A normal person would construe his comment as a threat.
Lucky I’m nothing close to ordinary.
Threatening me is the equivalent of him telling me that he loves me.
“What is it?” I ask Dimitri when his smirk is pushed aside for a snarl.
When I stray my eyes in the direction his narrowed gaze is facing, I spot the cause of is annoyance. Detective Ryan Carter is making his way down the corridor. He too has the eye of many admiring watchers, but just like Dimitri, he isn’t interested. He has a wife and kids too. He just doesn’t need to hide them from his enemies to keep them safe. Although it didn’t stop him from getting shot. His unhindered walk has me hopeful Dimitri’s recovery will be just as effortless.
Upon spotting my prolonged gawk, Ryan dips his chin in greeting before he passes by me. I don’t need to crank my neck to know he’s giving me a second look. I can feel it in my bones—as can Dimitri.
He leaps out of his wheelchair like he wasn’t shot two nights ago, curls his arm around my chest, then draws me back until my back is flattened against his torso. He doesn’t pierce the pointy end of the syringe into my neck like I did the agent only minutes ago, but his threatening growl that he’ll poison me with cyanide sounds authentic. It has Ryan’s hands raising into the air long before they reach for his gun.
“Toss your gun to the ground.”
Although Ryan isn’t happy about Dimitri’s demand, he plays along. He’s standing across from Dimitri’s hospital room’s now open door, so he’s more than aware how far Dimitri is willing to go to escape.
“Now step back.”
Dimitri’s shouted command is for Ryan, but it’s followed by every person in the corridor but Ryan. “Dimi—”
“I said step the fuck back.” His roar excites me more than it scares me. He’d never hurt me. Not in a million years. He merely wants Ryan to think he will.
As Ryan’s eyes bounce between my drenched ones and Dimitri’s narrowed ones, he takes a step back. He can’t help but be a hero because he has no clue I’m not a damsel in distress who needs saving.
He soon learns the truth when I bob down to gather his gun from the floor.
With my stance replicating the one Dimitri has shown me time and time again in our range at our family ranch, I flick off the safety of Ryan’s gun, then line up the barrel with his head. I won’t shoot him. Despite him being on the opposite side of the law to Dimitri and me, Dimitri respects him.
That alone will save his life.
That alone will see him walking away from today with only a bruised ego.
Ryan’s red face exposes he is pissed as fuck we played him, and his anger grows when I blow him a kiss before shadowing Dimitri’s walk to the elevator at the end of the hall by sauntering backwards. Dimitri’s mean scowl has our approach well-guarded, and Ryan’s gun is more than capable of handling the back.
“What floor?” Dimitri asks when we make it into the elevator car unscathed.
“Any,” I reply loud enough for Detective Carter to hear. “Because they’ll never find us once these doors close.”
Confirmation Ryan has faced a similar set of circumstances before confronts me when he roars, “Not again!” a mere second after the elevator doors snap shut with Dimitri and me on the other side.
Then, even quicker than that, the panels above our head are pulled out and Dimitri and I are hoisted into the elevator shaft by a group of men dressed head to toe in black.
When the faintest hum of helicopter blades rotating in the distance purrs into his ears, Dimitri shifts his eyes to me. “We play to play. We kill to kill…”
“And we take down any fucker stupid enough to get in our way.”
Epilogue
Dimitri
Four months later…
* * *
When Roxanne’s trace of the circle wound in the middle of my stomach continues past the standard three-second embrace, I scoop her hand into mine then lift it to my mouth. I feel her smile more than I see it when my teeth graze the tips of her fingers. She’s nuzzled in my chest, enjoying the last of the sun on a day that would usually be cold if we were anywhere but here.
We’re not lazing beachside at Hopeton. We’re soaking up the sun at Cefalù, a coastal town in Sicily. It was my favorite place to get away to when life became too much before Audrey was abducted. Now it is my favorite place to live.
We’ve been here since Henry’s luxury yacht dropped us off a little over three months ago. The first two weeks of our trip was nowhere near as glamorous as the final two on Henry’s chartered yacht.
In case you were wondering, shipping containers aren’t solely used to transport stock. People smuggling has been a part of the cartel as long as drug manufacturing and gun distribution. When you need to move between countries unaware, it makes sense to jump onboard one of the massive cargo ships men in my industry use on a monthly basis.
I complain like we slept on cots in damp, wet boxes. That wasn’t close to facilities we had at our disposal, but nothing compares to a top-of-the-line yacht, and don’t get me started on the sprawling mansion Roxanne and I purchased with cash our first week here. It has everything our family could ever need. Coastal views, numerous bedrooms I plan to fill with heirs, and a one-of-a-kind surveillance system that keeps me up to date on all things happening in Hopeton.
Our flee from the country we were born in doesn’t mean we’ve permanently cut ties with it. We’re just taking a breather for a couple of months, letting the dust settle, so to speak, then we will return to our realm bigger, better, and badder than ever.
I had initially planned to run operations from Cefalù until my second son is born in a couple of months’ time, but a delivery earlier this week has had me reconsidering my objectives. It wasn’t a threat, ransom, or any of those fucked-up things I faced my first two years of parenthood. It was an invitation to a wedding—an invitation from the last person I ever anticipated receiving an invitation from.
Nikolai and his Ahren survived their takeover bid. It wasn’t pretty, and it took Nikolai a couple of months to lick his wounds, but once his scars scabbed over and his woman’s wounds healed, he took a step back and looked at the whole picture.
Because of Roxanne’s somewhat infuriating nosy-parkering, that picture included me.
We’re not anywhere near being civil. We have too much baggage from our past to ever truly let bygones be bygones, but I will admit, inviting me to his wedding lowered my guard by a smidge. Was it enough for me to decline his offer for my conglomerate to have full prostitution distribution rights on both the east and west coast? No, it was not. But it did have me contemplating a change-up I thought would be years away.
I knew from the moment my eyes landed on Roxanne that she was a badass. She dressed how she pleased, cried in the middle of the street like no one was looking, and held a gun to a law enforcement officer’s head just to ensure I wouldn’t miss seeing our children grow into adults. She has more than proved she has what it takes to be the wife of a cartel leader, and I’m about ready to shout it from the rooftops.
While raking my fingers through Roxanne’s glossy locks, a now favorite hobby of mine, I ask like it’s no big deal, “Do you want to get your dress here or risk a Black Friday stampede in Vegas when we land?”