Haunting Woods (Under Covers Book 2) Read online

  She went to the bathroom to wash her hands. I tried to pull down my t-shirt and I felt my shoulder was going to pop out of its socket. The touch of cotton over my raw skin felt like an intense burn. That bitch had pushed my back into the metal of the cage over and over again. It hurt like I was in an iron maiden. The history nerd in me piped up saying that the iron maidens were never actually used and it was just one of those fake things about medieval torture that people believed. Fuck history. My flesh felt as if it the metal wire of the cage had pierced my skin and dug into my muscles.

  I had some over the counter pain medication in my gym bag for emergencies. If this didn't count as an emergency, nothing would. I took a couple of pills and downed them with some warm water. Every move I made hurt in a different way. I lay flat on my stomach on the couch. It still hurt. I stood up again and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I barely recognized myself. I was four months in this operation and it was getting difficult to remember my other life. The life in which I didn't look like some animal of prey. What the mirror didn't show was the hunger inside me.

  I stripped out of my sports clothes. My skin was no longer tanned, and the creamy white was blotched with bruises in various degrees of healing, from bright purple to faded yellowish green. I put on a pair of sexy torn out jeans that covered most of my bruises, and a loose off the shoulder top. On my right shoulder there was a nasty bruise from a training session earlier in the week. The blistering pain had subsided to a more manageable level when Tatiana came back.

  "So, are we going to the club any time soon?" I asked.

  She gave me an incredulous look.

  "Have you been taking candies?" she asked.

  I threw her the pills bottle. "Just a couple of these."

  "Are you sure you want to go out?"

  "I know you've been looking forward to the thing tonight. And I could use the distraction."

  "The thing is a one night only gig with the best DJ on the West Coast," she said. "You'll love it."

  "Sure, sure."

  "You look gorgeous," she said.

  "I already said I want to go, you don't have to butter me up unless you want to get in my pants."

  She blushed a little and I felt bad for teasing her. I knew she liked me that way, and she knew I didn't. I cared about her, I thought she was beautiful, but I never felt attracted to her the same way.

  "Come on, get changed, it's like midnight already," I said.

  She ran into her room and I could hear doors opening and closing, drawers being opened and slammed shut.

  "Can you help me please?" she shouted from the other room.

  She was dressed in a stunning black dress, short and form fitting, zipped halfway up her back. I put my hand on the small of her back to keep the dress from sliding when I pulled up the zipper. I did it slowly, allowing my breath to touch her skin. She shivered and closed her eyes. I didn't want to give her hopes or torture her. Part of me still didn't believe that she was attracted to me. Another part wanted to see how much power I had over her.

  Chapter 5 - Viktor

  The pain killers wore off during the first hour we were at the club. To my utter disappointment, Fadeyev wasn't at the club that night. It was good for my cover to show up there after the fight. Too bad it wasn't useful in getting closer to my objective.

  Tatiana's DJ was making absolutely no difference to my deep dislike of this music. The same repetitive sounds scratched my ears. Sometimes a word was repeated over and over again until it lost all shape and meaning. I played my little game again, trying to guess how many people were not high in that club. Not counting myself, there was no one. Maybe the guys who did security by the door, but they were not technically in the club.

  The ladies' room was the only place where I could get away from the noise. It was crowded and it smelled of dozens of different perfumes. Zero size beauties fixed their makeup and wiped their noses after snorting their hard-earned drugs. The conversations in the room were in Russian and some other Eastern European languages I didn't bother to identify. Most of them recognized me and they moved out of my way. Women fighters didn't bother much with the clubs. The real me would not have fitted in with this crowd. The face that used to look at me from the mirror was too wholesome and girl-next-door-ish. The intense training sharpened my cheekbones to razor edge and I made sure that my inner fire showed out of my eyes. It must have looked like hunger to these half-starved women.

  When I went back into the club, the music grated on my nerves. I followed Tatiana to the dance floor and Viktor materialized near me. His wide chest encompassed my entire field of vision. I let myself be swept away in the rhythm. I didn't know how much time passed when we ended up in a corner, with me pushing him against the wall. I couldn't blame it on the drink because the only thing I had that evening had been a virgin Mojito. I could blame it on the post-fight hormones. Whatever the reason, I wanted to lose myself in him. He was tall enough and wide enough that if I closed my eyes, I could believe he was Nick. For too many days and nights I'd been desperate to see him. To feel him. To get my fix of him. The activity in the neighborhood hadn't allowed me to slip away. Fadeyev's people had started a war with another group and the informants were in high demand. Any rumors were investigated.

  Nick wasn't there, but Viktor was. I was going to get what I needed from him. I wouldn't be the first woman to close her eyes and pretend she was with someone else. That was a good plan, ruined the moment when he decided to switch our places and he pressed my back against the wall. Ever since I became Joanna Blanchard I resented any form of domination, but this time the physical pain made me react even violently. I pushed him away so hard he fell backwards onto a table which broke under his weight. He jumped back to his feet and lunged at me.

  "What the fuck is wrong with you? Didn't you see my fight?"

  He was very close and very angry, and it was a stupid thing to do but I turned my back and I raised my shirt. There must have been a pretty gruesome sight because the hit never came.

  "I didn't realize. I'm sorry," he said.

  I shook my head. The mood was ruined. The need burned inside me but the illusion was shattered. I couldn't use him instead of Nick.

  "Forget it," I said.

  I pushed past him towards the exit. Fuck caution. If I didn't see Nick that night I was going to lose my mind. I got off the subway at a random station and I called him from a public phone. He answered on the second ring, using his cop voice.

  "Woods."

  "Hey, Woods."

  His tone changed immediately. I was glad he recognized my voice and I didn't have to say my real name. I wasn't sure I was able to do that.

  "Are you ok?" he asked.

  Warmth and concern. I wanted to wrap myself in his voice.

  "Are you at work?"

  Why would I think that? It was way past midnight.

  "Yes. Do you need help?"

  I needed… I needed something.

  "I've been thinking about you. At work. Bending me over your desk. Pulling down my panties and fucking me right there. In the middle of the squad room."

  "You don't sound ok. Tell me where you are, I'll come pick you up."

  "No need." I shook my head as if he could see me. "I can be at your place in an hour."

  "Fine. I'll see you there."

  Chapter 6 - Nick

  The light was off in the hallway when he let me in. He turned it on as soon as he locked the front door.

  "I'm not going to bleed all over your carpet," I said when his stare became too clinical.

  "Are you hurt?"

  "Nothing much," I said and waved my hand dismissively.

  "What's wrong?"

  He was concerned and I was aroused. His salt and pepper hair was so sexy. The worn out haunted look plucked at a cord inside me. I was too tired to string any words together. I unbuttoned my jeans and took them off in his brightly lit hallway. I took his hand and guided it between my thighs. His fingers slipped seamlessly around t
he lace, between my wet folds, finding unerringly the bundle of nerves that made me see fireworks at a simple touch. I bucked against his hand.

  "You're a bad girl," he said, continually drawing small circles over my clit. "Showing up at this time of night. Taking off your clothes without permission."

  The words made the sensations even stronger, and yet he was keeping me on the brink of orgasm. I tried to change position, I gripped his wrist trying to move his hand. I wanted his fingers inside my pussy, building up the climax I desperately needed.

  I needed that unbearable pleasure of being close to him. I wanted to feel his body on mine, to draw strength from him. I might pass out in pain if he climbed on top of me the way I wanted, but I was not going to demand special favors.

  "Need you."

  He cut me off with a kiss. He put his hand on my shoulder blade and the pain seared through me. I arched my back unable to suppress a hiss of pain. He removed his hand without asking anything. He walked me backwards as if he led me in a tango. The living room was dark, but I knew it well. I knew and loved his living room couch. It would hurt tonight as if my back was pressed on broken glass, and I would still love it.

  We didn't make it to the couch. My reaction to his touch on my back probably clicked in his mind with what I tried to suggest on the phone. For such a perfect fuck machine, he had a brain the size of a planet. He bent me over the table. Even in that mindless state of arousal and in the dim light coming from the hallway, I held down the hem of my shirt. I didn't want him to undress me or even to it push up and see the flayed skin on my back. The sound of a torn package and the faint smell of rubber and lube heralded that I was going to get my wish. In a few seconds, something big hard and slippery pushed against my pussy lips.

  "Daddy!"

  He wasn't gentle and I didn't want him to be. His vice-like grip on my hips was going to layer new bruises over some that were already healing. He thrust without hesitation, burying his entire length in me.

  "Yes, baby. Daddy's here."

  I whimpered at the sound of his hot gravelly voice. The room started to spin when he picked up the pace. He must have been dealing with his own demons as he hammered into me. The most cerebral person I knew disappeared, morphing into a beast. He grabbed my hair and pulled me back as far as my spine allowed. He panted in my ear while his pulsating cock pummeled into me. The animalistic grunts poured fire over my soul. I came apart in a long, bone melting orgasm, unable to move once it was over. He kept pounding into my limp body for a few moments, until he came, hard and deep, without saying my name. He pulled out and left me there.

  As soon as he was gone, I tried to stand but I felt like a newborn deer on shaky legs. I felt everything slipping away. It was so stupid to leave my mission and run to him. Reality was seeping back in. I had to leave. I managed to stand then resolutely I took one step after another back in the hallway. I put my jeans back on and walked out the door.

  Chapter 7 - The Dark Fights

  When I got to the subway I checked my phone. A missed call from Mikhail Zubarev, Fadeyev's right hand man, a few minutes earlier. I called him back as soon as I was back in the neighborhood.

  "Were you sleeping?" he asked.

  "Exercising," I answered.

  "Come to the office."

  "I can be there in fifteen minutes," I said.

  "Ok."

  *

  "This is how you dress to exercise?" Mikhail asked when he opened the door.

  I shrugged and ignored his leer. He could probably smell the sex on me, but I didn't care. If they didn't shoot me in the street, they were either going to do it here, a point blank execution, or they had no clue about my fuck session with one of New York's finest.

  Fadeyev sat at his desk, sharply dressed and completely lucid. He looked like a Top 500 CEO, with perfectly manicured hands and neatly trimmed beard. Everything from the exquisite cut of his suit, the Rolex half hidden under his jacket sleeve, to the designer frame of his glasses spoke of a level of affluence I couldn't quite grasp. In my real life, I was an upper middle class girl from a family of means. In this life, I had no term of comparison for how rich was this man. But in this life, I was able to sense his power. One thing he did not hide under all that luxury. The cruelty in his eyes was terrifying.

  "You did well tonight against the Tigress," he said.

  My upper lip twitched. I wanted to bare by teeth at the mere memory of the fight.

  "You will enter in the tournament next month."

  I looked at him in silence. The tournament he was talking about was not on the regular circuit. I had been waiting for entrance to these fights since day one. They called them dark fights and they were the main reason I was in so deep. This operation was not about the illegal gambling and the drugs that floated freely in these circles. The dark fights got people killed and they had to be stopped.

  "The rules are somewhat different than the ones you know. Misha will tell you the details," he said with a nod in Mikhail's direction. "What I want from you is to lose the first two and win the third one. Make the losses look good because I'm going to bet a lot on you in the final tournament."

  My eyes widened. Losing wasn't a big deal but making it look good meant getting seriously hurt. There was nothing the crowds loved more than blood.

  *

  Losing the first fight was more difficult than I expected. The pain inflicted by my opponent was magnified by my thwarted obsession to win at all costs. Battered and humiliated, I slept a whole day and night after that fight without taking off my clothes or even bothering to pull out the couch.

  Two weeks after that, I managed to get choked out convincingly so the physical damage was less extreme. I contacted Deacon, my handler, using the most paranoid methods to tell him to get everything ready for the big night. The tournament was going to bring to New York all the higher echelon of the Russian mafia on the East Coast. I would only find out the date and the exact location a few hours before it started, so I needed him to have everything ready. Ideally, they'd bust down the doors before my fight.

  I waited for the text from Misha, ready to send out my own text to Deacon. I had to trust that he would be there and the nightmare would end. I could feel that I wouldn't last longer past my next fight.

  The message came one morning when I was at the gym. The tournament was scheduled for midnight. The text was just a time and the address of a warehouse. I wasn't the only one to get it. Three other people stop their training and went to the locker room. There was no wisdom in training the day of the fight.

  I sent Deacon the message and got rid of the SIM card. All I had to do was rest and get mentally ready for that night. At least, that was my plan. When I walked back to the apartment, two men put a bag over my head and shoved me in the back of a van. I didn't struggle when they tied my hands, but I still got a few short punches in the kidneys.

  They walked me blindfolded through whatever place that was. They wanted to keep this place and their identities secret, which meant they considered releasing me. The blow to the back of my head came unexpectedly. Next thing I knew, a bucket of water was splashed on my face, waking me up. My hands and feet were tied to a chair. I saw Tatiana next to me, similarly restrained. I also recognized our captors, Viktor and Ilya, and that truly frightened me. If they allowed us to see their faces, my hopes that they would let us leave went up in smoke.

  "Which one of you is the rat?" Ilya asked.

  Two hours of excruciating pain followed. I would never know where I found the strength to continue to deny that it was me. My heart bled for Tatiana who was tortured the same as me, but I did not want to die.

  The torture ended with her death. Her will to live faded away. It was something I witnessed during 0fights. Sometimes the will to win dwindles, and a fighter would put himself in a position to be submitted. I had done it just the week before, in the fight I was meant to lose. I wished that I could give her strength, but at the same time I couldn't die for her. It shook me to my very
core when, at the end, she confessed to save me. She told them she was the cop.

  Viktor unchained me and left me crumple to the floor and he joined Ilya. She was passed out and they kept hitting her, and hitting her. I threw up and prayed that she died while unconscious.

  Chapter 8 - "NYPD, open the door!"

  Everything hurt. Because of course it did. I looked at myself in the full-length mirror, the only item I liked in that squalid apartment. With a bit of makeup and a long sleeves hoodie no one could tell that I had been tortured for two hours.

  "One does not simply walk into Bratva."

  I tried to sound like Sean Bean to cheer myself up, and I burst into laughter at the end. That was the result of growing up with internet memes and Lord of the Rings movies instead of Tolkien's books.

  I centered myself and began my Tai Chi practice. Pain seared through me even worse. I had a fight scheduled in a few hours and I wished I knew what was broken, crushed, ruptured, or strained. I was fairly sure I didn't have any internal injuries, but I needed a medical opinion, and I wouldn't be caught dead at one of the doctors they used for the girls. Well, I would be caught dead if I went to one of the butchers who patched up hookers and fighters to earn enough money to maintain their coke habit after losing their license to practice medicine.

  I couldn't reach out to my handler. They had to still suspect me even after what happened when they had tortured us. Us. I couldn't think of Tatiana at that moment. I had packed up all her stuff and shoved it into a few garbage bags I was going to throw away after the fight that night. I couldn't stand being reminded of her and what she had done to save me. What was done was done and I had to think of myself and find a way to make it another night without blowing my cover.

  "You got shot because you didn't want to blow your cover?"