Guard (The Underground Book 3)

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  Published by The Hartwood Publishing Group, LLC,

  Hartwood Publishing, Phoenix, Arizona

  www.hartwoodpublishing.com

  Guard

  Copyright © 2016 by Becca Jameson

  Digital Release: July 2016

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination, or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Guard by Becca Jameson

  Haley Sullivan has been through hell and back. Mistaken for homeless, she was snatched off the street by the Russian Mafia and injected with an unknown substance for two weeks. Confused and scared out of her mind, she manages to get her hands on a gun and shoots randomly at a group of men, hoping to escape.

  With Mikhail Dudko has followed two Russian idiots who work for the Mafia after a strange ransom exchange. After a shootout that leaves the two mobsters dead—along with the owner of the house—he’s shocked to find the initial shooter to be a frightened, drugged, redheaded woman who takes his breath away in an instant.

  But Haley’s saga has just begun. The Russian Mafia wants her back. And Mikhail finds himself glued to her side twenty-four seven in an effort to protect her. As he falls harder for her every day, he realizes she’s everything he could ever ask for in a woman: gorgeous, kindhearted, and…submissive.

  Haley has a lot to work through. The last thing she needs is a man breathing down her back night and day. An enormous man who fights mixed martial arts for an underground Mafia ring and spends the rest of his time bossing her around in a way that makes her heart beat rapidly and her toes curl under just looking at him.

  Has she changed? Or did she always have a latent need to be dominated in her blood?

  Dedication

  To my awesome husband for working tediously on this series with me—often under a tight deadline—to make sure I didn’t mess up the storyline!

  Chapter One

  Haley Sullivan wrapped her arms around her pillow, inhaled deeply, and snuggled deeper under the covers. She needed more sleep. A heaviness settled over her as if she’d been up for days.

  Light streamed through her bedroom window, causing her to see orange and pink through her eyelids. Why hadn’t she shut the curtains?

  Every effort to go back to sleep failed. Her mind started to race, filling with the events of the last few weeks of her life—events she’d completely forgotten during the first few seconds of lucidity.

  A strange medical facility…

  Being snatched off the street…

  A giant Russian savior…

  Shit.

  She bolted upright, blinking through the blinding light of day and brushing red curls from her face. Her heart raced as her gaze landed on Mikhail Dudko—the very Russian savior she’d just remembered—sitting on her desk chair a few feet away.

  He’d been leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, but when she sat up abruptly, he righted himself and frowned. “You okay?”

  She swallowed, fisting the sheet in her lap with both hands. Finally, when she could breathe normally, she lowered her eyelids and found her voice. “How long was I asleep?”

  “This time?” he teased. “Or altogether since I found you?” His English was perfect, but his Russian accent was sexy as hell.

  She groaned and lowered onto her back to stare at the ceiling, tossing one forearm over her eyes to block the light.

  Mikhail stood and crept closer. She could hear his every move, and his actions both excited and unnerved her. The man was unbelievably sexy—a fact she had been trying to ignore since the first moment she’d seen him.

  Was it true that people could fall head over heels for someone as a result of an intense situation? Because if that was the case, she was doomed.

  She hated to ask how many days had passed since she’d first laid eyes on this Russian god with the blond spiked hair and ice blue eyes. He reminded her of Thor. And to make matters worse, he was ripped and tall. Muscles bulged from everywhere. He stood about six five she guessed, nearly a foot taller than her.

  When the bed dipped next to her, she held her breath. Every time he got close, she lost the ability to communicate. And he always seemed to have more questions that demanded interaction when he was in her space.

  “If I keep putting off the FBI agent, she’s going to think I’m holding you hostage in your apartment,” he began. “Do you think she could come by this morning and speak to you?”

  Haley lowered her arm and met his gaze. “Yeah. That’s fine.”

  “Good, because she’ll be here in about forty-five minutes.” He shrugged. “I was out of excuses.”

  Haley rolled her eyes. “Great…” She squirmed out from under the covers to climb out of bed on the opposite side. “I’ll take a shower. Can you make coffee?”

  He smiled. “Consider it done.”

  She glanced down at her attire, noting the loose boxers and tank top she liked to sleep in, crossed her arms over her chest, and took a step forward.

  Whoa. She reached out to steady herself against the mattress. She was weak and wobbly. Her arms shook.

  “I think you need food too. I don’t know what you weighed before I met you, but you’ve lost weight in the last few days. I hope you can stay awake today and eat like six times.”

  “Food,” she mumbled as she padded from the room. Her ability to eat still felt a little uncertain. Leaving Mikhail sitting on her bed, she slipped into the bathroom and shut the door.

  On a long exhale, she flipped on the shower to let the water heat up.

  And then she turned to face the mirror. Her eyes widened in horror. Her auburn curls hung in limp disarray around her face and shoulders. She had on no makeup, and every freckle she had stood out like a sore thumb against her unusually pale skin.

  She’d been white-complected her entire life, but this new lack of color from two weeks of lying drugged in some sort of lab was an all-time low.

  Her cheeks were hollow.

  Jerking her gaze away from the mirror, she shed her clothes, dropped them in the hamper, and stepped into the shower. The spray of hot water running over her head and down her body made her moan. It felt like heaven.

  Forty-five minutes was not going to be enough time. She could easily stand under the cascade of water for longer in an attempt to wash away the last two weeks of hell. But it wasn’t an option.

  She understood the FBI’s persistence. Hell, she didn’t want anyone else kidnapped from the street and held against their will either. She needed to describe everything that had happened to her as precisely as possible to aid the investigation.

  After washing her hair twice and conditioning it for several long minutes while she shaved, she reluctantly flipped off the water and wrapped herself in a giant fluffy towel.

  Towels were one of her few luxuries. Her crazy hippie parents had rarely invested in anything of high quality. Though she loved them to pieces, she’d spent her entire
childhood drying off on rough terrycloth rectangles that didn’t reach around her body. In a fit of rebellion, that was the one thing she didn’t carry over into adulthood.

  Shit.

  She hadn’t brought anything clean to put on in the bathroom. The tiny space was completely steamed over too. But it couldn’t be helped. She decided to fix herself from the neck up anyway and worry about clothes afterward.

  Tucking the towel around her securely, she grabbed her hair dryer and went to work. By the time she had her curls tamed into manageable waves, her hair was nearly twice as long as it had been in its kinky state.

  After wiping off a section of the mirror, she went to work with foundation, mascara, blush, and lip gloss.

  Why the hell was she going to so much trouble? She didn’t normally put quite that much effort into herself just to work at the homeless shelter.

  But then again, normally there wasn’t a Nordic god in her apartment.

  Satisfied with her appearance, she held the towel securely around her and opened the door to step out into the hall. She slipped around the corner and back into her bedroom, hoping not to encounter Mikhail before she could get dressed.

  That hope dissipated when she found him standing at her bedroom window staring outside.

  She stopped moving. From behind, he was even more delicious than from the front. Maybe.

  His ass, encased in perfect-fitting jeans, was firm and muscular. His waist was a relatively narrow V that spread up to encompass his broad back and broader shoulders. The black T-shirt he wore hugged him in all the right places, making her lick her lips as she stared.

  He must have sensed her behind him because he suddenly spun around, sloshing coffee over the edge of the mug she hadn’t noticed in his hand.

  Steam rose, but Thor didn’t pay any attention to the burn that had to sting his fingers. He froze in place, his mouth open, no sound coming out.

  Finally he managed to speak. “You… Uh, Haley?”

  She giggled, the sound foreign to her ears after weeks of fear. And then she made her way toward the closet on the right side of the room to grab a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved white T-shirt—her standard weekday apparel.

  When she turned to grab panties and a bra from a drawer, she found him standing in the same spot, not blinking, his gaze roaming up and down her body. “If you step out of the room, I could get dressed.”

  He blinked, closing his lips. “Oh, yeah. Right. Sorry.” He set the coffee mug on her bedside table and wiped his fingers on his jeans. As if the room were on fire, he took three strides to exit, shutting the door behind him.

  Good. She fought the urge to smile. It had been a long time since anyone looked at her like that. And after what she’d been through, she needed the boost of confidence.

  Tossing her clothes on the bed, she unwrapped the towel and dressed quickly. Not bothering with socks or shoes, she grabbed the steaming mug and took a long sip.

  Even the man’s coffee was perfect.

  ∙•∙

  Holy shit.

  Mikhail Dudko slapped his hand against his forehead and paced Haley’s tiny living room. That little spitfire had him in knots. And she’d managed to keep him that way for the entire two days he’d known her.

  Granted, she’d slept the majority of those two days.

  She’d made an impression on him from the first moment he’d set eyes on her curled in the corner of Dr. Ted Christianson’s bedroom where she’d been held against her will. As soon as the doctor and two men working for the head of the Russian Mafia were killed in a shootout, Mikhail had been the first to enter the room.

  He’d had no idea who he might find in there. He hadn’t expected it to be a thin, pale woman wielding a gun. And he certainly hadn’t expected to find a sexy redhead.

  Lord. He’d always had a thing for redheads.

  He chuckled to himself, remembering how feisty she was. He should have known. After all, even in her drugged state, she’d managed to find a gun and aim it at—well, everyone. She had no aim.

  She’d shot both Erik and Boris at least once, although not fatally. Thank God she hadn’t hit any of the good guys—namely Mikhail himself who had entered the house with two of his fighting buddies, Ivan and Leo. The three of them had followed the two idiots—Boris and Erik—who worked for Anton Yenin halfway across Chicago.

  What they hadn’t expected was a shootout. Boris and Erik were too stupid to actually use a gun. But the house belonged to the doctor, who’d also been working under the radar for Yenin.

  When the gunfire started, Mikhail wasn’t even in the house. He burst in through the front entrance while the police broke in through the back door.

  The last thing anyone expected was a drugged and frightened redhead hiding in the house with big enough balls to shoot her way out.

  She’d been a knockout at first sight. But the woman who just emerged from the bathroom with a large white towel wrapped around her middle, hair blown into submission, and makeup on… Lord, that woman kicked him in the gut.

  She’d left him speechless. It had been difficult to convince his feet to move forward so he could leave her alone to get dressed.

  A noise behind him had him turning around to find her exiting the bedroom. Jesus.

  “You make good coffee.” She lifted her mug. “Is there more?”

  “Yes. Of course.” He strolled across the room and took the cup from her hand. Their fingers touched, sending electricity through his body at the contact.

  When he glanced down at her dainty bare feet, he almost swallowed his tongue. He needed to get out of her apartment and fast. He’d been with her for two nights, watching her, making sure she was safe.

  Now that she was back in the land of the fully living, it was time to get away from her before he made a fool of himself.

  You don’t even know this woman…

  A knock at the door made him flinch. He set her coffee cup on the end table next to the couch and turned to look through the peephole.

  A woman stood outside, dressed in black yoga pants, a yellow nylon sports shirt, and tennis shoes. She wore her hair in a messy ponytail and had earbuds dangling from her shoulders. This could not be the FBI agent.

  Mikhail opened the door.

  The woman held out a hand. “Agent Taylor Brown. You must be Mikhail Dudko?”

  He blinked, hesitating before taking her hand. “Yes. Come in. You aren’t quite what I was expecting.” He stood back to let her pass.

  It felt like he was playing house. After all, this was Haley’s apartment, not his.

  Agent Brown chuckled as she entered the apartment, reaching for Haley’s hand next. “Haley, you look so much better today.”

  “Thank you. Did we meet the other day, Agent Brown?”

  The taller woman with the dark brown hair and deep brown eyes smiled. “Please, call me Taylor. And not really. You were out of it. I was briefly at the clinic when you came in. I’m hoping you won’t mind me asking you some questions.”

  “Of course. Please. Sit.” Haley pointed at the recliner across from her sofa. “I just hope I have anything to add that will help catch whoever did this to me before he grabs anyone else off the street.”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry to tell you this. I know you work with the homeless every day, but I’m afraid at least a dozen people have gone missing, including one more this morning. It’s hard to track everything since missing homeless people don’t often get reported.” Taylor set her briefcase next to the recliner and lowered into the seat.

  Haley shuddered. “I knew some people were unaccounted for a few weeks ago. I even reported it to the cops. But they don’t put a high priority on missing homeless. Unfortunately a lot of law enforcement sees them as expendable. The officer I spoke to barely gave me the time of day. He suggested maybe they got jobs or moved to a different territory.

  “That could happen in rare instances, but people on the streets don’t usually disappear without a trace. They have a sort of unconven
tional family system. If one of them got lucky, they would have told others. If someone was moving to another location, they also would have informed their friends. Multiple disappearances without a word are rare.”

  Mikhail could hear the passion in Haley’s voice when she spoke of how much she cared about the less fortunate members of society. He had lived with similar bad luck himself. As a teenager, he’d been one of those people, even living on the streets of Russia sometimes.

  He shook thoughts of years ago from his head and took Haley’s arm to lead her to sit on the sofa. “I’ll get you more coffee. Would you like some, Taylor?” His voice cracked with each word.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Okay.” He pointed over his shoulder. “I’ll just wait in the other room. Give you both some privacy.”

  Haley swung her head around to face him where he stood behind her faded maroon couch. “No. Please. Stay. Keeps me from having to repeat myself later.” She gripped the arm of the couch, fingering the frayed seam.

  It was true she hadn’t told him much of anything yet. She’d slept most of the past day and a half, and when she’d been awake, it had been to eat something small or drink copious amounts of water.

  Mikhail refilled Haley’s mug, set it on the end table next to her, and stepped over her legs to take a seat on her other side. He left plenty of space between them, though what he really wanted to do was haul her into his lap and wrap his arms around her.

  It was absurd how strongly he felt about Haley. He knew very little about her. What he did know was that ordinarily she wouldn’t be the kind of woman who would want to be coddled. She had latched on to him for dear life when he’d first approached, but she’d been drugged and scared out of her mind at the time.

  What was the real Haley like?

  “Do you mind if I tape our conversation?”

  “No.” Haley crossed her arms and rubbed her biceps as if she were cold.

  Taylor leaned forward and set her cell phone on the coffee table, and then she cleared her throat. “Oh.” She glanced down at herself. “Any time I come see you, I’ll do my best to blend in. Figured if I pretended to be a random renter in this building returning from the gym, no one would pay any attention to me.”