“I want to go home too, girl, but organizing the hit on one of the most powerful Italian bosses in the country doesn’t just happen. There are a lot of factors in play,” he explains casually, almost as if he talks about murdering people every day. Then I remember, he probably does. Just like Ish.
He notices the way I’m looking at him and drops the paper and pen, his intense blue eyes pinning me in my place on the couch. Raze has to be the most perceptive man on the planet.
“I know what you’re thinking, girl. And I thought I made it clear to you the other night. I’m not anything like that monster you were married to. I’ve done a lot of wrong, fucked up things in my life, and I’m sure I’ll do a lot more before I die, but I’ve never once hurt someone who’s innocent to this life, and especially not someone I claimed to love. Not fucking once,” he growls.
I don’t respond right away; the lump lodged in the back of my throat won’t let me. My desire to believe the things he says scares me. I know who he is, what he’s about, and I can only imagine the things he’s done. Yet there’s still this part of me—a big part, if I’m being honest with myself—that wants to trust him.
The night before last, when I had the nightmare about Ish, I was completely caught off guard to find myself wrapped in Raze’s arms when I regained consciousness as he did his best to comfort me. With a warm tenderness I’ve only experienced with Madden, he didn’t push me to talk about the specifics of my nightmare or about my life with Ish. Instead, he stayed with me until I fell back asleep. And when I awoke the next morning, he was still by my side.
I’m still uncertain of what to make of him. He’s a brutish Russian mobster who runs organized crime and kills people for a living one minute, and then a compassionate, gentle giant who consoles his prisoner the next. And I’m not sure which one frightens me more.
Reaching across the small table, I pick up the pad of paper, add a few grocery items to his list, and then set it back down, offering him a feeble smile as an apology. “Thank you for asking me.”
He grunts as he stands, taking the paper and pen with him, but before he returns to his bedroom, he mumbles, “You’re welcome, kotyonok.”
The rest of the day mirrors the three previous ones: me on the couch, doing a whole bunch of nothing, and Raze in his room, working on his laptop and talking on the phone. Sometime in the early evening—or at least that’s my guess, based on the muted sunlight shining through the window—he emerges from his cave carrying a thin rope. My stomach plummets.
“Calm down, girl. My men are about to be here with the delivery,” he explains softly. “Pakhan will expect them to give a full report of what they see, and I’m supposed to be treating you as a prisoner. I promise you as soon as they’re gone I will untie you, but this is something I must do. Otherwise, I’ll be replaced with someone else, and I can assure you no one else in the Bratva will treat you the way I have. Do you understand?”
He lowers himself down to the couch next to me and lifts his eyebrows, awaiting my answer. Instead of giving him a verbal response, I extend my arms in front of me, offering up my wrists.
“Spasibo,” he tips his chin with appreciation. “They will not stay long, and after they’re gone, you can choose dinner.”
Mere minutes after he has bound both my hands and feet, a forceful knock on the door announces their arrival. Instantly, any kindness in his expression is replaced by a cold, hard mask. With vacant eyes, flared nostrils, and a tight jaw, my bipolar captor stalks toward the door to let in his men.
An icy, bitter wind howls outside, but even after the pair of Russians is ushered inside, the chilliness in the room remains. Raze greets them with a kiss on both cheeks, and then they all make their way back outside. He holds up one finger to me once the others are out the door, indicating he’ll be back in one minute.
They each return carrying several boxes, and I begin to wonder just how long we’re going to be here. Even though Raze said he wasn’t sure how much longer he thought we’d have to stay, I assumed a few extra days, maybe a week. By the looks of all this stuff, we may as well be moving in permanently.
Once everything is unloaded, Raze and the older of the two men step into the bedroom and close the door, leaving me alone with the other guy. I’m not sure why they need privacy, seeing as how I can’t understand anything they’re saying anyway. At first, I don’t think much of it, assuming they’ll speak quickly about whatever the business is, and then these other men will be on their way. But after a few minutes, the young Russian begins to move towards me with a wolfish grin spread across his ugly face.
Panic swells inside me with each daunting step he takes, and because of the restraints, I’m unable to do anything but lie here and wait. Dropping to a squat next to the couch, he reaches out and rubs the pad of his thumb over my dry, cracked lips.
“Raze is a lucky fucking bastard. He gets to be locked away with a hot piece of ass, passing the time by burying his dick in every tight little hole you have, while the rest of us are out there doing the real work,” he snarls spitefully as he shoves his thumb into my mouth. “Suck it. Show me what it would be like to have your pretty whore lips wrapped around my cock.”
I’m paralyzed with fear, unable to move until a loud crack echoes through the room, followed by a sharp sting, which blooms across my cheek. Instinctively, I cry out in pain, which results in a slap to the other side of my face.
“Don’t pretend you don’t want it, you little bitch,” he spits, yanking my t-shirt up to my neck and exposing my breasts and thin panties. Unzipping his pants, his intent is clearly stamped across his acne-laden forehead as pure evil dances in his wanton gaze. “All of you American girls are little sluts for Russian co—”
He doesn’t finish the last word before he’s jerked up from behind and hurled across the room, slamming into a wall. So lost in what was happening, I didn’t even hear the bedroom door open or the other two men come out, but it’s obvious Raze heard enough.
Pure rage encompasses his entire being as he prowls over to the younger man, who looks more confused than anything as he furrows his brow and says something in Russian. Raze answers him with a punch to the face, followed by a knee to the stomach. The guy crumbles, falling to his knees as he attempts to hold his nose with one hand and lifts the other up in surrender.
Unaccepting of the concession, Raze grabs hold of the arm in the air and twists it behind the man’s back in a manner an arm is not meant to be twisted. The sound of bones shattering mixed with screams of agony makes me nauseous. And even though I’m aware if he hadn’t been interrupted that he would’ve raped me, I can’t take any more.
“Stop!” I scream, tears flooding down my cheeks as I watch Raze kick the man repeatedly in the ribs with his heavy combat boots. Splatters of blood decorate the wall and carpet, and based on his limp body, I’m pretty sure he’s unconscious, if not dead. “Please stop! Raze, you’re scaring me!”
The sound of his name jolts him from his vehement frenzy and he stops immediately. Neither the other man, who’s been watching the events unfold, nor I say another word or attempt to move as Raze leans his forehead against the wall, struggling to regulate his breathing and reclaim his composure.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity, he barks out an order that has the older guy scrambling to pick up the battered, insentient youngster and carrying him out of the cabin without a second glance back. Once the door closes behind them, Raze slowly spins around to face me, his eyes red and glossy.
“I’m sorry I frightened you, kotyonok. That was not my intention.” His shame-ridden gaze drops to the floor, his voice full of remorse. “I thought he was hurting you, and I lost control of myself. I gave you my word to protect you, and I’m a man of my word.”
“P-please come here, Raze.” My teeth chatter as I talk, more from being shaken up than the chilly temperatures. “I-I need you t-to untie me, th-then we can t-t-talk about it.”
He’s by my side in a flash, on his knees, u
nraveling the secure knots that bind my hands and feet with trembling fingers. Once he’s removed the rope, I push up to a sitting position while rotating my wrists and ankles until the tingles subside. He waits, silent and motionless, for me to say or do something.
“Thank you for saving me from him. He would’ve hurt me if you wouldn’t have come.”
Watching Raze beat the shit out of that guy did, in fact, scare me. I hate violence. Loathe it after what I was exposed to during my life with Ish. But there’s no way I can possibly be mad at him for saving me from what that monster was about to do to me.
“I’m not upset with you.” I reach my hands out and grab his, lifting his tattered, bloody knuckles into the air.
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows hard. “You said I scared you.”
“You did. I didn’t want you to kill him and get in trouble with your Pakhan because of me,” I reply in a half-lie. Despite the circumstances of this entire fucked up situation, I have the overwhelming desire to comfort him. The troubled eyes staring into mine right now are that of a young boy trapped inside a grown man’s body, a boy who knows no other way to deal with conflict than with violence, and it makes my heart hurt.
“My job is to keep you safe, even from my own people,” he rasps, glancing down at our joined hands suspended in the air between us. “I’ll kill for you, and I’ll die for you, all to ensure you can carry out your assignment.”
“Let’s hope that isn’t necessary.” My lips curl up in a half-hearted smile, trying to lighten the mood. “You’ve done enough damage to your hands as it is. We need to get these cleaned up so they don’t get infected, and then we have groceries to put away.”
He nods and stands after I release my hold on his fingers. “There’s antiseptic and bandages in one of the boxes. I added them to the list for the abrasions on your ribs.”
“I’ll find them. You go wash up in the bathroom,” I reply, hiding my surprise that he not only noticed the lacerations I caused during my nightmare, but cared enough to have something to treat them brought in.
Thankfully, the first box I open is filled with the bathroom toiletries, including vanilla-scented shampoo and conditioner, a hairbrush, ponytail holders, razors, and even a box of tampons. My face heats up when I think about Raze ordering this stuff for me. What kind of big, badass mafia man thinks about these kinds of things? Then, it dawns on me.
Raze must’ve been married before. Or at least been in a serious relationship with a woman. Or maybe still is . . .
Grabbing the cream and box of bandages, I hurry to the bathroom to help him treat his injuries. Injuries he got because of me.
“Raze?” I ask timidly, unsure how he’s going to react to my question.
His focus snaps up from the sink to the mirror, where we stare at each other’s reflection. “Yes, girl?”
“Are you married?”
An unmistakable flicker of soul-deep heartbreak flashes in his cobalt eyes. “Why?” he barks gruffly, visibly gritting his teeth.
Shaking my head, I wave my hand in front of my face and try to play it off. He doesn’t need to say anything else; I already know the answer. “Never mind. I was just curious. I didn’t mean to pry. Let’s get you fixed up so we can eat.”
His jaw relaxes as he spins around to face me, but I keep from making eye contact with him, focusing on the task at hand. He watches intently as I clean and cover the wounds, and the air inside the tiny washroom quickly becomes thick with unspoken words. Once I’m finished, I turn to make a hasty retreat, but he catches me by the elbow, forcing me to look back at him.
“Her name was Darya,” he confesses, his voice barely more than a whisper.
My chest constricts with dread as I ask the next question. “What happened to her?”
“She was brutally raped and murdered.”
Somehow, I already know the answer, but I have to hear it from him. “Who?” I croak.
“Ish.”
AT RAZE’S REVELATION, I FLY into his arms in the tightest embrace possible, wishing . . . hoping . . . praying it’s not true, even though I know it is. He has no reason to lie to me. I don’t need any additional reasons to detest the man I was once married to. But now I have more.
We stand like that—clinging to each other, words unnecessary—for minutes. Maybe hours. I don’t know. I don’t care. If my arms wrapped around him provide even a tiny bit of solace for what he had stolen from him, for the love he lost, then I’ll stand here all night. I feel like I owe it to him.
At some point, we eventually break apart and make our way to the kitchen. Neither of us are ready to discuss everything that’s happened in the last hour, so we keep ourselves busy by unpacking the boxes of supplies, working around each other like we’ve done this hundreds of times.
First, we get all of the cold groceries put away in the refrigerator and freezer. The amount of food he’s ordered concerns me, indicating we’re going to be here for quite some time. I may feel differently about Raze now, but I still want to leave as soon as possible. This is not a life, being confined to a five-hundred-square-foot cabin in the middle of nowhere with no connection to the outside world.
As he puts away the last of the dry goods in the small pantry, I open the next package, only to find myself, once again, shocked at the things he’s had brought in. The entire box is filled with women’s clothes in my size—thermal tops, sweatpants, a pair of jeans, flannel pajamas, and undergarments.
Peering up at him, my jaw falls open and I shake my head incredulously. I don’t know what to say. And he ordered all of this before what happened with that sick freak earlier. I’m not sure who this guy is, but I can admit to myself that it was wrong of me to ever compare him to Ish.
“What? What did I do?” he asks when he notices me staring at him, lifting his eyebrows in his best innocent face.
I don’t even bother fighting the genuine smile that tugs the corners of my mouth up. “You had them bring me clothes?” I phrase it as a question, even though the physical evidence in front of me makes the answer quite clear.
Faintly embarrassed, he shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly. “It’s not that I don’t like seeing you in my shirt every day, but I know you get cold, especially at night. And I know you’re having to hand wash your, um . . . your underwear. I just guessed on the bra size too, so I’m sorry if it’s off.”
His awkwardness discussing this is endearing. I like knowing I can bring up lingerie and make him uncomfortable. It’s not much of a weapon, but I’ll store the knowledge for future use, if necessary.
Glancing down at the tags of the bra, I’m not surprised to find it’s exactly my size. 34C. I lift it up and dangle it in the air, and on cue, he squirms and takes a step backward, away from me. “You did good. Thanks for all of this stuff.”
“I would’ve had them bring you your own stuff, but the feds are crawling all over your apartment complex right now. It wasn’t worth taking the chance,” he explains, his mention of the federal agents searching for me grounding me from my temporary high.
“Yeah.” I nod, feeling my face fall. “Thanks again. You didn’t have to do this.”
“Sure I did. If we’re gonna be here a while, you’ll have to wash that shirt eventually, and unless you want to wear that uncomfortable looking dress you had on at work last Friday, you needed some clothes.”
Wrinkling my nose, I cock my head to the side, puzzled. “My dress from work last Friday?”
He closes the cabinet door and moves toward me. “Yes. The one you had on when you were delivered to me.”
“No, I know what dress,” I clarify. “It’s just the last Friday part that threw me off. What day is it today?”
“It’s Wednesday evening,” he pauses to sneak a peek at his phone, “seven-twenty-three.”
Wow. It feels like I’ve been with Raze much longer than five days. I hate that I’m so unaware of what’s going on that I’ve lost track of the days and time. “Right. Wednesday night.”
Again, with his exemplary perceptiveness, he realizes I need a few minutes alone to come to terms with numerous things. “In the other box, there should be books, magazines, a DVD player, and a bunch of American movies I’ve always wanted to see to keep us from going absolutely stir-crazy in here. Go through it, and anything you want to read or watch, help yourself. I’m going to take a shower and change out of these clothes. I’ll put the toiletries up while I’m in there.”
Not waiting for me to respond, he walks past me, careful not to allow our shoulders to brush against each other’s. But just before the bathroom door closes, I speak out. “Raze.”
He shifts his attention to me. “Yes, girl?”
When I say his name, I have no idea what I am going to say to him. I just can’t let us separate with this weird tension between us.
“What does kotyonok mean?” The words tumble mindlessly from my lips.
A warm chuckle rumbles deep in his chest as he flashes me a boyish grin. “It means kitten,” he replies, shutting the door before I have a chance to respond.
“Wow, this is delicious,” Raze manages in between bites of the homemade cheeseburgers I made while he was in the shower.
Once I realized I didn’t have anywhere to store my new clothes since I was actually living in the living room, I slipped on a pair of sweatpants then left the rest in the box and scooted it to the corner, back behind the couch, where it’d be out of the way. Then, while Raze was still in the shower, I began preparing dinner for the two of us. My way of saying thanks again for everything. Protecting me. Making sure I had what I needed in this shitty situation. Being a decent human being.
“Bacon and ranch,” I divulge my mom’s super-secret recipe for the best cheeseburgers ever.
He eyes his half-eaten burger skeptically and shakes his head. “What? Where? I don’t see any bacon or ranch.”
“It’s mixed inside the meat. I usually fry the bacon fresh and use a packet of the powdered Ranch dip, but I made do with what we had—bottled Ranch dressing and jarred bacon bits. It still tastes pretty damn good.” I smirk as I bite into the greasy, but delicious dinner.