Mafia Soldier's Irresistible Lover (The Karzhov Crime Family Series Book 3) (3 page)

Val stared at her for a moment, but a groan of pain from the mostly unconscious man drew his attention. “Wait here,” he instructed Chelsea when she made to move toward the man.

“Nonsense! He’s hurt and needs help.”

Val grabbed her arm, and immediately regretted the action. His intent had been to stay her advance toward the unknown threat the man presented, but his body had forgotten everything except how good she smelled and how much it was craving closer contact.

Chelsea looked down to see his large, tattooed hand wrapped around her upper arm and tried not to jerk away from his touch. It felt like a live wire and had set off a series of shivers down her back and butterflies in her stomach that were fluttering madly around.
I don’t know if I want to puke or fall into his arms and demand he touch me more!

Hearing another groan, she made a feeble attempt to pull away from the gorgeous man who still had her arm captive. “Please, let me help him!”

Val shook his head, using his clasp on her arm to steer her a few feet away and push her down onto the porch swing. “Stay here while I check him out. I promise I’ll let you tend to him once I make sure he doesn’t pose any threat to your safety.”

Chelsea gave an exasperated sigh, but sat down. “Fine! Just get on with it so I can help him.”

Val hid his smile, then focused on the man who was starting to stir. He cautiously approached, keeping his gun drawn and ready to use. He knelt down and spoke to the man. “Hey, wake up! Do you know where you are?”

The man’s only response was another groan.

Val took in the man’s appearance, including the blood that was slowly soaking his shirt. He gingerly shook the man, but all he got in return was another moan of pain.

Tucking his gun in his waistband, he grabbed the man’s arms and pulled him up and over his shoulder. Pushing himself up off the porch, he hefted the man in a makeshift fireman’s hold and turned toward the house. “Chelsea, show me where I can lay him down. He’s out cold, but his injuries need to be tended.”

When Chelsea didn’t immediately reply, he glanced over to the porch swing to find her watching him with a look of awe on her face. “Chelsea?”

“Oh, sorry. You can put him in the back bedroom, behind the kitchen.” Chelsea led the way back around the side of the house, opening the doors to allow Val to pass through them with his heavy burden. She couldn’t get over how strong Val was. Her brother easily weighed at least two fifty and was a few inches taller than she was, putting him over six feet tall.

Val gingerly laid the man down on the bed before taking a step back as Chelsea pushed past him to begin assessing her brother’s wounds. “Could you get me some clean towels from under the kitchen sink?” she asked Val with a soft smile.

“Sure. Be careful.” Val didn’t like leaving her in the room alone with the unconscious man, but he also didn’t have any evidence that would justify his wariness. Just a very bad feeling in his gut. A feeling he had learned throughout the years to trust, implicitly.

Chelsea watched Val leave the room, then turned her gaze back to the one person in the world she had hoped to never see again. Someone she hadn’t seen in almost a decade.
What are you doing here, Terrence, and how did you find me?

                                                                                    *****

“Have you found the girl yet?” Danil asked quietly into the casino phone even as he kept a watchful eye on Pyotr, who was a few meters from him. Nikolai had placed the guard on him, and he knew the man was watching and listening to his every move. He had no doubt in his mind that his home phones had been bugged, which was precisely why he’d chosen to use the casino floor phones to take care of this unpleasant business.

For years now he had been building alliances with both the rival eastern
Bratva
groups and the
Yakuza
operating primarily in the San Francisco region. With both entities working together, he would have the perfect combination of power to finally achieve his lifelong goal of becoming the most powerful
Pakhan
in North America. The type of ruler all other smaller leaders would look up to and take their orders from.

“We’ve managed to trace her to a small mountain town in Colorado.”

“Colorado? So Alexandra didn’t move that far after all.”

“Sir, we believe Alexandra is dead. For some ten months now.”

“Yes, I was aware of that, but it is her daughter that poses the most threat to all of us. If she lives, she will become leverage to be used against us at a later time. Just like my long-lost niece is being used now. I do not want any more unpleasant surprises showing up years from now. Go take care of her.”

“I’ve been told to remind you that everything comes with a price,” the voice with the Oriental accent came across the phone line.

“Of course. What does Yoshi have in mind?” Danil asked, trying to hide the derision in his voice. He needed these powerful allies to trust him, and even though he didn’t really feel they measured up to the Russian mafia’s abilities, they would serve a purpose when the time came.

“He hasn’t made that known to me as of yet. He will let you know.”

I know he will. I just hope I can afford the cost.
Danil held back his sigh and answered the man on the other end, “Very well. Tell Yoshi I thank him for his cooperation in this matter and I will of course be at his disposal in the future.”

“We will be in contact when all is accomplished.”

Danil held the phone to his ear for a moment longer, listening to the dead silence and hoping that this particular dead end would be buried very soon. He pulled a slip of paper from his pocket and made another call, this time to his contact at a bank in the Caymans.

“Matthew? Danil Yakimov here.”

“Oh, sir, ’tis good to hear from you. How is life in the States?”

“Good.” Danil rolled his eyes at the man’s overeager attempt to chitchat with him. “I need you to do a favor for me…”

Ten minutes later, Danil hung up the phone with a smile on his face. Matthew had been more than happy to help him with the matter of disposing of the account set aside for Alexandra and her brat.
And why shouldn’t he? He just became half a million dollars richer!
Even after paying off his superiors to make the transactions and accounts disappear, the man would become very wealthy..

Danil stepped away from the phone booths, glancing to the side as Pyotr followed suit. No doubt the man had been trying his best to listen in on his conversation, but Danil had been sure to pick a phone between an obnoxious woman with a vulgar British accent and a man who was all but having phone sex with the person on the other end of the phone. One could only hope it hadn’t been one of those 1-900 numbers. That was why they made hotel rooms.

Danil straightened his tie and headed for the card tables. He was feeling more optimistic this morning than he had in recent weeks. Taro Hodama was the
Yakuza’s
equivalent of the
Bratva’s
cleaners and known for his thoroughness. If anyone could take care of Misha’s daughter, it was him.

Chelsea put the pans of French toast in the oven and headed for the back bedroom. At Val’s insistence, she had finally crawled up to her own bed a few hours earlier, her brother having woken up only twice since being brought into the house and then falling right back into an unconscious sleep.

She had removed his blood-stained shirt to find an ugly gash on his upper chest. She’d done her best to clean out the wound, but it had needed stitches, and after half an hour, she had finally given up trying to take care of his wound herself and asked Val to help her take him to the hospital.

She smiled now as she remembered his response.
You want to take him to a hospital, but wouldn’t let me call the authorities? And for that little scratch?
She’d nodded her head, only to have Val smile at her and promise to return shortly.

He’d disappeared, coming back a few moments later with a small black bag in his hands. He’d methodically set out all of the necessary items needed to stitch her brother’s wound closed, including a syringe filled with antibiotics. Luckily Terrence wasn’t allergic to anything that she knew of.

Terrence had stirred briefly when Val had taken the first stitch, but then fallen back into unconsciousness, for which Chelsea had been grateful. She’d tried not to watch Val’s hands as they diligently pierced her brother’s flesh time and again, making neat, even stitches that easily closed the wound up and stopped the bleeding. What kind of photographer was he?

She’d not been able to take her eyes away from his talented hands. The tattoos that adorned the backs of his fingers were unreadable to her eyes, but she recognized the writing as Cyrillic letters and wondered at their meaning. She was too afraid to ask. Something about Val set off warning bells in her head, but her libido had chosen not to listen.

She’d been given the perfect opportunity to peruse her newest guest up close and personal, and her body liked what it saw. By the time he’d finished helping her brother, she had been hot and bothered and having a hard time hiding that fact. She’d lectured herself sternly for over an hour, but with her brother not yet awake and Val sitting across the bed from her looking so absolutely gorgeous, she found it very hard to think of anything but him.

When he’d finally suggested she try to catch a few hours of sleep, she’d actually jumped at the excuse to get away from him for a while. The man was virile and affected her in a way that no other had in a long time.

Even now, several hours later, her body hummed as she stepped through the bedroom door to see him lounging in the side chair, sleeping lightly. His eyes opened as her feet dragged across the carpeting, and she gave him a tentative smile before whispering, “He’s still out cold?”

“Yes. He woke once asking for water, but then went right back to sleep.”

Chelsea approached the bed and felt her brother’s forehead for fever, pleased when she found it was cool and dry. No infection was a very good sign. “I’ll stay with him for a while now.”

Val did not like leaving her alone with the man. Even though the man was her brother, Chelsea had acted surprised, and not in a good way, to see him the night before. The man had also been packing both knives and a small-caliber pistol in his boot. Val had relieved him of all weapons after Chelsea had gone up to bed, and they were now in his possession.

He had been very interested to find the serial number of the small pistol missing. It had been deliberately filed off in a way that most small-time criminals would never be able to carry off. Everything about the man screamed danger, and Val was anxious for morning to arrive. He’d already sent a message to Nikolai asking him to get him any information available on the man. He wanted to be prepared for whatever reason had brought him up into the Colorado mountains.

Looking at Chelsea now, he tamped down on the urge to soothe her worry away. She had the beginnings of dark circles beneath her eyes, and even though she had offered him a small smile, it hadn’t reached her eyes.
She’s worried about more than her brother’s health.
The thought had all of his protective instincts on high alert. “I will grab a shower and come back down.”

“No! You’re supposed to be here resting. I can’t let you spend your vacation watching and helping to care for my problem.”

She considers her brother a problem? That just confirms my wariness is warranted.
“It’s no problem. I don’t require much sleep anyway.”

Chelsea wanted to argue some more, but her mind couldn’t get past the image of him in the shower.
All of that tanned skin revealed as water runs over his shoulders, down his sculpted pecs and washboard abs, down below his navel to…
Shaking her head, she dispelled the image and gave him a strained smile. “Fine. That will give me time to finish up breakfast before my other guests get up.”

Val had watched with interest as Chelsea stared at him. Her expressions were so easy to read, as was the desire that had just darkened her eyes moments before. She’d been staring at his body as if she were starving and he was the last morsel of bread on earth. His own body had responded, and he inwardly groaned as he realized he was headed for a shower, not a decadent morning of pleasure. A
cold
shower.

“I’ll be back down soon.” Val left the room before he could say anything else.

Chelsea watched him go, trying not to admire the way his butt filled out the worn denim jeans he’d been wearing all night. They were worn in all the right places and hugged his thighs tightly, accentuating the muscles that were hidden underneath.

It’d be so long since she’d had a partner. She wondered what he looked like without those tight jeans on, and to feel his warm, hard skin against her hands.
Chelsea, stop!
She signed, this was going to be a long few weeks.

She glanced at the clock, glad that is was Saturday and she wouldn’t have to worry about getting Darya off to school this morning. Darya rode the bus to the next town, since Clear Springs didn’t have enough kids to justify a school of its own. She didn’t seem to mind the thirty-minute bus ride, and it saved Chelsea having to drive her both ways. The bus transported the twenty or so elementary students Monday through Friday, and Darya seemed to love the extra time she got to spend with her friends.

She was jostled from her thoughts when movement from the bed caught her attention. She turned to see her brother’s eyes trying to open, a grimace of pain crossing his face as he tried to move.

“Easy! Terrence, you’re safe. Stop moving around before you tear out your stitches!”

“Goddamn it, Chelsea! You took me to a hospital!” her brother roared, coming fully awake and trying in vain to push himself up in the bed. “What kind of fool stunt was that?”

“A stunt that would have kept you from bleeding to death, if it had actually happened,” growled a very male, very angry voice from the doorway.

Chelsea turned to see Val re-entering the bedroom, a scowl of displeasure on his face. “Hi. That was quick.”

“I told you I’d be back shortly. You can always trust me to keep my word.” Val eyed her with a serious look that suggested he was slightly offended that she had doubted him.

Always? No one can always keep their word. Been down that road before. No. Thank. You!
Chelsea didn’t voice her disbelief; she simply nodded. “As you can see, Terrence just woke up.”

Val approached the injured man. His face was set in stone, and his eyes missed nothing.

“Chels, who is this?” Terrence inquired in a soft, raspy voice that spoke of either a man who smoked too many cigarettes or at some point had injured his vocal chords.

“Terrence, what are you doing here?” Chelsea asked, ignoring his question in lieu of her own.

“I wanted to see you,” he offered by way of explanation.

Chelsea nodded her head. “But how did you find me? Here?”
I know for a fact that I covered my tracks when Alexandra and I moved Darya up here a few years ago. There’s no way Terrence could have found me.

Val listened and watched, not liking the edge of anxiety he picked up in Chelsea’s voice.
She didn’t think her brother could find her. Why? Or maybe the better question is why wouldn’t she want her brother to find her?

Terrence watched his sister, trying to come up with some plausible explanation for his presence here, in her home, but nothing came to mind except the truth. Shrugging his shoulder, then grimacing at the pain the movement caused, he took a breath and offered, “Your name showed up in the court records. A friend owed me a favor and figured reuniting me with my long-lost sister might help settle the score.”

“And did it?” Val asked, slightly impressed at the man’s ability to use the system for his own gain. But only slightly.

“Yeah. Who are you again?” Terrence asked, an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before.

Val gave him a smile that bordered on a smirk. “I don’t remember introducing myself. Now, why don’t you answer your sister’s question?”

“What question? I already answered—”

“I believe she asked you what you were doing here.” Val was growing impatient with this conversation, and he could tell that Chelsea was less than happy to be harboring her brother.

Terrence looked at his sister, then back to her apparent bodyguard. “That’s for me and my sister to discuss. I’d show you where the door is, but you look like a smart man. Find it and show yourself out.”

“Terrence! You have no right to talk that way to a guest in my house.” Chelsea glared at her brother, then turned to look at Val, turning her back on her brother in the process. She moved a few feet away from where her brother lay, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Val, I’m really sorry about his behavior. Thank you so much for all of your help last night. I really don’t have any idea why he’s here, but it worries me that he had someone checking for me. I can’t let anything jeopardize my adoption case with the courts.”

Val could see the agitation building in her gaze and placed a calming hand on her arm. Unfortunately, it didn’t calm either of them. Her eyes flashed up to his, need and desire darkening her gaze and putting a flush into her cheeks.

Val felt his own body respond and let his fingers drop back to his side.
One thing at a time. Deal with the brother now. Deal with the attraction between you and Chelsea sometime later.
“Sorry,” he murmured, acknowledging that he too had felt the spark of electricity pass between them.

Chelsea nodded and gave him a tentative smile. “It’s okay.”

Val looked at her another moment, then took her arm and led her toward the bedroom door. “Why don’t you go take care of breakfast and I will see if I can get some answers for you.”

Chelsea looked up into his eyes. “Really? He’s not going to get any easier to deal with.” On second thought, she turned back and looked at her brother, who was scowling at both of them. She hadn’t seen her brother physically since that fateful night she’d met Alexandra in the hospital.
God, that was a long time ago!

Val picked up on her new concern and watched her face as she examined her brother. “What’s wrong?”

Chelsea turned her head and met Val’s eyes. How did she voice the concern that her brother was high on something to a virtual stranger? ”Uhm…I just…Terrence used to…” She trailed off, unable to continue.

Val watched her eyes, not liking the fact that she seemed both embarrassed and ashamed by whatever was going through her mind. “Tell me.”

“It’s just that Terrence has—he likes to use,” Chelsea said on a rush, lowering her gaze and trying to calm her racing heartbeat.

“Use? As in drugs?” Val whispered, taking a step closer to her.

Chelsea nodded without answering.

Val placed a calming hand on her shoulder and leaned down to whisper directly in her ear, “Chelsea, go do whatever needs done for your guests. I will stay here with your brother and see if I can get you some answers.”

She nodded and left the bedroom without looking back at her brother.

“Chelsea, where are you going? Come back here. I need to talk to you.”

She let the bedroom door close behind her, closing her eyes briefly to block out the sound of his voice.
“Chelsea, come on, just spend a few minutes with Mateo. I promised him you’d be friendly.”
She opened her eyes to dispel the horrible memories, shivering with revulsion as those best left forgotten assailed her mind.
I left that part of my life behind. I made a new life for myself, and now I’m making a life for Darya. The past has no place here!