Ruthless: A Mafia Step-Brother Romance - Ruthless: A Mafia Step-Brother Romance Part 5
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Ruthless: A Mafia Step-Brother Romance Part 5

"I would never hurt you, Sarah," he swears with so much conviction I'd believe him - that is, if he didn't leave me broken hearted before.

"Hah!" I laugh, not buying his delusions. Not this time. "Like you didn't hurt me last time?"

"If you remember, I was the one that left unfulfilled last time," he says, his grasp not lightening on my shoulder.

"I was scared, Dimitri! We're not supposed to happen. That was never supposed to happen."

"What, it's okay for you to spy on me, take pictures of me naked, but the second I show interest in you, it's suddenly wrong?"

My skin grows hotter, and I know my face must be a bright red. Anger and embarrassment battle for dominance.

"I was wrong to take pictures of you," I say through gritted teeth.

"Damn fucking right you were."

"You were wrong not to call me after... after we hooked up."

"I told you," he says with narrowed eyes. "Things got busy."

"What the fuck could possibly make you forget I exist for two years?" I yell, tears threatening to spill. I blink faster, begging myself not to lose my cool, but it's a battle that I can't win.

He softens a little, that tough guy act melting back into the side of Dimitri I used to know so well. That gentleness, the desire to protect me. I knew - before I was kicked out - that he'd have done anything to protect me. But he proved me wrong.

"If I could have done anything not to cut you out of my life, I would have," he swears, and his conviction...

I believe him.

Don't be stupid, Sarah, I plead with myself, but I want so badly for him not to have hurt me as bad as he did.

"You broke my fucking heart," I sob, and I can see him cringe. He doesn't brush it off this time, doesn't act like those words don't cut through him, and his hands loosen on my shoulder.

"I shouldn't have let you get wrapped back up in me," he says, and the words make me bristle. As if he knew this is how it would all play out, that I'd find myself lusting for him once more. "I never should've hired you on. Just let you go do your thing, live your life."

The dam has broken and tears stream down my cheeks.

"Are you firing me?"

He sighs, leaning against the bar, his back facing me. "I should."

A sob makes me hiccough, and there's a burning sensation in my lungs. I can't catch my breath, so many emotions spinning through me that I can barely feel one before it's replaced with another.

"Don't," I whimper, reaching out and touching his wrist. What am I doing? I should just let him do it. Rebecca will be pissed at me for not going through with it, but there's nothing I can do if Dimitri decides to fire me.

"I can't," he says, and he sounds so defeated and exhausted. Maybe not seeing my face makes it easier to talk honestly, without all of his cruel teases and smart-ass jabs. "When I saw you in the coffee shop, you looked unreal. Like out of a dream," he sighs.

I stand behind him silently, withdrawing my hand, but he captures it in his and he tugs me in against him, forcing my hand to his chest as he turns back around.

He guides my fingers, and I find a pucker in his skin, a strange scar I hadn't noticed in the dim light. "Do you know what this is?"

"No," I whisper.

"It's a bullet wound," he says, releasing my hand. "There's another on my back." I step back and, true to his words, there's another scar. So small, yet it leaves me with such a feeling of dread.

What's he gotten himself into?

He turns and looks down at me, his gaze a stormy sea.

"I'm going to fuck your life up if you let me," he swears, and those words send a jolt of excitement and fear through me. "I'm not going to lie. I want you. Need you. But I can't have you, not without repercussions."

"We knew that already," I say, trying to hold in my emotions. "We knew we could never be a thing. Rebecca... she'd flip. And... it's wrong," I manage, and he reaches out, his fingers coiling through my hair.

"It's more than that," he says with a scowl, but he's looking at my lips, as if he can't tear his eyes away. "It's dangerous."

"Let me help," I say softly, but he shakes his head, and I know this is one point not worth arguing.

I step backwards, away from his touch, away from the temptations he's risen within me.

"I gotta go," I mutter, grabbing my purse, and he doesn't fight.

The door slamming behind me reverberates through the hall, and I stand on the other side of the door.

What just happened?

Chapter 7.

I haven't been able to get the taste of his lips off mine. I know it's all in my head, that his taste couldn't have permeated my body so easily, but I swear, I lick my mouth and all I can think of is his.

I don't know what I regret more - going over there in the first place, or leaving. I can't get him out of my head, the dark warnings, and burning passion between us. Maybe it's all in my mind. Maybe to him I really am just off limits and so he wants to have me. He has everything else, after all. The nice house, the good job.

The criminal enterprise.

The thought is like a dagger to my heart. Why did this have to get so complicated? I was prepared for him stealing from his mother. I might have even liked that.

But this is something so much deeper.

I still haven't told Rebecca about what I've found, because what if it's nothing? I've seen her temper flare, and I know better than to come to her with bad information.

"Earth to Sarah." Joanna snaps her fingers in front of my face and my eyes slowly refocus on my roommate. We're sitting across from one another, and we're supposed to be catching up. Our silly, weekly ritual. Both of us tend to get stuck in our own heads - and rooms - more than is healthy, so our compromise was Saturday dinners together.

"Sorry," I mutter, rubbing my head and forcing a smile at her. "You're setting up a new data center?"

"Yup," she says proudly, putting aside her own confusion at my behavior for the time being. "It's a pretty big deal, a big promotion. I mean, it's not like it's really that much fun, but it's better than most things they have me do in IT."

"That's great," I say with manufactured enthusiasm. Joanna's been a great roomie, but I know her passion is definitely not in the infrastructure side of IT. She prefers the more hands-on aspects, and I know she was gunning for a background check job in HR but was turned down. Not enough experience, they said.

"Yea. I mean, this might be a real shot at doing something and climbing the corporate ladder," she says, spearing a piece of broccoli and chewing it thoughtfully. "Plus, if I can set it all up, then I'll know all the back end stuff," she grins mischievously and I can't help but laugh.

"So what's been going on in that blonde little head of yours, Sarah? Did I actually hear you stumble in at five in the morning today?"

She heard that? Oops.

"Uh, yea. It wasn't... It was nothing." I can't fight the flush traveling up my cheeks. It so wasn't nothing. I wish I didn't blush so easily when I'm caught in a lie.

"Uh-huh. You got a boy, finally? I've been telling you - for how long? - you need to get out and date. So why are you all gun-shy about it? I think it's fabulous," she says, twirling her fork in the air.

Joanna's hair is pulled back in a ponytail, her dark-rimmed glasses falling down on her nose a little and I can't help but laugh despite all the craziness.

"He's not a boy," I say defensively, and that just makes her smile broaden.

"Ohh, a man, then?"

"He's nothing. It's nothing. Just my boss, he needed something."

Her brow raises and I wonder if I said too much.

"At ass-o'clock on the morning?"

"It was important."

"On a Saturday morning?"

"Really important?"

She rolls her eyes, "Girl, I know a booty-call when I hear it, and if he's calling you up on a Saturday night, then the help he needs isn't going to be that type of important. You got a thing for him or something?"

I'm suddenly grateful that I didn't tell her that he's my stepbrother, because it gives me a chance to gush a little.

"Yea, I guess. It wouldn't work, though."

"Well, yea, that's kind of sexual harassment."

"It's not like that. I mean..."

She stares at me, waiting.

"He didn't... really call. I just went over."

I swear, it looks like she's going into shock, and I can't help but feel a little proud. I doubt I've ever told her anything that has truly shocked her, even when I told her about spying on that guy down the street and turning him into the cops for abusing his little boy. Had the pictures to prove it.

"Wow," she utters, and my pride swells. "I didn't know you had it in you. So what'd you do?"

"Nothing. Not... not really. He offered me a drink, and then... he kissed me."

"He kissed you?" She's leaning in, her food forgotten as she stares at me intently.

I nod, and remember his lips crushed against mine, the weight of his body over me. I wanted nothing more than to forget about the world and our obligations and worries, to lose myself in a night of passion with him, but maybe the chasm is too wide. Maybe he hurt me too bad, and he's in too deep.

If anything can turn me from him, the thought that he might be involved with the Russian Mafia should have me running, right?

"But I left before anything more could happen," I add on and she looks disappointed.

"Oh."

"It's not right, is it? He's my boss. And, oh God, I have to go see him again Monday."

"Yea, that's going to be weird. Do you think it'll happen again?"

And I honestly don't know how to answer her.

Chapter 8.

This is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. I mean, it's definitely top three, at the very least.

I'm sitting in an abandoned building, surrounded by peeling paint and rusted beer cans, the stink of vomit thick in the air. I'm afraid to even touch anything, both of my hands wrapped around the lens of my camera.

It's an overcast day, fortunately, since that way the light won't reflect off my camera lens as easily, but it's locking in all the humidity, and I can feel the rain threatening to fall.

The window I'm staring out of is broken, but it gives me a perfect view of my target. A little cafe across the street that I thought was abandoned until I watched Dimitri knock and go inside. I scrambled up into my vantage point once I knew that's where he was going, but I can't make sense of it.

I don't even know what it was that made me want to tail him today. Something about the way he's been acting, about the way he looked. I figured immediately it had something to do with Slava, but I don't know what or how.

You're grasping at straws, I tell myself, and somewhere I feel that's true, but my gut instinct says I'm onto something, and I have to see it through. It's better to look and find out that I'm wrong than never look at all, right?

There's no movement from inside the store, and I let out a bit of a sigh. I can't get a good look at who Dimitri's inside with, I have no idea what they're talking about. This is just a complete waste of time and I know it.

For days I've been keeping my distance from him, and he's been respecting it much to my chagrin. Maybe I want to be pushed a little. Maybe I want to just have that responsibility of choice stolen from me for a little while so that I won't have to feel guilty about my feelings for him.

I lift the camera to my eyes again, looking through the zoomed out lens to the upstairs apartments, but the curtains are all drawn. That, in and of itself, is weird. The windows are all closed but it's sweltering outside, and the curtains are still on the windows so it's not abandoned. I don't know why but curtains always seem to be the first thing that goes when a place is abandoned.

I sigh, pointing my viewfinder down to the main entrance. Still nothing.

My calves burn from staying squat like I am, but I can't move. I know the drill only too well. If I move, if I draw attention to myself, I get caught. I have to be slow and cautious, keeping my mind on the task at all time.