Arkady exited. He prowled around the front, opened my door, helped me out. He clasped my hand in his then pulled me to the rear of the vehicle.
And when he opened the back, I staggered a few paces.
It was my father, tied up, gagged, and very badly beaten.
“That is your papa.” Arkady turned his iced-over eyes on me. “How else do you think I found out about your flight?”
Reaching in, he yanked my father from the back and hauled him all the way to the shooting range.
Equal parts fury and fright traced up and down my spine.
Arkady was relentless. At the end of the range, he tied Papa to a post then returned to me.
He handed me Bas’s heavy pistol, and I blinked up at him. “What did you do to him?”
Arkady’s jaw hardened, and I saw cold fury still smoldering just under his surface. “Not as much as he deserved.”
He tipped his head toward the man who’d tried to mastermind my life more than he’d ever nurtured me. “The real question is, Lucia, what do you want to do with him?”
“I hate him.”
Arkady’s nostrils flared. “Do you have anything else to say to him?”
He’d neglected me. Derided me. Damned me to a horrible fate no woman should ever have to endure.
I angled the gun at my father, and that time my hands weren’t shaky at all. Although Arkady had positioned him at the end of the range, he remained close enough I could see the fear clouding his eyes, and I felt no remorse, no compassion. And I would never forgive him.
“Despite what you think, Papa, I possess a brain. I have a career that doesn’t include breeding babies for decrepit old dons. I trusted once that you loved me, because that’s supposed to be a given.” The more I spoke, the angrier I became. “The past few days have proven just how wrong I was.”
He looked up at me for a moment as something close to hatred leaked into his eyes.
I began to squeeze the trigger on his own son’s gun. My heart pumped, my pulse raced, my anger started turning me into something else.
Then Papa slumped his head in defeat, and I couldn’t. Not like this. I didn’t want to become a murderer.
Arkady eased the weapon from my grip and spoke in crisp tones. “I will take care of him so you don’t have to carry that burden.”
My breath gasped out, and I would’ve turned into his embrace if he just offered the slightest bit of solace.
“I want him dead. I don’t want to know about it.”
“Da.” After securing the firearm, Arkady tapped out a message on his phone.
He ushered me back to the SUV, leaving my father where he stood.
Once on the way from the compound, he resumed his unbearable silence toward me.
I wondered if he thought me weak for not killing Papa myself. Except deep in my heart I knew he didn’t. I understood what he’d given me in promising to take care of my father so I wouldn’t have to feel the weight of his death on my own hands.
Still, he simmered with something I didn’t recognize.
When I couldn’t stand the tension any longer, I asked, “Where are they taking Valeria?”
“Home to the mansion. Sasha will look after her. She will be fine.” Again, the muscle at the back of his jaw tightened.
Meaning I was not fine.
Pressure mounted, vibrating between us like an electric current.
Like the shock treatment he’d endured just yesterday.
Outside of his townhouse, he helped me from the vehicle again. He furtively glanced up and down the road, and I knew he was checking for more assailants.
He must’ve been satisfied, because he unlocked the door.
He guided me inside and shut us in.
No sooner than we hit the foyer, Arkady pushed me up against the wall.
“What are—”
He clamped a hand over my mouth, breathing heavily behind me. “Do not speak.”
The harsh order became inexplicably charged with dense desire. The unexpected force with which he positioned his larger body against mine didn’t scare me in the least, not in this moment.
It thrilled me.
I braced my hands on the wall, whimpering when he pushed two long fingers between my lips. Sucking and licking, I only gasped out a breath when he took his hand away.
He clasped my neck, fingers curling around my throat. I craned into his touch, the only one that had ever grounded me.
Anger still rolled off him in waves, and he intended to take it out on me. That much became potently clear when he ground his hard cock against my ass.
Dragging his hands down my front, he roughly cupped my breasts.
My nipples swelled up for him immediately, his breaths grunting next to my ear.
“Yes,” I whispered so he’d know I wanted it.
Wanted him.
Didn’t want him to stop.
Not ever.
He growled then.
From my breasts to my hips then to my ass, his big hands traveled. He squeezed my rear end and ran coarse fingertips up my inner thighs.
“Blyad, Lucia.” He swore viciously, hiking up the bottom of the dress and ripping off my panties.
I pushed my ass out toward him, and he dropped down.
His hands trailed up the backs of my legs, his mouth too. He took little nibbles then gave me harsher bites that made lust sizzle right up my spine.
I was already wet for him. I felt the slickness dripping from my sex.
He nosed into me then his mouth was on me.
He ate me like a starving wolf. His tongue everywhere, his mouth planted against me, his rough-stubbled cheeks rubbing my inner thighs while he tilted his head back and pulled me right over his face.
I had only the wall to keep me up, because my knees weakened beneath his sexual onslaught.
My ears rang.
My body cried out for more.
And he didn’t let up.
Wouldn’t let go.
I hoped he’d never let me go.
His tongue dipped inside my channel, his chin dragging across my clit.
I swelled and wept and beat my fists against the wall and let him take all of me with the savagery only he could deliver.
“Fuck!” I screamed, clawing at the wall, bowed over, pulling up the front of the dress so I could see his head moving between my legs.
With one last powerful suck and thrust of his tongue, he took me over the edge, and he drank me up, and I screamed again.
I glanced dazedly over my shoulder to see him when he rose to his feet. My liquid smeared across his lips, and he stared at me with a ferociously hungry look. Then I heard his zipper being pulled down as clothing rustled.
He gave no warning before his hard cock rammed deep. So deep inside of me that I scrabbled to find purchase on the wall as he thrust savagely over and over again with a greed that compelled mine.
Groaning like an animal, he clamped his hands over mine.
Intense.
Unexpected.
Wild.
Just what I needed.
He drove the long, hard, thickness of his cock in and out at a heathenish pace that made my body froth for him.
Each time he plunged inside to the root his heavy balls slapped the top of my soaked cleft.
Every time he pulled out my breath got caught in my throat.
I kept crying out, clinging to his fingers that squeezed around mine as his thick dick reamed me.
He yanked my hair, arching my neck, pulling me back.
His mouth landed on mine, and I became a wild thing—biting and licking and rocking back as he bucked into me.