Chapter 9

Summarily dismissed from the don’s presence, Latasha, Iosif, and Maksim allowed themselves to be escorted out by none other than Giovanni Maglione himself. As soon as the office door closed behind him, he said in a quiet voice, “I appreciate your willingness to agree to Grandfather’s terms, Latasha.”

She flashed her eyes at him and replied, “I’m not all that willing, Giovanni.”

He nodded, his dark chocolate gaze cool and assessing. “Regardless, you have my gratitude. He will not agree to moving to a hospital, and finding a nurse we can trust is not easy.” He glanced at Iosif and added, “I will do my best to see that you and Latasha have as much time together as possible.”

Iosif nodded in silent appreciation. Giovanni, he thought, was eerily like his grandfather, but the younger man had more compassion.

“I will see that Giancarla visits you, too,” the Italian mobster promised.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Giovanni,” Latasha retorted, though her voice did not scold. “She answers to Vitaly.”

“And Vitaly answers to me,” Maksim muttered.

“I’ll put in my two-week notice at the hospital,” Latasha said when they reached the building’s impressive lobby.

“You may not have two weeks,” Giovanni murmured. “The cancer is advanced.”

She nodded. “I’ll need to see his medical records and his physician’s orders for hospice care.”

“I’ll have them for you tomorrow morning.”

She shook hands with Gia’s cousin and led the two big Russians from the building.

“Well, that was unexpected,” she commented after huffing a breath of surprise.

“Latasha,” Maksim said, “if you do not wish to do this, then we will support your decision.”

Her eyebrows went skyward in astonishment. That was a change of attitude she hadn’t expected.

“I erred with Pyotr,” he admitted with a frown, referring to the consequences of his refusal to allow the former enforcer to retire from service. “I do not make the same mistake twice.”

Latasha held her jaw closed with effort. Maksim Andrupov never admitted an error. She cleared her throat and replied, “No, it’s okay. This won’t last forever and maybe Ochobella’s people will forget all about us.”

“Nyet,” Iosif contradicted her. “They will not forget, but they will not come after us, either.”

“Why don’t you think so? I’ve heard of La Eme. They’re everywhere.”

“La Eme is Mexican,” Iosif explained. “Ochobella’s organization is small. They know they cannot compare against the Bratva. Why do you think the boy gave his sister to Bogdan? He needs an alliance to strengthen his cartel.”

“Oh.” Feeling somewhat chastened, Latasha seized upon mention of Bogdan’s marriage to change the subject. “How are Bogdan and Valentina doing?”

Maksim shook his head, his mouth curling into an unwilling smile. “Affection is ruining all my best men.”

“What does that mean, Maksim?”

“Never you mind.”

“Humph.”

Gennady hopped from Maksim’s limousine and opened the door for his boss. He nodded to Iosif and asked Latasha, “You okay, girl?”

Yet another surprise. Latasha wondered if she were hallucinating. Gennady never asked after anyone. He made even taciturn Iosif seem loquacious. She decided it must have meant he cared in his own weird fashion.

“I’m okay,” she assured him and favored him with a small smile as Maksim took his seat.

“Good,” he said with curt nod.

“How’s Suzanne?” she inquired.

Gennady’s eyes took on a glittering, intense focus, and Latasha found herself taking a step backward to lean against Iosif’s solid strength. She took comfort in the burly arm that wrapped around her and held her safe.

“Perfect,” the whipcord lean man replied after a second’s thought.

Latasha wanted to whimper, wondering just what Gennady had done, was doing, would do to that poor woman. In the next moment she decided that perhaps she really did not want to know.

“Just tell me she’s consenting,” she whispered.

“Da.”

The car door closed and the conversation ended.

“You shouldn’t push him, Latasha,” Iosif warned her as they walked to his car and climbed in.

“What do you mean?” she demanded with a spark of her old feistiness. “I just want to make sure that Suzanne consents to what he does with her. She’s been victimized enough, don’t you think?”

Iosif pondered what to tell her. He did not want to divulge that Gennady did indeed hurt women when ordered to do so. He did not want to tell her that he rather thought Gennady enjoyed it. He hoped that Gennady’s apparent fascination with Suzanne translated into caring for her, rather than exploiting her. Instead, he simply replied, “I understand.”

Latasha flashed him a suspicious glance, but did not press for further explanation. She wasn’t at all sure that he would explain himself if she did demand it. He seldom did. Besides, she had enough problems of her own to worry about before fretting over someone else’s.

Without a word, Iosif swung by the hospital. When he parked the car, Latasha looked at him and took a deep breath.

“Shall I accompany you?” he asked.

She took another deep breath and shook her head. “No, I need to do this myself.”

Iosif nodded and then added, “You realize that by accepting this position with Giuseppe Maglione, you won’t be able to work in that hospital again.”

Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve just agreed to work for the mob. They’re not going to release you all that readily.”

“But Giuseppe said—”

“Giovanni will call you back to patch up an enforcer who gets hurt, a wise guy who takes a bullet in the shoulder or leg, a family member who catches an illness.”

Latasha swallowed the lump of fear that rose in her throat. She leaned her head back and took a few calming breaths.

“It’s really just that easy, isn’t it?” she muttered. “They’ve hooked their tame nurse, and now I’m truly caught.”

Iosif took her cold hand in his warm one. “If it helps, I don’t think Giovanni will abuse your goodwill more than necessary.”

“Do you think maybe he’ll let me find a job elsewhere, like in a doctor’s office?”

Iosif nodded. “I do. But you’ll be at his beck and call. If he needs you, you will be obligated to go to him.”

She made the connection. “Like you are with Maksim.”

He nodded and repeated his offer to accompany her into the hospital to resign her position. She again refused the offer and almost giggled at the thought of her big, muscular, dour husband glaring down the arrogant, belligerent head nurse who would likely erupt into rapid-fire Spanish either extolling Iosif’s physical virtues or castigating one of her best emergency room nurses for quitting so abruptly.

Latasha straightened her shoulders and spine and walked inside to face the head nurse who certainly wouldn’t expect her to show up before her vacation officially ended. Iosif waited patiently in the car, his gaze lingering on the sway of her taut, rounded backside as she walked. The time passed slowly, but he did not turn on the radio or play games on his smartphone. He had more self-discipline than that. Instead, he kept a watchful eye on the comings and goings in the parking lot. His interest piqued when he spied a Hispanic man walk through the doors. He would not normally have locked his sight on the man, except for the man’s sloppy dress and telltale tattoos.

Iosif eased from the car and followed the man into the hospital. He paused a discrete distance from the man, far enough away to preserve the illusion of privacy, but close enough to eavesdrop. The man addressed the receptionist in rapid Spanish of which Iosif caught one word: Drakoniv.

The bilingual receptionist responded in kind and directed the man to sit in the waiting room. The man nodded and glanced at Iosif as he strolled over to the waiting room to take a seat. His eyes widened a little upon seeing the other man, but the short sleeves and open collar of Iosif’s shirt revealed no tattoos inked on the pale skin. Seeing the lack of identifying ink, the man’s tense posture and wary expression relaxed into false complacency.

Iosif had no tattoos at all. He’d realized early that ink could identify him either to enemy combatants or to law enforcement as well or better than a photograph of his face.

“May I help you?” the receptionist inquired in a bored tone.

“No, thank you,” he replied and walked over to the waiting room where he took a seat next to the tattooed thug, whose muscles tensed, ready for action.

“I am Drakoniv. What do you want?” he addressed the man without preamble.

The thug’s eyes widened in surprise, but otherwise he showed no reaction. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop, chico.”

“What’s your interest in my wife, malchik?” Iosif countered, trading slur for slur.

“This ain’t got nothin’ to do wit’ you.”

Iosif shifted and unobtrusively brought his hand up behind the thug. He settled his fingers on top of the man’s shoulder and pinched the nerve. The thug gasped in pain.

“You and yours will leave my wife alone, or I will kill every last one of you,” Iosif murmured in a conversational tone as his strong grip delivered crushing pressure. “Unless you want Maksim Andrupov and Giuseppe Maglione both after you?”

The thug’s swarthy skin turned pale with dread. “No, I want no trouble.”

Iosif released the pressure and patted the man’s shoulder. “Good. We keep the peace and no one gets hurt or dies, hm?”

“Yeah.”

“Now go tell your boss that whatever plans he had for my wife are ended.”

The man turned a sweating face to Iosif and whispered, “He’ll kill me.”

Iosif shrugged and replied, “Not my problem.”

“Fucker’s made of ice,” the man muttered as he slowly rose to his feet and left the building.

Iosif debated returning to his car, but decided to stay where he was instead. He picked up an old magazine and flipped through it with desultory interest until Latasha walked past the reception desk. He set the magazine down and rose to meet her, immediately concerned by her ashen complexion.

“Are you all right?” he asked as he met her halfway across the floor and wrapped an arm around her.

“I thought you were going to wait in the car.”

“I got bored,” he lied and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Now, what is wrong?”

“Judy got a little… intense,” she said, wringing her hands.

“Shall I have her apologize?”

Latasha gulped air and shook her head, “Oh, God, no, don’t do that. I’ll never work in this town again if you do.”

Iosif forbore to state that she’d continue to work in Cleveland, just as a private nurse rather than in a hospital regardless of what this Judy might say or what rumors she might spread. His Latasha was upset and not thinking straight.

Instead, he pressed another kiss to her head and murmured, “Come. Let’s get you home.”

She nodded and allowed herself to enjoy the security of his embrace as they walked back to the car. Sensing her need for continued reassurance, he retained hold of her hand while he drove. That simple touch warmed her, reminded her of the incredible passion they’d so briefly shared. Her breasts began to feel swollen and achy and her sex moistened and pulsed with need, need for him. Only him.

Once inside the house, he ushered her into the kitchen where he began to take out pans. With a deft twist of his hand, he turned on the flame.

“Two slices of bacon or three?” he asked as he pulled out a package of bacon from the refrigerator.

“I don’t want food.”

He turned off the flame and set the skillet aside. Slowly turning around, he asked, “What do you want, Latasha?”

Eyes huge in her face and her body trembling with unrealized passion, she forced the words out, “I want you, Iosif.”

Iosif exerted extreme control over himself to keep from launching across the kitchen and fucking her on the table. His tongue felt thick and clumsy as he spoke to make sure she meant what he desperately hoped she meant. “How do you want me, Latasha?”

She swallowed, nervous, and whispered, “Naked. Inside me.”

He crossed the floor, every step deliberate. His features sharpened, as though sculpted from granite. His body moved with coiled strength and predatory purpose. Yet his hand was gentle as he ran the back of one knuckle over her cheek, then cupped her jaw.

“Do you mean it?”

She nodded.

“You’re trembling.”

“I want you,” she reiterated. “I’m scared, but I know you can make it good. Make it good for me now.”

Coming to a snap decision, Iosif saw that she needed him to take charge. When her confidence had been restored, perhaps she would boss him again. But her recent helplessness had deeply damaged her.

“Go to the bedroom and take off your clothes,” he ordered. “Then lie down and wait for me. Don’t touch yourself. Your pleasure is mine.”

She opened her mouth in a soft gasp. His hand cupping her jaw held her still for the moment it took to brush his mouth against hers, a soft, tender touch when she might have expected him to crush her lips beneath his. He dropped his hand, and she walked on unsteady feet to the bedroom.

Iosif groaned and rubbed a hand over the erection that strained painfully against his zipper. He knew he had to give her a couple of minutes to obey his order. He also knew he wanted her to watch him disrobe, to take pleasure in seeing his body and know that it would be dedicated to giving her bone-melting pleasure. So, he poured a glass of water and slowly drank it, and then returned the bacon to the refrigerator.

Iosif entered the bedroom. Latasha saw a gleam of moisture on his lips and wondered if he’d licked them or if the moisture came from some other source. She watched him when he stopped in front of the bed. He toed off his shoes, bent down to remove his socks. When he straightened, he locked his eyes upon hers and unbuttoned his shirt. Latasha’s mouth went dry as he slowly—too damned slowly—opened his shirt to reveal the incised definition of his muscular torso. The mat of hair on his chest could not obscure the muscular perfection beneath. Her breath caught in her throat as he shrugged off the shirt.

With agonizing deliberation, he unbuckled his belt and slid it free of the belt loops. He coiled the strip of leather around his hand and then let it fall to the floor. Latasha felt her thighs fall open. Iosif’s gaze left hers to take in the gleam of her arousal. He returned his eyes to hers and again locked her gaze as he unbuttoned the waistband of his trousers. With excruciating slowness, he slid the zipper down and eased the pressure on his rampant cock. A spot of moisture darkened the knit fabric of his underwear where his arousal leaked in eagerness to fill her.

Latasha noticed that wet spot and her mouth watered. She moaned.

“Spread your legs,” Iosif ordered.

She obeyed, displaying all of herself to him. He inhaled, scenting her arousal, musky and sweet on the air. Still moving slowly, he crawled up the bed and settled his broad shoulders between her open thighs, bringing his face within inches of her core. He took a deeper breath and then blew softly across the wet flesh, already pink and swollen for him.

She gasped and moaned his name.

Iosif inched forward and licked the length of her slit. She squealed and her hands latched onto his head, fingers curling into his hair. Her hips bucked and he complied with her nonverbal demand.

Latasha’s eyes rolled back in her head as she quivered beneath her husband’s talented tongue. The gentle rasp of his flattened tongue gave way to a warm, wet probe that sought out her swollen clitoris. She could not help but mewl as pleasure reverberated through her body. She cried out when Iosif’s lips delicately closed around her clit and he suckled the tiny nub.

Latasha’s eyes fluttered shut. Her back arched. Her hands clenched in Iosif’s thick hair. White heat surged through her body, a hot flash of lightning that wrenched a cry of orgasm from her throat as Iosif’s big, warm hands clamped down on her thighs, holding them open and down as she strained to press the core of herself against his face. His tongue lapped at her without mercy, savoring the taste of the honey that poured over it.

When the spasms of climax subsided into soft shudders of aftershock, Iosif sat back and smiled at her, his face wet and shining with her moisture. Latasha wanted to blush with embarrassment for having squirted all over him, but he surged up her body and crushed his mouth to hers, sharing the taste of her passion coating his lips and tongue. His hands moved from her thighs to stroke her belly and breasts, thumbs and fingers pinching her dusky nipples which furled to tight peaks. Latasha’s hands untangled from his hair and stroked wherever and whatever they could reach, fingertips digging into the unyielding muscle beneath the satin of his skin.

Iosif’s hips settled in the cradle of hers, the hot steely length of him probing at her wet and swollen sex. His hips rolled, rubbing his cock against her body, renewing his body’s excitement and eagerness.

“Mne nuzhno byt' vnutri vas,” he rasped, having lost his English in the throes of passion.

“Yes,” Latasha answered and did not resist as he folded one of her legs back, and then the other, opening her fully to his possession. “I need you inside me.”

“Slava Bogu,” he groaned as he surged forward, spearing her upon his cock in one driving stroke.

Latasha mewled, the sound going straight to his heart and then arrowing to his groin. She felt him swell within her, stretching the already tight sheath that enveloped him with slick heat. Iosif, balanced above her on his forearms, bowed his head to touch his brow to hers.

“Ne dvigaysya,” he growled.

Latasha understood. Don’t move. Her body quivered beneath him as she strained to hold still, to not undulate, to not force the delicious drag of his flesh moving within hers. She understood that Iosif struggled for the control to make their lovemaking last, understood that he was dangerously near to ejaculating.

She wanted him to climax within her.

Clenching her hands over his shoulders, she took control and moved. The undulation of her body broke the frayed threads of his control, and he began to plunge in and out of her body. The wet, slapping sounds of vigorous copulation filled the room and mingled with his harsh grunts and her incoherent cries.

Iosif buried his face in the juncture of her neck and shoulder and bit down on the tender flesh as her body rippled and spasmed around him. Incited by her climax to his own, he drove into her as deeply as he possibly could and filled her with his essence. He rested, body boneless and trembling, for a long moment before he could muster the strength to roll aside so he wouldn’t crush her slender frame beneath his greater size and weight.

They both panted and shivered as cool air wafted over their sweating bodies. Iosif shifted to draw the bedcovers over them and gathered his wife close. He pressed a lingering kiss to the perspiring surface of her neck and she whispered, “I love you.”

“Ya lyublyu tebya,” he returned, professing his love for her in his native language because he still hadn’t regained use of his English.

They napped.

When they woke, they made love again. That time passion rose gently, slowly. Their final climax rippled and surged in unending waves of bliss that left them utterly wrung out and ravenous for food.

Giving in to the demands of their bellies, Iosif ordered fast food delivery. The refrigerator was nearly empty, but for a few items that would not spoil during the ten days they’d scheduled for their honeymoon.

That evening as they snuggled on the couch and more or less ignored the movie playing on the television, the doorbell rang. Iosif groaned and muttered an expletive that Latasha didn’t need to translate into English, even as he gently lifted her head from his cock. Dazed with passion, she blinked several times and wondered why he’d removed her mouth from the thick, meaty, musky treat of his erection.

“Someone’s at the door,” he explained, his accent thick as he managed to summon the English words. “Get dressed. Stay in bedroom.”

Nodding and suddenly sober, Latasha dashed to the bedroom while Iosif yanked up his sweat pants. He turned on the porch light and peered through the window. Opening the door a scant two inches, he asked, “What do you want, Leroy?”

Latasha’s brother twitched on the front stoop, the whites of his eyes practically glowing against his dark, sweaty face.

“Latasha here?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder, fingers flexing as though barely restrained from grabbing a weapon.

“What do you want?” Iosif repeated coldly. He noted the pinpoint pupils of the younger man’s eyes, knew Leroy was high on something. Meth. Heroin. Crack. It didn’t matter. What did matter was why his wife’s degenerate brother asked for her and what he intended to do with that knowledge.

“Just want to see her,” Leroy replied, gaze darting aside and then back, never focusing on any one thing for more than a second or two. Twitchy. “Make sure she’s okay.”

“You never bothered to see her in the two years since she moved in with me,” Iosif pointed out with cold logic. “Why now?”

“Need… need help.” Leroy glanced over his shoulder. Nervous sweat beaded on his face. The sour smell of it rose from his body.

“You need help?” Iosif asked to force the drugged man to clarify.

“Yeah. Need a safe place.” He looked over the other shoulder and twitched some more while Iosif debated the wisdom of letting that poor excuse for a man into his home and anywhere near his wife. Perhaps the paranoia was induced by whatever illegal substances the idiot had been shooting, snorting, or swallowing.

“Who’s after you, Leroy?”

“Colombians.”

Iosif sighed. Latasha would never forgive him if he did the smart thing and turned her brother away in his time of need. But he was loath to bring Leroy’s problems into his home. Latasha had been exposed to more than enough ugliness.

“Come in,” he invited, his voice cold and clipped. As soon as his brother-in-law stepped inside, he shut the door and turned the lock with one hand while grasping the thug’s upper arm with the other hand.

“Hey!” Leroy protested and jerked, but the Russian was bigger, stronger.

“To the kitchen,” Iosif said and pulled his wife’s brother along.

“Where’s ’Tasha?”

“She doesn’t need to see you like this,” Iosif said and shoved him into a chair. “Sit. Don’t move.”

“You gotta protect me.”

“Protect you from what?”

“C-c-can’t pay, man. Told ’em ’Tasha would pay.”

“And?” Iosif prompted, his expression turning icy and forbidding, an expression that many other dangerous men had seen immediately before they died.

“She works in a hospital, man. She can get drugs.”

“Who did you promise, you piece of shit?” Latasha’s voice snapped. Both Iosif and Leroy looked up, neither expecting her to be standing there.

Leroy’s lips peeled back in a gruesome parody of a smile in a futile effort to ingratiate himself into his sister’s good graces. “Hey, ’Tasha. I just need a little help. Get me out of a spot of trouble. Then I won’t bother you no more.”

Latasha’s expression darkened with disgust, even as her heart cracked with disappointment. “It’s never just once with you or your crackhead friends, Leroy,” she muttered. “And even if I still worked at the hospital, I wouldn’t steal drugs for you.”

“You don’t work there no more?” he rasped.

She sighed. “No. I have no drugs for you, and I’m not going to get any for you. Go back to Mama, Leroy. She’ll put you up until you’re back on your feet.”

“Mama kicked me out,” he blurted in a strange mixture of shame and resentment.

“Leroy, you’re thirty years old. Grow up and take some responsibility for yourself,” Latasha snapped, annoyed at the thought of having to rescue her brother yet again.

Leroy shot a disgruntled glare at Iosif, who absorbed his anger with impassive nonchalance. “You know I can’t find no job. The Man—”

Latasha made a slashing motion with her hand and interrupted. “It’s not ‘the Man,’ Leroy. It’s your own stupid self. You dropped out of school. You’re higher than a kite. You’ve got a rap sheet as long as my arm. ‘The Man’ didn’t force any of that on you; you did it to yourself, and I won’t be party to it.”

Leroy lunged and grabbed his sister’s arm with a cruel yank. He had just enough time to shout, “Bitch!” before dropping to the floor with a scream of pain. Iosif squatted down and grabbed his wife’s worthless brother by the collar and snarled in impeccably enunciated English, “You sleep here tonight, and tomorrow morning you leave and never come back. And if you touch Latasha again, I’ll do more than hit you. I’ll kill you. Understand?”

Cradling his injured arm, Leroy nodded. Iosif stood and roughly hauled up the younger man with him. With a rude shove, he said, “Bathroom’s that way. Clean yourself up.”

He looked toward his wife and, as quickly as he had struck and dropped her brother to the floor, he gathered her into his embrace. She trembled, so he held her until the shaking stopped and the color returned to her face.

“Are you okay now?” he asked, his voice soft, filled with concern.

“You’re lethal,” she whispered, eyes wide and a little fearful. She’d known he was dangerous, but that fast, brutal display of martial prowess scared her. She knew it was that skill that had rescued her in Costa Rica, but to see it demonstrated so… effectively… made her realize at long last just how dangerous her husband really was.

“You never need fear me. Never.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her head and hugged her close again. “You, I will shelter and protect. Always. Ya lyublyu tebya.”

Latasha relaxed against his body, reassured by his declaration of love. He held her a moment longer, then reluctantly stepped away.

“I’ll find something for Leroy to wear tonight. Will you throw his dirty clothes in the wash?”

Latasha nodded, just barely managing not to wrinkle her nose. She didn’t necessarily mind being asked to wash Leroy’s dirty laundry; she simply didn’t want to touch his soiled clothing. From the way her brother stank, he hadn’t bathed or changed into fresh clothing for several days. It made her wonder just when Mama had thrown him out of her house.

She turned her attention to ridding the spare bedroom of anything valuable that Leroy might think to steal and sell to buy more drugs.