Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
M y hands gripped the steering wheel hard as I raced down the highway, trying to get to Crave Café before Rayna left. Drea sat in the passenger seat, throwing me weird looks that I didn’t have time to decipher right now, while Dayton sat in the back.
When I’d first gotten the call, excitement had burst inside me.
Finding Rayna and Dominik had been one of our top priorities, but no matter how hard we looked we just had no idea where they were hiding.
We’d get hits from Nik’s facial recognition software every now and then, but by the time we showed up at the location she was always long gone.
She never stayed in one place too long, always making sure to leave before we had the chance to catch up with her. Dominik hadn’t been sighted once, which was strange. If he was still in Vegas, a camera somewhere should have picked him up, but there was nothing. Not even a whisper of his presence.
Which meant he was either laying really, really low, or he was gone.
If he left Vegas, it would make tracking him ten times harder.
The opportunity to finally catch Rayna was too important to pass up, and that meant I had no choice but to take Drea with me.
I would have much preferred to take her back home, but I simply didn’t have the time. I couldn’t risk Rayna leaving before I got the chance to come back.
So here she was, riding shotgun while I went on an important mission for the Bratva. For my family.
If my father ever found out, he’d have me in the ring so fast I’d get whiplash.
“Are you gonna tell me what’s going on? You squeeze that steering wheel any harder and it’s gonna pop in your hands,” Drea said, staring at me with those pretty amber eyes that saw way too much.
My blood heated at the memory of her pinned beneath me, of her pussy squeezing my cock so hard I saw stars.
She was fucking perfect. Wild. Free. She had a sexual appetite that matched my own, and that was a damn hard thing to come by.
I’d tried the belt on Mila once but she’d called on her safe word instantly. Of course, I understood. It took an immense amount of trust to let someone do that to you. To let yourself be so vulnerable around another person.
I’ll admit I’d expected Drea to do the same, and it surprised the hell out of me when she didn’t. The woman was fucking fearless.
I’d broken so many of my rules with her already. I couldn’t even bring myself to care at this point. I’d never allowed myself to fuck a woman without protection, regardless of what contraception she might have been on. And yet, one word from Drea and I couldn’t get inside her fast enough.
It was like a compulsion. I needed to know what she felt like. I wanted to feel her pussy rippling around me with nothing between us.
It was… heavenly . Those sweet little moans she made. The way she moved against me, grinding herself on me like she couldn’t get enough. The way she said my name, rolling the ‘R’ with that hot, Spanish accent— fuck .
Just thinking about it all made me so hard I had to readjust myself.
How was I supposed to marry another woman and just forget about her? Never see her again? The thought alone made me angry enough to fucking kill someone.
For the first time in my life, I was frustrated with the obligations of the Bratva. It made me frown.
I loved my life. Even though it was hard, brutal and bloody, I fucking loved it. I’d never once felt the desire to pack up and leave. Not that I ever would. I would never abandon my family.
Still, the fact that I had the thought at all was concerning.
“Well?” Drea prompted. “What’s going on? Why are you driving around the place like you’re in a Mario Kart race with that sour look on your face?”
I frowned, glancing her way. “I do not have a sour look on my face.”
“Uh, you kinda do,” Dayton piped up from the backseat. I glared at him through the rearview mirror.
His hands flew up in surrender. “What? You do! It’s your ‘I’m about to kill someone’ face. I know. I’ve seen it before.”
I grunted, my focus back on the road.
“Come on, Big Guy, tell me what’s happened. Who was that on the phone earlier? Why are you so pent up after we worked so hard to rid you of all that tension?”
Dayton gagged. “Please, God. Don’t remind me.”
“Ignore him,” Drea said, throwing him a scowl. “Come on.”
I was conflicted. On one hand, I wanted to tell her everything.
I wanted to open up to her and share all the shit that had been going on lately, all the stress I was under.
But on the other hand, I knew I couldn’t.
This was family business. Bratva business.
I couldn’t go sharing private details with someone who was still technically the enemy.
So I gave her the basics. I told her Rayna was someone who betrayed us and handed Illayana over to Nero.
Considering she’d been betrayed the same way by her people, she understood and didn’t dive any further into it.
“I hope you’re going to kill her,” she stated firmly, eyes hard.
“Not at first. But she’ll die. Eventually.” I parked the car in the same alley behind Crave Café as last time.
The Cleaners had done a phenomenal job cleaning up the mess I’d made. You couldn’t even tell someone had died here. The only evidence remaining of Peroxide was the dark stain of his blood on the concrete and even then, you couldn’t really tell it was blood.
“Good.” A dark smile crossed her face. “Can I watch?”
My lips curled into a devilish smirk. Of course the woman would want to watch. Vindictive little thing. As much as I would have loved that, I couldn’t allow it. Father would likely be there during the interrogation if I managed to catch Rayna.
There was no reason to justify having Drea there. None that I could think of right now, anyway.
Instead of answering, I leaned forward, running my tongue over her bottom lip. Fuck . She had the softest lips I’d ever felt. Full, plump and attached to the most fuckable mouth in the world.
Drea’s breath hitched slightly, her eyes flaring with desire.
“Stay here,” I rumbled over her lips before I opened the door, stepping out of the car.
“Wait, what?” Drea exclaimed, leaning to the side to look at me. “I don’t get to come?”
“Sorry, malyshka ,” I said, pulling out my Beretta, checking the clip and chamber before tucking it behind my back. “I need you to stay here. I can’t focus on doing what I have to do if I’m worried you’ll run down the street the first chance you get.”
Her jaw dropped in outrage. “Are you serious? If I wanted to do that, I would have done it back at the Rage Room. Besides, I gave you my word I wouldn’t bolt.”
“And I believe you. To a degree.” I slammed the door shut and held the key fob up in the air so she could see it.
Her eyes widened. She lunged for her door handle, but I locked it before she got the chance to open it.
“Aleksandr! Don’t you dare leave me in here!
?Hijo de puta!” You son of a bitch! She screeched.
Her voice carried out through the small crack in the window I’d allowed so they wouldn’t suffocate in there.
“I’ll be back soon,” I yelled as I rounded the hood of the car, heading for the entrance into the alley.
“You’re seriously going to lock me in your car and leave me here when I’ve got your cum dripping down my leg?!”
I turned, amusement shooting through me. I stared through the front windscreen, Drea glaring back, and Dayton’s face flushed with embarrassment at her words.
“Be a good girl, Drea. I’d hate to have to punish you,” I taunted.
That was a bold-faced lie. Just the thought of punishing her made me hard as a rock.
The scowl Drea threw my way said she was going to make my life a living hell for leaving her locked in the car.
Bring it on, malyshka. I loved to play.
* * *
I stared through the window of Crave Café, watching Rayna as she sipped on her coffee, laughing at something her male companion said.
She sat at the back in a corner booth wearing a floral red summer dress, her brown hair up in a ponytail. A few tables away sat two men dressed in dark clothing, their faces hard and impassive. One kept an eye on Rayna while the other continuously scanned the room, looking for danger.
Despite not playing an active role in the Bratva, Rayna still had a guard detail. She knew how to fight like all of us. Sergei Volkov couldn’t be known for having weak grandchildren, after all. But she wasn’t as vigorous about her training as we were.
My cousin liked to bitch and moan about how she would have made a good Enforcer if only my father had given her a chance, but the truth of the matter was, she simply wasn’t built for it. She cared more about going viral on Tik Tok than she ever did about the Bratva.
Her entire life revolved around social media, around finding out what the next biggest trend was and jumping on it as quickly as possible.
My father had decided to give her a chance once. He let her tag along to a merch drop with The Latin Kings, who were in the middle of a brutal turf war with the 18 th Street Gang. They wanted enough hardware to wipe them off the map. Machine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, handguns—the works.
The deal was made. All we had to do was show up with the merchandise, count their cash and part ways. A super simple job with almost zero chance of anything going wrong.
Of course, that was until Rayna decided to whip out her phone and try to take a group selfie of us all, cash and guns clearly on display.
She’d held the phone up in the air, posing with those stupid duck lips like we were her girlfriends at the bar on a girls’ night out instead of in the middle of important fucking business.
Her idiocy had cost us not only that deal, but The Latin Kings as a client. They didn’t want anything to do with us after that. Not that I could blame them.
Father didn’t trust her, but he gave her a chance because she’s family, and she threw it back in his face with that stupid stunt.