Vicious Protector by Maggie Cole

23

Adrian

Several Weeks Later

Boris comes into the garage."Liam came through. He eliminated your problem, but I wouldn't take your eyes off Dasha yet."

Kacper and Franciszek Zielinski are dead.

The sense of relief I thought I would feel is nowhere. Maybe it's because my feelings mirror Boris's. I want to believe it's over now, that Dasha isn't so far into the mob other Zielinskis will come after her, but I can't be certain. I'm still uneasy about how she got on the Zielinski radar, and I don't trust her. "Our tracker is staying on her."

Boris nods then points to the back room. "Who's in there?"

I sarcastically reply, "Two Polish fucks involved in our stolen steel."

Boris pulls out his blade and opens it. He presses on the tip then plops down on the desk chair. "My blade's a bit dull." He pulls the drawer open and removes the flint then sharpens the steel blade.

"How's married life?" I ask him.

He grins. "Perfect. My wife is pregnant and can't get enough of me. I'm a happy man. You and Skylar doing okay?"

"She's not happy I had to cancel our dinner plans. I'm hoping when I get home, I can skip the back and forth over where I've been and why she can't know."

Boris furrows his eyebrows. "She doesn't know anything?"

I shake my head. "No."

"I thought you were serious about her? Didn't she move in?"

"Of course I'm serious about her."

Boris stops scraping his knife on the flint. "Then you need to tell her."

"Not you, too," I groan. Obrecht and Sergey both won't get off my ass about telling Skylar. I keep reminding them I've been down this road before. I'm not going to lose her over what I do for my work.

"Once I told Nora—"

"Nora's an O'Malley. She has this life ingrained in her. Skylar won't be able to handle it," I claim.

"Why not? She doesn't seem super sheltered."

"Neither was Dasha."

"Dasha's a selfish snake," Boris seethes.

"Which is my point. If she can't handle it, a good woman like Skylar isn't going to. Next topic." I change into a new set of clothes. No matter what angle I look at everything, my conclusion is always the same. I'll do everything in my power to hold on to Skylar. Confessing I'm a murderer who could have a degree in torture isn't going to make her want to stay with me.

We go into the back room. Two men have their ankles and wrists bound so they can't stretch any farther. They are naked and stand on the tips of their toes. Their bodies shake from the amount of time they've hung in our garage and the fear I'm assuming is annihilating them.

They shout out in Polish. I pretend I don't understand their language, hoping to get more information than they might willingly give me, but I'm fluent.

Boris puts the flat edge of his blade on the man we suspect is in charge. "Let's discuss our steel."

The man's eyes widen, and he blinks hard, darting his eyes between Boris and me. "I don't know anything about steel."

I tsk several times and slide the point of my blade gently down his torso, stopping above his dick. A thin line of blood pops out on his skin. "Liars have consequences they typically don't like."

He shouts out his denial about knowing anything. When Boris moves the point of his knife to his eyeball, he screams, "Okay! Don't! Please!"

The man hanging next to him shakes harder and pisses himself. I step forward when he finishes. "Do you have something you want to say?"

The two men speak in Polish with each other. It's desperate, fear-filled, and angry. It gets louder as the conversation progresses. The man who pissed yells, "I told you she was bad news."

"She set us up. How was I to know?" the other man replies.

She? Who is she?

"The trucks should have been there. Where were they? This is your fault. I told you to stay away from all of them, but you couldn't, could you?"

"Shut up. You wanted the money as much as I did," the man barks out.

My skin turns clammy. She? Trucks? Tell me I'm jumping to conclusions. "What trucks?" I growl.

The men look at me, surprised I know Polish and followed their conversation. They go quiet, and I hold the knife to the mouth of the man who pissed himself. In Polish, I threaten, "If you don't tell me everything you know, I'm chopping off your toes, then your fingers, then your tongue. I'll stop the bleeding, so you have to hang here and feel the pain for days. Right before you beg to die, I'll release the hungry rats on you. Do you understand me?"

It doesn't take long before the men confess to everything. I spend the time holding it together as they tell us more and more.

Dasha constructed the entire plan to steal Ivanov materials. She was going to use our trucks to get the steel to off-market sellers. Millions of dollars she stole from us, but she took something else from me. The very last piece of humanity I have toward her.

There's no more giving her the benefit of the doubt. She was the mastermind behind the entire plan. Her ties to Zielinski are deeper than we anticipated. She betrayed all of us.

She played me again.

I may not have gotten back together with her, but she wanted Kacper dead for a reason. She had us do her dirty work. She stole from my family.

When the men finish confessing, and I'm confident they don't know anything else, we kill them, incinerate their bodies until they are nothing but ashes, then dump the remains in Lake Michigan.

"You going to say anything?" Boris asks when we get into the car. It's the first words he's spoken since the Polish men told us their truth.

I can barely look at him. The lump in my throat feels enormous. I swallow hard and admit, "I thought Dasha couldn't hurt me anymore. She couldn't handle who I became, but what has she become? How did this happen? Did I miss it when we were married?"

Boris stares out the window. "Dasha's always wanted money, but I didn't expect her to ever do anything like this."

"You think this is only about money?" I ask.

Boris scans my face. "What else would it be about?"

I tap the wheel and shake my head. "I'm not sure. I couldn't figure out how she could have accidentally gotten into a relationship with a Zielinski to start with."

Boris cracks his neck. "I don't know, Adrian. Dasha's always been out for Dasha. Let's go talk to her."

I drive to Dasha's building. It's past midnight. When we get to her front door, I knock, and it opens. Boris and I step in. He flips the switch, and the light turns on.

My stomach drops. The color drains from Boris's cheeks. The entire apartment is empty.

"She left," I blurt out.

"She knew we had them," Boris states.

I take out my phone and call Makar, the tracker I assigned to Dasha. A ring blares in the direction of the closet. Boris crosses the room and opens the door. Makar's body is stuffed in the closet. His head is bleeding, and he's unconscious.

"Call an ambulance!" Boris shouts, and I hit 9-1-1.

What the fuck did you do, Dasha?

Hours pass before the hospital staff declares Makar is stable. They tell us we won't be able to go into his room until the next day. When I get home, it's almost morning. I forgot about Makar's blood on my clothes. I take a hot shower and stare at my reflection in the mirror. I've never felt so confused.

How could Dasha have done this?

How did I never see what she was capable of?

Where is she? What is she planning next?

Did I turn her into this person she's become?

I'm spinning out, stuck in my thoughts when Skylar puts her arms around me and presses her warm body to my back. "Adrian, are you okay?"

How do I tell her about Dasha?

I would have to explain the Polish mob, and that's going to lead to everything else.

I need to increase security on my printsessa. Who knows what Dasha is up to?

I turn and slide my hands through Skylar's hair, tilting her head up. Concern fills her deep-blue eyes. Her bee-stung lips slightly part, and I press my mouth to hers, opening her lips farther with my tongue.

There's nothing slow or gentle about my kiss. Her sweetness mixes with every messed-up, hurtful thing I'm feeling. It all but destroys me.

I let the devil into my life.

Then I let her in again.

She could have harmed my printsessa.

Everything about my actions becomes selfish. I take every morsel of affection Skylar gives me and demand more. I don't answer her questions when she barely gets them in. I use my tongue, and the rest of my body, to take us to the place where only we exist.

For a short moment in time, I forget about Dasha's betrayal, Natalia's hell on earth, and all the men I've tortured and killed. The only thing that exists is my printsessa. "More," I demand, pulling away from her lips and locking my gaze on hers. She barely inhales new air before my tongue is back in her mouth.

"Missed you," she gets out then moans as I lick her teeth.

"Need all of you," I mumble and spin her around. I slide my arm under her waist, splay my hand on her back so she's leaning over the counter, and tug her ass toward me, sinking into her wet heat and groaning in relief.

She whimpers then turns her head. I lean over her and tug her lip between my teeth then demand, "Don't stop being you."

She sticks her tongue into my mouth, and I thrust harder. "Adrian!" she cries out, drilling her eyes into mine in the mirror.

"I mean it," I tell her. "I love you. Everything about you. Don't change."

"I'm not. I won't," she whispers. A slight tremor rolls through her, and her mouth forms an O. Her eyes become heavy, and she shuts them briefly.

"Look at me," I demand.

Her lids fly open.

"I don't want you to be someone else."

She squeezes her eyebrows. "I'm not."

I thrust harder, move my hand to her clit, and bury my face into the crook of her neck. "I love you, my printsessa. Exactly how you are. Don't change."

She keeps repeating she won't, and I keep telling her not to change. We come together, and when I finally lift my head out of her neck, I realize I'm spinning out. I pull away from her, and she quickly turns into me, circling her arms around my torso.

"Adrian, what happened?"

I look away and blink hard. I wish I could tell her everything, but anything I could say leads to Skylar finding out I'm a killer. Instead of answering her, I lead her to the bed and hold the covers up for her to get in. I scoot next to her and tug her into my body. "We have a few hours until the alarm rings. Let's try to get some sleep."

"Adri—"

"Shh. Sleep, my printsessa. We need sleep." I kiss her on the forehead and pull the blankets around us. I avoid her eyes.

"I'm worried about you, Adrian," she softly says then rolls into me, cupping my cheek.

"Everything is fine. As long as I have you."

"You do have me," she reassures me.

I kiss her again. "Good. Don't let me go."

"I won't."

I slide my tongue back in her mouth. After several minutes, I flip her so I'm spooning her. "Go to sleep, my printsessa."

I listen to her calm breathing for hours, holding her tight, trying to figure out what Dasha's next move could be. The problem is, I don't know what her end game is.

One thing is certain. I'll never fall for her story again. The next time we meet, she better be ready. Dasha's days of manipulating me are over.