Chapter 5 #3
I drive my boot into his hip. He doesn't flinch. I call him every name I know in English and invent a few new ones involving his heritage, his hairline, and the structural integrity of his entire gene pool.
"Put me down, you overgrown refrigerator! I swear to God I will shove this rolling pin so far up your..."
"That's a new one," my kidnapper cuts me off like I'm up here making jokes or something.
"Put me down, you lug! I can walk just fine." I'm damn tired of getting thrown around like a doll.
“Da, but I’m faster and there’s a lot of glass.”
Touché.
He makes the mistake of putting his hand on my ass. I snatch my phone from his grip just as the screen lights up.
Raine. “Thank God!” I try to tap the answer button, but I can't and tug the end of my towel in place. I have to let the call roll over to voicemail.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” I grit out.
Volkov steps over downed bodies and hauls ass the last few feet out the hole where my front door used to be.
We cross my little front yard and I'm shoved inside a car the size of...
"Wait. There's no way I can sit down in that thing and not flash everyone. Why does the door open sideways?"
I don't get a chance to protest more. I'm unceremoniously plopped onto a warm leather seat that feels like smooth butter on my bum.
"It's fancy like that. Now be a good girl and stay put."
I blink up at the Bratva man too stunned to speak. But that doesn't mean my body has the same problem. Self preservation has me out of the seat, hauling my towel up one second and down the next. I can either cover tits or ass but not both.
“No you don't.” I'm pushed back in and this time the massive mafia man leans his body over mine. It's a tight squeeze and he's a big man. My puckered nipples graze against taut pecs.
Bright blue eyes meet surprised violet.
I give a half shrug. “What? It’s not like I can say “at ease, soldiers” like they obey me on command.”
I swear to all that is holy the man grins and then he’s all business again. “Stay put, Cora Vale.” With that my ex's father snaps my seatbelt on and I'm pinned to the seat.
“I don’t even know your name.” I’ve racked my brain since landing against his chest tonight, but nada. “I can’t keep calling you Daddy Volkov.”
Heated eyes turn to me and something flares with a fire I’ve never seen in a man’s gaze before. “You what?”
I swallow the embarrassment and tap my temple. “In my head, anyway,” I quickly add and file away his reaction to think about for later if I survive.
He tugs the belt to make sure it’s secure and then says, “Rowan.”
With that he grabs something off the ground and then tosses my phone onto my lap. And then he’s moving.
Through the windshield I watch him pull my destroyed front door closed. He tests the frame and adjusts something with his shoulder. Another minute of working the tattered entrance and he's jogging back to the car.
I spy high beams shooting down the street and I rap my knuckles on the glass.
“Hurrryyy!” I gesture toward the incoming hitmen and he hot foots it back, sliding into the driver’s seat.
"Why did you just waste all that time on a broken door?"
Blue eyes meet mine in the glow of the dashboard as he cranks the engine.
"Put the door back?” He shrugs like the answer is obvious. “Make the fuckers think it's locked and you’re still inside. It will buy us time."
My stomach clenches. "Okay, that’s not a bad idea. How many goons does your son have on his payroll anyway? I want to know my odds of survival."
The engine roars and the car tears away from my house. My back presses into warm leather and the seat sticks to my damp skin. My towel is twisted sideways and I fight to keep it in place as my ex's father weaves us through city traffic.
“I do not know. More than you can fight off alone is the only answer you should care about.”
I turn and stare at him but my clumped hair sticking up in all directions makes it hard to be taken seriously.
"Actually…ohhh, shit!” I hold everything else I was going to say and I fling a hand out to cover his on the stick shift.
My other hand flies to the dash when he swerves, narrowly missing the ass end of a minivan.
“Where are you taking me?" I screech out just in case we manage to get to where we are going. Alive.
"Safety. You did wish not to die tonight, right?"
My mouth hinges open. My red letter wish. “My God.” Of course.
Volkov harrumphs and that small grin makes another appearance. “God? No, not quite.”
I turn in the seat again.
“You? You're one of them?” My voice rises with surprise. "I didn't know you were part of the Red Letter men."
I get a sideways look from him, and nothing else. Now that I’m not actively trying to keep people from killing me the adrenaline in my veins starts to dissolve.
My hands tremble and the tremors roll up through my arms and into my ribs.
I wrap my arms around my middle and it helps a little.
I take stock of the rest of me. My hair is stiffening with dried soap.
My knuckles throb. I'm not a fighter, but the dude I punched might think otherwise.
I flex my fingers, but it does nothing for the burning pain.
"What did you do to get my son's wrath?"
Pause.
I turn my cell phone over and over in my lap mentally willing my sister to call so I can get back on stable ground. She can take me back to Seattle with her and together we can figure this all out.
I sigh heavily when the screen stays dark. "Why do you think I did anything? That man is off his rocker on a good day. Did you drop him as a baby?"
Rowan pauses like he's mulling over a question he doesn't want to ask.
"I am sorry to say I agree with you. His mother and I saw a different future for him than this life.”
He breaks into a flurry of Russian I have no hopes of understanding, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand pain when I hear it.
“I’m sorry,” I offer, though I know none of this is my fault.
That earns me another grunt. “Why?” he asks.
I shrug in the darkness. “I don’t like to see others in pain. Unless they are trying to kill me. Then my kind heart and sunny disposition takes a back seat.”
He bypasses a grin and goes for a full on smile. “Da.”
Pause.
“You accused me of being at your house to finish the job for my son. You do not need to fear me. My son and I are not cut from the same cloth though he shares my blood."
As much as I would like to argue rather than agree, I get what he’s saying. I’m nothing like my father either.
“We have big problems. How am I going to explain this car, those bodies and all the blood in my apartment? Mrs Mertle across the street keeps a daily diary of all the happenings. There’s no way she hasn’t called the cops.”
“One problem at a time.”
True. I bite my lip as I take in his profile in the passing streetlights. The jaw. The hands on the wheel. Scars drape across swollen knuckles. It’s no secret he’s a brawler.
A flash of light catching on something white draws my attention back to his hands. A heavy silver ring on his right hand.
“Cora,” he nudges me in a quiet voice. I let out a sigh. Damn it. I can lie and drag on the inevitable or spill the beans. I hate to deliver bad news, but he has to know what his son did.
My brow furrows, but he can’t see my hesitation. "Look, Rowan. This isn’t easy to say, okay.”
Dark lashes drop over light eyes. His lips pull into a flat line. “Tell me.”
I can’t wait for this day to be over. I chew at an imaginary hangnail for a few seconds.
“Cora,” he starts again and this time his hand moves to my thigh. My stomach twists but not with fear like I expect having another Volkov man touch me.
But with something much darker. Desire. It has to be from the leftover remnants of adrenaline in my system that find his easing touch arousing.
I inhale slowly, filling my lungs with his alluring scent.
Staring at his hand, I speak calmly. “Your son murdered a man behind my flower shop yesterday. I was there. Wrong time and place. And he saw me." I swallow the sickening bile that suddenly rises in the back of my throat. "And he's been trying to kill me ever since."
Rowan's jaw tightens. No one likes to hear bad news about their kid, I get it.
“That’s why you thought I was there to finish the job.” He throws up air quotes when he states my own words back at me.
"I mean, in my place wouldn’t you wonder why you showed up at my apartment the same night your son tried to off me?
" I tug at the towel that has worked its way up to revealing how I prefer to keep myself fully shaved. It’s a bit too much information for the kind of night we’ve both had so I tug at the cotton material.
"In my shoes, that's a hell of a coincidence. "
Callused fingers spread over my thigh and squeeze the flesh. We lock eyes for a fraction of a second doing eight down the highway. "I understand."
His scowl says he’s still irritated about something.
I swallow thickly and force myself to not think about those hands on other parts of me. I also realize his touch calms my racing heart.
He turns back to the road and I find my voice. "Yeah, like I said. I didn't know you were one of the good guys. But how did you get the wish?"
The Bratva man lifts a heavy shoulder in a shrug. "It literally landed in my lap. But tell me, malyshka, why didn't you go to the police for immediate protection? What if I had not read the wish? You would be dead."
He releases his grip on my thigh and slowly moves his hand back to the steering wheel. For all of five seconds I bite the inside of my cheek to keep myself from asking him to put his hand back.
I blow out a huff of frustration. "I did go to the police, but you can't get protection from a dirty cop.
" I pause a beat and then add, "Answer me something.
My wish. You read it and you just came? Just like that?
Some stranger scribbles 'help' on a piece of paper and you drive across Chicago at midnight to play hero?
Do all you Red Letter men wear capes and full body spandex? "