An Obsession with Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 3) Read online

  CHAPTER 4

  Having spent most of the night in her son’s room, all the lights on in the loft, ears straining, heart jumping at every little sound, Sydney was worn-out as she walked home from the bus stop where she’d left Andrew and his friends. Her son had given her an odd look when she’d put her jacket on while he did the same, but he had shrugged it off when she’d said she needed some air so would walk him to his stop.

  After letting herself into the loft, she took a hot shower and then tried to lie down for a while, knowing her aching stomach and throbbing head had just as much to do with fatigue as the anxiety carving out her chest.

  She could not have sex with Luiz Morales. She could not let him use her. Possibly abuse her. Because of what she’d done. The thought was revolting.

  Would Maksim be able to help her?

  She stared at her jewelry box on her dresser. Who’d have thought after all this time wishing him away, she’d suddenly be happy he was in her life? She actually felt grateful she knew him. That she had something he wanted. But could she barter her body—to get out of someone else using her body—to save herself? The irony wasn’t lost on her.

  And, no. She couldn’t.

  Could she do so to save Andrew?

  Yes. Absolutely.

  It might sound strange to give in and do with Maksim exactly what Luiz wanted—assuming Maksim would even be willing to offer his protection for sex—but she wasn’t sure that was all Luiz wanted. Eberto had mentioned bringing his daughter and Andrew together. That would never happen. Not if she could help it.

  And maybe with Maksim it wouldn’t come to sex. Maybe he would surprise her by getting Luiz Morales to back off without demanding her body in payment. Maybe cash would do?

  And maybe she should just pack up and leave town before the flying pigs descended.

  Frustrated, she gave up on attempting to sleep. It wasn’t going to happen. She got up, threw on some leggings and a tee, and went down to her office, thinking back to when she’d met her first mafioso.

  Vasily Tarasov, the leader of Maksim’s organization, had come into the club not long after she’d taken over. His nephew Alek and a dark terror they’d called Vincente had made up the trio. They’d introduced themselves, and without staying long enough to even have a drink, had offered their names, implied who they were without uttering a single surety, and left her with an offer of aid, telling her to call if she ever needed a hand. We know the neighborhood. She’d been given business cards and off they’d gone. She’d programmed the numbers into her phone without any intention of ever using them.

  Until now.

  She bit her lip as she opened the panels to show her monitors and kept an eye on them as she sat behind her desk. She flipped up the screen of her laptop and logged on, nervously swirling her mouse in a circle while she waited for her programs to load. Was she traveling the proper channels by speaking with Maksim first? Maybe she should call the number Vasily had given her to make sure. Then again, who went straight to the top like that? It might appear too presumptuous. Even with Luiz she’d gone through his street team before finally speaking with him. And she did, in fact, know Maksim personally, so to speak.

  She double-clicked the Excel icon and brought up a spreadsheet she’d started on yesterday but hadn’t finished. Trying not to think, she opened her desk drawer and took out a stack of receipts. She employed an accountant to do this sort of thing, but she did it regardless. Call her paranoid. She would then compare all the figures to make sure they jibed. Her plan had been to do so for only her first year as owner to make sure there were no discrepancies and the company could be trusted. She was still doing it two years in. Thank God for online accounting courses.

  The ringing of her cell nearly had her springing to the ceiling to hang by her fingernails. Looking at the display, her nape tingled at the “private number.”

  “Hello?”

  “Since you answered that means you’re awake. Come to the beach, Sydney. I’m waiting.”

  Her lower belly rolling with something that wasn’t fear was annoying. “Maksim?”

  He chuckled, the sound deep and low. “Unless you were planning on holding more than one meeting in the sand today, yes, it’s me.”

  “You’re at Coney Island now?” she squeaked as she closed everything up and stuffed her receipts back into the drawer. She was already climbing the stairs when he replied.

  “I had to be up early for something, and it didn’t take long, so here I am. You on your way?”

  “I’ll be there shortly.” She hung up on him, shoved her feet into a pair of sneakers, snagged a hoodie, and was parking with a prime view of Luna Park before her in record time.

  She got out of the car with her hand secure around the cold metal of the gun she’d removed from her glove box. She’d bought it years ago, had taken lessons at a shooting range, and was confident in her ability to use it if the need ever arose. She prayed it didn’t, but she wasn’t so sure. Making a swift 360 to see that she hadn’t been followed—nothing but empty parking lot greeted her—she headed for the boardwalk at a steady clip, worried Maksim might grow impatient and leave. What if he refused to help her? She thought again. What would she do?

  Go to Vasily Tarasov.

  And if he refused?

  Try Gabriel Moretti. She’d already decided that. Gone over it enough times in her head. She knew that was even more of a long shot than asking for Vasily Tarasov’s help, but she was desperate. Maybe the Italian mobster would be willing to help her since she’d aided Vincente the night she and Maksim first met.

  And what would she do if he refused to help her? She couldn’t go to the police. Because she had, in fact, been buying illegal fucking drugs for a fucking year, regardless what she’d done with them afterward. And how would she prove she hadn’t sold them and made a ton of cash? By pointing to a pile of ashes in a hidden patch of land in New Jersey?

  Right there, Officers. There are the drugs. See that charred stuff—those were the baggies with the cute cartoons on them.

  She groaned, rubbing at her stomach as she came up on the spot where they’d agreed to meet . . .

  Sydney’s groan turned to a moan before she could stop it. He’d waited. The Russian she was pinning her hopes on. Oh, my, my, my. Had someone gone into her head, plucked out all she found attractive in a man, and slapped him together, Maksim Kirov would be the result. He stood tall and full of authority next to an empty bench, his suit covered by a lightweight three-quarter-length wool coat that looked much warmer than the hoodie she’d donned in her haste to leave the loft.

  Seeing him, she was reminded why the thought of sharing his bed wasn’t as repugnant as the thought of sharing Luiz Morales’s. It really should have been. But it wasn’t.

  As she drew nearer, noting two men dressed similarly but not as beautifully standing about twenty feet away, she tried harder to be repulsed. By nightfall tonight, she might be naked with this man who’d banged his way through half the women in Manhattan. The expected disgust surfaced but was made a fool of when her breath caught and her limbs weakened because he turned to watch her approach.

  Sydney didn’t even try to fight the buzz traveling through her. In fact, she had the strongest urge to walk directly into what she knew would be a strong embrace and let him do what he looked so capable of doing. Protecting her and her son. It was too bad she had no intention of telling him about Andrew. Wouldn’t that be the icing on the cake? News that her son still existed getting back to his father or her parents. The last thing she needed on top of the mess she was already in was a legal battle for visitation.

  Stopping with the length of the bench between them, she was barely aware of taking her hands out of her pockets and twisting them in front of her. “Hello, Maksim. Sorry you had to wait.” She didn’t bother attempting a nice-to-see-you smile.

  He reached up to remove the sunglas
ses he wore even with the heavy clouds in the sky. She tried not to let him see what the sight of those unusual silver eyes did to her—they had a pewter ring around the silver that was so gorgeous in the light of day. And would it kill him to attempt to hide the hunger in them when he looked at her? Chemistry was a powerful thing, she decided. And something she couldn’t control but could ignore. So that’s what she’d do. Or try to do.

  “Hello, Sydney. No apology necessary. I don’t mind waiting for you.”

  She realized immediately that was the first time he’d ever greeted her with something other than “Hello, lover.” She swallowed around a dry throat and indicated the bench. “Would you like to sit?”

  “I’m fine as I am.”

  Yes, you are, a very feminine part of her brain sighed. She nodded and wasn’t sure she’d ever felt so bloody nervous. Licking her lips, she was just about to begin, not sure where to even start, when Maksim shocked her speechless.

  “We know about Morales.”

  She blinked and took a few seconds to rally after that staggering revelation. “I—you know . . . Who? I don’t understand how—” She took a breath, refrained from slapping herself, and tried again. “What do you know?” she asked, her voice dropping to nothing more than a whisper that got carried away on the damp wind blowing around them.

  “We know you’ve been in business with him for a year and that things have suddenly gone south. What we don’t know are the whys.” He took a few steps forward and lifted his hand. His long tattooed fingers casually pulled free some strands of hair she could feel caught between her lips. Lips she could barely feel because she’d pretty much gone numb.

  “How could you possibly know that?” She looked up at him through new eyes. Yes, she’d known he was a powerful man. But she hadn’t expected him to be omniscient.

  He leaned in until his scent, that luscious dark-chocolate scent he threw off to tempt her, mixed with the sea air to drift under her nose. “Because Luiz fucking Morales contacted Vasily Tarasov directly when he heard you were under our protection. We met with him last night, and he filled us in on your deal. He also made it clear he wants to be mollified for what he considers a double cross of sorts. What exactly have you been doing with the drugs you’ve purchased, Sydney? And why the fuck have you been purchasing them at all?”

  Her knees gave out, and her ass met the bench with a thump that jarred her spine. She looked down at her clasped hands and saw her knuckles were white and nearly protruding through the skin she was straining so hard.

  Holy shit. How could this have all gone so horribly wrong?

  Was she going to have to whore herself out to Maksim’s boss now, too?

  Maksim gave Sydney a moment. She looked as though she could use a thousand moments.

  The briny smell of the ocean was a pleasant change from the city, he thought, as he settled himself next to her. He left about a foot between them and cursed the promise he’d made to Vasily last night. Abstain? From this one? Was he fucking nuts?

  He tried to concentrate as he hooked his ankle on his knee, noticing a scuff on the side of his polished Ferragamo as he laid his arm out on the back of the bench. His Armani suit jacket beneath his overcoat protested in a how-dare-you stretch.

  Bet she wasn’t having that problem, he thought, looking her over again while she got her bearings. Her hair was down, strands of silver-blonde blowing around in the wind. She wore a pair of pewter leggings, bright-white sneakers, and a thick white zip-up, the hood of which was lined with a furry mass that looked warm and soft. Damn, she looked cozy and absolutely breathtaking. Her skin in the light of day was luminescent. This was the first time he’d seen her free of the face she wore every night in her club. No makeup. No mask. Just her bare pink lips and surprisingly lush lashes surrounding those incredible eyes of hers, which he’d noted at closer inspection had flecks of green interspersed within the amethyst. Gorgeous, even with the dark shadows of fatigue beneath them. And if her scent blew his way once more, he was afraid he might groan out loud. Every time he caught it, it was like being transported to the deepest part of a forest in the middle of summer. She smelled of nature itself, and it was enticing.

  His dick jerked behind his zipper. Big surprise. All he had to do was think about this one and he was hard. Examining her as he was, unapologetically and kind of invasively, was like being out-and-out stroked.

  Time’s up. “Tell me again why you chose this as our meeting place.” He put forth the random request in an effort to pull her from her thoughts. He could see her legs trembling, and he suspected the cold breeze wasn’t the only cause.

  She turned that brilliant gaze on him, and it actually traveled his face, resting a moment too long on his mouth. Fuck him, she had to stop that. Yet he didn’t think she was aware she’d done it. “I feel calm when I come here. Usually.”

  “Where did you grow up?”

  “Australia.”

  She seemed so serious his lips twitched. “I know that, lover. Where in Australia?”

  Almost as if coming out of a trance, she straightened her spine and shifted so that she was half turned toward him. “Why did Luiz Morales contact your boss about me?”

  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 n
othing 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?”