Captive of the Hitman: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Novel (25 page)

W
aiting
for Dimitri in his condo is the worst decision I’ve made in the last five hours, since I hightailed it out of the alley. I haven’t been able to sleep, the stress and anxiety churning in my stomach.

I should just run. I have no idea what he’s going to do to me now that he knows I was following him again. He warned me that I could be killed, but he didn’t mean by him, did he?

But I also didn’t know he was a killer before tonight. Not for certain. I thought he’d gotten away from those people, and yet here he is: in even deeper.

It makes me want to throw up, but instead I sit on his couch, anxiously wringing my hands. I don’t even know why I came here, other than the fact that I have nowhere to go. My life is linked with his, whether I like it or not. If I run, he has the money and motive to find me.

And if I run, who's to say he wouldn’t think I’m even guiltier than I am?

That I haven’t run to the cops?

Seconds tick by like hours, and when I finally hear his key in the lock, it’s sunrise. My back is so tense, I’m not seeing straight. My brain is an absolute fog, and I feel like ducking down, hiding under the couch, just putting off seeing his face for a little while longer.

What if he really kills me? What if this is it? A short, brutal, unhappy life that ends in agony just like Rebecca. Just like my mom and dad.

Tears blur my eyes, and when he pushes the door in, he looks exhausted and enraged. His face is a bit sweaty, his shirt marred with blood, and I hold my breath. He looks at me, daggers in his eyes as he closes the door, locks and bolts it behind him.

The air is sucked out of the room, and we just watch one another. I’m shivering with terror, and when he reaches beneath his jacket and removes a gun, I close my eyes. I’m sure this is it. This one, horrible moment, and it’ll all be over.

And then it’s not. There’s only silence, but for the shifting of his clothing as he walks.

His hand wraps around my bicep, tugging me from the couch so that I’m pressed tightly between him and the edge of the sofa. I can’t move, can’t get away, and he’s glaring at me like I’m the worst person in the world.

This morning I was convinced I was in love with him, and now I wonder if I know him at all.

“How’d you find me, Sarah?” he growls, and when I look down, his other hand collects my chin, making me look up at him.

“Your phone,” I murmur, too ashamed to speak any louder. He warned me, didn’t he? Why was I so damned stupid as to follow him? I should have just left it alone, especially after finding out that Rebecca was ripping me off.

“You put a tracker on my phone?”

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Damn it, Sarah,” he growls, and I’m shaking, wondering what he’s going to do. He takes out his phone, handing it to me. “Take it off of my phone. Now.”

I unlock it, finding the app and uninstalling it, handing him back the phone. He sets it aside and looks down on me.

“Do you know what would have happened if Viktor saw you?”

“No...”

“You would be in the water with that fucking
goombah
. And do you know what they’d do to me?”

“No.”

His finger and thumb hold onto my chin, tightly.

“Viktor would’ve taken me back to the
Avtoritet.
Do you know what that is?”

I recognize the word, but I shake my head. I have no idea what it is.

“The authority,
da
? The man in charge. I will be seen as a fool for trusting you, and they’ll doubt my loyalty to the
bratva
. They would torture me to see if I was actively trying to undermine them. They would use me as a toilet, take a hammer to my fingers, my toes. They would burn me, and when they finally believed me that I had nothing to do with you being there, they would,” he pauses, removing his finger from my chin, instead pointing his index and middle finger at his head like a gun. “
Grokhnut.
Just like that, Sarah. You could’ve gotten yourself, and me, killed tonight. Is that what you wanted?”

I shake my head, my entire body trembling like crazy. I can hardly breathe, and the reality of what has just happened comes crashing down on me. I’ve had my suspicions, but now I know who — what — Dimitri really is. And what I’ve just put at risk to find out.

“You’re... you’re in the mob,” I say dumbly, because there’s nothing else I know to say. It’s all too intense, too terrifying, for me to really comprehend.

His jaw clenches, and I regret asking. When he breathes out, he looks only slightly calmer.

“I am
Bratva.
A
Boevik
. I run my business, they take what they need. My father was the
Avtorietet
before those Goombah bastards brought the cops down on him. They swore to take care of mother and I with the promise that we’d take care of them down the line.”

I feel like I’m going to be nauseous. Why’d I ask? And why’s he telling me so much, so freely? That feeling that he’s going to kill me once more hangs in my stomach, and I close my eyes just so that I can stop being so dizzy.

His hand tightens around my upper arm, and I can smell the scent of grime and dirt on him.

“What will I do with you now, Sarah?”

“I... I don’t know. Please don’t kill me,” I whimper, the words bubbling past my lips without filter. “I’m so sorry. I never figured... I worried, I was just so worried, especially when I saw you were back with Slava and you asked for my help then pushed me away.”

“Because I realized it might’ve been the fucking Italians, Sarah. I wanted to keep you out of their crosshairs.”

“Then why’d you even ask me for help?” I practically scream, tears rolling down my cheeks.

His arms wrap around me, and though it’s not gentle, his force, his strong arms, are comforting in their own way. They feel real.

“I thought it was just that dumbass she was dating, or maybe one of her business associates. When I found out she wasn’t just skimming money off me but putting it through the Italians? That’s the wrong way, Sarah. We launder their money, not the other way around. She was into something deeper than I imagined and wanted to keep you safe. I should’ve known better than to think you’d stay where I left you.”

I flinch at the disappointment in his voice, and when he pulls away from me, that hardness in his expression is back.

“I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.”

There’s no humor to his voice, and as much as his words confuse me, they send my heart beating harder in my chest.

“Teach me a lesson?”

“
Da
, Sarah. You apparently didn’t take me seriously last time. Apparently telling you that you may be killed isn’t enough for you. So you’re going to go into my room. You’re going to strip. You’re going to lay on your stomach, and you’re going to wait for me.

My brows knit and I wonder if he’s joking. It sounds like some strange, dark, sexual... thing. Teaching me a lesson is one thing, but being naked just adds a level of vulnerability I’m not prepared to cope with.

“Dimitri, I’m really sorry. I get it now. I do. And I’m not going to talk. You know I’m not going to talk.”

“If I thought you were going to talk, Sarah, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

It sends a chill down my spine, and he points to his room.

“I’m not going to tell you twice, Sarah.”

His tone is dark and commanding, and I can’t refuse it. I’m exhausted, my entire body screaming in agony, but I make my way into his dim, sunlit room and toss my hoodie onto the chair. Next comes my t-shirt and bra, then my dark jeans. My socks and underwear were last, and goosebumps run down my arm with the chill of the air.

Or is it the chill of waiting for what happens next?

I crawl onto his bed as he demanded, but the second my chin hits the mattress, I yawn. I’m so exhausted. Every time I start nodding off, I try to jerk myself up, to be ready for whatever he has in mind.

It’s getting to the point where it’s impossible to stay awake, though. Where is he? Everything is starting to feel like a terrible dream, like something I’m going to wake up from the next day. Maybe that’s all it was. Just a strange, fevered dream.

When I hear his footsteps, I straighten, blinking my groggy eyes open. He’s shirtless, changed from his dirty jeans and looking freshly showered. I didn’t even hear the water running. Did I doze off?

I gulp, and his dark eyes travel down my body, tracing over the curves of my shoulders, down into the valley of my back, and over the hills of my ass. He’s caressing them with his gaze, memorizing the curves, and I don’t know what to make of it but he’s making my body burn with desire.

He watches me for so long, and it’s driving me crazy. I’m afraid to move, to budge even a muscle and risk displeasing him. How different this is from yesterday, when he held me and kissed me with such tenderness. Now there’s just a primal hunger in his gaze, something that I’ve never seen before.

“Spread your legs.”

There’s no option for refusal in his tone, and I pull my feet apart, my legs spreading open. I’m so exposed, and it feels so uncomfortable, especially bathed in the early morning light.

He paces to the foot of the bed, and I know he can see me splayed, in a position I’ve never quite been in before. I have no real idea what he’s seeing from his position, but I can imagine.

“Roll back onto your hands and knees.”

I do so, and it heightens my awareness of my body. The sensation of a draft passing along my stomach, the way my breasts give way slightly to gravity, my nipples stiffening to the air. But most powerful of all is his invisible gaze, filling me with molten heat.

His voice holds a gravely hardness to it, the lack of sleep affecting him as well.

“Good,” he says.

He moves alongside me, his footsteps slow and deliberate as he reaches for the pillows just above my head. Then, one by one, he slides them under my stomach.

I want so bad to ask what he’s doing, but I keep my mouth shut. Four pillows in all keep my hips in the air, my legs spread, my pussy on display, and he nods in approval.

“I’m not going to bind you, but if you run, there will be consequences. If you shrink from your punishment, there will be consequences. I can’t help that; only you can.”

His words are so dark, and yet part of me responds to that primal pull of his. The desire is mounting, but then his knee presses into the bed and his weight joins mine, his pants still casually slung about his hips. His tattoos mark his chest, some of them more faded than others, and he leans his face towards mine.

“Do you understand, Sarah?”

I nod, but I don’t know how I can agree to something when I don’t even know what it is.

I suppose it comes down to whether I can trust him or not.

His hand touches along my backside and it sends a shiver of excitement down my spine. But when it leaves and comes back with a crack, I let out a squeak in surprise. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t his large, heavy hand on my ass!

The sound echoes in my ears, and the air is thick between us, as if the tension is palpable. As if it took on form as soon as that first blow was struck.

Now I’m prone, vulnerable, and my ass smarts. I’ve been afraid of something worse, of my death, but this is at once erotic and terrifying, because I can feel the barely restrained power in his next strike.

It’s calculated, planned, and I buck forward to try to escape it, but I can’t.

He grips my shoulders, pulling me back into position. I’m expecting his words, an explanation, something, but his quiet only heightens the uneasy tension in my body. There’s no comfort to be found in his dark voice.

I have to take what meaning I can from his hand, from the way he grips me and then smacks the fleshy part of my butt.

I’m robbed of the sight of him, but filled with the knowledge that he can see me. How my ass must be reddening as he bears down for the fourth strike, how my sex is already wet with desire, parted slightly and so vulnerable. The morning light is in full force, bathing me in golden light, and I can’t hide anything from him.

Not the whimpers and cries as he spanks me, not the fact that my pussy pulses with need, not how my face contorts just before his blow lands in anticipation of the sharp pain.

Some are lighter, teasing, as if simply keeping me on edge so that I’ll never know what to anticipate.

And then there are the hard ones, the ones truly meant for punishment that go through my entire body, pain spreading out like tendrils. He doesn’t talk, and neither do I, but for my muddled screams and cries.

The longer he spanks me, the more intense each strike gets. Not just in terms of physical pain, with the varying degrees of power behind them, it always keeps me on my toes and even the lighter ones seem more thrilling.

But it’s that the longer he spanks me, the more it fills my other senses. The sound resounds in my mind, the vibrations pass through every bit of my body. I can smell his clean scent, hear his deep, ragged breathing. It’s almost like we’ve become more connected, as if his body is an extension of my own that’s been separated, and every blow is us trying in vain to push ourselves back together.

He pauses long enough to grip my hips, to pull me forward so that my ass sticks towards him more. Even a few minutes ago it would have embarrassed me to be so wantonly on display, but now it feels right. Like I’m pleasing him, simply by existing how he wants me to be.

I wiggle my ass a little and he rewards — or punishes — me with a stronger blow, followed by three lighter ones, and I’m so horny that I can barely breathe. I want him so badly, need to feel that warm, stiff cock up against me.

Is he hard? Is this turning him on, making him strain against his pants with his own desire?

I pray so, and when he spanks me next I moan, pleasure overcoming me, even though when he removes his hand I’m left with a tingling sensation of lingering pain. The idea of taking this punishment and arousing him at the same time is something I’ve never thought about, but somehow, it turns me on. Is that why I was always spying on him when we were younger?