“Oh yeah. Irish hotties. Lucky’s the oldest, and damn if I don’t want to get lucky with him.”
Laughter burst from me at her bluntness.
She wriggled a little then scowled. “Maksim has forbidden me from texting Lucky. He wouldn’t even let me dance with him at Jo and Kirill’s wedding. He’s the worst.”
“Well I thought Arkady was insulting me every time he called me dragotsennaya printsessa. He told me last night what that means,” I confessed to the bubbly woman.
“Da. I heard him.”
“When?” I propped up on my elbows.
“While you were shooting at The Sickle.”
“He was whispering though.”
“Mmm. I have very keen ears and very keen eyes.”
“Now you sound like the Big Bad Wolf.” I laughed.
“Oh, I’m not the wolf. I’d say Arkady is by the sound of it.”
I blushed furiously.
The truth was, so many emotions swirled inside of me—especially after hearing my papa’s awful plans for me—I’d never been more confused. Bas, my beloved brother had followed the rule of our father in ways I never imagined. He’d believed women were property, to be bought, sold, and bartered.
Yet I couldn’t quite grasp how the Zolotov Bratva were any different. Kirill had kidnapped Jo just like Arkady had abducted me.
Then, last night, he had delivered me from pain again.
“Sooo”—Sasha’s elongated pronouncement drew me back to the here and now—“how is he?”
“What?” My gaze shot to her.
When the masseuse stepped back, Sasha swung her legs over the side with a towel draped across her body. “Arkady. What’s he like in bed?”
Unbelievably, my face flushed even more. “Isn’t he like a brother to you?”
I dodged the question.
Or so I thought.
Sasha shrugged. “Mostly.” Then her sparkly eyes widened dramatically. “A mean older brother, but he’s not half as irritating as Maksim.”
“Really?” I still didn’t buy her animosity toward the youngest Krasnov.
“Yes. Why?” she snapped.
“No reason. Except you seem to have an awful lot of chemistry to be bickering so much.”
She scoffed then grumbled, “We were talking about you and Arkady.”
“He gives me everything I didn’t know I needed,” I slowly admitted, but I wouldn’t divulge any of the racier details.
Not even as I remembered with arousing detail the way he’d fucked me with such wild mastery.
It was then I noticed new movement just beyond the entrance of the sunroom. Glancing over confirmed my suspicions. Arkady had appeared, and I had no idea how much he’d overheard.
I bit my tongue immediately, certain my face turned absolutely scarlet.
He was already too cocky, so arrogant, deliciously talented. He didn’t need any more encouragement from me.
Sasha, not realizing my predicament, winked indelicately. “So he has a big cock.”
Just kill me now.
“Ahem.” Arkady stepped into the room, bold and cocksure.
Sasha smiled brightly, wrapping her towel more securely around herself. “We were just talking about you.”
It was clear now who the troublemaker of the family was.
His gaze remained on me, one brow slowly arching.
Then he ordered, “I believe it’s time we were going.”
I glared at him with all the poison I could muster, which was difficult since I was practically naked.
“Now,” he muttered.
The masseuses disappeared, and I let out a groan of persecution before hopping off the table. Letting the towel fall, I stood unabashedly nude.
Sasha snickered while Arkady’s eyes roamed over me with pure possessive ownership.
“If you want to keep giving me a show, I’ll just take a seat and enjoy it.”
His arrogant comment propelled me into motion, and he definitely didn’t give me any privacy to dress.
Sasha donned a robe then waggled her fingers at me before she left me with the man who infuriated me as much as he intrigued me.
As soon as I had my clothes in order, he straightened from his lounging position. Within minutes, he’d whisked me from the house.
I sat in the passenger seat of his SUV, the mansion growing smaller and smaller in the background while I steamed and stewed once again over his domineering manner.
“What was so urgent that you had to drag me all the way out here in the first place?” I eventually asked in a shrewish voice.
“You seemed to be enjoying yourself.” He smirked.
“Argh!” I slouched in a very unladylike manner.
“Did you take your medications this morning?” he mentioned oh so casually like he had every right to ask after my wellbeing.
“Of course I did,” I snapped. “I’m not entirely negligent when it comes to my own welfare.”
He glanced at my legs, and I grew self-conscious all over again about the old scars and the new wounds just beginning to heal over due to his careful, gentle attention.
After clearing his throat, he said, “I needed to discuss plans with Yury.”
“About me?”
He nodded.
“And what decisions have you made regarding my life?”
He shifted gears, one hand looped over the steering wheel as he eyed me. “I will call Sabato.”
“To make your own deal with him?” Disbelief rocked through me.
After last night, I thought . . .
I’d briefly believed Arkady was different than I’d originally imagined. That this Russian underboss—this savage—gave a damn.
“To lure him someplace so I can murder him,” Arkady uttered in such a low and lethal tone I wondered if I’d misheard him.
“What?” I peered at him.
He sat staring straight ahead, expression stern and jaw clenched as if he hadn’t wanted to admit he planned to do away with the old man my papa had sold me to.
“You heard me,” he finally muttered.
“Good.” Relief I didn’t want to acknowledge threatened to undo me. “Because I hate him. I hate them all.”
“Do you hate me too?”
Shocked that he should even ask such a question, I met his steely blue gaze.
Before I could answer though, he swerved the vehicle with a hard turn, shouting, “Get down!”
In the single moment before he pushed my head to my knees, I saw that a van had barreled out from a dirt track up ahead and stopped dead center in the middle of the road.
“Arkady?” My voice warbled.
His hand remained on the back of my head. “Stay down, Lucia.”
I felt the car jerk quickly into reverse before he swore viciously, “Blyad!”
He slammed into park, the force jolting me forward but not enough to hit my head on the dash.
“Fuckers ambushed us.” He grunted, reaching into the backseat.
My heart climbed all the way to my throat when I saw him retrieve a shotgun. We were in the countryside, far from any other houses or businesses, and suddenly we were surrounded either by my father or the man he’d bartered me to.
“What about the escort vehicles?” I asked tremulously.
“Bastards cut them off.”
The sharp sound of rapid gunfire cut through the air like tinny missiles. I heard glass exploding before I felt sharp pellets of broken glass raining down on me.