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  The leader of the Russian mob in Vegas—Anton Yenin—had been in jail six months under vague racketeering charges. It wasn’t as if everyone didn’t know he’d kidnapped a woman named Abby Burns and extorted her boyfriend, Zane Randolf, by forcing him to fight on her behalf. And then, days later, from behind bars, he had Erik and Boris kidnap Lauren Schneider. However, Yenin was the leader of the mob. There was no way for the Feds or the cops to pin anything on him specifically.

  Those assholes had nevertheless managed to have Yenin held without bond for the last six months. Any day now Yenin would slip through their fingers, before Yenin’s lawyers got him out. It was only a matter of time.

  “Nope, but I’m betting it’s imminent or we wouldn’t have been sent here to hunt down his men. It sure isn’t because Grigory has taken a sudden interest in fighting.” Erik stared out the motel window.

  “True. Wonder why Yenin is so interested in these damn fighters, and Grigory let them disappear as soon as he came to town.”

  “Good question. Maybe Grigory has too much on his plate handling things in both New York and Vegas to chase after his son’s pet project while he’s in the slammer.”

  “So why now? Why didn’t he wait for Yenin to get out of jail to wrangle up his own boys?”

  “Also a good question. If I had to guess, I’m betting it’s a test. Yenin’s still pissed we let that bitch Lauren slide through our fingers. He probably told dear old Dad to give us a task to prove our worth before he returns to the fold. Frankly I’d be surprised if Grigory didn’t have a hit out on us while we’re running around Chicago doing his fucking dirty work.”

  Boris released the tight grip of his fingers and leaned forward to put his elbows on his knees. “Yeah. That’s my thinking too. And I still want to punch something when I think of that whore climbing out the window of that fucking cabin and traipsing off through the woods. Fucking cunt.”

  Erik gave a wry chuckle. “Admit it. You’re pissed at yourself for not checking to make sure the window was secure before you locked her in the room.”

  “Who knew the bitch had the stamina to take off in the woods and escape? We were fucking miles away from the nearest town, and she had no way of knowing what direction to run. She had no coat and no shoes. Too bad that logic means nothing to Yenin.”

  “Yeah, she has to be dead out there somewhere. We simply never found the body.” Erik turned around and grinned. “Damn shame. I was looking forward to a good fuck before we offed her.”

  “You and me both. A coyote probably got her.” Boris moaned. He’d had a hard-on for the cunt from the moment he’d first set eyes on her. Just when he finally had a chance to taste the goods, she fucking got away. “Well, all we can do is get this job done. Maybe Grigory will call off his cronies if we impress him with our abilities.”

  “Uh huh. Because historically the leader of the Russian mafia out of New York is known for his kind gestures of goodwill.” Erik smirked, but his voice was ominous and shaky.

  Boris knew the man wasn’t kidding. If they fucked this up, their lives were toast. Hell, it was possible their lives were toast either way.

  “What are the latest instructions?”

  Erik rolled his eyes. “To locate Dmitry Volikov and Mikhail Dudko. Nothing has changed.”

  “We still aren’t supposed to approach them?”

  “Nope. We haven’t been told to do anything but find them and have them followed. He doesn’t want anyone to know we’re in town. We need to hire a guy to track them down. Grigory doesn’t want anyone to see us. He wants us to stay close to the motel and manage things.”

  “Ah, so not only have we been put up in a dumpy shithole, but we aren’t supposed to leave the room.” Boris blew out a long breath. “How fucking boring.”

  Chapter Two

  Lauren pushed through the crowded downtown Chicago bar. She fought to keep her composure until she could manage to exit through the front door and get far enough away not to make a fool of herself with her wide grin and peppy step.

  It was absurd. Who got this worked up over the incredibly shitty job offer she’d just accepted in a seedy bar on a seedier street in Chicago?

  Inked.

  Many of the patrons were local bikers with unbelievably elaborate tattoos—thus the name of the bar.

  It was crowded and filled with the scent of testosterone and beer. So much beer had spilled on the floor during the night that it made walking across the concrete surface slippery and sticky. It was also dark. An easy place to be anonymous and ignore the world for a few hours.

  She’d had enough. Enough twiddling her thumbs holed up in a three bedroom apartment for months. Enough letting two fucking sexy Russian men tell her to stay inside and keep a low profile. Enough boring days and nights with nothing to do but teach a tediously difficult language to Mikhail’s younger sister, Alena, who had arrived in Chicago a few weeks after Lauren.

  The two of them had been thrust into an uncomfortable situation with nothing to do but find a way to communicate. As the days stretched into months with no end in sight, Lauren had done a fabulous job of teaching her willing student the English language. Alena had also done a decent job of teaching Lauren some rudimentary Russian. But nothing kept her from going stir crazy.

  Especially not the surly man who rescued her from one horrific fate only to drag her halfway across the country to what amounted to another jail sentence as far as she was concerned.

  A tingle still rushed up and down her spine when she thought about the level of stupidity she had stooped to getting herself into this position in the first place. She’d met Anton Yenin in the casino where she waitressed in Vegas, The Crystal Palace.

  Anton had been hanging around in her section with several of his men for weeks. Lauren figured he was handsome enough—although significantly older than her—but she hadn’t thought much about him until he asked her to join him for a drink one night.

  Stupid. If only she had declined.

  But she hadn’t. The man was rich and enchanting and funny. He acted like a perfect gentleman for several weeks as he wooed her into his web. And she’d been naïve enough to fall for his charm. By the time he had her in his bed, it was too late to turn back. Denying Anton Yenin anything was never an option.

  That had been six months ago. She was appreciative of everything Dmitry had done for her.

  But Lauren was done. Beyond done.

  She no longer gave a shit if her life was in danger. She didn’t even believe it could possibly be true anymore. Six months was a long time to hide from a man who was in jail. Surely no one was still looking for her. It would be a complete waste of resources.

  And she was stir crazy enough to no longer care. She needed to move on with her life.

  She shivered against the cooler night air typical of spring in Chicago as she walked down the dark street, hugging her small purse to her side and trying to avoid the crevices in the cracked sidewalk with her spike heels. Hell, the only reason she had access to the cheap, uncomfortable heels was because Alena managed to beg her brother to buy her some more girly clothes.

  The woman had no more reason to leave the apartment than Lauren, and God knew neither of them had permission to ever do so. Lauren had a marginal understanding of what Alena was hiding from. It seemed almost as ludicrous as her own story.

  Apparently, Mikhail spent years trying to get his sister out of Russia. An opportunity presented itself two weeks after Lauren and Dmitry arrived in Chicago when their new manager, Abram Gromov, managed to buy Alena passage, and finally she was in the US with a green card and new life. Except her life was total shit, like Lauren’s. She hadn’t left the apartment in six months either. The woman was shy and genuinely scared for her life, so she never questioned her cloistering. She seemed content with it.

  Nevertheless, she’d begged her brother to buy her some nice clothes on the pretense that at least she could make believe she was feminine if she had a few nice things.

  Thank Go
d they wore the same size shoes, and Alena had finally been willing to conspire with Lauren on her behalf. Alena was significantly shorter than Lauren, but they could easily share skirts and blouses as long as no leg length was involved.

  The irony was the two women had nothing in common in the looks department aside from clothing size. Alena was pure blonde with the lightest translucent skin Lauren had ever seen and the bluest big eyes to go with it. She was the polar opposite of Lauren with her darker skin, eyes, and hair.

  Lord knew there was no way Dmitry would have consented to buying anything like that for Lauren. The only clothing he’d provided her for months had been baggy T-shirts, jeans, tennis shoes, and oversized sweatshirts.

  Lauren understood the need to be sequestered at first. She was on the run. She owed her life to Dmitry and Mikhail. They had kept her safe and provided her with food and shelter for six months. But she was done.

  She had originally fled Vegas with Dmitry when he rescued her from a cabin in the middle of nowhere. It still gave her chills today to think of what those two cronies of Anton Yenin’s might have done with her if it weren’t for Dmitry.

  Luckily Dmitry had followed them out of the city. Within hours, just when she thought it might be better to hang herself rather than risk being raped and murdered, Dmitry slipped into the cabin, freed her, and even went to the trouble to make it look like she escaped out the window.

  They came straight to Chicago where Dmitry knew he could get work fighting under a much better manager than Anton Yenin had ever been. Abram Gromov took them in and let them stay with him for two weeks while they got their feet under them.

  This was not a hardship. Dmitry was a god. Thick muscles, a chiseled face, and dark mysterious eyes. When he had his shirt off, he was drool worthy. The geometric tattoos circling his arms made her wish on many occasions she could trace them with her finger—or her tongue. He shaved his head every few days, making him even sexier. The number of times a day he made her panties wet was staggering. And that was from a man who gave her not one ounce of indication he even liked her as a human. If he did, she’d probably self-combust.

  The question remained, however—why did Dmitry help her? He had risked his life to get to her. At first she assumed he wanted her for the same reason lots of men wanted her—sex. And she would have given it to him any time he wanted. It wouldn’t have been a hardship to sleep with the man. He was sex on wheels.

  But Dmitry never gave any sign he intended to claim her as his own, nor had he even acted as though he cared about her existence on the planet. That was annoying and confusing. Why did he rescue her?

  Her only other thought was someone had paid him to do so. She would buy that. Could have been her friend Abby’s man, Zane. Lauren believed that for months. But the days kept ticking by, and she was still living under Dmitry’s scowl with no real answers.

  Nothing made sense. The man didn’t share two words a day with her. And he never answered any questions except to point out she needed to stay in the apartment because the Russians would never stop looking for her. He insisted Anton would have a hard-on for her for the rest of her life—even from behind bars.

  Did he think she would stay in the apartment in downtown Chicago for sixty years?

  She wrapped her arms around herself tighter as she continued walking carefully toward the apartment. Her mind swam with more thoughts of her weird existence.

  Every week it seemed Dmitry grew surlier. She figured by now he was sorry he agreed to rescue her ass and probably wished he could wash his hands of her. So, she’d taken steps to make that happen. Whatever the man had up his ass, he needed to have it removed quickly. Because Lauren Schneider had no intention of spending the rest of her life under his quiet thumb. She was only twenty-five years old.

  She glanced down at her outfit and said a silent thank you once again to Alena and her willingness to procure clothing. Dmitry had never seen fit to purchase anything cute for Lauren to wear. She hadn’t felt sexy in months. Either the man had no sense of style or he was an asshole.

  And lately she’d been inclined to go with the latter. It seemed he was more irritable every day. Though she had no clue why. She hadn’t asked him to kidnap her from her previous abductors. She hadn’t asked him to drag her across the country under the guise that she needed to hide and lie extremely low until the Russian mafia lost interest in searching for her to exact revenge on behalf of their fallen leader. Fuck, she sure hadn’t asked him to sequester her in some apartment he clearly couldn’t afford and lavish her with books and movies and food and anything her heart desired.

  When she thought of it that way, she always managed to feel like a total bitch for being so fucking over this arrangement. But the reality was, he withheld several things at the same time, things a woman craved. And feminine clothing was only a small part of it.

  Dmitry initially had spoken to her in full sentences. Lately he’d stooped to occasional grunts and growls until she wanted to haul off and punch him.

  Apparently, that wasn’t necessary since he regularly got his ass kicked wherever he went late at night. She knew he was a fighter. She suspected wherever he fought was under the radar. That was exactly what he did in Vegas. And she assumed Abram Gromov—whom she hadn’t seen again in the six months since they arrived—was still his manager. There was no reason to ask these questions. He’d been a fighter for the mafia in Vegas. It stood to reason he still did so in Chicago.

  Was it for the money? The adrenaline rush?

  She hadn’t figured that part out. She had no idea if he won his fights or lost. She also didn’t have a clue what kind of money he made fighting. Nor did she give a rat’s ass.

  What she wanted was a slice of freedom, and she’d gotten her first taste twenty minutes ago when the owner of Inked offered her a job. It wasn’t much. She would barely make a living as a waitress in a bar, but at least she could get out from under Dmitry’s control and find a studio apartment near the bar—where she could continue to hide out if need be.

  It was a risk. But it was one she was willing to take for freedom. She had nowhere else to go. Gill, the owner, had taken one look up and down her body and smiled in a way that told her she still had it going on even after spending half a year hiding under a baggy shirt and loose jeans with no sunlight to speak of and hardly any makeup to add to her allure.

  In fact, she’d obviously made a good enough impression Gill had been willing to pay her in cash and hadn’t flinched when she offered him few details about herself. He had grabbed her arms, turned them over to inspect for track marks, and then breathed a sigh of relief when he found her clean.

  He’d even shined a flashlight in her eyes to make sure she wasn’t high on something. And then he smiled. “Girl, where have you been? When can you start?” He glanced down at the meager information she’d given him on the application and muttered her name, “Lauren Schneider.”

  She winced and nodded. “I’d appreciate if you would simply call me Lauren and not let anyone hear my last name.”

  He frowned. “Are you on the run from someone?” And then he held up a hand. “Never mind. That’s your business. As long as you don’t do anything illegal under my roof, I don’t care. Got it?”

  She nodded. “I’m just looking for a change. Nothing illegal.” If you don’t count the fact that the Russian mafia is after me.

  He’d stared at her for a moment and then nodded. “Fair enough.” He reminded her of her dad, a no-nonsense guy who ran his business like a ship. If anyone got out of line, she knew they would be gone. His hair was graying at the temples, and he wore a pair of reading glasses on the bridge of his nose while he held her application. That part was comical when combined with the tattoos running up and down his arms and the leather vest he wore over a cut-off, black T-shirt.

  If he weren’t standing inside the messy office of a slightly seedy, off-the-beaten-path bar, she would never suspect he owned such an establishment.

  A smile spread acros
s Gill’s face. He set a hand on Lauren’s shoulder. “I think you and I will get along fine.” He righted himself to his full height—five ten if she had to guess—and walked her to the front door.

  When he glanced at her, his brow furrowed in concern, he spoke again. “Did you walk here alone?”

  She nodded. “It’s only a few blocks. No worries.”

  He hesitated. “Okay, but be careful. This isn’t the best neighborhood.”

  Lauren almost giggled as she pushed through the entrance to the apartment building for the second time since they moved in. She took the elevator to the sixth floor and then kicked off her heels to carry them the rest of the way down the long hall.

  She was going to need to work out more starting now, or she’d be exhausted at the bar by the time it closed. What little exercise she’d gotten over the last six months had been almost futile in the apartment. There was only so much a girl could do with no steps, no equipment, and no reasonable shoes.

  The one time she asked Dmitry to bring her a simple small trampoline, he’d lifted a brow and curled up his nose. “Woman, you don’t need to be working out. You need to be eating more. You’re skin and bones.”

  And then he’d stomped out of the apartment in a huff, leaving her exasperated but shocked to have heard a full three sentences from him, in a row, on the same day.

  Lauren didn’t have a key to the apartment, of course, and she knew Mikhail and Dmitry wouldn’t return until the wee hours of the morning. It was Friday. They never got home before almost dawn on a Friday night.

  The arrangement she’d planned for several weeks had been perfect. Alena had gotten the clothing through Mikhail, Lauren studied the on-line want ads for local waitress openings, and the men left that evening carrying their usual gym bags that indicated with almost certainty one or both of them would return drunk with fresh cuts and swollen eye sockets.