Chapter Five
Dmitriy couldn’t quite believe what he was looking at.
This was a live feed to many of Gnesin’s businesses.
At least those that people knew about. Dmitriy knew of a couple Gnesin didn’t allow to be public knowledge.
Looking at them now, he didn’t like this.
This was fucked. He glanced at each one and just knew this couldn’t be Gnesin.
He gripped Anastasia’s shoulder just as he heard the front door open in the distance, and then the sound of voices.
He didn’t recognize them, but he grabbed Anastasia’s hand, turned off the screens, and moved her toward the en-suite bathroom.
They stepped inside, he pulled out his gun, and removed the safety.
“What’s going on?” Anastasia asked quietly.
He put a finger to his lips. This was why he didn’t want to bring her along with him. He didn’t know who he could trust.
The sound of voices got closer, and Anastasia reached out and gripped his arm. He felt her fear, but she had nothing to worry about. He was not going to allow anyone or anything to hurt her. This is why he had kept an eye on her all these years.
Two men entered the room, and they were laughing about a woman. He wasn’t paying attention to the conversation.
“Did you leave the door open?” the guy with the brown hair asked.
“No.” This was a blonde, and they both reached for their weapons, which was his moment to take the element of surprise.
Kicking open the bathroom door, he took one shot, taking out the brown-haired guy with a single shot to the head.
He did the same to the blonde, but just as he was about to lower his weapon, a third guy he hadn’t seen or heard charged into the room, taking him down to the floor.
He got a blow to the face, which was painful, but he was able to block the second and third hit, bringing his knee up. The guy had splayed his legs, and he took out the man’s junk.
Dmitriy didn’t mind using every tactic in the book to his advantage, and he yelled as he did so. Grabbing him and turning the tide, he drew his forehead back and slammed it against his face.
“Who do you work for?” he yelled.
The man laughed and drew his fist back.
“Dmitriy, watch out,” Anastasia said.
Her warning came in time, as the other man had a knife he was about to imbed into his side, and he blocked it, taking the knife and stabbing it into the guy’s neck. The moment he did that, he saw the insignia on the man’s throat.
“Do you see this?” Dmitriy asked.
Anastasia came into the room, and it was then he realized he was holding a dead body in his hands, which he dropped to the floor.
“It’s a snake?” she asked.
“It’s the Gambino family, also known as the Snake.” He let the man go and got to his feet, making his way to the bathroom, where he wiped off the blood. The sink turned red, and when he turned toward Anastasia, she had a frown.
“What is the Gambino family doing in my old home? Are they working for Gnesin?”
He finished washing off the blood. “I don’t know.”
“Why would Gnesin work with one of his enemies?”
“I don’t have a feeling he is. Come on, we’ve got to torch this place.”
“What?” she asked.
“I don’t know if they sent out a distress signal. That last guy I didn’t see, and there could be dozens of men making their way here. There are only so many I can take care of. We need to torch this place.”
Anastasia nodded, and he grabbed her hand, leading her out of her parents’ old room, down the stairs, and toward the main front door.
“My dad kept extra barrels of gas in the basement. He didn’t like the constant price wars, and when it was at a low price, he would stock up,” Anastasia said.
He made his way to the basement, and sure enough, there were a couple of barrels.
“Go and spread this all over the house.”
The moment he set fire, they were going to have a limited amount of time to get away. While Anastasia poured gasoline all over the main floor of the house, Dmitriy went upstairs and took a great deal of delight in spreading it over the bodies.
He made his way into Anastasia’s room last, and as he stepped inside, he saw a picture of her, along with her family by her bedside.
The fact her parents had left the room like this was a testament to how much they had loved their little girl.
It was sweet. He poured gasoline all over the bed, and he took the picture with him.
He didn’t know if Anastasia had many pictures of her family, but she could at least have this one.
With the top floor covered in gasoline, he met Anastasia on the ground floor. She hadn’t taken off, and she waited for him.
Stepping out of the house, he pulled out his zip lighter and flicked it open, lighting the end. He tossed it inside, watching for a second as the flame caught to a puddle of gasoline Anastasia had created in the main hallway.
“Let’s move.”
He didn’t wait around to see the damage.
With the gasoline tanks in the basement, along with a trail of it all over the house, before they had left the street, he saw the dark smoke pluming up into the sky.
“I can’t believe we just did that,” Anastasia said.
Nowhere was safe. Not his safe house. He didn’t know what information the Gambino family had. He didn’t know what Gnesin had. The only way to survive right now would be to always be one step ahead of the game. He couldn’t go back to the safe house.
They were far enough away that they weren’t affected by the explosion. However, it was not far enough away to hear it. Anastasia jumped.
“Wow, my family home gone,” she said.
He reached out and took her hand.
For several minutes, he joined her in silence.
The order had come to him, and he had done it without question, only now he had a ton of them, and what was more, Gnesin refused to be seen. He refused to have a meeting, and now his lifelong enemies, the Gambinos, were discovered on Babkin property. This did not bode well.
He drove an hour before he came to a stop at a motel that looked busy.
No one would expect him to stay here. He told Anastasia to wait in the car, as he went and paid for a room.
He gave a fake name and paid cash. There were no questions, as he didn’t raise any, not with his bruised knuckles.
The man on the desk just wanted to get back to watching his television show.
Dmitriy walked back to the car, held the door open, and Anastasia climbed out. He took hold of her hand and walked toward the room he had taken. It was on the first floor, and he let them in. The curtains were already drawn, and it was getting late.
“I don’t understand why we’re here,” Anastasia said.
“I have no idea what is going on, and I can only assume my safe locations have been compromised. I’m not going to put you in any danger. We’ll rest here tonight, and tomorrow, we’ll figure something out.”
“You know, if you had killed me, you probably would be able to just run away and live your life.”
“Running away is not an option.” He never ran away, not from his parents, not from anything.
“Take a shower. I’m going to go and get food, and do not answer the door to anyone.” With that, he closed the door and left the motel room.
He should have killed her. It should have been easy for him to do. Just one bullet to the back of the head, or slitting her throat, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He didn’t want to hurt her. In all his years, Dmitriy had never felt this way for anyone.
Running fingers through his hair, he got into the car and drove for ten minutes until he found a drive-thru.
He ordered them plenty of food, kept a smile on his face for the woman serving him, which wouldn’t allow any questions or suspicions to be raised, and when she was finished serving him, he told her to have a good day.
He made his way back to the motel, grabbed all the food, and let himself into the apartment.
At the same time, Anastasia stepped out of the bathroom.
Her hair was damp, and she had a towel within her grip, drying it by scrunching it up in her fist. She had a single towel wrapped around her body, but he saw a lot more of her flesh on display, and he found it impossible to ignore. She was almost naked.
“The shower is free, and I didn’t use up all the hot water,” she said.
“I’ll take a quick shower.” He moved past her with speed. He didn’t want to spend any more time looking at her.
He had to get control of his erection. After what she had just seen, Anastasia didn’t need to deal with an aroused man as well. He wasn’t that much of a fucking monster.
“There’s food, enjoy it,” he said, and slammed the door. This was not Anastasia’s fault. She didn’t know how he felt. That he had been obsessed with her since she had turned eighteen. That she was nothing like any other woman he had seen or known. She was different.
Stripping out of his clothes, he turned on the shower and stepped beneath the spray.
His cock was rock-hard, and he couldn’t get the sight of her out of his mind.
Her smooth shoulders exposed, slightly glistening from the shower she had taken.
She had been here moments before, and he was pretty sure he could smell her.
He had to get some level of control. This was fucking shit.
Wrapping his fingers around his cock, he closed his eyes, and it was all Anastasia playing through his mind.
Her smile. The laughter he had heard from time to time.
Then of course, the way she looked moments ago, and that was all it took to send him right over the edge, and he grunted as he spilled his seed into the bathtub.
He couldn’t recall the last time he was with a woman. It had been so long ago, possibly even the night before he had seen Anastasia for the first time. That one look at the party was enough for him to never want anyone else.
There had been a few moments where he had tried with other women, but none of them appealed to him. They meant nothing.
He stopped trying and accepted there was only one woman for him, and that woman was Anastasia.
****
Burgers and fries. Not the healthiest food, but when you were starving it was the best kind of food.
Anastasia didn’t have any clean clothes to get changed into, and it didn’t feel right changing into the old stinking clothes she had.
They hadn’t changed when they had a little pit stop at his underground-looking fortress.
He had wanted to leave, and she refused to stay.
They had run from his cabin, and the clothes needed a wash.
She sat on the edge of the bed and kept waiting for the panic to set in.
Nothing happened. Not even a small panic attack.
She had seen him kill three people, in the same house he had probably killed her family, and she didn’t feel anything. Her brothers had all said she was weird and wasn’t wired right.
She couldn’t handle horror movies. The scary paranormal just messed with her head, and she couldn’t help being a believer, so it felt like that scary shit could happen.
Gory films with blood, guts, and gore didn’t bother her, unless it had to do with animals.
She did not like to hear or see anything on animal abuse.
That stuff was sick and twisted. Humans were different, though.
Maybe she did have a messed-up brain, because she truly believed some people were cruel.
Shaking her head and pushing it out of her mind, she bit down on the burger. It tasted so good and was still so warm.
She heard a grunt coming from the bathroom, and she turned to look toward the door just as Dmitriy opened it.
He had a towel wrapped around his waist, his body on display.
His heavily muscled, heavily inked body.
She had never seen a naked man in person, or even a semi-naked man in person. This was very new.
She felt her mouth dry up as Dmitriy rounded the bed and sat on the one opposite her. He had gotten them a single room with two beds, which made sense. They were not lovers, they had no reason to share a bed.
She tried not to look at him. He had the towel opened and was now showing his thick thigh.
“Does it hurt getting a tattoo?” she asked.
When she asked her brothers this question, they had all acted like it was the worst feeling in the world, and the truth was, she couldn’t trust them.
“Some of them did,” he said.
“Do you like getting them?” she asked.
“They were necessary.”
“Why?”
“My parents liked to leave scars, and I refused to keep looking at the scars they made.”
She nodded. “It makes sense.”
What didn’t make sense was the fact that she wanted to take his towel off and see his whole body. Even crazier, she wanted to take her own towel off.
This was insane. Completely and totally crazy.
Perhaps being hunted, nearly killed, and watching him kill three men was making her lose her mind. Or, it was because she was a virgin, and knowing Gnesin was somehow working with or for the Gambino family, she knew there was an increased certainty she was going to die.
She didn’t want to die a virgin. Not that she had ever been crazy for losing her virginity. It all made sense in her head.
This was the strangest way she could have ended a day.
Eating burgers, seeing people murdered, knowing there was some crazy shit going on in the Bratva world, and that she should already be dead.
For some odd reason, Dmitriy wouldn’t kill her and kept protecting her.
That had to mean something. She didn’t know if she was just clutching at straws, just that she was trying to survive.
She didn’t want to die without knowing his touch. Yes, it went against the girl code and all that. He killed her family and protected her, but she was still attracted to him.
They could die.
She got to her feet, and Dmitriy looked up at her, and she loved when his gaze was on her. He rarely smiled or showed any emotion, but there were times when he looked at her and she was sure he felt something.
She reached for the knot she had placed in the towel, opened it up, and allowed the towel to fall to the floor.
Sometimes in life, you had to make the first move.