Read Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4) Online
Authors: Nancy Haviland
Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4)
ULTIMATE
VENGEANCE
A WANTED MEN NOVEL
NANCY HAVILAND
WANTED MEN SERIES
A Love of Vengeance
The Salvation of Vengeance
An Obsession with Vengeance
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text Copyright © 2016 Nancy Haviland
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without express written permission of the author. For permission requests, email
[email protected]
ISBN
978-0-9949024-3-6
Cover design by Cassy Roop, Pink Ink Designs
Editing by Kristi Yanta, Picky Editor
Sixteen months ago
Still not sure if she should be afraid or excited, Sacha Urusski rushed down the sidewalk in the Financial District in Manhattan. For once, she barely noticed the intensely focused women rushing by. She didn’t see the briefcases or power suits and smart coats. She paid no attention to the important conversations they were having on their cell phones. Typically, when visiting her boyfriend at work, those things stood out. She usually left TarMor Inc. feeling inferior due to both her unfinished degree and lack of a high-paying job.
Not today.
Today she was a queen. She was the happiest, most successful woman walking these busy streets on her way to meet her equally happy and successful boyfriend.
She pushed off the niggling of unease trailing her and made an amused sound under her breath as she neared her destination. Boyfriend was such a juvenile word. She wished she could call Alekzander her lover without blushing like the virgin she’d been when they’d met. But she wasn’t quite there yet, likely never would be. She wasn’t as sophisticated as he to use the title so easily. Having come to New York from a small town in Russia just over a year ago, her accent was heavy, her grasp of English still coming along, and, if she were honest, she still sometimes felt in awe of the man who’d chosen her to be his.
Next month would mark their one-year anniversary. She smiled as she pushed through the revolving door and murmured a greeting to the regular security guards stationed at a long desk inside the entrance.
The bald one came forward. “Uh, you here to see Mr. Tarasov?” His New York accent was almost as heavy as her Russian one.
Sacha paused, nodding, too distracted by the butterflies multiplying in her stomach to question why he was engaging her. He never had before. Normally, they nodded at her, and she went upstairs without exchanging more than a good morning or evening.
“Yes. He and I— Oh.” She faltered and looked at her watch. “Has he gone already? I was to arrive at eight o’clock.” It was five minutes to. Maybe Alekzander had forgotten they were meeting here rather than at home.
He had been unusually distracted this morning. She’d attributed it to him being tired as he’d kept her up until the early hours, focusing on her in their bed in an unusually intense way even for him. He’d burst into the apartment just before midnight, causing her to fumble the book she’d been reading. He’d scooped her from the sofa without a word, taken her into their bedroom, and hadn’t let up for hours.
As wonderful as it had been, as she’d fallen asleep, more exhausted than ever, Sacha couldn’t help but feel something had been different. He’d been upset, his touch almost desperate, but because it had been so late she hadn’t wanted to press him for an explanation. Maybe he would talk to her about it now.
“No, he’s, uh, he’s up there.” The guard shared a look with his co-worker who gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “Go ahead.”
She moved to the elevator, and by the time the doors swooshed open on TarMor’s floor, the disturbing display between the men was forgotten.
What would she say? He would be happy, right? How should she tell him? Right away? Or wait until they were having dinner. She should probably help him work through his upset from last night before bringing it up. How would he react? With anger? Would he feel as if she were trying to trap him? Or would he experience the same joy she was experiencing?
Going left, she passed by the empty reception area and paced herself as she traveled the carpeted corridor that muffled the sound of her heels. She smoothed her dress over her hips, feeling that prickling in her palms and the soles of her feet that she always felt just before seeing him. Her feelings for this man were overwhelming. They had been right from the start and had never settled into something she felt able to handle. She ran her hand over her still-flat abdomen just as she reached his office door.
With her knees weakening, she took a slow breath to steady herself. He would know something was going on with her the moment he saw her. He was like that. So intuitive. He seemed to know things almost before she knew them herself. He said that was a talent of hers, but he shared it. Which was why she’d had the doctor’s appointment today. He’d arranged it because he’d been worried about her.
She reached out and turned the knob, her incredible news rolling to the tip of her tongue. A joyous smile claimed her face as she stepped into the large office that already held so many good memories.
Hundreds of fists layered her with punches. The blows landed on her stomach, chest, back, face, and head. Over and over. She blinked and choked back a gasp, and shattered into a million pieces.
In reality, she was untouched and remained whole.
A soft moan from across the way mingled with the strangled sound that escaped her at what she was seeing. Two occupants behind Alekzander’s large desk looked over. The woman stopped on the downward glide and rolled her hips as though she just couldn’t help herself. Bile filled Sacha’s throat, scorching it until her eyes watered. With the height of the desk being what it was, it was easy to see how Alekzander’s beautiful hands held the woman, her skirt bunched in his fists at her waist.
Agony poured into Sacha’s every cell. At least the woman’s upper body was still covered, which was unusual considering Alekzander was a “breast man”—if that was the correct term.
It wasn’t until her chest started to burn and little squiggly lines filled her vision that she remembered to breathe. She forced some air into her lungs and used the death grip she had on the doorknob to hold herself up as she stepped back out into the corridor. Not a word was spoken, no eye contact was made. She couldn’t have looked away from the display of sex had someone put a gun to her head. Pulling the door closed, she stumbled down the hallway and slammed through the exit leading to the stairs. A high definition movie showcasing Alekzander’s glistening length moving in and out of that woman’s body played through her mind. The fact that Sacha hadn’t actually seen it didn’t matter, it was there anyway, becoming a permanent scar singed onto her brain.
Why didn’t Alekzander care that she’d seen him in such a position?
Because he doesn’t care about you
, a saddened voice whispered in her mind
.
As she repeatedly swallowed, trying not to vomit, her heel slipped on the last step of the flight. She grasped the railing to keep from falling. Her raspy breathing sounded amplified in the empty stairwell as she pulled open the door in front of her. She needed to try twice because her muscles weren’t cooperating, but she finally got it and shuffled to the elevator as if she were a hundred years old. It took a short moment for the lift to arrived, and as she stepped into the thankfully empty car, she pressed the button for the ground floor and stared unseeing at the numbers as they flashed. Why was there no blood? She couldn’t understand it. How could these fatal injuries not be gaping wide and bleeding rivers?
She put one foot in front of the other and retraced her steps through the lobby, passing the security guards who gave her sympathetic, pitying looks—their earlier behavior now made sense. Humiliation layered over her pain as she pushed her way through the door and lifted her thousand-pound arm to call for one of the taxis speeding by. Tires chirped as the driver swung to the curb. She got in, carefully placed her purse on her lap, and mechanically gave the driver the address to the apartment she and Alekzander shared.
She was dropped in front of the luxury high-rise, and as she traveled up in yet another elevator, let herself into their quiet unit and packed only a few things, that insecure, reserved girl that lived inside her, the one who’d moved on her own from Russia to the United States with the hope of finding a good life, screamed and screamed and screamed.
Present day
Amid Christmas decorations and colorful Chinese lanterns, Alekzander Tarasov sat at the long table in the small restaurant and looked around at his family. They were celebrating an engagement. Another one.
His three best friends were wrapped protectively around their women, their contentment making everyone nearby want to kill themselves.
Or maybe that was just him.
His gaze swung away from all the happy when wind chimes tinkled, signifying the door was being used. In their line of work, it was ingrained to always be aware of who was coming and going—
The sound of rushing water filled his head. Or was that blood? Because every time this happened lately and he snapped back to reality to find himself staring at a stranger, he bled. How often had he seen her across a busy restaurant? On the street? In a passing vehicle?
In his fucking dreams?
Too many times to count.
Are you really seeing this?
his brain asked calmly, forcing him to blink his burning eyes.
Or have you manifested her because you need the visual so damn badly?
His head was silent for a few seconds.
And then the positive identification came, his mind whispering two beautiful words. Reverently. In a stunning relief.
It’s her.
Sacha. His angel
. Please be real
. He’d been searching for over a year for this one he’d pushed away so callously. Would have searched until the end of time. Because it had been proven that he simply could not live without her.
Even though he could barely grasp what this meant, everything in him once again centered, focusing on the woman he was destined to share his life with—
The woman who’d just turned her head, as if in slow motion, to face a man who’d come up behind her.
A man who placed his hands on her upper arms.
A man who then bent forward to drop an intimate kiss to her temple.
The roar that sounded off in Alek’s head was tortured and enraged, and without even being aware of it, he surged to his feet with his hand already closing around the nine millimeter under his jacket. A chair scraped, falling back to land on the tile, and before he could aim and take out the dreaded competition, his uncle was in front of him, blocking Alek from view of the other patrons eating their dim-sum.
