Chapter One
Present
“Please, mercy!” The suit fell to his knees, but Vadim pressed the gun at the side of his head and pulled the trigger.
“What’d do you that for?” growled out McDaniel to the left of him, one meaty arm over the throat of a frightened young man, cheap suit stained with blood.
Vadim’s recent kill didn’t know it when he died, but death by Vadim’s hands was preferable to someone else’s. McDaniel’s men liked to enjoy the spoils of war, didn’t like clean kills, and would rather use up a victim, until they begged to die. Vadim might be one skilled motherfucker, may be able to take on McDaniel and six of his men, but he wasn’t excessively cruel.
It didn’t matter. Today marked the end of the Valentin family, and whatever friends they’d made, had fled or formed new alliances with whomever held the most power. One man couldn’t make a difference. Vadim didn’t consider Charles Valentin a friend, although he’d worked for the bastard before. No, Vadim’s interest lay elsewhere, on one person.
One man in a suit scuttled behind the sofa on all fours. A Valentin man. Vadim aimed his gun, interrupted by a woman’s scream. He knew that voice, remembered the sound of her laughter, how soft her curls felt when he twirled one finger to a loose strand to give it a tug. Even five years after he’d danced with Eve Valentin on her sister’s wedding, he could still recall how sweet she tasted on his lips.
Eve might be too good for a monster like him, but better him than men like McDaniel. Vadim only agreed to be on the Petrovichs’ payroll for one reason. The Valentins never stood a chance. Gustav had meticulously planned his vengeance for years, found men willing to slaughter an entire mafia family.
Vadim knew he wouldn’t have made a difference. He owed the Valentin family nothing. Charles Valentin used his services but was always wary of him, as was right. Charles was a decent boss, not the best, but decent. He didn’t dabble in human trafficking at the very least, unlike the Petrovichs.
Vadim shot the coward before the poor bastard could make it out the door. No chance for escape anyway. One of McDaniel’s men would have found the grunt and would have made him scream plenty first, before wasting him. Vadim knew men like McDaniel, but for now, their interests were aligned, or so McDaniel thought anyway.
Vadim walked past more bodies, ignoring the screams mingling with the sound of gunfire and up the flight the stairs. Family portraits decorated the wall, the smiles preserved. His gaze lingered on the last one, on his woman, although she didn’t know it then.
Vadim couldn’t stop the slaughter of her family, and he was no angel of mercy. Another ear-splitting scream made him hasten his footsteps. Rage thickened in his vision as he arrived at the hallway. Two fuckers held Eve down while a third stood over her, dick in his hand.
Hints of flesh peeked from her torn nightgown. Tears streaked down her bruised face, but the fire he remembered still lingered in her remarkable blue eyes. That fire could soon be extinguished if sweet, innocent Eve fell to the wrong hands. Gustav Petrovich had been known to make slaves of his enemies, to reduce what was once a proud human being to blank-eyed merchandise.
Not right. Only Vadim possessed the right to own every inch of Eve Valentin. Any other man who dared lay their hands on her, automatically appeared on his fast-growing kill list.
He didn’t remember moving. Vadim shoved the closest bastard off her, slamming his skull at the nearest so hard that bone creaked. The other man groaned, but Vadim pried the fucker’s lips open and shoved the barrel down his throat until he stopped moving. Given a choice, Vadim would snuff the life out of these ignorant fools who thought to claim what rightfully belonged to him. Patience, he told himself.
Vadim would never forget the faces of these cowards, these walking dead men. Once the smoke cleared, he’d hunt each of them down, saving McDaniel and Gustav for last.
“Remember, the bitch’s mine,” he hissed in the guy’s ear. The man choked on the metal.
“Vadim, Mitchell didn’t mean anything. Sorry. We forgot,” Mitchell’s partner in crime said, raising his hands in mock defeat, dick swinging from his open zipper.
This one, Vadim decided, he’d make an exception for. When Vadim pulled out the barrel from Mitchell’s throat, his companion relaxed, and he still wore that stupid expression on his face even when a crimson stain appeared between his legs. He screamed. The second man backed off, fear on his face. Ignoring him, although he made certain not to turn his back on any of these scum, Vadim yanked Eve’s arm.
She widened her eyes, screaming when he yanked her to her feet. Vadim needed her silent, at least for the moment. He grabbed his handkerchief from his jeans pocket, gagging her. She glared at him, tears in her blue eyes.Good.Without warning, he tossed her over his shoulder, ignoring her fists beating at her back.
“If any of you touched what was promised to me,” he warned. Mitchell shook his head, face pale. The other man still stared at the ruin that had been his friend’s dick.
“No, the bitch’s yours.”
“McDaniel will hear of this,” hissed the third on the floor, clutching his privates.
“Not if you’re dead. Get him to a doctor,” he told the friend, before making his way down the stairs.
“Anything happen I ought to know about?” asked McDaniel at the foot of the stairs. The leader of their cutthroat crew already had a young man on his knees, sucking his dick, a gun pointed to his skull.
Vadim didn’t have time to play who was the bigger badass bastard. Instead, he patted the sweet curve of Eve’s ass, gripping her leg when she tried to kick at him.
“I got what I wanted. One of your boys tried to poach my prey, so I shot him in the dick.”
McDaniel considered him for a few good moments. Vadim held the other killer’s gaze. If eyes were truly the windows to the soul, then all he saw in McDaniel’s was murky darkness, a mirror reflection to his own. McDaniel started to laugh.
“I’m guessing you ain’t going to share your bitch. None of my men ever fucked a mafia princess.”
His turn to laugh. “This bitch’s no princess, merely my property.”