10. Finn
FINN
I’m not surprised to find Tamara gone when I wake up the next morning. She’s a free spirit, one that can’t be contained, and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for clipping her wings when I could watch her soar like the beautiful butterfly that she is.
Aiden sends me on a job with Connor that keeps us out of the city all day.
I can still smell her on me after I shower.
I can taste her, despite the coffee and the breakfast rolls smothered in mustard that Connor insists on picking up for the journey.
I can feel her body pressed up against mine, feel her nipple bar on my tongue, and when I close my eyes briefly, I can see her strapped to my bed, her pussy demanding to be devoured.
“Earth to Finn.” My brother gives me the side-eye when we’re driving back to the city at the end of the day. “Whatever she did to you last night, I think I need some.”
I smile. “Nope. Not going into details.”
Connor exhales slowly. “You always were the selfish brother. I’d share with you.”
“You’d overshare, you mean.”
“That’s what brothers are for, right?” He stares at my profile until I look at him. “I can afford to buy my own clothes now, so maybe you could—”
“Nope. Not happening.”
The thought of doing that to Tamara, of even telling my brother about the amazing sex we have, messes with my head.
I’m already in so deep that I’ve found myself projecting her onto every woman we’ve passed in the street today.
I keep checking my phone for a message notification even though I haven’t given her my number, and I’ve been praying for the Ivanovs to do the right thing and back out of the trafficking operation, so that we don’t have to intervene.
“How deep are you exactly?” he asks as if he read my mind. “And I’m not talking inches here.”
I grin at him. “Deep enough to give this up.” I flinch as I say the words out loud.
“Just give me a heads-up, will ya, so that I can prepare my best-man speech.”
She doesn’t come to my apartment that night.
I shower, get food in to make dinner for the two of us, a bottle of wine, and candles.
She’s the one holding the reins because she knows where to find me, and I tell myself that she isn’t here because she’s working.
It has nothing at all to do with getting what she wants and then moving on.
Nothing what-so-fucking-ever to do with that.
Because there’s an entire city full of men who’d be more than willing to fuck her brains out whenever the fancy takes her, and she chose me.
More than that, she chose me and then she came back for more.
That has to mean something, doesn’t it?
I don’t sleep well. My sheets still hold the lingering scent of her. My pillows smell of her hair. And my body misses having her pressed up against me, tucking her into the hollow I make when I curl up on my side, like a bear hugging its cub.
I can’t even console myself with the guarantee that she’ll be back.
That she’ll miss me too, even if it doesn’t make her chest ache the way mine does.
Because Tamara doesn’t need me in her life.
She’ll get along just fine without me, and I’m probably nothing more than a complication that she’ll be better off without.
But this doesn’t feel right either.
My head is fucking spinning by the time I finally sleep, and my broken dreams are filled with images of Tamara giving me the middle finger and walking away with another man’s arm around her shoulders, a man with black hair and a Russian accent.
Three days pass by without a word from Tamara or a glimpse of her around the city.
Russian activity around the docks has either been non-existent or they’ve found a way to make themselves invisible to the human eye.
I post myself on observation duty at the various harbors within the Port of Chicago, but I feel myself getting careless even before I snap at Connor for wanting to head off early at the end of the third day.
“You can fuck off if you want, but I’m sticking around.”
Connor fixes me with his gaze that says he knows I’m being a dick and he’ll use it against me later, and even though an apology is on the tip of my tongue, I don’t get the words out because I’ve heard raised voices from somewhere on the quayside.
I’m instantly on full alert because my mind does what it’s been doing for the last four days and immediately connects the woman’s voice that I can hear to Tamara.
Pulse accelerating, I scan the dock for the argument and spot a man and woman about halfway down facing each other in what appears to be a standoff while everyone else works around them giving them a wide berth to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
I ignore the disappointment settling in my chest when the woman isn’t Tamara and move closer, sticking to the stacked pallets and waiting vehicles at the rear of the landing and trying to blend in.
My brother has no such qualms. He strides past me wearing a hard hat and orange hi-vis vest produced as if by magic, approaches the group of men standing close enough to the fight to overhear what’s being said, and gestures to the boat moored up alongside them.
I leave him to it and focus on the man and woman.
Her blonde hair is so pale it’s almost white.
She’s petite, but even from a distance, she exudes an aura of stern authority that reminds me of the nuns who visited the primary school I attended in Dublin.
I remember being afraid to make eye contact with them in case they saw straight through me and knew that I was never going to make it to heaven.
I get the same sense of uneasiness when I look at the blonde-haired woman now, and I involuntarily find myself looking away.
The man shows no signs of backing down though.
I’m looking at him from behind, at the thick dark hair and line of tanned neck above his black sweater, but his body language is way off, and my hands instinctively ball into tight fists.
His shoulders are leaning over the woman, deliberately trying to intimidate her with his size and stature, one hand hovering near his pocket.
Armed and fucking arrogant.
My orders were to observe, but I’m not going to sit back and watch this turn violent, and no other fucker is going to intervene.
Including my brother, who is making his way back to me while the fight continues.
I meet him halfway.
“Turn around, brother, and keep walking.” He makes a spinning motion in the air with his index finger.
I hesitate, torn between following orders and protecting a woman who is out of her depth. “Fucking talk to me, Connor.”
He keeps walking, and I fall into step beside him.
“They’re yelling insults at each other in fucking Russian, but the guys I spoke to warned me to stay the hell out of it if I know what’s good for me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means if we interfere, we won’t be the good guys.”
“Fuck.”
“Fuck, indeed.” Connor doesn’t glance behind him as we head back to our vehicle. “Time for Aiden to either step up or shut up, I reckon.”
The following evening, Connor and I return to the same exclusive golf resort with Aiden at the request of Leonid Ivanov.
En route, Connor jokes that his reputation as ‘the young golfer to watch’ has reached the Pakhan, and he’s going to offer him professional training in return for a cut of his earnings when he becomes the world’s number one.
Aiden laughs.
I’m in no mood for jokes. I still haven’t heard from Tamara, and this meeting will go one of two ways: we’ll either walk out of here with a strong handshake and a promise from the Russians to start treating people like human beings, or we’ll walk out of here with a target on our backs.
My money is on option number two.
Why would they even entertain our proposal to clean the city up together when they can earn money from trading women and kids who have survived an ocean crossing in horrific circumstances and are unlikely to ever be traced.
We’re greeted in the cream, gold, and mahogany foyer by Andrej Ivanov, who hasn’t even donned a suit for the occasion. My gut clenches. He has made his intentions clear, and we haven’t been introduced to the Pakhan yet.
I follow him and Aiden through to Leonid Ivanov’s office, glancing all around for a glimpse of Tamara.
Is she aware of this meeting? When the Pakhan told her, did she ask to be present in the hope that I might accompany Aiden, or is that crossing a line too far?
I know nothing about her relationship with him.
Their history. Family connection if there is one.
Or perhaps she heard that we were coming and insisted on being elsewhere to avoid seeing me in person.
I feel like a teenager with fine hair barely covering the acne on my chin, getting sweaty palms and a semi-erection every time my high school crush walks past. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong.
A childhood crush might’ve beaten this obsessiveness out of me and let me grow up to be a halfway-normal guy who doesn’t fall head-over-heels for a beautiful Russian enforcer with Olympic gymnast moves who comes every time I suck her pussy.
I surreptitiously rearrange my pants before following Aiden into Leonid Ivanov’s office. Fortunately, neither Aiden nor Connor notices. My brother would have something to say about it if he did.
The Bratva leader’s voice carries across the room, commanding attention as he shakes Aiden’s hand.
But I’ve already smelled Tamara’s distinctively heady perfume, and my pulse is gaining speed at an alarming rate as I glance around the room and spot her in the far corner with another woman I recognize as Victoria Ivanov, the Pakhan’s sister and family lawyer.
Our eyes meet, and heat pumps around my body, sobering when I notice the bruising on the side of her face.
My fists are clenched so tightly I could crack stone with my knuckles.
If I find out the Pakhan did this to her, I’ll rip his limbs from his torso with my bare hands and feed them to the sharks.