Chapter Five
The day had faded into a shady night. The cold breeze wrapped around me, seeping into the wool of my coat and the thick hide of my boots. I needed a break from the confines of the bunker. The walls were closing in on me, each new layer of information pushing them that much closer.
I had suspected on numerous occasions since Libby’s funeral, but it wasn’t until Mark had shown me undeniable proof that it sank in.
How could she keep such a thing a secret?
Fuck.
It drove me bat shit crazy thinking of my sister feeling that she needed to keep such an important thing to herself. The revelation would have shattered her world. I know because when I learned of my true parentage, it had done the same to me.
Libby was there for me when I learned the truth.
She was alone when she discovered hers.
Dante Romano was the twins’ biological father.
Had Elias known? Is that why he’d so easily sold Kenzi?
Kenzi.
Just thinking her name caused the grip on my sore and battered heart to tighten painfully. It felt as if someone had wrapped a tourniquet around it and just kept tightening and tightening. Sooner or later, it would explode under the torturous pressure until nothing remained but the cold, dark abyss.
“Gonna freeze my balls off out here,” Vas mumbled, stepping through the open doorway that separated the tunnel system from the forest that surrounded it.
“You didn’t have to follow me out here.”
“Pfft.” Vasily snorted through his nose. “I didn’t follow you,” he insisted. “I love being out here in the cold. Reminds me of Russia. So nice…and cold. Freezing.”
“I get it,” I deadpanned. “It’s cold.”
Vasily shivered dramatically. “So cold.”
I couldn’t help but smile at his attempt to cheer me up, but it didn’t lighten my soul like it normally would have. There was too much weighing it down. So many secrets.
“Do you think he knows?”
Vas didn’t have to ask who I was talking about; he’d been in the same room as me when Mark dropped the bomb.
“I would be surprised if he didn’t at least suspect,” Vas admitted.
“All this time and I never suspected that anyone other than Elias was their father,” I breathed. I thought back to everything I could remember about the twins from the first time I came to live with them. If Elias knew, he hid it well.
“No more secrets,” I whispered to him, the bleak, silent dawn of the early morning wind carrying my words like a promise. “I mean it, Vas. I’m done with it all.”
Vas hesitated, his face contorting painfully. “There are things I won’t betray, Ava.”
I scoffed. “Like where Dima is?”
Vas let out a frustrated sigh and looked heavenward, as if praying for patience. “He’s on an assignment. I told you that.”
“An assignment that you can’t tell me about,” I pointed out. “Your Pakhan.”
“I made a promise to—”
“A dead man.” I didn’t let him finish. “You made a promise to a man who is now rotting six feet under, and as much as I admire your loyalty, I need to know what goes on in my operation.”
Vas smirked. “This has nothing to do with the Bratva. It’s a personal thing.”
“Then why can’t I know about it?”
Vas shrugged. “There’s no need for you to.”
“Just so you know,” I told him. “I’m picturing your sudden demise in ultra 4k right now.”
“Whatever helps.”
His nonchalance was going to get him a bat to the back of the head. Or pushed off a cliff.
“What about Leon?”
“With the Cosa Nostra,” he replied simply.
“You didn’t think to tell me one of my men is working with my former uncle?”
“I said Cosa Nostra.”
What the fuck?“Yeah.” The look I shot him was somewhere between “duh, you dumbass” and disbelief. “You do not remember that Dante is the head of the Cosa Nostra in Seattle?”
Vas snorted in amusement. “He wishes. Dante is the head of the American Mafia, not the Cosa Nostra.”
Huh?
“They’re the same thing.”
Vas’s forehead raised, and he quirked an eyebrow at me. “No, they are not.”
“Yes.” I nearly stomped my foot in protest. “They are.”
Vas chuckled and ran his hand through his mussed hair. His manbun had fallen out at some point, and now his hair hung just below his shoulders in beachy waves most women would kill to have.
“Cosa Nostra is the Sicilian mafia,” he said. “They operate in the US directly from Sicily. Most of the members aren’t US citizens and travel back and forth, operating on both grounds.”
When I said nothing, he kept going.
“The American Mafia are the descendants of the Cosa Nostra,” he continued. “They no longer have direct ties back to Sicily and operate on an independent base. American Italians, basically.”
Well, shit.
“You still have a lot to learn, Ava.” Vas smirked. “You may have grown up with Elias and heard his bits and pieces of the business, but that doesn’t mean you know this world.”
“Why is Leon with the Cosa Nostra?”
His smirk disappeared, replaced by a dangerously handsome Cheshire grin. “Can’t tell you that.”
I really stomped my foot that time, my arms crossing against my chest as I stared up at the six-foot Russian with a petulant frown that would rival any toddler’s. If there was a competition, first place prize would be mine.
“I’m your boss.”
Vas shrugged. “True.”
“You can’t keep secrets from me about my own men.”
Vas’s mouth tugged downward, as if he was thinking about what I told him.
“You don’t need to know about it.”
“Vasily!” God, I sounded like a toddler who hadn’t been given her morning snack.
Vas smiled, the expression lighting up his eyes as he stared down at me. Suddenly, he patted the top of my head softly and winked.
“You’re just so adorable when you get worked up.”
“Ugh!” I groaned in frustration, swiping at his hand. “Stop that.”
Vas laughed, the sound easing the tension of the night. I loved that about them. The men who had stood with Matthias for years and offered unconditional loyalty. They never came across a situation where they couldn’t laugh or find some form of merriment. Even at the expense of their own humiliation. But mostly at others’.
“Sorry.” The look on his face told me he was anything but.
“Sorry enough to tell me about Dima and Leon?”
“Nope.” He popped the word dramatically before he turned to stroll back inside.
“Dammit, Vasily.” I growled as I followed him, the sound of his laughter echoing off the tunnel walls warming the bitter cold that had begun to set in.
* * *
He was holding himself back again.
The monster inside. The one that told him to take me and fuck me until he’d proven to me who owned me.
Him. Heart and soul.
It was foolish of me to give him so much when I doubted I would get a return on my investment. Sometimes that was just how life played its cards.
“Ava.” My name was a pained groan on his lips. His voice thick, eyes darkening as he stared into mine. Conflict danced across his stormy gray irises like clouds just before the rain.
I touched his lower lip with my thumb, surprised at how soft it was, so different from the pleasant roughness of his three-day scruff. Matthias didn’t wince or pull back as I gently caressed the split on his lower lip. He was a beast after a battle and wired from the adrenaline rushing through his system. But I didn’t care.
I wanted all of him.
He was watching me carefully. Looking for signs of unease or apprehension. He wouldn’t get any of that from me.
Lacing my hands behind his neck, I whispered my plea. “Just touch me, Matthias. Don’t think.”
I rested my ear against his defined chest and listened to the steady, dependable beat of his heart as I waited for him to make his move.
My patience was rewarded when he placed one hand on my hip so he was holding me, his fingers hesitant as he squeezed me tightly, his fingertips digging into my flesh, thumbs grazing the waistband of my pajama shorts. He pressed me forward, gently, as if he was afraid he would break me.
I wasn’t so easy to break.
I let the line of my body meet his, and even through his all-consuming warmth, a shiver bubbled down my spine, my nipples hard against the thin fabric of my silken top.
He wasn’t moving nearly fast enough for me. Finally, when I could no longer stand the anticipation and tension that wound tight around us, I leaned on the tips of my toes and brought his head down so I could press my lips against his.
Matthias growled low in his chest, the vibrations running straight to my already soaked core.
With a burning need and deep, unsatiated hunger, he devoured my mouth with his. Taking control.
“This isn’t going to be slow, Red.” His gravelly voice, low in my ear, hardened my nipples further until I was sure they would tear right through my silken top. “I’m going to fuck you, and you’re going to take it like the good girl you are.”
Breathless and wanting, all I could do was nod.
“Words, Krasnyy,” he warned.
“Yes,” I whispered breathily.
Desire pooled in his eyes. Oh, he liked that.
In mere seconds, he had me stripped of my flimsy pajamas. Hands on my waist, he twisted me, and my stomach hit the black glossed lacquer of our dresser. He forcefully bent me over the pristine wood, my chest coming down on its top, scattering the few trinkets decorating it.
His hand connected with my ass, and I let out a long, sultry moan.
“Yes, what?”
Biting my lower lip, I remained silent.
Another smack, and then another.
“Yes, what, Red?”
“Yes, sir.” I gasped when his hand came around to pinch my clit.
“Good girl.” I preened under his praise.
Matthias entered me with zero hesitation and tenderness. I cried out at the force of his aggressive thrust, but he didn’t stop, and I didn’t want him to.
He was savage and unrestrained as he thrust in and out of my wet heat, filling me wholly and completely.
His hand buried itself in my hair and pulled, eliciting a whimper from my lips as my back was forcibly bowed, the move pushing him deeper inside me.
“Matthias.” I cried out his name as the sharp pain of his unrelenting thrusts drove through me harder and rougher. Could a pussy be bruised? Was that a thing? If it was, I was sure as hell going to have one tomorrow. “I want to feel all of you.”
The pain had begun to fade into a steep euphoria. Unadulterated desire clenched inside me, the coil in my belly tightening more and more.
His free hand snaked around to my throat, cutting off my air as he used me for his own pleasure. I wanted him to use me to work off the devil lurking underneath his skin. The one he often tried to hide.
He’d once told me I didn’t need a knight in shining armor.
He was right.
I needed a monster, and as the sharp edges of bliss rolled through my veins, so potent I could barely think, I knew he was right.
Rest for me was fitful that night as I lay in the bed Matthias and I had truly bonded in. It was the place he and I both put everything on the table. Like the day he told me that I never needed a prince charming. That a monster would do.
He was my monster.
A monster I would do anything to get back. Every night was the same. Visions of him dancing through my dreams. Memories of our time together. Each time I woke with my hand between my legs, I wondered if there would ever be anyone else, or if I was doomed to lust after a man buried six feet under.
A soft reminiscent sigh fell from my lips as I pushed away the fading desire left by my dreams and readied myself for the day. There were several files that still needed to be decrypted, but Mark had made headway on hacking into the Wells Fargo mainframe to find out the owner of the mysterious bank account number.
Bank account numbers were assigned based on availability and branch locations. The sixteen-digit account number originated at a branch based in Boston. A creeping sensation slithered up my spine when he informed me of the account’s origins. There was only one person I knew who would have a bank account that originated in that city.
My grandfather.
Libby had done her research into Seamus McDonough not long after she had encountered him with Elias. The dates go back nearly a year. Right after I ran away. Her notes stated that she suspected we were somehow related.
The most disturbing part?
My sister had managed to link him back to my mother’s abduction.
Unable to acquire Katherine Moore’s case number. Managed to hack crime scene photos, but the evidence has obvious signs of tampering, as does the coroner’s report. There are things that aren’t lining up, and they all lead back to the man with the silver cross cane. Detective on case
Full stop.
It was her final note on the subject, and it wasn’t even finished.
“Have we gotten any packages in from the Portland police?” I asked Maksim. He was usually the one who dealt with deliveries.
“Nyet,” he answered in Russian. They had taken to saying small words in Russian here and there to assist me in learning the language. A small step, Vas had said, to help me connect with the men and women I commanded.
Not that all of them spoke Russian. There were more than a few Italians and Greeks in the mix, too.
“Spasiba,” I murmured, dejected at still not having the shipment the woman promised me. It had been nearly three weeks since she told me she would send the documents, and there was nothing. When I tried calling the precinct again, they told me she wasn’t in. Vacation or something like that.
I was calling bullshit.
“What did you order?” Vas queried, his eyes not moving from his cell phone as Maksim drove through the compound and away from the administration building.
“Case file and evidence from my mother’s murder,” I admitted with a sigh. “She was supposed to send it three weeks ago, and now she’s on vacation.”
“Stinks of something foul.”
I nodded my head in agreement.
“She mentioned that there were some big names who had a hand in my mother’s case file.” I thought back to the phone conversation I’d had with her. “She didn’t say who. Just that the detective on the case, Jonny Morelli, was as dirty as they come.”
“Why would they send you the files on an open case?”
“According to her, the case was closed.”
“Did they ever find out who did it?” Maksim eyed me through the rearview mirror.
“Well, no.”
Now that he pointed it out, I don’t remember anyone being arrested and charged with my mother’s murder. Nothing. If that was the true, how had they closed the case?
“Stop the car.”
Maksim growled as he slammed on the brakes. Vas grunted, his phone flying from his hands, his body jolting forward with the force of the stop.
“What the fuck?”
My eyes drifted out the window as we spoke, landing on the capacious grass courtyard that sprawled across one part of the compound. It was eleven in the morning, and it was already crawling with people.
Not just any people. Kids.
Teens, to be exact.
They were dressed in workout gear and paired off in groups of two or three.
“Why the hell aren’t they in class?” I snapped, throwing the door of the car open and stepping out.
“Ava…” Vas called, but I slammed the door on him before he could finish his sentence. “Wait.”
Fucker got out of the car.
I surveyed the scene before me with a fearful trepidation I’d never experienced before. Pain zinged across my chest, my heart lurching as I imagined the innocent faces of the children before me dying in a war they had no right being a part of.
The students were focused, our sudden halt not even registering on their radars as they dutifully performed maneuver after maneuver. Roman, their instructor, called out. Some of them I recognized as ones Kiernan and Seamus had drilled into me when they first taught me to defend myself. The longer I watched, the more complex and dangerous the moves became.
“What are you thinking?” I hissed at Vas when he came to stand beside me.
“They’re training,” he said, pointing at the obvious. “We’re readying them for war.”
“They’re children.”
Vas shook his head sadly. “They haven’t been children for a very long time, Ava. You should know that.”
He was right. I did know that. Most of them had grown up just like Matthias and me. There was no doubt in my mind that some of them had endured much worse.
“They need to focus on their grades and graduating,” I reprimanded harshly. “Not being forced to learn how to fight in a war they don’t belong in.”
Vas chuckled mirthlessly. “You still have so much to learn.” His voice was tinted with sadness, and I could hear the disappointment dripping from his tone. “These are the top students about to graduate. They all exceed expectations in every aspect of learning and training.”
“They still shouldn’t be forced to be out here learning to kill people.”
“None of them were forced.”
Eyes wide, I turned to him in surprise before shifting my gaze back to the students.
“They all volunteered to defend their leader and their home and avenge Matthias’s death.” Maksim came up behind me, his voice filled with a deep pride as he overlooked the courtyard. “We never force our students into anything. Hell, this was their idea.”
“Why?”
“Many of them owe their lives to Matthias,” Maksim informed me. “They want to repay a debt in the best way they know how.”
Tears gripped the edges of my lash line. I dashed them away before anyone could see. “They could die.”
“If it wasn’t for Matthias and the Bratva, they would be dead already,” Vas pointed out logically. “This place is their second chance. Their second life. You need to accept and honor their dedication and, as it may be one day, their sacrifice.”
But I didn’t want anyone to sacrifice anything for me. I never had and never would. If it came down to it, I was more than happy to be the one to sacrifice my life for them. These students who had carved their bravery and survival onto my soul.
“I can’t do it!”
The sudden shrill proclamation caught my attention, and my eyes followed the sound back to a small brunette who faced off against a giant Roman.
“You can,” Roman growled. “You aren’t trying, Amika. You’re holding back. You’re hiding.”
“Coward, more like,” her partner, a boy I recognized by the name of Vadim, sneered.
“I. Am. Not. A. Coward,” Amika, shrieked. I saw the move before she made it, and so did Vadim. Amika leaped at him with a war cry, her body bouncing slightly off the grass as she surged forward, her fist clenched and ready to strike.
Amika missed Vadim’s face by a mile. He’d easily sidestepped her attack. Grabbing her wrist midair, he twisted it behind her back, using the momentum of her lunge to slam her hard into the ground.
Ouch, that had to hurt.
Amika cried out, a mix of pain and frustration as she wiggled and writhed beneath her captor.
“Let me go, you fucking egghead.”
Vadim chuckled.
“You gonna calm down, princess?” he taunted her. Amika growled and swung her free arm back at him. He caught that one with ease as well, locking it behind her back with the other.
“You’re going to regret this.”
“No,” I stepped forward. “You are if you think you can fight with all that pent up anger.”
“Pakhan.” Vadim instantly released Amika as if she were hot coal and stood, his shoulders tightening as he came to attention before him.
Then he was flat on his back.
I suppressed a small chuckle when Amika took Vadim’s legs out from under him.
“First lesson,” I smirked down at him. “Never turn your back on an enemy. Even in training.” Vadim took my offered hand, shooting Amika a freezing glare.
Damn. Polar ice caps, that one. I could feel the frost from here.
“Second lesson.” I turned my attention to Amika. “Getting angry will get you killed. Taunts and digs can only hurt you if you let them. I doubt he’s the first to call you a coward, and he certainly won’t be the last.”
Amika’s eyes widened as she stood and dusted herself off. “Yes, ma’am.” She came to attention. The entire training session had stopped, their eyes on me.
“He’s beating you so easily because you’re telegraphing your moves.” I noticed several times how easily predictable she was when she moved. “You’re dropping your shoulder before you strike, and your emotions play over your face like a newbie at VIP poker night.”
“Vadim is bigger than me,” she whined. I raised my brows at her statement, my eyes narrowing at her.
“And you think that’s what?” I hardened my voice. “Unfair?”
Amika lowered her attention to her feet and scuffed her shoes in the dirt, looking uncomfortable.
“Size doesn’t matter, Amika,” I told her. “What matters in a fight is using every tool you have available against your enemy. If he’s bigger and brawnier than you are, then he’s slower. So be quicker. Move your feet more. Wear him out before striking at him.
“Fighting is like seduction,” I continued. “Watch them. The way they move. The way they talk. Does he have light steps that will tell you how quickly he moves or heavier ones to tell you how slow? If you pay attention, everyone has a tell. Even Vadim and Roman. Find that tell, that weakness, and then exploit it without exploiting yourself.”
Amika’s throat bobbed. “I’ll never survive out there. I’ll lose.” It was a whisper on her lips. An admission to herself more than to me. I’d thought the same thing at once.
“As long as you have something to fight for,” I assured her. “You’ve already won.”
“Not many of us have anything to fight for,” a boy toward the back spoke up. “We’re poor. Homeless. Our parents either died or gave us up. Many of us used and abused. What is there to fight for?”
“Justice.” It was a simple word to give him, but a powerful one all the same. “You are fighting to end the very thing that put you here. You’re avengers. People who understand what it means to be powerless and feel victimized.”
“We are victims,” Amika spat.
“No.” I smiled at her affectionately. She reminded me of Maleah, who had once told me the same thing I was about to tell her. “You’re survivors. You did what you needed to do. Every day you went on living, you survived. Look at all of you.” I swept my hand in front of me, gesturing to the crowd. “Look at how far you have come. You could have easily given up. Given in to death and pain and sorrow. Another nameless kid on the street. Another drug addict or prostitute. Another no one. But you chose to live and learn and survive.”
“What do you know of survival?” a man in the back I didn’t recognize spat. He wore a black shirt with the word trainer printed across the front. “Posh bitch from a posh home. You don’t know anything about suffering or survival.”
“Watch your tone, Malich,” Vas hissed. He stepped forward, hazel eyes turning a burnt gold with his pent-up ire.
“Leave it,” I ordered Vas. He looked down at me in surprise before nodding his head submissively and stepping back. This was my fight.
“I grew up in a house filled with riches,” I admitted coldly. “A place I believed was my home. Raised by a man I thought was my father. A man who beat me and made me watch as he killed those who were disloyal to him. He ruled through fear. Not with loyalty and compassion. He stole me and called himself my father for years. Locked me in a cupboard of a room for days with no food or water. Only letting me out when he thought I was about to die.
“And trust me, there were many times I’d wished I had,” I sneered. “I finally managed to run away, and when he caught me, he had my best friend raped in front of my eyes for assisting me. He sold me to Matthias as collateral so his precious son would survive. Should I keep going? Most of you know the rest. Will my word suffice, or should I show you my scars, Malich?”
Now he looked downright contrite and mildly fearful.
“We all have stories to tell that would give even the darkest soul nightmares.” My gaze left Malich to draw over the crowd. “But the most important story you must tell is your future. The past is gone. Don’t forget it, but don’t let it drown you. You can’t control it any more than you can control the weather. But what you can control,” I paused. The dramatics heightening the moment. What could I say? I was a sucker for theater, “is your future. You determine who you are and who you want to be.
“You decide where you want to go from here. No one else controls what lies ahead.”
Silence fell over the courtyard; the only sound was the mild shuffling of the bodies who couldn’t remain still and the wind singing through the trees. This was a moment for them. A moment they needed with the battle looming on the horizon. The faces before me had still been living in the past, and they let it dictate where they were going.
The past was just a guide to a better tomorrow. We accepted that it shaped us, and the moment we realized it had no control over us was the moment we were free. We all had two lives. The second one began the moment we realized we only had one.
Or so Confucius said.
He seemed legit; I’ll take it. Better advice than a fortune cookie, if you ask me.
“Let’s go everyone,” Roman whistled. “Back to training. The Pakhan is very busy, and we have more drills to run.”
With a low groan, the students filed back to their original positions, some of them waving at me as they went. Compassion and kindness bred better loyalty than fear could ever hope to.
“Ma’am.” Amika looked over at me with a hopeful expression in her obsidian eyes. “Will you…” she bit her lip, a slight blush sweeping across her cheeks, “will you train with us tomorrow?”
“The Pakhan has better things to do than—” I cut Roman off with a wave of my hand.
“I look forward to it.”
Amika’s broad smile was all I needed to know that I’d made the right decision.
Loyalty was earned; not demanded.
Built and not forced.
I wouldn’t let them sacrifice their lives for mine like Matthias.
No. My life would be laid down first.
But not before I painted the streets with blood and burned the city to the ground.
Hades and hell weren’t ready for me yet.