Zel: Markovic MMA (17 page)

There was no answer so I stepped inside the house. Almost instantly, the overpowering scent of chemicals took my breath away.
What the hell?

"Ruby! Where are you? Hurry up! Let's go."

The fine hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I slowly crept across the living room. One glance into the kitchen and I had my answer to the strange smell question. The counters and table top were littered with empty bottles and boxes and equipment. Someone had been cooking meth in here. Small batches, it seemed, but just as dangerous.

I shoved down the urge to throttle Ruby for pulling me into this nightmare. I wasn't sure how volatile the remnants of the drug-making procedure were but I didn't dare turn on any lights as I continued my snail's pace walk toward the rear bedrooms. There was still enough light from the setting sun to illuminate the interior of the house but I walked carefully.

Worried she'd passed out or gotten high again, I had to check every room and closet and even under the beds. When she was high, Ruby often squeezed herself into tight spaces. I didn't understand it and probably never would.

I came to the last bedroom in the house and spotted the hot pink phone she carried everywhere. The sight of used syringes, spoons and crushed pills left me cold. Ruby's preferred method of abusing oxy had always been snorting, especially the quick-release form of the drug. Now it seemed she'd made the jump to shooting up the pills.

I picked up the empty bottle and used the last rays of sunshine streaming through the open blinds to check the label. The name I recognized as one of the aliases she sometimes used when doctor shopping.

A few months earlier, she'd somehow managed to buy an MRI and took it to pain clinics around town for prescriptions. Even though I'd gone through her things dozens of times, I'd never been able to find the damn MRI. Not that it would have done any good. She would have bought another one or simply scored her pills from some lowlife street dealer.

The prescription had been filled the day before and was already empty. Ninety pills gone. Had Ruby taken them all in forty-eight hours? Had she shared some with Andrei? Gut clenching so hard I couldn't breathe, I bravely pushed open the door of the bathroom, fully expecting to find Ruby passed out on the cold tile—or worse.

But the bathroom was empty. I shoved aside the shower curtain and discovered only a filthy tub, the tile and grout so stained with mildew they were an unsightly greenish-black. I let the curtain fall and left the bathroom. Where the hell had Ruby gone?

The second I stepped back into the bedroom I spotted him. A strange man, short and stocky, stood in the doorway of the bedroom. He held a very long, very sharp knife. Heart beating in my throat, I croaked, "Who are you?"

"I should ask you same question." His accent sounded so different than the Russian I'd heard earlier today. Was it Albanian? I couldn't tell. "What you do here?"

His broken English came through loud and clear. "I'm looking for my sister."

He chuckled menacingly and took cautious strides my way. "Red-haired slut, yes?"

I gulped in fear and backed into the corner. Ruby had recently dyed her normally straw-blonde hair a vibrant shade of red but she most definitely was not a slut. "Her name is Ruby and she's missing."

"Not missing," he said, his vicious smile almost stopping my heart. "Just misplaced."

"Misplaced? What does that—?"

Heavy footsteps in the hallway interrupted us. In a flash of grey fabric, Ivan appeared in the doorway behind the man. He took one look at me and flew at the knife-wielding man. With the skill and practice of a man used to the hard life of the streets, Ivan expertly rid the shorter man of his weapon and tossed him into the wall. He popped the man twice in the temple and once in the nose, leaving him dazed and bloodied. The brutal strength Ivan displayed shocked me.

As the man grunted and tried to climb to his feet another man ran into the room behind Ivan. I recognized the thin, dark-haired man from the gym. He spoke quickly to Ivan in Russian. Whatever he'd said, it wasn't good.

Ivan grabbed my hand and pulled me behind him. His hand moved to my hip, the gesture simultaneously possessive and protecting. The sound of footsteps echoed in my ears. More men spilled into the bedroom. Hidden behind Ivan, I silently prayed that we'd make it out of here alive.

"Ivan."

"Besian." His fingers bit into the flesh of my hips. I didn't dare move. The man had just put his body between mine and danger. I wasn't going to do anything to risk his. "We were leaving."

"I have business with the girl."

"Not this one."

The man, Besian, laughed. "You're the second person today to tell me to keep away from her. What's so special about this one, huh?"

"She belongs to me." His words, spoken so cold and calm, shocked me.
Belonged to him?

"I see." Besian sounded surprised. That made two of us. "I have to ask her questions, Ivan."

"Then you go through me." His voice remained steady as he delivered his threat. I wasn't sure how much weight it carried but apparently it was enough.

"Hey, Ivan," Besian said with a nervous laugh, "we're old friends, yeah?" Ivan said nothing. "Look, we don't have to escalate this, okay? Just ask her how she knew her sister was here."

"Erin, how did you know your sister was here?" Ivan's tone warned me not to lie.

Voice trembling, I answered them. "She called. She said Andrei had abandoned her. She wasn't here when I arrived."

"There. Satisfied, Besian?"

"For now," the other man said. "You understand that Andrei and the sister are in blood with us now. If that debt isn't settled…"

The man's threat hung in the air. The chilling words spilled over me and left me shaking. I didn't know what
in blood
meant but I figured it was bad. Really bad.

Ivan didn't say anything. He simply grasped my hand and tugged me along behind him. His friend, the dark-haired man who had come running in to warn us, flanked me. The men kept me surrounded and safe as we left the house. I spotted four black SUVs parked outside and my small silver car in the center. One of the SUVs had two men waiting in it. Ivan flicked his fingers and the man in the passenger seat quickly came to the sidewalk.

Ivan spun around and stuck out his hand. "Keys. Now."

I could hear the anger in his voice and didn't dare tell him no. I slapped my keys into his palm. He tossed them to the man he'd summoned from the waiting SUV and gave him instructions. Still holding my hand, Ivan led me to the other SUV and opened the rear passenger door. He picked me up like a small child and dropped me in the seat. "Seatbelt."

With shaking hands, I buckled up. The dark-haired man climbed into the driver's seat and Ivan hopped onto the passenger seat to my right. His annoyed expression didn't bode well.

Vivi and Lena's warnings circled round and round in my head. There was no escaping the consequences this time. I was in big fucking trouble.

* * *

Ivan tried to muscle down his anger and fought the urge to shout at Erin for being so reckless. She'd just survived a shocking experience and still hadn’t located her sister. It was clear she was in a delicate state. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her even more—and he never wanted her to be afraid of him. His size and brute strength had always frightened people, women especially. Somehow the thought of Erin flinching away from him seemed even more agonizing.

It was stupid, really, his attraction to her. This petite pixie with her short, dark hair and bright green eyes wasn't the kind of woman for a man like him. Nikolai had known of her when they'd had their sit down earlier. She was close friends with the black-haired waitress Nikolai all but considered his ward. If Erin hung out with Vivian, that meant she was intelligent and probably well-educated. In other words, she was much too good for him.

He tried not to examine his reasons for wanting to protect Erin. It wasn't just that she was innocent and sweet and soft and the perfect prey for a man like Besian and his thugs. No, it was something even more dangerous than that. He'd already let his attraction to her put him in an impossible position.

"I'm sorry, Ivan."

Her faint, warbling voice cut him deeply. Was she crying because she was afraid of him? Was she crying because she feared she'd never see her sister again or because the strained meeting with Besian had shaken her? He didn't ask because he wasn’t sure he'd like the answer.

Still he had to know why she'd done something so incredibly stupid. "What were you thinking coming here? Didn't I tell you to stay home and let me deal with this?"

The lights from the dashboard and the street lamps illuminated her face. She bravely met his questioning gaze. "I was shopping when Ruby called me. She was scared and alone. I wasn't going to waste time trying to find you." Her shoulders sagged and her head dropped. "But that doesn't matter because I was too late."

The urge to comfort her gripped him. He wanted nothing more than to pull her onto his lap and kiss away the pain tearing at her—but he didn't. She needed to know how serious the situation had become.

"Do you know who those men were?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Besian and his crew enforce for the Albanian mob. They're some of the most dangerous men you'll ever meet." He didn't mention that she was riding in a vehicle with two men more dangerous than Besian because she wouldn't understand. "You are lucky that I had Kostya following you and he was able to call me. I was only a few minutes away otherwise…"

"I knew it!" She shouted triumphantly and turned her attention to the driver seat. "I knew someone was following me."

"You had the sense to know you were being tailed but didn't have the sense to know that you shouldn’t go into a strange house alone?" Ivan marveled at the poor choice she'd made. "I know you love your sister but you'll be no use to her dead."

"I said I was sorry. What more do you want from me?"

That was the question of the night, wasn’t it?

"I want you to be safe. I want you to be
smart
. Look, you heard Besian. Your sister is in blood—"

"What does that mean?"

He frowned at her interruption. "The Albanians live by an honor code. Your sister stole from them. She also got two of their men killed. She's a walking target. If they don’t find her and Andrei…"

"They'll come for me." She finished his thought with a shaky voice. "I didn't know about her killing anyone."

"Then I guess you didn't know that Ruby and Andrei were using the money they skimmed from the stolen cargo deliveries to start their own criminal enterprise."

Erin reeled back as if she'd been slapped. "
What
?"

"Yes," he said unhappily. "Ruby and Andrei were using the money to buy product that they sold on the street."

"Product?"

"Pills. Cocaine. Meth. They undercut the price of the dealers in the area they targeted and were making money hand over fist. But they made one big mistake."

"What was that?" Fear colored her voice.

"They were dealing in Hermanos territory." Ivan knew the Latin street gang by reputation. They weren't people to be fucked with and Ruby and Andrei had been taunting them for weeks now. "The Hermanos assumed the Albanians were trying to move in on their business and shot up one an Albanian captain's house. That's why Ruby and Andrei ran. They've got the Albanians and the Hermanos coming for them now."

"You're sure?" Ivan shot her a look. "Of course you're sure," she whispered. A second later, she leaned forward and tapped Kostya's arm. "You should probably pull over and let me out now."

"What?" Ivan carefully grasped her upper arm and forced her to meet his gaze. "What makes you think I'm going to let you out on the street, Erin?"

"You said I'm as good as dead. I can't put anyone else at risk, Ivan." Her eyes glistened with tears. "Look, you don't even know me. I'm just some stupid girl with a drug addict sister, right? You don't owe me any favors. Just let me out and give me my car back. I'll figure this out on my own."

"The hell you will," he snapped. The sincerity in her eyes chilled him. She was ready to go out there and face two vicious gangs on her own rather than put another life in the crosshairs. He couldn't allow it. He
wouldn't
allow it. "I told you I'd find your sister."

"You didn't make me any promises, Ivan. Remember?"

Oh, he remembered all right. That was before Erin had wormed her way inside his mind. Visions of her beautiful face had haunted him all afternoon. Finding her facing off with that bastard in the meth house had sent him into a rage. No one was ever going to harm her. Of that, he was absolutely certain.

"The terms of our agreement have changed." He made his decision unilaterally. "You're coming home with me. I'm going to keep you safe until this thing with your sister reaches a satisfactory end."

"But—"

He lifted his hand. "No. You don't know anything about this world you've stumbled into but I'm all too familiar with it. You're coming with me and that's that."