Taken By the Bratva Boss by Sarina Hart

Chapter Fifteen

Olivia

By the time we get home at the end of the day—there was a dinner for Maxim after the burial where Leon and the other families toasted Maxim over and over—Anna is in bed. I’m exhausted and sad and wishing I would’ve done things very differently.

Sleep is a welcome respite, but for the dreams of him, the so-real-I-can-feel-his-hands-on-my-body kind of dreams. I wake up almost more exhausted than when I went to bed. And when the door bursts open and Leon stands in silhouette from the light behind him, my brain runs with it and I throw back the blanket. It’s an invitation, a request, and a plea.

I want him.

Now.

The only sound in the room is my breathing, my heartbeat in my ears. “What time is it?”

“It’s three in the morning, but I wanted to tell you something.” I’m in pajamas, and the blankets are still around my feet. I should be cold, but his gaze burns through me, sears my skin.

“Okay.” I want him to tell me he wants me, that he’s falling for me, that he wants to figure out a way we can be together. If I can get past who he is—and I’ll try so hard—he can keep me safe. I want to hear him say those things.

“Your friend, Jacob, is going to work for me. I’ve checked his background, his financials, his life. He’s clean.” He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t make this a moment—the moment—it could be. “Being around me will make him… dirty. Will turn him into a criminal.”

“I seem to be doing okay.” I also hear the truth in his words. Recognize it.

He moves closer to the bed, one step, two, but it isn’t close enough. I need more. “Leon, the other day, before Maxim died, at the gallery…” He takes another step, and my breath hitches. “A woman told me about…Sarah Burke.” I say the name to see if a reaction sparks in his eyes. And there’s nothing. Not so much as a flicker. The breath I caught releases. “She is…she claims you raped her.”

I don’t ask the question. I don’t ask if he did it.

“I don’t know Sarah Burke.”

I’m glad, but again, knowing a person or not knowing them isn’t evidence for or against rape. And I don’t say that she knows him. That her friend knew him. “Good.”

I have the card somewhere. I should get it, but I need to look at him while I speak. “She runs a design company named after her.” I’m not giving him more information about her; I’m still just looking for that little spark of recognition.

“Then I could go talk to her.”

“Yes.” I can think of about a thousand reasons that’s a bad idea. But I can’t tell him because I want to hear what she has to say. I want her to look at him and call him a rapist, to see her certainty. I need it. Because I still have the blanket around my ankles, my t-shirt riding up and my body vibrating with need. For him. For a man I don’t know might be a rapist.

He’s beautiful in ways men shouldn’t be, but I don’t want to be one of those women who only cares about his pretty face, only cares about the blue eyes, and the honey-colored hair, and the way his jaw is sharp, and his arms are strong. I’ve tasted his body. His kiss. I know what his touch feels like.

God help me. “I want you.”

He stands for a few seconds before a slow smile spreads across his face, and his eyes burn a trail down my body.

He doesn’t slide down beside me, doesn’t lie next to me. Instead, he holds out his hand and waits for me to take it so he can pull me to my feet. When I’m in front of him, close but not touching yet, he pushes his fingers through my hair and mashes our mouths together. There’s no patience, no chance for a second thought to sneak through—not that I have any doubts or second thoughts. I want him.

I fumble with his shirt. Tonight, it’s untucked, and if I could, I would yank the front open, let my fingers do the walking over his smooth chest, lick my way down his stomach, but he still has his hands cupping my face, and I can’t move more than my legs.

So, I work the kiss. My mouth with his, my tongue tasting the recesses of his mouth, sliding against his. And when I’m about to melt, when I can’t think beyond this moment, he yanks his shirt open and takes his mouth away long enough to tug mine over my head. Now, we’re skin to skin, and it’s glorious enough to elicit a low, throaty moan. Might’ve been his. Probably was mine.

Doesn’t matter because now, we’re on the bed. He puts his hand on my stomach, lets it drift lower to the waistband of my pants. I want to kiss every inch of his body, but there’s also something delicious about being kissed, being touched, worshipped.

And he does. With his hands and his mouth. His fingers trail the lines on my naked body, which I know now belongs to him. His lips leave invisible marks, and I want him to bite me, lick me, tease me. Do everything to me.

He kisses my jaw, my throat, my breasts. When he takes my nipple and swirls his tongue, flicks it back and forth, I arch, tangle my fingers in his hair because this is so exquisite, I can’t bear for him to stop. Lusts roars through me and my heart pounds loudly inside my head. I moan, biting my lower lip. He keeps sucking on my flesh. My hands are on his broad shoulders, keeping him close, always close.

At the same time, his fingers breach the waistband, and my breath hitches. He has heaven in his touch, and my hips lift off the bed at the same time his fingers find my hot, wet pussy. I’m desperate. All it takes is one look from him and I’m done.

The breath sucks from my body when he brushes against my clit, teasing me. He lifts his head, stops kissing my nipple long enough to say, “Take your pants off.”

If I had to figure out how to pull these bad boys through the eye of a needle to get the damned things off my hips, I would make it happen. A little bit of acrobatics is nothing.

When I finally kick them away, he settles between my legs and licks my clit while his fingers slide in and out. I wonder who taught him this. Jealousy hits me like a ton of bricks, but then I remind myself who he’s with now. Me. Only me.

I can’t catch my breath. Can’t control the sounds I make or the way my body shifts and jerks. He’s a fucking god and he knows exactly what I want, what I need.

“Please, Leon.” I’m begging because, as perfect as this is, I want him inside me. I want him, now.

I need him.

He ignores me and continues to torture and tease, to fuck me with his fingers and stroke me with his tongue until my body quivers and shudders, and I come apart, exploding from the inside out. My fingers curl into the blankets and pull because I have nothing else to hold onto, nothing to keep me from floating away except this blanket and this man.

I reach for him, my hands as greedy as my eyes. He sheds his clothes quickly, desperately, then comes back to the bed, moves next to me, and smiles when I shift and pull him on top of me.

“You’re beautiful.” With his weight pressed into me—a delicious weight—he brushes my hair back and looks into my eyes. Deep, like he can read my secrets.

When he kisses me this time, it’s slow, so sensual my body is melting beneath him. His cock is poised at the entrance to my pussy, and I’m ready. I feel his raw tip, and it takes all my conscious effort not to open up the gates and let him slide into my wet velvet underground.

“I don’t have a condom.”

Dear God. He has to be kidding. “And you think of it now?”

He chuckles, rolls away, and leaves. When he comes back, he has a foil packet open and ready to be tossed over his shoulder. God bless foil packets. God bless them.

He rolls it on, and I watch because looking away would be sacrilege of some sort, against some religion somewhere.

His kiss scorches and flames, from my lips to my soul, and when he finally pushes his cock into me, I inhale deep and hold it because I don’t want to let go of the feeling of those first few seconds when my body stretches for him. Pain and pleasure intertwine. He is so massive that it takes me a moment to get used to the feeling of fulness. Then, all becomes bliss. He’s moving, he’s thrusting and every sensation pulses through me. I hear his groans right by my ear. His hot breath hits my lips and I drink him in thirstily.

I cry out, and my fingers rake down his back, leaving red lines. He smiles down at me wickedly and thrusts harder, faster. I know neither of us can hold on much longer, but we keep going, our bodies in unison, listening to the sound which seems to be created solely for us to follow.

“Fuck, you feel so good…” he whispers, and I feel as if a surge of energy rushes through my entire body, leaving me utterly spent.

One more thrust and I’m falling over the edge, endless, mindless. I am everything he ever wanted me to be, and he is the heartbeat keeping me alive. We are one as he comes, my pussy clenches around him, tightening. He tumbles with me, grunting and moaning, holding me so tight against him I can’t move freely, and I don’t mind. I want him to hold me. I want to feel him around me. Only him.

But if I asked him to move off me, he would. He would’ve five minutes ago or ten. I have no doubt. And that’s why I can fall asleep next to him. Why I can sleep with my head on his chest and my hand lying over his heart.

A sliver of sunlight streams in the window onto the mattress. I roll toward it because I’m alone now, and all the fuzzy thoughts of the night before have faded. Now, I’m worried. I’ve agreed to go with Leon to see Sarah Burke, to hear her story, but how much will I be able to believe? In the face of the man she believes raped her, how comfortable will she be speaking to me or to him?

When he walks in my room, I still haven’t moved, and my doubts are as big as I am. There is no way this is a good idea. I should never have told him until I spoke to her alone first.

“I’ve cleared my schedule for today and we have an appointment with Sarah Burke this morning.”

“This morning?” Shit. I don’t know what this meeting means to him or what he hopes to accomplish by meeting her, but this kind of thing could undo any kind of good mental health she’s been able to achieve since this all happened to her. And if she says it is Leon, I have no idea what to do then.

I know he isn’t a rapist. In my gut, in my heart, in my head, I know it. But I also know he’s a murderer. I saw it. But he doesn’t hurt women. Wouldn’t rape a woman.

“Yeah, why? You have plans?” He cocks an eyebrow like he knows already I don’t.

“No. But…” There’s nothing to do but say it. “If this woman believes you’re the man who raped her, what’s it going to do to her when you walk in there? I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

His posture and his gaze and his entire persona harden. “Why would she think it’s me?”

Wrong question. “You mean why did she tell her friend it was? Where did your name come from?” I don’t have an answer.

He sighs. It’s long and hard and angry. Or frustrated, but with Leon, I don’t imagine there’s much of a difference. “My name is in any number of news reports, my picture in any number of papers. Did you know the Trib had a photographer dedicated to following me? Maybe her attacker looked like me.” He shakes his head. “I don’t fucking know the answer, Olivia, but I know I didn’t rape Sarah Burke or Denice Miller or any other woman in the world.”

He walks to the window and looks out, braces a hand on each side of the window from at his own ear level. “Is that what you fucking think of me? You know me now and you still think…”

“No.” And I’m telling the truth. “I don’t believe you could have hurt either of them. But there’s a reason they both said it was you.” I walk to stand behind him, wrap my arms around his waist and lay my head between his shoulders. “I know it wasn’t you.”

His entire body is a ball of tension, and for one minute, I think he’s going to tell me that he doesn’t give a fuck what I say or what I think. But then he turns and pulls me against him so I can hear his heart beating under my ear.

“I need to hear her story, but if my being there hurts her, I’ll go. But I need her to see me, to look at me and know I am not the one who did this to her.” His sincerity darkens his eyes, deepens his tone.

I nod because I understand, but the fear in my stomach is alive and bouncing. I let him hug me, enjoy it because I know this man is gentle and kind. He does what he has to do to protect his business and his family, but he didn’t rape anyone, and I’m willing to bet my life on it.

“What time are we meeting her?” I slide my hands up his chest, clasp them behind his neck and rub my body against his.

“Soon.” He doesn’t check his watch but kisses me softly. Chaste. “Too soon.”

“I think you underestimate the advantages of the quickie.”

He isn’t wearing a suit but is wearing a semi-loose black shirt with three little buttons in the front. The top two are open and I want to kiss the little hollow at the base of his neck. To be honest, I want to kiss all of him.

He smiles down at me. “I think you overestimate my ability to—” He breaks off to strip away my shirt and shove my pants down. “Resist you.” He lowers his head and kisses me while I work the button and zipper of his pants to free his cock.

I giggle when he gives me a mock stern look. Instead of moving us toward the bed, he spins toward the wall, brings me with him and lifts me onto his cock. He slides in easily. I’m already wet for him. Ready. Needy.

He thrusts into me while I hang on, my hands on his shoulders. His lips fall over mine hungrily, and every time we kiss it feels as desperate as if it were the last time, the only time. Thank God it’s not. His thick cock rams into me hard, just the way I like it. I moan with every thrust, as he expels the air out of my lungs. I’m breathless as this man makes me his with every lunge, every move, as I rest safe in his arms.

Heat unfurls deep inside of me, and I know I’m close. This persistent pulsing need is finally satiated as I come undone, my entire body trembling with the remnants of my orgasm.

Thank God he is a man easily convinced.

***

“I have an appointment with Sarah Burke.” We’re standing in the lobby of a fashion warehouse. It’s open and airy with drawing tables, fabric bolts, and sewing machines in no semblance of order in the wide-open spaces to the left and right of the reception desk.

“It’s this way.” The woman smiles at Leon as we walk to a stairwell at the far right of the main floor. The office is a balcony without doors or walls, only a rail that encircles it. It’s not enough to make me feel safe and my stomach shifts. I hate heights and this is one.

Since there’s no door, she can’t very well hide from us, but Sarah Burke is the woman from the gallery the other night. Her eyes are golden and crinkle at the corners, and her smile is bright until Leon walks behind me into her space. Then it fades, and she stares. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Oh shit. But Leon stares at her, and I can’t tell if he’s trying to recognize her or trying to convince me he doesn’t know her. But the air is sucked out of the room.

“You’re Sarah Burke.” I say it softly and not like a question. She never actually said she wasn’t. She’d also never introduced herself.

She shakes her head. “The woman you met is my sister.” Her eyes betray her confidence. There is actual fear there.

“The resemblance is remarkable.”

“Family is like that.” She hasn’t stopped looking at Leon. “Our eyes are different. I have our father’s. She has our mother’s.” Her chin juts, and she leans back in her chair as she crosses her arms. “Your eyes are very distinctive. Some might say memorable.”

She isn’t lying. He has eyes that are a thousand shades of blue. Flecked and streaked. Dark and light. But I don’t think we see them quite the same way.

There is a high level of defiance in her tone, and I can’t bear to look at Leon. When we decided to do this, I thought I wouldn’t be able to look away, but now, I’m scared of what I’ll see in his eyes. So scared my stomach aches and my hands begin to shake.

I curl my fingers into my fist to calm them. “Your sister said you…”

“She should’ve minded her own business. Your entanglements are not my concern.” Entanglements is said with such distaste, she’s managed to make it sound like a curse. “If you choose to be with a man who rapes women, there’s something wrong with you, but it isn’t my problem.”

There’s no doubt she’s been through something. Her voice cracked and broke, though her nostrils remain flared, and the anger is like a laser pointed from her eyes to Leon. If looks could kill, he would be dead.

“I know this is difficult for you, but your sister told me you wanted to tell me a story. If you’d rather we go…” It’s the only thing I can think to say. I can’t force her to talk to us. And this is just uncomfortable enough I’m not so sure coming here was a great idea.

She sighs. Looks away for a moment, then turns back and the rage is palpable, like another presence in the room. Her gaze locks on Leon and remains.

“He could tell you.” No one moves. No one breathes. “A work party. It was around nine when he walked in and every head turned. You know.” She doesn’t glance at me, but she isn’t speaking to him as much as through him. This is all for my benefit. “He has swag and confidence most men don’t. It’s attractive, and I was like a moth to his flame.”

It takes a minute of cold, hard glaring at Leon before she continues and, when she does, her voice is lower in volume and tone. “He looked at me, up and down like he was some goddamned judge of my appearance. Then he introduced himself. Said, ‘Hi, I’m Leon. Leon Krilov’.”

I shot a sideways glance at Leon who hadn’t so much as twitched.

“After the introductions were made, I got us drinks because we were standing at the bar and I own the fucking company.” Venom spewed, eyes flashed, hands clenched and still Leon didn’t flinch. “You said your fucking name. I left with you, you bastard.”

Tight and controlled. “It wasn’t me.”

She scoffed, narrowed her eyes, and gave the slightest of head shakes. “I saw your fucking hand. The burn.”

His eyes widen and his head tilts. “I don’t…” He looks at his hands, turns them front and back for her to examine.

She stares and holds hers out. “Right hand.” When he scoots forward to reach across her desk and holds it out for her to examine, her eyes widen, and she twists his wrist at impossible angles. “It was a burn. A scar.” Her voice is softer now. There’s no edge to it.

“I don’t have a burn or a scar.”

As a matter of fact, his hands are smooth, soft, unmarked by so much as a papercut.

“It proves nothing. Maybe it healed.” Her anger is less though, her eyes not so dark with it.

There was no mention of a burn in any police report I ever read, but she’d never reported it. “Why didn’t you call the police?”

It’s a shitty question. And I’m not blaming her for not telling. Victim blaming is a real thing, and I wouldn’t want someone examining my life for the why or how things happen either. “Obviously, you know who Leon Krilov is. When he calls and says to keep your fucking mouth shut, you keep your fucking mouth shut.”

She has a point. He’s intimidating when he hasn’t already exerted his power. More so—drastically so—when he has. And even if it wasn’t him just the someone pretending, the name is as intimidating as the man thanks to the media hype surrounding him.

“Where was your party?” I ask because the details are vital for me. I need all of them because I’m the one sleeping mere feet from his room and have already been in his bed. More accurately his guest bed.

“At the Monmoth. The bar in the lobby.”

Fuck. “The Monmoth?” I repeat it because I have to hear it again. “On a Saturday?”

“Yes. It was open to the public also, but we always booked there.” She sighed. “Before.”

“You left with him, then what?” I believe her. But I need to know the rest.

“We walked for a few blocks to where he said his car was parked. Then he backed me into a doorway of building that was…empty, I think.” Her voice wavers, and her breaths come faster now.

“And he forced you into the corner for a kiss, then grabbed you by the throat and held you, squeezed when you tried to move.” She nods, and I continue because I know this story. I heard it over and over during the weeks of Leon’s trial. “And when he forced himself on you, he made you tell him you liked it.”

“And then I passed out and woke up without my underwear, still slumped in the corner of the doorway.” She sighs. “I didn’t tell…anyone that part. I told them he only tried.”

I know exactly which doorway. It has a brick outer wall and a recessed door. A busted overhead light.

I glance at Leon. His face is blank, unmoved by either her emotion or the replica of Denice’s story. “I’m so sorry for what you went through.” And I am. “I’m also sorry we made you relive it today.”

She shakes her head and breathes in deep through her nose. For a second, she looks at me then flips her gaze to Leon. “If it wasn’t you, there’s someone out there pretending he is. You should find him and kill him, Leon Krilov. We both know you have the connections. But if you did do it…” She stands like towering over him from behind her desk gives her power. “If you did do it, I hope you rot in hell and I hope you get there quick.”

He nods. “I didn’t hurt you. I swear to you.”

She scoffs. “Your word means shit to me.” Then she turns her angry gaze to me. “And if you’re unsure of who he is, look into him. Don’t take chances. And for god’s sake, get the fuck away from him.” After a moment for which I can only nod at her, she sits and turns her chair away so she’s facing out the window. It’s a power move and I admire her for it.

The meeting is over, so Leon and I leave. We’re down the block before he stops, turns like he wants to go back, then faces the direction we were walking. “It wasn’t me, Olivia.”

I nod. I know it. I’m not a hundred percent certain, but at least ninety-eight. Part of me who knows him. And that part is unequivocal in her belief of his innocence.

“The Monmoth holds a party once a month. It’s a stupid business thing for companies in the area.” I looked down the street as I spoke. We were maybe six blocks north and three blocks west of the old hotel. “It’s why Denice was there.”

“I’ll find out when it is and send some men.” He doesn’t want to be seen there, but it’s a mistake. He needs to go.

“You can’t send anyone else. They won’t recognize things you might. It has to be you.” This time, his men won’t suffice. “I’ll go with you and we’ll figure it out, but it has to be.”

His sigh comes from a place deep in his chest. “If I didn’t know my brother was dead, I would think Igor came back from the grave to…” He shakes his head instead of answering.

As we finish the walk to his car, he’s quieter, more thoughtful than I’ve ever seen him, which is saying something since he barely speaks a word that isn’t a necessity. But I let him have his silence because I’m thinking too. The burn on Sarah’s attacker’s hand is something she could’ve taken to the police. Also something Denice would’ve mentioned.

“We need to get home. I need to look at something.” If he realized I called his place home, he didn’t mention it.

I had Denice’s entire case file because I never left home without it. It was all I had left of her. But I had a copy of the first police report. If Denice had seen a burn, she would’ve remembered it. Would’ve told the cops. And she would’ve noticed. She noticed everything.

But I took it out again. Opened the file and scanned the report. Looked at the details I never look at.

Even though I have read this thing a thousand times, I inspect it like it’s the first time. Hold it up to the light. Bring it so close to my face I imagine I can smell the ink.

There is a line. Tiny. Thin. The tell-tale sign that this is a photocopy of an altered report. Something was there no one wanted us to see, and my money said it was a burn on the assailant’s hand.

The entire report is typed. Except just above the signature line. I would bet all the money I ever had hopes of making that this wasn’t the report Denice signed.