Kissing My Killer (40 page)

An instant later, he had my panties pushed to the side. I stiffened as his fingers entered me, finding me warm and wet. He opened his pants and rolled a condom onto his cock—God, he was already hard, he’d been thinking about this for hours. He positioned himself for entry and I glanced once more at the door.
Wait—did he lock it?

And then he slid into me and I stopped caring about getting caught…or anything else. I let out a long, low cry, much louder than I’d intended to, as he pushed all the way up into me. Immediately, his palm pressed over my mouth. I looked up into his eyes and he was smirking at me.

He started to thrust and I rocked against him, wedged between his huge body and the wall. The movement was slow and silky smooth—perfection. The heat of him throbbed inside me, adding to my own rising lust, and my legs came up to wrap around him. My hands grabbed for his ass, then slid up his back to cling to his shoulders. His thrusts got harder and the pleasure expanded, a liquid-hot core wrapped around silver and satin, so good I was glad of the hand over my mouth because I wanted to scream. We were so tightly wedged that there was almost no noise—just our quiet breathing and the sound of his hardness pumping into me.

I felt myself ratcheting higher and higher, my groin twisting and jerking towards him as I climbed. He shoved one hand between us and palmed my spit-wet breast and that made it even better, a slow circling that joined to the main spiral of pleasure. Alexei’s thrusts were getting faster and faster, hammering into me, and as we both reached our peak he leaned in to whisper in my ear. “
Kogda eto budet sdelano , i vy zhivete so mnoy, ya sobirayus' yebat' vas kazhdyy moment, my poluchayem.
”

I had no idea what it meant, but the lust in his voice was all I needed to hear. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him in close as I shuddered and rocked through a silent climax, and heard him groan low in his throat as he did the same.

When we emerged, the cabin was still in semi-darkness—I’d had visions of everyone wide awake and turning around to applaud. Back at our seats, I whispered to him, “What did you say to me?”

He put a finger on my cheek and turned my head so that I was looking into his eyes. “When this is done and you live with me,” he said, “I'm going to fuck you every moment we get.”

I felt myself flush, but I cuddled in to his chest. It might not have been the most romantic speech ever, but it sounded really, really good.

Alexei

We hired a car at the airport, making sure to get something with four wheel drive. It looked dry outside but bitterly cold and we changed into our hiking gear in the airport toilets. God, Gabriella looked fantastic even in the unisex baggy pants and jacket.

We bought road snacks and coffee to keep us going, with me helping Gabriella with the unfamiliar Russian candy labels. Thanks to the time difference, it was mid-afternoon. It would take two hours to get to Luka’s holiday home. As we drove along the highway, I saw Gabriella staring out of the window. “I never thought I’d see this,” she said after a while.

“Moscow? Russia?”

“Another country,” she said in a small voice.

“You okay?” I asked, running my fingers through her hair.

She turned to me, took a deep breath and nodded. “As long as I’m with you.” She turned back to the window.

As we drove out of Moscow, heading north-east, the city gave way to towns and then villages and then finally just trees. The roads changed from asphalt to dirt and soon become little more than logging tracks, pitted with tire marks and potholes.

Luckily, I’d been to the Malakov holiday home once before, when I’d stood in as one of Luka’s bodyguards, and I remembered the route, and that they usually arrived late afternoon. I just hoped that we would get there before them.

For the last hour, we barely saw anyone at all and the vehicles we did pass were logging trucks. The forest closed around us, a green canopy that almost shut out the sky.

At last, we came to the private road I remembered. We dumped the car out of sight and we went the rest of the way on foot, with me giving Gabriella a crash course in how to move quietly.

We found the checkpoint where Luka’s car would wait for a moment before entering the compound. Beyond the gate, a winding road led up to the luxurious, chalet-style house complex, while smaller roads led to the guards’ and servants’ quarters. We crouched down in the trees to wait.

In some ways, it was just like being on a job. I’d been in this position many times, sitting waiting for a car to drive up before quickly taking out the driver and his passenger. But now everything was backwards: I was the one trying to stop the killing and it was my own people who’d be trying to shoot me. I glanced to my side. And the most important difference of all: I wasn’t out there on my own, with only me to worry about. I had Gabriella and that was wonderful and terrifying all at the same time.

Within a few minutes, the SUV arrived. I recognized Yuri at the wheel, Luka’s ever-reliable driver and head bodyguard. Luka himself and his girlfriend, Arianna, would be in the back, hidden behind tinted glass. I held my breath....

...and stepped out into view, hands above my head. “
Don’t shoot!”
I yelled in Russian.

Yuri had his window down, talking to the two guards at the checkpoint. As soon as he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, he slammed the SUV into reverse and tore off backwards down the track, then swung it around in a one-eighty, ready to drive off. The two guards had sub-machine guns and both of them were suddenly pointed right at me.

I fell to my knees and put my hands behind my head. “
Don’t shoot!”
I repeated.

The guards’ radios blared—Yuri, asking what was happening. One of them told him that they had the situation under control. A little way down the track, the SUV stayed where it was...but Yuri kept the engine running.

“Tell him it’s Alexei Borinskov,” I said. The ground was frozen almost solid beneath my knees, the cold soaking through my clothes. “I just want to talk. Tell Yuri I have information—an attempt on Luka’s life.”

One of the guards must have called for backup, because more guards arrived, Soon, there were five of them, all pointing their guns at me. Some of them started cautiously hunting through the bushes, looking for my accomplices. Any second now, they’d find Gabriella. “Please,” I said. “I just want to talk.”

There was a moment of silence. Then the SUV slowly turned around and drove back up to the checkpoint. Yuri got out first, gun pointed at me the whole time. He opened the rear door and Luka climbed out.

It had been a while—I’d forgotten just how big Luka was, one of the few men who can look me right in the eye. Glossy black hair not so different to my own and his usual immaculate suit, together with a long gray overcoat to ward off the cold. Beside him, Arianna, his girlfriend—small and slight—attractive, in her way, but she didn’t have Gabriella’s incredible, soft femininity. Supposedly, she used to be CIA.

“Alexei,” said Luka. And immediately, I knew this had been a mistake. His voice cut right to my soul like a whip soaked in ice water. He almost
spat
my name. “Nikolai has told me everything.”

I shook my head, but he didn’t give me a chance to speak.

“You betrayed him...and so you betrayed me. You betrayed our whole family, Alexei.”

I swallowed. “No—”

“Nikolai says you’ve shot or injured several of our people. That you went to see Konstantin, to cut some sort of a deal with him, maybe selling our secrets—”

“No!”

Luka motioned to Yuri and Yuri passed him his handgun. Luka leveled it at my head. Then he glanced at Arianna. “Close the door,” he told her in English. “Don’t look.”

She shook her head, looking between us. “Luka, don’t,” she said in a small voice.

“Close the door!” he said firmly.

Arianna shook her head in dismay, but closed the door of the SUV.

“He told you to kill one of our enemies, but you refused,” Luka told me. “He thinks you’re conspiring, maybe with Konstantin. Maybe you have a plan to overthrow me. Maybe something else. It doesn’t matter.” He cocked the gun. “I cannot have traitors in our family.”

I talked fast, my heart thumping in my chest. I was scared...but not with the fear of dying. It was the look on Luka’s face that terrified me, the thought that I’d die with him thinking I’d betrayed him. “Do you know who it was, I was meant to kill?”

Luka shook his head. “I don’t care.”

And he pulled the trigger.

Gabriella

I couldn’t understand their words, but I understood the tone. I watched as the man who must be Luka pointed the gun at Alexei. I watched right up until the point that his finger tightened on the trigger and then I couldn’t stand it anymore. I jumped up and burst out through the bushes, right in front of them. “
Wait!”
I yelled.

A shot rang out.

Everyone stared at me in shock.

At first, I wondered if maybe the bullet had hit me because Alexei seemed to be okay. But there was no pain, just a ringing in my ears. Then Alexei gingerly put his hand to his ear and it came away wet with blood. Luka’s hand had jerked and the bullet had just grazed his earlobe.

Half of the guards pointed their guns at me. The rest kept them on Alexei. I put my hands in the air.

“It was her,” said Alexei in English, panting with tension. “Nikolai told me to kill
her.”

Luka frowned at me. I could get a proper look at him, now. He was huge, as big as Alexei—did they put something in the water, in Russia? He had similar jet-black hair, but his features were different, brutally handsome, noble and even regal in a way that reminded me of Konstantin. You’d know which one was the leader in a heartbeat.

“Why?” asked Luka suspiciously. He kept his gun pointing at Alexei, but he’d switched to English, presumably for my benefit, and that had to be a good sign.

“Nikolai is the one who’s betraying you,” said Alexei. “Gabriella is a hacker. She found evidence on his computer—that’s why he wanted her dead.”

“Betray me?” Luka echoed. “Nikolai has been loyal for twenty years.”

I shook my head. “He wants to move into trafficking women.”

“I don’t allow that,” Luka said firmly.

“That’s why he means to kill you,” said Alexei. “You, your father, Arianna—your cousins, too.”

For the first time, Luka lowered his gun a little. He turned to glance at the SUV. “Ridiculous,” he said at last. But he sounded shaken.

“He’s hired a guy they call Seventeen—he works for a guy who works for Konstantin,” I said. “Seventeen’s going to kill your whole family—
here, today
. Konstantin will get the blame and it’ll start a gang war. Nikolai will step in as the new leader.”

Luka stared at me. Then he turned and stared at the man who’d been driving the SUV, an older guy.
He must be Yuri, the head bodyguard.
Alexei had told me about him. Yuri considered for a long time and then gave a sideways nod of his head. “Nikolai
is
ambitious,” he grunted.