With These Four Rings - Book Five: Wedding Bonus (Billionaire Brides of Granite Falls 5) (31 page)

So now here they were on the bed still with her silky legs wrapped around his waist, her arms locked around his neck, the moans of ecstasy slipping from her lips and the uncontrollable shaking of her thighs indicating that she was on the verge of another orgasm.

She was hot. Wet. Tight. The walls of her celestial palace gripped him pulling the essence out of him.

“Have I earned it, Adam?” she panted, “Have I earned your hot juice, love?”

“Yes, baby, yes. You’ve earned it,
cara
. You’ve earned it. Every single drop.”

“Then give it to me. I want to feel you explode inside me. Fill up my womb, baby. Fill me up. Oh God, yes, yes…
Scopami, Adamo…
”

Adam hooked his arms under her thighs and pressed them into her stomach, leaving her open and vulnerable as his final desperate, erratic thrusts took him to the deepest depth of her woman’s sex. The lyrics, the beat, the lapping of the waves against the sides of the yacht, her dirty talk, all worked together to pitch them toward that ever-spinning vortex of ecstasy. He rode her hard as their bodies danced to the beat of their own song—a song that only lovers knew.

When the fire spread through him and the electricity short-circuited his body, Adam collapsed on top of Tashi. His jade stalk exploded inside her, filling her with his juices. Their piercing cries of pleasure whipped across the dark surface of the lake.

As he drifted off to sleep, Adam realized that Tashi was probably making up for her lag behind the other wives, and storing up for the time he and she will be spending away from each other next week. His mother, Tashi, Alex, and Paul were leaving for Santorini tomorrow. He and his father were leaving for Tokyo the following day, and they wouldn’t be seeing each other for four days until they reunited in Positano on Friday. Adam toyed with the idea of sending his father to Tokyo alone.

Sometime during the night, Adam was awakened by his ringing cell phone. With a tired groan, he untangled his arms from around Tashi and reached toward the nightstand. Squinting through one eye, he checked the screen. It was from Massimo. He was relieved that it wasn’t a call about Alex, but annoyed that his cousin was calling him at one o’clock in the morning?

He slapped the phone to his ear. “Yes, Mass. What is it?”

“Hey, Adam. Is Tashi with you?”

“Duh.”

“You guys still on the yacht?”

Adam turned as Tashi moaned and snuggled up to him, the smell of passion rising from her soft warm body causing a tingle in his groin. “Yes, Massimo. She’s snuggled up naked next to me in bed, which is where you should be with your wife.”

“Then you might want to step away from her, because you probably don’t want her to hear what I’m about to tell you. No need to scare her unnecessarily.”

Adam felt like a torrent of sharp spikes had been dumped over his naked body. Only one thing would scare Tashi—trouble from New York City. But they’d taken care of all that last year. Boris and most of his gang were dead, and the others were in jail—or were they? “Okay, hold on.”

Adam eased off the bed and pulled the sheet up over Tashi’s moonlit body. He grabbed a robe from a closet and shrugged into it as he stepped into the lounge and closed the door to the bedroom. He glanced out the portholes into pitch-black darkness. “Okay, Mass. I’m listening. What’s going on?”

“You remember David Carboni from high school. His family owns Big Boy’s Pizza on Union Street.”

“Yes, I remember David. You called me at one in the morning to talk about David Carboni?”

“I just received a call from him. He’s over at the Jagged Edge Bar on the Esplanade.”

Adam ran his fingers through his hair. He didn’t see where this was going. “Okay?”

“He struck up a conversation with a man who claimed he’s from New York, but David said he had a heavy Russian accent. Adam, he was asking questions about Tashi.”

Adam collapsed onto the sofa where he’d made loved to his wife a few hours ago. “What kind of questions?”

“He told David that he knew Tashi when she was living in New York. His daughter went to college with her. They’re taking a family road trip to Montreal and thought they’d overnight in Granite Falls since they know Tashi married some local billionaire and now lives here. According to David, his daughter wants to get in touch with Tashi to catch up.”

Adam pressed his fist into his stomach, closed his eyes and breathed in deeply and slowly.

“Adam? Are you there?”

“Yes, Mass. I’m here. Do you know if the man is still at the bar?”

“I’m not sure, but David said they’re staying at the Motor Lodge over on Evergreen Drive. Now, I don’t know how you want to handle this, but you know the boys and I are here to help in any way you need us.”

Adam pushed off the sofa. “Thanks, Mass. I appreciate the offer, but this is something I need to take care of on my own.”

“I understand, but the offer is open.”

“I know. Go back to bed, Mass. We’ll talk later.”

Adam returned to the bedroom, stood over Tashi, and watched her sleep. He loved to watch her sleep. He loved knowing that she felt safe with him, that her world was safe because of him. She’d been through enough in her young life—from almost being sold into sexual slavery, to having to kill to stay alive, and then living for fifteen months in filth and fear, and now just recently, she had to watch her own mother’s horrifying murder.

Abbastanza
!
Non più
!

He’d killed for her once and he would do it again in a heartbeat.

I have nothing to lose. I have no wife or children for you to threaten.
The one good thing about prison is that you have a lot of time to think, to plan your revenge
.
Not you, you meditating sissy, and not this FBI double-crossing son-of-a-bitch can watch her twenty-four, seven. The only way to keep her out of my hands is to lock her up on that Fort Knox you call your home and never let her out. And I might even find a way inside your guarded gates. One way or the other, she will end up in a whore—

Bang!

Adam jumped at the memory of the blast. Reaching out with trembling fingers, he brushed his knuckles gently against his wife’s cheeks. If his next heartbeat was the one in which he proved his love again, then so be it. He would put aside the yogi tonight and be an Andreas, his father’s son.

* * *

Shrouded in the darkness of night, Adam walked stealthily across the parking lot from the main office of the motel, and toward the end of the building on the other side.

As soon as he’d hung up with Massimo, Adam had brought the yacht into the marina and called Paul. Paul had wanted to accompany him on his midnight rendezvous, but Adam was adamant that he watch over his daughter, instead, and had promised him that he’d be back before sunrise.

He’d made two other calls on his way into town: one to Ben Herbert the owner of Highway Motor Lodge. Ben’s sister worked in housekeeping at Hotel Andreas so Adam was well acquainted with the family, and had no problem obtaining critical information about the guest in room 51, and a spare key to said room. His other call had been to Moscow for more pertinent information and also to set a chain of events into motion. How they played out was up to the occupant of room 51.

Adam stopped outside the room and listened for sounds from within. All he could hear was the whizzing of a window fan and heavy snoring that thankfully drowned out the rattling of the key turning inside the rusty lock. He turned the knob, slipped into the room, and closed the door quietly behind him. The room smelled like old farts and cheap whiskey.

The moonlight streaming through the bare window on the opposite side of the building bounced off the steel barrel of a revolver on the nightstand. Good, he wouldn’t have to sully his, tucked in the waistband of his jeans. The moon provided adequate lighting for him to make out the form of the man sprawled on the bed, wearing nothing but a pair of white boxers. Adam took a moment to assess Yuri Golub. He was heavy set, about five feet nine, and weighing in at around two hundred pounds. Yuri was a Russian
kot
, his wife a
bandersha
, and between them they operated six brothels in the district of Tverskoye in Moscow.

When Adam had told Paul about Mass’s call, Paul had finally revealed the plan Boris had for Tashi last year when he’d sent “Jake” to Granite Falls to kidnap her. Adam remembered asking Paul what Boris wanted with his wife and Paul responding that it was too disturbing for a father to think about, much less repeat. Tonight, Adam had understood Paul’s revulsion. Boris’ plan was for him and his top guards to rape Tashi—break her in—and then ship her off to the worst whorehouse in Moscow. Since he’d intended to kill “Jake” after he delivered Tashi to him, Boris saw no harm in revealing his plan to the then undercover FBI agent. Adam wished he’d been privy to that information before he put the bullet into Boris’ neck.

On his way to the motel, Adam’s Russian associates had reported that Yuri had paid Boris a sizable amount of money for Tashi in advance. To Yuri, a woman as beautiful as she would bring in thousands of rubles as a classy
kot
instead of the meager kopecks he would earn off her in a common whorehouse. Yuri was here to collect his goods and avenge his friend’s death.
Worst mistake of his life
.

Adam’s stomach churned at the thought of what this piece of garbage could have done to his wife if he’d gotten his hands on her. At no time was Adam’s faith in a higher power stronger than it was tonight. There had to be a God to have sent Massimo to Big Boy’s Pizza yesterday, and then for Mass to leave his number with David Carboni, and then to lead David to that bar to run into this worm sprawled on his back in front of him.

Adam tiptoed to the head of the bed, grateful that the room was on the first floor and the floor apparently made of concrete. He would hate for a squeaking floorboard to tip off Yuri of his presence. He sucked foul air into his lungs as he noticed a four-day old newspaper clipping with a photo of him and Tashi at the courthouse in Cleveland lying under the double action revolver. It must have been the international publicity of the recent trial and the upcoming wedding that had brought Yuri out of the woodwork. He probably thought Tashi would be an easy target because everyone would be preoccupied with wedding plans.
Worst calculation of his life.

With methodical dexterity, Adam picked up the revolver, opened the trap door, rotated the cylinder, ejected all but one of the six rounds into his left palm, closed it, pulled back the hammer, placed his finger next to the trigger—not on it—sat on the side of the bed, and jammed the barrel into Yuri’s gaping mouth.

Yuri snorted and jerked around before his eyes flew open. His right hand reached toward the nightstand.

“
Именно в ваш рот
,” Adam said, as he switched on the bedside lamp with his left hand. He’d decided to have this conversation in Russian so Yuri understood every word, perfectly.

Yuri gurgled something unintelligible and his eyes widened in terror as he became fully awake and aware of his situation. He raised his hands in a defensive move.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Adam said, as slowly and calmly as if he was speaking to a little child. “I’m kind of pissed right now. Pissed that I had to drag myself from the warm comfort of my bed and my wife’s arms to see you. My finger is itching to press this trigger, so I suggest you settle down and relax for this interview.” He opened his palm and dropped the five rounds onto Yuri’s big gut. Four bounced off to the mattress, and one rolled south to nest in the opening in his boxers.

“We’re going to play a little Russian Roulette. I assume you’re familiar with this game since you’re, you know—
Russian
. So just take a deep breath before we begin.”

Yuri’s hairy chest rose and fell a couple times and Adam almost gagged from the decaying odor issuing from his mouth.

“Now, I have a few questions for you, Mr. Golub—just
Yes
or
No
responses. With your right hand, raise one finger for
Yes
, two for
No
.” He demonstrated with his fingers. “If I don’t like your responses, if I think you’re lying to me, or if you refuse to respond, I
will
pull the trigger.
Capisci
?”

Yuri nodded.

“No, no, Yuri. Don’t shake your head. The slightest movement could send my finger against the trigger. You have four chances of walking out of this room instead of being carried out in a body bag. You don’t want to waste any of them. So I ask again, do you understand?”

Yuri raised one finger.

“
Bravo
! Now, do you know who I am?”

Yuri raised one finger.

“Did you come to Granite Falls to kidnap my wife and smuggle her back to Russia?”

Again, one finger went up.

Adam pulled his smart phone from his shirt pocket and turned it on. He held it up so both he and Yuri could watch the live streaming video of Yuri’s wife and four young children—two sons, two daughters, ages twelve to two—having brunch at Café Pushkin on Tverskoy Boulevard in Moscow. Adam could feel Yuri struggling to swallow the excess saliva that had probably backed up into his throat. He eased back the barrel to give him room. He didn’t want him choking to death on his own saliva. If Yuri was going to die today, it would be at Adam’s hands—deliberate, not accidental. He had a message to send to every
kot
in Russia, and every other place on the planet.