Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4) (14 page)

“Do you have a formal dress?” Justin elaborated with a smile in his voice.

“Oh, yes. Of course. I suppose black-tie is ‘doable’.”

“I was hoping you’d say that. I’m heading to a lunch meeting right now, but I’ll see you in a few hours. I’ll tell you what Peggy said about your case tonight, okay?”

“Okay,” she said weakly. She didn’t want to have
a case
. “See you then.”

As she hung up and pushed her phone back into the pocket of her jacket, she raised her eyes just in time to see a vicious expression drop from Alekzander’s face.

“Sheppard?”

With her stomach rolling with nerves, she nodded. “Yes.”

“What is he to you, Sacha?”

Not expecting him to be so forthright, she scrambled. How badly did she want to throw Justin in his face. She wished she could gush and brag about how in love she was with her lawyer boyfriend. Tell Alekzander all the many ways Justin made her happy. But more than that, she wished Alekzander was still in love with her. If she knew for sure, she could invite him over one evening and have him walk in on her and Justin having sex. Eye-for-an-eye. He would understand that concept.

Too bad Justin was more likely to want Alekzander than her, and she was too much of a lady to have sex with someone she didn’t love.

If she could have, would she then feel vindicated?

Or would she just feel like a whore?

“Are you going to answer me?”

She rubbed her palm across the tip of her nose when it began to sting from the urge she felt to bawl her head off.

“Sacha?”

She turned at the sound of her name coming from behind and saw Olivia’s father step onto the curb. Confused, she looked at her watch.

“You’re good,” Pastor David said with the wide smile that distracted many of the women in his church during his Sunday service. He looked carefully between Sacha and her unwanted guest. “It’s me who’s early. Patrice sent me off when I started getting on her nerves.” He winked as he teased about his high-strung wife. “I told her I didn’t mind leaving her to come and spend some quality time with my beautiful girl.”

A low chuff of air came from Alekzander as the pastor approached. He bypassed Sacha with a touch to her shoulder and moved on to unbuckle and lift his daughter into his arms.

Sensing an opportunity, Sacha took it.

“Well, it was nice seeing you again, Alekzander,” she lied. “But I must be going.” He was watching the father and daughter. Sacha’s heart wrenched in her chest. Was that longing in his eyes? “Enjoy your day,” she croaked as she motioned Pastor David forward so Alekzander would have no choice but to step aside. “If you would come inside, I will get Olivia’s bag.”

She pushed the stroller into motion and couldn’t help but glance up from under her lashes, her body tingling in awareness as she came within inches of Alekzander’s solid frame.

“Opportunistic little thing,” he murmured as she passed by. The husky note in his voice slid down her spine to tickle her tailbone.

Feeling triumphant, and excited in a way she hadn’t experienced in a long time, she couldn’t stop herself from tipping her head and squinting her eyes in a taunting, childish manner. She didn’t think for a moment he was going to just go away. Not yet. That wasn’t who he was.

And, God help her, as dangerous as that was, and as stupid as it made her, Sacha was happy for that.

As Alek’s eyes narrowed on his skittish angel, he smiled. He’d had her there for a minute. As he’d talked about the boys, her interest hadn’t been forced or merely polite. She’d been engaged. She’d reached out and touched him without thought. Her eyes had danced with genuine happiness when he’d told her about Vincente.

And had grown wide in shock when she’d misunderstood about Gabriel. He’d been about to tell her Renee and Evan were gone but hadn’t wanted to do so out in the open.

His satisfaction melted away when he acknowledged that she may have responded to general conversation, but the minute it became personal the shutters had come down hard. Which was expected.

He had to get her alone, he thought as he strolled over to Maks and Anton. Grigori was still there.

“Tell him,” Maks said to Grigori.

“Ms. Urusski was approached by a man who fell out of a pub with two others. He locked onto her despite the children and began following her. I did not wait for him to touch her before I introduced his face to some bricks. There were witnesses, and she was shaken. I recommended she avoid that neighborhood from now on.”

Alek looked to the doors Sacha had disappeared through with the too-handsome father of one of her charges who Alek had thought had come to spend time with
his
beautiful girl until the guy had picked up his daughter. All Alek could think was the guy had to be one of Maks’s enamored fathers.

“Did you notice any video being taken? Photos?”

“No. There was not enough time.”

“Did you hurt the guy?” Disrespectful fucking idiot to have targeted a woman pushing a stroller.

“Yes.”

Alek put out his hand and vowed Sacha wouldn’t be on her own again. Not even if she was walking through the produce section at the grocery store. “Well done,” he praised, and after a firm shake, Grigori went off to join Lucas at the door. Some definite advantages to having the boys around.

“We off?” Maks asked.

“No. Just taking a break. Let’s circle the block and get the truck out of sight.”

They climbed in with Micha and Anton.

“You’re on that thing more than ever,” Alek commented, indicating the phone Maks was pulling out of his pocket because it was vibrating.

“Got some information. Finally.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing we’re supposed to be aware of.”

With his and Vasily’s conversation from last night ringing in his ears, Alek kicked Maks’s Di Bianco and was rewarded with a glare.

“Don’t scuff my shit, brother. You know I hate that.”

Maks was more of a clothes horse as Alek. They annoyed the hell out of Gabriel and Vincente. “I’ll take a Sharpie to the ugly things if you don’t start talking.”

“Better than those girlie Louboutins in your closet.”

“I only wear them with my tux. Which I’ll be doing tonight, it seems.”

Maks’s brow went up, and he nodded once as he dialed a number that rang over the Bluetooth.

“If you ask me what I’m wearing, I’ll hang up on you,” Sydney said on answering. Her Australian accent was as pretty as she was.

Maks chuckled. “Tell Samnang he’s on duty tonight. I need a date, and you’re it.”

“Wow. Have I told you lately how that romantic streak of yours makes me tingle? No? That’s because I haven’t experienced it yet. Where are we going?”

Maks smirked at his woman’s attitude. “Black-tie event.”

“You’re oh-for-two, Russia. Will I know anyone? Or will I just be there to make you look good?”

“You’ll be there to make me look good. But as an added incentive, you’ll get to meet, or at least see, Sacha.”

“For real? I’ll be able to come home and tell the girls she really does exist? Vincente said she’s classy like Grace Kelly but with Beyoncé’s body.”

“Quiet now. You’re making Alek blush.”

“Oops. Hey, Alek. You’re taking your elusive lady out tonight?”

“No. But with any luck I’ll be bringing her home,” he muttered.

After Maks had hung up, Alek got them back on topic.

“Tell me about this information.”

“I’m not supposed to know about it.”

Yeah. It had to do with the mole. “Then why do you?”

“Because my services are in demand.” Said with so much arrogance it almost clouded the interior of the Hummer.

“Pull over here, Micha,” Alek said when they were once more a half a block away from Sacha’s building. He looked at Maks and waited.

“Our rat is making calls from Brighton Beach and Nassau County.”

Alek refrained from nodding. “How do you know that?”

“Whether Vasily went to him or he took it upon himself to get involved, Lucian’s IT wizard called a more talented wizard who not that long ago developed a program to trace heavily re-routed calls.” He sprawled out and threw his arm across the back of the seat. “Just call me Oz.”

Alek grinned. “That’s fucked up.”

“Yeah. So is this cocksucker who’s moving in on us. Did your uncle tell you why he won’t let me at it?”

“He’s afraid you’ll do to our mole what you did to Morales. This guy needs to suffer even more than the Mexican should have.”

“See? I get that. Why didn’t Vasily just say so?”

“Because he likes to baby you.”

“Me?”

“Us.”

“That’s more like it. Speaking of Morales; did I tell you Luiz has gotten in touch twice now asking about Elli? Fucker had the balls to request a meet with her. Syd went ape-shit.”

“I’ll bet she did. What are you going to do? He is Elli’s family.”

Maks’s face went granite hard. “
We’re
her family. She’s mine now, and if that fucking prick thinks I’m going to allow a little girl anywhere near a man who wanted to punish my Aussie by raping her for a couple of weeks, he’s using too much of his own product.”

Supportive grunts filled the SUV. Seemed Luiz Morales was going to have to be satisfied with the family he had because he wasn’t getting anywhere near Maksim’s.

♦ ♦ ♦

Ten minutes later, Alek was reaching for the door handle as he watched Sacha’s client drive away with his little girl.

“Shoot me a text if you hit some pillows. I’ll come back later to pick you up,” Maks said as he worked his phone.

Alek wished. “I can’t see any pillow hitting going down. Not unless it’s one she decides to slam me in the face with.” His feet hit the sidewalk.

“Bite it and consider it foreplay.”

He shut the door and took only a cursory glance around once he made it inside the building, noting the cleanliness of the hallway couldn’t hide the wear and tear. He made a mental note to have someone come in to do a quick switch when he heard the hollow sound his knock made on Sacha’s door.

He braced himself when the security chain went, but he was in no way prepared for the sight that greeted him when the flimsy wood was pulled out of the way.

Curves.

The shapeless winter coat that had reached below her knees was gone, and utter perfection was exposed to his ravenous gaze. He stared, because, damn.

A black sleeveless shirt clung to full, jaw-dropping breasts and an absurdly small waist while the beautiful swell of her hips was accentuated by jeans she made work despite the frayed tears he normally found unattractive. Not on her. Not when they offered him flashes of smooth, creamy skin and were rolled at the cuff to show off the high-heeled boots he’d noticed outside. They were black leather and covered what he knew to be slender ankles.

Yeah, she made the outfit work all right. Stylish, subtle, stunning. From her head to her toes she was a feminine work of art. There should be some way to get the message across to women that
this
was what they should look like. She wasn’t thin and hard. She was full and soft; temptation itself. Her supple thighs used to have him regressing to a caveman mentality he should have been put away for.

Jesus Christ, he wanted to devour her, to bury himself in her—face first, then tongue, and then his cock. The urge was crippling and undeniable, and nothing short of catastrophic that he had to stand there and pretend he’d be satisfied with a reluctant tell-me-your-story-and-maybe-I’ll-forgive-you.

“Are you finished, Alekzander?”

He looked up from a navel he wished his face was pressed against and was as honest with her as he could be without flashing the solid erection he was now sporting. “Fuck no. But I’ll set it aside for now and pretend I’m a normal, civilized man. May I come in?”
Into your body? Where I’ll stay for days?

“If I say no?”

He shrugged. “Then I’ll talk very loud through your door.”

Her mouth compressed into a thin line. “You would not do that.”

He held her eyes. “You’d be horrified at what I would do for you.”

Her lips parted on a soft breath that was the exact sound she used to make the moment he slid inside her. His entire groin throbbed. He needed this one back in his bed. On him. Under him. Next to him. All over him, for days on end. He needed her sitting across from him at breakfast. He needed her showing up at his office, self-consciously asking if she could take him out for lunch. He needed to come home at the end of the day, turn her away from whatever she’d decided to prepare him for dinner, and just hold her; draw comfort from that gentle way she used to sift her long fingers through his hair.

His eyes narrowed, his heart slamming hard when he saw a flash of hunger skip across her face.

Aaand then her thoughts got in the way, and her expression turned to cement. Fuck.