“That’s why you were at the club—to get Shkodra to tell you where he buried your sister and then kill him and di Salvo?”
“Da. I went there to force them to tell me where they left her body. And then I was going to slaughter them.”
“And when I showed up and everything went to hell, I blew your cover and derailed all of that. For the second time.”Shit. I push against Alik, trying to get away from his heft and his heat. It’s hard to breathe. I swat at the hand that’s playing with my zipper but Alik stands firm. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know—I didn’t mean to—Che cazzo! Why didn’t you tell me? If you’d told me, I’d have?—”
“Stayed home? Stayed in the car? Really?” Eyes locked on mine, Alik unzips the top few inches of my hoodie, stopping at my cleavage. I suck in a breath when he slips one hand inside, covering the skin above my right breast. “They hurt you too,moya voitelnitsa. They caged you and tortured you and beat you and were going to sell you. As you said—this is your fight as much as it is mine. More so, even. Which is why I changed my mind about letting you tag along, from what was supposed to be a distance.”
His voice is soft, serious. “Am I happy you stormed in and sent everything spinning out of control? Absolutely not. Am I pissed I missed a chance to kill the Albanian and Italian before the auction? Absolutely. But, if I were in your shoes and I saw that scumbag di Salvo going into the club, would I have done the same thing and followed him in? Probably. Our situation is a hell of a lot more complicated now because of it, and I have no idea how big the fallout of tonight will be, but…”
He trails off, pressing his palm against my chest. Grounding me. Us. “But,” he continues, “I know we’re going to hunt those men down and kill them for what they did to Rina. For what they did to you. I have no fucking doubts about that,moya voitelnitsa. None whatsoever.”
By the time Alik is done, my heart is racing a mile a minute. Something he said has thrown up a giant warning flag. There’s no way he can possibly know why I went in after Renzo… “Why do you say that—that you’d have followed di Salvo if you were in my shoes?”
“Because of this.” He rubs his palm against my skin. “Because of the tattoo he put on you.”
“The numbers are a tattoo?” I unzip my hoodie the rest of the way, brushing off his hand so I can get a better look at my chest. The scratch marks I made earlier glare back at me, but otherwise my skin is blank. “There’s nothing there.”
“It’s a UV tattoo,” Alik explains. “It’s invisible unless exposed to a UV or blacklight. Like the kind used on a dance floor. Apparently, di Salvo has started using it on the ‘high-value products’. His words, not mine. It’s his way of assuring the clients they’re getting the genuine article, the thing they really paid for.”
All concern that Alik knows my secret sinks beneath a wave of nausea. “Are you saying Renzo di Salvo branded me like a piece of meat?”
Alik nods. “You didn’t know it was him?”
“Know it was him? I didn’t even know the tattoo was there.” Reflexively, my fingers curl into my skin, my nails digging deep like I can rip the thing off. “Let me make sure I’m getting this right. During the time Rocco had me chained up in his basement, keeping me captive until he could sell me as a sex slave, Renzo di Salvo had someone put an invisible tattoo on me so that, come auction time, the evil fucks in attendance knew theywere getting—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—genuine goods?”
Alik nods, my disgust and rage reflected in his eyes. “Heard it from Renzo myself. Right before your real-time display on the dance floor.”
“That’s why everyone was staring. The tattoo was visible under the blacklights. And the men there, they knew what it meant. They attacked me because they knew I’d been marked. That I am—was—a virgin.”
“Da.”
Another realization barrels into me. “Oh, God. Renzo saw me. At the club. He saw me, recognized me. He knows I’m free, walking around, the merchandise he’s so fucking determined to sell…” My knees buckle but Alik keeps me from slipping off his desk. “There was another man too. He gave me a horrible smile. Hewinkedat me. Was that the Albanian?”
Alik growls in confirmation. He slips the hoodie off my shoulders, letting it fall to his desk as he trails one hand up and down my arm and fans my hair out with the other. “He winked at you, hmm? Man, that fucker has a death wish.” A new emotion has flooded his expression. One that makes my heart stutter in my chest.
Protectiveness.
Alik is looking at me like he’ll do whatever he needs to protect me, and, for a moment, I feel like we might survive this.Imight survive this.
Alik drops his mouth to the curve where my neck meets my shoulder, kissing me until my back bends and I push my chest up in offering. The heat from his tongue, his lips, his breath melt away the fears that keep coming back for more.
I’m a hunted woman with a literal target on my chest. The people who want me know I’m still in the city. The man who marked me is as evil as he is tenacious; the kind who will nevergive up. Those fears stumble, go silent as Alik touches my back, my chest, my stomach.
I’m already softening for him, desire slipstreaming through my blood as he starts to tug my leggings down my hips. He’s murmuring in Russian, words I don’t understand any more than I understand the sudden intensity gripping him.
“Alik, Alik—” I brace my hands on his shoulders, pushing until he pulls his mouth from my breast and looks up at me. “Stop for a second. Talk to me. Are you sure about this?”
Tension pulls at his face, his scar looking particularly fierce. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No. I just don’t understand how we went from talking to stripping me naked.”
“I don’t understand either,” he says, voice husky. “Honestly,moya voitelnitsa, I don’t think I understand anything anymore. I came to this city with a clear objective, and everything was going according to plan until I stumbled on you.”
He grips the back of my neck, presses a needy kiss to my mouth. It’s hot, violent, over too fast. “Ever since I found you, things have stopped making sense. Nothing is going according to plan. The men I came here to punish are still standing, still torturing innocent women. I don’t know where Rina is. The very idea that they’ll come for you again is tearing me apart. Ihaveto believe that in the end we’ll get them, that we’ll destroy them for what they did, but beyond that everything feels like such a mess.Ifeel like such a mess… Except when I’m with you.”
Alik squeezes my hip, fissures of joy and pleasure fracturing out from his fingers. “I need to be with you again. Before this night is over and all hell breaks loose, I need to be inside you again. Need to make you come again.”
I’ve decided before he’s done talking. I answer him with a kiss of my own, just as needy and furious. My leggings end upon the ground and my nails scrape against his skull and his cock fills me in one primal thrust. The desk shifts under the force of it. I’m tender, so recently used. Alik knows it, holds himself deep, stretching me wide until my inner muscles flutter and my flesh gets slick and swollen. He groans into my mouth and everything after that is a chaotic, messy, orgasmic blur.