War (Romanian Mob Chronicles Book 5) (3 page)

P
riest

“
J
ust drive normally
. Easy, like this is an ordinary day,” I said.

The woman’s, Milan’s, nostrils flared with a sharp exhale of breath that was half snort, half chuckle, low but still audible. She sounded skeptical, but to her credit that was exactly what she did, somehow managing to keep her composure and drive to my home.

“Make a left here. Go slow enough to let me see, but not so slow you draw attention.”

She looked over at me sharply. “So, slow, but not too slow.”

“Exactly,” I replied, though I didn’t turn to look at her. I’d heard her sarcasm, but right now I was focused on taking in what I could.

Nothing was out of place, my quiet, sleepy neighborhood as it should have been. A cat ran across the street and then bounded out of sight, and I heard dogs barking in the distance.

But there was nothing else, and I looked around the street searching for something, anything.

I found nothing.

Everything was normal, as it always was, the people tucked in for the night.

I shifted my body to face forward and then turned my head to Milan. “Speed up and head toward the freeway,” I said.

She glanced at me quickly and looked away, but then complied, pressing the gas.

I kept watch out of the rearview mirror, past my house and the others, watching until the neighborhood was gone. I noticed then that she was shifting in her seat, eyes furtively landing on me and then shifting away. Though I didn’t know this woman at all, she didn’t strike me as the sort who fidgeted. Something was on her mind, but I didn’t care. I had other things to worry about.

“Was there—never mind,” she said after another round of fidgeting and furtive glances.

“Ask your question,” I said, again dropping my gaze to look at her and ignoring the fact that not ten seconds ago, I’d mentally affirmed that I didn’t care.

She shifted her eyes to me quickly and just as quickly looked back, though I didn’t miss that flash of the brown, nor the way my heart seemed to beat a little harder when her eyes connected with mine. I ignored them both, though, and waited.

“Was there a problem?” she asked. “Everything looks quiet.”

“Too quiet.”

“Oh,” she said, though I couldn’t tell if that was her way of saying she understood or her chance to end the conversation.

Then Milan went silent, leaving me with my thoughts.

It probably didn’t make sense to her, the concept of too quiet. Fuck, none of this probably made sense to her, but I was more on edge now than I had been before.

Someone had either attempted to kill Vasile Petran at his wedding or used the event to take out one of his guests. No matter what the intention, there would be questions and there would be punishment.

My place should have been swarming with people either looking to question me or wanting to hold me responsible. I’d never gone to great lengths to hide where I resided, and had never felt the need to. My home would be the first place anyone looked, but I knew I could handle any trouble, and living in the open was practically a dare to those who wished to try to do their worst.

That no one had tried yet only heightened the truth that I was not to be fucked with.

So that my home was, on the surface at least, completely undisturbed told me that there was something beyond the usual at play here. An attempt to take out the head of a Romanian mob clan would inspire all manner of talk. That it had happened and there was absolute silence, no one attempting to reach out to me, was cause for concern.

I needed to plot my next move.

Milan cleared her throat, and I glanced at her, saw she had tightened her hands on the steering wheel.

“You have another question?” I said.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

She had merged onto the highway and she was headed toward the city. I opened the glove compartment and looked at her information again. Then I put it back, closed the small door.

“Your house,” I said.

M
ilan

I
couldn’t have heard
him right. Grateful that the highway wasn’t too crowded, I risked looking at him again. The darkness of night shadowed his face, the streetlights occasionally brightening it to show his strong, masculine jaw, the incompatible softness of his lips.

Focus, Milan
, I said to myself, wondering why the fuck I was noticing something as asinine as that and quickly refocusing myself on the unbelievable words he’d just uttered.

“Pardon me?” I said, my voice grating out of my throat roughly, almost breathlessly.

An odd, stilted thing to say, but I couldn’t think of anything else. Well, I could actually think of several other things to say, but none of them would be helpful to me in this moment. So I settled on a bland, “Pardon me,” as though this person, the one who was conducting perhaps the most genteel carjacking in the history of American crime, was not wanting to go back to my house.

My mind raced as I thought through all of the TV shows I had watched and articles I had read. One piece of advice had been consistent in them all.

Never let them take you to a secondary location.

I’d broken that rule—twice—already, but taking him to my house? No fucking way.

“Is there somewhere else…?”

Although, maybe outright bargaining was a bad idea, so I trailed off and looked at him quickly, searching the darkness of the car interior for some sign of his expression. Any insight as to what he might be thinking.

“No. Your house. It’s the best place right now,” he said.

“Um…”

The fuck-no hung on the tip of my tongue, but thank God I swallowed it back. What the hell was I doing? I should just comply with him, be smart, maybe try to escape.

That was it. At the next opportunity, I would break away and go.

“You don’t want me there?” he asked.

Of its own volition, my head swiveled until I faced him. I could feel the way my features were twisted in disbelief at the stupidity of his question. Of course I didn’t want him there! I searched his dark gaze, hoping that maybe I would see humor, though now wasn’t exactly the moment for jokes.

He just blinked, looking stern but not angry, and, more importantly to me, not remotely joking.

“Um…” I couldn’t think of anything else to say and didn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing.

“Why does it matter? I already know your address, and I could find you if I had to,” he said.

My heart leaped to my throat, fear seizing me in an instant. I pushed it back just as fast, determined that I wouldn’t show it, wouldn’t let myself become a victim.

“You trying to make me feel better?” I asked, glaring at him, intent on convincing him that he couldn’t rattle me. But I quickly came to my senses and looked away.

“How you feel is not my concern,” he said. “I just want you to understand the circumstances.”

“So are you threatening me?” I asked. His words had scared me, had introduced an overt atmosphere of violence where before it had been unspoken.

Even more, they had disappointed me. I couldn’t say for sure if he was a violent person or not, but the impression I’d gotten of him so far had been as good as it could be given the circumstances, and if I couldn’t say for sure that he was peaceful, I was certain he was calm, and saddened by the thought I might be mistaken.

He glanced at me, his gaze almost searing on my skin. I felt compelled to look at him and when I did, I met dark, fathomless eyes.

“Do I have to?”

He said it almost casually, and for him my fear was probably nothing.

I, on the other hand, was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

“I… No,” I finally said. “But my roommate is there. Her boyfriend.”

Knowing Tiffany as I did, I knew she probably wasn’t, but he didn’t know that and maybe saying so would change his mind.

“I don’t care,” he said, dashing that hope before it had even grown into something I could hold on to.

“And you won’t”—I swallowed around my thick tongue—“hurt them?”

“Milan, I promised you that if you did as I asked, I would not harm you. That promise still stands,” he said.

I shouldn’t have believed him. Only a fool would have. But for some reason, maybe delusion, maybe wishful thinking, his words were convincing. Or maybe that was what I was telling myself. It wasn’t like I had a ton of options, any other options at all, really. Even still, delusional or not, I believed him.

Common sense hadn’t left me completely, so I looked at him again as I drove, searching his eyes. I saw nothing, no malice, no excitement, nothing.

I nodded. “Okay. I’ll go there,” I said, knowing full well I had completely lost my mind but sure that my other options were limited.

“Do you know an indirect route?” he asked.

For some reason that question, one I hadn’t ever been asked before, brought me some measure of calm.

“I can go two more exits down and then circle back,” I said.

“Good, do that,” he said.

I did, and as I drove it occurred to me he was taking precautions for some reason, one that made my heart, which had calmed somewhat, speed again.

“Is someone following us?”

“Unlikely. But better safe than sorry,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, again hating the way my voice wavered, the stupidity in it.

What else could I say? I had no idea if it was better safe than sorry, just as I had no idea how this would turn out. I did as he asked and drove to my home, hoping and praying this entire nightmare would soon be over.

I pulled up to my duplex slowly, and noted that the interior was dark. Either Tiff wasn’t home yet, or she and her boyfriend Charles had retired to bed.

I hoped she wasn’t back yet. I didn’t necessarily relish the thought of her busting in on us or trying to imagine how he would react if she did so, but even more, I didn’t want her anywhere near this, and if she stayed away, she wouldn’t be in danger.

“So your roommate is not home,” he said as he watched the duplex through assessing eyes.

I might have heard accusation in his words, but that could have been my own guilty conscience. It wasn’t like I had anything to feel guilty about, but I’d always been a bad liar. I hoped he would overlook that.

“Probably not. She went out tonight,” I said.

He turned to look at me, his gaze moving over me slowly in a way that made my heart speed faster, my breath come out faster. This look was different, still assessing, but not as if he was trying to figure out if I was going to fall apart, or even if he was sizing me up to see if I was being deceptive.

This look, it was almost hungry, was the look a man gave to a woman. It should have freaked me out, had me worried, running. I was none of those things, though. In this moment, his eyes on me filled me with something far too close to desire, and sent my sex clenching, my nipples beading tight.

I was officially nuts.

“And you’re not out tonight? Clubbing or whatever people do with friends?” he asked a moment later, the way he’d spoken that sentence being the first hint of something almost like awkwardness I’d seen in him, almost as if he had no real understanding of what “people do with friends.”

That little hint of awkwardness was oddly endearing, but when he spoke, his voice broke the spell.

Something for which I should have been grateful.

I wasn’t.

Not in the slightest.

“No. I had to work,” I said.

He watched me for a moment longer and then got out of the car without another word.

I lingered, my legs unwilling to move, my heart again pounding but not with fear.

Get it together, Milan
.

My voice was loud in my head, but it did nothing to calm my body. The moment the door was wrenched open, I felt a rush of air enter the car. I kept my gaze centered on his chest, his dark suit jacket unwrinkled, his tie still neatly in place. It occurred to me I probably looked awful, and I reached up, stroked my fingers across the tight ponytail that was still miraculously in place. It was only after I did so that I remembered I wasn’t supposed to care how I looked.

“I promised, Milan. And I keep my promises,” he whispered, his voice almost tender.

After a deep breath, I moved my gaze up his broad chest, over his jaw, pausing briefly on his soft lips, until I finally met his eyes.

His expression was stoic but his eyes flashed with something like a promise. He was, I realized, trying to reassure me, had probably taken my pause as an expression of fear. That was one small silver lining that I could take from this. At least he hadn’t seen my reaction to him.

That was a benefit, one I would take advantage of. I was simply a means to an end, one that I didn’t doubt he would have any hesitation in destroying. I needed to get along, find a way out, and letting myself trust him, desire him, was beyond foolish.

Nonetheless, I couldn’t stop the feeling of comfort when I looked into his eyes, a warmth that was more than desire. As crazy as it was, my gut told me to trust him, at least for the moment, and I always listened to my gut.

Of course, the rational part of my brain tried to remind me, there was the question of what would happen if I didn’t. His eyes gave me comfort, but his body, this close to mine, didn’t only reignite the desire I had worked hard to squelch.

His body also reminded me of his power, left no doubt that if he so decided, he would have no trouble, not the slightest, crushing the life out of me. My gaze dropped to his hands without conscious thought. His hands were strong, the backs veined and lightly dusted with hair as dark as that on his head, his fingers long, thick, his clean, square fingernails cut short.

Looking at his hands led to imagining those hands on my body, not the direction my thoughts should have been going. When he lifted his arm and pulled the car door open wider, I followed the motion of his arm, the fluid, smooth movement only underscoring the power that was currently leashed, but I didn’t believe for a second the ease of his movements meant he was anything but completely alert.

And that alertness was what finally made me move. I got out of the car and stood as close to face-to-face with him as I could be. More like face-to-chest because I only barely reached his shoulder. We’d been in a car together but even those close confines hadn’t brought us as close together as we now stood.

We didn’t touch but were close enough that even the slightest movement would have brought us into contact. I froze, not wanting to move, not wanting to risk touching him. This day had already spun wildly out of control and was so far out of my experience, I didn’t have a framework to comprehend it. But touching him… Everything in my body told me that doing so would change things even more than they already had been.

So I stayed still, and after a deep breath, I lifted my eyes to his. There was an unspoken question in his eye, and I nodded, trying to let him know that I was ready, or as ready as I could be.

He stepped aside, leaving enough room for me to close the door. I did and then began walking toward the house, Priest close behind me. I made it halfway before I realized I didn’t have the key, and when I stopped short, his body bumped mine.

The shock of his touch reverberated through me in a way I couldn’t describe. Fear, desire, exhaustion, a wild and jumbled combination of emotion that left me breathless. That breathlessness only increased when he reached up and settled his hand near my waist, his fingers barely touching me but so warm they scorched me.

I turned quickly, breaking contact and looked at him again.

“The key. It’s in the car,” I said, my voice a whisper, a breathy one that gave away far more than my words.

His eyes went hard, suspicious, in an instant and he looked down at the key in my hand, before he lifted his eyes to mine again. I shivered, and this time it was almost entirely out of fear. Whatever girlish fantasy I was having, I didn’t know this man, and I needed to tread carefully. I hurriedly tried to explain.

“My bag and house key are in the trunk. Tommy told us to pack light today, and I don’t have too much room in my pockets,” I said.

He watched me again, his brows lowering, the previously placid expression on his face going dangerous.

“Are you up to something, Milan?” he asked.

His voice was even, completely unruffled, but I saw the gleam his eye.

“I just want to get the key.”

Some of the new fear that gripped me came out in my voice. He noticed it, but I couldn’t tell whether it helped or hurt my cause, because his expression gave nothing away. After a moment that seemed to drag on for an excruciatingly long time, his dark eyes on me intensifying my discomfort—and again raising that stupid desire—he nodded, seeming satisfied.

I started to walk and he fell in beside me, shortening his steps to match mine, and when I reached the car, I opened the trunk.

“Leave the bag. Just take the key,” he said.

“Okay,” I said as I reached in and grabbed the key and then closed the trunk and headed back toward the house, his steps still matching mine.

“Why?” I asked as we got closer to the duplex.

“I don’t know what’s in there, and I don’t have time to search,” he said.

“What do you mean? What could be in there?” I said, looking over at him.

Instead of answering he asked a question of his own. “You travel at night a lot, don’t you? Working these parties?”

“Yeah,” I said, shrugging.

“So you probably have something in there for protection. You don’t strike me as the type to carry a gun.” He looked me up and down. “But maybe a small knife. No, pepper spray.”

I blanched, grateful that it was both dark out and that my brown skin wouldn’t give away my embarrassment. Not that I had any reason to be embarrassed, though it still galled me that he had so easily pegged me. Probably a part of his profession, I reasoned.

“It’s only smart,” I said. “You never know what you might run into, and I never want to be one of those people stranded on the side of the road with no way to protect themselves.”

“But in this instance, you had completely noble intentions,” he said, his skepticism clear.