Stolen Heir: Chapter 19

Kurwa, what am I doing?

As I pick the old copy of Through the Looking Glass off the ground, I feel like I, too, have passed through a mirror into some bizarre, backward sort of world.

Nessa Griffin is getting under my skin.

First the tattoos, then sneaking into my room. . .

I feel like she’s peeling back my layers, one by one. She’s looking into crevices where nobody should see.

I’ve kept myself closed off from everyone for ten years. From my family back in Poland, from my own brothers in the Braterstwo, even from Tymon. They knew me, but they only knew the adult version. What I became after my sister died.

They didn’t know the boy before.

I thought he was dead. I thought he died at the same time as Anna. We came into the world together, and I thought we left it together. All that remained was this husk, this man who felt nothing. Who could never be hurt.

And now Nessa is digging into me. Unearthing the remains of what I thought could never be resurrected.

She’s making me feel things I never thought I’d feel again.

I don’t want to feel them.

I don’t want to think about some young, vulnerable girl. I don’t want to worry about her.

I don’t want to walk into the kitchen and see Jonas leaning over her, and I don’t want to feel a furious spike of jealousy that makes me want to rip the head off the shoulders of my own brother. And then, after I’ve banished him to the opposite corner of the house, I don’t want my brain stewing with thoughts of what he might do if he ever got Nessa alone . . .

These are distractions.

They weaken my plans and my resolve.

After I shout at Nessa, she runs out and hides in the garden for hours. Of course, I know exactly where she is. I can track the location of her ankle monitor within a couple of feet.

It gets dark and cold. We’re midway through the autumn now, at the point of the season where some days seem like an endless summer, only with more color in the leaves. Other days are bitter, windy, and rainy, with the promise of worse to come.

I sit in my office and stare at my phone, at the little pin drop representing Nessa Griffin, huddled up against the far wall. I thought she would come back inside, but either I terrified her more than I knew, or she has more grit in her than I would have guessed.

My thoughts are swirling around and around.

I’m at the perfect position to strike again. I bled out a large portion of the liquid cash of the Griffins. I have a solid alliance with the Russians via Kolya Kristoff—in fact, he nags me daily as to our next move. Dante Gallo is trapped in a holding cell, while Riona Griffin burns every bridge she has at the DA’s office trying to get him out.

My next target should be Callum Griffin. The beloved older brother of Nessa.

He was the spark that lit this conflict.

He was the one who spat in Tymon’s face when we offered him friendship.

He has to die, or at the very least he has to be cut off at the knees, brought low in abject humility. I know him—I know he’ll never accept that. I saw his face when Tymon plunged his knife into Callum’s side. There wasn’t a hint of surrender.

Nessa’s tracking device sends me a warning. It’s not reading her pulse through the skin. She might be fucking with it, trying to get it off.

Before I can check, the screen switches over to an incoming call—Kristoff again.

I pick it up.

“Dobryy vecher, moy drug,” Kristoff says smoothly. Good evening, my friend.

“Dobry wieczór,” I reply in Polish.

Kristoff chuckles softly.

Poland and Russia have a long and stormy history. As long as our countries have been in existence, we’ve struggled for control of the same lands. We’ve fought wars against each other. In the 1600s the Poles captured Moscow. In the 19th and 20th century the Russians enveloped us in the smothering embrace of communism.

Our mafias likewise grew in tandem. They call it the Bratva, we call it the Bratestwo—in either case, it means The Brotherhood. We swear oaths to our brothers. We keep a history of our accomplishments on our skin. They wear eight-pointed stars as a badge of leadership on their shoulders. We mark our military ranks on our arms.

We’re two sides of the same coin. Our blood has mixed, our language and traditions, too.

And yet, we are not the same. We thrust our hands into the same clay, and we built something different from it. To give you a small example, consider the many “false friends” in our language—words with the same origin, that have come to convey opposite meanings. In Russian, my friend Kristoff would say “zapominat” meaning “to memorize,” while to me, “zapomniec” means “to forget.”

So while Kristoff and I may be allies in this moment, I can never forget that what he wants and what I want may run parallel, but they will never be the same. He can become my enemy again as easily as he became my friend.

He’s a dangerous enemy. Because he knows me better than most.

“I enjoyed our trick on the Irish,” Kristoff says. “I’m enjoying spending their money even more.”

“Nothing tastes as sweet as the fruits of others’ labor,” I agree.

“I think we agree on many things,” Kristoff says. “I see many similarities between us, Mikolaj. Both unexpectedly ascending to our positions at a young age. Both risen from the lowest ranks of our organization. I’m not from a wealthy or connected family, either. No royal blood in these veins.”

I grunt. I know part of Kristoff’s history—he wasn’t Bratva to begin with. Quite the opposite. He trained with the Russian military. He was an assassin, plain and simple. How he moved from military operative to underworld kingpin, I have no idea. His men trust him. But I’m not as willing to do the same.

“They say Zajac was your father,” Kristoff says. “You were his natural son?”

He’s asking if I’m Tymon’s bastard. Tymon was never married, but he did father a son on his favorite whore—that son is Jonas. People assume, because I succeeded Tymon, that I must be another bastard son.

“What’s the point of these questions?” I say impatiently.

I have no interest in trying to explain to Kristoff that Tymon and I had a bond of respect and understanding, not of blood. Jonas knew it. All the men knew it. Tymon selected the best leader from our ranks. He wanted the man with the will to lead, not the genetics.

“Just making conversation,” Kristoff says pleasantly.

“Do you know the saying, ‘Rosjanin sika z celem’? It means, ‘A Russian takes a piss with purpose.’”

Kristoff laughs, unoffended. “I think I like one of your other sayings better—‘Nie dziel skóry na niedźwiedziu.’”

It means, Don’t divide the skin while it’s still on the bear.

Kristoff wants to divide Chicago. But first we have to kill the bear.

“You want to plan the hunt,” I say.

“That’s right.”

I sigh, glancing at the dark, moonless night outside my window. Nessa is still out in the garden, refusing to come back inside. The first few drops of rain break against the glass.

“When?” I say.

“Tomorrow night.”

“Where?”

“Come to my house in Lincoln Park.”

“Fine.”

As I’m about to hang up, Kristoff adds, “Bring the girl with you.”

Nessa hasn’t left the house once since I captured her. Taking her anywhere is a risk, let alone right into the Russians’ lair.

“Why?” I say.

“I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see her in the flesh during our last operation. She’s one of our most valuable chess pieces, and she cost me a warehouse of product the other day. I’d like to see for myself the girl that has the whole city in an uproar.”

I don’t like this at all. I don’t trust Kristoff, and I don’t like the idea of him gloating over her like a prisoner of war.

This is the trouble with alliances. They demand compromises.

“I’ll bring her with me,” I say. “Understand, no one lays a hand on her. She stays right next to me, every second.”

“Of course,” Kristoff says easily.

“Do jutra,” I say, hanging up the phone. Until tomorrow.

As the rain starts coming down in earnest, I send Klara out to the garden to retrieve the little runaway.

Klara heads out through the conservatory, carrying a heavy knit blanket from the library. When she returns, Nessa is wrapped up in that blanket, pale and shivering. I can see the monitor still firmly in place around her ankle. It looks scuffed up like she tried to bash it off with a rock. Her leg is scraped, too. Klara’s arm is around her shoulder, and Nessa’s head is down, cheeks streaked with rain and tears.

Nessa must have cried a bathtub of tears since I brought her here.

At first, I didn’t care in the slightest. In fact, I saw those tears as my due. They were the salt that would season my revenge.

But now I feel that most dangerous emotion of all—guilt. The emotion that drains you, that makes you regret even the most necessary actions.

Those girls are growing too close.

And I’m growing too soft.

Nessa is obviously exhausted, half-frozen in her flimsy dancewear. I’m sure Klara will feed her and bathe her and put her to bed.

Meanwhile, I won’t be going to sleep for hours yet. If I’m going to meet with the Russians tomorrow, I need to speak with my men tonight. I want our strategy decided before we throw Kristoff in the mix.

I call them all into the billiards room. It’s one of the largest and most central rooms on the main floor, with plenty of seating, I like to talk and play at the same time. It makes everyone more relaxed, and more honest. And it reminds my men that I can whip their asses at pool any time I please.

We’ve had a hotly-contested tournament since the day we moved into this house. Sometimes Marcel is second in the rankings, sometimes Jonas. I’m always at the top.

Marcel racks the balls while Jonas and I square off for the first game.

Jonas makes a show out of chalking the tip of his cue, sending blue powder drifting down onto the black hairs on his forearm. He hasn’t shaved yet today, so his dark stubble is halfway to a beard.

“You want to put money on the line, boss?” he says.

“Sure,” I say. “I’m feeling lucky today—how about five?”

The standard bet is two hundred dollars a game. I’m starting at five hundred to fuck with Jonas’ head, and to let him know I haven’t forgotten about his little stunt with Nessa in the kitchen. I’ve told him before to stay the fuck away from her. I know how he is with women. He’s constantly hounding the girls at our clubs. The more they turn him down, the more interested he becomes.

Jonas wins the coin toss and breaks first. He makes a nice, clean break, dropping two striped balls into corner pockets. He grins, thinking he’s got the advantage. He hasn’t bothered to look at the placement of the rest of the balls, so he doesn’t see how jammed up his twelve and fourteen are, over by the eight ball.

“So,” I say in Polish, leaning on my cue. “We meet with the Russians tomorrow. They want to discuss our endgame.”

Jonas sinks the nine and the eleven, still confident and grinning.

“Before I haggle over the details, I want to hear ideas. If you’ve got something to say, say it now.”

“Why don’t we kill the girl?” Andrei says. He’s sitting over by the bar, drinking a Heineken. He has a square, blocky head, very little neck, and ginger-tinged hair. He looks surly and malcontent tonight. He hates the Russians and hates that we’re working with them. Understandable, since both his brothers were killed by Bratva—one in prison in Wroclaw, one right here in Chicago.

Andrei takes a long pull of his beer, then sets it down on the bar.

“We got rid of Miller and framed Dante Gallo. We should do the same with the girl. Make it look like Nero killed her, or Enzo. That will blow up the alliance between the Irish and the Italians quicker than anything else we could do.”

He’s not wrong. When I first kidnapped Nessa Griffin, that was my plan. Her disappearance was intended to cause chaos. Her death would split the two families apart.

A wedding was what bound them together in the first place. Death is stronger than marriage.

But now I want to take my pool cue and break it over Andrei’s thick skull just for suggesting it. The idea of him walking up to her room and wrapping those ugly, calloused hands around her throat . . . I won’t allow it. I won’t even consider it. He’s not fucking touching her, and neither is anybody else.

Nessa isn’t a blank-faced pawn, to be shuffled around the board at will. She won’t be sacrificed, either.

She’s worth more than that.

She can be used to much greater effect.

Jonas misses his next shot. I sink the one, the four, and the five in quick succession while I reply.

“We’re not killing her,” I say flatly. “She’s the best leverage we have at the moment. Why do you think the Griffins and the Gallos haven’t attacked us directly?”

“They did!” Marcel says. “They raided the Russian’s warehouse, and they torched Exotica.”

I snort, sinking the three ball as well.

“You think that was the best they could do? It was fucking weak. Why do you think they haven’t firebombed this house?”

Jonas and Andrei exchange glances, in which no information is shared, because they’re both equally stupid.

“Because they know she might be in here,” Marcel says.

“That’s right.” I sink the two and the seven with one split shot. “As long as they can’t be certain where she is—here or with the Russians—all they can do is throw a few grenades. They can’t rain down napalm on our heads. Nessa is our insurance, for now.”

The green six is trapped behind Jonas’s thirteen. I hit a bank shot to come at it from behind, sending the six rolling neatly into the side pocket. Jonas scowls.

“Why don’t we kill the dons!” he says aggressively. “They shot Zajac. We should kill Enzo and Fergus.”

“What good would that do?” I say. “Their successors are already in place.”

I sink the eight ball without even looking. Marcel snickers, and Jonas grips his pool cue so hard his arm shakes. He looks like he wants to snap it in two.

“What then?” he demands. “What’s the next step?”

“Callum,” I say. “We took him once. We can take him again.”

“You lost him last time,” Jonas says, fixing me with his dark stare.

I walk over to him, leaning my pool cue against the table. We face off, nose to nose.

“That’s right,” I say softly. “You were there, too, brother. If I remember correctly, you were the one in charge of his wife. Little Aida Gallo, the Italian wench. She made a proper fool out of you. Almost took the whole warehouse down. You still have the scar from that Molotov cocktail she chucked at your head, don’t you?”

I know very well that Jonas has a nice long burn down his back. She ruined one of his favorite tattoos, and he’s been sore about it ever since. Both literally and figuratively.

“We should take them both,” Jonas growls. “Callum and Aida.”

“Now you’re thinking.” I nod. “I hear the arranged marriage has become a love match. He’ll do anything for her.”

“Not if I snap her fucking neck,” Jonas says.

“I don’t want to blackmail those Irish fucks,” Andrei says bitterly. “I want blood for blood.”

“That’s right,” Marcel says quietly. “They killed Tymon. At the very least, we kill one from each family—a Griffin and a Gallo.”

“Better to kill the son than the father,” Jonas says. “Callum Griffin is the only son they’ve got. He’s the heir—unless his wife is pregnant. Callum should die.”

There are murmurs all around as Andrei and Marcel voice their agreement.

I haven’t agreed or disagreed. It’s what I always planned.

But I’m distracted by the choking sound outside the door.

Something between a gasp and a sob.

I stride over to the door and wrench it open, expecting to see Klara outside.

Instead, I see the hysterical face of Nessa Griffin.

I seize her by the wrist before she can turn and flee. I drag her into the billiards room, while she kicks and fights.

“No!” she screams. “You can’t kill my brother! I won’t let you!”

“Everyone out,” I bark at my men.

They hesitate, their faces frozen in confusion.

“OUT!” I roar.

They scatter, closing the doors behind them.

I throw Nessa down on the carpet at my feet.

She leaps right back up again, flailing her arms in her mad attempts to hit me, scratch me, tear me to pieces.

“I won’t let you!” she screams. “I swear to god, I’ll kill every one of you!”

After my initial surprise at seeing her, when Klara should have locked her in her room for the night, I’m starting to realize something completely different.

We were speaking in Polish.

Yet Nessa understood every word we said.

“Co robisz, szpiegując mnie,” I hiss.

“I’ll spy on you all I like!” Nessa shouts. She claps her hand over her mouth, realizing that she’s given herself away.

“Kto nauczył cię polskiego?” I say furiously. I already know the answer. It had to be Klara.

Nessa throws me off, standing as tall and dignified as possible, considering that her hair is a tangled mess, her face is still puffy with tears, and she’s wearing a nightgown.

“Nikt nie nauczył mnie polskiego,” she says haughtily. I learned it myself, in the library. I have a lot of time on my hands.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been struck dumb before.

Her pronunciation is shit, and her grammar is mediocre. But she really has learned a shocking amount.

That tricky little devil. I didn’t give a damn about her sneaking around because I didn’t think she could understand our conversations. Not that it matters—she can’t do anything with the information. She’s still my prisoner.

But . . . I’m impressed. Nessa is smarter than I guessed, and more daring.

Still, she’s got another thing coming if she thinks she’s going to boss me around in my own house, in front of my own men. She doesn’t give orders here. I do. I’m the master. She’s the captive.

“What are you going to do about it?” I growl, staring down into her face. “You think you can threaten me? Try to attack me? I could break every bone in your body without even trying.”

She shakes her head, more tears streaming down her face. When she cries, her eyes look greener than ever. Each tear is like a refracting lens, clinging to those black lashes, magnifying every freckle on her cheek.

“I know you’re stronger than me,” she hisses. “I know I’m nothing and nobody. But I love my brother. Can you understand that? I love him more than anyone in the world. Did you ever feel that way, before you got so cold and angry? Did you love somebody once? I know you did. I know about Anna.”

Now I really do want to hit her.

How fucking dare she say that name.

She doesn’t know anything, anything at all.

She thinks she can poke in my brain, trying to drag out the things I’ve successfully hidden.

She wants to make me as weak and emotional as her.

I seize her by the front of her nightgown and speak directly into her face.

“Don’t you ever say her name again.”

Nessa raises her hand and I think she’s going to try to slap me.

Instead she rests her hand on top of mine, her slim little fingers clinging to my clenched fist.

She looks up into my eyes.

“Mikolaj, please,” she begs. “My brother is a good man. I know this is a war and you’re on opposite sides. I know he hurt you. But if you kill him, you won’t be hurting him back. You’ll be hurting me. And I never wronged you.”

She’s talking about fairness, justice.

There is no fucking justice in this world.

There are only debts that have to be paid.

But there’s more than one kind of currency.

Nessa is standing in front of me—slender, delicate, trembling like a leaf. Tangles of light-brown hair in a cloud around her face and shoulders. Big, tear-soaked eyes, and soft pink lips.

She’s touching my hand. She’s never touched me voluntarily before.

My hand feels like it’s on fire. It’s sending heat and warmth throughout my body. It’s making every part of me throb like flesh that was frozen and is coming back to life.

“Convince me, Nessa,” I say. “Convince me that I should spare your brother.”

She looks up at me, uncomprehending at first.

Then realization dawns in her eyes.

I’m still holding the front of her nightgown. I feel her heart pounding against my clenched fingers.

I let go of her, waiting to see what she’ll do.

Her tongue darts out to moisten her lips.

Then she says, “Sit down on the couch.”

I take a seat on the low sofa. It’s the first order I’ve obeyed in a very long time.

I sit back against the cushions, hands beside me, legs slightly spread.

“Can I borrow your phone?” Nessa whispers.

I pass it to her, silently.

She scrolls for a moment, then presses the screen. Music comes out of the speakers—a low, moody, insistent beat. It’s not the usual music I hear my little ballerina playing. This is much darker.

The rain is pounding against the windows. The beat of the raindrops mix with the beat of the music. The light is dim and watery, the shadows distorted by the raindrops.

Nessa looks like she’s underwater. Her skin is paler than ever. She stands in front of me, and she starts to sway to the music.

I’ve watched her dance countless times. But never like this. Never right in front of me. Never directed at me. Her eyes are fixed on mine. Her body sways sinuously.

The very first time I saw her at the club, she danced a little bit like this.

That was a peek through a keyhole. Now the door is wide open.

I’m seeing Nessa unleashed. Nessa when no one is watching her. No one but me.

She’s rolling and swaying, her hips moving as I’ve never seen before, her eyes locked on mine. She bends all the way down to the ground, then slides her hands up one long leg, pulling up the skirt of her nightgown to show her smooth, creamy thigh.

Then she spins around the other way, so that when she bends over, I can see the curve of her ass cheek beneath the hem of the nightie.

She’s teasing me. She knows that my eyes are glued to her body, and that her every movement is sending jolts through my body, making my cock stiffen and swell until I have to shift in place, trying to find relief.

She turns around again to face me, and without breaking eye contact, she grabs the hem of her nightgown and slowly lifts it over her head, revealing her narrow hips, impossibly slim waist, and then her small, round breasts. She wads up the thin cotton nightie and tosses it to the side.

She’s naked now, except for her panties.

It’s my first full view of her breasts. I’ve seen them through soaked material, but never completely bare. They’re hardly big enough to fill my hands, but they’re fucking gorgeous. I’ve never seen such perky little tits. They look sculpted out of marble, if marble could be soft and mobile and sensitive.

There’s just enough flesh that her breasts bounce and move along with the rest of her body, as if every ounce of her is calling to me, enticing me, begging to be touched.

I’ve never seen a body like hers. No excess, just a perfect, lean frame that’s been trained and sculpted to its purpose. She’s strong. She’s graceful. And she’s the sexiest fucking thing imaginable.

The music is pounding, and so is the rain.

The lyrics are drilling into my head.

Nessa spins around and drops, then she crawls across the floor toward me, like a panther hunting its prey. I’m supposed to be the hunter. But I’m fixed in place, mesmerized by her green eyes looking up at me.

She crawls up my legs, her hands sliding up my thighs. I know she can see my cock straining against the crotch of my pants. When she turns around and grinds her body against mine, I know she can feel it, digging into her ass.

My cock is leaking cum. It’s dying to get free, to feel that butter-soft skin instead of the constricting material of my pants.

Nessa straddles my lap, gyrating her ass against my crotch. Her arms link around my neck, those beautiful breasts just millimeters from my face. God, I want to close my mouth around those stiff little nipples.

But I’m waiting. I want to see what Nessa will do, all on her own, without my interference.

It takes every bit of my willpower. I’ve never been so turned on in my life. My cock is raging to be set free, to sink deep inside her tight little body. I don’t just want it. I need it. I’ll fucking explode without it.

I’ve never seen a woman move like this, and I own a fucking strip club. Nessa is as innocent as they come. I kissed her once—I know how fumbling and inexperienced she was.

But she knows how to dance. And, I’m learning, she knows how to be sensual. She has that sexual drive buried deep inside her. She just never let it out before.

She’s grinding against me, rubbing those soft little breasts and that aching pussy against me. Begging me to touch her back, to respond in kind. Her lashes are heavy with lust, her face is flushed, her lips parted.

She slides down my body once more, kneeling between my legs. Her fingers fumble at the button of my pants.

She opens my trousers, setting my cock free. It springs up to meet her, thick and fully hard, one of the only places on my body where the skin is pure, unmarked by tattoos.

She gives a little gasp of surprise. I’m almost certain that what I guessed is true—Nessa is a virgin. She’s never even seen a cock before, let alone touched one.

Hesitantly, she puts out her hand and closes it around my cock. It fills her hand. When she squeezes the shaft, her fingers don’t meet around it.

She looks up at me once more, nervous and wide-eyed.

Those pale pink lips part. Her open mouth is about to close around my cock.

Until I stop her.

I gently push her away, tucking my cock back inside my pants.

I want Nessa to suck my cock. Fucking hell, I want it so bad.

But not like this. Not by coercion.

I don’t want her to do it because she’s scared, because she’s trying to convince me not to hurt her brother.

I want her to do it because she craves me as badly as I want her.

That’s not going to happen.

She’s my prisoner, and I’m the monster keeping her here.

I have to lock her back in her room before I lose my last shred of self-control.