Kissing The Enemy (14 page)

I looked down into brown and amber eyes that reminded me of smoldering coals.
Oh God. He wants me to—

Three quick breaths. Three slow pumps of his fingers before the lust overcame my shyness. “
Do it!”
I groaned low in my throat. “
Please!
”

Those gorgeous lips twisted into a filthy smirk...and he sped back up, his fingers stroking deep, his tongue circling faster and faster. He kept his eyes open, looking up the length of my body to my face, and I stared back down at him. The orgasm expanded again, growing bigger and tighter, every muscle in my body tensing in readiness, the pleasure turning from pink to scarlet to darkest black. I’d never felt so gloriously out of control.

And then it exploded, the pleasure rushing through me, my hips grinding and circling, pushing my groin towards his face. He met every movement, his tongue quick and expert, his fingers carrying me through wave after wave, until my legs weakened and started to give. Instantly his hands were under my ass, supporting me, and as he stood he lifted me into his arms. My whole body was gleaming, my breath coming in long, shaky gasps. It was almost a minute before I was able to draw back and look at him.

He was looking at me with raw lust and...
pride.
He knew, somehow, that he was the first man to ever make me really let go like that, to be so lost in sex that I’d beg for release. And even though I could feel my cheeks flushing a little at what we’d just done, I felt proud, too.

“Now,” he growled. “Let’s find somewhere to lie you down because I need to—”

Whistling, from the corridor.
Chyort!
I could hear the squeaky wheels of the janitor’s cart, too. I ran naked across the room, legs still shaky and weak, grabbed my leotard and starting scrambling into it. I was hooking the second shoulder strap into place and Angelo was tucking in his shirt when the janitor came through the door. He said nothing, but gave us a knowing look. I grabbed my bag and pulled a smirking Angelo from the room.

In the hallway, he pushed me up against the wall, planted his hands either side of me and kissed me slow and deep, his body grinding against mine. The feel of his cock, hot and hard under his pants, made me groan. “My car’s outside,” he growled. “We can be at my apartment in ten.”

I nodded. I wanted it as much as him. But something was hammering on the outside of my post-orgasmic bliss, something I wanted to ignore but knew I couldn’t. “Wait,” I said. “I need to tell you something.”

He moved back a little and frowned, listening.

“I’ve been trying to talk to Vasiliy about peace. Mikhail, too. Neither of them will listen.”

He nodded, as if unsurprised.

My chest tightened: the thing I hated most was the inevitability of it all, both sides too set in their ways to even consider change. “But I’ve been listening, too,” I blurted. “And—” I bit my lip.
Is this right?
I couldn’t figure it out. Whatever I did, I was betraying someone.

Angelo gripped my arms. “What?”

“If I tell you, you’ve got to promise me something. You’ve got to promise you only use this to protect yourself, not to attack.”

He gazed into my eyes for a long time and then nodded. “Okay. I promise.”

I took a deep breath. “Vasiliy and Mikhail have paid off the bikers your guys are meeting tonight.”

His eyes widened. ‘They’ve
what?
No! No way!”

“The bikers will turn on you and try to take you out. With bratva to back them up.”

He shook his head slowly. I could see the hurt in his eyes, the sick sense of betrayal.
That’s what Vasiliy will look like, if he ever finds out what I’ve done,
I thought, and the nausea rose inside me.

Angelo slammed his fist into the wall. “Damnit!” he yelled, his voice echoing down the empty hallway. He took three quick breaths and then slid his fingers and thumbs down the lapels of his jacket, straightening them. When he spoke again, his voice was level, but he was frowning. “How did you find this out? Was it Vasiliy?”

I’d hoped he wouldn’t ask that. I couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Was it
Mikhail?”
His voice was tight with rage.

I tried to be emotionless and cold but I couldn’t, not with him. I looked at the floor.

He slowly put his palms against the wall either side of my head and leaned into me, forming a protective cage around me. I could hear the pain in every single syllable. He’d figured it out. “Did you...
do
something? To get him to talk?”

I put a hand on his chest. “I did it to save you,” I whispered.

I could feel the possessive rage building like a typhoon, his muscles growing hard under my fingers. With any other man, I would have been scared he was going to hit me. Not with Angelo. All of his anger was directed at the man who’d dared to touch me. His hand covered mine. “Don’t ever do that again,” he told me.

I nodded. He leaned forward and kissed my forehead, then gave me a long, tender kiss on the lips. His forehead touched mine and we stayed like that for long seconds, until there could be absolutely no doubt that I was
his.

Then he straightened up and his jaw set in that expression of absolute determination I knew so well. “I need to handle this,” he told me. “I have to go.” And then he was striding down the hallway.

Chyort! What have I done?
“Remember what you promised,” I called after him.

I saw his shoulders rise. He heard me...but he didn’t look back.

I
got
Rico to meet me at
Underground
and we holed up in my office while I told him the bad news. His reaction was similar to mine, except, when
he
punched the wall, he took a chunk of plaster out of it. “Those guys have been buying guns from us for twenty years!” he snapped. “The whole fucking charter buys from us.”

“Not anymore. Question is, what do we do about it?”

Rico considered. “The Russians don’t know we know?”

I shook my head.

“Then we kill the sons of bitches. We get the bikers back on our team and we take out the bratva fucks they sent to kill us. We ambush them like they were going to ambush us.”

I leaned back in my chair and thought about it. “Or...we could just call off the meet. We get the bikers buying from us again, sure. But we don’t ambush the Russians.”

“Why the hell would we do that? This is the perfect opportunity!” Rico stalked over to my desk. “What’s
with
you? This is exactly what we need to show the Saints we can handle the Russians.” He put his hands flat on my desk and leaned over me. “C’mon, boss. Now’s not the time to go soft.”

“I’m not going soft!” I snarled. I jumped to my feet so fast my chair hit the wall behind me. “We ambush them, maybe hurt them, maybe kill them.
Then
what? Vasiliy will be after blood! It’ll be all-out war!”

“Maybe we need a war!
”

We glowered at each other, our faces only a few feet apart. But the real fight wasn’t between Rico and me. The real fight was going on inside, between the old me and the new me. A week ago, I would have taken the opportunity like a shot, killed as many Russians as I could and the hell with the consequences. Meeting Irina had changed everything but I couldn’t figure out if she was helping me see clearly or leading me astray. I stood there for long seconds, every muscle rigid, trying to decide between betraying Irina and betraying my side.

I promised her….

But I’d made a promise to my dad, too, as he lay dying in my arms. I’d promised I’d never let his turf go to the Russians.

“Fuck it,” I said, straightening up. “Get the guys. We’ll go see the bikers. Then we’re going to give those Russian bastards a surprise.”

I
t was just
after eight when I heard a pounding at the door. I checked the door viewer and—

Oh God.
No!

I threw the door wide. Vasiliy and Mikhail rushed inside, carrying a man between them. I didn’t recognize the guy, but he had bratva tattoos on his neck and the heavy build of one of Mikhail’s thugs.

And he was dying. His white shirt was soaked through with blood from a chest wound, his hands slickly red.

“Clear the table!” snapped Vasiliy. “Leave the door open. Yuri is on his way with the doctor.”

I ran ahead of them and swept everything off the dining table. He didn’t have to tell me to bring clean towels. I was a Malakov: this wasn’t the first time I’d done this.

They laid the guy on the table and I stepped in close. He was guarding his wound with both hands and wouldn’t let Vasiliy or Mikhail see. “
Shh,
” I told him. “Let me look.”

Teeth gritted, he moved his hands. Fresh blood welled up—I found the place and pressed hard with my wadded-up towel. He arched off the table and howled, cursing, while Vasiliy and Mikhail helped to hold him down.
Thank God Rachel is out!
“What happened?” I asked Vasiliy.

“The Italians ambushed us!” he spat. “We barely got out.”

Oh Jesus.
The guy started to thrash in pain, whacking his head against the table. I grabbed the first soft thing I could see and stuffed it under his head as a pillow. “Was anyone else hurt?”

Vasiliy shook his head and then squeezed the dying man’s hand. “Just Josef here.”

I relaxed for a split second...and then realized that he was only talking about our side. “What about the Italians?” I asked.

Vasiliy looked at me as if I’d gone crazy. “Who gives a fuck about
them?!
”

I dropped my gaze and concentrated on Josef. Blood was soaking through the towel.
Please God, don’t let him die!

“There was a lot of shooting,” said Mikhail with satisfaction. “I think we got some of them.”

I have to call Angelo!
But then Yuri, Vasiliy’s bodyguard, burst in with the doctor, an overweight guy pushing sixty with a duffel bag full of gear. “I could use a hand,” he said as soon as he saw Josef.

“Irina can help you,” said Vasiliy. “She’s done it before.”

I had. I’d helped patch up Luka and a few others—even Vasiliy himself, once. But I’d never before done it knowing I was the one responsible for the shooting.

At first, Vasiliy and Mikhail had to hold the guy down. Once the doctor had given him something to knock him out, they were able to step back...and their voices soon rose in anger.

“Somebody talked,” growled Vasiliy. “We had those bikers too scared to run to the Italians. The Italians must have gone to
them.
” He grabbed the front of Mikhail’s shirt. “That means one of your men warned them.”

“It was one of mine who got shot!” Mikhail wrestled out of Vasiliy’s grip. “Could have been one of yours who warned them.” He pointed at Yuri. “Could have been
him
.”

Vasiliy and Yuri just stared at him, stony-faced, until Mikhail dropped his gaze. Yuri was Vasiliy’s bodyguard for years before he started guarding Luka. When Vasiliy came to New York and needed a man he could really trust, Yuri came with him. They’re almost like brothers and Yuri is almost part of our family. He’s one of the few Russian men I actually like and to question his loyalty was unthinkable.

“We will find out who talked,” muttered Vasiliy. “And execute them.”

My fingers slipped and I let go of the clamp I was holding. Blood spurted and ran. “Goddamnit!” snapped the doctor. “Be careful!”

“Sorry,” I said quickly. I kept my eyes firmly on the wound. I wouldn’t let myself look away from the horror, from the sight of his skin growing pale as the life pumped out of him.
Look at it, Irina. Look at what you’ve done.

The doctor replaced the clamp and I took hold of it again, this time with a death grip. I didn’t falter even when Vasiliy moved close behind me and placed his hand on my back. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he muttered. “It’s not your fault. Thank you for helping.”

I nodded and said
of course.
And felt like a Moscow sewer rat.

After two long hours, the doctor said that Josef should make it. He patched him up enough to risk moving him, and Yuri and Mikhail carried him to Yuri’s car. I stared at the bloodstained towels and bits of gauze that littered the floor, then got a trash bag and started to clear up. I realized that the thing I’d stuffed under Josef’s head was Rachel’s favorite sweater.
Chyort!
I hid it under a cushion—I’d have to hope I could get the blood out.

I was going out of my mind. I was desperate to call Angelo but I didn’t dare, not with Vasiliy still in the house. If he was hurt—or worse, if someone else answered his phone and told me he was dead—I’d have no hope of holding it together.

At last, Yuri and Mikhail returned and said they were ready to go. Vasiliy nodded and hugged me, telling me again that he appreciated my help. Mikhail, though, looked suspicious.
Nothing I can do about that now. I’ll just have to be careful.

The second the door closed behind them, I grabbed my phone and dialed Angelo. I started to panic breathe. One ring. Two rings.
What if he’s dead?
Three rings.
He’s lying dead.
Four rings.
He’s lying dead because I made the wrong choice. If I hadn’t—

“Irina?”

I closed my eyes and took a long, shuddering breath. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

I let the breath hiss out. “Meet me at Battery Park,” I told him. “We need to talk.”

H
e was waiting for me
, staring out over the water at the Statue of Liberty. It wasn’t snowing, but a bitter wind was whipping across the inky-black Hudson River.

“Is everyone on your side okay?” I asked as I walked up.

He turned to me. “Two hurt. Bullets winged them—they’ll be okay.”

The relief sluiced through me. And then I slapped his face as hard as I could.

He reeled from the blow, twisting to the side and fingering his reddened cheek. “
Svoloch!
” I yelled. I’d brought him to Battery Park specifically because I knew I could scream at him and no one would care. “You
svoloch!
You promised!”

The guilt was all over his face. “How bad was it? I know we hit one guy….”

“
Josef!
His name is Josef! He almost died!”

“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t—Look, they were going to do the same thing to us!”

“That’s why I warned you! But why couldn’t you just walk away? Why did you have to get revenge?” I whacked him in the chest with my fist. Tears were filling my eyes. “Why can’t you just—You—You
stupid—”

“Irina—”

I began to pound on his chest with my fists. “Stupid,
svoloch
,
asshole!”
I bawled.

He caught my wrists. “Irina—”

“I thought you were dead!”
I spat at him. “Don’t you understand that? I thought you were dead and I couldn’t even check because
you’re the enemy!
” I was screaming by the end of it.

He stared into my tear-filled eyes for a long moment and then wrapped me into his arms and wouldn’t let go. After a few minutes, I finally stopped struggling and nestled against his chest, my tears soaking his shirt.

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I just...I had to.”

I’d cried all the anger out of me and all I felt was tired. The freezing wind was whipping against one wet cheek, but the other was warmed by the heated slab of his chest. I didn’t ever want to move away from that warmth...but I didn’t see how I could stay, either.
We’re just too different. Too different for me ever to convince him.
“
Why?
”
I asked. “That’s what I don’t understand. Why can’t you back down? Why can’t you make peace?
Why?”

I said it just to vent the hot, jagged pain inside. I didn’t expect anything as simple and clear as what I heard next.

“Because Russians killed my parents,” he said, his chin pressed to the top of my head.

What?!

I pushed back from his chest...and looked up into brown and amber eyes that were bitter and furious...and suddenly moist. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled myself in tight.

And he told me. He told me about being an up-and-coming captain in his dad’s organization, about his mom disapproving but understanding—she’d stood by his dad every step of the way. Something about that resonated with me: it was important, but I couldn’t figure out why.

He told me about the Russian gangsters eager to expand their territory, a less powerful group than Mikhail’s, but determined and vicious. He told me about being in the SUV with his parents, on the way to a restaurant, and how he’d jumped out a street early to stop at an ATM, saying he’d catch them up.

He slowed down. He had to take a breath to calm himself between each sentence, the rage palpable: it was in the taut muscles of his back, in the hard bulges of his biceps. He described getting the cash and jogging down the street: his parents’ SUV had stopped at a red light and he figured he could jump in there, if he was fast.

He told me how he saw the car pull up alongside his parents’ car. How he’d
known.
And then the gunfire, a deafening roar, and every bit of glass in the SUV shattering. His dad had tried to drive away but had slammed into a fire hydrant after just a few seconds, unleashing a torrent of water. When Angelo reached the car, the gunmen had gone and his parents were dying, their car in a red-tinged lake of water and broken glass.

His mom died first. His dad lived just long enough to make him promise, to
swear on his life
, that he’d never let Russians take his turf.

“I hunted them,” Angelo told me. “Rico helped. I wiped out every last one of their gang and then took over from my dad.” He gently pushed me back and stared down at me. “Now do you get it?”

I nodded. “I do,” I said, my voice catching. “And I need to tell you something. So you’ll understand
me.”

And I told him about rounding the corner into our street in Moscow and seeing first the blue lights of the fire service and then the cherry red of the flames. About running down the street and realizing that it wasn’t a mistake, that it was
our
townhouse that was burning, tongues of flames leaping up from every window. About searching the crowd of onlookers for my parents and not finding them.

The firefighters had already brought them out, their blackened bodies covered in sheets.

At the inquiry, the police said that my parents had passed out on a combination of booze and drugs and that’s why they hadn’t fled when the fire started. They showed the press photos of drug paraphernalia and empty bottles—all mysteriously unscathed by the fire—that they claimed had been found alongside my parents. My teetotal mom, who’d sworn off the booze a decade ago and my dad who was so anti-drug he’d grounded me for a solid month just because I tried weed at a party.

But no one cared about the facts. My dad was a well-known gangster. Who cared if him and his “girlfriend” (the press couldn’t understand the concept of a married gangster) killed themselves with drugs?

I hugged my sister Lizaveta tight and thanked God that she’d been at a sleepover that night. And I swore I’d get as far away from the gangster life as possible. Then Vasiliy took us in and that promise became impossible...even when I ran to America.

“Jesus,” muttered Angelo. His arms locked around my back, iron hard and unbreakable. His palms pumped warmth into my freezing body and his broad chest shielded me against the worst of the wind. Maybe we
were
different. But maybe we were different in just the right way. His parents’ death had pushed him one way, mine had pushed me the other. But our pain had the same source.

I had to try. “That guy who got shot tonight? His name’s Josef. He has a three year-old kid. A little girl. We nearly orphaned her tonight: she would have grown up wanting revenge. It’ll go on forever, generation after generation,
until someone’s brave enough to say
enough!”

“You want me to just walk away, like you did?” he asked.

I opened and closed my mouth a few times.
Yes,
I wanted to say. After all, that’s what I’d done: distance myself as much from Vasiliy as possible and refuse to be involved, even though it meant isolating myself. But now I thought about it, something about it felt wrong. I’d never questioned my decision before, but now…. “I want you to help me figure out how to end this without people getting killed,” I said instead.

He pulled away from me and paced, shoes crunching in the snow, then flung his arm out and pointed to the Statue of Liberty. “This is how it is in New York! Since the first of our guys came over on boats! It’s been going on for a hundred years! You think
we
can stop it? Just because I’m in—”

He stared at me. Drew in a shuddering breath.

“Because I’ve got fucking feelings for you?” he said at last.

I couldn’t think about the implications of what he’d nearly said. Not now. Not with everything that was on the line. I walked over to him and took his big, warm hands in my cold ones. “We need to do it because if we don’t, no one will,” I told him.

We stared at each other, eyes locked and neither willing to give ground. Then I remembered how
he’d
convinced
me
. “You took me to Little Italy,” I said. “Now let
me
show
you
something.” I gave him a wan smile. “Please? It’ll be like a date.”
God, remember when this was just dating? When neither of us knew who the other one was?
So much had changed...and so little. Despite everything, the sight of him standing there, black hair ruffled by the wind, white shirt stretched tight over that magnificent chest, still reduced me to mush.

His eyes flicked over me and on each pass his gaze grew hotter until I was almost squirming. I wasn’t even wearing anything special, just what I’d thrown on before running out of the house: a black dress and knee boots.

“Okay,” said Angelo. “Show me.”