An Obsession with Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 3) (9 page)

Shut down.
Or at least she was trying to shut him down. She wouldn’t get away with it this time. “Which part of Australia are you from?” he asked again. “And before you try to change the subject, know that I’m going to repeat that question until it’s been answered.”

A little spark of her flattened spirit flitted across her face. “Eastern.”

The short, evasive, none-of-your-business answer burned his ass. “What made you leave?” he tried again.

“What was your life like growing up, Russia?” she asked suddenly, glancing up from her twisting fingers just in time to see the scowl he couldn’t stop from flashing across his face. The mention of his early years did that to him.

She turned away to face the open water, her leg jumping up and down, and spoke again before he could rush to his feet and yell at her. “You don’t want to talk about your ghosts, don’t ask about mine. My past has nothing to do with why I asked you here today.”

Shock rendered him speechless.
Hmm.
So that’s what being kicked in the ass felt like. Not pleasant. But he’d take it for the moment. Especially because with that little blip of attitude, she’d seemed more like her normal self.

A soft sigh came from her, and he watched her cover her cheeks with her palms, her long fingernails with their silver polish glinting. “I’m sorry. God, I’m such a bitch. I’ve dragged you out here to ask you for help, and I’m doing my best to make it impossible for you to want to say yes.”

He laughed out loud at that. “Yes.”

Her head whipped toward him, and a small sound escaped. “What?” she gasped.

“I wouldn’t be here if we weren’t going to help you, Sydney. So, yes.”

“But y-you haven’t even heard my story.”

He waved at her to speak. “Then by all means . . .”

She nodded and took a few moments to gather herself. “Okay. Er, about a year and a half after I moved to New York—I came when I was seventeen—I began working at Pant. My best friend, Emily, and I. We worked together, shared our lives, even lived together, until I bought the club, then me and Emily . . . uh, separated. She and her daughter stayed in the apartment, and I moved into the loft. Anyway.” She swallowed, and her brow worked as if her memories were upsetting. “Emily became one of my managers, and last year we were working close together. She’d gone to the rest room to change before going home and was taking a long time, so I went to check on her. I found her on the floor. She’d OD’d, leaving her daughter alone. Apparently, the product she’d taken had been tainted with something that had caused her to burn to death from the inside out.”

“Fuck. I’m sorry, Sydney. That’s shit luck.”

Her lips thinned. “It had nothing to do with luck, Maksim, shit or otherwise. It had to do with some asshole drug dealer coming into my club and shoveling his garbage into someone I loved! He stole her from me, the only family I’ve ever really had aside from my . . . other family.”

He nodded, keeping his expression bland. But inside anger sparked. She was fucking lying to him. And if not outright lying, she was being evasive and selective in what she told him. How could she not know how transparent she was being?

“Anyway, the authorities came the following day and took her daughter away, saying her father wanted her. I’d never met Eleanor’s father, and they wouldn’t even give me a contact number. He also didn’t bring her to her mother’s funeral.” Her bottom lip trembled slightly, and she bit down on it as though irritated with herself for her show of emotion. She blinked fiercely. “I felt robbed and angry, so fucking angry. I got in touch with Luiz Morales and made a deal with him. I would buy his drugs and distribute them through my club if he would keep all other dealers out.” Her naïveté had his mouth twisting before he could stop it. She noticed. “I know.” She raised a hand that had the softest-looking palm. “I know what it sounds like now, but back then, in my head, it was much less insane and illegal. I never thought they’d find out I was simply destroying what I bought in order to keep their poison out of my club. Away from my friends, my staff, and my patrons.” The wind gusted, and she shivered again before pulling her hood close so that the fur framed her face.

“He came to see you last night. What did he resort to? Did he touch you?” A pressure formed in his chest as he waited for her answer. His gaze ran swiftly down her fragile form. She wouldn’t have been able to fight off even someone Morales’s size, she was so slight.

“Once I told him I didn’t want to continue our association, he stood and so did I. He told me I shouldn’t have bothered and then implied—actually, he came right out and
said
—I should get used to being on my knees, or my back, around him, because that’s where I’d find myself as soon as he ironed out some details elsewhere. I’ll presume now he meant with you and your boss?”

Maksim’s vision quivered with a quiet rage. Taking away a woman’s choice about who she welcomed into her body was something abhorrent to him—as it should be—ever since he’d had to sit helplessly by while listening to the girls in his neighboring cells get raped by their captors.

“Did he touch you?”

She shrugged. “He grabbed me, but my bouncers showed within seconds, so it was okay.”

“It was
not
okay. Nor was what he said. When I punish him for both on your behalf, I’ll try to make it so you’re present.”

She leveled a puzzled look at him. “For weeks now, you’ve basically been saying the same things to me. Just because you’re smoother and more practiced, why should he deserve punishment when you don’t?”

“Don’t put me in the same bracket as a man who would most likely have to resort to rape to get inside you, Sydney,” he said bluntly. “I’m pursuing you because I find you too desirable not to. He wants to use your body to appease his hurt fucking feelings. One would be for pleasure, the other for vengeance. Tell me you see the difference.”

Cheeks pinking up, she nodded as another shiver racked her.

“Come here.”

Her head tipped to the side, and her mouth went crooked. Had he spoken Swahili?

“Sorry?”

He patted the spot next to his thigh. “You’re cold. I’m not.” He was actually throwing off enough heat to melt a glacier. “You should be wearing a warmer jacket.”

Her index finger waved like a wiper blade. “No, thank you. I’m fine.” She paused and then narrowed her eyes. “And really? I take back what I just said. That offer was like a middle school attempt at a grope. I’ve come to expect better from you.”

He tried to smother a grin. “You’re uncomfortable, and I can help with that. There was nothing more to the offer. Not this time, anyway, since that part of our story has been put on the back burner.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that while we’re helping you deal with Morales, you’re going to have to keep your hands to yourself and your mind out of the gutter where I’m concerned. I know, I know,” he said in a long-suffering tone meant to chase that pinched look of anxiety from between her brows. “You were counting on a dirty weekend spent in my bed. But don’t worry—our time will come.”

The sound of the wind whistling and the odd bird screeching was all he heard for a suspended moment.

“I honestly don’t think I’ve ever met anyone so arrogant in my life. You think you’re really something, don’t you?”

“It’s not arrogance, lover,” he clarified, having dealt with this accusation for years. “It’s knowing who you are without pretending you don’t. Do you go around bitching about needing a nose job or a chemical peel? Spew shit about liposuction or needing to go on a diet? Do you?”

“No, of course not,” she said, as if doing so would be silly.

“Why? Because you think you’re really something?”

Her smile was slow in coming, letting him know she’d gotten his point.

“It isn’t arrogance if you’re simply stating a truth. Fact one: you’re an exquisite little creature. Fact two: I’m a handsome guy. See? Nothing wrong with that.”

“Other than stating it out loud and referring to me as a ‘creature.’ ” Crossing her arms over her middle, she changed the subject. “You never told me—why did Luiz contact your boss?”

“As old-school as it sounds, most businesses in the area of Rapture are considered to be under the Tarasov umbrella. Which means other organized crime factions can’t touch you without going through us first.” Her slightly arched brow quirked, and something like pleasure flitted across her flushed features. That was appealing to her. Which part, though? Being protected? Belonging to a larger group? He filed it and went on. “What have you been doing with your buys?”

Her eyes flared so wide, he reached a hand out and grasped her arm, thinking she was going down.

“What is it?” he demanded.

“Uh, nothing. I—I just remembered something I forgot to do,” she stammered.

“What?”

She shook her head and looked down, hiding her expression from him when her hair fell forward. He released her and set her straight, physically and verbally.

“The time for evasion is over, princess. You’re no longer in a position to pick and choose what you want me to know. If you want our help, you’re going to come clean. When I ask you a question from here on out, I want it answered. Do you understand?”

She hesitated and then nodded but didn’t raise her head.

“What do you do with your buys?” he began again.

“On the sixth of every month, I go to New Jersey and light a fire.”

That was unexpected. “Do you?”

She looked at him, and her crooked little smile was a beautiful fuck-you to Morales. She nodded.

He frowned. “Today’s the sixth.”

She nodded again, that flash of humor draining at his reminder. “I would normally have gone this morning after . . . uh, waking, but I didn’t sleep much and was too anxious about coming here to remember.”

“Where is the product?”

She said something but had turned to face the water again, so he didn’t hear.

“Sorry?”

“The trunk of my car.”

He straightened with a jerk, his foot sliding off his knee to hit the wooden slats with a boom. “You have a load of illegal drugs in the trunk of your goddamn car right now?” he whispered fiercely even though they were the only two around, save for Micha and another of the boys.

At another hesitant nod, he ripped out his phone and texted for a pickup.

“You have a lot to learn about this business, little girl,” he growled as he replaced his phone when it was confirmed someone was on their way.

“I don’t want to learn about this business, Maksim,” she said quietly. “I just want it to go away. I can’t believe I fucked up our lives so badly.”

Hearing the strain in her voice, he watched her lean forward to rub wearily at her face. Realizing how out of her element she was, he softened and ran a hand down her back. She stiffened slightly as he found himself offering comfort to a female just for the sake of offering comfort. An oddity. “No one’s lives are beyond repair yet, Sydney. We’ll fix it up. Don’t worry.”

She dropped her arms and turned to face him again. “I came to Rapture once.”

He took his hand back, not sure his gesture was coming across as it was meant, and rested it on his thigh. “Did you?”

“With Emily. It was just after I’d purchased Pant. We thought to check out the competition. Realized pretty quickly you weren’t it.”

He grinned. “Did my place make you blush, Australia?” he teased. Her own place had cage dancers who wore next to nothing, so he didn’t think she was the squeamish type, but one never knew.

She shook her head, and her spine grew long and straight in that way that told him she was adopting her high-on-her-horse attitude. “No. You practically having sex in the corner for all to see did.” She gave her attention to the Atlantic. “I guess we should talk payment for your services.”

And there was the answer he’d been searching for. Or a part of it anyway. Why did she hold back even though she was clearly attracted to him? Because she knew who he was. Just as she’d said last night. She knew he’d fuck her and then toss her aside. Wouldn’t stop him from doing it, but at least now he understood a part of her reluctance. Why had she brought that up?

He felt a pang of remorse that she’d seen what she had—not that he remembered the incident she was talking about. But then he thought,
Why?
He was a single man with no ties. Why shouldn’t he fuck who he wanted, whenever he wanted, and wherever he damn well pleased? And he wouldn’t have done so in his club. He’d have taken the final stage into the bedroom off his office.

But he would have come damn close before changing locations.

“Have I mentioned that high horse you sit on is an asshole? I hope you water it. Damn thing must be exhausted.”

Her dainty jaw rippled. “I am not on a high horse.”

He adopted a faraway call, as though he were trying to be heard from a great distance. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you from way down here.”

“How old are you?” she asked with a sidelong look.

He deliberately misunderstood. “Thirty-two. You?”

A quiet sigh escaped her as she turned to watch a seagull riding the breeze. Or maybe her eye-roll took that long. “Payment, Russia? What will I owe you for your help?”

“I’ll have to talk to Vasily about that,” he said and then got down to brass tacks. “Here’s the simple solution to your problem and what we’ve decided will work because it has before. You’ll pretend to be mine, because if you’re mine, Morales won’t dare touch you.” Her head swiveled in his direction as he continued. “You will do as I say—everything I say—at all times. You won’t argue, you won’t give me ‘a better idea,’ and you won’t tell me no. You will simply do as told. You also will not demand updates; if there is something you should know, I’ll make sure you know it. Do you agree? Say, ‘Yes, Maksim.’ ”

Their gazes locked, and the banked heat swimming within those specks of green—that she swiftly blinked away and tried to hide—was a massive carrot dangling right in his fucking face. One he couldn’t do shit with until this was over.

“I’d have to do
everything
you say?”

In a perfect world, yes. But he doubted it would go down that way. “Yes. Starting with giving me this.” He reached into her front pocket and confiscated the small pistol he’d seen her feeling up when she’d first arrived. “Until I’m sure you know how to use it, you don’t carry it.” He continued before she could protest. “And rest assured, this will be strictly business. If I touch you or kiss you, I’m not doing it because I want to do it. I’ll be performing for our Mexican audience. Anything I do will be for the job. I will not, under any circumstances, force you into doing anything against your will—unless it will save your life. Because that’s what is ultimately at stake here.” She had to know how deep she’d fallen into the hole. “Once Morales learns that permission to engage you has been denied by our organization, he could be one of those who gets angry enough to seek you out and simply kill you to make himself feel better. You belonging to me will prevent the thought from ever manifesting into anything close to reality.”