Nikolai Read online

  "I think so," she answered in a whisper. She blinked a few times and turned her gaze toward his faze. Her eyes widened with sudden panic. Her hand flew out and snatched the front of his shirt. As she jerked him toward her, she screamed, "Nikolai!"

  A second later, something very hard hit the window behind his head. A hammer? A crow bar? He wasn’t sure.

  Someone tried to open her car door but the impact of the SUV had crunched and crimped the metal. Heavy footfalls sounded on the roof and hood of the car. A sledge hammer wielded by a man in black slammed against the windshield. Glass shards exploded all around them as the sledgehammer broke through the safety glass.

  He reached for Vivian and dragged her into his protective embrace. He wrapped his battered arms around her in a desperate attempt to keep the flying glass from cutting her face and neck. She flicked off her seatbelt and burrowed into the safety of his embrace, burying her face against chest and whimpering with fear.

  As a crowd of men descended on the car, Nikolai heard gunshots in the distance. Kostya and Sergei? He hoped they would reach the car in time to help them fend off this blitz attack.

  As the men outside the car started to rip the windshield free, he reached under his jacket and retrieved his loaded gun. "Cover your ears."

  Vivian hurried to comply with his order, placing her small hands against her ears. The moment the windshield was ripped free he fired at the first man who came into view. Staggering backward and clutching at his chest, the man fell onto the hood and tumbled onto the pavement. Another man took his place, and Nikolai fired again, carefully conserving his rounds until help arrived.

  But it wasn't enough.

  The window behind him was ripped free. A series of blows to the back of his head stunned him. Four hands grasped his shoulders and arms. In the melee, the gun was knocked from his grasp. Vivian's scream echoed in the night as he was torn through the window. Jagged edges of glass ripped through his clothing and into his skin.

  He watched in horror as three men tried to grab Vivian. Somehow she'd managed to grab the pepper spray from her purse. Judging by the screams of pain and the sounds of coughing that erupted, he figured she'd gotten at least two of them.

  Refusing to be taken down so easily, Nikolai twisted and kicked until he managed to free himself from the clutches of the men who had dragged him through the door. With one swift movement, he yanked out the knife he kept holstered in his boot and wielded it menacingly.

  He'd been in enough prison brawls, armed only with hastily crafted shivs, to know how this fight against five men would end. He'd be lucky to survive it but he'd do whatever it took to buy enough time for Kostya and Sergei to reach Vivian and get her to safety.

  Two of the men rushed him. Relying on instinct and adrenaline, Nikolai stabbed and ducked to evade them. He caught one in the hand, driving his blade through the man's palm, and wrenching a guttural cry from the attacker's throat. Ripping the blade free, he turned his attention to the other man. The injured one fell away but another quickly took his place, this one carrying a length of pipe.

  Bracing for the painful impact, Nikolai refused to back down. In the background, he heard Vivian shouting and fighting off the men trying to pull her from the car. The pipe connected with his arm and shoulder just as he witnessed Vivian being hauled out through the gaping hole where the windshield had been. Her panicked shriek broke his concentration, giving his assailants the opening they needed.

  The man brandishing the pipe cracked Nikolai along the side of his head. The blinding pain sent him to his knees. A boot caught him in the jaw and flipped him onto his stomach. Clawing at the pavement, he tried to force his battered body to move but the jarring impact of the pipe and boot rendered him worthless.

  As blood dripped into his eyes and clouded his vision, he watched helplessly as two men dragged Vivian toward an idling SUV. She kicked and bit and shrieked but she couldn't get free. Their gazes met across the impossible distance now between them. Rolling onto his side, he lifted his hand in a final desperate but futile attempt to reach her.

  "NIKOLAI!"

  Her terrified scream was suddenly muffled as her kidnappers managed to get her into the SUV. The vehicle raced away from the scene, taking the woman he loved more than anything in the world.

  An angry kick to his gut tore a pained groan from his throat. Another blow to his shoulder knocked him onto his back again. One of the assailants bent down and slammed the full-length of Nikolai's own knife into his shoulder. He gasped, but the pain of the blade slicing through muscle was nothing compared to the soul-crushing agony he experienced at the knowledge he'd failed Vivian.

  "Jesus, we weren't supposed to kill him." One of the masked men dragged away the man who had stabbed Nikolai. "Let's go."

  The attackers and his people started to trade gunfire. The assailants piled into the remaining SUV, leaving behind the crashed vehicle but taking their injured comrades with them. Kostya and Sergei finally made it to his side.

  Dropping to his knees, Kostya grabbed Nikolai around the waist and dragged him out of the roadway. Men were shouting all around him but he couldn't understand anything they said. His battered brain couldn't compute a single word after the nasty blows he'd taken.

  Gripping Kostya's hand, he growled, "They took her. They took my Vivian."

  "We'll get her back."

  As Kostya shouted at Sergei to get a fucking ambulance, Nikolai fought to remain conscious. Blood seeped out of his body and soaked into his jacket and pooled around Kostya's legs. Nikolai relished the excruciating pain accompanying each and every breath. It reminded him that he was still alive—and if he was alive, he could get her back. He had to get her back.

  And the men who had taken his beautiful, precious Vivian would know true agony.

  Chapter Five

  Ivan hated hospitals almost as much as he hated police stations. The lemony scent of the harsh cleansers used to keep them clean spurred those old and terrible memories of the many violent injuries he'd suffered in his life. He absent-mindedly rubbed his left side as he relived the searing heat of a razor-tipped shiv gashing at his gut.

  This hospital in downtown Houston was much nicer than the awful prison infirmary hellholes he'd visited far too often but it still left him gritting his teeth. In the last few months, he'd spent far too much time in these places. First, it had been Erin's sister and then Dimitri and then Yuri. Thankfully, they'd all been discharged—or escaped in Ruby's case—within a day or two but Nikolai? He was in bad fucking shape.

  But the lucky bastard had the hardest head in the whole damned world—and thank Christ for that! Nikolai had to be the only man in creation who could survive a beating with a pipe and not come out brain-damaged. He had a nasty concussion, battered ribs, bruised kidneys and a number of gashes that had required extensive suturing and stapling. He'd live—but he was going to have dozens of new scars to add to myriad others already dotting his heavily tattooed body.

  But Nikolai would find little comfort in surviving the horrific attack.

  Ivan's gut twisted as he tried to imagine what Nikolai would feel when he woke up and remembered that Vivian was gone. Just the thought of hooded men stealing away his Erin made Ivan want to puke. He ran a hand across his chest as his heart ached from the tormenting images of Erin being snatched from him and taken away to some unknown place.

  His gaze moved to Nikolai's sleeping form. This late at night the hospital was very quiet except for the continual beeps of the machines monitoring Nikolai's heartbeat and blood pressure. Even in sleep, his friend's face was drawn and tight. Was he dreaming of the attack? Was he dreaming of her?

  When Nikolai finally woke, there would be hell to pay. Kostya had managed to keep the men under control so far but Ivan doubted he could hold the bloodthirsty, infuriated captains and soldiers back longer. They wanted justice for the attack on Nikolai and Vivian's kidnapping. Kostya was smart enough to know that lashing out indiscriminately was only going to cause more bloodshed
and problems. The men were pacified for the moment but one wrong move would set them all off.

  Though she wasn't technically part of the family, the men who served under Nikolai all loved Vivian and considered her one of them. While the delicious food cooked by the chefs at Samovar reminded them of home, it was Vivian's bright smile and sweet kindness that brought Nikolai's men to the restaurant again and again.

  Like Ivan, most of those men had assumed that eventually Nikolai would stop fucking around with the guardian bullshit and finally claim Vivian as his own. It was clear to anyone with even one working eye that Nikolai needed her. Ivan hadn't really understood what drew Nikolai toward Vivian until he'd met Erin—and then everything made sense.

  Sometimes the darkest of souls needed the balance of good, pure woman. Erin had brought such sweetness and light to his life. Ivan could only imagine how desperately Nikolai craved what he now enjoyed every day and every night with Erin.

  For the men in Nikolai's large crew, the idea that someone had dared to take the woman their boss protected, the woman they expected to someday slide into the role of family matriarch, enraged them. It drove home the point that none of their wives or children or girlfriends was safe anymore. The rules had been broken in the most violent way—and now someone had to pay. If Nikolai didn't wake soon and get things back under his control, the entire city could erupt in violence and mayhem.

  "Hey," Dimitri called softly from the doorway of Nikolai's hospital room. "They're about to kick us out until the morning." Dimitri's worried gaze fell on Nikolai. "Has he moved yet?

  Ivan shook his head. "Did you talk to Yuri?"

  Dimitri nodded. "The winter storm will keep them in Moscow for a few more days. He's trying to keep Lena calm but she's threatening to walk across Russia. He's put up an obscene amount of money for information on the attack or Vivian's return. Kostya has his men putting the word on the street."

  If anything could motivate the seedy underbelly of this town to speak, it was money. "Let's hope it works."

  "It's been almost twenty-four hours and there's no ransom. If this doesn’t work, if someone doesn’t squeal, I don't know how we'll find her." Dimitri hesitated. "If she's even still alive."

  Ivan despaired at the thought of Vivian being dead. Erin loved her so much and considered her a sister. He didn't know if she would ever recover from the horror of losing Vivian. "She's alive. She has to be."

  Dimitri stared at Nikolai's motionless body. "God help us all if she's not."

  * * *

  Blindfolded and naked, I hugged my knees tighter to my chest and tried to calm my chattering teeth. I couldn't remember the last time I'd been this cold. My ears perked to the sound of heavy shoes tapping against concrete. The echo was similar to the one in my warehouse studio so I assumed I'd been brought to some abandoned warehouse or factory—and there were plenty of those around Houston.

  I couldn’t absolutely say for sure how long it had been since I'd been so violently torn away from Nikolai and thrown in that SUV. I thought it was a day, maybe two. Once those monsters had gotten me into the vehicle, they'd jabbed me with a syringe filled with some kind of sedative. Sometime later, I'd woken up blindfolded and naked in this strange cage.

  It wasn't a very big space. Even with my tiny frame, I couldn't stretch out my legs totally. I tried to shift my position whenever my muscles started to cramp. When the guards let me out of my cage to use the bathroom, I took full advantage of the chance to stretch my legs. The humiliation of doing my business while they watched me was almost too much to bear but at least they let me use a real toilet and sink and not a bucket or worse. The blindfold helped ease my embarrassment. At least I didn't have to stare back at them.

  I'd been fed twice—once a cold hamburger and a little while ago a chewy egg sandwich on an English muffin. Both times a bottle of water had been shoved through the wire squares of the cage wall. Even though I was so thirsty, I carefully rationed the water. I wasn't sure how often these food deliveries would occur.

  As I listened to the approaching footsteps, I tried to slow my panicked breathing. My nakedness and forced blindness only increased my terror. I'd tried once and only once to remove my blindfold but a man who smelled strongly of cigarettes had tapped my arm with some kind of device that shocked me hard enough to make me yelp and cry. Shuddering, I touched the bumpy burn marks the device had left on my skin. Since then, I'd been terrified to do anything wrong lest they zap me again.

  The footsteps drew closer and closer until they finally stopped. I'd come to recognize the sounds of the different men who were holding me captive. This man, the one with the heavier, lumbering steps, never spoke. I heard the rustle of fabric as he crouched down outside my cage. Though I couldn't see him, I could feel him watching me, staring at me.

  What did he want?

  The possibilities filled me with dread. Alone in this cage, I'd had plenty of time to think about what might happen to me. If I was very, very lucky, the men who had taken me would ransom me back to Nikolai. He'd move heaven and earth to get the money to buy me back. If I was unlucky? Well—there was no end to the horrific scenarios my frightened mind had conjured up since being kidnapped.

  I tried to convince myself that the best scenario—being ransomed back to Nikolai—would happen. Looking back, I could see now that vandalizing the warehouse had been a setup. They'd drawn us to that empty street knowing that we'd be cut off and exposed.

  Was it the motorcycle club my father had crossed that had attacked us and taken me? Was it the cartel? I didn't know—and it scared me. If I had some sense of my captors' identities, I might have been able to come up with a plan or a way to try to negotiate with them, to make them see me as an innocent human being.

  Snapping fingers startled me. Two more sets of footsteps echoed in the big room now. They headed right for my cage. A key scraped in a lock. The hinges of the cage squealed as the door was opened. A big, mean hand reached into the cage and grabbed my upper arm. I gasped as the tightly squeezing fingers bit into my skin.

  Like a stray dog, I was dragged out of the cage and thrown onto the floor. My knees hit the concrete floor so hard my jaw rattled. I let a whimper of pain escape my lips before clamping them shut. I didn't dare show them any more weakness.

  A hand curled in my hair and jerked me to my feet. I hissed but managed to squelch the painful cry that tried to erupt from my throat. Another hand, this was one softer and gentler, cupped my chin. Beneath the heavy stink of cigarette smoke clinging to the mean guard, I caught the faintest hint of cloves. The man in front of me, the one cupping my chin, smelled of the spice. He said nothing but I could feel his penetrating gaze raking over my naked body.

  Without warning, the hand curled in my hair moved to my nape. The bigger hand tightened on my neck and I was shoved forward. Those awful fingers of the guard dug into my skin as I was half-pushed and half-dragged across the open space. Fearful of falling or tripping, I put my hands out in front of me for balance but they were quickly smacked back down.

  A door squeaked up ahead. The echoes of our footsteps became more muted and I realized I was in a hallway. My bare feet scurried across the concrete in a desperate attempt to keep up my captors.

  As we walked down the hall, I became aware of voices—female voices. Amid the hushed whispers, I heard the softest sounds of crying and sniffling. Were there more women being held in cages? What the hell was this place?

  And then it hit me.

  I hadn't been kidnapped. I was being trafficked!

  Because Lena watched the news every morning, I'd heard all about the sex trafficking busts that had been happening since the summer. The Feds and the local police had taken down small trafficking rings and raided mobile bordellos. They'd freed dozens of young women, many of them underage, who had been trafficked to Houston from Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe.

  My stomach lurched at the realization that I was going to be sold and raped and brutalized. Just as quickly, my survival instin
cts took hold. I had to get out of here. I wasn't very strong but I was fast and I could run far without getting tired. The first chance I had to get away from these beasts, I was booking it.

  Another door opened. The echo in here sounded different. Was it a tiled room? A bathroom? Squeaking knobs and the splash of water confirmed my deduction.

  The hand gripping my neck propelled me forward. I slipped on the wet tile and only narrowly managed not to fall on my face.

  "Hands on the tile, cunt." The low Southern drawl shocked me as much as the nasty word he'd called me. I'd assumed the trafficking was run by one of the foreign crime syndicates operating out of Houston. How wrong I'd been.

  Not wanting to get hit or zapped with that awful device, I planted my palms against the tile. Cold water rushed over my naked body. I started to shake violently as my body temperature plummeted.

  When something rough and scratching slapped my back, I squeaked with horror. Harsh bristles scraped up and down my skin and smeared unpleasantly scented soap all over my body.

  "Turn around, whore."

  Humiliated and trying so hard not to cry, I turned around and bared my front to this terrible man. The brush abused my breasts and belly. With a powerful thrust to my chest, the brush slammed me back under the cold shower.

  The moment the suds were rinsed clean, the water was shut off and the brush clattered to the floor. The guard grasped a handful of my wet hair and jerked me toward him. I tried to gasp in a breath through my mouth as the wet blindfold slipped down far enough to cover my nose. Breathing through the soaking wet fabric sent me into a panic.

  As if enjoying my fear, the guard clamped his hand over my mouth. He laughed as I struggled and tried to free myself. "Look at this little slut dance!"

  Cackling, he moved his hand just enough to cover my nose too. Weakened and starved for oxygen, I pounded my fists to his chest, but he only laughed harder. "Maybe we should try waterboarding some of these girls. Look at the way she's fighting and wiggling."