torturing myself by taking in every detail.

  I toss the thing aside with a grunt, annoyed with myself and with Jaime for trying to convince me there was anything more there than what it seemed. It isn’t until I stand up to walk away that my gaze falls to the second-to-last feed from the camera overlooking the foyer. The frame is frozen to show Elena standing in front of that mirror, checking herself over before she walks out of my life.

  It struck me as inconsequential the first half-dozen times I watched it, but something about it in stillness doesn’t sit right with me. Why would a woman who’s desperate to escape her batshit crazy, mobster husband stop to look in the mirror before leaving? A sane woman would have run screaming through those doors and vaulted through the window of the waiting car, not even bothering to use the door handle. She would have looked back while she walked down the front steps, searching for eyes pinned to her from one of the upstairs windows.

  Picking up the tablet, I play the video of her in front of the mirror. When first walking up to it, her shoulders are slumped and her head lowered. Looking at her reflection, Elena’s chest swells with a deep breath before her shoulders go straight, her proud chin lifting with defiance. It’s as if she’s working up the courage to leave. Then comes the footage of her walking down the front steps to get in the car. Her steps are slow and her body is stiff. She doesn’t look confident and bold, or desperate. She looks … timid. Afraid. Unsure?

  “Why didn’t you look back, gatita?” I murmur at the screen, leaning closer and watching over and over.