Chapter 9
“What is that?” Elana leans over me, trying to get a look at the laptop screen.
“An alarm.” I turn off the one on my phone and switch over to the surveillance feed on the laptop to get the video pulled up.
I yank on my boxers while the feed boots up. Elana stands beside me, her shirt barely covering her bare ass.
“Is that my apartment?” She reaches for the computer, but I brush her hand away. I need to see who’s there.
The alarms trigger when the locks on the front door or any of the windows have been tampered with. Or as in this case, when someone busts open the door.
“That’s my living room!” She shoves at my shoulder. “You have cameras in my apartment? How the hell did you even do that?”
“You were at work,” I say clicking over to a new angle. One that shows me the hallway.
Three men are in her apartment. The hallway is clear, but when I check the exterior cameras I find their car, a black SUV with tinted windows double parked and idling on the street.
“You just broke into my apartment and set up cameras?” The irritation wanes with her next question. “You’ve been watching me when I was alone?”
I take the second to glance over my shoulder, and so fucking glad I did. A soft pink blush blooms on her cheeks. She’s realized what I’ve seen.
“I didn’t watch that.” I assure her. As much as I wanted to keep my eyes glued to the computer screen on those nights she spread her thighs and brought herself release, I let her have her privacy.
Even a monster like me can be respectful.
She didn’t belong to me yet, but she does now. There won’t be any privacy going forward.
A clamor rises from the video feed, and I turn back in time to see her bedroom being turned upside down. The dresser drawers are yanked out, the mattress is being flipped over.
“What are they looking for?” I ask her.
“Me. You said they would be coming for me.” She lifts a shoulder, avoiding my eyes.
I stand to my full height and look down at her. “Now is a bad time to lie to me, Elana. They wouldn’t be looking for you beneath a mattress. What are they looking for?”
She sinks onto the edge of the bed. “I don’t know, Artem.”
“You do.” Turn to face her, hooking my hands on my hips. Men have pissed themselves staring up at me the way she is now. Trying to hide secrets they know I’m going to extract from them one way or another.
Elana sits pretty, not talking.
“Elana.”
“I don’t know what they’re looking for.” She snaps. “I mean, they can’t know anything right? They work for Janis.”
“Nothing’s here.” A tense voice comes from the computer, and we both turn to watch the screen.
“She’s cleared out; she must have taken it with her.”
The third man pulls out a cell phone. “I’m making the call. Let’s head to the Devil’s Clover.”
Stepping over the mess they’ve made of the place, they file out of the bedroom. The screens change as they make their way through the apartment until they walk out the front door. It closes, but there’s no latch to catch anymore so it creeps open an inch.
Switching to the exterior cameras I zoom into the license plate on the SUV and snap a screen shot.
“What are you doing?” She asks when pull out my phone.
I point a finger at her. “Sit your pretty ass down while you still can.”
Her hands instinctively go to her ass, covering her still red cheeks.
“You can’t just keep—”
I turn my back on her when my call is answered and step out into the hallway.
“I’m sending you a screenshot of a license plate. I need a trace on the owner.”
“Got it. Let me get to my set up.”
From the background a woman asks him how long he’s going to be.
“Did I interrupt your evening?” Through my bedroom door I see the interruption to my own evening wiggling back into her leggings.
She catches me watching and frowns. I keep staring.
“Do you care if you did?” He shoots back at me.
“Not really, no.” I move into the living room, grabbing a clean pair of jeans from the basket on the couch.
Clicking of a keyboard sounds from the other end of the line.
“Didn’t think so,” he says. “Plates running now. You know they could have swapped out plates, stolen plates, or have fake ones.”
“I know they can, but did they?” I zip up and move to the window to look down at the street.
Odds of Janis or anyone else being able to find me are minuscule, but never zero. They found Elana’s apartment faster than I thought they would. Maybe I underestimated Janis.
On the outside he appears to be a street thug with too much time on his hands, but if he’s backed by actual power there might be more of a threat than I originally assessed.
“No. They did not.” Sasha says. “The SUV is owned by a Killian Murphy”
My spine stiffens. “What’s he doing in Boston? He operates out of Detroit.”
More clicking on the other side of the phone. “He does… I remember Ivan needing information on him. If I remember correctly, there was a family connection in Boston. One second, let me do a quick search.”
Elana is standing in the doorway of the living room when I turn around. She leans against the wall with her arms folded over her chest and her eyes fixated on me.
If I thought a quick ass tanning was going to tame the fire in her, I’d be a fucking moron. But I’m not looking to extinguish the flames.
“Yes. There’s a cousin in Boston.”
“Who’s his cousin?” I ask, but the sour spot in the pit of my stomach already knows.
“Cole.” More tapping.
“I know him.”
“You have trouble?”
I stare at her lifted eyebrows and the look of impatience darkening her eyes.
“I definitely do,” I mutter. “But nothing I can’t handle.”
“Rurik mentioned a trip to the east coast. He might be out your way if you need more hands.”
“I’m hoping not to let it get to that. But good to know.”
“Sasha, are you coming back or not?” A woman demands, and I laugh.
“I’ll let you get back to your night.”
“So? What did you find out?” Elana asks the moment I pull my phone away from my ear.
“I told you to sit down and wait.” I brush past her, into the bedroom.
“No, you just said to sit my pretty ass down. Which I did. But then I got back up.” She leans a hip against the dresser as I pull out a clean shirt from my duffel bag.
“You still think I’m playing with you?” I step up to her, wrapping my hand around her throat, I push her against the wall. Her throat works beneath my hand as she swallows.
“Artem.”
“No, Babygirl. What do you call me?” I squeeze just enough for her to feel the pressure.
Her eyes widen, but so do her pupils.
“Why?”
“Because, I told you to.” I get closer, leaning into her, I brush my nose along her jawline, to her ear. “You’re being naughty again, and so soon after your first spanking. Tell me, Elana, what do you call me when you’ve been naughty and need your punishment?”
Her tongue runs along her bottom lip. Those plump fucking lips that I want around my cock as soon as humanly possible.
Which isn’t tonight because I have to get her somewhere safer than my apartment.
Janis and his little street thugs probably wouldn’t be able to find me, but if they’re tied up with the Irish, I can’t be as sure.
“Go on, say it.”
“Daddy,” she whispers and the soft tenor of her voice goes straight to my cock.
“That’s right. Daddy. Now tell Daddy what those men were looking for. What did you take that they want back?”
“Bearer Bonds.”
I take a slow breath in, keeping my grasp on her tight, though my grasp on my patience is getting a lot less stable.
“How much in bearer bonds, Elana?”
She swallows hard. Her brows knit together. There’s a long pause but then she answers, “Three million.”
“US dollars?”
She gives a little nod. “You’re hurting me.” She wraps her hands around my wrist, trying to push me away.
“How did you get three million dollars in bearer bonds?”
“Tony had them. He was going to make a deal with Janis. He had them so he could fund whatever he was going to do without having to get cash from his brothers. He said he was going to start a business on his own, away from them.”
“Did you believe him, that he was separating himself from his family?”
Tears build in her eyes. I’ve struck a nerve.
I let her go, taking a step away from her and dragging my hands through my hair.
“I didn’t know at first, about his family. And when I found out, he said he wanted nothing to do with them. That he was the outcast.” That fucker knew exactly what to say to get her on his side.
She blinks away the tears before they can fall. “I wanted to believe him, but I don’t think I ever really did, but I was too busy telling myself all sorts of lies to be able to untangle his.”
Silence falls between us. This is the most she’s said about her relationship with Tony, and I don’t want her to freeze up on me, or worse, try to run away. So, I don’t push her.
Besides, if she tells me she fell in love with him, I’m not sure I could keep my heart from jumping straight out of my chest to die a dramatic death at her feet.
“You still have them?” I ask instead.
She nods. “In my bags.”
“Get your shoes on.” I start stuffing my clothes into my duffel bag and grab my laptop.
“Why? Where are we going? I thought you said we were safe here.”
“We’ll be safer where I’m taking you.”
“Wait. Just wait.” She puts her hands up in the air as though she can stop time. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes wild, and I realize she’s on the brink of panic. “If they want the bonds, just give it to them. I don’t need the money.”
“You don’t get it. You’re a Volkov. You stole three million dollars and tried to barter a deal with Janis, in Cole O’Brien’s town. Giving the money back isn’t going to solve this. Right now, I’m taking you somewhere no one will find us, and then I’m going to figure out what the fuck to do next.”
“If I give him the money won’t that be good faith gesture, proof that I wasn’t trying to do anything behind his back?”
“Cole has been itching for a reason to go inch his way west, this gives him an opening. He’s not going to give that up for a few million dollars.”
Slinging my duffle over my shoulder, I march through the apartment to my front door.
“Well, hiding isn’t going solve this. Isn’t that what Kaz and everyone else has been telling me over the past few months? Isn’t that why they all want me to go home?”
His eyebrows raise. “If you want to go home, we can get on a plan right now.”
And have to face my brothers with this brand new mess I’ve created? No, thank you.
“No. Not yet. But really, I think if I can just talk to Cole—”
“We’re leaving. You can sit in the front seat with me, or you can spend the two-hour drive in the trunk. Make a decision.”