A few days passed, and Deva was surprised not to see Aleksei back at the gym. No way what happened between them would have kept him away from training. And it worried her. Not that she cared about the asshole, but she knew that she should have played the compliant little girl and finished jerking him off, thus creating a kind of bond with him. But he had pushed the wrong button, and she couldn’t help her reaction. This complicated the entire situation.
And with all the work she had to do, her appointments, the treatments, Deva was reeling with how her mission of getting Aleksei’s trust was spiraling out of control.
Rubbing her eyes at her conundrum, she scanned the men training in the gym. Hard at work a few hours before her arrival, she wondered how she had successfully made friends with many of them, and yet fucked up so completely, and totally, with the Russian. Damn lust. It played tricks with her logical mind and made her screw up. In the worst sense of the word.
In the ring, she saw the newcomer from that morning. Rusty had told him about his new recruit. The man was a sight for lonely women’s eyes. Tall with golden-blond hair, just long enough to run your fingers into, he was a Viking warrior from another era and had fallen into this gym. Her boss had told her to be careful with him, he was going through a rough patch, had just left the army. Or was it the Navy? She never could tell. But as he moved in the ring with Hector, she had no doubt that he would be successful in his newfound passion. And if he wanted, he could go into modeling, or be a movie star, or a porn star from what she could guess at under his loose gym trunks. With that body and that face, he could do anything. But one. Even as she was admiring this amazing, mouth-drooling male specimen, the warrior god didn’t stir anything inside her. Damn shame, as he looked like a good guy too. Very unlike the mean, tattooed, and sexy as hell son of a bitch that she’d had her hands on not so long ago.
Forcing herself back to reality, and the computer before her, Deva was finishing typing up her reports when Rusty arrived a little later than usual and looking as if he hadn’t slept all night.
“Good morning, Rusty.”
The ginger-haired man rumbled a noncommittal answer before dropping on the sofa facing Deva. The coffee in his hand sloshed through the small opening and splashed over his workout pants, but he didn’t seem to care. Deva frowned and stopped typing.
“Are you alright? You look as if you had a rough night. Or was it a lady who kept you out of your bed?”
He grumbled before taking another sip of caffeine. Drops of liquids clung to his beard. “Stop. Stop. I’m too old not to sleep. Even for a woman.”
“What kept you up all night, then?”
Rusty’s head fell back on the cushions. “Damn Alek.”
Deva blinked and coughed a little, surprised. “Well, I won’t judge you if you spend your nights with Aleksei Voronov. And as he’s not here this morning, it proves that you have more stamina than him. Good for you, boss.”
It took a moment for Rusty to process her words but when he did, he jumped to his feet, spilling more coffee on the furniture. “No. No. No. That’s not what I meant.”
Deva shook her head, an innocent look on her face, clearly teasing, but also fishing for information. “It’s okay. I won’t judge you or anything, free will, free love and all that.”
“Deva, damn it. I’m not into men, don’t start spreading rumors like that.”
She leaned back on her chair, linking her hands on her stomach. “Well, if you’re not doing something naughty with Aleksei, what were you doing with him?”
The way her boss hesitated told her that it was something bad. And maybe even linked to something that could help her reach the man in a way that the failed sexual attempt she had tried earlier hadn’t.
Rusty smoothed his beard, and it seemed as if what he was about to say was painful.
“I’ve debated dragging you into this, but I might need your help after all. And for now, I have more power over him than he has over me, so it might be a good time.”
He turned again to look at the men working out on the opposite side of his glass wall before finally closing the door.
“I need your help, but even more, I need your discretion. Entire and complete discretion. Do you understand me?”
And now her curiosity was piqued. At last, an opening! Leaning forward, she bit her lip. “What are you dragging me to? Something illegal?”
Rusty winced, and Deva felt like a shark smelling blood. No way she was letting it go now. “That part shouldn’t cause you problems, especially if you don’t ask too many questions, Deva.”
As if she wouldn’t. “What’s going on with you and Aleksei, Rusty?”
He sat back again and took another sip of coffee. “Listen, I can’t tell you much, he would have my head, but Aleksei needs your help.”
Deva’s smile faded. She didn’t know what the man had told Rusty, or if this was a payback trick, but she wasn’t about to give in that easily.
“What kind of help?
“He had a fight last night, a nasty one. He’s bloody, but mostly bruised and in need of your expertise.”
Deva blinked, not sure she understood. “What fight? I didn’t see any fights planned out for him anytime soon.”
Rusty winced but continued. “I know. It was a... private fight.”
Private? And then it clicked in her head. “An underground fight ring. That’s what you are referring to, right?” Deva had personal knowledge of that circus back in the day. Savage fights that made MMA look like ballet dancing. This revelation raised another question. Why was Aleksei involved in that? He had the shape and the skills to go pro, but it would take a good reason or a valid threat to force a man such as him into that cage for a fight to the death.
Rusty didn’t answer her question, but his face confirmed her suspicions. It was the point of no return. Her father’s motorcycle club was most probably involved in that, too. A risk of being discovered lurked. But Deva had given her word; she would try every possible trick she could to fulfill her promise to Beatrice, even uprooting her life once more.
“How badly is he hurt?”
The older man sighed in defeat and with obvious relief at her words. “When I left him at his place, he was hurting all over, but there may be more injuries than he told me. I hope he’s not bleeding to death internally. Damn, his opponent was massive, it was sheer luck that he beat him. But there is more.”
There was always more where the underworld was concerned, in Deva’s opinion. “I’m not sure I want to know what’s next.”
“There’s another fight in three days, one he can’t miss.”
Could a fighter that was wounded and on his knees, recuperate enough to be battle-ready in three days? Another memory flashed through her head, giving her the answer.
She waited a beat before answering. “I’ll do my best, Rusty. But you’ll have to cover for me. I might not be able to take all the appointments with the guys here, and I fear I will need all the time I can manage with Aleksei in the hope of getting him back in shape. And for that, he would need to let me in. Let me help him. I have doubts about his willingness.” Deva was careful not to reveal too much to her boss.
Rusty reached into his pocket and threw her a key. “His access code is my phone number. He had to change his previous code. It was the only way I could remember it. Do your best, Deva. It’s the first time I have seen him in that state. And I fear that the next time he steps into this Godforsaken cage, it might be his last.”