“You see this?” I asked, gesturing to a tattoo just under and to the left of my left pectoral muscle.
“Your tattoo? I noticed it was the only one in color that you have.” She gave the tattoo a closer look. “The matryoshka—I thought that was a weird choice for you when I saw it,” she murmured.
“Look closer,” I urged, feeling more and more uncomfortable.
She leaned in and stared at the ink on my ribs, scrutinizing it closely. She suddenly pulled back, her eyes wide. “Wait, is that supposed to be…me?” she asked, her soft lips parted in shock.
I slid my fingers around the back of her neck and gripped it tightly. “I got this after I left your place. I couldn’t stay with you anymore, but I needed you with me. This was the only way.”
She glanced back down to the tattoo, her fingers reaching out to trace the lines of the doll’s face, her face. I used a picture of her, so though the image is a bit cartoonish, it was undeniably her. Tears glistened in her eyes as she raised them back to mine, a sweet smile hovering over her lips
“Why a doll?”
“It couldn’t be your real face or any initials. Most of my men know you and tattoos like that indicate romantic attachments that could be dangerous to reveal to anyone who might see me without my shirt. This doll wouldn’t be seen as a symbol of romantic love, so it was the safest symbol I could think of and still have you here.” I patted my ribs. “If anyone ever saw it, they would probably assume it for my mother, or sister—someone back in Russia.”
She threw herself into my arms. “I can’t believe you did that. For me! I’m…I’m...I’m speechless. I can’t believe it,” she babbled, tucking her wet face in my neck.
“I didn’t tell you this to make you cry, Katya,” I said in exasperation, pulling her back and wiping her wet cheeks. Her tears are my worst nightmare. “I told you so you’d understand that the decision to leave you wasn’t made lightly. Do you understand now?”
She nodded her head, her expression filled with such wide-eyed adoration I almost couldn’t meet her gaze. How was it possible that a guy with more blood on his hands than Jack the Ripper had landed this amazing, beautiful girl?
She reached up and ran her hand over my cheek again, leaning up to give me a soft kiss on the mouth. “Yes, Drago, I understand.”
God, I wanted to fuck her again, but people were starting to move around the apartment, and she was most likely sore from last night. Instead, I raised a hand to her cheek, rubbing lightly. “I hated it, but I had to try to let you live a normal life.”
She raised her eyebrows and snorted. “But you decided to put cameras in my apartment instead!”
I shrugged. It didn’t bother me that she knew about the cameras because I still felt it was the correct thing to do. I didn’t tell her when I did it because I knew she would overreact, not because I thought what I was doing was wrong.
She rolled her eyes. Apparently, she had been looking for me to show more remorse for my actions, but I had none. “Well, I can’t say I’m thrilled they’re there. You’re going to have to remove them.”
I raised a brow. “Why? You’re never going back there anyway.”
“What?”
I leaned forward and gripped her chin. “You’ll live here. With me,” he said.
“Because of Yuri?”
I shook my head. Why wasn’t she getting this? “I told you what would happen if I made you mine. I wasn’t kidding, Katya. Moya. You stay with me,” I said with firm finality.
Katya only stared at me, looking happy, but slightly overwhelmed. She cocked her head, a small grin playing around her mouth.
“A part of me is ecstatic we are finally together, but I have to admit, I kind of forgot that you’re so bossy.”
I leaned in until I was completely covering her body, my mouth hovering over hers. “Then I have bad news for you, kotyonok. It may have been difficult to deal with my bossiness before, but now that you are completely mine, I’m going to be much, much worse.” I needed to start as I intend to continue.
I saw her brow pucker at my claim, so I gave her mouth a hard, deep kiss to cut off the torrent of complaints I figured she was about to unload on me. I knew I’d be circumventing a lot of arguments this way.
When Katya started to claw my back, I pulled back, not wanting to go any further right now. She whined in displeasure and tried to pull me back to her, a move that made my dick throb in appreciation and nearly forget that she’d been a virgin twenty-four hours ago.
“No, moya, we need to get up. Last night was only your first time. You are in no shape to have sex again, and if we don’t stop now, I will not be stopping at all.”
She sighed and shot me a frustrated but resigned look. Instead of complaining, she climbed naked out of bed, my bed, giving me a wicked smile and challenge as she shook her ass at me while sauntering to the bathroom.
Everything in me wanted to answer that challenge, and I clenched the bedpost with an irritated grip, certain I was cracking the wood, once again stunned that the iron control I had developed over a lifetime of containing my emotional responses had been stripped of me so quickly.
Having Katya as mine was going to be an adjustment for both of us. She was going to have to fall in line and accept my overprotective measures because I didn’t want to consider what I’d do if I ever lost her.
Chapter 20
Katya
I stared at the water glistening in Drago’s damp hair, as we walked from the bedroom to the kitchen, the water making it look jet black. I was still wearing Drago’s t-shirt but had added a pair of his boxer briefs.
I was still the tiniest bit disgruntled that Drago had stopped us from having sex, though his reasoning was logical and conveyed a great degree of sensitivity for my well-being. He was right—I was more than a little sore but felt a zing of heat remembering how I got that way.
My feelings revealed the tendrils of insecurity that still lived under the surface of our newly established relationship, in spite of the tattoo he’d shown me. My god! That tattoo, with its flaming gold hair and hazel-green eyes. The tattoo artist must have had a picture to work from, because most matryoshka looked the same, but this one definitely looked like me.
I sighed, feeling conflicted. I wanted to believe in our relationship, but I had spent so long feeling spurned by him, now that we were together, I found myself anticipating imminent rejection. One half of me was jumping up and down and glorying our newfound commitment, the other side was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Drago turned to me and frowned, as if sensing my mopey thoughts. He paused and cocked his head, but only asked what I wanted to eat as he stood in front of the open fridge.
“Um, I don’t know. What do you have?”
He scratched his chin and appeared to take a visual inventory of the fridge.
“Don’t you now know what’s in your own fridge?” I asked in surprise.
Drago shot me a look. “Kotyonok, do I look like a man you’d find strolling around a grocery store?”
I laughed as I tried to imagine Drago pushing a cart in the produce aisle at the local Jewel. Absolutely not.
“Okay, we have eggs, milk, peppers, onion, broccoli, cheese, bread, lunch meat…looks like roast beef or something,” Drago droned the contents of his fridge as I stared at him, my heart bursting at this intimate domestic scene.
Drago shot me an inquiring look as I continued to grin like a crazy person, his expression turning from questioning to confused. “What are you smiling about?”
“This. Us. It’s so… I don’t know,” I shrugged, “homey.”
He shot me a half-grin. “If I’d known you became so ecstatic hearing the contents of my fridge, I would have dragged you in here last night when you were yelling at me.”
I laughed and walked to him, sliding my hands around his waist and leaning up to kiss his cheek. “I’m just enjoying this domestic side of you. When we lived together for the few months before my graduation, you were
hardly ever home and when you were, you definitely weren’t planning meals.”
He nodded his head. “If I had been around more, last night wouldn’t have been the first time you had sex,” he replied huskily. My breathing stuttered, and I considered dragging him back to the bedroom but was stopped when I heard Nikolai’s voice.
“Drago’s cooking breakfast?” Nikolai asked in disbelief as he sailed in the kitchen, towing a sleepy-looking Hannah behind him.
Drago snorted. “I don’t think my cooking would be good for anyone.”
I smiled. “I’m cooking, not Drago. How about scrambled eggs?” I stepped in front of Drago and peeked in the fridge. His arm immediately slid around my waist, and I felt a shiver that had nothing to do with standing in front of the refrigerator. “I think there are enough eggs for all of us.”
“I don’t care what you make, as long as we have coffee,” yawned Hannah. She and Nikolai got on stools at the breakfast bar, and she leaned her head heavily on his shoulder. He smiled down at her and planted a kiss on the top of her head.
“We all need to have a talk,” Drago said with sudden seriousness as he made his way to the coffee maker.
Nikolai’s indulgent expression immediately vanished. “What’s going on?”
“Get Anya.”
Drago was dumping the last heaping scoop of what looked to be toxically strong coffee into a filter when Anya came in the kitchen following Nikolai, rubbing her eyes with a look of disgruntled exhaustion on her face. Her white-blonde hair was sticking up at all angles from the bun on top of her head as though she had been periodically electrocuted through the night.
“This had better be important,” she grunted, plopping down on another stool.
Drago shot her a hard look, and she shook off her fatigue. Her expression morphed into alert readiness, her back straightening as if bracing herself for bad news.
“Maxim followed Alfonsi last night and saw him meeting up with Orlov, so we raided Callahan’s warehouse since it was Alfonsi that paid Callahan to take our guns. This shipment had explosives in it, which isn’t that uncommon considering the gunrunner we got the shipment from. He usually gives us mostly guns but always adds a small unit of explosives in his shipments. It’s like the free set of steak knives you get when you buy a bunch of steaks. Yuri must have remembered. We got the shipment back, but the explosives are missing.”
I gasped and dropped the egg I was holding on the floor. “What does he want with explosives?”
Drago looked grim. “I don’t know yet. We have to talk to Callahan directly and find out what Alfonsi told him. I doubt he knows Yuri was involved with Alfonsi when he agreed to steal the weapons.”
“That’s definitely true,” murmured Anya, as she took a sip of the nuclear-looking coffee that Drago had poured for everyone. “He hates Yuri.”
All eyes turned to her.
She glanced up. Her face turned red as she choked on her coffee. “Well, I mean, from what I understand of him, you know, what I’ve heard is that he doesn’t like Yuri,” she finished lamely, bringing her cup to take a sip and block us from her view.
Drago walked over to her and placed his hands on the counter in front of her.
“Anya, have you ever met Callahan? Do you guys have some type of history?”
“Um…” Anya cleared her throat.
“Anya!” Drago slapped his hand on the counter. “This is very important. Callahan has an axe to grind with us, and we thought it had to do with Yuri. However, Yuri doesn’t run the Bratva anymore. I do. Are you the reason he is still pissed with us?”
Anya took a deep breath and slumped in her chair. “Maybe.”
“What the hell, Anya? How does he even know you? You’re hardly ever in the field,” Drago barked.
Anya looked uncomfortable, practically shrinking in on herself, but I couldn’t tell if it was from Drago’s chastisement or having to explain something personal about herself. Anya wasn’t big on self-disclosure. “So, you know how you’ve had me learning tech stuff for the last couple of years, hacking and all that?”
Drago nodded.
“So, last year, I was on the dark web, there are lots of places hackers meet to help each other when looking for information, different codes to use, how to get into certain sites, like the government, or foreign countries, that stuff. I kept bumping into this one guy, and we started…I don’t know, talking, I guess,” she mumbled.
“You mean flirting,” Hannah supplied, before taking a sip of coffee and grimacing. “I need like fifteen spoonfuls of sugar and a gallon of milk to drink this.” I had just tried it and agreed with her wholeheartedly.
Anya shot her a surly look. “I mean, some people might call it that, but we liked to argue, challenge each other to get into different sites, stuff like that. It was fun, especially considering I rarely left my apartment,” Anya said, shooting Drago a meaningful look, looking at me then back to him.
Drago folded his arms over his chest. “Point taken, Anya, I get it. I asked you to stick around the apartment most nights to keep an eye on Katya. So, if you guys were flirting, why is he mad at you now?”
Anya grabbed a napkin in front of her and started it twist it. “We had been talking for months, he knows so much, it’s crazy. I had so many questions for him. I wanted to know how he got in so many untouchable sites. Did you know that most of his jobs are for hacking and tech stuff?” she asked, clearly still impressed with the man, then flushed as we just stared at her.
“Anyway, we were kind of getting along, so he asked where I lived. I told him Chicago, and he said he lived here, too. About a month ago, we decided to meet in a bar in Wicker Park. He told me how to identify him, a man wearing a kilt. It was a joke between us because he’s Irish, but everyone thinks because of his accent he’s Scottish.” Anya smiled a sweet smile of remembrance, clearly having developed more feelings for Callahan than she initially implied. “When I saw him, I recognized who he actually was, and…he recognized me.”
We all looked at Anya in confusion. “How would Callahan know you?” Nikolai asked for all of us.
Anya had almost completely shredded the napkin. “He knew my father. My father…Well, you all know what he did for Yuri. They’d had a run-in with Callahan about ten years ago when he first got to Chicago and was still small time. He pissed Yuri off and my father… my father dealt with him.”
I gasped. Nikolai and Drago tilted their heads back in comprehension, while Hannah darted looks between us, trying to ascertain Anya’s reference.
“Dealt with him how? What did Anya’s father do for Yuri?” Hannah finally asked.
“Torture,” Drago replied. “It’s barely noticeable now, but Callahan walks with a slight limp. Your father?”
Anya nodded her head, miserably. “He thought I set him up, as though I was torturing him in my father’s place. I tried to tell him I hadn’t even known about it, that my father was dead. Then…then he said he knew my father was dead.” Anya shook her head, her eyes glassy as she thought back to her conversation with Callahan. “I looked at him, and I knew. I knew right away.”
“Callahan killed him,” Drago confirmed grimly.
Anya nodded again. “He was so furious with me, so furious because even though Yuri was gone, he thought we were still torturing him. I didn’t even know what to say to calm him down, so I ran away.”
“Well, that explains why he was working with Alfonsi,” I said, shooting Anya a sympathetic look.
“Jesus Christ. Is there anyone in this fucking city we haven’t pissed off?” Drago griped and took a sip of coffee, showing no discernable reaction to its terrible taste.
Anya looked at Drago; her expression riddled with guilt. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know it mattered. We never had any real dealings with Callahan, so I never mentioned it. To anyone.”
Drago looked at her for a moment. Uneasiness etched on his hardened features. He was looking at a woman who had grown up with a brutal father amidst a ruthless criminal organ
ization. She’d never really gone to school or dated anyone. It was clear his knowledge of how she had been deprived of a normal life was at war with his aggravation over the decisions she had made. Decisions that were now blowing back on the organization.
Drago sighed. “Look, Anya, it’s over now. Even if you had told me about what happened, I wouldn’t have suspected him of working with Yuri anyway, so it wouldn’t have changed how any of this played out.” It wasn’t entirely true, but it was kind of Drago to say that.
“What do we do now?” asked Nikolai.
“I’m setting up a meeting with Callahan. Now that I know why he’s so pissed off, I can navigate that and get some answers about the Alfonsis. Hopefully, he’ll give us some idea of what the fuck Yuri is planning, so we can intercept him and finally put that motherfucker in the ground.”
It was a grim pronouncement, but we were all eager for Yuri’s death.
“Katya, you cannot go to school. You have to stay here, stay guarded. Yuri is going to be looking for any opportunity to go after you, and until I get more information, it’s too risky to have you outside.”
I opened my mouth to object, but he was right. There was nowhere that was safe if Yuri was in town. “Okay, but can I run back home with a guard and get my stuff? I’m going to be really bored, so I’ll need my laptop, clothes, stuff like that.”
Drago paused, looking conflicted. “I can have the men grab that for you. You don’t need to go.”
I walked over to stand in front of him so he could get the full effect of my pleading expression. “Look, Drago, I get why I have to stay here, I really do, but if I’m moving in here, I have to get the stuff I need. It will be really quick, in and out. Please,” I begged, raising my hands up in prayer position. The thought of Boris and Will packing my underwear was just too much.
“You’re moving out? Permanently?” Anya yelped.
My head jerked to the right where Anya, Nikolai, and Hannah were sitting. I’d forgotten they were in the room. Nikolai looked unsurprised as he took another sip of the dreadful coffee, Hannah looked ready to swoon, and Anya’s icy blue eyes were wide as saucers. Heat rushed to my cheeks, and ribbons of insecurity swirled to life again.
Drago (Dangerous Love Book 3) Page 9
