Ten Thousand Lies (38 page)

Mikhail sat back, his black eyes piercing me. He wasn’t used to people standing up for themselves. In silence, he regarded me, and I fucking held my own.

“I’ll give you until the end of the week to say yes,”
he told me.

“And if I don’t?”

“I’ll make you.”

There was no doubt in my mind that he thought he could do it. I was going to say yes, but I couldn’t look eager. He knew I wanted nothing to do with him, and if I could have said no to tattooing him, I would have done so. To say yes right away would have been foolish.

“Right,” I grunted.
“Let’s get this fucking finished then.”

Sergej cleared out our dishes, and I wiped down the bench. The rest of the time went quickly. I had the tattoo finished in less than an hour, and it really was a shame. It was a fantastic piece, and Mikhail Vasili wouldn’t be alive long enough to truly enjoy it.

Ursula called me the minute I left the hotel. “You’re being followed.”

“Yeah, I figured as much,” I replied in the Russian accent. It was going to be weird, but I would have to keep it up from now on. I could just imagine Jaime laughing her arse off at me.

“Come straight to headquarters. We’ve got people in the front who will distract the two men following you. Jones is tailing them and keeping us informed.”

“Sounds good,” I said before hanging up.

I would’ve been surprised if Mikhail
hadn’t
had me followed. No doubt, he was hoping I’d either go to the shop or home, and I’d be damned if he was going to find out where I lived. Just the thought of him knowing who Jaime was sent a jolt of sickness into my gut.

When I had left the hotel room, Tonya had been passed out on the couch, naked, bruised around her neck and on her arse. The whole place had stunk of body odor, sex, sweat, and God knew what else.

“It’s not rape,” Mikhail had said to me as I made it to the door.

I’d turned back to look at him. “Of course not. You can’t rape what you
own
, right?”

He’d given me a sad sort of smile. “It’s not rape because it’s what she likes to do, what she’s
willing
to do for us. Not every woman wants to be
made love
to by only one man,” he said, tossing back my own philosophy at me. “Some women like it.”

“You’re right,” I’d replied before walking out.

I’d been wondering about Jaime, what she’d done before me, if she’d ever done it like that, and if she had, how I should feel about it. It didn’t make me feel good, that was for fucking sure.

What if she likes that shite? Being choked or slapped in the face?

Smacking her arse, I could handle. That was fun. But I’d never be able to crack her across the face.

Increasing my pace, I hurried toward headquarters. I needed as much time as I could get to go in and disappear through the back before Mikhail’s thugs walked in. Popping into the café, I beelined for the kitchen and was through the hidden door in record time.

Ursula was waiting for me, a huge smile on her face. “I could kiss you.”

That made me smile. “Don’t tell Jaime that.”

Jaime

With Ricki gone all day on his mission, I decided it was best to occupy myself at the bookstore with Xanthe and Beefcake. The woman took that little dude everywhere. She’d bought a plush travel box for the cat with toys and treats to ensure his early days would be but a distant memory for him.

Aunt Ellen wasn’t too thrilled about the cat shit in her back garden, but it was better than keeping a litter box in her flat.

While Beefcake pranced around in the grass, I sat down and chain-smoked, I was so nervous for Ricki. I knew he didn’t want to do this, and I was scared he’d slip up and get himself offed by some angry Russian fuckers. He hadn’t messaged me all damn day.

“You’re going to get cancer, smoking like that,” said Xanthe as she came out back.

Stubbing out my smoke, I exhaled my last drag. “I know. I’m just all sorts of fucked up in my head right now.”

“He’s all right. If he weren’t, they’d have let Ellen know.”

“He hates these guys. Thinks they’re the worst scum on the face of the earth.”

“Well, they are.”

“And he really hates that the guy has his ink on him.”

As she took the seat next to me, Xanthe’s look had a shiver sluicing down my spine.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s like having a piece of himself on the guy. I never thought of it before. Like a signature.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s not cool.”

“No.”

“His work is really distinct. Ricki’s known around here for his tattooing brilliance. Ronen, too.”

Just then, my phone chimed with a text message. Whipping it out from my pocket, I saw it was from my boy.

Ricki: Made it. Stay at Ellen’s. I’ll let you know when we can meet up.

“Shit,” I hissed.

“What?” asked Xanthe.

Handing over the phone, I swallowed back the trepidation. Sure, he was alive, but it didn’t sound like there was anything good beyond that.

“Damn,” whispered Xanthe. “Something must be up. I bet Ellen’s in a conference call with headquarters.”

Sure enough, after we’d scooped up Beefcake, we found the door to her office locked.

“Well, what do we do now?” I asked.

“Call Lilla and hit Ellen’s stash?”

Twenty minutes later, Lilla knocked on the door, and Xanthe went to let her in. Heading upstairs, we raided a joint from Ellen’s box under her coffee table, smoked it, and sat in stoned silence. Beefcake ambled around, supremely unconcerned that we were freaking the fuck out on the inside.

“What do you think’s going on?” Lilla whispered, as though HQ would know we were talking about them.

Come to think of it…they just might. We didn’t know if Ellen kept her place bugged for them. It was entirely possible we were being watched at this very moment.

Or…I could be paranoid from the fat joint we’d just inhaled.

“No clue,” replied Xanthe. “He sent Jaime a cryptic-ass text.”

“That was nice of him,” Lilla scoffed. “Nothing like not knowing if your man is in danger and shit.”

Lilla knew Ricki was tattooing a scumbag for a mission. What else she knew, I didn’t know, and she didn’t volunteer any info.

“If he were, they’d tell Ellen, and she’d let us know,” said Xanthe, completely convinced.

I hope she would.

“So…anything new on the Ronen front?” I asked to change the subject.

“No,” replied Lilla. “He hasn’t even walked by the hostel in the last few days.”

“They’ve been pretty busy at the shop,” I told her. “I know he went in yesterday for some shit. I don’t know what.”

The sound of Ellen’s office door unlocking and opening had us all sitting up straight on the couches. The old woman’s footsteps came up the stairs. The three of us greeted her with the same expectant look on our faces.

Ellen burst out laughing. “Good God, everything is fine!”

The air exploded out of me.

“The boys are on their way over. And, whatever any of you do, don’t laugh at Ricki’s accent. He’s being followed by the Russian fuckers, and we can’t have them suspecting him being anything other than what they think he is.”

“Okay,” Xanthe replied.

Twenty minutes later, we heard the back door to the shop open. Ronen, Rex, and Ricki came up the steps, making Ellen’s flat feel fucking claustrophobic.

Ricki’s eyes landed on me. When I saw the cold, hard look in them, an icy chill blasted my vitals. His whole demeanor was frigid. I was almost afraid of him. Giving Rex a slight shove to the side, he made his way to me, reaching out when he got close and yanking me into his arms.

“We’re going home,” he whispered in my ear. Taking my hand, he tugged me toward the stairs.

“But—”

“No buts,” he said harshly.

I heard the faint accent he’d put into the words.

When we got to the front door, he pulled out his phone and called someone.

“Are we clear?” he asked the person on the other end of the line. “Good.” He hung up, stowing the phone back in his pocket.

He opened the door and we headed out.

“What’s going on?” I whispered.

“Not here!” he snapped back.

A few feet from the bookstore sat a black van. Ricki dragged me toward it, opened the sliding door, and shoved me in. Assertive, man-handling Ricki was a bit of a turn-on. In the driver’s seat sat a bald large man with a shit-ton of tattoos on the bits of skin I could see.

“Ready?” the guy asked.

“Go,” said Ricki.

The van pulled out into the street. My head filled with too many fucking questions to keep count. Already admonished by my man for being curious, I kept my mouth shut.

Ricki’s hand tightly clasped mine, and I focused on that. He was alive, and while he might be scaring the piss out of me, I was safe with him. I forced myself to remain calm as we made it back to Ricki’s place with tattooed baldy happily singing along to Slaughter’s “Fly with the Angels,” butchering the high notes.

“Come on,” said Ricki, towing me along behind him after the van had come to a complete stop.

“I’ll be here until Klaus comes. Should be around two.”

“Thanks, Jones,” said Ricki, again with the accent, before shutting the van door.

Once we were inside his and Ronen’s place, Ricki pulled me into his arms, holding me. I didn’t know what else to do, so I hugged him back and dropped my head to his shoulder.

“You’re frightening me,” I whispered.

“There’s a lot we need to talk about. I need you…I need you to be strong and to keep a calm head. Not just while I’m telling you what’s going on, but until this shit is done. No matter how bloody long it’ll take. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Once more, he took my hand, leading me up to his bedroom. I had a seat on the bed, and he told me what had gone down today—without the accent this time.

“They’re going to find out you’re my girl, Jaime. I’ve never been so fucking terrified in my life.”

“It’ll be fine,” I told him, trying to convince the both of us.

“You can’t think that way,” he said. He crouched between my knees. “I need you on high alert. Be aware of your surroundings, and for fuck’s sake, don’t give them any reason to suspect you know anything about anything, all right?”

“Okay.”

Ricki took a deep breath. “It might be best if you went back to New Jersey—”

“Not a chance,” I told him.

“But—”

“No. I’m in this with you. I’m not running away and hiding every time you have a mission. So, get that out of your head right now.”

“This isn’t just some mission, Jaime. This situation is bleeding into our private lives. There are so many things that can go wrong here. Your
life
is in danger. They’re going to find out who you are to me and use you against me.”

“I’m not leaving,” I said stubbornly. There was no way I would willingly spend a single day without him in my life. The mere thought had my heart convulsing in my chest.

His gaze dropped to our hands. “Something else happened,” he said quietly.

“What’s that?”

“They had a woman there, and…they were using her.”

My poor man. Sex was such a strange subject for him. While no longer awkward with me in that way, I knew he was still wary of it.

“Oh, yeah? Like, out in the open?”

He swallowed thickly. “Yes.”

“Did you get a crack at her?” I joked.

His gaze shot to mine, hard and angry. “No. It was offered though. I wanted to vomit.”

“What happened?”

“I’m pretty sure Lenny thinks I’m a softy twat. But it got me thinking. About…you.”

A little repulsed, I sat up straight. “What do you mean?”

“Lenny was fucking her face, and his brother was fucking her in the arse at the same time. I kept hearing you say what you told me this morning about how it had just been about sex for you before we got together.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you ever have it like…that?”

“What? Like a threesome?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Have you taken it up the arse?”

Anger was starting to burn in me. “Would it matter if I had?”

“No. I’m just trying to understand.”