Chapter 3
Anya
“What?” The word leaves me with a laugh.
He can’t possibly be serious. There is no way in hell that he is the new owner of Haven. I feel like his name should ring a bell somewhere in my mind, but it just doesn’t.
Volkovich is definitely Russian, and he carries himself like a man who has an inflated sense of self-importance. I narrow my eyes at him, opening my mouth to question what the fuck he means, but my unspoken words are silenced when another man appears at his side.
The newcomer is shorter and bulkier with a scar dissecting one cheek. Nikolai glances toward him and says, “Alexei, check her ID.”
“Alexei, don’t even dare touch her.” I correct the man. I stare at Nikolai, hardly daring to blink.
He looks at me as if I”m amusing in the same way that a baby bird learning to flap its wings is cute. It’s condescending. If he wasn’t so damned tall it would be less annoying. He’s obviously underestimating me because of my size. I hate that. Volkovich has to be pushing six foot three… or more. It hurts my neck to look up at him. I think each of his arms is approximately the size of my thigh. His clothes are expensive, and to add to the whole thing, he smells incredible. Some sort of sweet, musky cologne that surrounds me. Like peaches and black velvet… or star anise and cinnamon in the middle of the woods somewhere.
I’m so focused on our staring contest that I don’t notice Alexei move until it’s too late. The smaller, blonde frame slips behind me swiftly. A knowing smirk starts on Nikolai’s face before it registers why he’s smiling.
“Hey!” I argue as Alexei grabs my wrist and painfully wrenches it behind my back. “What are you—stop it! Hey!” I protest loudly, attempting to slide out of the painful grip he has on my arm, but I’m failing. Each time I move, Alexei curls my arm just a little tighter.
He pushes his hand into my back pocket and grabs my ass firmly as I try to fight him off, but he keeps me in the hold as he shoves his hands into my pockets. Finally, he plucks my driver’s license from my jeans and hands it over to Nikolai, who takes one look at the ID and laughs. He can hardly believe his good luck. He holds the ID up to the side of my face to verify that it’s actually mine, and his arrogant, slappable smirk spreads wider.
“Anya Griffith,” he says, a sardonic undercurrent running through his tone as he turns the card over in his hand. “Twenty-four years old and an organ donor. How sweet, and such a nice picture.”
His sarcasm makes me itch, and I”d give anything to snatch my ID from his grasp and wipe that wry smile off his face. The air of superiority surroundinghim is everything I hate. Bullies infuriate me, and he”s inciting my fury like no one else has before.
Why is nobody stopping this? None of my friends have shown up to see what”s going on or why this man thinks it”s okay to cuff me like this. He’s not that scary looking. I’m clearly not into this.
Nikolai sniffs. “Cuff her, Alexei, we’ll be taking this one with us.”
“Like hell!” Terror makes my stomach roil. “Let me go,” I say as I feel the cold snap of hard metal around my wrist before I’m jerked in the other direction as my other wrist is cuffed as well, tight enough to bite into my skin.
I haven’t done anything to deserve this. I have never been treated like this in my entire life!
Nikolai stands inches in front of me, clearly pleased with himself. His strong jaw clenches as he looks down at me, lingering on the way my chest has jutted out toward him, and I feel a shiver of fear course through my sinews.
“You have no right to storm in here like this and act like you own the place! You can’t do this! I don’t know who you think you are, but let me tell you it’s not going to work, asshole!”
Narrowing his dark, emotionless eyes, he chuckles coldly. “Don’t involve yourself in things that don’t concern you, sweetheart,” he warns me, but I will not buckle beneath his stare. No matter how wickedly thrilling it might be.
“It involves me if you’re kidnapping me!” I exclaim, stunned by his heartlessness.
I realize that I must pull out the ace in my pack, even though I don’t want to. It’s a card that I rarely play, and this will be the second time I’ve used it tonight. Normally I wouldn’t dare, but I don’t see any other options available to me.
“Besides,” I continue, pushing every inch of indignation and fury into my stare. “This is my business,” I inform him, almost nose-to-nose with the man. “My father owns this place.”
My words seem to spark curiosity within him and I notice how his shoulders tense. “Actually, no, your father doesn’t own the club anymore.”
Confusion washes over me in a cold deluge. “What?”
“It’s a shame you weren’t informed, sweetheart, this place is in the hands of a new owner. And that new owner just happens to be me,” he reveals, sending icy shocks coursing through my blood.
I can barely process his words as he talks. It cannot be true. I might not talk to my father often, but he would have told me if he had sold my favorite night club. He would have warned me that things would be changing. This man is a liar. He has to be.
“Besides,” Nikolai continues. “I didn’t give you permission to be here, and I highly doubt that you paid a cover charge. So technically, you’re trespassing on my property. I don’t take kindly to such things.”
I want to rage against him. It has to be a lie. There is no way that my father would suddenly sell his beloved club. He would have warned me. Right? Yet, I can tell this man is deadly serious. Suddenly, I cannot tell truth from lie.
“Who the hell are you, really?” I hiss as our gaze clash.
“Oh, you’ll find out exactly who I am,” he replies.
I desperately struggle to hide the quiver that shakes me down to my bones.
“I don’t like it when people are on my property uninvited and I’m afraid that you’ve forced me to act. I’m going to have to take you into citizen custody as a part of the stand-your-ground law, so conveniently enacted in the great state of Nevada.”
His tyrannical tone rankles with me, and I’m determined to show him that he’s not the only one that can stand their ground.
“You’re full of bullshit,” I spit. “If you want to arrest me for not having your precious permission to be here, surely you should arrest every single person in this club.”
That familiar chuckle I’m already learning to hate echoes in my ears again. “But I don’t want anyone else,” he retorts, leaning closer to me.
Before I can push him away, his hands reach my shoulders and he pulls me up against him. I wish I wasn”tcuffed because I”d scratch at him. I”d do anything to free myself. But I can’t. I’m trapped and my world is imploding. I cannot let this man take me. I cannot allow him to remove me from this club, no matter what. But Ihave this horrible gut feeling that I”ve already lost.
My face is buried against his chest and I can’t avoid breathing in the musky scent of his cologne. Beneath my ribs, my heart starts to pound so hard that I fear it might explode. His rough hands cup my cheeks as he tilts my head back and stares into the depths of my eyes. In his, I see nothing but darkness. It terrifies me as I’ve never seen such a swirling void before.
For several seconds, he stares emotionlessly at me and then, without missing a beat, he fuses his lips to mine. There is nothing tender about the embrace as I struggle against him but there is no reprieve. He kisses me violently, laughing against my lips when I writhe helplessly in his arms. This is turning the bastard on and I know it. The harder I fight him, the more I feel the evidence of his arousal against my hip. He tastes like vodka and soda with a hint of spearmint. And I really don’t care for the way that my body is responding to being manhandled.
Despite my best efforts, he is stronger than me, and he clearly wants to show me who he thinks is the boss. He bites down on my lip hard enough to draw blood as I futilely try to pull away one last time. I yell in pain, and tears well up behind my eyes, but I refuse to give him the satisfaction of letting them fall.
He finally breaks the embrace and leans in to brush his lips overmy earlobe. As he pants breathlessly against me, I feel my own blood dripping down my chin and his hot breath on my shoulder. “No,” he whispers lasciviously and I can hear the smirk in his tone. “I really do not want anyone else.”
“Try that shit without my hands bound, asshole, and you’ll get what’s coming to you!”
I spit the blood and saliva that collected in my mouth at him, and smirk with satisfaction as it lands on the side of his face. I was hoping to repulse him but the fucker just smirks. He lifts a hand to the collected fluids and wipes it away with his thumb, sucking it off his finger.
“You’ve got fire… I can already tell I’m going to have so much fun breaking you.”
I’m shaking now and I can no longer hide it. “Go to hell! Whatever it is that you think that you’re pulling, you aren’t going to get away with it!”
Nikolai’s dark gaze drops down to my lips once more. “Oh, but I already have.”
Swallowing harshly, I force my breath in and out of my lungs. “What the fuck do you want with me?”
“You’ll find out soon, sweetheart.”
Before I can utter a response, I feel a sharp pain at the base of my skull and my world dissolves into darkness.