16
As the music swirled around me, cresting toward the finale of my performance, I dropped to my knees and crawled toward the edge of the stage, where Ivan Tarasov’s lidded gaze was locked on mine. Leaning forward, ass in the air like a fucking lioness in heat, I pumped my hips, thighs straddling the floor.
Two.
Three times.
His hands fisted as I slid closer, tongue curling the edges of my lips. My mind threatened to retrieve inside itself—I was too close, too open—but I had to see this through. I needed him to feel like the luckiest bastard in the building. The only one. Ivan needed to crave my mouth on his cock more than his next breath.
“Fuck, baby,” he growled as I turned and thrust against the stage one last time. The song faded, and the club erupted into hoots and crude catcalls.
Straightening, I threw a heated stare over my shoulder, catching him as he relaxed into his plush V.I.P. sofa and whispered into one of his lackey’s ears.
Slowly, I diverted my gaze, drawing his eyes with my own until I was out of sight, where I could finally release a steadying breath and wait for the invite—or rather, demand—I knew would follow.
The knob crashed into the adjacent wall of my dressing room when I burst through the door. I snatched a water bottle from my vanity and tipped my head, chugging down the cool liquid as I tempered the bloodlust coursing like fire through my veins.
Three days had me nearly frothing at the mouth to paint my hands red with his blood. I knew he’d be back. Men like him thought themselves gods. He’d have come here every day, chosen a different girl, violated and maimed her, all without care for repercussions, because his money and power had gifted him that false sense of invincibility his whole life.
But today, he’d learn a hard truth. Pity it would be a little too late.
“Amara.”
I whipped around to find Santino standing beneath the threshold. His expression was unreadable, but if the tension in his shoulders was anything to go by, something told me he wasn’t in the best of moods.
“Next time, knock.”
“The door was open.”
I was not in an argumentative mood, so I waited, allowing him to say his piece. But testing my patience seemed to be his favorite pastime lately. Huffing an exasperated breath, I returned to the mirror and touched up my lipstick, hoping my show of indifference was just as frustrating.
“Looks like you got your wish.”
“Let me guess. Tarasov?” I asked with feigned innocence.
“Do you know who that man is?”
“Someone who will pay my bills. That’s all the information I need.”
Santino stepped inside and slammed the door closed. I froze, meeting his reflection .
“Get out.”
“He’s Bratva—the kind in the business of selling sex, if you know what I mean.”
He couldn’t imagine how much.
“It’s just a lap dance, Santi,” I taunted, the nickname briefly making his eyebrows twitch.
“Amara, this isn’t a joke.”
A sudden rush of anger set my blood on fire, and I twisted around and leveled him with an accusatory glare.
“Is that what you told Cambri when Ivan requested a private with her three days ago?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
I wanted to unleash the red-hot rage pumping through my veins, scream at the top of my lungs what that bastard had done to her, but I couldn’t blow my cover.
“Even if you had, I doubt you would have tried to stop her.”
“You’re not Cambri.”
Smacking the lipstick against the vanity, I stalked forward, needing to end this—to kill whatever he thought could happen between us.
“I am Cambri. We’re all Cambri. I take my clothes off and shake my ass for money, too, Santino .” I swallowed the space between us, but he didn’t budge or seem fazed in the slightest. “I don’t need or want special treatment. So, if you’ll excuse me, my client is waiting.”
His fingers wrapped around my wrist, and he tugged me back. “You’re not going.”
“Careful. Because maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m not like Cambri.”
His dark gaze thinned, but instead of heeding the warning, he pushed closer.
“Is that a threat, preziosa ?”
The whisper of a grin on his lips had my hands itching to reach for my blade. But I was fooling myself. And I knew it. “Do you feel threatened?” I challenged, nudging his chest.
Santino loomed over me in a way that made me question my sanity. I’d never felt the urge to climb a man the way I did at that moment unless I was about to slit their throat. God, I wanted to hate him, but I hated myself because I knew I didn’t. And when the tip of his nose brushed my cheek, I didn’t pull away.
“You scare me. I’ll admit that. But not in the way you think.”
“Sounds like I’ve got work to do.”
“Perfect.”
The air simmered between us. But neither moved an inch. Santino’s eyes on my lips forced my teeth to drag a corner inside my mouth. I could barely remember the hunger of wanting to be kissed, and I was mortified the thought had even crossed my mind.
“Get out,” I said from between my teeth.
His grin opened up, and he leaned in a second time, “ Cosa mi hai fatto? ”
I wasn’t fluent in Italian, but whatever he’d whispered into my ear caused a flush of wetness between my thighs.
Shit.
I was in Ivan Tarasov’s vehicle and in his lap, within thirty minutes of our private. Santino would lose his shit when he found out I’d left the club with the very client he’d forbid me to see, but my boss was at the bottom of my list of worries. And so, I tucked all thoughts of him into a safe place, focusing my attention on the sack of meat in front of me.
“I’m going to take good care of you, malyshka .”
“I’m sure you will.”
His fingers combed through my hair, the other hand snaking up the back of my neck. It took over a year after my escape to lose the tremors and impending panic attack that would ensue at even the slightest hint of a sexually charged touch. I’d learned to temper my fear, internalize and lock it up, then spit it back out as raw and unfettered rage .
“You are what I call an exotic beauty. Where are you from?”
“Miami.”
An unamused chuckle bubbled up his throat, and he tightened his grip a little more than I was comfortable with. “You know what I mean.”
It was easy to deduce that Ivan was the type of man who got off on being in charge and loathed disrespect. One moment, he spoke in a way meant to lull me into a state of complacency, where I unquestioningly handed over my trust as easily as my body. The next, he demanded it through aggression.
Leaning into his ear, I murmured, “ Brasil .”
“Are all the women there as gorgeous as you?”
His hand wound around my neck as the car came to a stop inside a mostly empty parking garage. Cambri had said he lived on a gated property. But apparently, he was giving me the penthouse special—only I had no interest in stepping foot out of this car until he was no longer breathing.
“Are you asking me about other women while I’m grinding my pussy in your lap?”
He grazed his mouth up the length of my neck.
“You may be in my lap, malysh , but you’re just another whore for me to do as I please.”
Just. Another. Whore.
And just like that, the facade of this night and his life had ended.
Closing my eyes, I reached for the pendant hanging between my breasts and unsheathed a short blade, driving it into the side of his neck. I met his stunned eyes and stuck him again, basking in the red squirting between his tightly clasped fingers.
“Cambri sends her regards.”
“ Suka ,” he gruffed as he slid a hand into his waistband.
I caught his wrist just as he grasped the handle of a gun.
“Can’t have you shooting me. The last thing I need is another scar.”
The small blade plunged into his side three times as I wrestled to keep his weapon out of play until he was fully incapacitated. He shoved me, but as I fell, I grabbed onto his bloodied collar, taking him with me and continuing my assault. The fucker seemed to have nine lives, and the more I stabbed him, the harder he fought.
When a single shot pierced the vehicle’s cabin, we froze, eyes locking for a fraction of a second until I found the perfect home for the sharpened steel in my hand. Ivan’s blue iris made the most satisfying squelching noise, followed quickly by his pathetic howls.
I wanted to revel in his suffering, but his driver would be tearing open the passenger door soon enough.
“Sit tight, friend. I’ll be right back.” Having lost all his fight, he gurgled a reply and stared aimlessly at the roof with his remaining eye.
The moment I pushed open the door, and just as I predicted, the bald driver exploded from the car and began firing. I managed to duck and roll behind the trunk.
“Shit.”
Screeching tires in the distance let me know there were more assholes incoming, so I took aim from beneath the car and shot at the man’s ankles, hitting him twice and putting a bullet through his face when he hit the pavement.
I jumped to my feet and climbed over Ivan’s twitching body as it hung halfway out of the door, his head twisted on the concrete in a puddle of blood.
That bastard had the nerve to still be alive.
My night had taken a completely different turn than I’d planned. I was supposed to be in his bedroom, surprising him with a few of my favorite blades on very specific parts of his anatomy, then sneak out undetected. But I was always prepared for unexpected situations.
Tossing Tarasov’s piece of shit Beretta, I reached for my own inside my boot and the extra magazine in the other.
“Get that bitch!”
Ivan’s bodyguard pulled in front of the car, another man beside him, and a hail of automatic gunfire descended over the vehicle. The noise inside the cabin was deafening, my ears ringing painfully as I ducked for cover, wondering how long the bulletproof exterior would hold out.
“Shit,” I cursed, shielding my ears when it suddenly became eerily quiet until two suppressed pops, followed by heavy thuds, echoed throughout the garage.
Seconds crawled by, shrouded in an unnerving silence. Until I heard the most unexpected voice. “Amara.”
Santino.