Anatoly Medlov (35 page)

She twisted and turned her head on the floor, biting her lip and moaning his name. He reached back and carefully slapped it again. This time, she screamed out, feeling her body shake in despair. When he was certain that she had nearly expired from ecstasy, he bent to kiss her there again, feeling the heat and smelling scent of her body draw him in for the kill.

He knew it was a risky thing to do. As he watched her undulate under him, drunk with passion, blinded by love, he knew that there could be the possibility of no going back, but he did it anyway.

Pulling her legs apart, uncovered and exposed, vulnerable to only trust, he penetrated her body.

His searching hands dug into the carpet beside her shoulders as they made eye contact. With his knees planted below her and her legs around his waist, he pumped into her body unprotected. She let her head rest back, hot tears running down the sides of her face.

He quickly kissed them away, but continued to go deep and deeper into her. The slick feeling of her body connected to his through raw nerve endings that electrocuted their senses made him crazy. His muscled tensed, his body sweated, his eyes darkened.

Renee let out a helpless cry. Her body shook in pleasure as he lifted her hips and fought to go deeper into her heated center. Arching her back, she felt her body lift off the ground as Anatoly carried them both in his embrace. Still with his hand braced against the floor, his throbbing penis inside her, his knees planted, he heard her reach her climatic end. She screamed aloud, calling his name, his full name. Tears and sobs followed, but he continued on, continued until she was silent, then continued until she was moaning against the pool of heat re-emerging in between them. He continued until she was forced to look into his eyes and submit to his entire will; until the tears had gone and she had accepted that she was at his mercy, until he could take no more.

His body tensed to rigid rock, but he kept his gaze on her. The veins in his neck protruded out, his skin burned and flushed red. Then as he bent to kiss her, she felt it. The hot seed poured from his body into hers.

Collapsing to the ground, he pushed further into her body, rocking her hips to finish it. With one final pump into her body, he whispered into her mouth. “You’re mine,” he said, kissing her lips and looking into her eyes. “You’re mine.”

She nodded in agreement, unable to speak due to the pure shock of what had just happened. She had actually let him do what she said she would never allow him to, and he knew it.

Rolling over on her side, she felt him behind her, stroking her and resting. She looked into the fire and tried to catch her breath. What was she doing? This had all happened so fast. First, he just came to her out of the blue from Prague, then he had sex with her, then he drove to Atlanta to collect her, then he gave her a boutique, and now he was emptying himself into her—all of this in a matter of a month.

Renee swallowed hard. Before she knew it, she’d be pregnant too. And she would be just like Royal. She had judged that poor woman so harshly. She had thought her weak and cowardly, but now she knew. These men were overpowering. They had a way of making a person do exactly what they wanted regardless of the person’s will.

Anatoly’s arm slipped over her and pulled her into his body. Kissing her shoulder, he closed his eyes.

I do belong to you
, she thought to herself of the man behind her. “But you belong to me too,” she said aloud before she could help it.

Anatoly’s eyes cracked open, and he looked at the back of her head. Smiling, he licked his lips and sighed. “I know,” he answered in a low baritone, knowing without asking that she was brooding about his decision.

The truth of the matter was that he’d never use a condom with her again. He would not have to. If he ever denied her after this, she’d be the one to protest. He knew because she enjoyed it too much. She didn’t fight it; she opened up to him, allowed him to fill her to the brim. She loved him as much as he loved her, only she was so stubborn, she was going to try her damndest to fight it.

Everyone always loses to a Medlov
, he thought to himself. “Get some rest, baby,” he said, stroking her exposed breast. “
YA lyublyu tebya
,”

“I love you, too,” she said drifting off to sleep.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Two weeks had passed and the day had finally come. Rushing out to the jet, Gabriel held his breath as the hatch opened and the staircase was put under her feet. He had never seen anyone so beautiful. She emerged into the crisp air wrapped in a delicate pink sweater with her golden locks around her face and her blue eyes set on him. Briggy.

She ran down the stairs to him, eyes brimming with tears. He met her with a strong, loving embrace, pulling her up to his face and kissing her with the passion of a million missed moons. He felt alive again with her there, like his blood had finally begun to pump through his steely veins again.

Anatoly had given Gabriel the day off. “Take care of her,” he had said. “Make sure that she gets situated before this all goes down.”

And even though he didn’t know the city well, Gabriel had an entire day planned for just the two of them.

Plus, since Anatoly had arrived back from Atlanta, they had worked every day making deals, preparing deliveries; and tomorrow, he was scheduled to head to South Florida for the major deal there with the last of Anatoly’s personal stash of guns from the Sochi buy.

Briggy wiped her eyes and whispered
I love you
in French. Her beautiful lips found his again, kissing his full mouth and holding him close. Finally, he put her down, and he motioned for the bodyguards to get her things.

As he walked off the tarmac with her, he noticed a man in window of entryway. It was a startlingly familiar face. Agent Lee.

He didn’t make contact with him, just let him know that he was heat he was watching, and suddenly, just as he intended, Gabriel’s joy had been stolen.

***

Gabriel knew that it was time to tell Briggy. After she had moved into the apartment with him, after dinner and after intense love making, he knew that one thing still had to be handled. Everything within him told him not to send for her.
But where was reason when a man was lonely?
Having been deprived for so long of human contact, he could not help his desire to be with her.

Then there was the issue of Anatoly and his own intense affair. Every moment that he wasn’t working, he and Renee were together. Everyone noticed it, but no one had the balls to say anything about it. He guessed that it didn’t matter much to the Vory as long as the money continued to come in, and they didn’t marry.

Anatoly and Vasily talked about the code often, discussing men that he’d never heard of or ever imagined knowing. Anatoly knew them all - the ones no one knew were Vory and the ones that the FBI posted on every bolo around the country.

When Gabriel first began this adventure, he might have used the information, but the deeper he got, the more he found no desire to go digging in the family business. He saw the Medlov men for what they were, and he finally understood why everything had happened.

So much of what his father had taught him was true, only so much of it wasn’t. It left him in a fury that often kept him up at nights and made him constantly hate himself.

He knew that his father had hated Dmitry, but as he infiltrated the organization, he saw that his father had been jealous of his brother’s power, very much like he would be of Anatoly if he were a real Vor...if he were a real Medlov.

Briggy came out of the shower wrapped in a towel and crawled into bed with him. Her long blonde locks were pulled into a ponytail and her face free of makeup. Gabriel snapped out of his daze and glanced up at her. Touching her face, he adjusted his head on the headboard and turned off the television.

“What’s bothering you, sweetheart,” she asked, straddling his naked body.

“I have something that I need to tell you.” He looked her in her eyes and smiled. “Over a midnight snack that is. So, get dressed. Let’s go get some ice cream.” Gabriel thought about what he was doing. If everyone on the council’s business was bugged, he was certain that his own place might be. He could not get caught slipping up. With Agent Lee in Memphis and the drug bust looming, everything mattered.

“Alright,” she said, wide-eyed. “I’ll get dressed.”

***

Before the sun could rise, Anatoly, Gabriel and Vasily were off on the jet headed to Miami to prepare for the drop. From what Anatoly had told Gabriel, no one wanted him on this job. It was too dangerous and a cardinal sin to allow a boss to do any grunt work. But Anatoly insisted that he showGabriel the ropes.

By breakfast, amidst a beautiful seventy-degree day, the men were at the balmy docks exchanging money for the last of his precious shipment of military-grade weapons.

Anatoly had called in advance for an additional thirty men because of the shipment size and because of problems that they had previously with Igor. Likewise, the Cubans had done the same.

From the outside, it may have looked like overkill, but Anatoly never bet small. He had learned from previous ambushes to take nothing for granted. It was a lesson that he was currently trying to teach Gabriel for future jobs.

A tall, Cuban man by the name of Adolfo with startling hazel eyes and a dark, mesmerizing tan stood with Anatoly smoking a cigar and talking about the Riviera while Gabriel and Vasily saw to the loading of the shipment on a freight boat off the shore.

Evidently, Adolfo was the eldest son of Diego, the restaurant owner that Anatoly had visited with Destiny a few months back. Adolfo was a fearless man with dominating features, a strong jaw, muscular build, piercing eyes, deep voice and a thick Cuban accent. While he was born in Miami, he had spent his entire life fighting for his father’s cause. The men under Diego and Adolfo’s charge were very much against the Castro regime and funneled their brothers out of the country as well as aide to their families who were still in Cuba.

The guns were used to ensure their safety and to fight the war that silently continued between the sons of Cuba who wanted their people free.

Dmitry and Diego had been friends and business partners for many years. Moneys were often transferred for various causes and meet and greets took place in distant locales to serve both of their purposes.

When Diego retired from his post and stepped aside, he had tapped Adolfo to take over. He had done so happily and provided new energy and enthusiasm in recruiting men and resources.

Adolfo and Anatoly had become friends of sorts. They both knew the perils of serving under the command and then taking over the reign. Not many young men of their age had been accountable for such a terrifying responsibility, but they both had taken on their charge with fervor.

Gabriel watched the men all day, learning from them through their conversations that he had not been the only ones to have a hard father, a hard existence or many trials and tribulations. They all shared in the experience, each one taking something different from it.

When they were done, they set a date to come back to Miami and just
hang out
. Anatoly happily introduced his cousin and told him that Adolfo would be doing business with him in the future.

Adolfo seemed to like Gabriel, which surprised him. And like every experience with the Medlov men, Gabriel sincerely felt more in his element with them than with the DEA.

The flight back waslaxed. Anatoly popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate, and the men had dinner in the confines of the jet alone, enjoying conversation that didn’t center on guns or the mafia. For that evening, they were just guys hanging out after a long day at work.

***

Oleg came into the office of his chemical plant on the outskirts of Memphis and hit the table, knocking papers to the floor. Yuri, his partner in crime, was already there waiting to figure out what they were going to do now that things had gone so terribly wrong.

With Anatoly and Gabriel handling the last load of the shipment to the Cubans today, there was no way to cut out their take. Now, they were faced with paying the Columbians out of their own money to a tune of $6 million dollars in cash in less than four days.

They had sent a group to highjack the load from their boss, but when the hired men arrived and saw how heavily armed both Adolfo’s men and Anatoly’s men were, they promptly cancelled the operation.

No one takes on Anatoly Medlov.
That was the word that was sent to them only an hour ago, after they thought that they were rid of the troublesome boy and his entourage.

“Do you have six million dollars?” Yuri asked, rubbing his cold hands together. The arthritis in his body only seemed to flare more under stress, which lately was often enough.

“It will be very hard to acquire in four days. Between the two of us, I’m sure that we can liquidate and pay, but it puts us in a very complicated situation,
brat
. How are we to explain it away to banks, to IRS, to anyone?” Oleg shook his head and stared out the window at the men working below.