Chapter Eleven
T he screams finally faded, and with it the thrill.
He sighed, shaking his head at the frustration of another hollow climax.
Wiping his still warm cum from his hand, he tossed the used towel into the bathtub, shoved his semi-hard cock back into his pants, then zipped them up.
Grabbing another towel from the rack, Danil “The Terror” Oblek wiped his face, then tilted his head to check his reflection in the mirror. High cheek bones, square jaw with the dusting of dark hair in his 5 o’clock shadow, and barely noticeable claw marks just beside his Adam’s apple, a gift from a surprisingly fiery plaything.
Catching his own dark gaze in the mirror, he grinned, his white teeth flashing in the glaring bathroom light. It was his best smile, his flashy fa?ade, his practiced mask of the gentleman. The professional, the businessman, the follower. It was the smile and mask he presented to potential business partners, potential bed partners, and to his boss. He smiled again, but this time it transformed his face into one he wore the most often behind closed doors—bedrooms, boardrooms, and The Cell—a place of torture and titillation, where he could be his most base self, where he could do the business of truth finding for the brotherhood while also getting his dick nice and hard for an evening of fucking and bloodletting. Like tonight.
He chuckled, a dark, eerie sound, even to his own ears.
He wasn’t ashamed to admit that torture turned him the fuck on. Everyone had their kinks, and his was watching people scream in pain, it was even better when he delivered that pain, slowly. The more tears, the better. Each whimper and cry of agony was like the most potent aphrodisiac.
Fuck, his cock was hard again. He’d have to wait until tomorrow night for another bloodletting.
Done with his inspection, he tossed the now blood-soaked towel into the trash beside the sink, and turned to leave the room. Behind him, the still warm and twitching body of Ilsa lay naked, sliced to shit, and streaked with his cum in the once white bathtub. She’d fought harder and longer than most women did, and he’d thanked her for the challenge by slicing her throat once he was done ejaculating into it. It hadn’t taken long to get hard again, especially with such a beautifully bloody view. It had been a long time since he’d met a woman who could make him come twice in one evening…but it still hadn’t been enough; jacking himself to completion wasn’t as good as fucking her as the life left her eyes. But one had to adapt to whatever they had to work with. He’d found her in the bathroom, so that’s where he played with her. It was expedient.
Sweet Ilsa had been an excellent distraction, but much like everything else in his life, that distraction didn’t last long.
Chuckling at the thought that Ivan was going to grumble about the clean-up, Danil made his way down the hallway to the tiny living room where his men were waiting. They hadn’t planned to follow their boss to this house and sit around while he played, but he’d seen Ilsa walking down the street, looking all sorts of innocent and pure, and he knew he had to ugly up all that beautiful. So, he’d followed her home, waited to see if she was alone, then he let himself inside.
Now, it was over, and he had more important things to deal with.
Before he could open his mouth to give his orders to Ivan, his cell rang.
He cursed, knowing without looking who was calling.
Biting back another curse, he answered, “ Da. ”
The voice over the line was one he’d heard and obeyed for the last twenty years. The voice of his Pahkan, the Father of the Medev Bratva, Leonid Medev.
“What news do you bring me?” he asked without preamble, because he didn’t need social niceties. To Leonid, Danil was no better than a trained attack dog in a suit.
“The doctor has run,” Danil reported, knowing Leonid already knew that. It was no secret that the Pahkan had eyes and ears within each of the branches of his family. As a brigadier, Danil was the Russian mafia version of an Italian capo, with his own men, his own businesses, and his own turf. In total, there were four brigadiers, but Danil had been under Leonid’s thumb the longest…and he was more than ready to bite the hand that held his leash. “But he cannot run far. There are only so many places a man with so many enemies can hide.”
Leonid grunted. “And what of the woman?”
Ah…the woman. The voluptuous and stupidly brave Dr. Elizabeth Simpson. She’d been a surprise. When he’d first been ordered to work with Dr. Lyle Pace to launder brotherhood money through his VIP concierge medical clinic, Danil had done his due diligence and investigated Dr. Pace, his clinic, and his partner, Dr. Simpson. When he’d read the female doctor’s background—foster care, medical school, and single parent— he’d honestly thought she’d be an easy mark. But the moment he’d stepped into her home and seen the determination and strength in her eyes and her posture, he knew that offering her anything but pain would be useless. She couldn’t be bought. So, he’d used her to send a message, one he doubted the good Dr. Pace would ever get. The man had as good as abandoned his partner, knowing that The Terror would come looking for him and find the lovely doctor left holding the empty money bag.
“The woman is well in hand,” Danil answered. And the thought of her under his hand, under his knife, was making him harder than he’d ever been. Her creamy flesh turned red with her own blood…fuck, he’d lose his damn mind. Not that he hadn’t already.
He grinned wickedly, his men staring at him with wary eyes.
Again, Leonid grunted. “I want that money back, Danil.”
Danil ground his back teeth. Fuck, he couldn’t wait to put a bullet in the old bear’s head, then he wouldn’t have to play fetch like a good fucking dog.
Not much longer.
“ Da ,” he replied, thankful his voice didn’t betray the simmering rage flowing through his body. “If we cannot find the doctor, we will…work out an agreement with the woman. She’ll be most agreeable to our terms. She continues our money washing through the clinic, or we make business…difficult for her.” He’d make his own separate deal, too, one where she let him play surgeon with her naked body.
“ Da , good. Will she be a problem?” Leonid asked, and that fucking rankled. Did the old man think Danil would allow some woman to best him? To fight him and win?
Growling under his breath, he answered, “She will do what we want, or she dies. Simple.” And there was also the little girl to consider as well. The doctor hid the child while he and his man were there delivering their message, and he’d allowed it. But he had no problem using the child to get the good doctor nice and agreeable. He wasn’t a complete monster; he wouldn’t fuck the child, but young skin parted under a blade just as beautifully as any other.
“You have until the end of the month, Danil. Don’t fuck this up.”
There was a click as Leonid hung up, leaving Danil standing there before his own men, holding his cell like a fucking prick.
“Boss?” Oleg called, coming through the front door holding a 6 x 11 envelope. “You’re going to want to see this.” He held out the envelope and Danil took it.
“No time,” Danil barked. “Ivan, get rid of everything.”
Ivan groaned but hurried from the room to his car where he stashed his gear. No doubt, later that night, there’d be a news report about a fire that killed poor Ilsa Dahl. An unfortunate accident involving her gas stove and her penchant for smoking one last cigarette before bed.
Casting his gaze over the other four men in the room, he commanded, “The rest of you, meet me at Brillianty. We have shit to do.”
With the orders given, Danil stalked from the tiny bungalow in Henderson and got into his black Bentley SUV. It took forty minutes to get to his office in the rear of Brillianty, a popular Russian fusion restaurant—a front for his less than legal ventures in Vegas. The name was a play on the English adjective, and the Russian word for diamonds—clever, if he did say so himself.
Finally at this desk, he dropped the envelope Oleg had given him on to the surface and opened it.
Pictures—5 x 8 glossies of two large men in leather vests.
What the fuck was this?
Leaning forward, he sifted through the pictures. There were seven of them, all showing the same two men coming and going from Summerlin hospital, where he knew the good Dr. Simpson had been transported after his “visit” with her.
He tossed the pictures and watched them slide across the surface of the desk, and cursed.
He knew those vests, those kuttes , because he recognized the brand of the wolf head and the battle axes.
The motherfucking Savage Raiders—a gang of biker fucks who thought that because they’d been around longer, they were the power in the underground. They owned legit businesses, made millions a year, and held sway over law enforcement, but they were amateurs compared to the Bratva. They were boys in leather trying to play a man’s game, they were like nothing. No more than a lump on the ass of the brotherhood.
And he knew on sight who those two men were.
What the fuck were the president and VP of a motorcycle gang doing at the hospital where Elizabeth Simpson was recovering?
This could mean nothing. They could be visiting one of their men, no doubt one of the fucks got himself shot. But Danil couldn’t rid himself of the apprehension.
Doubt was never good when dealing with business.
And the good doctor was business—business he needed well in hand in order to move forward with his plans.
Knowing Oleg was stuffing his face with pierogi in the restaurant dining room, he bellowed, “Oleg! In here now, you fat fuck!”
Seconds later, his mouth moving rapidly as he chewed—the disgusting fuck—Oleg appeared in the doorway.
“Boss,” he mumbled, his mouth still working to finish his food.
Sneering in disgust, Danil pointed at the photos and snapped, “What’s the meaning of these? The pictures mean nothing unless they have something to do with Dr. Simpson.”
Oleg wiped his butter-covered face with a handkerchief, then shoved the soiled linen in his pocket before answering, “They are with the doctor. A nurse on her floor owes us some money—she plays too deep at The Den. I approached her, reminded her of her debt, and she offered to keep watch and report.”
The Den was one of his most lucrative businesses; a casino on the surface, with a few illegal games going on behind the veil of legality. If the nurse was in their debt, it meant she was playing the illegal games. Danil heaved an impatient sigh. “So—what the fuck did she say?”
Oleg replied, “Dr. Simpson is under club protection. She’s their medical support, or some shit—but that’s not the best part. The kid, she’s the daughter of the VP. Seems like the good doc got knocked up ten years ago, and has been keeping the kid a secret.”
Danil let the news sink in, and when it did—“Fuck!”
So, Dr. Simpson liked bad boys, and she found herself a single parent to the VP’s brat.
Shaking his head, Danil growled, “Where’s the kid now?”
“Last the nurse heard, the kid is with the club.”
Dammit. It was a complication he hadn’t planned on, but that didn’t mean his plans were unattainable—it just meant he had to get a little creative.
“We going after the kid?” Oleg asked, his shit brown eyes glinting with excitement. The fuck had a thing for kidnapping and mayhem, and Danil had used the man’s skills in that milieu frequently. This time, however, Danil needed a subtle hand.
“Let’s see where the doctor ends up first. In the meantime, keep looking for Dr. Pace. He stole from us, and no one steals from the Medevs and fucking lives.”
And Leonid would use Danil’s failure to keep Dr. Pace in line as a strike against him. The last thing he needed was to be used as an example to the other brigadiers—the fuckers were all looking for a piece of Danil’s future empire.
An empire he would wrest from Leonid’s cold, dead hands soon enough.
Leaning back in his chair, his gaze flicked to Oleg, who was still standing in the doorway, his beady eyes pinned to Danil.
“Send Tomas to watch the hospital. I want eyes on the doctor. Once we know where the Raiders put her, I’ll have a better idea of how to approach the biker assholes.”
Oleg smirked. He hated the upstart Savage Raiders as much as anyone. They were making a name for themselves in the pot and pussy industries with their dispensary and their brothel, and the Bratva had their hands in dope, meth, and trafficking flesh. The Raiders were weak pussies, who didn’t have the balls to dip their toes into where the real money was—the dark side of the Vegas lights. They were all brass and no steel, they would be easy to break…with the right leverage.
Soon, Danil would have his five million with interest, because the doctor would have little choice. And that five million was just the beginning, because Danil had big plans for Vegas…and he refused to let a runaway doctor, a pissant biker gang, and a willful woman keep him from taking everything he was owed.