“We don’t like to get the floors in here dirty. Too much scrubbing,” he muttered.
Even Yury, the pakhan, chuckled at his comment.
Then he waved the end of his cigar in my direction. “Come closer, girl.”
“Why?” I tossed my hair over my shoulder. “So you can humiliate me just like you say my brother debased Joanna?”
Kirill stood straighter at my mention of his . . . wife. Yes. I’d noted the rings on her fingers.
Arkady placed one wide hand in the center of my back and pushed me forward.
Stopping in front of the pakhan, I endured his scrutiny silently.
After several moments while he scanned me head to toe, he pronounced thickly, “There will be no problems as long as you behave.”
I prickled at his imperious tone but held my tongue nonetheless.
“I need you to keep an eye on her for me,” Arkady mentioned to Maksim.
I whirled on him immediately. “I’m not some mafia princess you can foist off on other people whenever you want.”
“I won’t be long, and you don’t have any choice in the matter.”
My stomach dropped sickeningly at his frigid tone.
I glanced at Kirill then back to this man who held my life in his hands and was so willing to pass me off to others. “Arkady, please. I can’t be in the same room with him not after . . . not right now.”
Something softened in his eyes for just a moment. “Kirill is coming with me. We have an errand.”
I tried one last time to sway him. “You can’t just leave me with them.”
“This is the safest place.”
“I beg to differ. Being at my home would be the safest place.” I refused to fall back on typical female hysterics, but my voice held an edge when I whispered, “You won’t get away with this.”
He barely acknowledged my threat before turning on his heel.
Arkady left me in an even more perilous situation without a second thought.
5
Arkady
I LEFT LUCIA WITH Maksim and the others, entrusting my worthy prize to their care despite her protests.
Instilling fear in her would plow the road for conquest later.
A woman like her needed to be tamed and told her place so I could have my way with her.
I would love to taste Lucia’s lips. Lick from her pussy. Imbibe her essence.
Ease my cock into her cunt with slow thrusts that made her nails drag down my back.
Unless I traded her back to her father, that would happen soon. But not before I bent her to my will.
I had no second thoughts about leaving her under Maksim’s protection although the sound of her pleas and begging satisfied a certain part of me that my brothers didn’t even know about.
Earlier at my house when I’d brought her down to face Kirill, Maksim, and Yury, she somehow managed to pull off a haughty attitude even in the disheveled twice-worn clothing— striking black hair and stunning honey-gold irises showing her for the unrivaled beauty she was.
An undaunted woman who’d immediately gone on the attack. After getting her back under control, she’d been forced to listen to Jo’s recounting of her brother’s abusive behavior.
Lucia looked enraged, horrified, then ultimately shocked. She glanced at me, and I’d nodded. It had been the absolute truth, every unsavory word from Jo’s mouth, and for a few moments it seemed like the will had been sucked right out of her.
I wondered if she understood yet that Bastiano was completely culpable for his own death.
Perhaps she was beginning to. I’d seen a hint of vulnerability shade her irises when she entreated me not to leave her at the club.
She would soon find out begging me only worked in very distinct and often sexual instances.
Stalking out to the loading bay with Kirill at my side, I let an icy smile tug at my lips.
I’d said I needed to borrow him for an errand. An errand in our world meant nothing like a trip to the corner shop or dropping off the dry cleaning. I had something much more interesting in mind.
I got in the vehicle and started the engine.
Kirill climbed into the passenger side of the SUV. “What are we doing?”
“Just some reconnaissance and retrieval.”
“Any killing involved in this?”
I glanced at him as I navigated out of the compound. “That depends on if Lucia lives alone or not.”
“So . . . married?”
“I don’t think so.” Suddenly I hoped not. Although it really wouldn’t matter one way or the other at this point.
“She seems like a feisty one,” he mentioned.
I snorted.
“A hot temper means she’s passionate,” Kirill added.
That time I chuckled at his comment. He would know considering the wild start to his relationship with Joanna.
“A hot temper means she’s a pain in my ass.” I slipped into traffic, heading across Boston to the Back Bay area.
“I never knew you to be a monk.”
“Who said I was treating her like a monk would?” Flashing a brief grin at him, I remembered the lush curves of her body and the way her areolae swelled into a darker duskier color when I made her hot.
“Was she carrying a gun when she made this threat to murder me?”
“Da. A Chiappa Rhino.”
“Blyad.” Kirill laughed. “Italian gun for an Italian princess. I might have liked to see that.”
“Jo probably would have sliced and diced her first.” I sent him another sideways glance. “You’re taking this well.”
He shrugged. Then he clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “I’m going to be a father.”
Ah. “I’d forgotten. Congratulations.”
“Had not expected to make the announcement in the middle of finding out you’d abducted a mafia princess.”
“I hadn’t expected to abduct a mafia princess in the first place.”
But I didn’t exactly regret it.
Eventually I neared the address I’d found marked as Home in Lucia’s map app. I’d confiscated her keys so there wasn’t even any breaking and entering involved in this errand.
“This is her place?” Kirill asked when I parked across the street from a huge block of brownstones.
“Da.”
“How do you know it’s not her father’s?”
“Would an Italian don live in an apartment? I’m sure he’d have a more secure location.” In fact, as I killed the engine and sat there for a couple more minutes, I could not believe there was no doorman to the apartment building, no extra security, and people appeared to come and go at will.
What kind of father would let his daughter live in the middle of Boston without extra protective measures? Did he simply allow her to wander around unchecked?
“What are we doing here exactly?” Kirill broke into my thoughts.
“If I intend to keep her, I suppose she’ll have to wear clothing at least some of the time.”
“Are you getting soft?”
“I’m just getting her clothes, not buying her a whole new wardrobe like you did for Jo.”
“Point taken,” he murmured.
We exited the vehicle and crossed the street, our weapons well concealed in this public setting.