Nikolai: The Complete Collection

21. Nikolai

21

NIKOLAI

R oman holds Dok back when Justine groans approximately an hour later. As her hand shoots up to rub the bump her collision with the floor caused to her right temple, her eyes flutter open. They float around her room before they eventually stop on me. The pained expression on her face claws at my chest in a way I’ve never experienced.

I don’t do attachments.

Usually I’m in and out in a matter of hours.

This is different.

Not only is the way she’s looking at me producing a foreign sound from my chest, but it also has me expressing emotions I was certain I was born without. I don’t just want to protect her and keep her safe, I want to give back the dignity she lost when she was mauled by a dog. I want to earn her respect without scaring it from her. But even more than that, I want to keep her forever.

An angel doesn’t belong in hell, but they’ve opened their doors once before, so who’s to say they won’t do it again?

Justine breathes nosily out of her nose when I scoot closer to her. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

I have the respect of hundreds and am feared by thousands, but I feel the most powerful I’ve ever felt when she mutters, “I know.”

When I cup her cheeks, a little vein in her neck works overtime. “How are you feeling?”

Not giving her the chance to reply, I brush away the curl covering the bump on her right temple so I can inspect it. She stills when her molten-red locks fall from her shoulders far enough the bite marks she referenced earlier today are exposed, but she knows better than to hide them from me.

The skin stretched over the marble-sized lump is faint purple in color, however, it didn’t crack under the pressure. Its flat appearance has me skeptical it’s the sole cause of her unconsciousness. A lagging sleep schedule may also be at play. She looks more tired now than she did last night, which is understandable. Fighting off a man double your size is exhausting no matter how strong your will.

I also know this from experience.

My words are gravelly when I ask, “Does your head hurt?”

Justine takes a moment to compile a response before shaking her head. I don’t need a doctorate in medicine to know a knock to the head isn’t responsible for her delay. She’s speechless because my hands are on her. I like that even more than the way the fear in her eyes subsides the longer I sit across from her, stroking her cheeks.

“I can give you something to take the edge off if you’d like?”

It doesn’t take her as long to respond this time around. She nods—rather briskly.

Ignoring the cocky bastard inside me itching to fan his feathers, I hold out my hand palm side up to Dok. He places two of the Xanax tablets he found in the medicine cabinet in Justine’s bathroom into my palm before rejoining Roman by the door. The date on the prescription label states it was filled over two years ago, and the number of pills inside the canister reveals Justine doesn’t use them in day-to-day life, but something in her eyes tells me she needs more than a stiff drink to see her through this.

“Drink slowly, Ангел ,” I instruct when she downs the tablets with half a glass of water. “We don’t want your food coming back up.”

The heaviness on my chest is pushed aside for smugness when she switches her gulps to tiny sips. Once the glass is empty, she hands it back to me. I place it onto the bedside table, stand to my feet, yank the sheets out from under her bottom, then nudge my head to her pillow.

Hearing my silent command, she slips between her sheets without a single protest. Her obedience has me tempted to join her. I would if I didn’t feel the eyes of Roman and Dok on me. They’re eyeballing me like I’m doing one of the many inane thoughts in my head. Justine was assaulted. I should not be having the thoughts I am.

Heat races across Justine’s chest when my wish to touch her becomes too much for me to bear. I drag my finger down her cheek, across her collarbone, and past her budded nipple before I raise my eyes to her face. You have no idea how hard my next set of words are to articulate when I spot the lust gleaming in her eyes. I want to stay but leaving is the right thing to do. I know better than anyone how one wrong move could fuck everything up. Since that’s the last thing I want, I listen to the silent pleads Roman has been throwing my way the past hour.

My voice is low and dangerous when I say to Justine, “I’ll be right outside your door if you need me.”

I wait for Justine to nod before gesturing for Roman and Dok to leave before me. When the door creaks shut, I drop my eyes to Justine’s chest. The heaviness weighing mine down lightens when I notice how firm her nipple still is. I love how she responds to my meekest of touches, her desires more potent than her fear.

Even spooked, fear will never be her strongest emotion around me.

Need will be.

“Soon, Ангел. Very soon,” I promise before pivoting on my heels and leaving her room, acting ignorant to the disappointed sigh escaping her lips.

If I don’t leave now, I never will. Then, not only will Justine be placed on Vladimir’s radar, but I’ll also triple my fight to bring Sergei before the courts for his crime.

While closing Justine’s door, I seek Dok’s gaze. Like most of my men, he reads the command in my eyes without me needing to speak. “From the width and depth of her bump, I’d say it’s a superficial wound. Her eyes were responsive, and she was clearly alert, so I don’t see her having any long-term side effects from her fall.”

“Unlike Sergei.”

Roman shoots me a wry look. It does little to settle my itch to kill. I told Sergei I’d slit his throat if he touched Justine. I don’t disperse threats I can’t execute. I’ll just need to be inventive since Sergei is being sheltered by the last man I expected.

“If Justine wakes, come get me.”

Nodding, Dok takes a protective stance in front of Justine’s bedroom door. Confident he won’t let me down and more trusting of my men now Sergei is gone, I push off my feet and head to the kitchen. Roman shadows my stalk. I can hear his brain ticking a million miles an hour, but he remains quiet while I hunt for the device I know he hid in the pantry, untrusting of my surly mood. I don’t blame him. I can’t recall the last time I was this worked up.

When I find a tablet similar to the one Roman handed me earlier stashed behind a year’s worth of rice, Roman attempts to snatch it out of my grasp. I glare at him, warning him I’ll rip him into motherfucking shreds if he doesn’t back the fuck up.

Roman is like a father to me, but my mood is hostile. I’m the most unhinged I’ve ever been, so now is not the time for him to ‘mentor’ me.

After holding his hands up in defeat, Roman yanks out a frail wooden chair from beneath the dining nook, spins it around, then straddles it backward. His face is as hard as stone and as impenetrable as the shield I plan to shroud Justine in.

His tough stance all but crumbles when Justine’s fight to get away from Sergei blares through the speakers of the surveillance device. Sergei calls Justine a whore and goads her to fight him because her screams turn him on before he yanks at her shorts so fiercely, her button pops open under the strain of his tugs.

Considering Justine is barely half Sergei’s size, her fight is commendable. She gives it her all to get away from him and was on the verge of winning before I intervened. The thought puffs my chest with pride, although it’s barely felt through the anger turning my veins black.

My hands shake when I stab my finger on the rewind button so I can watch Sergei’s crime repeatedly. Each second of reel convinces me my sentencing was right.

Sergei is going to die.

I am going to kill him.

Then I will parade his death for the world to see.

He hurt what is mine, so he will hurt for his stupidity.

When the video commences playing for the fourth time, Roman shouts, “Enough!” He stands from his chair, the veins in his tattooed arms pumping. “I get it. I understand, but will you stop fucking watching it?”

“He was going to rape her, Roman! He was going to kill her.”

“I know, but watching it over and over again won’t change the outcome. You stopped him, Nikolai, so stop torturing yourself as if you didn’t.” He snatches the tablet from my hand, tosses it onto the kitchen counter, then runs a shaky hand over his thick afro. “I understand the pain clawing at your chest. I feel the hurt poisoning your blood, but if you kill Sergei, Vladimir will?—”

My angry roar bounces off the white-washed walls when I interrupt, “I don’t fuckin’ care what he’ll do to me! I will suffer the injustice.”

Roman is quick to shut down the panic detonating in his eyes, but I see it before he fully tucks it away. “He won’t stop them this time.”

“I wouldn’t expect him to.” I take a step closer to him, the air pumping out of my nostrils as chilly as my words. “But I’m not a sixteen-year-old boy anymore, Roman. I know how Vladimir thinks. I know what makes him tick, so I’m more than capable of withstanding his wrath.”

A fatherly flare darts through Roman’s almost black eyes when he says, “You are… but is Justine?”

His question jabs at me like a knife to the chest, stealing both the air from my lungs and the words from my throat.

The fury in Roman’s eyes softens when he locks them with mine. He doesn’t speak, he just lets me see the worry etched on his face. Justine is barely coping after her tussle with Sergei. She’s not strong enough to endure the madness that comes from being drafted in a war against a man as evil as Vladimir.

She will be soon.

She’s just not there right now.

Confident I understand his objective, Roman slaps my shoulder before giving it a firm squeeze. “You will sentence Sergei for his crimes. We just need to work out a way you can do that while keeping both you and Justine safe.” I’m about to say I can take care of myself , but he continues talking, foiling my endeavor. “Vladimir’s family shares blood. Ours share burdens, Nikolai. This is our fight as much as it is yours.”

Stealing my chance to reply, he squeezes my shoulder for a second time before stalking out of the kitchen, taking the tablet with him.

Several hours later, my eyes pop up from the weapon distribution schedule in front of me. Even with my agitation still on edge, business must continue as normal. I’ve been placing footholds around Vladimir’s empire the past three years, and now more than ever, I need to ensure they’re capable of withstanding the load I’m about to place on them. My competitors are weak, villainous men, but they protect their assets well—assets that will crumble when the monarch of their realm falls victim to my knife.

I stub out my cigarette into an ashtray when Justine’s head pops out of her bedroom door. Since Dok is blocking her exit, she misses me signaling for him to stand down. She looks well-rested, so there’s no need to keep her trapped in her room. I’m also interested to see how she interacts with my crew. I was born a mafia prince, and my entire life has been consumed by it, so I don’t just need a woman strong enough to stand at my side, I need her to walk through the inferno of hell with me.

Justine has already done it once and survived without her wings smoldering from the heat, so I’m confident she’ll do it again. Sergei’s attack would have most women cowering for days. Justine only rested for a few hours. She battled the most vicious man in Vladimir’s crew and came out without a scratch on her. If that doesn’t prove to you she’s an angel seeking chaos, I have no fucking clue how else to convince you.

The wish to kill that’s been clotting my veins the past three hours clears away when Justine spots my stalk from the corner of the living room. Just as quickly as her angelic face calms my unease, my devilish one erases the worry lining hers.

I watch her move through the throng of people separating us with revered silence. Since her professional look has been switched for a more casual ensemble, she fits into my crew remarkably well. They don’t touch her, and none of the men doped out on crack are stupid enough to mistake her for a whore, but they’re quick to offer her a drink and for her to sit on the three-seater couch across from me.

“Thank you,” Justine whispers to Gavril when he hands her what she assumes is a glass of water.

Although her words are crisp, I already suspect that Dok slipped her another two Xanax when I wasn’t looking. Her eyes are almost too bright for the dullness of her cheeks. Her face replicates the one women wear when they leave my bed and the one men crave when sampling my drugs. She’s here, just not entirely.

I hide my snicker with my glass when Justine’s big gulp of her drink causes her nose to screw up. She just made a liar out of those people who say you can’t taste or smell vodka. She’s acting as if her throat is on fire, and it has my tongue wishing it could soothe the burn.

The inevitable is unavoidable. She will be mine. I just need to practice patience while my crew lays out some well-placed traps.

Sadly.

Justine and I sit across from each other for the next twenty minutes. The tension is as thick as it was when we rode in the sheriff’s van last night, but for once, the stiffness doesn’t have me craving a bloodbath. Her face alone ensures me the storm in my gut will only be tamed by her lips, body, and the scent I’m sucking in like her panties are an inch from my nose.

I’d give anything to bend her over the couch and devour her sweet little cunt like a man starved of taste, but since Vladimir is already questioning why there’s a ten-minute gap in the footage from the surveillance cameras planted around Justine’s apartment, I stay on my side of the living room, watching her like a creep.

Justine doesn’t seem to mind. She maintains my eye contact while squirming like she did last night. The pressing of her thighs is as dangerous to my mind as her erotic scent. It makes me feel so reckless, I have no hesitation in saying torture will never bend my knees, but I bet Justine can.

We stare at each other for several cock-thickening minutes, our connection only lost when Alyna and Luyca slot into the minute gap on each side of Justine’s thighs. They fiddle with her hair and touch her face as my hands are itching to, hopeful she’ll share the secret on how they can regain my interest.

Justine hates their attention, but she’ll never tell them that—not even when they drag her into the bathroom with a promise of a makeover. I don’t want them to change her, she’s fucking perfect the way she is, but since Satan is walking the gallows, I must maintain my watch from afar.

It looks like I’m working on a weaponry trade that will net the Popov entity $2.4 million, but not once do my eyes leave Justine. She handles Alyna and Luyca applying a heavy dose of makeup to her face without so much as a flinch, but the instant they move for her hair, she clams up. They want it high and off her face, but Justine doesn’t want to give up her shield just yet, proving Roman’s concerns were warranted. She’s strong until someone tries to remove her armor.

Justine gives off the shyness of a mouse, but Alyna and Luyca learn otherwise, not even ten minutes later. Over their ploy of acting friendly with the hope of slipping between my sheets, Justine thanks them for their advice, scrubs the gunk off her face with a washcloth, then returns to the living room. While taking in the party-like atmosphere with wide, untainted eyes, she glides past the cabinet housing a range of board games, floats by the men playing Nard for an impressive amount of coin before she returns to the seat directly across from me.

I slant my head to hide my cocky grin. She’s safer being surrounded by my men than being alone with me, but I fucking love that she thinks she isn’t.

When the joining of her knees can’t weaken her body’s response to my stare, Justine downs vodka as if it is water. She tosses them back as regularly as I do, only stopping when I place my hand over her glass before Gavril can refill it for the fourth time.

When her eyes slit, a soundless laugh rumbles in my chest. She’s more upset about being left out of the festivities than she is about her apartment being treated as if it is an underground nightclub on the strip.

I told you there are devilish thoughts in the most angelic minds.

“Do you want to dance on the table with Renata and Sophie, Ангел ? Because if you continue drinking at the rate you are, that’s where you’ll end up.”

She looks disappointed I know the names of the topless women using her coffee table as if it’s the stage at Cliché. Or is it pride? With her pupils the size of marbles, I’m having a hard time reading her.

Heat treks through my veins when she mutters, “Would you be bothered if I did?”

“Not at all.” With surveillance forgotten, and my cock as hard as stone, I balance on the edge of my chair. “But I’ll clear the room first. Request a private show. I like my men, but I’ll kill them all if even one of them sees you naked.”

Her next set of words come out with a slur, but I’m skeptical alcohol is the cause of her stammered words. She’s turned-on by my warning and loving my jealousy. “Who said I’d dance naked?”

She joins me in balancing on the edge of her chair. We’ve downed the same amount of alcohol, but her movements aren’t as stable as mine since her veins are tackling both anti-anxiety pills and alcohol.

“You can be sexy with your clothes on. You just need to be inventive.” Her face goes from playful to serious in under a second. “Is that why you stare at me like you do? Because you’re being inventive?” She stumbles over her last word. “Or are you scared?”

“Nothing scares me, Ангел .” Except the look you’re giving me now.

She wants to forget just for a night, but I’m stopping her from doing that.

I’m a ублюдок.

Even if Vladimir is watching, there’s no reason she can’t enjoy the festivities. He’ll be less skeptical if she acts on the devilish thoughts in her head instead of the saintly ones.

The fine hairs on Justine’s arms bristle when I lean over to fill her empty glass with the top-shelf vodka I’m drinking. It spills over the rim from the shudder that rolls down her spine when I say, “Keep your clothes on, or the death of every man in this room will be on your shoulders.”

She nods. It’s not in submission. It is because she knows my threats aren’t idle.

Sergei is mere hours from discovering that himself, and Vladimir won’t be far behind him.