NIKOLAI (Her Russian Protector #4) (11 page)

It had started innocently enough.
Back then, he hadn't understood how pedophiles groomed their
victims or even what a pedophile was—but he'd quickly figured it
out. Pasha, the man who ran the orphanage, picked the prettiest
boys for his
favors
. Eventually, Pasha had started renting out some of the boys
to high-paying customers.

The dirty old bastard had used Nikolai's
desperate need to protect his brothers from such pain to manipulate
him into maintaining his silence. He'd have done anything to keep
Ivan, Dimitri or Yuri from experiencing the shame and trauma of
having grown men—and even a couple of women—pawing at him and
abusing him.

But then Yuri had followed him one night and
had discovered Pasha hurting him. He'd reacted as any child would
have. He'd picked up the nearest weapon—a pipe—and whacked Pasha
across the back of his head. The older man had gone down like a
sack of rocks. They'd run back to the orphanage, grabbed Dimitri
and Ivan out of their beds and fled.

Even now, all these years later, the painful
memories triggered his gag reflex. It was all Nikolai could do to
muscle down the urge to vomit. His skin crawled. Hot and cold
shivers raced up and down his back. With a slow, quiet exhale, he
managed to regain control of his body and mind.

"Sex trafficking?" Aghast, Santos glanced at
him. Fear contorted his face. "No. Not Vivian."

Suddenly, this whole mess felt very personal.
Maybe it had nothing to do with Vivian's father after all. Nikolai
had always taken a hard stance when it came to the skin trade. From
the beginning of his introduction to the underworld, he'd refused
to deal in prostitution or trafficking. He'd turned a blind eye to
Kostya's strip club sideline, but it didn't sit well with him and
he wouldn't take the customary percentage that was typically kicked
his way.

"Where did you take Vivian?" Nikolai's tone
warned the man not to lie.

"I don't know. I was in a different SUV. We
headed to a parking lot across town where we met up with the guy
who set up the attack."

Kostya picked up a chisel and took a menacing
step forward.

"Jesus!" Bill screamed and tugged his head as
far to the side as possible. "Wait! Wait! When I was leaving that
night, I heard John talking on the phone to some guy named Lou
about making arrangements for a shipment."

"Lou?" Santos perked right up. "You mean Mr.
Lu?"

Nikolai caught the detective's eye. Mr. Lu ran
a bustling import and export business that looked clean from the
outside but was dirtier than hell on the inside. He laundered money
for the local Triad syndicate and brought in weapons and other
goods for the Vietnamese crime family. Apparently, it wasn't just
knockoff purses in those container ships of his.

"Maybe?" Bill gulped nervously. "I really don't
know. They separated us into groups that night we met at the bar.
Our crew was supposed to attack you, to hurt you, and the other
guys were supposed to grab the girl."

"This guy is fucking useless," Santos growled.
"Look, I've got an ex-girlfriend, Katrina, who works vice. She's
been on most of the trafficking busts since the summer. Maybe she
can help us narrow down a list of possible locations where they're
holding Vivian."

"Let me make some calls. There's a
pimp who likes the girls at Wet. If there's competition on the
streets, he'll know all about it." Kostya eyed Santos with
distrust. "We don't need
them
involved any more than they already
are."

"Go." Nikolai flicked his fingers. "Find out
everything you can."

He wouldn't let himself consider what Vivian
might be suffering right now. The rage building within him
threatened to explode—and when it did, the whole city of Houston
would burn.

"What the hell are we going to do with him?"
Santos gestured to Bill. Finally finding his balls, he said, "You
can't kill him. I won't let you."

"No?" Nikolai's brow arched imperiously.
"Well," he inhaled deeply and found the strength to push out of the
chair. With a slight a wince, he lifted his sore arms and lit the
cigarette he'd been toying with during the interrogation. As he
took a drag, he considered what to do with the man. All sorts of
violent possibilities flashed before his eyes.

But then the image of Vivian clouded his
vision. Sweet, soft-hearted Vee would argue for mercy.

"You have forty-eight hours to get the fuck out
of my city. If I find out that you've set one foot in this
county—"

"I won't. I swear. I'm gone." Bill shuddered
with relief. "I'll take my family and go tonight."

Nikolai figured the dentist understood that he
was the least of his worries. The man who had bought his debt would
want to tie up those lose ends now that the botched attack and
kidnapping had been completed.

Clamping his cigarette between his lips, he
approached Kostya's cart and scanned the implements available to
him. He finally picked up the small blow torch. Santos groaned and
wiped a hand down his face before swearing in Spanish. Ignoring the
bleeding heart detective, he flicked on the torch. "Let's fix that
hand…"

* * *

Shivering, I tried to stay awake in the cramped
cage. The nasty collar now biting into my neck forced my head into
an awkward position. A short leash had been looped to the back of
the collar and secured to the cage ceiling. Every time I drifted
off from exhaustion, the weight of my head caused the leash to
tighten and the collar would dig into my throat so badly I'd start
to strangle.

The tight rope bonds binding my wrists to my
ankles kept me in this painfully bent position. Breathing was
beginning to grow difficult and I'd already lost feeling in my
fingertips and toes.

I had no one to blame for my new predicament
but myself. When they had taken me out of my cage for my shower
earlier, I'd done the stupidest thing. I'd attempted to escape—and
failed.

Before they came to get me out of my cage, I'd
heard a big rig truck back up to the warehouse. The beeping alarm
and the hissing brake sound I'd recognize anywhere. Many of the
vendors who delivered to Samovar pulled up around back with their
massive trucks packed with restaurant orders from all over the
city.

But I doubted this truck would be carrying
anything as innocent as produce.

Not long after the truck arrived, I'd heard
high-pitched wailing and screams. I'd nearly puked as the horror of
it struck me. Those poor women were being taken away from the
warehouse. They'd be sold and used and abused until—well—I didn't
really know. As ugly as the business of trafficking was, I doubted
the girls being bought and sold like cattle had long lives ahead of
them. They were disposable.

And it sickened me. I couldn't stop thinking
about the fate that awaited me after I heard the truck rumble away
from the warehouse. I'd started to scheme right then and there. I
had to get out of here. However slim the chance, I had to take it.
I couldn't let some disgusting monster buy me on the auction block
and turn me into his sex slave.

When Robbie had come to get me for my shower,
I'd rejoiced at my good luck. He wasn't as big as John or as mean.
Despite the blindfold, I'd been sure I could take him. Looking
back, I should have waited for a better opportunity because I'd
failed miserably in my attempt to flee.

Oh, sure, I'd managed to kick Robbie in the
balls, rip off my blindfold and make a run for the double doors at
the end of that long hallway—but John had been waiting on the other
side with that awful cattle prod of his. One jab against my ribs
and I'd fallen to the floor with a shriek.

But he hadn't stopped there. He'd popped my
backside and thighs with the horrible device until I'd been sobbing
and begging him to stop. Only then had Robbie, the guard who seemed
to have the most conscience left, stepped in and forced him to stop
torturing me. The collar and rope hogtie had been Robbie's idea of
punishment.

The two idiots didn't seem to realize that the
payday they wanted so badly was about to die from
neglect.

For the first time since being taken from
Nikolai, I experienced true despair. My hope began to fade. Bound
and collared in this cage, there was no chance of escape. My fate
was sealed. I was either going to succumb to exhaustion and slowly
strangle to death because of the collar cutting into my throat or I
would be sold to some sick psycho who would do ungodly things to
me.

My spirit broken, I started to weep. With my
body bent in half and my breasts smashed up against my knees, I
forced the ragged sobs to stop. It was growing so difficult to drag
even easy, slow breaths into my squished lungs. Crying was just
going to make me pass out faster.

Dizzy and numb, I thought I was hallucinating
when I heard the sound of running footsteps in the hallway. A
gunshot startled me. Holding my breath, I listened carefully. What
the hell was happening out there?

The door to the room where they were keeping me
burst open. "NO! Please!"

It was John—and he was begging for his life. "I
did everything you asked. We're partners. We—"

But he never got to finish his pleading
statement. The pop of a gunshot echoed so loudly in the cavernous
room. A second later, a body dropped to the floor with a muffled
thud. With the blindfold covering my eyes and my arms and legs
bound, I could only wait and listen in sheer terror.

Those heavy footsteps I'd come to recognize as
belonging to the shot caller drew closer to my cage. I tried to
breathe quietly and flattened my body as tightly as possible—as if
making myself a smaller target would somehow protect me.

The footsteps stopped right next to my cage.
That all too familiar scent of cloves invaded my nose. Fainter but
just as noticeable was the acrid stink of gunpowder. My entire body
trembled with anxiety.

Something metal scraped the side of my cage. A
moment later, the warm, hard muzzle of a handgun jabbed against my
temple. I squeaked as my heart stuttered wildly. This was it. He
was going to kill me now.

The agonizing wait for the end made my stomach
pitch and heave. Would I feel the bullet ripping through my skull?
Would I hear the deafening roar of the pistol firing? Would it
happen so fast that I'd be spared the agony of being
shot?

The muzzle pushed hard against my temple, so
hard that I gasped. The metal tip bit into my skin. Any second
now…

With a rough jerk, the man who smelled of
cloves pulled the gun away from my head. I didn't dare breathe. I
stayed perfectly still—and prayed that God would spare me
now.

A rustle of clothing was the only sound I heard
before the man backed away from the cage and left the room. The
slamming door made me jump. Left alone, locked in the cage with
only two dead bodies to keep me company, I finally lost
it.

Shaking and sobbing, I turned my head as far to
the side as the stupid collar would let me and vomited. My empty
stomach produced only bile but the trauma of what I'd just
experienced, of narrowly escaping with my life, overwhelmed
me.

Now I really feared being left for dead. It was
clear that moving the other women earlier had been part of some
larger plan by the man in charge. Something had happened to rattle
him, to make him believe his location wasn't so safe anymore. Had
Nikolai or Eric discovered something? Were they getting close to
finding me? A spark of hope ignited within me.

But why had the man who smelled of cloves
killed his partners? Why were John and Robbie dead but I was still
alive? If he was cleaning up loose ends, he'd left a big one right
here in this cramped cage.

The smell of smoke tickled my nose. Certain I
was having some kind of brain malfunction, I lifted my head and
inhaled deeply. There was no mistaking the smell of scorched metal
and burning drywall.

Oh my God. The building is on
fire.

The awful truth hit me. I wasn't a loose end
that he'd left behind. He'd found a way to make me truly suffer in
my final moments here on this earth.

"Help!" I don't know why I screamed. There was
no one out there to help me but I couldn't stop. "Help!"

Though it was futile, I tugged hard on the
ropes binding my wrists to my ankles. I ignored the searing pain of
the rope fibers burning and abrading my tender skin. At this point,
I didn't care if I ripped all the skin off my arms. I had to get
loose.

"Please, God. Please." I didn't want
to die like this. I didn't want to suffocate from smoke inhalation
or experience the agony of flames licking at my naked skin.
"
Please
."

As I prayed for a miracle, I continued to yank
and twist. Rubbing my face against my knee, I finally managed to
push the blindfold out of the way just enough for me to see my
ankles and wrists. The poor lighting in this room barely
illuminated the lower half of the cage.

Full-fledged panic set in as the first whirling
wisps of smoke started to sneak under the door. I pulled so hard on
the ropes that blood started to seep from my wrists. The broken
skin throbbed mercilessly but I didn’t care. I had to get out of
here. If that meant losing a hand so be it.