28. Rurik
28
RURIK
“ L et’s go home,” I told Kelly.
Vik sighed and nodded. “Go on. I’ll manage it from here.” He frowned at her. “I’m sorry you were hurt.”
“I wasn’t.” She inspected her hands. Her palms looked a little red. “Not really. They didn’t do anything to me, but it sounds like they wanted to capture me to tell them family secrets.”
Vik huffed. “What’s new?” he muttered dryly. “All this fucking spying. It gets old after a while.”
“Missing the relaxing responsibilities of managing the whorehouses yet?” I teased.
Kelly gasped. “What?”
“Never mind that,” Vik quipped dryly.
I watched Kelly furrow her brow, amazed again that she wasn’t bothered by the fact that two dead men lay at our feet. She had definitely been exposed to murders before, and I hated that she’d had to have been hardened like that too early in life. Then again, I was glad that she had this exposure. It likened her to me more, such that I didn’t have to worry about her being too delicate to handle the hardships and extremes of the Mafia life.
“Eric was interested in getting intel on the Baranovs,” she said. “I tried to stop him from leaving, but—Oh!” She pulled her phone from her pocket. “I started recording it.”
I kissed her cheek as I released her from my hug. “Good girl.”
“I just wanted to make sure I could help.” She looked at me quickly as she ended the recording. “To help you . Not them.”
I smiled slightly. “I know, Kelly. We know.” I couldn’t help but kiss her again as I took her hand and began to guide her out of the room. “I know you’ll be loyal.”
Despite whatever secret you’re hiding.
After thanking Vik for handling this mess, I walked her out of the building and escorted her back across the campus toward the parking lot where my car was waiting for us.
She talked the entire way, filling me in about all that happened since she was taken. It wasn’t that long of a time. She was only moved across the campus square to that damn building, but it still felt like so long. On the drive, she continued to ramble, almost as if she had to vent and get it all out.
When we got home, though, I was overcome with relief and the need to have her, to reconnect and feel her as proof that she was mine and she was with me.
I took her into the bathroom, intending to clean her hands, but she stopped me, washing my hands instead.
“Let me help you,” she said, kissing me and leading me toward the shower.
We undressed quickly, and the moment we were naked, I lifted her into my arms and carried her into the stall. Steam rose and curled around us, warming our chilled flesh. Before either of us could attempt to soap up or clean each other at all, she was rubbing against me and eager to take me in.
“Turn around,” I told her as I lowered her to stand.
Now that I knew how wild she could be about a little anal play, I was excited to see how far she would want to be pushed. If she’d ever let me fuck her there.
Not today.
But someday.
I kissed up her neck, grinding against her ass as I demonstrated where I wanted her to put her hand. She placed it on the shower wall and arched her back so she could thrust her ass toward me. Before I lined myself up to her hole, though, I lowered her free hand down so she could rub her clit.
“I love you, Kelly.”
She nodded and moaned, already so turned on by playing with herself. I swiped some of her juices from her pussy and used it as lube to play with her ass hole. Watching my fingers slide in made my dick even harder, and I hurried to drive it inside her.
“I love you, too,” she replied breathlessly, that far along to coming.
“I will always love and need you.”
She nodded again, weakly, then hung her head low. Pushing back into me, she rode my dick and my fingers for dual pleasure while she played with that bundle of nerves that always made her reach her orgasm so much faster and harder.
“I need you to fill me, Rurik. Fill me with your cum.” She cried out as soon as she was done speaking, getting there herself before I could. As her inner walls tightened on my cock, I gave in to the release snapping within me and gave her what she wanted. What I wanted. I shot my load into her, daring to hope and wonder that I could be knocking her up once and for all. If she wanted to start a family as soon as possible, I would be right there for it. I wouldn’t fail her, not in any way.
The next day, when we headed to the Baranov mansion, I told her again that I wouldn’t let her be captured again.
I would not fail her.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t paying more attention when that bike came up close.”
She shook her head, taking my hand as I drove. It was our thing , holding hands in the car, and I hoped she would never tire of it. I needed to touch her and feel her constantly.
“It’s not your fault. You were right next to me. They just were smart about it, hiding the biker in that outdoor corridor.”
“If it hadn’t been an electric one, we would’ve heard it revving and coming close.”
She nodded. “True. And I’m not going to freak out each time this happens. I think I have a fairly decent sense of survival and street smarts, thanks to my childhood. And I doubt I’ll ever lower my guard enough to take my protection for granted. I need to look out for myself too, not just rely on you and the other men.”
“Were there any particular threats or dangerous people in your past who come to mind the most?” I asked, wondering if she’d tell me a little more about those years. It would alleviate my worries that she had a secret.
“No. Everyone was a threat and they could all be dangerous. Even the people we were supposed to trust and count on the most.”
We arrived, and once we entered the busy house, we didn’t have another chance to talk privately. Oleg already had the recorded file Kelly got yesterday, and Vik had handled the cleanup in the office. Men were on it, as expected, but still, the Boss asked Kelly about the incident and told her that she had nothing to worry about in terms of it happening again.
“Even if it does,” she said as she smiled at me, “I know my husband will find me and save me.”
You’re damn right, I will.
Once we were through talking about her almost capture, we moved into the dining room where Eva had taken over with her wedding planning. The wedding was only a week out, and it had become a matter of all hands on deck. We all took on some aspect of details that had to matter to the bride, but it wasn’t that bad. She wasn’t a bridezilla about it.
I sat at the table and checked the flower orders. Across from me, Kelly bundled up the linens for the tables, some fancy knot that would be decorative on top of the plates. Instead of reserving a hall, Oleg would host the reception in the ballroom here.
I sighed, smiling at Kelly fitting in so seamlessly. She would, since she’d befriended Eva without knowing she was a Mafia princess. And with me, she just made sense.
Surrounded by all this wedding paraphernalia, I had to wonder if she would want this. All the pomp and fuss, the details and décor.
If she would be happier with a real wedding, I’d give her one. Maybe to renew our vows. But I wouldn’t regret marrying her when and how we did. Her safety was number one, because if she was harmed or hurt, or even worse, killed, then she wouldn’t even be able to be my wife. I had to keep her alive first.
Thinking back to how she’d said that Jerome had identified her as a Baranov, I was proud that the plan worked. Word had spread fast and far if that asshole knew who she belonged to. The Baranov legacy, our name, carried weight. There was a reason people feared Oleg and why his father and grandfather had instilled terror in others. We never hesitated to protect our own, and that extended to my wife now.
But it’s also making her a target. Just like she feared, she was made into a target because she was a Baranov. I knew she wouldn’t even have to be afraid, though. From the recording of her telling Jerome and Eric no, that she wouldn’t ever betray us, it sounded like she was not only firm to classify as a Mafia wife but also proud to be able to stand with us.
I smiled at her again, enjoying how she blushed when she caught my eye.
I couldn’t have chosen better.
Vik nudged my side, snagging my attention and stopping my thoughts. “Hey. He was seen on campus again.”
I furrowed my brow, glancing at him. “Who?”
“The last I heard, they’re calling him Ben Warner.”
I shrugged and shook my head. “Never heard of him before.”
He nodded as he folded papers to be name cards for the guests’ tables. “Me neither. It’s got to be an alias.”
“But who are you even talking about?”
Lev joined us, jumping right into the conversation. Since Maxim, Irina’s brother, had come to live here, we’d all been getting a crash course in reading lips. The teen was deaf and was very good at giving us pointers on how to read lips. Lev, of course, was almost a pro now. He had been “reading” what Vik and I were saying.
“The man who I killed, but didn’t kill, when I took out Yusef Ilyin.” He scowled as he spoke, clearly unhappy about anyone questioning a detail of his last assignment before becoming Eva’s bodyguard and now Oleg’s right-hand man.
“The Ilyin guard?” I asked, familiar with the strange incident.
“No.” Lev shook his head. “The Ilyins never said he was one of theirs.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Then why would he ever be there to be a bodyguard for Yusef Ilyin?”
Lev and Vik shrugged.
“No one can follow this fucker, but he’s been seen around. On campus, in the city.” Vik shook his head. “He’s another person to keep an eye on.”
There was no shortage of those.
“And now the Boss is getting interested in him,” Lev said. “Because he was seen tailing Eric Benson recently.”
I frowned. “Is he that serious about hoping for clues about Sonya from someone in the Benson family?” It was just such a long time ago that Sonya disappeared.
“It seems like it,” Lev said, frowning when a soldier approached us.
We were all alerted to this man’s direct approach. He had that look, the serious, I’m-on-a-mission, get-out-of-my-way soberness that had to mean something happened.
“Now what?” I muttered.
I had no reason to be concerned. Jerome Parson, the blight from Kelly’s past, was dead. She couldn’t be under any threat now. In that recording that Kelly got on her phone when she was taken, it sounded like it was Jerome’s idea to kidnap Kelly. Eric had seemed hesitant to use her to get intel. So Eric Benson couldn’t be after her.
“Lev?” The man nodded once in acknowledgment once he reached us. He glanced at Vik, then me, giving us a nonverbal indication that he was here to speak to all of us. But his attention returned to me and lingered. “Rurik, there has been a development.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered. “Right when I’m telling myself there can’t be a development with Kelly.”
“What’s going on, Nick?” Lev asked.
“The cameras at the apartment show the several officers going to Ms. Garnet’s?—”
“That’s Mrs. Baranov,” I corrected.
He nodded. “Sorry. It’s still so new. Several officers went to your wife’s apartment ten minutes ago. It looks as though they are trying to arrest her.”
I huffed. “What the fuck for?” I turned to face Vik. “You cleaned it all up at that office, right?”
“Yes, of course. It was all handled, just like any other cleanup. What the hell is going on?”
I glanced in the direction of the women, glad that Kelly was far enough across the room that she was oblivious to what we were talking about. She hadn’t learned how to read lips yet. But I bet she could read how serious I looked. I positioned myself so she wouldn’t see me around Nick’s sharing this update.
“We’ve been following the police chatter, and it sounds like they’re trying to say she’s obstructing justice and impeding their investigation of Marcus James’s death.”
That was old news now. Jerome was the last man to be killed there.
Lev rolled his eyes. “Well, they’re not going to get close enough to try to arrest her here. They won’t get past the gate.”
They wouldn’t. We’d keep her here and safe.
Yet, as I looked at my wife again, I battled the intense curiosity of why she would be garnering so much attention after the fact.
Deep down, I knew it had to be related to whatever secret she still kept from me. I expected her to be honest with me as my partner in life.
It was past time to figure this out.