Xander (Billionaire Racers Book 1) (4 page)

XANDER

If Lily believes she can waltz into the club, hit me with her demand, and then fucking walk out of my life a free woman, she is a crazy woman. I would never let her walk out of here unprotected if she has trouble dogging her heels. Her words piss me off, make me angry… and make me scared too. Not of the Banda—I’ll take care of them—but because she could have been hurt and I would have found out too late. With Lily, I am never by her side. I am watching and waiting, and it is time that ends. She is old enough now for what I want.

“You have a problem? You come to me.” I do not care about the shit that has gone down between our families and us, or how awkward she may find it being married to a total stranger. Protecting her is my job, and it has been ever since we exchanged vows.

“I’ve got it under control so far.” She hunches her shoulders, stilling. I do not believe her. Our world is far too dangerous for her, and she has refused to learn its rules.

“You have names for me?”

She looks anxious. “Don’t kill anyone.”

“
Da
.” Generally, I try to avoid murder, but looking at her face, I can see she does not believe me. I am not justifying myself to her when I can just take care of her business. I am a fixer, and I will fix this.

“I’m serious.” She crosses her arms over her chest and glares at me. “The Petrov family has gone legal, and we’re not looking to stir shit up. I don’t have the money to pay the Banda off.”

“I get that you want them gone, but you pay them once and they will always be back.” It is a classic shakedown. Scare the shit out of your mark, and then offer your protection in exchange for a hefty monthly fee. It is like those assholes who infect your computer with a virus only to offer to remove it if you purchase their software. Lily will have the Banda hounding her for the rest of her life unless she makes a stand.

She knows that too. It’s why she’s here.

She shakes her head. “I can pay them. I can confront them. Or I can I find protection.”

“And I am this protection you need?”

She looks sad and vulnerable, and this is not a look I want to see on her face. Plus, she should not be the Petrov who comes to me. That is her father’s place, and he should crawl to me, beg for my help.

“Where is daddy dearest?” I ask bluntly. Maybe she is playing me.

“At home.” She juts her chin out and taps my chest again.

“Why does he not take care of this business?”

Her problem is not the Banda. If they are circling the Petrovs, then the Petrovs are already dead. When she hesitates, I stare her down. I cannot help her if I do not know what I am up against.

“My dad’s not well.” She sighs, and then she caves. A stupid, sentimental part of me hopes she is telling me because she trusts me to help her. “He’s going senile, Xander. He doesn’t remember the stuff that happened this morning, but he can go back fifty years. He forgets, and he’s scared.”

I try to imagine the big, red-faced, bluff man who ran his family with an iron fist as someone weak and scare. Age gets us all eventually, but apparently Petrov is headed out sooner than most. This is not a happy thought.

But it is an opportunity. Lily is here. She has come to me. I capture her hands in mine and examine them. Her fingers are bare. She wears no ink—and no rings. I placed an expensive diamond wedding band on her ring finger six years ago, and now I see no sign of it. The absence pisses me off. There is not even a betraying white mark on her finger—she has clearly not worn it in months or years. Possibly, she took it off as soon as she exited the courthouse, and I do not like that thought.

Her mouth tightens. “We’re not really married.”

“We are.” I will not let her deny me, not in this.

She shakes her head. “I was sixteen.”

“Which was too young,” I agree. “But you are older now and you want something from me. I would always agree to help my wife.”

Her mouth drops open. It is actually cute. I do not think she thought her plan all the way through when she decided to come here. Or perhaps Ivan put the idea in her head. Honestly, I do not care. The only thing that matters is that she is here and she has another problem that I must fix for her. I nudge her lower lip with my thumb.

“You will catch flies,” I whisper roughly, because I am far too close to doing something imprudent. I need to wait for her to come to me, to be ready for me, but Lily’s mouth makes me think filthy thoughts. She is all luscious summertime and soft pink lips I need wrapped around my dick as she sucks me in. Damned if I can make myself step back. Not when I want to strip that dress from her.

Da
. I really need to kiss her.

“My being here is a mistake,” she says.

No, it is part of my plan and the game that Ivan Petrov and I have played. She is my prize and I will treasure her.

“Lily.” I say her name, my accent growing rougher and more obvious. She is my Russian flower, my treasure. “Liliya.”

“What?” She swallows hard. Why is asking for my help so hard?

“Who are you asking if I do not help you?”

She shrugs, pretending she has a million options, when she has just one.
Me
. “The Chechens.”

If the Russian mob plays by different rules than normal people do, the Chechens do not play even the same game. They are feudal, tribal, possessive, brutal, and the absolute kings of anything they touch. They make money hand over fist, and the loyalty they inspire is frightening. They can fix her father’s problem, but their help will not come cheap. I am already a sure thing, although I will not tell her this.

“You should ask me again,” I tell her.

She eyes me suspiciously. “Are you going to change your mind?”

“For you, yes, I am changing my mind. You will come to this dock tomorrow. You will race with me. Understood?”

I should refuse to get involved. The Petrovs have been a pain in my ass since the moment I laid eyes on Lily. She asks for my help as if it is a simple thing, when nothing could be more complicated than the mob. Favors owed, paid, collected on. Blood debts. Money debts. A Gordian knot stretches from Moscow to Miami and then halfway around the world, and if Ivan Petrov has pissed off the wrong people, he has also had it coming to him for years. And yet all she has to do is ask, and I will do it.

She protests again. “I have a business to run and my father—”

“This is my first condition. If you want my protection, you come to me and I give it to you.”

She chews on her lower lip. Lily is not stupid. She knows that first implies
second
. “And then?”

“And then we meet my second condition. I want my wife back.”

Her eyes widen. “I was
sixteen
.”

“And I was twenty-two.” I shrug. “We made promises to each other, and now I want you to keep them.”

Her eyes narrow. She is thinking to negotiate with me. “For how long?”

My fingers flex, the ink dancing across my knuckles. Six years ago, I inked her name on my wedding finger. It is a reminder to myself of what is at stake. “For now. I will let you know when I am done with you. I want what is mine. I want my wife.”

“You don’t know me,” she protests. “How can you say you want to be married to me when you don’t know who I am?”

She has a point, but it is not entirely true. Some things I know. For example? Her enemies are my enemies.

“I know plenty,” I counter.

“Like what?”

“You have a degree in marketing and Russian literature from Columbia University. You are the CEO of your own Internet marketing company. You buy flowers every Friday.”

“Are you
watching
me?” She sounds horrified. Did she really think I would leave her entirely alone and unprotected? I have been hands-off, but
da
, I have also checked in a time or two.

“I am learning about you,” I say gruffly. “Exactly like you asked.”

“That’s not what I meant,” she protests, and I think she actually means it. Too bad. She should have been more specific.

“I am kissing you now. To seal our deal.” I give her the heads-up because a shotgun marriage does not actually give me kissing rights. She is the one person in this world who gets to tell me no, but I will also only give her one shot at it.

She does not say no and she does not step away. Does not knee me in the balls, slap my face, or call for security. I give her all the time in the world, and she just stares up at me with the cutest puzzled look on her face.

“If this is a new line of party favors, you should plan for a queue.”

“This is just for you.” The words coming out of my mouth do not belong to me. I sound like a fucking player, but I mean them.

I wrap an arm around her waist and ease her deeper into the shadows. We are not alone out here—my bodyguards are always close by—but darkness creates an illusion of privacy.

LILY

Xander cages me between his hard body and the wall. When I suck air into my oxygen-starved lungs, his scent floods me. God. He’s an asshole. I push at his chest, and he goes nowhere. Instead, he cradles my face in his big, inked hands.

“You are my wife. I am your husband. That means I have your back. Whatever shit goes down, I fix it.” How can I stay strong when he makes it so easy to lean on him? “How much time does your father have?”

Xander’s ability to figure out what his opponent wants is a key reason why he’s been so successful.

“He’s not well physically.” I’m not sure what to do with my hands. We’re not kissing—and we’re not precisely fighting. There’s not a whole lot of space between us. When I shift, my legs brush his, and I’m pretty sure that’s his dick I feel brushing against me. Since this just makes my panties wet, apparently I’m okay with our close quarters.

His mouth brushes my ear. “You are holding out on me,
angel
. You need a doctor if he is sick. I am muscle. I am a fixer for a different kind of problem.”

“The Banda are pressuring us. Nothing big, nothing overt. Not yet. But they’re outside the house, watching, and they’re outside the bars.” The Petrov family owns a dozen bars in Miami-Dade county. Before my dad got sick, he made the rounds weekly. Now I’m trying to check in, but it’s hard. I have my own consulting business, so trying to take on more work is a challenge, plus I need to spend time with my dad. He needs me—and I don’t know how long I’ll have him. I don’t want to spend my last days or months in a bar checking the books instead of with him.

“Just watching?”

“Mostly.” It’s hard to put into words. There’s something infinitely creepy about knowing your enemy is sitting just outside, waiting for you to come out. “They catcall and say things when they see me, and someone vandalized my car. It’s not really a big deal.”

“Liar,” he growls against my ear. He’s angry on my behalf, I realize, and it’s been so long since I could let go, let someone else handle the worry.

“I’ve thought about leaving,” I admit. “I could move to a different state, take a new name, and put some space between my dad and me. I’m a weakness they can use against him.”

He curses, a low, rough sound. Russian curses are a linguistic work of art. They’re filthy, animalistic, and so gorgeously descriptive that you can’t translate them. Still, Xander can empty the dictionary of curse words, but it doesn’t change the truth.

“Or I marry someone who can take my dad’s place as the head of the Petrov family.”

There. I’ve said it. The words hang in the air between us.

“Two things,
angel
.” His thumb sweeps over my lower lip. Gently. Ruthlessly seductive. “First, you’ve already got a husband and bigamy’s illegal in Florida. Second, why not take over yourself?”

I feel my head moving back and forth, left, right, in denial. I’ve never imagined myself as the head of the Petrov family. It’s not who I am or what I do.

“Running’s safer,” I blurt out, and he laughs. God, he’s got the best laugh.

“But I am not letting you go.”

Xander Volkov.

My husband. The man my father forced to marry me when I was sixteen and too stupid to say
no
. The man I haven’t seen since. The man I’ve never stopped thinking about.

And he wants us to… what?
I’m not letting you go
covers so much territory, all of it dangerous. Just thinking about his kissing me makes my lips tingle. I’m hot, melting inside. Aching for more. I’ve never left Xander. Not really. All these years and all these miles? I’ve carried a piece of him with me.

I’ve avoided the Bratva, the Mafia families, and the life. I’ve made excuses for doing that—they’re morally bankrupt and violent. They cross every line of decency and commit felonies like other, more normal people run to the grocery store. But not all the families are corrupt, and while the Petrovs aren’t perfect, they’re mine, and it’s my responsibility to make sure they stay as safe as they can in this crazy world. Xander Volkov can help me do that.

“Lily.” He says my name, and I’m wet.

I can’t do this. I absolutely
shouldn’t
do it. But I hear him say my name as I haven’t heard him say it since we stood in front of that justice of the peace and made promises to each other that we had no intention of keeping. He towers over me, bigger, stronger, and more ruthless than ever.