Savage Hearts

38

Her laugh is so sweet, it makes my d**k even harder. I roll her onto her back, press my chest against hers, and kiss her again, this time hungrily.

When we come up for air, she’s still laughing.

“Honey! Give me a minute to catch my breath, will you? I’ve already had three orgasms in the past hour!”

“Only three?” I say, outraged.

It makes her laugh harder.

She stops when the phone on the nightstand beside her side of the bed starts ringing.

“Woman,” I say sternly. “What did I tell you about keeping your cell next to the bed?”

“Something bossy that I ignored.”

“Turn it off.”

“Let me just check and see who it is real quick. It could be Sloane.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

She pushes at my chest. I don’t move. The phone keeps ringing.

“What if I make you a deal that this is the last time I’ll keep the phone in the bedroom?”

“We already made that deal. You conveniently forgot.”

“Oh. Right.” She gazes up at me, biting her lip, silently pleading with her big doe eyes.

“No, baby. Don’t give me that look.”

“Please?”

Ah, f**k.

She knows I can’t resist that sweet, soft tone, and those sweet, soft eyes. I don’t know why I ever bother trying.

I roll off her with a heavy sigh and lie on my back, staring at the ceiling.

“Thank you, honey.” She leans over and gives me a peck on the cheek before grabbing the phone and answering it.

“Hello?”

There’s a long silence as she listens. Then she blurts, “Oh, my god! No! Sloane, I'm so sorry!”

It’s Sloane. Of f*****g course it is. And I can already tell that whatever it is she’s telling Nat is some giant clusterfuck I’ll have to get involved in.

I should’ve thrown that goddamn phone out the window when I had the chance.

Nat listens for a few moments longer, then says urgently, “Absolutely! Put him on right now! I’ll put Kage on, too.”

She rolls over, thrusts the phone at me, and demands, “You need to talk to Declan.”

I turn my head on the pillow and look at her. My voice flat, I say, “Natalie.”

“Don’t take that tone with me, Kage! This is important! Sloane’s little sister was kidnapped by some Russian assassin named Malek, and she got shot in the process. We have to help find her!”

That son of a b***h.

I sit up and grab the phone from her hand. Into it, I bark, “Start talking, asshole.”

“f**k you, too, you worthless piece of shite. Did you have anything to do with this?”

“I don’t even know what this is.”

“No? You have lots of rogue players on your team? Because I was under the impression you were the big Bratva boss. And if you are, you should know exactly what the f**k is happening on your turf. Or have I overestimated your power?”

That last part is said with so much contempt, my vision goes red.

It’s his blood I’m seeing. And his dead body right in the middle of a big pool of it.

“Just get to the f*****g point, Irish.”

“Malek Antonov. You familiar with the name?”

“Yes. He’s not under my jurisdiction.”

Declan shouts, “This whole bloody country is your bloody jurisdiction, you bloody t**t!”

I close my eyes and breathe slowly through my nose. I count to ten. When I open my eyes, Natalie is pacing naked back and forth at the end of the bed, chewing on her thumbnail.

That she’s so worried is the only reason I don’t hang up.

Keeping my tone tightly controlled, I say, “He’s out of Moscow. You know as well as I do that the old country has their own chain of command.”

“Not with us, it doesn’t.”

“We were around long before the Mob was even conceived. Russia is more than two hundred times bigger than Ireland. Things are more complicated.”

“Bollocks.”

“Okay. Good talk. f**k off into the sea, Irish.” Glowering, I hold the phone out to Nat. “Take this away from me before I break it.”

She glowers right back at me, squaring off to fold her arms over her chest. “Finish the conversation, Kazimir.”

Fuck. She’s calling me by my real name.

The only time she ever calls me by my real name is if I’m in trouble with her.

Seething, I put the phone back to my ear. “What do you want?”

“I want you to tell me where I can find him.”

“No idea.”

“You’re a bloody liar.”

“Yes. But not about this.”

A blistering Gaelic oath comes over the line. It makes me happy.

Hiding my smile because Nat is watching me, I say, “Perhaps if you hadn’t gone on that killing spree and murdered his brother, you wouldn’t be in this predicament. Just a thought.”

“I didn’t know he was his brother! They lived in different countries! And do you know how many of you bloody Russians have the same last name?”

“Some free advice? Next time you want to kill someone in the Bratva, don’t.”

He roars a filthy string of curses so long and scathing, I have to hold the phone away from my ear so I don’t go deaf.

When silence finally falls, I put the phone back to my ear. “Let me be clear. I don’t know where he is. I don’t have any control over him. I didn’t give him permission to touch Sloane’s sister.”