Charlotte reached for her hand. “I don’t know. He looks scary. Maybe we should go to the Johnsons.”
Chelsea slipped out of her sister’s grasp because there was a roll in her gut. Something was wrong. Her mother only had female friends and none of their husbands drove ominous black SUVs. She started to run, the sand dragging her down, but she knew she had to get to her mother.
“Chelsea,” Charlotte said beside her. “Chelsea, Momma told me to hide if we ever thought strange men were after us.”
Men with accents. Her mother had told her the same thing, but these men didn’t seem to be after her and her sister. They were in the house with Momma. Chelsea had to know. She couldn’t run and hide when her mother was there. She didn’t think, simply acted, running toward the house she’d known her whole life, the place where she’d been safe.
She was almost up the hill when the door opened and a man stepped outside, casually wiping something off his hands. He was a big man, maybe the largest Chelsea had ever seen. He had hair like Charlotte’s, blonde threaded with streaks of red, but unlike her sister, he wasn’t smiling. There was a grimness that made Chelsea stop in her tracks.
Charlotte stopped beside her.
“Is that blood?” her sister whispered.
Chelsea couldn’t take her eyes off the handkerchief in the man’s hand. Bright-red blood marred the white fabric. Blood.
Why was he bleeding? He didn’t look hurt. He was standing tall, his shoulders perfectly straight. He looked out over the beach as though searching for something. He spoke then, and Chelsea shivered at the sound.
“Найти ее.”
Charlotte pulled on her hand and this time Chelsea didn’t fight, but when they turned they found the way blocked.
And the sun. The massive man in front of them blocked out the sun, casting a long shadow over Chelsea and her sister. Charlotte’s hand squeezed hers so tight that Chelsea’s eyes filled with tears for two reasons. There was pain, but the only reason her sister would ever cause her that pain was out of fear.
Something bad was going to happen. Something very bad.
“Charlotte?” a deep voice asked.
Charlotte turned, pulling Chelsea with her. “Where’s my mom?”
The big man with the accent shrugged negligently. “She’s suffered an accident. I’m afraid she’s gone, but I’m your father and I’m here to take you home.”
Gone? Gone where? Her mother never left for long. She went to work, but someone always watched them and it wouldn’t be a scary man with blood on his hands. Where had her mother gone?
She wouldn’t leave them. Momma wouldn’t leave.
Unless…
Chelsea saw the world through blurry eyes as the truth hit her. Gone. It was a word that adults used. She’d learned that adults had lots of words that meant more than one thing. Gone was adult speak for the truth.
Dead. Gone was dead. It was a stupid word because gone meant leaving for something, but dead was just dead. Dead was a useless word and her mom wasn’t useless. Her mom couldn’t be dead.
Charlotte started to struggle beside her as the big man picked her up. Their hands came undone, and Chelsea had the horrible fear that Charlotte would be gone and she wasn’t sure in what way.
Charlotte kicked and screamed out Chelsea’s name. She pleaded with the man taking her as Chelsea stood, her feet planted to the ground because she wasn’t sure what else to do.
She closed her eyes. When a dream got bad, she had to remind herself that it was only a nightmare and that she could wake herself up. She was going to wake up. Tears squeezed from her eyes, dripping down her cheeks like warm rain.
Let me wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
When she woke up, Momma would be there making breakfast and Charlotte would say she didn’t like Bobby even though Chelsea was sure she did. The screaming would stop when she woke up. The crying would stop.
“Bring the other girl. She could prove useful,” a dark voice said.
A hand wrapped around her arm, and Chelsea opened her eyes. A man with a huge scar running down his face frowned down at her as she heard a car door slam.
“I’m sorry, little one. If it were up to me I would reunite you with your mother quickly. It looks like fate has other plans. Come along.” He started to walk, seeming not to mind when she stumbled.
Her feet hit the concrete, skin tearing in little streaks of pain and blood. She tried to keep up, tried to make her legs move faster, but it was useless.
She was shoved into the car. Immediately her sister was there, arms going around Chelsea.
She huddled in the car with Charlotte as it took off. She looked back, the little cottage fading into the distance, and wondered if she would ever see it again.
She closed her eyes and prayed to wake up.
Chapter One
“Someone’s trying to kill me.”
Simon Weston tried to let the words settle on his brain, closing the door as Chelsea walked through. Chelsea Dennis, otherwise known as Denisovitch, the daughter of former Russian mobster Vladimir Denisovitch and niece to the recently deceased head of the Denisovitch Syndicate. Recently deceased because Simon’s boss, Ian Taggart, had taken care of the fucker. Simon often wished he’d been the one to stick a blade in the bastard’s heart.
He turned and couldn’t help but stare. Chelsea wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever met and yet she stopped him in his tracks. He’d escorted some of the world’s great beauties on red carpets and to royal events, but it was a little criminal mastermind who got his cock hard just by walking in a room. She wasn’t exactly plain, either. With chestnut-brown hair and a petite figure, she was actually quite pretty until one noticed her hips and ass. Those catapulted her into goddess territory. Anything she lacked in the tit department was more than made up for with that healthy ass and curvy hips a man could hang on to while he fucked deep inside.
If he could stop wanting her, he would, but he hadn’t managed that trick yet. From the moment he’d seen her all those months ago, he’d been utterly fascinated. She was a mystery to him. Closed off, with more barricades around her than he could count, she still pulled him in the minute she walked in a room. And every time he got close to her, she smacked him with a No Trespassing sign right upside his head.
Unfortunately, he was a man who liked a challenge and he was definitely a man who never, ever learned his lesson. She was in his home without her sister to hide behind. She seemed to need him for something. The very idea made his dick hard. His stupid bloody cock was nothing but a puppy ready to play around her.