The Bratva’s Locked Up Love by Jagger Cole
10
Quinn
“Uh,Miss Coolidge! Miss Coolidge! He’s in a meeting, Miss—”
“Doctor,” I rasp, whirling on the terrified looking guy probably my own age who serves as my father’s administrative assistant. I fix him with a narrow-eyed glare. “It is Doctor Coolidge. Jesus Christ.”
He swallows. “You’re father—”
“Will see me right now.”
Before he can sputter another word, I whirl and twist the knob on my father’s office door. The Colonel glances up sharply as I come marching in. His brow creases as he glances at his computer screen.
“Let me call you back.”
He ends the video call and stands abruptly.
“Just what the hell do you think you’re—”
“What the hell is his deal?”
It’s eleven-thirty at night. But of course, my dad is working. I knew he would be. He’s always working. Always networking. Always scheming. It’s been like this since I was a little kid. Since always, actually.
He frowns at me. “Excuse me?”
“The prisoner. The Russian—”
“What are you wearing?”
I growl under my breath. “I was out when I got the call about the incident in the unused showers.”
He frowns.
“Well?”
“Well what, Quinn?”
“The Russian. Inmate five-oh-four-nine.”
My father’s dark brows furrow. “That’s classified, Quinn.”
“He’s very popular.”
He folds his arms over his chest and shrugs. “Well, maybe he’s just got a real pretty mouth to these animals.”
I cringe, my mouth souring. “Ugh, gross.”
“Prison isn’t a nice place, Quinn.”
“Exactly why I’m here. I need access to him.”
He scowls. “You have it. We’ve already had this fight. Take your wins, Quinn.” He turns to stride over to his bar cart.
“No, I need more of it. I need to monitor him.”
“What?” My father pours a splash of scotch into a tumbler and turns to raise a brow at me.
“I need to monitor him; video surveillance or something. I need to make sure he’s okay, not being targeted.”
The Colonel laughs deeply. “You’re joking.”
“I am not.”
He shakes his head. “You wanna baby-sit this fucker?”
“Yes.”
“Not happening,” he grunts.”
“Just a simple video feed—”
“Not in a million goddamn years.”
“Dad—”
“The answer is no, Quinn,” he snaps. “With a side of no, and a big scoop of no on top.”
“Dad, he’s being—“
“This conversation is over. And if you’re smart, it won’t ever come up again.”
“Or?”
He stiffens as he turns to the bar cart again. He slowly glances at me over his shoulder.
“Or there will be consequences.”
I smile thinly. “Oh is that all it would take to get me fired? Let’s have it again right now then—”
“Don’t be a smart ass, Quinn,” he grunts. “You’re far too intelligent for that.”
He turns to pour his second scotch. “If there’s nothing else, you are dismissed.”
“I’m not a soldier.”
“No, but you’re my employee,” he snaps. “And this unscheduled meeting is over. Because I have a real one starting in one minute.” He fixes his cold eyes on me. “Go home, Quinn.”
I shake my head as I whirl. I slam out of his office like a hurricane, and the storm around me follows me all the way up through the ground in the elevator. It follows me out of the hanger, into my car, and all the way back to Nashville.
It follows me until that storm turns into a very, very bad idea.
My heart racesin the parking lot. It’s the next day after my dust up with the Colonel, and I’ve hardly slept. Getting home late was part of it. The bad idea that my storm morphed into on the way home was most of it, though.
I swallow, shaking as I look down.
I’m committing a crime. Well, about to commit a crime. I frown. Or, am I? I mean this place doesn’t exist. The men imprisoned here don’t exist. Not on paper, at least. So, does the crime exist?
My eyes rove over the burner flip phone lying on my lap. If a phone is smuggled into a prison that doesn’t exist, is it even smuggling? Is the phone even real?
Am I over-thinking this, or not thinking through the ramifications of this nearly enough?
Fuck it.
I blush as I take the phone and push it under the waist of my jeans, into the boy short panties I’ve specifically worn today. Yeah, no big deal. Just smuggling a burner phone into a prison hidden against my vagina.
Cause that’s what I went to med school for.
In my bed last time, turning this idea over and over, I landed on an excuse that appeased the rule-follower in me. I told myself that this is the extra mile it was going to take to uphold my Hippocratic oath as a doctor. My patient is in imminent danger of coming into harm. It is literally my duty to prevent that.
And, c’mon. It’s a flip phone. Obviously, it’s not like I should be bringing these in for all of the psychopaths down there. But what the hell is he going to do with a clamshell flip phone? It even still has that old-school keypad where you have to thumb through three letters for each number in order to text.
The stupid thing doesn’t even get email, the guy at the store warned me, looking at me like I was crazy to be buying this piece of shit. Two of them, actually.
I take a breath, get out of the car, and I go to work.
As usual, the guards at the entrance to the elevator do a mandatory sweep with a bug detector wand. I tense, eying my own phone that I’ve kept on the table next to the guard. But I’ve thought this through. And sure enough, I’m fine.
The male guards never sweep this thing anywhere near my tits or my crotch. It usually amuses me. Today it’s a relief.
In the underground main offices, I check in at my desk. I do a cursory look at my patient list for the day, and then skim down to inmate five-oh-four-nine.
Maksim.
I frown. Despite last night’s events and his injuries, he’s back in the hole. But that will actually work in my favor today. Like the medical cells, the hole has no cameras. They’ll turn the one on above the door real quick before anyone enters, just to make sure. But for the same liability and deniability reasons, it’s not monitored.
I do my rounds. Then I make my way down to the hole. The guards outside include one of the men from the cell last night—one of the guys who was clearly torturing or interrogating Maksim. I understand that’s part of their job. But I also know that shit does not happen in a room like that, with tasers.
He ignores my glare though as they buzz me through the doors into the hole. When the door shuts behind me, I look up through the darkness. There’s that single light above the cage, illuminating it and the hauntingly captivating man doing push-ups shirtless within it.
When he sees me, Maksim stops and slowly gets to his feet. His eyes hold mine, and it tremble under the heat of it, even across the stone room over here. I swallow as I approach the cage.
“Do you really think you should be doing that?”
He smirks. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Because you were stabbed yesterday?”
Maksim shrugs. “And?”
I roll my eyes. “Come here.”
He arches a brow. “What?”
I glance back at the door, then to him. “Come here,” I hiss, beckoning.
He grins wolfishly. “Yes ma’am.”
I roll my eyes, blushing as he approaches.
“I need to give you something.”
My face burns hotly as I slip my hand under the waist of my jeans. Maksim stops short, growling quietly as his brows arch again. I shiver under the heated intensity of his gaze as I slip my fingers under my panties and grab the phone.
When I pull it out, his eyes narrow on it. Then they drag up to my eyes, burning hotly.
“What are you doing, Quinn?” He growls.
“I think you’re being targeted.”
He crosses his thickly muscled arms over his barrel chest. He smirks that lopsided grin that seems to turn me to mush inside.
“Not everyone gets the welcome parties I’ve been getting?”
My lips purse. “No. Nor do inmates usually find themselves around as many other inmates as you have in two short months. Or find themselves put in the hole this much.”
He shrugs. “I like it here. It’s quiet.”
I frown. “Honestly, the hole might be the best place for you right now.”
“And that?” He nods his chin at the phone in my hands.
“So I can keep an eye on you.”
He smiles thinly. “Are we going to be friends, doctor?”
I swallow. “They wouldn’t let me keep video surveillance on you. But I can’t not know when my patient is hurt or in danger. And you seem to be in imminent danger of being harmed all the time, which my oath as a doctor won’t let me ignore.”
He eyes me with a look that screams “I see what you’re doing to convince yourself, and I’m down.”
“So, here.” I slip my hand through the bars, holding the phone.
Maksim eyes me, his jaw grinding.
“You’re too trusting, Quinn,” he growls quietly.
“I just smuggled a phone into a secure facility in my fucking underwear,” I mutter. “I’ve decided to trust you that much, at least.”
He chews on the inside of his cheek, eyeing me. Slowly, he moves towards me, like a puma stalking through the jungle. At the bars, he takes the phone from me, his fingers brushing mine.
“This has service down here?”
I nod, and then startle. “Wait, ‘down here’?”
He smiles thinly. “We are underground, are we not?”
Fuck, how does he know that?
“No…” I blurt. “No, there’s…”
Maksim smirks. “There are no windows. And the guards are not nearly as tight lipped as they should be. So we are underground, yes?”
I nod quietly. “Yes.”
I’ve already smuggled him a goddamn phone. What’s one more little national security infraction? Plus, he already guessed it anyways.
“There are cell repeaters down here, even down in the hole, that bounce the signal out to the surface.”
“It’s not monitored?”
I’m saying too much. This is how he escapes, and it’ll be my fault because I got all gooey and wobbled legged over his gorgeous eyes and bad boy tattoos. June is right, I need to fucking date. Or maybe I really do just need a good “dicking down.”
“No, it’s not.”
I groan. Shut the fuck up, mouth!
“Well, yes, but by an AI algorithm. So as long as you’re not talking in Arabic or throwing out Heil Hitlers, the AI will assume you’re just a guard calling his girlfriend.”
He smirks as I blush deeply.
“Not that I… I mean…” I cringe.
“Just a guard calling his girlfriend,” he growls. His eyes hold mine fast.
“It was us an example,” I murmur.
“I see.”
His eyes sweep over me, making me tingle.
“You look nice today.
“Thank you,” I say curtly—curtly to try and diminish the sizzling heat between us.
“You looked stunning last night.”
I blush. “Thank you,” I whisper.
I swallow and nod at the phone in his hands.
“Where are you going to hide that?”
He grins. “You don’t want to know.”
My mouth falls open in shock. “Ew!”
Maksim chuckles. “I’m joking. But if you think this is my first time in a jail, put that notion to bed.”
“What did you do” I blurt, breathlessly.
God, what the fuck is wrong with me today? Or every day since he and I cross paths?
His mouth thins. “A lot. Many, many bad things.” His head shakes. “I am not a good man, Quinn. But…” he glances around. “I don’t know about this place. The men in here…”
We need to stop talking about this place. I need him to not ask questions about any of this, because I’m pretty certain I’m incapable of saying no to him.
But Maksim keeps talking.
“The men in here, they are terrorists, mass murderers, political prisoners, yes?”
I swallow. “I can’t answer that,” I choke out.
He smiles thinly, and I realize I just did answer that.
Suddenly, the door to the hole swings open. I gasp as I jump back. Maksim moves away too, his hand slipping behind his back, seamlessly hiding the phone.
“Doc,” one of the guards blurts. “We got a stabbing up in R block.”
My eyes flick to Maksim. He holds my gaze before I manage to pull away and turn to the guard.
“I’m on the way.”
I turn back to Maksim, but the guy coughs.
“Ugh, we need you now—”
“I said I’m coming,” I snap.
The guy scowls and slams door shut.
Maksim chuckles as I turn back to him. “You’re bossy.”
“And?” I frown.
“And I like it.”
I shiver, swallowing. “I need to go.”
“More phones to give out?”
I blush. “No, and please—”
“It will never be found. If it is, it will never be traced—” he frowns. “You paid cash or credit?”
“Cash.”
He grins. “Criminal mastermind and doctor.”
“A lady of many talents.”
He holds a thumb and finger to his face with a smug grin. “Call me.”
I blush deeply. Without another word, I turn and head for the door. On the other side, I pause, sucking in the air he’s sucked from my lungs. Yeah, that was flirting. This time, I’m sure of it. Which begs the question that’s been glowing like neon in my head: what the fuck am I doing?
