Two Hitmen: A Double Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Lawless Book 1) (127 page)

His gun was almost against my head and shouted back to Vassily, “So, how are we going to get the shipment? How are you going to salvage it for me?”

Vassily laughed. “What do you think you’ll do with it?”

“Cut it up and sell it. Obviously. Dickhead.”

My fingers closed around the handle of my little gun. If I turned the clutch, I could point it into his groin, but I didn’t know it I could be fast enough. The barrel of his gun was shoved against my head so hard it bent my neck painfully. I shouted, “The ‘merch’ wouldn’t be worth much after you cut it, Bruto.”

He said, “What the fuck?” Now he turned the barrel to point at me.

I pursed my lips, “You haven’t worked out what’s in the truck yet, have you?” Bruto grabbed my wrist and pulled my hand with the clutch. Now it pointed at Luka.
 

Bruto shouted, “Come on, Luka,” and he jabbed the gun even harder against my temple. “Put us down, I’ll get the merch and we can be done.” He still had a tight grip on my wrist. “Otherwise I’ll waste this cunt.”

The helicopter’s engine whined into a deafening scream and we climbed fast. My stomach stayed behind. Luka jerked the control column and we flipped sideways again. This time Bruto didn’t get a grip quickly enough.

He splayed and yelled as he plunged backwards through the open side of the helicopter. The sound of the machine gun’s rattle faded as he loosed off a crackling arc of bright sparks into the night. We must have been six, maybe seven hundred feet up.

Luka looked over at me anxiously. I was grinning so much I thought I might drop a tear. He gave me back a beam of his smile that warmed me like a volcano all the way through. In that moment I realized I could trust him with my life. More, even...

I said, “I bet he wishes you’d flown lower now.”

Luka said, “Not for long, though.” A distant
brrap
from the machine gun was followed by a dull, crumpling thud.

Over his shoulder, Luka said to Vassily, “You don’t really think the cartel will blow the truck, do you?”

“No,” Vassily chuckled. “They’ve been paid. They’d have no reason to. The little skirmish on the way out? They’ll probably consider that a bonus.”

I asked him, “Why the huge helicopter though, Vassily? Why not just use the truck?

“We deliver directly to the club. There’s a big terrace on the roof. Not big enough to land this bus on, but we can hover over it to get out. Going directly into the club saves any potential embarrassment with police along the way.”

I put the helicopter down right back where we’d taken off. It wasn’t even that bumpy of a landing. Fortunately, Bruto’s remains were crumpled somewhere out in the darkness so Alexa didn’t have to look at them. Vassily may have felt differently. I wouldn’t have minded a view for confirmation, but there were other things to deal with now.

Alexa stepped out of the big military helicopter like it was something she did every day. She crossed the tarmac with Vassily, over toward the back of the truck. I followed.
 

Alexa said to Vassily, “The Columbian girls—are they Columbian?—they’re slaves.”

Vassily looked shocked. “They’re from the Central America and the Caribbean. But no. They have to work for six months so I recover the cost of the passage, then they’re free to go. They can stay in the States or fly home, if they want.”

“How many of them do you allow to take up that option?”

He stopped and turned to her. Seeing her standing up to this ruthless mobster, I wondered if there was anything, anything at all that this woman couldn’t do. He smiled as he told her, “Truly, Alexa, all the girls who want to leave are free to go. By six months, they’ve made enough money to fly home and have some left to take with them. Not so much maybe, but some.” He looked sincere enough, but she was still doubtful.

She lifted her chin as she said, “Yeah, if they haven’t spent it all and gotten deep in debt with your drug dealers.”

Vassily gave her back a thin smile. “They don’t do too many drugs. They have them for the customers, but I do what I can to keep the girls clean.” He looked in her eye, “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I don’t do it because I’m a nice guy. It makes them better at their jobs.”

“They fuck better?”

“Maybe, I don’t know about that. I think they’re all pretty good at that aspect of the work. Like I said, it isn’t new to them. No, if their heads are clear, they work the clients better.”

She gave him a puzzled frown.

He said, “Help him to see the value of extra services. Bottles of champagne. Suites of rooms.” As the armed Russians came out of the darkness and clustered around the back of the truck, Vassily told her, “When the time comes, six months from now, most of these girls will want to want to stay. The money’s good, the working conditions are a different world to what they’re used to. Their living conditions here are better than anything they’ve ever seen before. They’re safer at work and they make way more money. After the six months, out of twenty to thirty girls, no more than one or two want to go home. And out of those, more than half want to come back a few months later.”

“You’re telling me that the girls are happy?” She looked him in the eye. “I think all pimps say that. I don’t think many little girls dream of growing up to be prostitutes.”

He chuckled, “You might be surprised about that. Did you never see the Julia Roberts movie
Pretty Woman
?”
 

She shook her head. “I’ve seen it, of course, but that’s just a stupid movie. Working girls don’t live like that. They don’t get picked up by billionaires, either.”

“Maybe, but the girl in that stupid movie is a role model for a lot of kids, you know?”

When we got to the truck, Vassily punched numbers into a keycode lock on the back door. Before he pulled it open, he told Alexa, “Okay, it might not have been their childhood dream, but how many adults are living out their favorite fairytales? These girls have all been working long before they come to us.”

“And you’re going to keep them as working girls.”

“Instead of what, Alexa?” He put a hand on his hip and looked hard at her, “Look, I could open the door and turn them loose right now. If you want me to, I will.”

“Really?”

“Think. What will happen to them? If they’re lucky, they won’t be attacked while they wander around the fringes of Manhattan before they all get picked up. Then they’ll have a nice time in the holding cells, then detention while they await trial for illegal immigration, and then they’ll be deported.”

I didn’t know what to say. He asked me, “Shall I give them all your address so they can write and thank you when they finally get home?”

The door opened. The girls ducking out of the back of the truck were stooped, and they all looked pretty tired and ragged.
 

Vassily said, “They’ve come a long way. Probably not the easiest journey.” He put a hand on her arm. Something in my stomach rose and I had to hold myself back. He told her, “Come to the club and see them tomorrow. See if they don’t look happier to you.”

Vassily’s pilot emerged from out of the shadows and trotted over. I offered him my hand. “No hard feelings, I hope?”

The pilot slapped my arm and said, “You’re joking, right? You think I’m going to be upset with you that I was on solid ground while you stood that huge fucking can on its nose about a meter off the ground and then flew it sideways? Yeah, I’m really sorry that I missed that ride.”

We shook hands and bro-hugged.

The line of girls shivered and kept their eyes down as they dipped out of the truck. The Russians hustled them across the compound and climbed into the helicopter. They didn’t seem to be using any force or coercion, but the girls all looked pretty exhausted, so it wouldn’t have taken much.

Vassily told Alexa, “Come and see them when they’ve had time to shower and rest. I’ll introduce you. Come tomorrow, if you like.”

As he was leaving, he turned back and said, “Come now if you want to. You’ll have to climb the rope ladder down to the club while we hover, but I don’t think that will bother you too much.”

Alexa said, “Thanks, Vassily, but tomorrow works. There’s something else I need to do right now.”

Vassily looked at me. Then he waved to her as he turned with his pilot back to the helicopter.

We watched them climb aboard the helicopter, then stood back by the brick wall of a broken building. In the moonlight, in the wind, she looked wonderful.

“You were magnificent,” I told her, “The way you kept your cool all the way through this. You’re pretty amazing, you know?”

Alexa stepped close and I felt the warmth of her, close to me. The chopper blades started up and I put my arm around her shoulder. She was starting to say something, but I couldn’t hear her over the noise. We wouldn’t be able to cross the compound back to the van for a minute or two, not until after the helicopter was clear.

Luka tugged on my arm. The helicopter blades pounded the air and he pulled me to shelter in the wreck of an old warehouse on the side of the compound. Icy cold blew in from the gaps in the wall by the inky sparkling river.
 

The noise of the chopper shook the walls. I turned and hammered my fists on his chest. All the tension I’d been holding in seemed to well up and burst out.

“Flying like that, you ass!” I shouted in his face. “You frightened the hell out of me.” The tension and the cold made me shake.
 

Luka hauled my two wrists high above my head as he pressed me against the rough brick wall. The cold air came right off the river where most of the wall of the building was gone.
 

From deep in my soul I wanted him, but I had to tell him the news. He had to know before we made love. Before anything. And all it needed was for me to break off, to make him stop just long enough for me to tell it to him. Nothing to it, right? Simply disentangle my tongue from his. Ignore the stinging itch of my nipples as they filled inside my bra to push against his hand. Stop my thighs from parting, my hips from rocking against his hard ridge.

And I had to know. I needed to see and hear his reaction, how it would affect him. His kiss overtook me and stirred me from my core. Fires lit inside me and ran trickling in rivulets through my thighs, my throat, my stomach, and my breasts. I had to know, to see his face, the light in his eyes when I told him. The rest of my life, all of my future depended on his reaction.

I twisted to pull my mouth from his, he followed me, and his kiss grew fiercer, wetter, deeper and more demanding. My shoulders shook, but all that did was to jiggle my breasts against him, making him harder, making me hotter.

Luka’s chest trembled. Whatever I did seemed to incense him more, and my treacherous lips, my pleasure-seeking body, responded, resonated. As he rose, I reciprocated.

The sawing of his rigid cock strained the hard denim around it and ground against my thick, seeping wings. My hips with a motor of their own pressed back against him. As hard as I could I groaned, shouted, but he only mistook it for my passion rising and he fastened my open mouth more savagely with his own.

His tongue made it harder for me to make any sound at all, and my own tongue joined in league with his. He pulled my blouse open and my back arched as he pressed and squeezed my breasts.

He snapped open the clip of my bra and my breasts sprang and spilled free, bouncing for him to hold and tease them. More than ever, I desperately needed to tell him, to have him know, to see his eyes, his face, but one by one, each part of my body was deserting me and joining the opposition.

If I couldn’t tell him in the next few seconds, it would be too late. We’d be thrashing and clawing at each other and slamming our bodies together, and he wouldn’t know and he’d never forgive me.

His hands were on my thighs. I lifted them to escape the stroke of his fingers, but it only gave him more access to the sensitive backs and the frail insides. I threw my legs around him, but that just pressed my gasping flower against the trunk of his cock.

Nothing I had in me could stop me rocking my pubic bone along the abrasive ridge in his jeans. Turning my face didn’t get me away. I bit his lip, and even that inflamed him further. I shouted as loud as I could, but even I could only hear the muffled, incomprehensible sound. The words were lost.

With more force, I did it again as his hand slipped inside my panties. His fingers slid straight into my wet lips, and I knew that it was now or never. With all the strength I had, I shouted. His cheeks blew out and the seal of our mouths broke.

He looked in my eyes, and then with a ragged hunger, he spun me round to push me to face the crumbling wall, rough and dusty against my cheek as his hand found the flimsy, wet folds of fabric between my legs.

I writhed as I felt the cold air on my ass. My flesh quivered when he lifted my skirt. Now, now I could tell him. But he would stop. I couldn’t make the words come out. He yanked my thighs wide apart; which was where they wanted to be. I jolted at the shock as he slapped my ass.

I had to let his fingers on me, in me, just once more. In case it would be this time and never again, I needed to let him slip inside the sides of my skewed panties and between my hot furls. Rub and rouse me in the yawning, swollen need of my trembling lips and force their way deep into my waiting walls.

He yanked my hair and I almost lost control.

The dull echo of my groaning shout, “
Safe word
!” was much louder than I planned for, and it sounded kind of off. Like a wrong note.

He stopped. Immediately his grip on my wrists loosened, his face became serious by the side of mine and he peered to search my eyes.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes, I—”

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No, I—”

“Was I hurting you?”

“No. Yes. But not in a bad... It doesn’t matter I—”

“What is it? Are you sure that you’re all right?”

I whimpered. “Yes, I’m all right. I’m better than all right. Look, I need to know something.”

“Now?”

“Yes,” I told him, “Now.”

He looked baffled. “Okay. Shoot.”