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Danielle's Dangerous Hero Writing Challenge Story (Captive/Kidnap): Shadow Tryst
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message 401:
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Apr 02, 2013 09:53AM
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There's nothing wrong with loving your own characters.
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message 405:
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Danielle The Book Huntress , Loves 'Em Lethal
(last edited Jul 13, 2013 11:02PM)
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Alexei saw the realization that he was right cement itself in Karina’s eyes. Perhaps Karina could have doubted Alexei’s assessment of Sullivan, considering him paranoid. But she knew he was telling the truth. And it pained her.
He felt that pain inside. It made him want to invent novel and particularly painful ways to kill Sullivan, and he knew a lot of ways to kill people. Looking down at Karina, he realized that for once, his goal was to keep someone alive. He was in deep. He knew it.
The idea about them getting married had come to the top of his mind as a flash of insight. His instincts told him it was the right thing to do. He followed his instincts assiduously because they had kept him alive for a long time. Even in some of the deepest hellpits on the earth. His unit in Kabul had specialized in getting in and out, a hit squad that had one goal—kill and leave no trace of their origins behind. They had no allegiance to any particular government’s agenda, only to perform the assigned task for pay. Before, he had not focused on the deliberate carnage or the careless collateral damage that the insurgents had wreaked around them, no thought of justice or the greater good. His only mission was eliminating his targets. Now all of a sudden, he was worried about a woman who had started out as a possible enemy. She was so much more than that now.
Fury lurked beneath the ice around his mind and heart. The thought of the devastation that Liam Sullivan had caused this woman formerly known as Cara Bridgestock had become a personal insult against him. Part of him knew he was in over his head. But he no longer cared. Only about making this right for Karina. And their personal business would be fulfilled secondary to this. While he was very much looking forward to that, and he knew that Karina was starting to feel the same way, her safety was more important. Going along with Sullivan’s plan to host their wedding was a good way to get deeper and to keep Karina safe at the same time. The only other option was to extract her, stash her somewhere safe and come back and eliminate Sullivan. But his time with Sullivan had proved him right that Sullivan was hardly the fatherly figure he pretended to be, and he wasn’t going to let Karina out of his sight so soon, after making such an effort to lure her out. He suspected that the information he’d fed Karina about Fleming was simply killing two birds with one stone. Get Fleming, a competitor out the way, and use Karina’s hiring of a carefully selected assassin—himself—to get her back in the open and back into his grasp. It had worked well.
Other than the regret he felt for Karina’s pain, he couldn’t bemoan the fact that Sullivan had engineered his entrance into Karina’s life. He planned to stay in it on a permanent basis, although she wasn’t ready to hear that. But he had no qualms about tying her to him any way he could in the meantime, even with a marriage.
He was more than willing to marry her legally and for real. Actually he liked the idea of it. It had merits. He could protect her, and what belonged to her. He’d also piss off Sullivan majorly and make himself a target while Karina retained some safety. And the best part of it was, she’d belong to him. Officially. Fair and square. Their marriage would be legal since Karina had no reason not to marry him under her real name. . She had come out of hiding , for all intent and purposes. And his name was legal his own as well.
Now he just had to stay alive before, during and after the wedding. He wouldn’t put it pass Sullivan to have a plan to take him out before the ink was dry on the license. But having someone try to kill him wasn’t exactly a new thing. Yes, it mildly pissed him off, but he could deal with it.
Karina’s voice trembled slightly as she spoke. “You think Sullivan has…feelings towards me?”
“Feelings’ is not the term I would use, but yes.”
Alexei took Karina’s shoulders in his hands, squeezing slightly. The touch seemed to calm her down, something that gratified him. He couldn’t deny that touching her made something go still in him, while simultaneously stirring animal emotions. Primal and unquiet. “I think he wants you, like a possession. A toy that he intends to use the way he likes. The problem is, men like Sullivan don’t treat their ‘toys’ very well.”
He didn’t have to and didn’t want to remind Karina about what Sullivan had done to her mother and father when he was thwarted.
Karina licked her lips. Her eyes hardened. Her soft, sweet features seemed etched in stony determination. She leaned closer to him and whispered as she brushed a kiss against his lips. “He can’t have me.”
Before she could pull away, Alexei took her chin in his hand and kept the kiss going. Except his was less chaste. He pressed past her parted lips and explored her mouth thoroughly, like it was his right. With an effort, he tried to keep his mind on what was going on around them, and off how much he wanted to lose himself in Karina. He managed just barely. He pulled back and met her gaze, seeing that she was not unaffected by their kiss. Of course, he didn’t miss the beating of her heart against his. “No he can’t.” Hanging just inches from her lush, pink mouth, he whispered. “I promise I will kill him for you.”
If he expected her to shake her head, deny that he take a life for her, then he was going to be disappointed. She did neither of those things. Instead, she closed her eyes and nodded.
He held her for a little longer. Maybe Alexei would have felt better if she cried, but she didn’t. She just stood quietly in his arms. He knew that she had taken some hard blows and he marveled at her courage. She was tougher than many soldiers he had known, both in his official time in the Russian Army and SPETNAZ and also in his mercenary years. Two years wasn’t long enough to get over finding your parents murdered like that, to be orphaned in a hostile, unfeeling world. And now insult was added to injury. She knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that a man who had supposedly been her father’s best friend had been behind their slaughter. Now, she was going to have to go back in that house and pretend like she didn’t know that Liam Sullivan was the destroyer of her world. That she still felt the affection towards him that one would feel towards a beloved uncle.
message 406:
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Danielle The Book Huntress , Loves 'Em Lethal
(last edited Jul 13, 2013 11:04PM)
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He leaned his forehead until it rested against Karina’s. “You can do this. We’ll get through this.”
She leaned back enough to meet his eyes. “Having some regrets about getting involved in this situation?” she asked. The smile on her opulent lips was vulnerable and tentative. Her light tan skin looked pale even in the bright sunlight. He could almost feel her pain like a visceral stab in his gut. It made a queer ache throb in Alexei’s frozen heart.
“None whatsoever.” It was a complete truth.
Karina’s smile widened. “You’re crazy, Alexei. Crazy and absolutely the most dangerous man I’ve ever met in my life.”
He shook his head. “I’m completely sane.” He kissed her again. It never got old for him, the taste and feel of her. Maybe he was crazy in that sense. “But you’re right about the dangerous part.”
Karina gave him a bewildered look. “I shouldn’t trust you, but God help me, I do.”
Alexei felt intense satisfaction at her words. “You can be sure of one thing, Karina. You can trust me. If I wanted you dead, you would be. If I wanted to hurt you, I would have. I want you vulnerable to me, and I won’t lie about that. But being vulnerable to me will be to your advantage and I’d never use it against you.”
Karina’s eyes were wide, her gaze uneasy. “I don’t want to be vulnerable to anything. Not anymore.”
Alexei rubbed a thumb along the soft skin of her cheek and down her neck. “Then you know how I feel.” The words were honest, brutally so. He was making it clear to her that she wasn’t alone in this emotional sea that had developed between them so quickly.
“We can’t trust anything we feel right now,” she whispered.
Alexei felt her trying to withdraw from him, both physically and mentally, and he wasn’t having it. He chose his words carefully. “Maybe that is what we should trust most of all. It binds us together and together, we can’t be stopped.”
He knew that Karina was scared, and she had every reason to feel that way. He had deliberately intimidated her, set up her up to be afraid of him, exploited her fear of him at his worst, her only choice yielding to his control out of that fear.
While he didn’t regret that, not the way things had started between them, he was impatient for her to see the truth about what was between them, what they meant to each other. He knew he couldn’t force that. Trust had to be earned. She didn’t know where he’d come from, what he’d seen and done. Even with the hell her life had become two years ago, her life was sheltered and near-idyllic, far removed from the world that he’d inhabited for his entire adult life.
He’d been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, both parents wealthy. His mother had been the much younger, pampered wife of a Russian oligarch. Even with the political situation in the Soviet Union when he was born, his mother had lacked for nothing materially as the wife of Ivan Petrovitch Bardin.
As the only offspring of a very rich man who had made money on smuggled goods, he’d had a good early childhood. His mother sent him to stay with her mother in France when the political situation became too ugly. His grandmother had treated him with the affection of an only grandchild, although she had also worked to instill her inflexible Catholic values in him, along with the work ethic that had dominated her life. Even though her only child had gotten involved with the European party scene after falling into modeling, ending up married to a Soviet businessman, she hadn’t completely cut ties with her.
His summers with his grandmother were a haven away from his indifferent father and arrested development-stricken mother. He had bloomed under his Grand-mère ’s careful attentions. Hadn’t wanted to go home when summers ended. Not to the palatial house outside of Moscow that was so quiet and heartless. A mother who was gone all the time, a father who rarely came home. A huge contrast to his grandmother’s cozy, warm house in the country, or her ancient, cramped flat above the first jewelry store she had opened. He loved his mother in that way that children loved their mothers. Forgiving all the flaws that were so obvious. But even in his twelve-year-old brain, he knew that motherly love was not something Cecile Bardin was capable of. And that last time, he’d fought with his mother on the phone about not coming home, and receiving a week long extension to his stay was the last time he talked to his mother. Shortly after, she and his father were killed by a business rival with Russian mafia connections. Their death a brutal one, a sign to any who came against that gangster who had taken over Alexei’s father’s illegal operations.
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Karina wants him to kill Sullivan and she knows he will.
I like how Alexei made it known to Karina that if he wanted to kill or hurt her, he could have. What bold words!
Keep writing. I can't wait to read more.
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Alexei is very deliberate about what he does, but he knows that his feelings for Karina aren't something he can control.
message 409:
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Danielle The Book Huntress , Loves 'Em Lethal
(last edited Aug 20, 2014 08:35PM)
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Chapter Sixteen Continued
Something died in him that day. That ability to feel other than the respectful affection for his Grand-mère , and a distant sort of camaraderie for his soldier compatriots several years later when he ran off and joined the Russian Army, barely of legal age. He hadn’t enjoyed killing, not really. He felt a sense of satisfaction when his work ended someone who needed to be dead. And after he left official government service, he used his skills in a way that was unhindered by red tape. He didn’t justify his actions. He knew what he was. A killer. He might have killed bad people, but he was still a killer. He had accepted that and the fact that feeling deeply was beyond him.
That had changed the day he met Karina. Something long deadened had come to life. Which was why he’d been so pissed when he thought she’d betrayed him. But as soon as he’d had her in his arms, so vulnerable, he knew instinctively he could never hurt her. That she would belong to him, then and there.
Now he stared into her eyes. “Instincts count for a lot. Feelings count when they are strong when before you felt nothing. A fool feels everything all the time. But a calculated, collected man knows that when his gut twists, he gets that sinking feeling in his stomach, that he should listen. Especially a man who doesn’t allow feelings to get in the way of anything.”
He could tell when Karina knew he was talking about himself. The knowledge filled her expressive, beautiful eyes. “I knew that when I met you, my life was changing forever.”
When a man like him feels something, it’s worth trusting. Feelings hadn’t played a huge role in his life for a long, long time. The emotion that this woman had brought to life in such a distressingly short period of time was like the feeling returning to his extremities after frostbite had set in.
Karina broke eye contact. “I don’t need to this. I can’t do this right now.”
Alexei knew he was pushing her too much. But selfishly he didn’t care. He wouldn’t allow her to deny what was between them. He was a bastard and he knew it. He placed his large, long-fingered hand against the side of her face, seeing how it dwarfed the shape of her head. “I know, dorogaya,” he said softly. “There’ll be time later for this.” He intended to keep the promise. He wouldn’t’ die, couldn’t. Not when he had so much to settle between Karina and himself.
He said nothing else for a while. Merely letting Karina get control of herself. He felt her relax, her shuddery breaths calm down as she looked out at nothing in particular. She didn’t pull away, even as his hands brushed her short tight curls, then the back of her neck. She jumped a bit then, because he knew she was very ticklish. But she didn’t avoid his touch. That was telling in the extreme.
While he wanted to stay here in this oasis for many hours, he knew they had to go back soon. Or Sullivan would come looking, and Karina wouldn’t want him to see her this way. “Karina, we should go back.”
Karina seemed to gather herself with his words. Her hazel eyes hardened slightly. She reminded him of his grandmother in that moment. A small, slight, fragile-looking woman with a backbone of titanium. She could speak sweetly, but her words carried the weight of authority. Even when he’d started to slide into rebellion shortly after his parents died, she had kept control of him, just with a certain look or a careful phrase. And she also knew he’d respond to the occasional glimpses of her own grief at the loss of her beloved only child. She wasn’t afraid to use that. In that sense, he was like his grandmother. He could be manipulative when it was called for. Which was why he said the next words. “Your parents would be so proud of you, Cara Bridgestock.”
The words clicked something into place into Karina. “They would. You’re right.” She looked down. “But not the killing. My parents weren’t like that.”
“Of course not.” Alexei had no doubt that her parents would have done everything they could to keep their only daughter away from a man like him. He probably went against everything they believed. But he wouldn’t let that be an obstacle against a future with Karina. Nothing would. “But they would want you safe. And in that, I am honoring them.”
Karina’s fingers brushed nervously against the silk cuff of his shirt. It was unconscious, but he preened inside that she was touching him so casually. “Is there no legal way to get Sullivan?”
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“Yes, with my father’s technology.” Karina’s words were as cold as he’d ever heard them.
“Yes. He gained power from your father’s death. Leverage to keep him from seeing a day in court for the dirt he’s done. He can’t be made to pay through the legal system. You must understand that.”
His own voice was lethal and sharp as the stone his eye color mirrored. “But I will make him pay.”
“We’ll go to hell for this,” Karina said. She met his gaze with eyes that were anguished but also shimmered with rage.
Alexei shook his head. “Not you. Perhaps me.”
Karina touched his face. “I don’t want you to burn for my sins.”
“I have plenty of my own to pay for.” It was true. He was raised to believe in the forgiveness of each and every sin offered by the savior who died on the cross for the sins of mankind. But did that mean he could keep sinning, killing deliberately? He didn’t think so.
“My parents believed in forgiving others.” Alexei could feel her hurt, and her desolation in believing she was going against something so fundamental to her family’s well-ingrained ethics. He didn’t want that for her.
“I’m glad they taught you that, Karina. And I wouldn’t want you to abandon that. But in this, we have to do it my way,” he said, his words implacable.
He knew that if she wouldn’t go along, he’d find a way to remove her from the situation before he killed Sullivan. He held her gaze, praying that she wouldn’t test him in this. Part of him regretted that he didn’t have the heart to intimidate her anymore like he’d done originally. But the other part him knew he never wanted Karina to be afraid of him that way again. He wanted her to trust him, because then she might come to love him.
He felt deep relief flood him when she eventually whispered an “Ok.” Impulsively, he hugged her. What the hell? He asked himself almost immediately afterward. He wasn’t a man who gave reassuring hugs. But his instincts had acted in his stead.
Before they got ready to walk back, he said, “I know your parents would want me to keep you safe from Sullivan. And that is what I intend to do.”
Karina looked at him. “Thank you for that. And for what it’s worth, my father would have respected you. He might not have agreed with what you’ve done in your past, but he would have respected that you are essentially a man who does what you believe to be right.”
Alexei cocked his head and considered Karina’s words. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe that he had anything in common with Aidan Bridgestock, except a desire to keep his daughter safe. But he didn’t think that Karina would lie about something like that. He had to trust she knew her father well enough to believe what she was saying. In that moment, he was glad that Karina had not seen him at his worst. He didn’t have many regrets. He’d killed some wretched people who truly didn’t deserve to live, but seeing someone take a life that way was a distressing thing, even if they were killing a truly evil person. And it changed a person.
Even knowing he wasn’t good enough for Aidan Bridgestock’s daughter, he refused to let her go. He’d have to make sure that Karina didn’t have to see the darkest parts of himself, but he was keeping her. And he knew at the least his deceased soon to be father-in-law would be happy to know his daughter was safe with him.
He knew that Karina had opened herself up to him emotionally to say something like that. The last thing he wanted was to slap her down. In reply to Karina’s words, he merely said, “It’s not in me to be maudlin, dorogaya, but that means a lot.”
Karina nodded, and there was a change between them. A lightness. She had shown him a different part of herself, and he had given her something he’d never given anyone else.
He stepped back from her, confident enough to create physical distance between them since he knew that there a deeper connection now. He offered a hand. “Okay now?”
Karina tilted her chin with determination. “Not really, but I will be. I am ready to go back now.” She took his hand, tucking her small, soft hand into his, showing a measure of trust he didn’t even think she recognized she felt for him. But he was gratified.
Alexei tucked her into his side and started walking back towards Sullivan and the house, and the game of shadows he had signed up to play.
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She allowed Sullivan to give her suggestions on honeymoon venues as he dug and asked where she hadn’t been before. She knew he was probing, trying to get information on where she’d hidden herself the past two years. Karina kept her answers as general as possible, pretending to be inexperienced at traveling and unfamiliar with many places and spaces. Alexei, as a European, was easily able to fill in the blanks.
Sullivan came right out and asked the 10,000 question. “So how did you meet Alexei?”
Alexei had coached her on this, absolutely certain the question would come up. “At the Louvre,” she answered. “But not in front of a Manet or the Mona Lisa. The lines are horrendous to that,” she added.
“She was standing in line at Le Comptoir du Louvre in the Pyramid in the Louvre Museum,” Alexei cut in. He chuckled self-consciously. “I have a sweet tooth, and that café has the most delicious flans pâtissier. I like to go in there just to munch during the day when I’m in Paris.”
“How romantic,” Sullivan said insincerely.
“Oh, it wasn’t very. I made a fool out of myself over her. I claimed to have lost my wallet and conned her into paying for my flans pâtissier and cappuchino, just so I could insist I owed her a dinner to make up for it. I think she would have told me to get lost, had I not insisted on how hungry I was.” He gave Sullivan a conspiratorial look, “Cara’s a bit of a soft touch.”
“I am not,” she said. Karina schooled her features to show a fond look of remembrance, while inwardly she marveled at Alexei’s facile handling of falsehood. “It was a delicious pastry.”
“I insisted on sharing it.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “That way I didn’t feel guilty about buying a second one.” In reality, she had eaten two of the egg custard tarts at that very café because they were so good, but that was long before she had actually met Alexei. She’d never forget the bittersweet pang of enjoying those pastries in Paris, France, with her parents so recently dead. Tears had choked her throat and she’d had to drink some bottled water. But she’d made herself calm down and reasoned that her parents would want her to be happy her first time in Paris. It had barely kept her sane to rationalize every minute that she enjoyed some small thing, such as the view of the Eiffel Tower for the first time. Or touring an authentic French chateau, remembering how her mother had loved French architecture. Because her parents were in heaven, and they were probably praying to God that she was safe and happy somewhere, even with the way they had died.
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Alexei wants to kill Sullivan.
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message 416:
by
Danielle The Book Huntress , Loves 'Em Lethal
(last edited Jan 04, 2016 02:22PM)
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The wedding planner was a tall, rail-thin blond with the voice of a chronic smoker, and sharp green eyes that missed nothing. She arrived two hours later, which was telling about the level of influence Sullivan had. Anne O’Brien was in her early forties and a consummate professional whose talents in wedding planning were in great demand. Normally, she was booked for years. However, Sullivan was a ‘dear friend’ of hers, and she’d do anything for him, she’d said with a casual wave. Sullivan took her by both shoulders and kissed her cheeks continental style, murmuring something in Gaelic, which was not a language that Karina knew. She did know Cymraeg, since her father was Welsh by birth. Karina wondered briefly if Sullivan and Anne had been or were lovers. Their body language seemed to suggest that. A glance at Alexei saw that he watched the pair closely with eyes that missed nothing.
To her credit, even though Sullivan insisted on footing the bill, she focused on Karina and took her likes and dislikes seriously. With an approving glance over Alexei’s tall, well-built frame, she said,” He’ll be easy to dress.” Her Irish accent was cultured and smooth as her appearance. “I’ll have the men’s formal wear shop set him up for an appointment tomorrow.”
Alexei waved a hand, rattling off his measurements, which seemed to give the impression that he was a bit too concerned with his physical appearance. No doubt to cement his image as a rather harmless dilettante. Although considering the way Sullivan was looking at him, his blue eyes highly accessing, Karina wondered how much of that he bought into.
Karina did her best to play along. She didn’t get how far Alexei was going to take this. Surely, they weren’t going to get married for real? If the wedding planner had anything to do with it, this wedding would go off without a hitch in less than a week. Anne employed her stylus and iPad with an efficiency that was scary.
She had already started the process for obtaining a marriage license via the online website. It helped that Sullivan was able to call his friends in high places and pull some strings to get around the three month requirement. Karina didn’t even want to know how he’d accomplished it, but O’Brien gleefully checked it off the list, saying that they had a waiver. It seemed that being a powerful man paid off. But they still had to go in person to complete the paperwork. Karina and Alexei drove to the government building and filled out the paperwork. Alexei coached Karina softly on another walk around the property.
Karina knew that keeping facts straight was a matter of life and death. She knew her manufactured history as well as her real identity. In this case, she was assuming her original identity, and after two years, it was jarring to walk into the Registrar Office for Solemnizers with a copy of her birth certificate, and a passport under her original name, which she had kept in a hidden pocket in her backpack, although it seemed too dangerous to do so. She didn’t know what to read into the situation that Alexei also had copies of the same under his original name. “Aren’t you afraid of exposing yourself?” she asked him again in the car after he assured her that he’d checked the car for listening devices.
Alexei looked over at her, giving her a wolflike smile. She registered that a few days ago, that smile would have scared her senseless. Now it made a strange thrill travel through her midsection. “No,” he answered unnecessarily. He changed the subject.
“Has Sullivan tried to get you alone?”
Karina read the dangerous tone in his voice, as if he hated the thought of her being alone with Sullivan. “Yes, I have been able to come up with excuses for now.” She felt no small degree of relief about that, because there was something deeply wrong about the feelings that she registered from Sullivan. He seemed to be cheerful and sanguine, playing along, but those icy blue eyes were always on her, missing little.
“That won’t work forever. Playing the jealous boyfriend has kept him at bay, but he’ll get suspicious if he doesn’t even get a few minutes with you.” Alexei navigated his way into the city center with a casual skill.
“How was the drink you had with him yesterday night in his office?” Karina asked, very curious.
“Don’t worry, dorogaya. He didn’t try to poison me. He was trying to feel me out for more information. I’m certain he’s had me investigated, but nothing, suspicious has turned up.”
Karina felt no small degree of concern, even nervousness for Alexei. It was a strange sensation, fearing for his safety. But deep down, she felt that Alexei was even less safe from Sullivan. Although Alexei had a cold, deadly way about him that made it clear it wouldn’t be easy for any man or army of them to harm him. “I think Sullivan really hates you.”
Alexei waved a hand in a way that should have compromised his tough guy image, but it didn’t. “I’m okay with that.”
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I can't wait for the wedding day. Karina will be Alexei's wife. No pretend. Of course, I'm sure Alexei will be happy to be the husband. : )
Looking forward to the next installment.
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I need to write some more past this. I wrote some later on in the story, but I can't post that yet. :)
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I need to write some more past this. I wrote some later on in the story, but I can't post that yet. :)"
Take your time.
message 420:
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Danielle The Book Huntress , Loves 'Em Lethal
(last edited Mar 17, 2016 10:13PM)
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Alexei waved a hand in a way that should have compromised his tough guy image, but it didn’t. “I’m okay with that. I rather like the idea,” he said, with that funny side-smile of his, but Karina thought that he was deadly serious.
“Why would you want him to hate you?” Karina asked.
“Because strong emotion makes people act stupid. Sullivan is a very intelligent man, but he’s also very arrogant. That alone makes him weak. Add blind rage to the equation, and he’s got feet of very fragile clay.”
It was secret to Karina that this man knew how to manipulate people. Perhaps in that he was an equal match to Sullivan. But something in Karina didn’t want to feel that Alexei was anywhere as bad as Sullivan was, even with clear obvious of his murderous nature.
“You want Sullivan to be provoked into playing his hand,” Karina said, already knowing the answer. She ran a trembling finger over her face. She was reeling, sick with the true realization that a man who had been like an uncle to her cold-bloodedly planned and executed the assassination of her parents. While he didn’t pull the trigger, he still paid someone to do it. She had the murder, and yes it was murder, of Fleming on her conscience, and now this man was putting himself in danger for her. Her stomach wrenched at the thought of Alexei dying because of her. That couldn’t happen. It might push her over the edge. “Maybe I should just give him what he wants. I don’t think he’ll kill me,…”
Alexei made a noise that sounded like the growl of an animal, and then he cursed in a low steady stream in Russian first and then in French. He pulled over the car onto a less busy side street and put it into park. He then said, “Look at me, Karina.” It was a command, nothing less.
Karina held her breath. Then she looked at his face. His eyes were cold and brutal and furious, and yet it was a burning cold.
He held her gaze as though he had frozen her like liquid nitrogen. “You will never even think that again. If you say something like that again, I’ll drop your ass off at Byrne’s, go back and put a bullet into Sullivan’s head right now, and kill any and everyone who stands in my way to get to him.”
His hand was surprisingly gentle on her, a marked contrast to the fierce, lethal authority in his voice. “You’re right, he won’t kill you. At least not the fast way. You’ll die inside, soon enough. Sullivan will keep you in a prison like you’ve never encountered. He will use you, sexually, emotionally, and financially. Ten years from now, you’ll be a hollow shell. Do you think that’s what your parents would want for you?”
Karina shook her head, shocked at Sullivan’s blunt and completely icy cold assessment. Equally shocked at the frigid undercurrent of rage beneath his words.
He waited until she responded before speaking more words like daggers of ice. “Then you also need to know something about me, Karina. This is personal. I don’t allow my enemies to walk away when they’ve wronged me. They die because I kill them. I don’t leave casualties behind. I leave corpses. Sullivan is not just your enemy. He’s also mine.”
Karina shivered as she looked into Alexei’s eyes, more frightening by leagues than they were back in his house when he had her tied up, torture instruments at his side. He was not the sensual, over -privileged, elegantly dressed Frenchman he pretended to be back at Sullivan’s house. He wasn’t the efficient Russian ex-soldier who gave orders and expected to be behaved. He was the ruthless assassin as she had yet to see him.
He took her face in his hand, still gentle. “This won’t end until Sullivan is dead and you’re safe from him. Believe that.” Then he kissed her. The kiss felt like a sealed vow. It felt like he was staking his claim on her, but that didn’t make sense. Now when they were here where no one could see them. Something felt like a door had closed and nothing was going back to the way it had been. And that scared Karina. But what also scared her, was that how much she needed to know that this man would protect her to the very end.
After that kiss, Alexei deliberately gave Karina some time to collect herself. He pointed out a coffee shop and suggested they stop there and get a refreshment. Karina nodded, too shell-shocked to say that her throat was in a tight knot and she couldn’t imagine drinking anything. Alexei being Alexei, he came around and helped her out of the car and placed a proprietary arm around her waist, leading her as much as walking beside her, to the coffee shop.
The shop was no designer coffee franchise like Starbucks. It was however, scrupulously clean and unique, decorated like someone’s grandmother’s kitchen and smelled fragrantly of a pleasant mix of coffee and spicy tea brews. The proprietor was a pale-skinned, black haired young woman with vibrantly blue eyes, what they called “Black Irish”. While there were plenty of black (of African descent) people of Ireland, this referred to the combination of blue eyes and black hair with pale skin that was a common enough coloration in both Northern Ireland and Ireland. “Hello. What can I get you?” the woman asked.
Alexei smiled at her, playing up his French accent. “Hello. I’ll have a Quad Espresso and she’ll have a Chai.” Alexei looked at Karina to confirm it. She nodded. She could use the spicy bite of the tea to wake her up and to settle her emotions.
Karina couldn’t help but notice that while the woman making their drinks had been professional, she cast an approving eye over Alexei, liking what she saw. Alexei looked drop dead fine. He was wearing a casual suit coat over a silk blouse and wool trousers, all in black, that were well-tailored but not too tight. He was no hipster wearing jeans a size too small. He wore his clothes so well that he could have been a male model, although he lacked their plastic good looks or their boyish appearance. Alexei was all man. His face was carved like a sculptor had a go at a hunk of marble but deliberately stopped before he messed his creation up. Alexei’s black hair was carefully tousled, obviously too long, but it worked for him.
What Karina missed was that she also garnered her share of looks. People stared at the young beautiful woman who looked a bit exotic, with bright hazel eyes, skin that was golden brown not pale like porcelain and daringly short curls. And that body. It was curvy in a way that the media wrote off as unfashionable but red-blooded men always secretly (or not) craved. Lovingly decked out in a black shirtwaist dress flocked with tiny white orchids that was essentially feminine, flirting with her hips that were very curvy, and generous breasts. Even without her pumps, she would have been tall, with those long longs. Some of the men looked like they would have approached her, but when Alexei looked around, his casual air of possession also had a lethal edge to it that they would wonder about when he left with his girlfriend, no fiancee, with that huge rock on her finger. When they left, people exhaled a sigh, either of relief or regret.
It didn’t take as long as they would have thought to fill out the paperwork. Karina secretly was disappointed that it was so easy. It made the future marriage that much more plausible and real to her. Not that she had anything against marriage. Her parent’s marriage was the example of the institution, one she’d always hoped for in the future. Karina stole glances at Alexei and, there was no question that he was physically a dream. He was protective and considerate. But morally, well, not like she could throw stones. This man was going to be her husband, for real. For however long that marriage served their purpose, and Alexei’s grand plans.
Alexei didn’t take her back to Sullivan's home. He went to a park. Karina didn’t ask. She just got out of the car, and took Alexei’s arm as he escorted her into the center of the beautiful park. Karina vaguely remembered that there were plants native to Ireland, and the signs posted in the various landscaped areas noted which ones. Broom, elder, aspen, wild cherry, dog rose, and even a plant called ragged robin, with deep pink petals that lived up to its name. There were other plants, and being there in the beautifully maintained gardens made Karina’s heart steady and her mind clear slightly. In Early spring, it was like being in a woodland meadow. Everything was blooming and the air was pregnant with the free fragrance of blooms and herbaceous notes.
Alexei was holding her hand in his much larger, strong, and slightly, but not unpleasantly callused hand. He showed no sign of letting her hand go, even when he lead them to a stone bench in the shade of an elder tree that looked like it had been there at least half a century. Karina took the time to breathe deeply. She said a prayer for peace that she knew she didn’t deserve, but she felt supernatural peace that told her that God had answered that prayer.
Alexei looked around, his body language casual, but Karina could read him well enough to know his gaze missed nothing. It was still early in the day, only late morning, and during the week, so most people were at work. Yet there were a few elderly people and young matrons pushing prams, as strollers were called in Ireland. Her father had called them that, his British origins evident in some of his word choices.
There was a man. He strolled into the park. His form was amorphous, and he wore dull brown street clothes. One would instantly look away from him, but something made Karina take another look. Sure enough, he strolled over to the section where Karina and Alexei were sitting, and stopped in front of a display of plants that grew on the coasts of Ireland. The man took out a cigarette and began smoking, and it struck Karina as being vaguely irreverent to smoke in such a beautiful place with fine, clean air. Alexei patted her lower leg in a proprietary manner. She looked up at him questioningly and a bit accusingly as well. He smiled slightly. “Stay right here. I won’t be long. I’m going to have a chat with our smoking friend there.”
Karina nodded. Any fear she might have felt seemed irrelevant. Alexei was always the most dangerous man in the place. Hands down.
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Alexei was ready to go kill Sullivan. Love that.
What can Karina do with her dangerous bad boy, but let him be dangerous.
I am happy for rhis installment, waiting patiently for the next installment.
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It does. Write as much as you can. I wanted to write last night, but I might write today.
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Alexei walked over to the bulky gent in nondescript street clothes. He wore a cap pulled down low over his eves. His appearance was designed to get people to forget they saw him. But Alexei had known him for over fifteen years.
He walked up to the rail that enclosed a flower bed, and appeared to be scanning the flowers in a bored manner.
“Dobraya utra,” he greeted Byrne "good morning" in Russian. He stood several inches away from the man, appearing casual strangers to any who would be watching.
“Top of the morning to you,” Byrne replied ironically. His voice was steel and precision, which didn’t fit his slouchy demeanor.
Underneath the bulky clothes were the broad, honed muscles of an experienced operative and killer. He was a master of disguises, and few could identify him if he was incognito. At least if they hadn’t worked alongside him and been friends with him for many years.
“Thanks for meeting.”
“Not a problem, boyo. You’re in a mess to be sure,’ Byrne said, allowing his Irish accent to come out deliberately. He didn’t have to speak with a brogue, as he was Cambridge educated, but he did when he wanted the affect. He took a deep draw of his cigarette and blew the smoke out through his nose. Byrne normally didn’t smoke. Most experienced operators didn’t because it compromised their cardiovascular ability, which was something that you didn’t need if you were running for your life. He only did it for effect today. But he was enjoying the role, clearly.
“You’ve confirmed that Sullivan made the hit,” Alexei said.
“Sure enough. He paid some nasty pieces of work to do it.” Byrne named a couple of killers that made him look like a churchgoing boy scout. Arno Wagner and Jock Friesian. They were exactly what Byrne said, nasty pieces of work.
“He had to pay a lot of money because it wanted them to die badly and leave ugly corpses, and most professionals don’t work that way, as you know.”
Alexei did know. A professional killer didn’t kill for the thrill or pleasure or to make a scene. They killed for money or for country. Those were clean, precise hits and the operator was in and out.
Alexei pondered the killers, both ex-military who went where the paycheck was good, having no ties to their countries of origins. They often worked together, since their mores, or lack thereof matched perfectly. He had heard of them, crossed paths, peripherally. They were like vermin, wherever there was a hellhole and opportunities for an unscrupulous person to make money, they were there. Alexei had no illusions about his own black soul, but he knew there was a difference between what he had done and what these two men did eagerly.
He made a note that he was going to find and kill both men when this was over.
Byrne gave him a sideways smile. “Adding them to your hit list?”
Alexei gave a short, definitive nod. No further words were said.
“Of course, “ Bryne said with satisfaction. “Especially after what they did your woman’s family.”
Alexei didn’t react to Byrne calling Karina his woman. It was as true as it sounded. He was not going to lie to himself. Karina was his, even if she didn’t know it. His to protect, to cherish, and to make love to until either of them couldn’t walk for days and she was permanently seeing stars. Yes, she was his.
“Congratulations,” Byrne said. He sounded approving.
“Spasiba,” Alexei replied. “I need to get her out of Sullivan’s reach.”
“Only way to do that is to make sure he’s dead,” Byrne replied, his usual pragmatic self.
“I know. I want him dead. Karina might get an attack of conscience before it’s done. That’s why I have a plan to get her out and to keep her safe so I can go back and deal with Sullivan, if necessary.”
“You know she’ll be safe with us.” He was referring to Byrne’s crew, all ex-military, and as fierce as hellhounds.
“I know.” Alexei went on to tell Byrne about his wedding. He related the details, including that the wedding would take place at Sullivan’s estate. In his strolls with Karina, he’d taken a look at the security on the property and Sullivan had plenty of men. They were, as expected, discreet and appeared well-trained, and clearly well-armed. His explorations, although casual, had revealed that there was a security building about fifty feet from the main house.
“I’ll do some digging and get the plans for his house. I am sure if I put the right amount of money in the right hands, I can get one of my boys installed on the gardening crew,” Byrne said.
Byrne finished his cigarette, stubbed it out on the bottom of his shoe and threw it in the trashcan, making the shot, even with his casual aim, three feet away. He shot a gun even better, and his knifework was precision.
Byrne met his eyes, his pale blue eyes serious. “You know that he is going to arrange for the happy groom to die shortly after the ceremony, don’t you?”
Alexei nodded. “I’m sure that will be his wedding present to Karina.” And another person out of Sullivan’s way. He controlled the surge of rage at the thought of Sullivan’s predatory intentions for Karina.
He found himself looking under his shoulder at Karina, who sitting safely where he’d left her. She had a look on her face that said she was enjoying the spring day. That gave him pleasure in a way that he never would have expected. He wanted her to be happy, at peace, and safe. He wanted her with him.
“Then you need to be prepared for everything.” Byrne was an experienced operative. In his late thirties, he was as tough as they come, and very good at his job. Although he still relatively young, at least not too old to be in the field, he had over two decades in their dangerous profession under his belt.
Former SAS, his instincts were battle-earned and battle ready. Best of all, he was one of a very small list of people that Alexei trusted. His ability to access a situation tactically had kept almost all of his associates alive for a long time. Including himself.
When Alexei felt he was ready to track down his parents’ killers, he’d done so, and Byrne was the man who’d kept his young idiotic self from getting killed in the process. Alexei had joined his crew right out of SPETNAZ, and what the school of hard knocks, and the Russian Special Forces hadn’t taught him, he’d learned working with Byrne.
“You sure you don’t want to call this off, get her out of here, and take Sullivan out another time?” Byrne’s icy blue eyes were expressionless, his voice calm, but the question was dead serious. He was willing to take his cue from Alexei. He’d play this either way.
Alexei shook his head succinctly. “He’ll be looking for that. If he’s not aware the assassin might come after him, he’ll still be extra cautious, especially now that Karina has resurfaced. I don’t think I’ll ever get close enough again. Besides, I have a feeling that if he gets Karina away from me, he’ll make sure she never gets free of him again. Best to keep this cover. He holds me in contempt. He wants me dead, but doesn’t suspect who I really am.”
Byrne nodded as if he didn’t expect Alexei to say anything different. He knew Alexei well enough. Alexei didn’t walk away until a job was done. Not foolish, but a man who always executed his contracts and paid his debts.
“How’s my alias?” Alexei asked, referring to his wetwork identity.
“No chatter that’s leading to you personally. The community is buzzing about the man you put two bullets in. He was a real gombeen. Some nasty stuff is coming up about him. Even though he’s not the killer of your woman’s parents, no one is going to lose sleep about him being dead. My contacts think that whoever found your apartment in France weren’t looking for you directly, but they were following a money trail for one of your casual aliases based on looking up the bill of sale to the apartment. The police hit a dead end. No leads on the killings at the apartment or Fleming’s assassination for that matter. It was a clean hit, no brass, as you know.”
“I can’t go back there, regardless. I’ve abandoned it.” Fortunately, Alexei kept the apartment clean of any personal identifiers, having it cleaned twice weekly, and he made sure it was wiped clean of prints. He went there only to sleep and to shower, but he was scrupulous about cleaning the shower after he used it. The cleaning service had been in since his last visit instructed to change the sheets each time, new sheets every few months. His bedding had been fresh, no chance for him to sleep in the apartment before or after the hit. He was glad about his obsessive habits.
“That’s probably wise. In a year or so, it will go up on public auction, and some rich duck will buy it for a song.”
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Alexei shrugged. The money the apartment had cost him was a drop in a very deep bucket. His main regret for was Henri. The poor man hadn’t deserved to die from a bullet in the head because of trigger happy lowlifes. He felt absolutely no regret for the goons whose lives he had ended. It was good news that his cover was still intact. The man who had owned the apartment was named Jean Moreau, a salesman from Brittany who reputedly kept the apartment for when he came to Paris for business. When the cops had dug into the situation, they would have realized that Jean didn’t exist, and that’s as far as it would go.
“By the way, everything about Cara Bridgestock checks out,” Bryne mentioned casually, leaning over the wrought iron banister separating them from the flowerbed. “But I guess you didn’t need to know that…” his open ended statement was more of a rhetorical question than anything else.
“An innocent university kid. A bit of a nerd, if you ask me. Although a looker all the same,” he said with a chuckle, not missing the dark look in Alexei’s eyes at the fact he had checked out his woman, but he was undaunted and unrepentant.
“Those sons of bitches that killed her parents like that,” Byrne paused, swearing under his breath. “And that wanker who ordered it. They need to die.”
“Supposedly he was a friend of her father from college, way back.”
Byrne whistled. “If you weren’t going to off him, I’d do it myself. The bastard deserves it. Also, way I see it, Karina knows too much. If she tries to get out of his control…”
“He’ll probably kill her himself,” Alexei finished. “I think that’s his plan B or C. I think he’ll avoid it. My guess is he’s had people looking for her, but she managed to stay out of his radar for two years. He wants her. Some sort of sick obsession. I think he probably had a thing for her mother and when that didn’t pan out, along with her father not going along with his business aspirations, he decided it was time to eliminate them from the equation and go after the daughter, who could be controlled. Only he didn’t bank on her going off the grid for two years.”
Just to think, if Karina hadn’t replied to his emails on a whim, likely out of loneliness, she’d probably still be safe. But then he wouldn’t have met her. Alexei didn’t like the thought of that, even though it just proved what a selfish, twisted bastard he was.
“Funny set of circumstances,” Byrne said. “Real funny.” But his tone said it wasn’t.
“Thanks for the information,” Alexei said. “The money will be in your account by seven this evening.”
Byrne raised a hand negligently from the iron railing. “You paid me for the guns. It’s enough. You know I owe you one for Sudan?” Byrne asked.
“But you’re worth every penny.” Alexei looked at him, catching the older man’s gaze. “I trust you to watch my back.” He inclined his head towards Karina. “And to help keep her safe if it’s necessary.”
Byrne slapped the iron railing. “Keep your wits about you, boyo. Sullivan is a snake in the grass.”
Alexei smiled ferally. “But I’m a mongoose.”
“Right you are, but a smart mongoose knows not to take on a viper.”
Alexei looked over at Karina. Killing had never been about pleasure or fun for Alexei. He was not a man driven to bloodlust. With the exception of his parents’ killers when he was young and self-righteous and full of self-destructive delusions of being some kind of avenging angel, his kills were cold and calculated and precise. With his parents and for country it was out of honor.
Then he’d done it for the money, taking out men that no one would miss on this earth and very, very few women, just as bad as the men. Scum of the earth. Now he was going to kill for vengeance and to keep this woman, his woman, safe. He knew that Sullivan was a dangerous adversary, and he was possibly in over his head. But he wasn’t going to back down. She was worth the risk.
“I hear your warning,” he said. Nothing more was needed to make it clear that Alexei was fixed on his course.
“I have your back,” Byrne said quietly.
“I know.”
Byrne glanced casually over at Karina. A smile was on his firm lips, his eyes appreciative and approving. “You’d better get back to your fianceé before someone decides to steal her away.”
“That would be a very bad move. I find I am an extremely jealous man lately.” If he was joking, there was no indication in Alexei’s flat tone. He gave a discreet farewell gesture and walked away from his friend, not looking back.
“I bet you are,” Byrne said, a chuckle in his throat.
Byrne watched the younger man walk back to the beautiful woman sitting alone several feet away. That smile was still on his face, and it was a knowing one. He knew Alexei well enough not to take his last words as a joke. He’d never seen Alexei go crazy over a woman like many of the soldiers he’d worked with in the past. Alexei was as calm and controlled as a robot when it came to his emotions. He was lethal as a soldier. He never panicked, and showed no fear. In the fifteen years he’d known him, Alexei had only grown more competent, and to many who knew him, a very scary person. His reputation in the small operative community was legendary and well-earned.
Yet Byrne knew that Alexei wasn’t the sociopath that he allowed others to believe him to be. He had a code. It was inscrutable to many, but Byrne knew the man and knew his code. Although not given to showing his emotions like others were, he’d seen something different about Alexei when he’d walked in with the young woman a few days ago. His instinct had told him the truth, and a few days later, he was certain about it. Every drop of evidence made it clear that Alexei was a man in love.
“The harder they fall,” Byrne murmured to no one in particular.
Byrne faded into the scenery and no would remember he was there.
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Can't wait for next installment. Alexei is walking in "I am in love", don't mess with me shoes. Love it.
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Karina watched Alexei walk over to her. She could watch him walk all day, now that the shadow of fear of him had faded. Not that he wasn’t imtimidating. He was. He exuded danger. But she didn’t fear he’d hurt her any long, except maybe her heart. That was still very possible. His long legs ate up the space between them. He wore his clothes better than a male runway model. Every inch of him was coordinated muscle and agility.
He moved his head just slightly, but took in everything. She knew he had been watching over her, even while he spoke to that man who looked somehow familiar even though he shouldn’t have.
Alexei met her gaze as he stepped over to her. He smiled, his sensual lips drawing attention, making her think of the way he kissed her, as though there was nothing else in the world that had his focus. He extended his large hand and clapsed hers in it. Then he pulled her to her feet. “Ready to go, moya dorogaya?”
She shivered when he called her that. And now that he knew she knew Russian, it meant even more. Something told her that he didn’t use that endearment casually. She wouldn’t be surprised if she was the only woman he’d ever called that. “Yes,” she breathed out.
As they walked out of the park, she asked the question that had been nagging at her since she’d first seen the man. “Who was that? I feel like he’s familiar to me. But I don’t know why.”
Alexei gave her a sideways smirk. “Byrne would be very disappointed.”
“Why?” Karina realized even after she asked that the man was Byrne. His disguise was really flawless. But somehow, she’d recognized him. Not enough to definitively say it was him until Alexei had reminded her. But now, it clicked.
Alexei still watched their surroundings, even though he looked casual, as if he had nothing more on his mind than a stroll with his girlfriend, as they left the park entrance and ambled towards the car. “He prides himself on his ability to disguise himself.”
“It’s very good,” Karina assisted. “I probably would have missed him if he wasn’t talking to you. But I kept looking and kept thinking I knew him.”
Alexei clicked the key fob and opened the passenger door, assisting Karina into the car. He closed the door and walked to his side and got in. He shot Karina rueful that had a hint of humor. “Do me a favor and don’t let him know you recognized him. I won’t hear the end of it.”
“I won’t bring it up,” Karina promised. It wasn’t like she was going to be hanging out with Byrne anyway when this was over. And that made her feel strangely bereft at the thought of not being around Alexei either.
“I need to talk to you about something. I would rather we not have that discussion at Sullivan’s place,” Alexei said in a voice that revealed nothing.
Yet, Karina’s stomach twisted into a tight knot. He must have found something out from Byrne. Almost as if he read her mind, Alexei’s hand came out and covered hers. He squeezed it gently.
Karina swallowed the lump in her throat. “Okay.”
“We’ll go to a place that I am rather fond of. I try to visit when I am in Dublin.
Alexei took Karina to Marsh Library, the oldest public library in Ireland. She was a bit surprised that he would have such an interest, but when she walked into the building, she could feel the magic. He wouldn’t tell her where he was taking her, only giving her an enigmatic smile. “You’ll like it.”
Karina liked seeing him look at her that way. He was gentle and teasing. More like a boyfriend or lover than even his sensual touches and displays of affection had indicated. She’d never expected to have that kind of moment with a man. Greatly surprising was it to be with Alexei, an assassin.
Marsh Library was in a part of Dublin called St. Patrick’s Close, near St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Alexei took her hand and they walked into the building that dated from the beginning of the 18th Century. One of the things about Europe that had fascinated Karina endlessly was how old the buildings were. Of course, America’s lands were old, but the buildings didn’t come anywhere close to the age of many of the still operating buildings in parts of Europe.
She gaped at the architecture that was centuries old, including the seating and shelves. There were even bullet holes in some of the bookshelves dating from an event called the Easter Rising.
Alexei and Karina sat down at a table. He had pulled a string or two, although hadn’t told her how he’d managed to get her entrance into the Reading Room, where she was able to take a look at a manuscript written in Aramaic, a language that Karina had begun studying shortly before she left school when her parents were killed. Alexei patiently let her look at the carefully preserved document, seemingly content at the pleased smiles she shot him occasionally. She was sure a couple of hours went by and each time she looked up to check on Alexei, he didn’t look bored or annoyed. He smiled at her, even with those dark, fathomless eyes.
They stayed at the Marsh Library for hours. Karina reluctantly surrendered the manuscript, thanking the librarian profusely.
When they walked outside the library, Karina turned around and spontaneously hugged Alexei. His large, hard warm body felt strong and welcoming against her as his arms went around her.
“Thank you so much, Alexei. That was incredible.”
Alexei chuckled. “I had a feeling you would like it, Malen'kaya sova.” Karina didn’t even mind that he had called her “little owl” in Russian. Probably because she was bookish, so it wasn’t an insult, since it was true.
She pulled back enough to meet his amused, lazily smiling gaze. “You were right.”
Karina moved sideways so they could walk towards the car. Instead of taking her to the car, he steered her around the building and towards an ancient looking metal gate.
Opening it, Alexei escorted her through and closed it behind him. There was a lovely courtyard surrounded by an old stone wall on all but one side, covered with ivy and another plant with small white blooms. It was small and cozy. Utterly charming, Just big enough for the two of them.
Alexei led her to a stone bench and they sat down. He cupped her face, and it was such a gentle thing. Karina held her breath, expecting one of his fiery kisses. But he didn’t do that. Instead he took a deep breath, mumbling in Russian, but so low she couldn’t make out the words.
“Karina, I must tell you something.” Alexei said.
Karina stiffened. Something in his tone told her to be on alert.
She waited, watching his face. He had a stony look like he was trying to keep emotions at bay. The look was closer to the man she’d met in the church, but he didn’t lack a sense of humanity like that man. Instead, he looked as though he was armoring himself emotionally.
“What is it?”
Alexei brushed her face with hands that felt so tender, despite the calluses on the palm of his hand. One of those hands moved and took hers. Then he spoke.
“Byrne gave me some information. I wish that I didn’t have to tell you this, but I won’t lie to you,” Alexei said. “Ever.”
Karina looked into Alexei’s black eyes and felt dread but an incongruent sense of trust. “Tell me.”
Alexei took a deep breath and told her. “Sullivan had your parents killed.”
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Alexei’s eyes never left Karina as he told her the truth as he promised to do. He saw the joy and the contentment that was something he had never seen in her until these few stolen hours. He hated that he had taken that from her, even more than kidnapping her and scaring her. And he felt a cold rage that Sullivan had made this theft necessary. His arms formed a barrier around Karina, afraid she would faint. They were relatively isolated, so if she started sobbing, the thick stone walls would mask the noise. He had chosen this beautiful, peaceful place deliberately. And he was so damn pissed that it would be marred from the memory of having to tell Karina the truth in this place.
Karina didn’t cry. She didn’t make a sound. She took the news stoically, and with a sense of acceptance. Her mossy eyes swelled with emotion that she didn’t release in any other way.
Alexei felt more sympathy and anguish for her than he’d allowed himself to feel in so many years. He’d forgotten how it felt to have that spear though his heart. He thought about the Bible verse he’d learned eons ago when his grand-mère had made him read the Bible to her. Jesus wept. The shortest verse in the Bible. So appropriate to this moment. “Moy dragotsennyy rebenok.” My precious baby. He drew her into his arms again, holding her tight. Karina shoulders shook minutely. It was so slight, someone with less observational skills might have missed it. It tore into him. Ever so subtle, but like a saber into the heart he had thought dead and cold as lead.
He whispered in her ear words in both Russian and French, the sweet nothings his mother had murmured to him as a young boy suffering from nightmares. When his possessive father had allowed her time with her son. He knew that they were worthless, but there were what little comfort he could offer Karina. And until he killed Sullivan, there wasn’t much else he could do. He didn’t say it to Karina, but he made a promise to himself that he would make Sullivan suffer when he killed him, for every tear Karina didn’t cry in his arms right now.
They say there in the cloister-like courtyard for long moments. Alexei wouldn’t take them away until he had given Karina time. The wound of her parents’ murder had never healed. And this was like ripping it open again. He knew it wasn’t fair to take her back to Sullivan’s house without knowing the truth, but it was also a risk because she needed to be able to go there and show a composure that must be nearly impossible. But he knew she could do it. Karina might be a young innocent who was too damn innocent for her own good, but she had depths of strength in her that she hadn’t known existed. Alexei had seen it in her. He had challenged her. Hell, he’d scared her and tested her in such a way that she was forced to show what a powerful woman she was. He needed her to know this about herself before she walked back into Sullivan’s house. Or it was all over. And like he’d told Byrne, he was sorely tempted to take her away and drop her off with Byrne and go and finish the job for himself. He’d just about made his mind up to do that when she pulled back, gently, but firmly, and out of his embrace.
When he looked down to see her face, she had a mask of composure that was solidly believable. Even down to her eyes. There was a bit of pain in them, deeply entrenched in those eyes that he could and had drowned in the few days he’d known her. But then Sullivan would expect that with her parents gone only a short two years.
Before he could question her, she said, “I’m ready.”
Alexei didn’t speak at first as he drove them back to Sullivan’s. He’d offered to take her to an early dinner, and Karina had said she wasn’t hungry. He probably would have ignored her and taken her anyway, but he didn’t want to subject her to a public dinner right now. Not after he’d given her that terrible news. He knew she was probably at her limits right now. He wasn’t that much of a bastard to put her though any unnecessary anguish right now.
Alexei glanced over at her a few times, and she wore a serene mask on her face. It wasn’t true, not any of it. That wasn’t the Karina he knew. But he wouldn’t make things hard for her now. He ached to take away the pain, and it made him so pissed off that he wanted to break something with his bare hands. So much for his much vaunted self control.
“Don’t worry,” she said softly. Her voice was controlled, but he could feel the effort she took to make it so. “I won’t let him know that I know he was behind my parents’ murder.”
Alexei was at a light, so he could look at Karina. “I know how important this is.”
Alexei’s hand clenched on the wheel. “This isn’t about me, Karina. Not anymore. I can take you away from here. I will get Sullivan. I don’t need you in danger to do it.”
“No, you won’t. We’ll finish this,” she said fiercely. She clenched her hand on his free one for emphasis.
“I want you to take me back.” Each word was a command.
Alexei swore under his breath. “Fine. I will, but you must do exactly what I say. He thinks that you are vulnerable and he wants to control you. He doesn’t view me as a threat.”
Karina smiled a bitter smile. “He’s so wrong about that.”
Alexei’s own smile was laced with menace. “Yes he is.”
“I promise to do what you tell me to do. I won’t take any risks.”
“I’ll take you back then. We’ll do this my way.”
“Okay, Alexei.” she said.
There was little satisfaction in Karina’s subservience. Not knowing how it had come about. He wanted his sweet little owl back, from hours before. Happily pouring over that old text and mumbling a dead language. If only to see a genuine smile that touched her lips and those beautiful eyes of hers. He would do this work and then perhaps he could have her back then. Smiling at him in that sweet way of his that turned his dead heart into a throbbing beating instrument of need. For her.
“So you are going to say I do, like we discussed?” he asked. Alexei found himself holding his breath, anxious when he never got anxious, for the response.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. His heart stuttered. Not grim satisfaction. He wasn’t going to lie to himself. A sick kind of joy that she’d be his wife. Even if it was just to get revenge on her parents’ killers. She’d still be his wife.
“That’s a good start,” Alexei murmured.
They arrived back at the house. Sullivan came out of his study when ostensibly he heard them being left in. Alexei made sure his arm was around Karina’s waist, matching their walks. It looked like a possessive display of a man for his fiancee’. It was about that, but moreso to steady and lend his strength to Karina. She was good. He barely felt her stiffen when she made eye contact with Sullivan.
“Hello, Liam,” she said in a voice that revealed none of the blistering hatred she felt for the man. Instead it was casual.
Sullivan walked over and planted a kiss on Karina’s cheek. She accepted it without a wince. Alexei thought she had a future on the Broadway stage perhaps. He wasn’t sure how he felt about his wife working, he thought sarcastically.
“You took a while.” Sullivan delivered the words with some feeling was beyond casual inquiry. Alexei knew that he had them followed. He didn’t try to lose the tail. The men kept a careful distance from them, but knew every stop they made. He suspected this was a test.
One that Karina passed. “Yes, we went to sign up for the license, and it all went very smoothly thanks to your assistance. And Alexei showed me around Dublin a little. Some places he liked the last time he’d come through.”
Alexei waved a hand. “It’s been a few years, but I’ll never forget my time in Dublin.” He was lying about the first part. He’d been to Dublin many, many times. So the second part was very true.
“Where did you go?” Sullivan asked. Alexei noted his words were carefully delivered. His jaw was slightly clenched. His blue eyes icy. Jealousy?
Karina answered honestly. “Alexei took me to get coffee, and a lovely park to drink it. Then he took me to Marsh Library.”
“Interesting,” Sullivan said. He gave Alexei a look that suggested this was an incongruous place for Alexei to be familiar with.
“I got lost after going to confession at St. Patrick’s and stumbled across the library after a few too many beers. I had the distinction of getting thrown out of it. But I knew my nerdy little woman would love it.”
Karina’s smile was briefly genuine, as if the fleeting joy at their visit was still in her heart. “He was right.”
“How lovely,” Sullivan said, tightly and coldly. Alexei knew the man was jealous. As if he had the right to be. He wanted to slit his throat and let him bleed all over his expensive hallway carpet. It would have been a capricious act, and he was too well trained to take the bait. Just like he’d told Karina, he’d stick to the plan.
“Well, Cook has just about finished dinner,” Sullivan said.
Alexei waited to take Karina’s lead. If she indicated she wanted an early night, he’d go up with her. If she acquiesced with dinner, that would be what they did.
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Karina is a strong woman. It's good that she held herself back from emotions, because if she didn't, she could have caused Sullivan's spy to inform him that Alexei must have told her something bad, something about Sullivan.
It's good tat Alexei was the one to break the news to Karina. She needed to hear it from him, because not only is he's the man that she had fell in love with, he's her strength pole. She needs him to lean on, to help her stand tall during her pain. He's her help and she knows that he will haelp her recover from her lost. She knows what kind of monster Sullivan is and what way to help get you enemy, then to be the blindsided glue that will help bring down the enemy. She has to outsmart Sullivan. Play his game, but better than him. Alexei is playing it well.
Can't wait for the next installment. Take your time. I'm not going anywhere.
message 431:
by
Danielle The Book Huntress , Loves 'Em Lethal
(last edited Jan 04, 2019 08:12PM)
(new)
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Karina smiled brightly. “Dinner sounds good.” While her voice sounded normal enough, Alexei had gotten to know Karina enough to know the truth about her. And this wasn’t the real Karina. His Karina. Her hazel eyes glittered with a crystalline brilliance. There was a hardness that the truth had put there. Alexei hated seeing it. It was his job to be cold and merciless. But he could not hide the truth from her. He wouldn’t do that to Karina. Not about her beloved parents.
“Excellent,” Sullivan responded, clasping his beefy hands together. He offered Karina his arm. “Indulge an old man and let me escort you into dinner.” He looked over at Alexei. Challenge was in his flat blue eyes. “You won’t mind will you, Alexei.”
Alexei’s reply was a playful smile that had the edge of the wolf lurking beneath its surface. It was there, if Sullivan looked closely enough. But he guessed Sullivan would interpret it as jealousy. While Alexei was indeed very possesses, with a high tendency to become jealous when it came to Karina, he wasn’t jealous of Sullivan. He didn’t want the man’s hands on Karina, because his filth didn’t deserve to be in the same dimension as her. And the edge was of the wolf who wanted to rip out his throat for being anywhere near her. And some of the anger was self-directed. He’d brought Karina here.
He shook his head, smiling tightly. “By all means. I suppose I can allow an old friend to see my fianceé into dinner. After all, you’ve opened your home to us so generously.”
As he watched Karina take Sullivan’s arm with a brittle smile on her incredibly beautiful face, he cursed himself. With a graceful indolence that was completely manufactured, he followed them into the dining room. His own arrogance, damn himself. Alexei felt as though he had aged years in a few days. He had done this to her. He’d put her in danger, outed her to a man who was the greatest risk to her possible. No Karina was not happy, leaving her ghostlike existence flitting around Europe, stuck in a state of unending anguish over her parents. But damn, she’d been safe. Because he’d been pissed that she had supposedly double-crossed him, he’d outed her. While he would die to keep safe, and had every intention of doing so, he’d exposed her to his horrible anguish of knowing this man had killed her parents, and having to face this ugly pretense.
Alexei smiled genuinely, fully, ferally. He was going to make this up to her. First by delivering Sullivan’s head on a platter. And then by making her very happy. It wasn’t enough. He knew that he should let her go, far away from anything that reminded her of the pain. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that. So he’d have to do what he could to help her heal.
*****
The wedding day came so quickly, Karina’s head felt like it was spinning. All things considered, it promised to be a beautiful day. Her dress was gorgeous. She didn’t care that much about couture, but Alexei did. He selected the dress, and was there every step of the way. Even when the dress designer that Brigitte had strong ideas, he was very insistent about making sure that he got his way. She would have felt like a dress dummy except for the fact that Alexei always made sure to acknowledge her both with a gentle touch, and assurance and confirmation in French that was way too sexy for her own good. She had to admit that he knew what he was doing.
Karina stared in the full-length mirror in the bedroom that she had been sharing with Alexei for over a week. Alexei had been banished to another room last night because of ‘tradition’. She was sure that Sullivan was utterly gleefully about having an excuse to do so. Alexei had assented gracefully, but not before murmuring that he had the room under surveillance, and a forced promise that she would secure the door from the inside as he had taught her. Karina had to be honest and admit that she hadn’t slept nearly as well that night. Alexei’s side of the bed felt incredibly empty. She had gotten way too used to sleeping with his big warm body next to her, or typically wrapped around her. He was so warm in fact, that she didn’t even need a blanket. But not just the warmth of him, but the feeling of being protected. That nothing would harm her if he was with her. It scared her. That she was beginning to feel dependent on him. Not after two years of isolation and the cold reality that was all alone. Feeling scared all the time. She should be more scared now with the man who had orchestrated her parents’ deaths in the same house with her. But that didn’t scare her nearly as much as wondering what it would be like when Alexei wasn’t in her life anymore.
Alexei looked at her with affection, certainly desire. Maybe something more, but her mind could be fooling her. She could be seeing what she wanted in him. Or maybe he just felt guilty for leading her back into the lion’s den when she’d been safely on the run. Surely, if he stayed with her, at some point he would grow tired of it, having the hot mess that was her to take care of. And she didn’t want that kind of relationship. She wanted to be whole enough for Alexei to want her for the right reasons. And she wanted to be sure she was with Alexei for the right reasons.
Maybe she was too messed up to be with anyone at all.
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“They’re straight from the vault. My grandmother had them made for her own wedding,” Alexei said, looking almost nervous. Karina opened the black velvet container and gasped at its content. The earrings were so gorgeous. They had square silver settings housing two bands of rectangular cut diamonds centering an exquisite black pearl. Jet, tears-haped beads hung suspended from the rectangular diamond settings.
“Try them on,” Alexei said. He handled the earrings with a delicacy that was unsurprising, despite his large body and big hands. She knew that while his hands could do great violence, they were also those of an artist. As his hands fastened the earrings on, Karina forced herself to hold still. His nearness had the effect of making her weak at the knees. His smell was delicious, the heat of him. Everything. She closed her eyes and immersed herself in the world of sensations that engulfed her at his assault on her senses.
“Done,” Alexei said. He gently tilted her chin up and turned it from side to side. “Grandmere would be very proud to see my bride wearing these,” he murmured in a near-whisper.
Karina bit her lip, forcing herself to make eye contact with his near black gaze. “You don’t have to say that. Sullivan’s not here to say that.”
“I’m not saying that for him. It’s the truth.”
Karina nodded. “Thanks for saying that.”
“Grandmere used to say that my bride would be the right woman for me. That she would be beautiful and smart…and strong.”
Karina just listened. His words kindled a warmth in her heart. She could imagine his Grandmere. She must had had those dark eyes like him, and the steel backbone that allowed her to run a successful jewelry company by herself, and raise her grandson. She recalled the cozy little cottage and could visualize this strong, tall, beautiful man as a beautiful boy with a mop of black hair and a long clever face, intently studying his grandmother as she taught him to cook.
“Your grandmother sounds like a very special woman.”
Alexei nodded. “She was. I wish she could have met you.”
Karina laughed nervously. “That would be awkward, considering everything.”
“Grandmere was a tough lady. She lived through innumerable wars, buried two husbands, and a daughter. She was even in the French Resistance during World War II.” He chuckled. “Not sure how she’d feel about some of my career choices, but she would be very happy that I caught you.”
Karina lightly tapped his chest. “Hopefully you’d leave out how you kidnapped me?”
Alexei shrugged in that characteristically Gallic way. Then, he smiled wickedly. “She was French. She would have conveniently shrugged that off.”
“You have a way of making a woman want to forgive you anything, Alexei,” Karina said spontaneously.
“I hope that you can forgive me for what I’ve done to you,” Alexei said, all humor gone. He was deadly serious, evident in his dark gaze that held her attention resolutely.
Karina could have used the moment to make him feel bad about how much he’d scared her. How he’d robbed her of choices. But she’d forgiven him. It was as simple as that. “I already have, Alexei,” she said. There was nothing to add. So instead, she kissed him.
It was a gentle kiss that said everything. His lips was soft and warm and as his arms fell around her and pulled her tight, she let her body cling to his. She couldn’t think about the future. Just being here with him right now. That warm glow had not faded fully, instead it settled deep in her belly like warm embers in a stoked fire. The glow wasn’t enough. She wanted more. That scared and excited her. Made her wonder about possibilities.
Karina looked into dark eyes that said everything. Like he knew what she wanted and how to give it to her. Like he wanted to give her everything.
“Are you sure you want me to have these earrings?”
Alexei held her gaze. “You will be my wife. Those earrings belong to you. My grandmere would tell me most of my life that one day I would give my wife those earrings.”
“But,” she started to say, but Alexei gently touched his hand to her lips.
“You will be my wife. These earrings are yours now.” Karina knew well enough not to argue with him at that point. He had made up his mind. She knew that Alexei wasn’t going to change it.
She nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay what?” Alexei probed, his voice demanding everything in return.
“The earrings belong to me as your wife,” Karina said.
“Exactly.” Satisfaction in that word, he kissed her forehead. “Now let’s go to dinner, and then I’ll take you back to your bed that I’m not allowed to share tonight.”
Karina couldn’t help but laugh at his long-suffering tone.
The memory made her smile as she looked in the mirror wearing her wedding dress. Lips painted a dark magenta that stood out against her rich golden brown skin. Her eyes were made up dramatically, highlighting the glints of gold, brown and green in her hazel eyes. She looked a lot like her mother as far as her facial structure, lips and nose, but her eyes were like her father’s, the shape and color. It’s like they were there with her. The thought was comforting to her. She needed all the comfort she could get.
“This is how I get what I came for,” she said very quietly. “Two years has been too long.” She didn’t know exactly what Alexei’s next move was but she trusted him. Alexei was still the most dangerous man she’d ever met. He was her personal guardian angel and avenging angel wrapped in one. Yes, Sullivan was the one in trouble.
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I wonder how he slept without Karina. I take it that he didn't sleep at all. Traditioin.
I believe that his grrandmere would have overlooked that he kidnapped Karina, becaue she would see the love the both of them have for one another. But, at the same time, she probably would have given a good talking about kidnapping women. Maybe not.
I can't wait to read more.
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I wonder how he slept without Karina. I take it that he didn't sleep at all. Traditioin.
I believe that his grrandmere would have overlooked that he kidnapped Karina, becaue she would see the love the both of them have for one another. But, at the same time, she probably would have given a good talking about kidnapping women. Maybe not.
I can't wait to read more.
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I wond..."
Alexei had had to do some serious self-control. He knows Karina's life depends on it.
Yeah, I think it's sweet that they'll miss not sleeping together.
Grandmere would have scolded him a little, but admitted he chose well with Karina.
So you pretty much nailed it!
Thanks for reading!
