Ivan 2 (Her Russian Protector Book 10) Read online

  “I hope for her sake and yours that she’s on a better path,” Zoya said earnestly. “Will she be going into a halfway house?”

  “No, we’re letting her stay with us until she gets back onto her feet.” My stomach clenched with anxiety. The anticipated friction between my husband and my sister sent my heartbeat into overdrive and that jolt of caffeine I had just had wasn’t helping any.

  “What’s that look for?” she asked as we crossed the parking lot to our vehicles.

  “Ivan and Ruby don’t get along.” Actually, they hated each other, and I hated being in the middle of it.

  “Oh no.”

  “He blames her for all of the trouble she caused and the way she almost got me killed, and she blames him for dragging me into the middle of his connections and getting me kidnapped.”

  “Yikes.”

  “Yeah.” I opened my purse and started to dig around for my key fob. “Ivan has promised he’ll do his best not to respond when she tries to pick fights, and she’s promised she won’t poke the bear, so to speak.”

  “How long do you think those promises will last?”

  “Ivan has never broken a promise to me, but Ruby has broken so many I’ve lost count.” Annoyed that my post-workout bliss had been crushed by thoughts of my sister and husband at each other’s throats, I searched through my purse for my key fob. “But I’m committed to giving her a second chance. I’m going to wipe the slate clean and try to remember that she’s starting over after a traumatic experience.”

  “She may surprise you,” Zoya suggested. “She may have changed for good this time. Some people do after hitting rock bottom.”

  “I hope so.” I finally found my keys at the bottom of my too big and overstuffed leather tote. I glanced up to ask Zoya if she wanted to meet for lunch later in the week and immediately noticed the two men in black ski masks striding toward us. “Zoya! Move!”

  I snatched her by the arm before she even registered my instruction and jerked her away from the men now running toward us. Still holding onto her arm, I turned to run toward the studio—and slammed right into the chest of a larger man in a similar mask. I froze as the flashbacks of my kidnapping stampeded through my brain. It was just long enough for the other two men to catch up with us.

  A man grabbed me from behind, but the grappling lessons Ivan had given me since my kidnapping kicked in on autopilot. I tucked my chin, preventing him from pressing his forearm into my throat, and stepped to the side. He tried to drag me in tighter, but I grabbed onto his wrist with my right hand and scratched down his arm. I balled up my left fist and swung backward as hard as I could, slamming into his groin twice.

  “Bitch!” he snarled, leaning forward in pain. I remembered exactly what Ivan had taught me and threw my elbow up into my assailant’s face. He cried out in pain and stumbled away from me.

  “Zoya!” I yelled her name as I watched her trying to fight off both of her attackers. Feeling emboldened after putting down one man, I launched myself at the attacker on her right, hopping onto his back and punching him in the neck and side of his face. He shouted and tried to fling me off his back, jerking wildly left and right while reaching back to slap at my hands and face. He made one good connection, smacking his knuckles into my cheek just below my eye, and knocked me loose.

  With a loud oof, I hit the pavement hard. I reached up to touch my throbbing face and felt blood. He had already gone back to trying to drag Zoya away with his friend. Furious that he had managed to hurt me, I scrambled to my feet, snatching up my dropped purse, and swung it with every ounce of power I could muster. It whacked him on the head, and he dropped like a sack of rocks. For once, my overfilled tote had come in handy.

  I ran at the man trying to wrestle Zoya to the ground and kicked him between his legs, hooking the toe of my sneakers into his most vulnerable spot. He made a sound like nothing I had ever heard, a mix of a cry and a scream, and crumpled. Zoya scrambled away from him and toward me.

  But my triumphant rush of adrenaline was short-lived.

  There was no mistaking the cold bite of steel on the back of my neck. The man I had fought off first had regained his footing and now pressed a gun into my skin with so much pressure I winced. I didn’t dare try to escape, not with a loaded pistol that close to my brain.

  When he pushed me against the door of my car, I didn’t fight him. He pressed his body against mine, thrusting his groin against my bottom in a way that made my stomach lurch. Zoya was shoved next to me, and we exchanged panic glances. The sound of shouting voices from the businesses behind us gave me a burst of hope, but it was quickly snuffed when the third man fired multiple shots into the air.

  “Give me your jewelry,” the man holding me growled.

  With shaking hands, I reached up and unfastened the diamond studs in my ear lobes. I handed them back, and he grabbed my left hand, pushing his knee between my legs to hold me in place. When I realized he was trying to remove my wedding band and engagement ring, I started to fight. “No! Not those!”

  He smacked the back of my head, and I jerked forward, whacking my face on the door frame of my car. “I’ll take whatever the fuck I want.”

  With enough force to make me cry out in pain, he wrenched the rings from my left hand and then grabbed my right to pull off the two golden rings I wore stacked on my ring finger there. Ivan had proposed to me with five golden rings, a sweet and romantic play on one of my favorite Christmas carols, and I usually wore at least two of them every day. I said a silent prayer of thanks that I had left two at home that morning.

  Placing his mouth close to my ear, my assailant hissed, “You tell your sister to keep her fucking mouth shut or else we’ll be back for both of you.”

  Ruby, what the hell did you do now?

  As I tried to make sense of his threat, I shuddered with sobbed with disgust when he groped my bottom and then slid his hand toward my crotch, running his fingers over parts of me that belonged only to my husband. Knowing how possessive Ivan could be, I jerked my face away and hissed, “My husband will kill you for this.”

  The man laughed. “He can try.”

  I was suddenly thrown away from my car, landing on my hands and scraping them. Zoya was tossed next to me. I grabbed for her, dragging her closer and behind me. While one man held his gun on the shopping center behind us, another grabbed our purses and phones. The one who had groped me smashed the windows on my car and then reached into a backpack one of them had brought and produced a pair of bottles with rags stuffed in them. When he pulled a lighter from his pocket, I pushed Zoya back. “Go! Move!”

  With a burst of heat and shattering glass, my car caught fire, and the assailants ran from the scene. Dazed by the violent attack, I held tight to Zoya as I watched the car I had worked so hard to pay off became engulfed in a blazing inferno. My worries about bringing Ruby home no longer seemed so important. There was something much, much worse coming for me—and the man I loved.

  Chapter Two

  Arms crossed, Ivan watched Boychenko try a D’Arce choke from half-guard top. The kid had natural talent, but he seemed distracted this morning. Shaking his head, Ivan stalked across the mat. “No. No. No.”

  “No? Why?” Boychenko let go of Kir, his grappling partner for the morning, and sat back on his heels.

  “Your form is shit.” Down on the mat, Ivan motioned for Kir to help demonstrate the proper movements. With his leg locked between Kir’s, Ivan slipped his right arm under Kir’s left until he could grab the back of his head. He repeated the movement and asked, “See the position of my wrist before I grab the head?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re turning your wrist out and that makes it easy for Kir to escape.” Beneath him, Kir relaxed his arm and threw back his head, expertly moving out of the choke. “See?”

  Boychenko nodded. “I see.”

  “When you come in with this right arm, move the left in like this and use both hands to pull his head in toward you.” He showed the move twice. �
��You can’t choke in this position, right? You keep lifting this left arm away from Kir, but you have to keep it pressed against his head. See? You run your arm down the back of his head, push it into your chest and then figure four. Just crush the fuck out of him, yeah?”

  Kir grunted with discomfort beneath him but didn’t tap. Ivan let up a little and said, “Then you drive him back to the mat.”

  “Why can’t I just choke there?”

  “Because you aren’t big enough,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Remember when we talked biomechanics? This is what I meant. Watch.”

  Kir secured Ivan’s leg between his, and Ivan moved in with the submission hold, demonstrating the steps at the regular grappling pace. When he pushed Kir back toward the mat, it took only a second for the other man to tap his arm. Ivan let up immediately and sat back on his heels. “Do you see the difference?”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me,” Ivan ordered, staying down on the mat while Boychenko proved he had been paying attention. When the kid had shown a better understanding of the move, he started to show him how to use the choke coming from side mount. He was letting Kir demonstrate on him when Paco, his longtime boxing coach, jogged as fast as his old legs would allow him.

  “Vanya!” He waved an iPhone in the air. “I think you need to answer your phone. It’s been ringing nonstop on your desk.”

  Frowning, he moved away from Kir and took his phone from Paco. There were eleven missed calls from numbers he didn’t recognize, three from Nikolai and one from Besian. There was a text from the Albanian that said simply, “Call me now!”

  He glanced at the time and realized with a sickening thud that Erin was late returning from her barre class. Even if she had gone for her usual after class coffee with Zoya, she should have been back by now, and she always messaged him if she was going to be late. Her lack of contact, the unknown numbers, Nikolai’s call, and Besian’s message made his heart flip-flop in his chest. He had sudden flashbacks to the night he found out she had been kidnapped and felt a cold panic overwhelm him.

  The phone rang again, startling him out of his troubled memories. He answered it gruffly. “Hello?”

  “Is this Mr. Markovic?”

  He didn’t recognize the woman’s voice on the other end and started to run toward the office he shared with Erin. “Yes.”

  “Mr. Markovic, this is Sergeant Levy with HPD. I’m calling to inform you that your wife was involved in a robbery and assault.”

  His heart stuttered painfully in his chest. He gripped the phone tightly. “Was she hurt?”

  “Yes, but not seriously,” the sergeant quickly assured him. “She and her friend were taken by ambulance to HCA Houston on Hermann.”

  “HCA Houston on Hermann,” he repeated, grabbing his keys and wallet from his desk drawer. He tried to push the horrible images of Erin bleeding and broken from his mind and focus on what the sergeant was telling him.

  “In regards to the car, the fire was put out by HFD. We’ll be towing it to the evidence lot for now. An officer is waiting to speak with your wife and her friend at the ER. He can give you the information you’ll need for how this situation will progress."

  “Yes. That’s fine.” He slammed his feet into his sneakers and swiped his jacket from the chair where he had tossed it earlier.

  “We’ll be following up when we get more information from witnesses at the scene...”

  He wasn’t even paying attention as he rushed from the gym. He reacted like a robot, answering the sergeant when necessary as he dashed out to his SUV. He sped out of the newly resurfaced parking lot, another one of Erin’s much-needed changes to the warehouse, and onto the street, quickly signaling and moving into the turn lane so he could make his way to the hospital.

  Guilt soured his stomach as he thought of all the missed calls. How long had they been trying to reach him? Had Erin been asking for him? His gut twisted when he thought of her alone and crying in the back of an ambulance.

  What the fuck did not seriously mean? Broken bones? A gashed open head? A black eye? A shattered jaw? He had seen the aftermath of enough fights to know how very little power it took to crunch a human body. Erin had the body of a dancer, petite with curves he had memorized with his hands and mouth, and she was no match for any man in a fight. He had taught her how to defend herself so she could run away, not stand and fight. Had she remembered his lessons? Had she managed to get free?

  And why was her car burning? He remembered how proud she was the morning she made her final payment on that car. She had bought it at the beginning of her sophomore year of college and had refused to let him pay it off when they married or upgrade her to something nicer. They had even celebrated receiving the title from the bank with a bottle of her favorite pink champagne. All the hours she had worked at different jobs through college and then later at his gym and doing side gigs as a party planner had gone into that car and her student loans—another thing she refused to let him pay off for her.

  Why does this keep happening to her?

  She had witnessed so much violence and pain since coming into his life. She had been protected from the worst of it the night his home had been invaded by men trying to find the drugs and money her sister had stolen, but he hadn’t been there to protect her the day she had been kidnapped. She had been forced to watch Artyom bleed out on their front steps while men dragged her into a delivery truck.

  He could still remember the smell of the old dairy farm where she had been held hostage with Bianca. The memory of her finally safe in his arms was one that never left him. The fear and panic of being told she had been kidnapped always lurked in the back of his mind, often waking him up in the middle of the night.

  How many nights had he bolted upright in a cold sweat, terrified he would reach for her and the bed would be empty? How many nights had he been compelled to walk the house, checking windows and doors and the security cameras? He had promised he would take care of her, love her, protect her—but he kept failing.

  By the time he found a parking spot in the hospital parking garage, he had all but decided that he was hiring a driver for her. And a bodyguard. Maybe two.

  He tamped down his panic as he entered the emergency room and strode toward the registration desk. The woman in front of him was just finishing up so he didn’t have to wait long for his turn.

  “Can I help you?” the older woman behind the counter asked without even looking up from her computer screen

  “My wife was brought here by ambulance.”

  “Name?”

  “Erin Markovic.”

  “Her date of birth? Address?” She typed in the information he gave and then directed him to find a chair and wait.

  He didn’t want to wait. He wanted to see Erin right fucking now, but he pushed aside the urge to demand he be taken to her. The last thing she needed was him making a scene so he took a seat across from the double door entrance to the emergency room.

  Almost immediately, he noticed the strange looks and bold stares sent his way. He glanced down at his shorts and bare legs and grimaced. He tried to keep the evidence of his criminal past covered in public, but he had been in such a rush to get here it had been the last thing on his mind. There were only a few centimeters of skin from his toenails to his neck that weren’t tattooed, and everything was on display to anyone curious enough to look.

  The double doors opened and nurse called, “Mr. Markovic?”

  He stood quickly and joined her at the door. There was no mistaking the way her soft smile hardened as she took in his tattooed hands and legs. It didn’t bother him, but he hated knowing that Erin would be treated differently once people realized she was married to a criminal.

  Former criminal, he silently corrected as he followed the nurse into the emergency room.

  Wordlessly, the nurse tugged aside a curtain to reveal Erin sitting in a hospital bed looking impossibly small and vulnerable. She had one of his old hoodies draped across her legs, A small cut on her cheek
had been closed with strips and another on her temple had been closed the same way, but the gash on her hairline had been sutured. There was dried blood on her chin and neck and under her nose. Her upper lip was swollen and the tiny straps of her workout top made it easy to see the angry red bruises on her upper arms and shoulders.

  Rage burned through him. Some piece of shit had dared to put hands on her. He swore then that he would find that asshole and make him pay.

  “Ivan!”

  Her tears and the way she said his name were like a knife to the chest. Rushing toward her, he carefully cupped the back of her neck and kissed her forehead and then both cheeks. “I’m here, baby. I’m here.” He wrapped his arms around her and held tight. “What happened?”

  “They came out of nowhere!” She clung to his jacket and burrowed into him. “I saw the first two guys behind Zoya and then there was another guy behind me. I tried to fight them off. I remembered what you taught me and got away from him, but then we started fighting and the other one threw me on the ground. They stole my rings and burned my car,” she babbled between sobs.

  Ivan’s mind reeled as Erin unloaded her panicked thoughts on him. He glanced at her hands and noticed the raw skin where her rings had been forcefully yanked off her fingers. The idea that some asshole had stolen her engagement and wedding rings angered him. The thought that they would be fenced and melted down sickened him.

  “He said that if Ruby doesn’t keep her mouth they’ll be back.” She sobbed harshly. “And then he touched me,” she wept, pressing her face into his chest. “He put his hand between my legs, and he...he...” She sobbed loudly, unable to continue her description of the assault. “I told him you would kill him for touching me like that.”