Page 38 of Seduced By the Russian

One would think he was trying to get her pregnant with all the unprotected sex they'd been having. He made a mental note to get the doctor over tomorrow as he lifted her into his arms and dropped her on the bed, lying beside her.

Nikolai thought about the fact that he had never let anyone sleep inside his secret room, but here he was, indulging it. Lisa snuggled into his arms as she fell into the arms of sleep, thoroughly exhausted. Some strands of hair fell into her face, and Nikolai pushed them back, amazed at how beautiful she looked. He felt a foreign nudge in his heart, and it got him silently swearing.

This felt too good for comfort, yet he didn't want to bring an end to it.

Kissing her forehead, Nikolai hugged her close and stared into the night light, wondering what the hell was wrong with him.

Nikolai didn't know at what point he fell asleep, but suddenly, a loud knock reverberated around the room, and he jerked awake, almost hitting his head on the board. Lisa's eyes fluttered open, and he realized they hadn't moved during the night. She opened her mouth to say something, but Nikolai shook his head gently. He needed to know who was at the door first.

Getting off the bed, Nikolai walked to the door naked and pulled it open a fraction enough to let whoever it was see just him. Dmitri's angry face appeared in the small opening, and he let out a stream of air.

"Boss, did you forget you had a meeting this morning?" His voice sounded accusatory, but Nikolai was going to have to deal with that later.

"Shit!" he muttered, returning to the room to grab his shorts. He shrugged into them and rushed out back, not paying Lisa any attention. It was her fault he was in this mess in the first place. This was one of the reasons he kept fighting whatever it was that was trying to get to the surface.

There was nothing about Lisa that spelled good to the Bratva, and he had to keep whatever they had going as pure sexual gratification as he could.

Chapter Eighteen

“I learned they have a daughter. Do you know anything about her?” Nikolai asked, breaking the silence that had settled in the room as everyone waited for his arrival. They were in a meeting in his office with some of the Russian Bratvas he worked with - the same meeting he almost missed because he had let Lisa sleep in his arms.

“She was kidnapped when she was six,” one of the men answered in a voice that looked like he needed a cup of warm water. “No one has heard anything from her since then. Her parents, too, stopped looking when it wasn’t yielding any fruit. I think they concluded that she was dead because they have a headstone with her name at the family’s burial ground.”

“Mh.” Nikolai thought that was pleasant to know. “So, who’s the new leader? Someone has to be dishing out the orders.”

“Aleksei Petrov,” the same man spat out with venom. “He is the son of the late Petrov. News have it that he was studying in Africa when his father died. No one knows why he only just returned to New York after all these years, or why he thinks this is the best time to plot his attack. Something must be fueling his sudden drive.”

“Interesting,” Dmitri murmured, scooting to the edge of his seat. “Do you think it has anything to do with his mother?”

“I don’t think so. That woman went into shock when her daughter was kidnapped, and it only worsened with the death of her husband. She is lost in her head and barely has the energy to fuel any revenge. It has to be something else.”

“So… what could it be?”

“His reasons don’t matter to me,” Nikolai opined strongly, the strength of his words returning the room to its former state of silence. “I don’t give a fuck about what makes that family tick or breathe. All I want to do is get them off my back and make them regret they even thought about it in the first place. We’ll start with Aleksei.”

Nikolai glanced at Dmitri, and a silent instruction passed between them. Dmitri was the only person that Nikolai had told about Lisa’s true identity, and he wanted to keep it that way for now. The rest of his men would eat her alive if they found out she was a Petrova, and Dmitri was the only one with a reasonable level of self-control.

“This meeting is over,” Dmitri announced suddenly, following Nikolai’s unsaid orders. He got on his feet and padded to the door in all confidence, opening it wide enough for three people to get through at once. “We’ll send a message when we have further instructions. For now, do nothing.”

Nikolai said nothing until every single one of them was out of the room, the slap of their feet on the ground dying with their departure. Sighing, he retrieved a bottle of whiskey from the bar in his office and returned to his chair behind the mahogany table. Dmitri plopped down into the one in front of him.

“What’s the plan, Boss? You have a wildcard.”

Nikolai wouldn’t exactly call Lisa that, but Dmitri was right. He had to use her to accomplish his aim. That was the essence of everything, wasn’t it?

“I’ll let them know we have their daughter,” Nikolai muttered, placing his hands together on the table. “They’ll know better than to mess with me, knowing their precious daughter’s life is on the line.”

“Where can I come in?” Dmitri asked, always ready to help. “I can abduct her and mess her up a bit. Her bruised face should be more than enough deterrence for them.”

Nikolai tried not to wince physically as the unsettling idea of Dmitri affected him. He didn’t want any form of harm to come to Lisa. None at all. “I have another plan,” Nikolai countered with an air of finality, bringing an end to the discourse.

Dmitri was going to have to do it his way.

***

Lisa stepped into the building, with Nikolai planted right beside her, unbudging. The last time they were out together, there was no other person there except Dmitri, who was still clueless as to the fact that they had been fucking each other like animals, or better still, that Nikolai had been fucking her on every single surface in the mansion. That was a better description.

But today, much to Lisa's surprise, they were in his tattoo parlor located in Brighton Beach, very close to where they had taken a walk the first week she had gotten to his mansion - the day she realized she was attracted to the monster. But Nikolai, who held her hands tightly in his, acted like no monster today, at least not to her. He was glaring at every single person who dared look at her, even though it wasn't a very long journey into the room where he had booked an appointment for her. Nikolai didn't care whether they were his clients or not - all that mattered was that they needed to get their eyes off Lisa, and for some weird reason, she didn't know how to respond to that.

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