Fucking smiled. Did he think it was a damn joke? She wanted to knock his head off his shoulders, but before she could finish the thought. Rurik handed the gun to Hannah and did it for her. Dropping his brother with one hit. Her mouth dropped at the same time his body hit the unforgiving desert sand.
Jessa collapsed to her knees. Her eyes swirled around, taking in bits and pieces of conversations and sights. She gasped in a gulp of air and gagged on the smell of flesh already rotting in the sun and mixing with the smoky dust of gunpowder. Her mouth filled with saliva. Desperate to spit the wretchedness back out. She closed her eyes, running her hand over her forehead. She needed to close her eyes and blackout. But apparently, she wasn’t that kind. She wasn’t a swoon and faint girl. Apparently, she was a gag, puke, and hyperventilate girl. She shuddered again. Looking around and waiting for the scene before her to make sense. But the only thought that kept looping through her mind was from a classic movie. Judy Garland’s warbled voice repeated in an endless loop. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”
Chapter 1
Jessalyn Hernandez’s stomach lurched again. She hated throwing up, but the last week had been a non-ending spin on a carnival tilt-a-whirl ride. She’d snatched the opportunity to work for the Ismailov family. Rurik Ismailov, the retired MMA champ, requested a tutor for his wife. She’d assumed Hannah Ismailov was incapacitated or pregnant. She should have suspected something wasn’t right. Correction, the money had been right. More than right. She’d taken the thirty-thousand-dollar advance and saved their house from the foreclosure vultures. Telling herself it didn’t matter what he wanted her to do. He could have asked her to clean floors with a toothbrush and she still would have jumped. Jumped as high and as fast as he wanted. She couldn’t let her mom lose the house. Not when papi had worked so hard to purchase it in the first place. She pressed her hand on her stomach as if the pressure would settle it. She could do this. She’d started it for her mom, and she’d finish it for her.
She wouldn’t let her down. Her mom and papi had adopted her when his drug-addicted sister had abandoned her on their doorstep. Abandoning Jessa with an, I’m so sorry, but I can’t do this note, and twenty dollars. She’d read that note until the ink soaked into her hands, marring them with black stained words. Other notes followed over the years, from prisons to halfway houses. Each begging for money, swearing she’d cleaned up and reformed. Until the letter that changed everything arrived. Giving up all parental rights and allowing her brother to adopt her. They’d saved her from the drug-fueled dangerous life her mother had succumbed to. And after all their work, sacrifices, and lectures, she’d ended up in the life, anyway. It sucked big time to realize that life was a giant fidget spinner, whirling a person in endless circles only to land them where they’d started.
What would papi think of her marrying a vicious murderer? A man who probably sold drugs to people like her mother. Feeding like vultures on the dead lives of addicts. Her stomach lurched again. She put her head down and focused on the hardwood planks under her feet. The light and dark-colored wood formed an intricate pattern. No one plank lined up perfectly with the other. Instead, the pattern was staggered and varied. Chaos forced into beautiful order. Maybe that was life.
Sanyet’s eagle eyes clawed her again. Not an eagle, a vulture. She dropped her eyes without thinking. A prey move that wouldn’t save her. So she jerked her eyes back up and squared her shoulders. Her uncles would have a fit if they saw her cowed. “There’s always a way,” Uncle Lou would tell her. “Even if someone has you completely cornered, never give up. Just keep looking for that opening. Stay alert. Watch everything. Trust and believe your opening is coming. It might be quick. But a few seconds can change everything. So you never let your guard down. And never, ever give up. Cause that’s when they really got you. Remember, ‘you keep your head, by keeping your head’.”
She dug deep and focused harder. Two conversations swirled around them at the same time. One with his words and the other with his eyes. The one that promised things she didn’t want him to keep. Damn. Jessa had once found a letter from her mom. Saying she was in a desperate situation and needed money to get out. Her parents had hidden the letter when she’d entered the room but she’d found it and read it. Her thirteen-year-old self had taken it into her head to rescue her mom. Hiding her fears and stepping into the crack house hell where her mom lived. Dumb and stupid, she’d barely made it out alive. She’d been on the verge of being raped, strung out, and put on the stroll with her mother when her father and the other cops from his precinct had rescued her thanks to his quick actions. After her rescue, she realized her real mom wasn’t the woman who’d birthed her. But she’d be forever grateful to Lucia, who’d signed the paperwork soon after. One of her cousins had reached out to her to tell her that Lucia had gotten her life together and wanted to be a part of her life again. But she’d never take that chance again. Having a gun put to her head, while someone stripped her clothes off and took pictures of her, kind of killed it. She’d sworn she would never do something so stupid again. Never get that close to the fire. So how was she now dancing in the fucking flames?
“Do you accept the makhr?”
The officiant asked her again, his wrinkled leather face taut and creased. No doubt concerned about the unsmiling bride dressed in jeans and a white blouse, a clearly distraught bridesmaid, and a groom looking like he might kill someone. Again. Did she accept the makhr? Did she have a choice? She looked at Sanyet’s face. No. Not at all.
“Yes, I accept the dowry money.” The three-million-dollar cash gift was deposited in her account. The bank probably called the feds to report the large deposit to her usually anorexic account. But his brother, Rurik, had poo-pooed the amount. Calling his brother a cheap miser, to give such a small gift when he had billions.
Billions. The tilt-a-world ride ended and now she was in a mirrored funhouse. Watching pieces of herself and catching shards and slivers of disjointed conversations. She swallowed more saliva down and flared her nostrils to pull in more air. She would not get sick. She had to focus. There was a way out of this mess. There had to be. Hell, she had millions in the bank. Surely that was enough to buy her safe passage somewhere. But beyond the money was her family. They’d taken her phone, so she didn’t have a way to call them, and maybe that was best. What would happen when her police officer uncles met her mafia in-laws? How would the mafia in-laws react? She saw Petur’s brains on the sand again. God, not that. Please, not that. If she called them, her uncles would come. But if she didn’t, they would still come. The families would clash, blood would spill, and in the end, who would survive?
Jessa dug her fingers into the armrests. The plush custom-designed furniture with its gleaming mahogany wood melted away as if in a dream. Dropping her back into the last week’s nightmare. Sanyet with his gun to Petur’s leg, blowing off a kneecap and demanding answers. Petur swore he didn’t know, even when Sanyet’s bullet sliced through the other knee. An elbow followed before Petur gave the information Sanyet sought. Those words ended his life, as Sanyet dropped Petur’s chin, pushed his gun inside, and pulled the trigger. That was the worst part. Petur had given him the information he wanted, but still, he received no mercy. That was her husband, the merciless killer. No amount of begging and pleading had saved Petur’s life. Then he’d raised the gun in her direction, apologizing, as if he had no choice. Thank God Hannah had stepped between them. Putting herself between bullet and brain to save Jessa’s life. But really, had she saved or sacrificed it?
Married to a psycho killer for the rest of her life? A man who wouldn’t believe her assurances that she wouldn’t tell a soul about the murder. Did he think she would go against him after what she’d witnessed? That was a big heck, no. Voices from the dead would have spoken louder, because she was keeping her mouth shut. “No witnesses,” he’d argued with his brother. Until they finally decided her fate. Marriage. Was it a fate worse than death? And would marriage be enough to save her when they realized she came with a family of police officers? Officers who were tenacious bloodhounds when they scented crime. And the Ismailovs reeked of it.
She peered at her new husband while he signed the papers and spoke to the officiant. No minister for them, mama would have a fit. Married without the eyes of God. There was no worse way to start a marriage. A marriage built by the devil himself as he consigned her to purgatory. His black as night eyes caught hers and his brow raised in wicked triumph. He had her for as long as they both lived.
Before he killed Petur, she’d actually found his quiet bad boy sulk, sexy as hell. He didn’t speak much, only giving a sober nod when she walked into a room. Watching, always watching. The granite jaw and the brooding look revealed nothing. His remote visage never cracked a smile. Never. He was hard edges, and dark silence as if he walked with storm clouds. No peek of the sun. On a day when you wondered when the storm would break, and how bad would it be? But for all his cold tempest aura, his eyes blazed when she caught him unawares. As if they were twin beams, peeling the clothes from her body and scorching her with desire. Every time she caught the heated glance, he’d blink and freeze her out. Leaving her body bathed and flushed from the fire of his gaze. Her heart pounding and her panties moist with the hidden proof of her desire. She’d turn away confused and doubting what she’d seen, and hungry to see it again.
“Come dove, we leave now to catch our flight.”
Her eyes widened. Maybe she’d be able to get away. Run out of the funhouse and find her way back to sanity. “We’re going to the airport?” Jessa tried to hide the hope in her voice but like an expert detective, he dug it up.
“Yes, to meet our private jet.” His eyes mocked hers. Amused by the thoughts he’d read so easily on her face.
She pressed her lips into a tight line and narrowed her eyes. There would be other days and ways. There had to be. “I don’t have my clothes packed.”
“I had them packed for you.”
“What about helping Hannah with school? I was supposed to stay here working as her tutor.”
His nostrils flared. “My wife does not work.”
“But I’m not your wife for real…”
His brows pulled together. “What is this, ‘for real’? I don’t play dress-up pretend games. If we marry,” he shrugged his massive shoulders.”Then we’re married.”
His brother Rurik approached him, clapping his hand on Sanyet’s back. “Is there a problem, brother?”
“Nyet. My wife thought this was all pretend.”
Rurik’s eyes widened, and he pierced her with the same raven stare as his brother. Only when he did it, she could breathe. Her heart slowed enough for her to form clear thoughts, and her hands didn’t tremble. “The only way this works is if you stick to the marriage. There is no backing out. Because there is no statute of limitations on what you witnessed. My brother has honored you by agreeing to keep you safe.”
“Safe from him.”
“Exactly,” he continued. Ignoring any sneer in her voice. “My family welcomes you. My parents welcomed you. They aren’t here, but you will meet them soon enough. You and Sanyet married and we announced your vows. There is no going back.”