Chapter 6
G regor
Chicago, Illinois - Three years later
“You’re sure it’s them this time?” asked Damien as he flipped the knife he usually kept in his boot between his fingers. He was as anxious as I was to see this chase finished. The stakes had risen over the last few months.
“I’m sure.”
For the three years while I had been chasing my fugitive bride, Damien had been chasing her friend.
Yelena Nikitina had gotten under my brother’s skin.
Unlike with Samara, we weren’t the only ones looking for Yelena.
The stupid girl had fucked up, badly. She had pissed off the wrong people, and if our source was correct, they were closing in.
Since Yelena was on the run with Samara, that put my girl in the crosshairs, which made it my problem.
The good news was that same source gave up their location.
Chicago.
The moment we heard, Damien and I both dropped everything and ordered our private plane ready. We would not waste the best lead we had gotten in over a year.
We both had a mutual purpose, to find the girls and bring them back under our protection.
I cracked my knuckles and stared out the window of our private plane as they finally lowered the landing gear. Soon I would be in the same city as Samara. I still couldn’t believe it had taken me three years to find her.
Three years of searching.
Three years of wondering if she was safe. If she was even alive.
Three years of imagining the worse.
And I had no one to blame but myself.
There was no point in denying it.
Three years of searching had allowed for quite a bit of self-reflection. I had barreled into Samara’s life and ruthlessly laid claim to her. For all intents and purposes, I now owned her in my mind. She was mine to do with as I pleased. The wedding itself was a mere formality.
Besides, if I hadn’t taken the girl, who knows what her father may have done.
Her father was desperate, and desperate men did dangerous things.
Boris Federov was still a liability and could not be trusted.
Just another reason I was desperate to find Samara and bring her back under my protection… where she belonged.
As far as I was concerned, she was mine.
Bought and paid for.
I owned her.
It was now my job to protect her. If necessary, from her own father… just not from me.
Recognizing my fault in how I handled letting my bride-to-be know about her upcoming nuptials didn't change anything between us. She would still need to be taught a lesson. She could make choices in life, but those choices had consequences.
Samara would have to face those consequences.
I was, after all, still my father’s son… nothing had changed.
Not with my father’s death, and not now.
She was still mine.
I had every intention of making sure she knew her place and that I would not tolerate any disobedience from this point forward.
I wasn’t sure when a passing fascination became a full-blown obsession, but somewhere between tasting those sweet, innocent lips of hers and knowing she had run off, the single driving force of my life had become finding her and claiming her as my own.
It had robbed me of something precious and unique.
She was there, in my arms one moment, and then gone the next.
Even now, years later, a darkness rose inside my chest every time I thought about it.
Any sympathy I may have had towards her hardened as the months went by.
Months of having to rein in my anger and frustration over not knowing where she was… or who she may be with.
I was certain her father was hiding her from me, but as the weeks and months passed, it became obvious her parents were clueless.
Even putting my little sister under surveillance accomplished nothing except fracturing our already strained relationship. There was a good chance Nadia would never forgive me for chasing away her best friends.
Samara and her friend Yelena had vanished without a trace.
It helped they were bankrolled by some track winnings of Yelena’s but still. They were two young women. I had a powerful network of politicians, policemen, businessmen, and thugs at my disposal, and yet nothing.
For three years.
Nothing but mistaken identity leads and cold trails.
I had come close once in Boston. Breaking through the door of the apartment they shared, I could still catch the scent of Samara’s perfume, Coco Mademoiselle, in the air.
Despite trying to catch them off guard in the middle of the night, they somehow knew we were coming and fled.
I remember touching the pillow I knew to be Samara’s and feeling the warmth still clinging to the soft fabric.
Everything I knew about Samara came only from glimpses of her life through the belongings she was forced to leave behind every time I got too close.
A perfume bottle and a few dresses in Mexico.
A battered wooden case filled with oil paints and brushes in Los Angeles.
Three thoroughly read copies of Dracula found in New Orleans, Houston, and Vancouver. Obviously, her favorite book, and now mine.
Always Chinese chopsticks in the utensil drawer nestled among countless packets of soy sauce, but never a fork or plate.
My mouth quirked up at the corner… and countless McDonalds’ receipts for Cafe Mochas and Egg McMuffins.
All dead leads until now.
The girls had gotten complacent.
They must have assumed we had stopped looking for them and settled in Chicago.
And that’s when I finally found her.
They should have known better than to try to settle down in a city I traveled to frequently and where I had extensive contacts.
I flipped opened the file on the table in front of me. There was a stack of black and white surveillance photos.
Samara’s loft was barely more than an open space.
The massive windows gave a perfect view even of the bedroom—which was little more than a mattress on the floor—and several metal racks for clothes.
Most of the photos were of her painting.
She typically wore dark jeans with wide cuffs, a paint smeared t-shirt, and her hair tied up in a messy bun with what looked like some kind of bandana wrapped around her head.
I continued to flip through the photos with interest.
One photo after another showed her eating Chinese food straight out of the container. Staying up late watching what looked like old black and white films. Living in an apartment with barely any furniture and generally taking lousy care of herself.
What this little girl needed was discipline, I thought as I paused on a photo of her laying on her stomach on the bed. She was surrounded by what looked like art books and yet another half empty Chinese food container.
In another photo, Samara was dressed in some kind of vintage-looking dress. Her head was tilted back as she held a bottle of perfume close to her throat, Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel. I imagined what it would be like to lick her neck and taste the bitter sting of the perfume on her skin.
“Rockabilly.”
“What?”
I turned to Damien, trying to focus on what he just said as opposed to my rising cock.
“The dress. It’s a rockabilly style. Trim waist. Nice flare. High collar.”
I can’t help but give him an incredulous stare. “What the hell?”
I’m trying to rectify the image of my six-foot-three brute of a brother chatting about dainty trim waists and dress styles.
“What? You fuck enough models you learn about fashion. It’s obvious Samara is all about the vintage 50s look. Red lips, cuffed jeans, the whole nine.”
“Worry about your own girl, Versace.”
I returned my attention to the file in front of me. The final black-and-white photo was of Samara sleeping.
Only the window directly facing the mattress on the floor seemed to have a curtain, which on this particular night she had forgotten to close.
Despite the slightly grainy appearance, I could tell she had fallen asleep with her makeup on.
The dark outline of her lips was unmistakable against her pale skin.
No doubt it was a deep, crimson red. She slept on her back with one arm resting above her head.
It was easy to imagine that delicate wrist wrapped with a leather restraint and secured to the end of the bed.
There was at once a surge of anger and possession.
Anger that she was so foolish and careless enough not to realize there was a camera recording her every intimate moment while she lived in this fishbowl she called an apartment. I would put a stop to that immediately.
And possession knowing that soon this wild little creature would be under my complete control.
Soon, I would once again feel her warm, soft skin under my hand and taste those sweet cherry lips as I swallowed her cries. My cock hardened at the thought.
Soon.
I checked my watch. We had just enough time to make it to the art gallery where Samara now worked under the assumed name of Gwen Stevens. I had made an appointment with her there today under the false name of Davidson.
After three years… the hunt was almost over.