Grievous (Wanted Men Book 5) (3 page)

Lucian’s attention went back to Gabriel. He openly studied the way the Moretti boss was sheltering his wife and unborn child. With no apparent disrespect, the beautiful girl’s placement was behind her husband’s right shoulder. Lucian had seen this a few times now. With their watchful veteran and the dangerous Asian doing their jobs around them, if anyone were to attempt to take the Moretti queen down, they’d have to go through three big bodies first.

Losing interest, he came back and focused on Vincente and his redhead. He put his hand out to her and ignored the sympathy swimming in her bright eyes as she took it.

“I hope you are recovering well from your ordeal,” he said, speaking of an incident that had nearly taken her life a couple of months ago. “I was sorry to hear Vincente was robbed of the kill. Too bad.” As Sorin stepped forward to lead a group of chattering guests further away, Lucian released Nika and looked to the now scowling Italian. “I would imagine that gives you nightmares.”

“You imagine right, but she didn’t need to know that.”

“If she knows you at all, she was already well aware. It would be between you regardless if it is pillow talk or not. I do not think you will appreciate the advice, but I would recommend you tell her how badly it burns that you were not the one to personally dispatch her nightmare to hell. Tell her how you drift off during tedious conversations and imagine how pleasing it would have been had you found Kevin Nollan hours before the detective stepped in. I would not go so far as to describe how you would have taken his life, but let her know it is eating you alive that you did not get the opportunity.”

Vincente, who no more looked around to make sure nobody was listening than Lucian did, glared while his partner fought not to look shocked.

“I hope your surprise is a result of my blunt approach and not my words,” Lucian murmured.

She was the one who glanced at those surrounding them. “Blunt isn’t a common way of speaking among our pillows,” she said quietly.

He pulled his lips up to mimic a smile. “Then work to change that and avoid unnecessary problems caused by lack of communication. It is a nuisance. Were you leaving?” he put to Vincente, thinking Yasmeen would be onboard by now. He should go.

“Yeah, and quickly, before you start talking again,” Vincente said under his breath. “Listen, I saw the brunette in the church with you. She yours?”

It was as if everything in the room slowed and pulled into focus, right down to the dust motes floating around them. Lucian no longer heard the voices or the offensive laughter. He centered on the man before him who was requesting information on something that was beyond private. It was sacred. Something Lucian knew he would obsessively guard until this urgency he felt toward her left him.

“Why would you ask after her?”

“Thought I’d give you a heads up that one of your guests disrespected and embarrassed her. Asshole propositioned her. Tried to hire her by the hour. She was quick in kicking him in the balls with a few words, but I still thought you should be aware.”

“Which guest was this?”

Vincente pointed out a nobody. A nobody who had made a grave mistake that would have outraged the man they were here to say their goodbyes to.

Lucian wasn’t outraged. In fact, he was glad for the chance he’d just been given to cause another human being pain before he saw his new pet.

He waved Eugen over and spoke into his ear. He kept to their native language since anyone who would be able to translate wouldn’t be shocked by what he was saying. As his uber-efficient employee moved off, collecting two other chameleons as he made his way across the room, Lucian put his hand out.

“Thank you, Vincente. I know it was not your intention to put me in your debt, but you have.” He nodded to Nika, said goodbye to no one else, and was out the door in moments, Sorin at his back.

“I would like to deal with this personally before we leave,” he said as they walked.

“Should I call in a cleaning crew?”

As usual, he and Sorin, who had been with Lucian since their days in Bucharest, were on the same page. “Yes.”

As they traveled up the elevator to a room Sorin had procured for their private use, Lucian straightened the sleeves of his Brioni with a sharp tug at each wrist. The suit and everything else on his person would end up in the trash, just like the watch, but in this case, self-preservation would now have a little something to do with that.

Yasmeen floated to the surface feeling weightless and warm. Hearing her name pulled her free from the hazy cloud of sleep she’d been lingering in.

She wasn’t sure if it was the commanding tone and that bone-melting accent or the firmness of the hand stroking her flank that had her lips curving and a soft sound of pleasure escaping. Mmm. His voice was deep and delicious; like the cake. The frozen kind.

Her cheek was cupped, and she tipped her head, rubbing against his wide palm.

Lucian.

“Yasmeen. Would you like me to carry you inside?”

Inside? Inside what? She pried her lids apart and had to wait a few seconds to focus. She looked around as little things fitted themselves into their proper slots in her mind. She was still in the car. No. She frowned. She was in
a
car. But it wasn’t the Bentley Sorin had put her into when she’d left the Waldorf. This was a limo. Her coat was beside her, and she was wrapped in what appeared to be a real fur blanket but couldn’t have been because she’d have been grossed out and sympathetic to the animal.

Lucian was beside her.

The driver’s seat was empty.

“What’s going on?” Her voice sounded as if she’d been asleep for days.

“Would you like me to carry you?”

She fought her body’s need for a good, long stretch. “Uh, no, of course, not.”

He nodded and opened the door to get out. “As you wish.” A cold blast of air swept in but didn’t touch her because of her covering. She could smell it, though. And what the hell? She inhaled a lungful. Was that…Christmas trees? The scent of pine became a weight on her chest, reminding her of the one and only Christmas she’d spent in a home with a couple who’d put up a real tree. Two months later, she’d been shuffled off, replaced by a younger baby. She’d been six or seven at the time.

Working her way out of the blanket, she slipped into her coat and looked around for her handbag. Snagging it, she felt bleary-eyed as she followed after Lucian. She straightened, and froze.

As she took in the spectacular scene before her, her pulse slammed so hard she could have sworn she heard it in the muffled quiet surrounding them. Mountains. Forest. A castle.

She closed her eyes briefly and gave her head an honest-to-God shake. When she tried again, she was still surrounded by gorgeous mountains, a snowy forest, and a motherfucking Bram Stoker type castle. The air was crisp, the sky gray, the clouds low and heavy. She’d never seen any place like this before. Because they were nowhere near New York fucking City.

“Where are we?” She’d never been more disoriented than she was at that moment. “Your driver was bringing me to the gallery.” Her nostrils flared when she caught a whiff of that rustic scent only a wood-burning fireplace could produce. There had to be, oh, around fifty of them in use if that was how they heated the monstrosity before them.

Lucian smoothed a ripple in her collar and pulled the two halves tighter under her chin, just as he’d done before she’d left him what felt like five minutes ago but had clearly been much longer than that.

“Following my instructions, Isaac took you to the airport after you left me. Sorin drove us here. To one of my homes.”

Sorin and an airport sounded vaguely familiar. “Which home? Are we in Connecticut?” she asked on a hopeful note.

The way his dark brow arched made her feel gauche. “Does this look like Connecticut, Yasmeen?”

She shrugged defensively. “I couldn’t say. I’ve never been.”

It looked as if he didn’t believe her. “We are in Rasnov, Romania.”

She clenched her fists and sunk her nails into her palms in an attempt to wake herself up and understand what the hell was going on. The fact that she was so foggy and clueless was beginning to rattle the shit out of her. “Sorry? Would you translate that? I don’t speak alien.”

A tic started in his jaw. She wasn’t amusing him. And she gave not two shits.

“We are two and a half hours north of Bucharest.”

She stared at him in shock.

And continued to do so when he put his hand out. “Come.”

She pictured a world map in her head. “We’re in…Transylvania?”

He gave her an even look and flapped his fingers once.

She slowly shook her head.

He dropped his arm. “You wish to stay out here?”

“I wish to wake up and find myself in my bed at home, wondering who put something into my drink and how much I embarrassed myself.”

His expression went chillingly blank. “You will wake in
my
bed come morning after perhaps a glass or two of wine. There will be no embarrassment.”

Her breath jammed in her throat, and her stomach landed somewhere around her ankles. Okay, that sounded incredibly insane. So insane her stupid pussy spasmed. She remembered all too well how she’d felt waking in his bed the last time. Boneless, in a word.

“I don’t understand what’s happening here, Lucian.”

“I have kidnapped you,
draga
.”

She laughed in a nervous burst, and then laughed some more when he gave her a lazy but thorough once over. He wasn’t laughing.

She went to him and tried not to get distracted by the gorgeous amber color of his eyes in the daylight. “Can you please be serious? What are we doing here? How did this happen? Why can’t I remember anything after I left the service? Where are we? For real.”

“I drugged you when we shared that final toast. The sedative took effect as Sorin walked you out to my car. My driver brought you directly to the airport. I was not far behind you. We flew out of New York on my private jet, and I kept you under until we landed. You will remain here as my guest until I no longer have a use for you.” His gaze traveled the length of her body once again. “We should be here for some time.”

Small bolts of alarm were shooting through her, leaving her with a blank mind and a skiff of ice on her skin from her scalp to her feet. She took a step back and brought a hand to her throat to calm her slamming pulse. She wasn’t sure what was worse at this point; his story or how he’d told it. The tale itself was hair-raising, but his nonchalance in telling it was horrifying.

“That’s…you’re not…you can’t do this.”

He made a face of impatience. “It is already done. Now come. Let us get inside. You must be cold and in need of a restroom after your long rest.”

Her bladder was about to burst, but no way was she entering that place. Settled, she turned and walked away. Fuck him. Fuck all of this in a huge way. She ignored her name being called and headed around the circular drive. She’d rather freeze to death or get eaten by a pack of Romanian wolves than stay with this psycho.

“The lane is not long by my standards,” he called. “But there are armed men at the electronic gate that should take you the better part of an hour to reach in those shoes. They will not allow you to leave, and there is no one around for miles if you think to stand there and shout for help.”

She ignored him.

“Fine. If you insist we go here; I will have them shoot you on sight if you attempt to leave me.”

That had her spinning. She stalked back to stand before him, her heels slipping in the snow. “Are you fucking insane?” she hissed.

“Possibly.”

“You just threatened to kill me!”

He lazily stroked his knuckles up and down her arm. “It is out of character for me, but rest assured, it was an empty threat.”

She swatted his hand away. “How can you be so matter-of-fact about this? You know what? Don’t answer that. I don’t care. You will bring me back to the airport yourself. Right now.” The firm note she’d forced into her voice failed to do its job when a tremble overpowered it.

“No. I will not.”

“Yes, you
will
,” she insisted. “I can’t stay here with you. I don’t even know why you did this.”

“Because I wish to lose myself in you, Yasmeen. I need out of my head, and being inside you will get me there.”

She wanted to laugh again, but the sudden fear crawling all over her wouldn’t allow it. The heat snaking its way through her, she simply ignored. “Please stop this. It isn’t funny. I want to go home.”

“I am not trying to be funny. And you are not going home. You will relax once we are comfortable inside.”

Squeezing the leather of her purse, she felt her phone bite into her palm. She walked away again, digging it out as she went, and was relieved to see it was still over fifty percent charged. And go figure, she had service in the middle of Transyl-goddamn-vania. She called up her best friend’s name but realized something before she engaged the call. Yes, Miranda was her go-to, but Kristen was closer. Her other college roommate had left NYU after her first year to move to Paris. Romania and France were nearer each other than Romania and the United States. Fucking Romania. Was this for real? she thought as she hit Kristen’s number before bringing the phone to her ear with a shaking hand.