All it took for me to snap was the sight of this gorgeous woman cowering from this asshole beating her.
Rage filled me.
How dare he?
One look at the fear blazing in her green gaze made me lose the thin thread I had left on my control.
Seeing Sloane caught in another bad position pissed me off. Without needing to know any details, I identified her as a victim and knew it wasn’t right.
She was a stranger. I was only familiar with her name and how good she felt. I was also aware of the staying power she had on me, tempting me to think about her obsessively after our one encounter.
But that didn’t matter. I wanted to know her more than the slim experience we shared.
When I showed up a half hour ago and spotted her on stage, staggering like she was ill, I was determined to see what was wrong. I ran out to my driver and ordered him to wait in the back while another soldier knocked out the security guard so I could enter. After following her backstage and finding her struck and threatened by this greasy drunk asshole whose neck I just cracked with my bare hands, I was confident I wasn’t through with her yet.
I wasn’t even close to being done with her.
How fucking dare you? I seethed, staring at the dead man for another second, making sure he wasn’t coming back.
Like hell are you going to beat her.
I caught my breath from the thrill that filled me after a kill. It wasn’t right. I was a sick bastard to enjoy ending another’s life, but now wasn’t the time for self-reflection of why I was the monster I was.
“Sloane?” I stared at her as I let go of the man who would never hurt her again.
She didn’t reply. She was out, slumping down the wall until she rested on the sticky floor. In this cluttered backstage space that held the stinking smells of perfume and hair product, along with spilled booze, she stayed in place, eyes closed.
“Sloane.”
Still nothing.
I grew more worried at her unconscious status. Maybe she wasn’t used to the hard side of life and hadn’t witnessed someone being killed. But she couldn’t be a complete innocent, working here and being a stripper. Death was something trickier to acclimate to. To accept. At first.
I have to get her out of here.
If she was weak or ill—
Wait.
I caught myself.
Checking my thoughts of concern about her, I tried to remember why I’d come here.
I came here not to rescue her but to escape the stress for a night and enjoy her company. I hadn’t set out to get involved further than another quick, hard fuck, but I couldn’t help it. Something about seeing her down and targeted awakened the beast within me.
I knew she wasn’t mine to be this possessive and concerned about, but I couldn’t stop it.
Perhaps I pushed myself too far in trying to be overly patient with the investigation of my father being poisoned. I was on edge, wishing for this blonde to tame me in this dark mood.
Maybe I had bottled too much anger inside me from the audacity of an enemy trying to take out the leader of my family. I was at risk of holding in too many violent urges.
It didn’t matter. I could explain it a million different ways. All that stayed the same was that seeing Sloane like this answered to a need to protect her. This obsession to possess her and grant her security took over me.
Inexplicably but stubbornly, I had to have her and know she was all right.
A woman scurried down the hall, slowing as she spotted me. I was hunched over, but cautiousness lined this dancer’s face as she probably wondered how I’d gotten back here.
“Hold on.” My voice came out gruffer than I intended. I held my hand up as if to ward her back, but it was too late. She spotted this asshole on the ground, unmoving, and she freaked out. Crying out in alarm, she skidded backward and bolted.
Fuck.
It was only a matter of time before more people would come back here, and I’d be damned if I was deprived of the chance to know if Sloane was all right. I’d trespassed in here and they would try to kick me out, but that wouldn’t do.
Questions pinged me too fast. Warnings flagged in my mind too. But I moved with the need to get her out of here.
I called my driver and ordered him to send the soldier in here to clean this up. Before he came, I frowned at Sloane again, watching her to make sure she was breathing. She hadn’t hit her head. The mark of red on her cheek infuriated me, a suggestion that she’d been slapped. But she had been with it and alert enough to make eye contact with me before she fainted.
Recognition had shone in her emerald eyes before she simply passed out. Still, I watched her chest rise and fall. The skimpy outfit accentuated her luscious tits, her cleavage exaggerated for her job, but all I cared about right now as I dragged this man to the side was that she was breathing.
“Boss?” The soldier showed up, and I let him take over hiding the man.
“I’m taking her out to the car.” I didn’t wait for his reply, knowing he wouldn’t waste time with stupid questions. Stooping low, I gathered Sloane into my arms and carried her outside to where my driver waited in the alley behind the club.
He also knew better than to ask questions. The Ivanov men would stay loyal to their last breath. Opening the back door for me, he had my back and looked out for trouble as I carried Sloane into the back with me. As soon as I got her settled on my lap, the soldier came out with the dead man slung over his shoulder. A few more jerks and bumps of motion throughout the car told me he’d opened the trunk and dropped the corpse in. Then once he got in, we were off.
Silence filled the car. No one spoke, and I wouldn’t have to. Sloane was far from the first person I’d kidnapped, but they had to be curious why I was bringing her home. I never brought a woman home, deeming my family’s residence too private to share with a random fuck.
But she’s not.
Watching Sloane breathe steadily, her lids closed and her lips parted slightly, I had to admit she was no longer a random woman I’d happened to fuck at a club. She wasn’t just some stripper. She alone had the honor of staying in my mind for too damn long. As I directed the driver to go to the house, I assigned another rarity to her.
She was the one woman I would kill to protect and take as I pleased.
Sloane was the one I wanted.
Obsessed with the memory I had of her, I wondered if it could be this simple.
Grandmother had been nagging me to produce an heir. So why not her? I stared at her sleeping, stroking her soft golden locks back from her face. Why not Sloane? She could be the one to give me a child.
I didn’t have to marry her. I could knock her up, keep her as a mistress, and get a damn heir once and for all. Marriage would be preferred. I understood that, but I wasn’t ready to lock a woman to me for anything more yet.
But if Grandmother was getting this nervous about securing a future line of the Ivanov legacy…
Why not her?
It wouldn’t make sense for me to waste any more time or energy looking for another woman to breed. I had this one with me—and I wasn’t in any mood to let her go.
I had too much to figure out, but with the return to the house, I decided to pace myself. I was kidnapping her, whisking her away from her workplace when she was unconscious, but I treated her gently. Holding her to me as though she were a delicate treasure, I hoisted her into my arms and carried her into the house. No one stopped me on the way to my floor. None of the guards seemed to bat an eyelid or react to the odd sight of me bringing a woman home.
They knew better than to speak up.
The moment the elevator lifted to my floor and the doors opened to my apartment near the top of the building, I took her into my room. She still hadn’t woken, but I wasn’t overly worried. After staring at her on the ride here, I wondered if she was merely tired, overworked, and maybe sleep deprived. The faint odor of bile could be detected on her, and I figured that maybe she was sick. That combination would explain her passing out so quickly.
Without any protest, I laid her on the bed and dragged the blankets up over her. She’d wake sooner or later, and I wanted to be there the moment she did. Dragging a chair over toward the massive bed, where she looked so small and lonely resting by herself, I planned to watch over her until she came to.
Preoccupying myself with the possibilities of how I could keep her here as my mistress to produce an heir, I studied her and wished she’d wake up to answer all the questions that piled up in my head. Sitting as patiently as I could, I propped my elbows on the armrests of the chair and steepled my fingers, resting my chin atop them.
The moment she stirred, my heart beat faster. Anticipation of her seeing me spiked my pulse in a good way, and I looked forward to how she’d react.
“What the…” She blinked, lifting her head off the pillow. Confused and alarmed, she jack-knifed on the bed and scanned the dimly lit room. Her breath hitched the second she saw me. And before trying to shout for help, she scooted back on the bed, knocking a pillow aside. “What the fuck is going on?”
Once more, she searched the room, frantic and scared. To my delight, she wasn’t terrified, showing that same hopeless frown that she wore when that man beat her backstage. Now, she looked defensive, calculating. While I didn’t want trouble from her, seeing her react with a survivalist instinct pleased me. She wasn’t a docile dumbass. She had some grit to be so quick to assess the situation like that.
“Why’d you bring me here?” she demanded, her voice strong and stern. “What do you want with me?” Again, she scooted back on the bed, as if she were already plotting an escape route away from me.
“I only wanted to make sure you’re all right,” I replied. That wasn’t all I wanted from her, but I had to pace myself. Seeing her in my bed was fucking with me. Desire pummeled me, and I tried to ignore how hard my dick was at seeing her in my place.
“You kidnapped me.” She narrowed her eyes, proving she wasn’t a meek or submissive idiot for me. I hated the memories of her so scared of that man I’d killed for her and the three punks at that party. But she didn’t cower from me.
“You kidnapped me from the club,” she said when I didn’t reply, merely staring at her and trying to figure out how to handle this now that I’d brought her here. Sitting up straighter on the bed, she got testier yet, scowling at me. “Let me go.”
“Go?” I asked, smiling slightly. There’s not a fucking chance in hell that I’ll let you go now.
“You listen to me, asshole, and let me go,” she demanded, pointing at me as she lifted her chin. Between her tone and the attitude, I realized she had some street smarts. She was tough. Maybe she’d had a harder life than I guessed. Beneath it all, it was clear she wasn’t from my world. Unrefined and cockier, sassy and bold, she was not the sort of elite Mafia daughter my grandmother probably wanted me to choose.
She won’t be happy about my breeding someone like her, anyway.
Grandmother would insist on finding a proper woman, someone of a prestigious background to solidify a stronger generation to follow mine. She’d never approve of a fighter like Sloane, someone tough and sassy off the streets.
“I want to leave,” she insisted, seeming more irate when I didn’t give her a response. “You can’t just kidnap me like this and—”
When she tried to flip the covers off and free her legs, I got to my feet and loomed over her. Setting a hand on either side of her hips, I blocked her in. The blanket stretched back over her thighs, tucking her in place.
She didn’t lean back as I arched over her. Giving me her hardest glare, those green eyes sparkling with anger, she didn’t back down. Tormenting myself with the slight buffer of space between us, I reined in my need to taste her, to devour her, and watched her lips as she frowned.
Oh, I’m going to have fun with you.
“You’re not going anywhere, Sloane.”
