Page 40 of Step-Crush (Wanting What's Wrong)

Four hourslater and it’s just me and my husband, alone at last, the children already heading home while we go for some quality time at one of the Moreno Group’s five-star hotels.

The restaurant was all ours, and our anniversary couldn’t have been more perfect. I love my family, I love seeing my children grow and change and develop their own personalities. My heart almost breaks when I think about the future, what the coming years might bring. All I know is, I’ll always support them. All of them. I’ll always be there for them, and so will Ramses.

Because he’s the best father any woman could hope for for her children. Protective, loving and committed, always there for us all. If still a little crazy, but he keeps me on my toes.

“I love you,” I tell him as I snuggle into his side in the back of the limousine.

He kisses the top of my head. “I love you, too. Wife.”

“I’ll never get tired of hearing that.”

I smile. The world is perfect. And nothing will ever take that from me.

When the car lurches to the side, my stomach lurches the other way. It’s so sudden I don’t even have time to scream. One second, we’re cruising along the road, the next the car is swerving out of control, then rumbling into a ditch.

“Ramses?” I ask desperately, gripping tight to his shirt as the car bounces and careens.

He pulls me in tighter, his body like a coiled spring. “Fucking hold on to me.”

The car lurches back and forth, but its long wheelbase and low center of gravity keep it upright. I scream when we hit something hard, the sound of metal crunching, sending us sideways and launching us into the air, but Ramses grips tighter, and a second later we come to a hard stop.

“Simon, what the fuck?” Ramses leans forward, punching the button to lower the partition between the front and back of the limo. My stomach turns when there’s no answer. “Shit!”

“Is he…?”

He nods. “Fuck. What’s going on?”

We don’t have to wonder for long. I scream as the tinted window implodes, the muzzle of a gun entering after it, then a hand reaching for the locks. I cover my face with my hands, backing away as the door is yanked open and a long, grim face stares in from the darkness outside.

As protective as Ramses is, he still works in a dark and dangerous world and the looming threat of violence has always been there, but after so long, I never expected it to find us.

I note that the man hasn’t bothered to cover his face. So he’s not expecting us to live. Because if Ramses lives through this, he will rain down a storm of death onto anyone involved, their families, their friends and their entire world.

“Get the fuck out of the vehicle,” he demands in a thick Russian accent, and I hear a snarl from my husband.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Oh, you don’t recognize me? Well, I was only a boy when you killed my father, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” The stranger spits on the floor. “I should kill you right here, but that would be too good. I’m going to take my time.” He turns my way, offering a sneer. “With both of you.”

“Don’t you fucking touch her. Whatever beef you have, it’s with me, not her.”

“Perhaps I will let her live. If she does as she’s told. She can be my private toy. I’ll use her up good.” He makes a show of staring at my tits, laughing a little.

Ramses doesn’t hesitate, even for a second.

He launches himself from the back seat, shouldering hard into the man and knocking him back. “You look at her, you die. You touch her, you and your family and anyone you know dies. You hear me? You hear me, motherfucker?” He’s on top of the stranger now, drawing back to throw a punch.

As he yells, the butt of a machine gun comes down on the back of his head, and he goes out cold.

I whimper, my heart racing as I back against the side of the car, and the stranger clambers to his feet. With a snarl, he points at me.

“Bring her.”

* * *

“What do you want?”I demand, backing against the wall as Ramses is dragged half-conscious into the warehouse behind me. The enormous space is lit sporadically from dangling overhead bulbs, its shadowy corners hiding monsters and I think of our children. There’s a strong smell of tobacco and a faint one of gasoline. “Please! We have children!”

“My father had children,” the big man sneers, his nostrils flaring as he casts his eyes on me. He points to some chains hanging down in one of the circles of light, and his two guards nod, shoving and manhandling Ramses in that direction. “My father had four sons and two daughters. My sister Anya was barely a year old when your husband left her fatherless. I robbed a bank at the age of sixteen to provide for all of us. You have life insurance?”

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