Chapter 95: Chapter Forty

Alice

It had been exactly two hours since we’d made it back to the apartments. Since Andrei had walked through the club bloody and shirtless for everyone to see. An A across his chest.

Me… across his heart.

Written in his skin.

He’d wrapped my hand in his shirt, and my first instinct was to take it off, to let myself bleed too, to feel the raw intensity of blood pulsing out of my body at the same time his was.

Knowing that what he had done could not be undone.

There was something holy about the entire conversation, even his expression had changed. Like he chose to remove his mask.

He’d told me to change into another dress and to do my hair and makeup, and then he’d just left.

He didn’t tell me when he’d be back.

Or if he was coming back.

Nothing.

I slipped on a white Versace that hugged every curve, the neckline had a slight sweetheart dip while the straps wrapped around my neck then hung loosely down the back as another set of straps kept the dress in place.

And I was once again wearing a fur coat, wondering how many fake animals were sacrificed in order to fill my closet.

I had just sat down on the barstool, wondering yet again if I should text him when the door swung open.

His nose ring almost glistened in the light, his hair was swept to the side, and I could see every inch of his chest and neck tattoos as they danced along his skin.

His lips looked so soft.

So kissable.

His mouth absolutely delicious.

Mine.

This man had pledged himself to me.

I started shaking with the reality of it.

I slid off the barstool and walked toward him.

Andrei held out his hands when I reached him, and then he tugged me against him and kissed me softly, hungrily. “You ready to go?”

“Where are we going?” I wanted to stay right there in his arms.

“We’ll put in our time at the club, be seen, and then we’ll go have dinner…”

I grinned. “Dinner, hmm?”

“Dinner.” He kissed me again, his hands dipping tenderly into my hair as he licked my lower lip.

I gasped as he tugged it and pulled away. “Is this… a date?”

His hands slid down my ass as he held me prisoner against his rock-hard body. His head tilted as a small smile formed across his mouth. “Did you want it to be?”

I felt my cheeks heat. “I’ve never been on a real date.”

His expression hardened, and then he whispered, “Good. That means I’m your first. I want to be your first everything.”

My knees trembled. “That’s a big undertaking.”

“Good thing I’m a big guy,” he fired back with a wider grin. “I like your blush.”

I looked away.

He gripped my chin. “Don’t, Alice. Don’t look away when I give you a compliment. Your blush is everything. It reminds me that this…” He pressed a hand to my chest.

“…is beating, is pumping blood throughout your body. Your blush is a gift, it’s a reminder you’re alive. I need that, possibly more than you could ever imagine.”

I pressed my hand against his as my heart raced. “Do your friends know that you’re romantic?”

“I’m not romantic.” He squeezed my hand. “I was merely being honest.”

Well then!

“Okay.”

He turned and draped an arm around my shoulders. “Rumor has it, your brother’s going to come again tonight.”

I stiffened. “Why are we going out there, then?”

“To put on a fucking show.” He said through clenched teeth. “And then, I’m going to make sure he never sees daylight again. Tonight, we celebrate.”

“Celebrate?”

“I’m bringing him down. Should I give you his head as a gift? His eyes?”

I gulped. “No. His life is enough.”

“No.” He his jaw flexed. “It’s not.”

I didn’t argue with him. I could feel the anger roll in chaotic waves off his body as we walked down the hall again and made our way into the main VIP area.

“Andrei?”

“Hmmm.” He led me past one of the couples making out on the black leather couch. “Do they all get sold? Eventually?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Some are sold, some make too much money to sell and prefer to make this their home, and others don’t stand a chance.”

“What do you mean they don’t stand a chance?”

He stopped walking and stared straight ahead. “They’re the fighters that don’t give in, the women who won’t sell their bodies for the sake of their soul. They are the ones I try to save.”

“You can’t save them all…”

“One day, I will,” he rasped. “One day, I’ll raze the walls of this place and never look back.”

Andrei Petrov didn’t make empty promises.

So, when he said he would never look back.

I believed him.

Ax suddenly appeared in front of us. “They’re here.”

“Good.” Nervous energy pulsed from Andrei’s body.

“Yes, Boss.” Ax winked at me and then pulled out his cell and started firing off instructions as he walked off.

“Here.” Andrei pulled out a barstool for me. We were still in the VIP area but not on the couches like last time. He held up two fingers.

Two shots of vodka were poured.

He held his up and smirked. “You ready for your revenge?”

“Will it make me feel better?” I took the shot and clinked it against his glass.

“Absolutely not.” He threw the shot glass back and slammed it on the table.

“But it will make me feel better knowing he’s no longer here to claim you, to touch you, to think about you when he has no right to invite you into his thoughts. You’re mine. Mine.”

“Yes.” I leaned toward him.

He gripped my chin with his thumb and forefinger holding me there like he was memorizing every plane of my face, and then he tilted his head and pressed a kiss to my neck.

I felt his teeth graze my skin as I gripped the side of the bar table, and then he kicked my legs open, shoving his knee between them.

And then the corners of his mouth tilted up into a smile. “Wanna play?”

I looked from him to the shot glass and held it up. “I may need one more of these.”

“That intimidated?”

“Why, yes…” I leaned in and pressed a kiss to his parted lips. “The great Andrei Petrov just asked if I wanted to play…”

Heat surged between our mouths as he deepened the kiss, tugging at my hair with his right hand.

Magically, two more shot glasses appeared.

And as we clinked them together, he winked. “At least we both win.”

I let out a laugh and took the shot just about the same time a shadow cast over us. No, not just one shadow. Two.

I knew it was my brother before I even looked up.

“Well,” the word sounded funny with a piece of his tongue missing. “You wasted no time.”

I gripped Andrei’s thigh. “I don’t understand.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” he spat.

I almost stood.

Andrei’s expression was calm. “You’re in my club again. See something you like?”

“We both know this should be mine. It belongs to the De Lange Family as much as the Petrovs!”

Andrei frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I know you know.” He clenched his teeth. “Without us you wouldn’t even have this. I want a higher cut and I want a partner.”

“It’s never good to reach above your station.” Andrei shrugged. “Have some drinks and we’ll talk.”

My brother must have been surprised because he stepped back a bit and put his hands on his hips. “How can I trust you?”

“That’s just the thing.” Andrei grinned. “You can’t. Take it or leave it. My offer to discuss your terms expires in thirty seconds.”

“Done.” He held out his hand.

Andrei took it and then pulled him forward. “I forgot to say thank you, by the way…”

He frowned; his eyes flickered to me. “For?”

“For your familial sacrifice, of course,” He grabbed my hand and kissed it. “For my wife.”

My brother gaped. The man I didn’t recognize behind him went completely pale. “You never asked my permission.”

“I did, the day I cut out your tongue. Did you need a reminder? You gave me her, so I let you live. You’re welcome.”

Aldo looked ready to murder me.

And I hated that he was angry because it was someone else that was touching me, someone else that belonged to me, someone else that wasn’t him.

I started feeling sick to my stomach as he turned on his heel and walked off toward the opposite end of the room.

I exhaled when he was gone but felt his eyes on me still. “Now what?”

“Now.” Andrei gripped my hips and then lifted me effortlessly off the stool so I was straddling him in my short dress, the slits riding up to my thighs. “We kiss.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want him to burn.” Andrei nipped my lips and then tilted his head.

He felt so hot.

So good.

I whimpered against his mouth when his hands jerked my body harder against him. The friction was almost too much.

I was ready to rip off his jeans and beg him for it.

And he knew it.

He didn’t stop.

I started to sweat, tried to control the building pressure between my thighs as his tongue moved behind my ear. “I’m imagining you naked.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “Yeah?”

“Mmmm, I’m imagining putting my mouth on you and drinking you dry. I’m imagining thrusting deep.”

I clenched my teeth as my most intimate places pulsed in rhythm with my pounding heart.

“Your thighs wrapped around my neck…”

I gripped his hair and tugged, hard.

“Maybe I’d finish with you on your stomach… no, I would want to see your face, so I’d flip you over and put your ankles on my shoulders. I’d grip your thighs so hard your skin would bruise, and then I would do it again and again.” His tongue licked my ear.

My body shuddered, needing release that he refused to give. I pressed a hand to his chest and lowered it until I touched the front of his jeans, my palm pressed against his length.

He smirked at me like he knew I wasn’t just losing my mind but all sense of propriety as I wondered if we could get away with it, if we could just undress in a dark corner.

What was I thinking?

I was in a haze.

A seductive haze he’d created, with images I couldn’t stop thinking about, us sweaty, writhing together, in his bed.

I jerked when he suddenly moved my hand away, his knuckles grazing my thigh as his fingers inched beneath my skirt.

I stiffened.

“Don’t lose your nerve now, Alice.”

“But we’re in public.” Was that breathy voice mine?

“That…” He grinned seductively. “…is the entire point of the game.”

“People will see.”

“Good.”

“They’ll know.”

“Even better.” He moved his hand higher. “Let him see your response to me, let it be the last fucking thing that miserable excuse for a human sees.”

I nodded as our foreheads touched as his hand gripped the inside of my thigh beneath my dress, as his thumb pressed against my lacy underwear.

I didn’t feel shame at my response.

At the fact that I was so ready for him it was almost embarrassing.

His thumb grazed the material so softly that I wanted to smack him on the side of the head.

“I like your anger.” He wrapped an arm around me. “Now lean forward so I can give you exactly what you need…”

“You.” I kissed his neck as his thumb moved inside me, one finger, a small amount of pressure and I was completely set off, lost to him and every sensation he gave me.

Mine. He was mine.

Maybe he’d always been mine.

But tonight I felt it.

Tonight I saw it.

Tonight we were an us.

My body shuddered all around him.

I was still feeling aftershocks when Andrei moved his hand and ran his thumb around the rim of his shot glass, lifted it in Aldo’s direction in a mock salute, and took the shot.

I smiled down at him. “You don’t do things halfway, do you?”

“It seems I can’t with you.” His gaze was lazy, his eyes hungry. “Tonight, dorogaya, I’m taking you.”

“No.” I leaned in and whispered, “Tonight, I’m taking you.”

He bit down on his lip and smirked. “So, it’s going to be a bloodbath?”

“Isn’t it always when it comes to you?”

“No weapons.” He winked. “In the bedroom.”

I stared down between us. “Then what do you call that?”

“Hard. So. Damn. Hard.”

I burst out laughing as he pressed another kiss to my mouth, and then Ax appeared again. “Nice show. Aldo got on the phone like he was calling in reinforcements.”

“Let them in. Are the guys here?”

“They are. Phoenix said you were doing it wrong.”

Andrei rolled his eyes. “Phoenix should take lessons.”

“Heard that.” A dark voice coughed behind us. “Hello, Alice, nice dress.” Was it my imagination or was he possibly blushing?

The rest of the guys filed up toward the bar.

Panic seized in my chest. What if my brother said I belonged to him? What if he claimed me in front of them? What if?

“Don’t worry.” Andrei held me close. “He doesn’t speak well, can barely understand him as it was…”

“He’s on the move.” Ax said in a bored tone. “Toward the first exit.”

A security guard blocked it.

Aldo frowned and then went to another one.

All exits were blocked.

He pulled out a gun, people started screaming.

And that’s when I saw an older man walk right in and shoot Aldo in the kneecaps along with the guy I didn’t recognize with him.

People screamed but didn’t run toward the exits, which made me wonder if this was common.

Tex was on the move with Chase. They each grabbed a body and started toward the opposite end of the room.

The elderly man who’d shot them made his way toward us. His black scarf was wrapped tightly around his neck, his black matching fedora gave him a very GQ look.

Andrei smiled. “Flew some in last week just for you, Frank.”

“Knew I was liking you more and more.”

Andrei motioned to the bartender.

Frank turned his blue gaze to mine. “Seems you were a lion tamer in another life, mmm?”

“Or an angel sent from God,” Nixon muttered. “Let’s go chat with him about the girls so I can get home. We shut this down tonight.”

“Agreed.” Andrei helped me off his lap. I wasn’t sure how he could go from that to ruthless killer in seconds.

Nixon put his hand on Andrei’s shoulder. “We should go back there.”

Andrei nodded and snapped his fingers at Ax. “Keep Alice safe.”

Ax nodded.

Andrei leaned down and kissed my cheek. “Last chance. You want to pull the trigger?”

I shook my head no.

I didn’t deserve to have his blood on my hands and live with the nightmare or the guilt. Because no matter how horrible he was, he was still family.

“Is that a no to your souvenir as well?”

I smiled at that. “Leave his body intact. You’ve already given me his tongue.”

He scowled. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“All right, Dr. Doom.” I shoved his chest. “Hurry back to me.”

His eyes flashed. “You can guarantee it.”