Phantom's Baby: A Mafia Secret Baby Romance (Mob City Book 3) (13 page)

And yet …

And yet, it was the kind of fuck that most women only get to dream about. The kind you read books just to imagine – the kind that triggers sensations from the tingling from your toes to the blinding flashes behind your eyelids – the kind that sparks to life a pile of firewood, neatly stacked and ready to burst into flame.

Val flipped me around, pushing me roughly onto my knees, never letting his cock feel the touch of cold air. He slapped my ass so hard the handprint it left seared through my body and appeared on the other side.

"Again!"

I didn't recognize the voice – she sounded ragged, hoarse, and desperate. But I found my lips forming the word and loosing sounds I would never have believed. "Again!"

He did as he was ordered, grabbing a handful of my hair with his left hand and pulling back so hard my eyes dripped wet with tears. I rammed my ass back into his toned, muscular body, bouncing off every time and returning harder, faster, better, stronger. I was a goddamn Black Eyed Peas song and I couldn't have cared less.

I was close now, so close. "Don't stop," I groaned. "Don’t you dare stop…"

I squeezed my eyes shut, and stars exploded in the blackness. I clenched my legs together, pressing my clit harder against his thick cock. It was almost sore now, but I didn't care. My fingers scrunched at the bed sheets, squeezing with all my might, and the first wave of my orgasm broke. Even as I screamed out with pleasure, Val never stopped.

And then his fingers circled my throat.

I was exhausted, completely drained – but he was barely getting started.

I
t was
two days later and I still didn't believe any of it had really happened. Two days of fucking – two years’ worth, and I still wasn't done. Cara made my cock jump like no woman I'd ever seen, and I knew I made her come like no man ever had before now.

Not even me.

And then there was Kitty. My daughter – can you believe that? I still wasn't sure I could. Sometimes I caught myself in the mirror, rolling her name across my tongue, saying the words out loud,

my daughter
.

But I didn't have time for any of that here. Not now. I had to be a different person: harder, meaner. I had to be the man my men thought I was. The man I'd been without blinking until that little cock tease strolled back into my life. I cracked my knuckles, one hand then the other.

"Boss?"

I turned to see Dimitri a couple of feet from me. Judging by the vaguely anxious look on his face, this wasn't the first time he'd attempted to get my attention. When I spoke, I didn't acknowledge that I had drifted away. My men had to believe that I was all-powerful, all-knowing – and invincible – even when I doubted it myself.

"Report, Dimitri," I barked.

He nodded. He was a damn good right hand man – quick thinking, honest, and loyal to the hilt. I hoped that was the case, anyway. Loyalty's best tested when the storm hits, not when the sea's calm as a mirror. We hadn't yet suffered together, and until we did…

Well, let's just say I'm a suspicious man.

His foot tapped uncontrollably as he spoke. "No movement; none all day. If there's anyone in there, then they're either hung-over or holed up."

My fingers played a tune as they drummed against my thigh. Every possible way that this could go wrong flashed across my mind. The “safe house” door could be wired with explosives. The gas stove might have been left on with no pilot light – waiting for a stray spark to turn the whole place into a blasting inferno. That was just the kind of deadly, underhanded trick my father loved.

But none of that mattered. The longer I lingered, the more advantage shifted to my father's court. I'd already lost the element of surprise with the last attempted – bungled raid, but the momentum could still be mine.

"My money's on empty," I growled. "If my father knows I'm in town, his men will know better than to let drink get the better of them."

"So what do you want to do, boss?" Dimitri asked, voicing the question that the circle of men surrounding us was too afraid to ask. They were killers, every one of them – and dressed like it, to boot. If I didn't know better, I could have mistaken them for a SWAT team. Black radios dangled off body-armored chests, and they bristled with weapons like a porcupine's spines. It had all cost more than a pretty penny, but I had those to spare.

I grimaced. This was the part of leadership I hated. I didn't mind knocking people's heads together or putting myself in harm's way to prove my courage to my men. That was all in a day's work – and I'd never much minded danger, anyway.

No – the hard job was that every damn day I was assaulted by a tidal wave of decisions. And today's was a big one. Half a dozen men was a very small number with which to wrestle back control of an entire city, and if I lost half of them in one fell swoop…

Then I'd be in very deep shit indeed.

The silence built around us. Dimitri's tapping foot sounded like a ticking clock. I left my fingers through the hair on the back of my head and looked up – hoping for divine inspiration.

I got it.

"Dimitri, you're with me – understood? We'll take the back." I raised my voice, studying each man's face in turn. "The rest of you, go through the front door. Not until you hear two clicks on the radio, understood?"

Three nods.

"Understood?" I repeated, harsher this time.

Five nods greeted me this time, accompanied with a chorus of
"yes boss."

"Good. Let's move out."

Dawn was barely tickling the sky as I ran, Dimitri by my side. It was the perfect time of day to strike – when men and beasts alike are in bed: except mine.

Dimitri turned into the alleyway and stopped a second later, when he realized that the sound of my boots had died away. He turned and looked at me, head cocking to one side with surprise. "Boss," he whispered. "What's the deal?"

I held a finger to my lips and gestured at him to come closer. A bead of sweat trickled off his nose, and he walked towards me with a face that reeked of worry. I knew exactly what was running through his mind. They called me the Phantom because of moments just like this – when men entered an alleyway and died without a sound. I let the tension build.

I never wanted to run an organization in which my men were terrified of me…

But a little dose of healthy fear couldn't hurt.

I waited until Dimitri's face was ashen with worry, and then…

I winked.

He
blinked, and his shoulders sagged as the stress and tension drained out. Hiding a grin, I took a finger from my lips and pointed directly up, resting my hand on a dented black flight of fire escape steps to reinforce the point. "We're going up."

Dimitri followed without complaint, moving as quietly as a church mouse, even in his heavy combat boots. I knew I shouldn't have played with him like that, but what's the point in being king if you don't get to have some fun from time to time?

Behave
.

I slowed my breathing until a casual observer might not have realized my chest was moving at all. But I didn't see any casual observers, not tonight. They don't call the hour before dawn the witching hour for no reason. The only life up and crawling the filthy streets of Vista Beach – a gritty suburb right out on the edge of the Industrial District – was made up of dealers and their unfortunate clients, and they had their own dismal business on their minds.

Why the hell do they call it Vista Beach anyways?

The place was a concrete jungle – a warren of decrepit low blocks of apartments. The only beach I could see was a dried out canal, once used to shift goods, now a thicket of discarded shopping carts and used needles. Not much of a vista, not much of a beach.

I stopped dead, forming my hand into a fist to signal to Dimitri to do the same. No matter how quietly we crept, the fire chute squeaked into the inky night. There was no way it was up to code. Dimitri inched up to my side and stared at me with questioning eyes. I pointed at my chest, and then held up a single finger. Then I pointed at his, and held up two. He raised an eyebrow and nodded.

I go first, you follow
.

"On three," I whispered, the sound barely escaping my lips.

Two fingers.

One.

Go.

I sprinted out of my crouch like a Jamaican at the Olympics. The stairs underneath brayed a warning to anyone within earshot. I grimaced as I ran. It was loud enough to wake the dead. But it didn't matter. The only thing that counted right now was speed.

I broke over the ridge onto the flat roof, and saw both what I had expected – and not. A man all dressed in black lay by the far corner, about thirty yards from where the fire escape opened out. It was a hell of a long way to run. Not because I was unfit, but because of what he had in his hands:

an AK-47 automatic rifle.

There was no time for thought. I ran straight – not bothering to zig zag. That kind of shit's for the movies, not real life. The time you spend running from side to side like a headless chicken is enough for any killer to get the drop on you. Luckily, this guy didn't seem like much of a killer. He hadn't heeded the fire escape's screamed warning – and was only now scrambling to turn and face us.

"I've got him boss," I heard Dimitri shout, his breath ragged.

I spared a glance over my shoulder, and saw Dimitri crouch on one knee and prepare to let loose a shot. "Don't you fucking dare," I shouted back at him. "I need him alive."

I put my head down and sprinted. Twenty yards became fifteen, became ten, so close I could see the whites of my enemy's eyes. My rifle bounced where its straps secured it to my chest. The sound joined with the steady thumping of my heart and became a strangely calming, meditative drumbeat.

One, one-thousand
,

The world slowed around me.

Two
,
two-thousand
,

I got a better glimpse of the man in black. He wasn't what I had expected.

Three, three-thousand
,

He clutched madly at the weapon, pulling fruitlessly at the trigger.

Four, four-thousand
,

A series of metallic clicks punctuated the quiet night air.

Five, five-thousand
,

I was on him. I kicked the weapon aside, and in the same easy movement threw myself onto his prone chest. I crashed against him, leading with my knee, and two hundred and twenty pounds of muscle and flesh impacted with his rib cage. My knee survived unharmed.

I couldn't say the same for his ribs.

A peal of terror and pain split the night air in two. It even cut through the pounding drumbeat in my head, so sharp I had to resist the temptation to throw my hands against my ears.

"Should have taken the safety off, dumb ass," I grunted. I rammed my knee into his ribs once more for good measure, ignoring his screams, grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him roughly on his front.

I stuck my hand out behind me. "Cuffs."

A rustle of cloth and webbing, and Dimitri placed a set of plastic zip-cuffs in my open palm. I looped them around my new captive's wrists and pulled them tightly snug. The second he was secure, I sank back onto my ass, finally letting my lungs gobble in the precious oxygen they needed.

"You okay, boss?" Dimitri asked, in a low, wondering tone. I turned to face him. His eyes were wide, mouth half-open with surprise. When I didn't say anything, my lieutenant stumbled on regardless. "How'd you know he was there?"

"Magic," I growled.
Keep them guessing
. "Get his gun."

Dimitri did as I asked, and held it out for me to grab. My fingers closed against the cool metal, and I used the tough weapon's stock to leaver myself back upright. I jabbed the barrel into my captive's back, punctuating his irritating background whimpering with a yowl of pain.

"So, birdie," I snarled, filling my voice with two years’ worth of hatred, "It's time to sing a song. You better hope I like what I hear."

"I promise, I promise," he blubbered, the sound of his pathetic moan muffled by the fact he was eating dirt. "I didn't do nothin’, I'm telling you –"

I jabbed the rifle into his back, and kicked him once in the side for good measure. His fractured ribs crunched together with an audible grating. I knelt by his side and dipped my mouth to his ear. "Listen, birdie, I don't like liars. You know what I do to liars?"

"I'm not lying, I prom –"

"Tell him, Dimitri."

Dimitri played along magnificently, thickening his accent so he sounded like some hick from deepest, darkest Siberia.

"Liars, boss? Is simple. You drops them off buildings. They make splat when they land."

I pushed the little birdie's face hard into the concrete so he couldn't see the grin stretching across my face and turned to my lieutenant. I gave him a thumb’s up. He pointed at the ground beside me.

My eyes widened with understanding. I suddenly realized why he'd been so slow to react to our attack.

I punched the sniveling wreck beneath me as hard as I could in his injured ribs, and he squealed like a stuck pig. "I can make the pain go away, birdie," I whispered into his ear, soft and sweet as warm honey. "I can give you what you need. It hurts, doesn't it, birdie. Not just the ribs, but every inch of you. Your skin's on fire, isn't it? Just say the word, and I'll make it all go away."

What I was doing sickened me. The lengths I was plunging to disgusted me. But if sinking to my father's level was what I needed to do to get revenge, I wouldn't blink. He squirmed underneath me, his legs flailing as he tried to get loose. But he was flimsy and frail from years of abusing his body – no match for my trained, athletic frame. It didn't take him long to realize the truth of his predicament.

"Cook it, Dimitri," I ordered.

The lieutenant coolly reached down and picked up the junkie's apparatus, carefully not pricking himself with a used sharp. I took the time to study my victim more carefully. His once-blonde hair now appeared whiter rather than golden, and his skin was sallow and lined well before his years.

I shook my head. "You've really fucked yourself up, haven't you?"

I watched, half-interested as Dimitri shook a couple of drops of acid onto the brown mixture and searched his black combat webbing for a lighter.

"You know, you really should quit smoking," I muttered. "It's a nasty habit; expensive, too."

"We all have vice," Dimitri muttered, closing one eye and sparking the lighter. He started to cook the heroin into a liquid fit to inject. "And at least mine not heroin."

"I doubt you can even call this shit heroin." I prodded at the remnants of the junkie's cellophane wrap. "It's brown; filthy stuff."

Dimitri pressed a syringe into my hands. It was warm to the touch. I shuddered, imagining the damage it would do to someone's veins. I noticed that the needle was capped with plastic and glanced at Dimitri with surprise. "It's new?"

"He's got ounces of the stuff; fresh needles, too; enough to keep him high as a kite for weeks."

I growled into the junkie's ear, "Or enough to kill him in seconds."

He sobbed beneath me, his resistance tumbling as the seconds ticked by. I jabbed him in the ribs and he howled with pain. "We can do this the easy way, little birdie, or the – well, not so easy way. Tell me what you want. We both know what it is."

I waited as the junkie wept. I watched as he battled his demons, and came up short every time. It didn't take long.

"I need my fix, man," he croaked. "Just give it to me, I promise I'll tell you everything, man, just –"

"You see, birdie," I cooed, stroking his eyebrow with the syringe. "Your promises aren't worth the filth you pump into your veins. You tell me what I want now or…" I paused, grabbing the rucksack full of drugs. "I take your stash. Maybe I'll dump it in the river."