Chapter 14
My muscles bunchand flex with tension. The desperation I’ve been clinging to every day I try to find her, slowly slides into despondency. My men notice, eyeing me more and more warily, as though I may just jam the barrel of my gun to their forehead for looking at me wrong. Nikolaj sure as hell notices. And now, it has become so noticeable, I have no choice but to acknowledge it.
Even if only to myself.
Today has been the closest we’ve come. We finally have a physical lead. Someone spotted her a couple hours west of here, just inside Pennsylvania.
Wasting no time, me, my best men, and ten of Nikolaj’s guys hit the road. Every mile closer only increases my agitation and anxiousness to hurry up and get there.
I’ll be able to touch her again. Hold her. I’ll know she is safe. That the fallout of what we did hadn’t ruined her the way I fear.
Finding her is the only absolute proof Vlad hasn’t reached her.
Because knowing what he knows now, witnessing the aftermath of when I took her virginity in the chapel above this crypt, he has no reason to keep her unsullied. With nothing to gain, she’ll be at his mercy. Any perverse hunger he’s harbored for her will now be free from what little confines bound his most vulgar desires.
Total annihilation. Her absolute ruin from his sadistic hands.
Watching her mother’s spirit die, bleeding from her bit by bit, until her copper eyes dull entirely with lifelessness, had been horrid enough.
The same dead-eyed stare in Nikoletta’s golden eyes would destroy me entirely. She believes she is just a replacement for her mother. No. What I felt for her mother was no more than someone coveting a shiny object.
One with no history, no character, no unique qualities rendering it unforgettable.
My affection for her mother had no depth. No spirit.
But my goddaughter has seeped into the marrow of my bones. My soul knows hers. Feels her warmth. Yearns for her closeness. Waits with bated breath for her sharp wit.
And shamelessly craves her fire.
So when we arrive at the hole-in-the-wall diner where Nikoletta had been “spotted” and found a brunette of the same height and body shape, almond-shaped golden eyes, and plump lips that look so much like Nikoletta’s, yet nothing like her at all, I fight the urge to destroy everything in my path.
It is all I can do to temper the violence coursing through me.
How could they possibly think this was my Nikoletta? Where is the tiny dimple at the corner of her mouth when she smiles? The high cheekbones that create a subtle shadow under the apples of her cheeks? And where is the subtle crease running vertically along her plump bottom lip?
My Pcholka’s eyebrows arch gently on her left and peak sharper on her right, as if perpetually calling you on your bullshit. Where is the freckle under her right eye? And sure, this woman technically has golden eyes. Only with streaks of bronze. But my Pcholka, her golden eyes, framed with a ring of copper, hold a kaleidoscope of amber. A shade rich and deep exploding throughout, burning with breathtaking intensity around her pupils.
Returning early this morning, I came straight here. Stalking the length of the crypt. Hunched, unable to stand at my full height here in the prison of my own making, I seethe as I tear up the narrow confines.
A roar filled with outrage and hopelessness rips from my lungs. I whirl on the bed I shared with her for one night and flip the mattress, getting no satisfaction from the way it tumbles along the rough floor.
Her journal mocks me from where it sits on the frame of the bed. I’d tucked it away, out of sight, giving myself distance from my obsessive need to read her every word.
But this morning, red-streaked pages are as close as I can be to her. I snatch it up and climb into the claw-foot tub again, a sure sign I’ve lost my fucking mind. Flipping to the second half of the journal, I seek out the next page of us.
Her next teenage fantasy.
Hey, it’s me again…
My father had another party tonight, only this one, he didn’t parade me around like a prize pony. Nope, he left me to mingle on my own. I’d find him checking on me periodically, like this was some kind of test to see if he needed to put me on a leash or if I could handle socializing myself.
I smiled until my cheeks ached. I complimented wives and gave a little extra affection to their husbands, in a charming way, of course. In a way that made them believe they held my every scrap of adoring attention. Their chests puffed up with pride at my interest.
They never once suspected my movement throughout the crowd had nothing to do with making the rounds and everything to do with watching Konstantin.
He stood taller than every other man in the room. His shoulder-length silver-streaked hair wild, yet dignified. His shrewd gaze took in everything around him, including me. My very own broody babysitter.
Fuck my life.
I had just decided to walk right up to him and demand he knock off the spy routine when a blond waif strutted up to him, her hands going right to his abs, red-tipped nails flirting with the buttons running up his chest.
She leaned into him and he did nothing to stop it. In fact, the way he smiled down at her told me he very much enjoyed the attention she lavished on him. Intimate. Familiar.
I hated her on sight.
I could see myself slicing off each of her pretty little fingers and shoving them straight up her ass.
She peered up at him through ridiculously fake eyelashes as she pushed her surgically enhanced tits against him, right in his line of sight.
His gaze flickered down for the briefest moment. Curling his fingers around hers, he spun her into his arms solidly before leading her in a slow, intimate dance between them.
Maybe I’d chop his cock off for good measure.
And there was my Pcholka’s fire.
Veronica Ellis. The last woman I’d spent any intimate time with before Nikoletta. A woman who knew the deal. Flirt, socialize, scratch the itch, and walk away until we met again. A distraction to pass the time and nothing more.
A distraction who inspired violence in my girl.
Interesting.
I couldn’t watch anymore. Not without doing something that would get me into a heap of trouble. I climbed the curved staircase and stopped, overlooking the crowd before a sound grabbed my attention.
Moaning.
I danced my fingertips along the wall as I crept closer, the sounds getting more crude. I found them in the atrium surrounded by glass, with the moon and stars winking overhead. The transparent walls overlooked the garden spilling off the grand foyer where the party pulsed with what had to be a hundred guests socializing and drinking below. They drifted in and out the wall of open French doors. At any moment, they could look up.
Wide shoulders blocked my view of her for just a moment. Then he fisted the hair cascading down her back and forced her to turn and face him while keeping her body pressed against the glass.
Her lips parted on a gasp and a satisfied smile tipped his lips as he tilted his head down to study her.
My God, what would that be like? To have Konstantin command me in a bold display of ownership, just daring the people below to glance up and watch him take what belonged to him.
Towering over her, I wouldn’t grip her hair and turn her face to the side to look at me. No, I’d grip her throat, her gulp of excitement rippling against my palm, soaking up her every breath and moan. I’d tip her head back impossibly far, until she balanced on the edge of pain. Until she couldn’t handle another millimeter without breaking. With defiance flaming in her cheeks, her golden eyes blazing, I’d devour her mouth and swallow her cries. I’d consume every ounce of want from her bow-shaped mouth.
My head swam as I panted against the sensations flooding me. Clenching my thighs, I tucked behind the corner, my nipples pressed against the wall barely offering an ounce of relief. I dropped my hot forehead and struggled to control my racing heart.
She cried out and my gaze snapped up. His huge hand held both her hair and the fabric of her skirt against her shoulders now exposing her from her heels to her ass. Legs spread, his hand disappeared between her legs, pulling back just a bit before he drove his fingers into her with a lewd violence I craved.
Pain. He brought her pain, but the kind that had her pushing her hips back, chasing his fingers every time he slid out of her.
My heart climbed straight into my throat. Wetness flooded between my thighs, burning me up. Panting and needy, I watched him take her, own her, and make her scream for him while her palms slapped against the glass and she thrashed in his hold.
My Pcholka liked to watch. I’ll remember that. Oh, I’ll remember that. And in a deeper part of her hid an exhibitionist at heart. She wants to be made a spectacle and I’m all too happy to give her everything she wants.
I’ll give her the illusion of being watched. She doesn’t have to know I’ll slaughter the man who dares look at her while getting thoroughly fucked. Her body, her desire, her every release belongs to me.
Only me.
My cock throbs painfully behind my zipper. Weakness and surrender grips me as I tear myself free from my confines and grip my cock, giving it a series of hard strokes. Dragging my thumb through the cum leaking from the tip, I bring it to my mouth and suck it clean. There’ll be more and I’ll consume every last drop until its rightful place returns to me. In or splattered over my Nikoletta.
Nowhere else will do.
How many fingers can she take? She’d been impossibly tight, but the way she stretched for me—she will again. One finger will bring a whimper. Two, a needy gasp and moan from deep in her chest. Three, the pained cry tearing from her throat will end on a groan of helplessness and lust.
Even then I won’t stop.
My hips have a life of their own, chasing the grip of my hand, begging with every thrust for me to hurry and finish this.
Four, with four I’ll break her. I’ll leave no part of her inexperienced cunt unclaimed. And she’ll never run from me again.
“Jesus Christ!” The words escape on a harsh gasp. I clutch the edge of the tub, fucking my fist until my balls seize up so tight, the tension grips my throat, choking out my ability to make a sound. My release sweeps violently through me, robbing me of all sanity and reason.
My head falls back, my chest heaving… the echo in my head so loud I don”t hear Grigori pushing open the door to the crypt.
“Uh, boss,” he says, his eyes landing on me in the tub and sliding away as quickly as possible.
They already question my sanity most days, seeing me folded up in a waterless claw-foot tub, my gasping breaths leaving no doubt as to exactly what I’ve been up to.
He is just smart enough to pretend he doesn’t know what I have just done.
“What?” I bark, my hand covered in cum that will definitely go to waste. Grigori definitely doesn’t want to see exactly what I would have done with it.
“We found her.”
“Another spotting by someone who doesn’t know just what she looks like?”
“No. Not this time,” he says, daring a glance at me, a smile curving his lips. “She used her credit card.”
I shoot up, my fucking cock still in my hand. “Fuck.”
Grigori holds up a hand, shielding his eyes. “How about I meet you in Nikolaj’s office in ten?”
“Yeah, shit.”
He slips out the door and I hurry to clean myself up and right my pants. In a matter of minutes, I exit the crypt and make my way along the catacomb to the false wall connecting a series of newly built tunnels. Nikolaj paid a small fortune and bartered a lifetime”s worth of favors to build the intricate system. Snaking it as far up as the financial district where his bar, Evolutions, hosts some of the most successful businessmen in the city.
At any given moment, we can retreat underground through any one of our forty entry points, and move over about half of Manhattan.
The refuge made up of catacombs and tunnels offers stealth protection when the odds stack against us. Until about six months ago, his army practically lived entirely underground. However, with alliances comes wealth and Nikolaj has an uncanny ability to draw even the most skeptical of the influential elite into his inner circle.
The connections allow him to secure five different safe houses throughout Manhattan. The thirteenth floors no one knows exist in high-rises, all with private concealed entrances.
Despite having one of those safe houses all to myself, with every luxury I can possibly want, I still spend the majority of my time underground.
In exile.
Torturing myself.
Clinging to a past I can’t change.
But maybe today I’ll find a way out of my purgatory once and for all.
Clinging to the steep metal stairs that lead to the storage closet of Evolutions, I pull myself to the narrow space tucked behind the hot water heater. Smoothing my jacket, I cross the hall to Nikolaj’s office. My men stand on either side of the door, their hands folded in front of them, the absolute picture of calm.
Deceptive that view. Tension fills the room as Nikolaj paces with his cell pressed to his ear. When he hangs up, he glares up at me. “About fucking time, Malikov.”
I’ll let him get away with that because he fears for her as much as I do. “Where is she?”
“About four hours north of here. I called the store where she used her card. The pharmacist who checked her out said she was nervous. Looking over her shoulder a lot.” He flattens his palms against his desk, his rigid shoulders rippling with tension. “She had no reason to think we’d found her so she’s not worrying about us, but she’s worried about someone.”
We’ll need more men than I took to Pennsylvania yesterday. If she is in danger, there is only one way to go in… with an army. “Do we have footage to be sure it’s her this time?”
“Yes, and it’s her.”
“You’re positive?”
Nikolaj’s head snaps up and he shoots me a steely glare. “She’s my fucking sister. What the hell do you think?”
Our eyes lock in a quiet standoff, neither of us relenting. I’ve held power in this family for too long to cower to Nikolaj, and he rides the confidence of knowing that he is second only to his brother Vlad.
“I have fifty men arriving in”—he glances down at his watch—“less than ten minutes and then we leave.” He flips his laptop closed and pulls an extra gun from his drawer. I know he already has one at his back and another strapped to his ankle.
“We?”
He doesn’t look at me, just continues to prepare. “Yes, me and my men.”
“What about your meeting tonight with the governor? He flew back just to meet with you. You good with him thinking you just fucked off and didn’t give a shit?”
“It’s family. He’ll understand.”
“And I’m not family? Blood never mattered between us before, but now it does? I was good enough to spend three months tearing apart Paris looking for her through every connection she had while going to school there. I was good enough to go yesterday, the first time we actually had a potential sighting, but today, no? What the fuck’s going on, Nikolaj?”
He shoves a hand through his dark hair. “You locked yourself up in that fucking crypt again,” he bites out.
“What the fuck does that have to?—”
Sharp, hard eyes flash and settle into a glare that has made many men at Nikolaj’s mercy piss themselves in fear.
I am not many men.
“Since we lost her, if you’re not in that fucking crypt, you’re leaving a swath of bodies in the wake of your fucking rampages. You’re out of control. And when you’re not, you’re distracted and off-balance. Angry.”
Grigori’s eyes flicker in my direction. The bastard.
I hate that Grigori saw me spiraling. I’ll never be able to forget what he witnessed. Nor will he. But that is a problem for another day. Today, I need a win. I need this. After all, I’m the one who drove her away to begin with. Now Nikolaj wants to steal it from me.
My fists clench at my sides and my teeth grind, together surpassing a snarl. “You’re goddamn right I’m angry. There’s no ‘we lost her.’ I lost her!”
“Fine. How can I count on you to not lose her again?” His voice has gone deathly calm, the picture of control while I have none.
In two strides, I have my fingers locked around his neck and he has a gun to my forehead. “Fuck you, kid.”
She belongs to me. She always belongs to me. Even if she never lets me touch her again and we bury what happened between us… she’ll still belong to me.
Fuck.
I let go of his neck, but he never wavers with the aim of his gun.
“If you fuck this up, Malikov… I swear, I won’t think twice before putting a bullet in your head myself.” He drops his weapon, laying it flat on the desk between us. “I’m trusting you one last time. Now fuck off and get our girl.”