Taken By the Bratva Boss by Sarina Hart

Chapter Five

Leon

She’s shaking. Shaken. But somehow courageous and smiling like she’s proud of herself. An amazing sight to see. But she’s taken my gun. Aimed it at me. This cannot go unpunished. “Pull the trigger.” I smirk at her. Unafraid because she’s still shaking. She isn’t the kind of woman who can kill. “If you have the guts.”

“Oh, I have the guts.” Yet, the trembling. “You killed my best friend.”

“A while ago I only raped her. Now I’m a murderer.” This woman. This delectable, beautiful, and very confused woman.

“You’ve always been a murderer. Probably started with squirrels and house cats. Moved your way up to people.” She thought I was a psychopath? That blow to my ego hurt, but I didn’t react. “You killed Denice. Admit it.” She lengthens her stance, wraps the other hand around the butt of the gun and the shaking stops. She’s found her hate again, and it flashes in the depths of her hazel eyes.

“No. I won’t admit to something I didn’t do.” I keep my voice soft. A moment is going to come when I have to repay this courtesy she’s given me, when I have to point a gun at her and threaten her life. And though I won’t take it, I can’t let her know that. I need her fear. It will keep her in line.

“She showed me your picture. Said your fucking name. Say hers. Say it now.” She jabs the gun toward me, and I sigh. “And put your damned hands up.”

Part of me is excited. It’s been a while since a woman could arouse me without her mouth around my cock. I’ll play along with this charade for a minute, let her lull herself into thinking she’s safe, that she has the upper hand. I raise my hands and take a short step back even though she didn’t ask.

“Do you want to shoot me, Olivia?” She swallows hard and the gulp is the only sound other than our breaths, mine quiet and even, hers harsh and rasping. “Do you want to cross that line to murder?”

“If I have to.” She pulls the lower corner of her mouth between her teeth, and just saying the words costs her.

I tilt my head to the side and keep my face a mask of calm, even though my neck aches from the shitty accommodations she’s forced on me the last two weeks. “What’s stopping you?”

“I have a conscience and I believe murder is wrong.” Her nostrils flare. Her anger is beautiful. Better than any sunset or painting I’ve ever seen. I want more.

There is a point to antagonizing her with a smile. “There’s power in holding someone else’s life in your hands. Do you feel it?” I felt it. All the way to the head of my cock straining against my jeans.

“Did you enjoy holding my friend down and forcing her to fuck you?” There she is. She’s bypassed her rage and found her fury—the chaotic and unpredictable kind of emotion that feeds my desire in ways nothing else achieves. I’m two strokes from shooting a load.

But there are some things we need to get straight.

“I didn’t force anyone. I don’t have to.”

If I want to get laid, I own a strip club, a nightclub, two brothels, a couple of beauty salons—all places where I can find any number of willing women.

Not to mention the places I go where my wealth is like a beacon for the gold-digging socialite who drops her designer panties with nothing more than the promise of a diamond bracelet or trip to Aruba as her reward. Both of which I deploy as tools of seduction at my convenience.

“Say her name, Leon. Say her fucking name.” She jabs the gun toward my face this time and hurt darkens the green flecks in her eyes, so her eyes look more green than brown.

“Whose name?” Toying with her is particularly unkind since we both know I know exactly which woman she’s talking about.

“Denice Miller.” There’s a sadness in her tone, softening the previous anger.

“I don’t even know her.” It’s true. I have done awful things in my life, but I’ve never raped or killed or raised my hand to a woman in anger. And the first I heard of this woman was when the police questioned me. “I never knew her.”

“You don’t have to be best friends or soulmates or even casual acquaintances to hold a woman down and force your cock inside of her. To demean her so she doesn’t want to live anymore. To hurt her so badly she can’t close her eyes without reliving what you did.” She punctuates with breaths, and flashes of pain. “To be so in her head she has no choice but to kill herself to make the pain end.”

But she has it all wrong. I didn’t do it. I couldn’t. I could sympathize, but she won’t hear it, so I don’t waste my breath on the pretense.

And before I can formulate the same truthful defense I’d used to fight Miller’s family in court, Olivia Hudson squeezes the trigger, and the gun clicks. Empty.

If there’d been bullets in the gun, I would be dead right now. At the very least brain damaged. Face fucked up.

If I wasn’t pissed, I would be impressed.

Her eyes go wide, and she whimpers. Her mistake is made, and the fear of what I’m going to do to her is reflected in her eyes, in the curl of her shoulders as if she can turn herself so small I won’t see her anymore.

As much as I don’t want to do it, as much as I would rather pull her against me, reward her for her courage, I have a point to make. I yank the gun from where it sits against my lower back and press the barrel under her chin, hard, pushing, punishing.

“I am only going to say this one more time. I did not know Denice Miller. I didn’t rape her, and I’m not fucking responsible for her death.” She nods, maybe unwilling to test my resolve, maybe not willing to bet I’d have two unloaded weapons. It doesn’t matter to me why she nods.

For a moment, I look at her, forgetting the reason I’ve brought her here, and if it was one of my men, I would punish him for his lack of focus.

I harden my voice and keep the gun under her chin while I put my free hand on her shoulder to urge her to be seated. Urge. Force. In my world, the words interchange.

“Who is helping you?”

“No one.”

Probably a door would’ve busted open by now if she had accomplices. But no way she came up with this plot, this ridiculous plan on her own. There has to be someone else pulling the strings. Or maybe she’s more than I think. More than I am giving her credit for.

“Who hired you, Olivia?”

“I’m not telling you anything.” Her defiance goes through me, straight to my dick which is so hard I can barely contain my need.

I take a second to picture her on her knees in front of me, her hand and mouth on my cock. Her eyes closed while I savor every stroke of her tongue, every glide of her hand. Then the second is gone, and I’m back in the basement with my gun pressed into her skin, the gun she watched me use to kill McKenzie. She knows what I’m capable of and still, she’s fearless. Well, not fearless, but not surrendering to me or the anxiety.

“You’ll stay here until you do.” Something about knowing she’s going to be so close makes me hard enough to rupture, and I do a mental ten count.

Her eyelids flutter shut, and a tear ekes out and slips down her cheek. I’m not a man swayed by tears, but I want to hold her. I want to feel her body against mine. And I want to tilt her chin up so I can claim her mouth with kisses, brand her with my lips.

Dammit. I’m about ten years past rubbing one out in the shower, but I have to go upstairs and pretend sloppy joes is the best fucking meal ever made, and my cock is so hard, my balls so tight, no way I’ll be able to sit unless I do something about this affliction.

I have no one to blame but myself. I brought her here. I ran my finger over her silky skin. I tucked the fiery red curl behind her ear. I breathed in the flowery sweet scent of her. But she wouldn’t have been a dot on my world had she not hired someone to humiliate me and tarnish my name, my reputation.

“Fuck you.”

I almost moan at the rage in her tone. Instead, I smile, let my tongue poke out. I have a thousand reservations about this woman. And the hardest dick in the history of erections. I need to check her out. Verify she isn’t connected to the Irish or the Italians.

I saw her at court. She’s connected to Denice. Or she’s one of their operatives. A plant. And this is more elaborate than I thought.

With Anna’s safety in question and my enemy close enough I can feel every heated breath and practically hear her pulse, I can’t let her go. I have to clear the situation.

There’s a ten-second window where I can enjoy the sight of her before I have to make a decision. Glorious seconds where I can enjoy the honey streaks in her auburn hair. The flecks of gold in her eyes.

Ten seconds go by in a blink. “You’ll stay here until I can figure out what to do about you.”

The fact I know what I want to do about her—fuck her until she doesn’t remember her own name—doesn’t mean I know what I can do about her.

“I can’t stay here.”

I shrug and put the gun against her temple. “Okay then.” It’s a bluff. I won’t pull the trigger. Although, the truth about her might make her the enigma to my code of conduct.

“No!” Her cry pierces the air. “Please.” The whimper that follows is short and desperate.

“You will stay in my home as my guest. A well monitored, heavily guarded guest who is not free to leave, but won’t have to be tied in a basement.” Her eyes flicker. “So long as you behave.”

“And by behave?” She’s finding her strength.

“Don’t try to kill me in my sleep.” I shrug. “I’ll help you figure out what happened to your friend.” I want to clear my name with this woman. God only knows why.

“Denice.” She shakes her head and crosses her arms like she has the right to be impatient with me. “And I already know what happened. You. You happened to her. And she died.”

I sigh. “We will have to agree to disagree.” I’m at my charming best and she’s glaring so hard I should feel the physical pain from it.

“I’ll never agree with anything you say.”

It’s a hold-my-fucking-beer moment and I smile. I never back down from a challenge. “But you will take my help.” Mostly because I’ve left her no choice. I’ll be making her choices from now on.

“I’d rather die.” Her voice is steel, her posture is rigid. When I stroke my cock tonight, it’s this version of her I’m going to use.

“That can be arranged.” My voice is as hard. “Or I can put you in a safehouse. At least, I think it’s safe.”

“You’re a bastard.” This she whispers.

I smile. Leer. “I’m not. I’m the bastard. And you will be my girlfriend in front of Anna.”

Her eyes widen like she’s got them on a switch that has just broken. “Excuse me. Your what, now?”

Oh, I love surprise. Especially when it’s written in her eyes. Making them brighter, like two little spotlights. “Anna is a bright girl who’s going to ask questions, so unless you want to go to the probably safe house, this is the plan until I can verify who you are, and we can find out who hurt your friend.”

She huffs and puffs and I bite back the urge to tell her to blow.

Instead, I aim the gun, pull back the slide, listen to a round chamber with the satisfying click of metal. “Option number three.”

I don’t want her fear, but there’s something to be said for what it does to her face. Washes it with color. Makes her brighter.

Her nod is slight. Unimpressive by the standard she’s already set. “You want option three?”

“No. I want to know who raped Denice, and if it’s not you, I want to know who. If it is you, I want you to admit it. Even if it’s just to me.” Her defiance and her loyalty to her friend, even her insistence I’m the rapist, is so fucking arousing I can barely stand straight. I want this woman. Powerfully.

“I’m going to prove to you I didn’t hurt you friend.” It’s not going to be my highest priority, but it’s on the list.

“Like you didn’t just blow the fucking head off that McKenzie?”

I move close to her, put the gun down to my side and brush her hair back. Again. “He came here to hurt Anna, to take her. No matter who I am, she isn’t a part of it. And make no mistake, I will kill anyone who tries to hurt my family.” Everything about her is intoxicating. And I am determined—one way or the other—to get her out of my system. This is my best start.