Chapter Four
One Week Later
“What is this all about?”
Anastasia asked.
“I want to see how good you can shoot.”
They were at his country home, far away from the city house, and he’d lined up several boards and handed her a simple gun. It looked like a Glock to her, not that she was an expert in guns.
“Why do I have to do this?”
“I want to know how good you are. Simple as that.”
Since her request to kill her father, life had gotten a little strange. Well, it might have been strange to her, but maybe that was just like with Bogdan. They went to three additional parties, where she spent all her time at his side. He hadn’t left her to be standing alone in the corner of the room while people pointed.
Bogdan kept her close. She was with him on business trips as well. They went to casinos and this time she got to sit with him while he was in meetings, which had been a new experience. She also got to see Galkin in his home, and they enjoyed a late lunch.
Again, it was no different than how she’d been spending the last few months, and yet it felt different. Each occasion Bogdan kept her close.
“Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
she asked.
“And what is that?”
“Testing Gustov!”
She glared at him. “He was good at what he did.”
“I don’t know. If we were under attack, I’d say you would have been dead long ago.”
“Ha, ha, ha, very funny.”
She held the gun within her grasp. It always unnerved her how much she enjoyed holding a gun.
Her mother would often laugh, but it was true. She enjoyed it in her hand, and in that moment, she wondered what it would feel like to point it directly at her father’s head. To have that kind of power. Why hadn’t she thought about that before? There had been many occasions she had the chance to kill her father, her stepbrothers, her stepsisters. All of them. Yet, she hadn’t taken it.
Lifting it now, she looked down the barrel of the gun, and in her mind, she saw her mother’s smiling face. She thought back to the few times they had been together when her father arrived. Looking back now, she saw the difference. The moment of panic and grief. Her mother hated her father, and yet Anastasia hadn’t seen it, and that alone pissed her off. It made her want to kill.
She fired her gun, twice at each target, loving the feel as it blasted out the end. Gustov taught her to be calm when firing a weapon.
Did Bogdan know he would take random items from around the house and force her to use them? In fact, there was one occasion where her mother waited outside, and Gustov, along with several of the soldiers he hired, were meant to form an attack, and she was to choose whichever item was in each room to fend them off.
The attack was over after an hour and a half, and she ended up trashing the whole house. She’d been worried about her mother’s anger at breaking stuff. It turned out that the night before, all valuable possessions had been stored and locked away. Everything she broke and used in self-defense was not valuable.
She trashed the house that day, throwing vases, using pokers, even pens. The soldiers hadn’t held back. They had been able to attack with guns, and it all came to an end right in the bedroom, where Gustov made his final attack, and she pulled his gun out, locked it into place, pointed it at him, and fired. He hadn’t loaded his gun. Otherwise, she would have killed him that day.
Gustov had smiled. To him, she had passed.
Holding the gun out to Bogdan, she waited.
Gustov had stopped randomly attacking her, but that didn’t mean she didn’t stop training. Her mother didn’t seem to mind her randomly going off shooting at targets. She never hunted. Killing live animals was not something she ever wanted to do.
“Not bad,”
Bogdan said.
She glanced toward the targets and saw each one had two shots to the head.
“Are we done now?”
she asked.
“No, you have to the count of twenty to find yourself a weapon.”
“What?”
“I want to know how you deal in hand-to-hand combat.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“One.”
“Bogdan, come on.”
“Two.”
She had eighteen seconds to make her escape, and the son of a bitch had taken her right to the bottom of the gardens. There was no way she was going to make it to the house where the weapons would be. She didn’t know the grounds well enough to find a garden shed.
This fucking sucked.
Anastasia took off, and she made the clearing toward the main garden, but it wasn’t enough time. She heard Bogdan advancing toward her. Veering left, back into the main flower garden, she quickly removed her sneakers and ran. The sneakers were making way too much noise, and she needed to be quiet. She tried not to panic.
This reminded her of that very day she was remembering with Gustov.
She crouched down behind one of the hedgerows and began to crawl along the ground. She made it around a corner and heard his footsteps. She hoped he didn’t have great hearing, because her heart was racing.
Gustov had been fun, almost like a game. This didn’t feel playful, and she had a horrible feeling that if she didn’t succeed here, she was going to die, and that alone was terrifying.
Her husband could kill her. This could be what he was waiting for. Did he want her wealth? Was this what her father hoped to avoid, by trying to take it for himself? Her head was not in the game, and this was not right. Bogdan didn’t want her money. He could have ended her life long ago.
This was … she didn’t know what this was, but then she heard him get close, and she paused. She waited.
From her vantage point, she saw his home up ahead. She didn’t have a clue where any of the garden sheds were, and no way to defend herself. The gardens were clean with no tools in sight that she could use as a weapon, and that meant she had to get to the house.
She took a deep breath. Counted to ten. Then she took a run, but she should have known he was close and gaining ground. She took off, running across the grass, but she was not up to the speed Bogdan was. Before she even made it halfway, he tackled her to the ground.
She would not go gracefully. It was a scuffle, one she had a feeling didn’t look elegant or right, but she managed to get free, only to have Bogdan capture her and take her to the ground. Within seconds, he had her arms trapped above her head, his hips pressing against her open thighs.
“Never get your arms trapped. Never allow them to spread your legs open. They can trap you and hold you captive and there is nothing you can do.”
Anastasia stared up at Bogdan. She didn’t know what she expected to see. Him gloating? Disappointment?
There was a smile on his face. This was not what she was expecting.
“What? Why are you smiling?”
“Because I have a feeling you’re going to handle yourself just fine.”
“Handle myself?”
“Gustov was a good teacher.”
She rolled her eyes. “He couldn’t have been that good. I’m trapped, and not in a good way either.”
She pulled on her arms and tried to glare at him, while trying not to think about the fact he was pressing against her core.
“You’re good, Anastasia.”
He leaned forward so his lips were right against her neck. She couldn’t help but hold her breath, and then she felt his whisper. “I’m just better.”
And then he kissed her cheek. It was a soft kiss. She felt her body tense, but it wasn’t in a bad way. His kiss felt nice. He hadn’t kissed her since the wedding.
She liked his kisses, and the strange thing was, in that moment, she wanted to kiss him again to see if the kiss they shared was as good as she remembered.
****
Bogdan wasn’t happy. Being called from his country home to deal with a problem was not how he wanted to spend his Saturday. He’d already given Anastasia the gun he’d purchased for her. Now that he knew she was more than capable of taking care of it, he didn’t see a reason for her not to be armed. He didn’t know at what level of desperation her father was, so he was much happier to be prepared.
With that, he was not going to leave her alone, so he left her at the main nightclub. The bar wasn’t open yet, and he’d ordered the barman to put on some tunes for his wife.
He was down in the basement of the club, dealing with a potential spy. This is what called him away from his current work.
Stepping into the basement, he saw Ivan smoking a cigarette, and the moment the other man saw him, he approached.
“I found him texting,”
Ivan said.
“This is what you called me away for on a Saturday?”
Bogdan asked.
“Look at the texts.”
He took the cell phone from Ivan, brought up the screen, and sure enough, numbers and dates had been sent in a text. Scrolling through all the data on the phone, ever since the man had been hired, there were numbers and dates going back to that point.
Moving past Ivan, he went straight to the man locked up. It was obvious to assume his identification was fake. The man saw him approach and he was pretty sure he heard a whimper. Not that it surprised him.
“Do you want to tell me about this?” he asked.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s nothing?”
Bogdan scrolled through the phone. The man was hired three months ago, exactly the same time he and Anastasia married. He clicked his tongue. “Try again.”
“I have no idea what is going on. I was working—”
“In my office?”
This made the man close his mouth.
He stared at him and then reached out, pulled on his shirt, and right there was the ink that declared him loyal to a Rinaldi. Bogdan sat back and tutted.
“Please, I was just supposed to give the figures of the club and the dates when you have deliveries.”
There was a sob.
Here came the usual story.
“You know, I was having a good Saturday. I had every intention of spending it with my wife, and now I’ve got to deal with you. My wife is upstairs. She’s Rinaldi’s daughter, and did you know he wants me to kill her?”
Bogdan tilted his head to the side.
“I think it is time to send him a message, don’t you?”
He turned to Ivan. “Pull it out.”
Ivan knew what to do, and from the look on his face, he was not a happy man. He couldn’t get blood on his suit, and he was done playing games. Well, he was done playing these types of games with Rinaldi’s little spy.
Pulling out his cell phone, he found Galkin’s number and dialed. He gave him the brief rundown of what he knew, along with the current spy.
“Have your fun, Bogdan,”
Galkin said, and then hung up.
He turned off his cell phone and turned back to Ivan, who had pulled the man’s cock out of his pants.
His knife was already waiting, and he stepped over toward the man. As he looked down at the man’s floppy dick, without a care in the world he sliced right through it. His screams echoed around the room, and once his cock was severed, he looked toward Ivan. “Post it to Rinaldi, now.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked at the man, blood pooling between his thighs, and he thought about the woman upstairs.
“This is going to go very badly for you, but I can bring it to an end, all you’ve got to do is tell me what the numbers are for.”
Perspiration dotted the man’s brow. He looked pale. Weak.
“Fuck you,” he said.
“Have it your way, but just so you know, the human body can withstand a lot before it dies, and until you give me what I want, you’re going to see a lot of pieces disappear.”
He got to his feet and knew Ivan would move him accordingly. There was not even a speck of blood on his suit, and that was a plus to him. He stepped out of the basement and made his way to the main floor.
He stepped out and allowed the door to close as he watched his wife—the only woman on the dance floor. The only person there. The music was loud, filling in all the spaces within the room, and his wife was not holding back as she danced her heart out, and he watched her, unable to look away. She wore a pair of jeans and a tight-fitting t-shirt, but she looked sexier than she ever had before. Her long, black hair fell around her body, but it moved as she swung her hips and danced. Her body was designed to fit against his.
Bogdan was mesmerized. He didn’t know the music, which was just some upbeat tune, but watching her made him ache. He wanted her close, and yet he knew he couldn’t get her close. She was a mystery.
Anastasia spun around and then offered him a smile. “Are you done?”
she asked.
“Business is finished for the day.”
“You know, I like this,” she said.
“What?”
“Being the only one at your nightclub.”
She danced her way toward him, and then came right to him with a jump. “It is a lot more fun when no one else is around.”
He couldn’t help but love this. How … free she was.
Dante had really fucked up in letting her live alone and away from this life. She stared into his eyes, and for once he didn’t see fear. He saw laughter and fire, and he was pretty sure he saw passion as well.
“Don’t you ever come here alone and just enjoy it?”
she asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It’s not for me to enjoy.”
She smiled. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a little grumpy?”
“No one has ever called me grumpy.”
She tutted. “Or if they have, have they not lived to tell about it?”
“Pretty much.”
He banded an arm around her, pulling her in close so she would know he was aroused. He was not going to hide it.
Anastasia was his wife, and he had given her enough time to come to terms with her place in his world. He had no intention of killing her, and the truth was, he wanted this marriage to be complete. In basic terms, he wanted to fuck his wife.
She let out a gasp, and he knew she felt his hard erection.
“Do you want to stay and dance some more?” he asked.
“No.”
“Good.”
Spinning her around, he placed a hand at her back, and together they walked out of the nightclub, toward his car. His men were there.
He hadn’t driven with them. They had separate cars, and they would be following him. He helped Anastasia into the passenger side and then took his place behind the wheel, turning over the ignition. He pulled out and headed back to their country home.
There was not a lot of business to handle over the next couple of days, and he wanted her to have the freedom to enjoy his other homes while she could.
He couldn’t help but randomly glance over at her. Did she want him too? He wasn’t gentle on their wedding night. Had he ruined her interest in sex?
He’d never been in this kind of situation. When it came to women, he loved to fuck and they did as well. There was no past to deal with. And he certainly never had to consider their virginity either. He’d taken Anastasia’s, but she was still very much a virgin, there was no getting away from it.