“He tried,” I cut him off before he got more worked up about it. “But he didn’t get very far.”
Alexei’s teeth grinded together so hard I expected his jaw to snap. “Did he hit you?”
I touched my still aching cheek. “Yes.”
Alexei snarled angrily in Russian before switching to English. “I’ll fucking kill him for touching you.”
That wasn’t hyperbole. He wasn’t saying outlandish things to impress me. He meant it.
Remembering the bloody scene I had left behind, I whispered, “You may not get the chance.”
“Why?” The lines in his forehead were prominent when he glanced at me. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t have a choice.” I started to bite my lower lip with worry but hissed when I experienced the sharp sting of pain.
Alexei must have realized what I had done because in the next instant he gently chided, “Be careful. You have a busted lip. We’ll get some ice on it soon.” He stared at me as we waited for a red light to turn green. “How badly was Lalo hurt?”
“I slammed a crystal paperweight into his head,” I admitted somberly. “Twice.”
He didn’t even blink at the revelation that I had done something so violent. “Was he breathing when you left him?”
“Yes, but there was so much blood.”
“Head wounds gush. If he was breathing, he’ll probably survive.”
Fearful of the answer, I asked, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
He eased on the gas and flicked on his blinker. “It’s good for you and bad for me.”
That didn’t make sense to me. “Why would you say that?”
“It’s good for you because you won’t have Lalo’s crew or their friends in the Hermanos street gang hunting you down to win a bounty.”
“Why is it bad for you?”
“You don’t need to worry about that.” He guided his SUV through the intersection. “You’re safe now. That’s all that matters.”
Alexei’s voice had that edge of finality to it so I didn’t protest. And honestly? I was so tired. I sagged in the seat and leaned my head back against it. As if sensing my exhaustion, Alexei said, “We’re almost there. We’ll get you cleaned up and find something for you to eat. It will help you feel better.”
A thousand questions raced through my mind. Where are you taking me? When can I go home? What about my sister? Where am I going to find clothes? What’s going to happen tomorrow?
I didn’t ask any of them. I had a sinking feeling I wouldn’t like any of the answers.
When Alexei slowed down and flicked his blinker to enter a private parking garage, I perked up a bit. A sticker with an RFID tag allowed Alexei to pass through the guarded entrance to the garage attached to the soaring building that housed million dollar hi-rise condos and penthouses.
“What is it?” he asked as he began the looping climb to his assigned spot in the garage.
“I just never figured you for the type that would live in a condo.”
He cast an approving smile my way. “You’re right. I don’t.”
His reply confused me. “But if you don’t live here—”
“This is the apartment I keep for…” His voice trailed off as he swung his SUV wide and backed into his slot.
“For?” I prompted nervously.
Alexei shut down the engine and turned in his seat. With his hand still clamped between both of mine, he explained, “This is the home I keep for my mistress.”
Tense seconds of silence stretched between us. “Your mistress?” A horrifying thought struck me, and I tried to jerk my hands away. Faster and stronger, he placed his other hand on mine and held me in place. “Alexei! Are you married?”
“What?” He laughed as if that was the most outlandish thing imaginable. “No. Never.”
“Then why—”
“Girlfriend is a teenager’s word but mistress? That suits me just fine.”
“Because?”
“Because it’s an arrangement,” he said matter-of-factly. “There are clear rules from the first day. It doesn’t get messy or uncomfortable. It’s as simple as outlining a business transaction.”
The cold, distant way he described his romantic relationships saddened me. I tried to mesh together everything I knew about him with this new discovery. It didn’t jell. “You’re happy with that, Alexei?”
There was a brief moment of hesitation before he nodded. “Yes, I’m perfectly happy with it.”
I didn’t believe him. He might be able to fool other people but that subtle shift of his eyes spoke volumes.
It’s none of your business, Shay. Don’t push.
Was his mistress upstairs in bed right now? Had he left her to come find me? Was she going to be super pissed off when I walked into her home?
Worried that I might be walking into a minefield of awkwardness, I said, “I don’t think this is such a good idea. I don’t want to cause any problems for you with your mistress.”
“It’s no problem.” He untangled our hands and reached down to unbuckle my seatbelt. “The apartment is empty.” He pushed the seatbelt away from my shoulder and hip and tugged his jacket closed around my naked torso. He tipped my chin with two fingers and met my questioning gaze with a steady one of his own. “It has been since February.”
“Oh.” What was he trying to tell me? Not wanting to read more into that statement than he intended, I let it go.
“Let’s get you inside.” Alexei left the SUV. He grabbed his gym bag from the backseat before coming to my door. Before I could move, he had slipped one arm around my shoulders. In the next instant, he scooped me right up and out of the SUV.
I gripped two handfuls of his shirt. “What are you doing? I can walk!”
“I’m sure you can.” He pushed the door closed with his foot. “But I’m not taking any chances.”
I started to tell him that he was going to hurt his back carrying me and his gym bag but he moved effortlessly. When we reached the elevator, I could feel his hard, well-honed muscles rippling beneath my thighs and across my back as he shifted me in his arms. His hand dipped under the borrowed jacket I was wearing and into the pocket hidden away there. I tried not to think about the brush of his warm skin against mine as he retrieved his wallet and presented it to me.
“Can you open this and find the keycard?”
“Sure.” I took the wallet from him and pried it open. There weren’t enough slots for all of the items he kept in there so it bulged in places. “You need a new wallet.”
“I just bought that two months ago.” He gestured with his chin toward the cards jammed in the slots. “It’s the white one with the gold lettering. Yes. That one. Swipe it, please.”
Seconds later, we were in the elevator and zooming up eleven floors. Alexei stepped into a beautifully decorated hall and carried me to a door at the far end of the hall. “Will you grab the keys from my pants pocket?”
I swallowed nervously and carefully dipped my hand into the front pocket of his trousers. I refused to meet his heated gaze as I retrieved them and did my very best not to touch anything except for the cold metal and plastic. Though I had dated a lot of nice guys, I had never stuck my hand in one of their pockets or gotten that close to…well…you know.
“You keep that up, and I’m going to make you buy me dinner.”
Mortified by his teasing, I quickly retrieved the keys and studiously avoided his sinful grin. “Which one?”
“The silver key with the red dot on it.” I held it up to be sure, and he confirmed it. “Yes.”
After I unlocked and opened the door, he carried me inside and slapped the light switch in the foyer. A warm light illuminated the entryway and part of the living area. Floor to ceiling windows lined the exterior wall of the unit. I suspected the downtown views would be breathtakingly perfect come morning.
“Sit still,” he ordered as he placed me on the marble slab covering the oversized kitchen island. His gym bag was dropped on the
floor, and he started rifling through the cabinets and refrigerator. He found ice, a bowl, a dish towel and a small first aid kit under the sink but he wasn’t satisfied with that. He placed a call down to the building’s concierge and gave him a short list of groceries he wanted delivered as quickly as possible.
I waited until he had returned the phone to its cradle on the counter before pointing out the obvious. “It’s, like, one in the morning, Alexei.”
“And?” He turned on the faucet and wet one end of the dish towel.
Incredulous, I waved my hands. “And you’re asking that poor guy to go buy groceries?”
“That’s his job.” Alexei wrung out the fluffy cloth and brought an armload of supplies to the island. “This building has round-the-clock staff for a reason.”
“Still…”
Alexei moved to stand in front of me. For the first time ever, we were the same height. A small bruise had already formed from the contact his forehead had made with that man’s nose. This close, I could see that his eyes were actually a mix of green and brown. The fine lines around them were crinkled with the hint of a smile. I wanted to reach up and run my fingers along them, to trace the line of his strong jaw to the barely visible cleft in his chin. “Will you feel better if I give him a big tip?
“Yes.”
“Fine. That’s settled.” He unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. I tried not to stare at the new swaths of Russian mafia tattoos revealed to me. Under this brighter light, the blood spatter on his shirt was clearly visible. Following my gaze, he frowned. “We’ve got to get rid of all this. Everything you’re wearing tonight has to be destroyed. As soon as I’m done getting you cleaned up and in bed, I’ll take care of everything.”
It was such a sordid, dirty thing but I understood he was just being practical. He seemed so calm about it though. “Have you done this a lot?”
To his credit, Alexei didn’t lie. “What you saw tonight? That was my old job. I was a street soldier and an enforcer.”
“Oh.” I tried to wrap my head around the idea of Alexei beating the crap out of people to make them pay protection money or to force them to toe the family line.
His peered down at me, his jaw tight and his eyes slightly narrowed. “Are you afraid of me now?”
“No!”
“You probably should be,” he grumbled. “I’m not a very nice man, not when you get right down to it.”
“I don’t believe that.”
He expelled a harsh breath. “Then you are more naïve than I ever imagined.”
His remark pissed me right off. After everything I had been through tonight, I wasn’t going to take that kind of crap from a friend. “Don’t talk to me like that!”
Taken aback by my outburst, he dropped his gaze and seemed instantly chastised. He leaned forward and shocked me by pressing his forehead to mine. With that bruise there, it must have hurt him but he didn’t flinch. “I’m sorry, Shay.” He pulled back slowly. “That was a dick thing for me to say.”
“Then why did you say it?”
“I don’t know.” He rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head. “I could say that I’m tired but that’s just an excuse. Maybe I said it because I know what a shit person I was ten years ago and what an incredibly good and kind person you are and I know that eventually I’m going to hurt or disappoint you.”
The self-loathing filling his voice surprised. Gone was the powerful, confident man who ruled in business. Here was the man with the wounded soul who tried so hard to distance himself from feeling anything close to love. His insistence on keeping a mistress suddenly made sense to me. He didn’t want to expose himself to anything that might make him vulnerable.
“Maybe you were a terrible person ten years ago, Alexei, but you aren’t that terrible person tonight.” I reached for his closest hand. The mob ink decorating his skin no longer seemed as menacing as it once had. “You’ve never been anything but kind to me. Kind and generous and good. That’s the man I know. That’s the man I trust.” I squeezed his fingers and smiled up at him. “That’s the man who would die before he hurt me.”
“I won’t hurt you,” he promised. “I could never hurt you like this.” He brushed his hand along the bruise blossoming on my cheek. “But I will disappoint you.”
“All friendships have disappointing moments, Alexei. That’s just part of the deal.” I found myself leaning into his touch and wondered if it was simply the shock of the night causing me to seek out human contact or the feelings for this complicated Russian finally coming to a head. “Just be honest with me. Tell me the truth, Alexei. Always.”
He nodded stiffly and then carefully prodded the edges of the bruise forming on my cheek. “It’s not broken but you’re going to be swollen tomorrow.”
“I’ve had worse,” I muttered without thinking. Alexei visibly stiffened at the comment. Was he remembering what I had confessed to him last Christmas?
“I still think you should tell me the names of your mother’s old boyfriends so I can kick their asses for you.”
I quirked a smile at that. “Don’t tempt me.”
He murmured something in Russian, and I decided right then and there that I was going to have to track down some books and videos so I could learn his language.
“May I take this off?” He gestured to the jacket draped around my shoulders.
In any other setting, the question would have been followed by the promise of erotic possibilities. Right now, though, it was Alexei’s way of proving that he wasn’t going to hurt or take advantage of me. “Yes.”
He peeled the jacket off my bare shoulders and let it pool around my waist. The second I heard his sharp intake of breath, I knew that he had seen the bruises on my throat. Stepping forward, he insinuated his trim hips between my knees and gently clasped my chin in one big hand. He carefully tilted my face to the side and examined the marks that Lalo’s mean hand had left behind. When he snarled in his mother tongue, I decided it was a good thing I couldn’t understand him. He was furious.
“Shay, did you lose consciousness when he choked you?” Alexei’s eyes were dark with worry and anger.
“No.” I inhaled a shuddery breath when Alexei’s fingertips ghosted over the sore spots developing on my throat. “He didn’t squeeze that hard. He…”
“He what?” Alexei asked when my voice trailed off to nothing. “Tell me what happened, Shay.” He cupped my face between his palms and brushed his thumbs across my cheeks. “You’ll feel better if you get it out.”
My eyes prickled with hot tears as I tearfully told everything. He didn’t interrupt or comment as I described arriving at the Arena and the harrowing moments inside that office when Lalo had tried to rape me. When I was finished, Alexei wrapped his powerful arms around me and pulled me into a comforting, secure embrace. I closed my eyes and found comfort in the strength surrounding me.
“You’re all right now.” He rubbed my back with languid circles. “No one will ever touch you again, Shay. I swear it.”
I didn’t know how he was going to pull off that promise but if anyone could do it? Alexei was that man.
A long time later, Alexei finally unwound his arms. Wordlessly, he picked up the damp cloth and cleaned my face. He bundled up some ice and pressed the cold pack against my swollen cheek. “Hold this.”
I held the ice pack in place while Alexei tugged the jacket he had given me back up around my shoulders. He pulled it tightly closed in front before crouching down to dig through his gym bag. He retrieved a folded shirt and put it on the counter next to me. The logo for Ivan Markovic’s acclaimed MMA fighting gym was emblazoned on the front.
“You can wear this after your shower. It’s clean,” he added with a smile.
“Thank you.”
“Let’s check out your arms, okay? They had you tied up so tight.” Very gently, he grasped my right wrist and lifted my arm. He rotated my hand and checked my fingers before meticulously working his way to my shoulder. After I switched
hands holding the ice pack, he repeated the process on my left arm. He asked me to take deep breaths and watched my face for any sign of pain. “How does your back feel?”
“Fine.” Thinking of the old scars crisscrossing my back, I was glad there was no reason for him to investigate. If he had felt them earlier when he was hugging me, he hadn’t mentioned it. After talking about what Lalo had tried to do to me, I really didn’t want to unearth old, buried history from my childhood.
“And here?” He touched my thighs. “Did you get kicked? Did you trip?”
“No.” I tried to concentrate on my limbs instead of the unbelievable body heat that radiated from his larger frame or that incredible scent that followed him everywhere. “I might have bruised them a little when they made me kneel.”
“I’ll put some antibiotic ointment in the bathroom. If you need it after your shower, use it.”
“I will.”
“Can you walk?”
Even though the prospect of having him carry me again sent a bright frisson of excitement through my body, I nodded. “I can walk. Just point me in the right direction.”
Alexei eased me off the kitchen island and gave me a short tour of the apartment. No longer dazed, I took in the sleek, modern furnishings and the art adorning the walls. The place was much bigger than I had realized with three bedrooms and two bathrooms plus a separate office and a generously sized balcony off the master suite.
But as I walked through the rooms with Alexei at my side, I sensed that he spent very little time in this place. Though it was beautifully and professionally decorated, it wasn’t a home. Eyeing the massive bed and the sumptuous linens, I couldn’t help but wonder how many women had tumbled onto it with him.
Jealousy and sadness dueled inside me. The type of women who would be comfortable in a place like this were women I couldn’t compete with in a million years. It was easy enough to imagine the richly dressed, ultra-classy women with perfect manners Alexei chose to play the role of his mistress. They were the types of women who moved easily in the social circles he inhabited. They were the types of women who were confident and sexy and knew how to please a man.