GHOST (Boston Underworld Book 3)

A
ll rights reserved
. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

T
his is a work of fiction
. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

T
alia
.

I have always been a bird.
Caged by one prison or another when the only thing I ever wanted was to fly away.

Sold. Beaten. Starved. Drugged.

Nothing scares me anymore.

Until him.

He makes the numbness go away.

He is hazardous to me. It has nothing to do with his mafia lifestyle, and everything to do with what he offers.

A gilded prison.

A retreat from everything that I once knew. The reality I have no desire to return to.

He thinks he’s caged me, but soon…

I’m going to fly.

A
lexei
.

I live by a code.
The Vory code.

In this mafiya world, there are traditions.

Expectations.

She does not care for these things. She does not care about anything.

She thinks she has me fooled with her haunted eyes.

What she can’t know is that I see her better than most.

She wants to fly.

But I’m going to clip her wings.

And make her my wife.

T
anaka
,

Thank you for your support, your friendship, and your kind words over the last few years. I hope this character will be worthy of your namesake in this book and those to come.

H
ope is for suckers
.

That’s what Mack and I always like to say.

So I guess I’m a sucker too.

Because when Dmitri asked me to go to Mexico with him, I couldn’t say no.

There was a part of me that wanted to. The part that keeps my shields up and my armor in place. We’ve only been dating for a month. Not enough time to vacation together.

Not that I would know. I’ve never even been on a vacation.

Mack and I have always done it tough. Growing up in foster care and then on the streets. Scraping by every day. When the majority of your life is consumed by the thought of your next meal or a safe place to sleep, places like Mexico might as well be on another planet.

But things are different now.

I’m twenty-two. And perfectly capable of taking care of myself.

Mack doesn’t agree.

And even though I’m here in paradise with this man who promises the world, I can’t stop thinking about her.

She’s like a sister to me. She’s the only family I’ve got. I hate that we argued before I left. We’re always arguing these days, it seems.

She hates my job. She hates all of my life decisions.

And it hurts. Because I miss her. She should be here with me, in this beautiful place, experiencing it with me. But instead, she’s back in Boston… completely oblivious to where I’m at. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her about this vacation. I knew she would argue. I knew she would tell me that I was making another mistake.

She doesn’t like Dmitri, even though she’s never met him. Mack always sees the worst in everybody. It’s her way of protecting herself and me.

But sometimes, like right now, I just want to see the good.

Dmitri has done nothing but treat me well since I met him. And I have this crazy idea in my head that maybe someday Mack will meet him and understand that. That she’ll be able to see what I see when I look at him.

I want to call her right now. I want to tell her all about this place. How beautiful the weather and the drinks and the beach are. These last few days have been the best of my life, and I want to share that with her.

But my phone is up in the hotel room and Dmitri and I are down by the pool. So it will have to wait until tonight.

I’ll get the courage to call her tonight.

“Hey.” Dmitri reaches over and touches my face, turning my attention to him. “Why so sad, kitten?”

“I’m not,” I lie.

He smiles, and I do too.

“Good,” he answers in his Russian accent. “Because tonight, I am taking you somewhere you will never forget.”

My heart rate slows and some of the anxiety in my chest ebbs away. I feel like I could trust Dmitri. And I haven’t felt like that in a long time.

“Tell me, Talia,” he brushes his fingers down my arm and breaks away, watching me carefully. “Have you enjoyed our time together so far?”

“Yes,” I answer.

And that isn’t a lie. I feel like he’s different. Like he can read me better than most. I’ve told him things about my life that I’ve never told anyone. I’ve opened up to him. I’ve given him a piece of myself that nobody else has ever earned.

It isn’t just my body, but a part of my heart too.

“I’ve enjoyed our time together as well,” he says wistfully. “Very much.”

The expression on his face confuses me, but it vanishes quickly. A moment later, he’s checking his watch and taking me by the hand.

“Come,” he says. “The car is waiting out front.”

I follow him through the resort and into the back of the car. He gives instructions to the driver in his native language, which surprises me a little. I didn’t realize that he’d brought anyone else down here with him. But it is apparent that this man works for Dmitri.

Something nags at the back of my mind. A sinking feeling takes hold of me as we drive, and I can’t be sure what it is.

When I glance at Dmitri across the seat, he is lost in his own thoughts. And distant. He is never distant. It worries me. As does the landscape up ahead. Which is looking less like a tourist area by the moment.

Dmitri seems to sense my panic though as he always does.

“It’s okay,” he assures me.

He reaches out and takes my hand in his, and I try to focus on organizing my thoughts. I’m at war again. In my mind. Looking for demons in everyone the way that I always do. I told myself that I wasn’t going to do this anymore. I told myself that I was going to forget the past.

“You trust me, don’t you?” Dmitri asks.

I look up at him and give him a nervous smile. Half of me is screaming no while the other half nods on autopilot.

“Good,” he says. “Because you know I’d never do anything to hurt you, Talia. I’d never put you in danger. You have nothing to worry about when you are with me.”

I allow his reassurances to calm me as the car pulls to a stop. But one look outside the window, and all of his words mean nothing.

There isn’t time to protest or question him. When I turn back, there’s a flash of movement in which the only thing I see is his fist. Flying at my face. And then blackness.

Only blackness.

W
hen I wake again
, I am naked. And my senses are distorted. I’m dizzy and confused by the overwhelming sense of dread coursing through my body. There is vomit lying next to my face, which causes me to wretch. But nothing comes up. And I realize, it is mine.

And then I realize something else. When I feel movement on top of me. Inside of me.

There is a man’s face above me. One I do not recognize.

I try to move. But my body isn’t cooperating. It’s sluggish and heavy. Something is wrong with me, but I don’t know what it is.

There is a low murmur. And some movement. Hands on me, shifting me around. There is shock and pain at another intrusion. From behind.

There are two of them now. Two strangers inside of me.

And then I hear Dmitri’s voice. My confusion and panic halts for a split second in which I believe that he’s going to fix this. That he’s going to make it right.

But when he enters my blurred vision, distorted from my swollen face, I remember the car. His fist. The place he took me to.

He’s in front of me now. Expressionless as he unzips his pants. It isn’t the same man that I knew. The same man that I’ve spent the last month with. He rubs himself on my face, and I try to pull away when he seizes my hair and slaps me in the same spot he hit me before.

The shock of pain causes my mouth to fall open, and he shoves inside, gagging me.

“You better get used to it, kitten,” he tells me. “The pain is your new best friend. This feeling is what you will know now. The only thing you will know. It is better to accept it than fight it.”

I can’t move. I can’t fight back. They’ve drugged me with something, I realize, as Dmitri watches the tears spill down my cheeks. He knows my resistance is futile as well. And he doesn’t care.

“Now give me one more gift,” he says as he uses my mouth. “For old times’ sake.”

He is rough with me. Rougher than he’s ever been. And when he finishes, he does it on my face, smearing the liquid around with his palm before he spits on me and rubs that in too.

And then he’s kneeling in front of me. Patting me on the cheek.

“It’s just business,” he tells me. “That’s all, kitten. Don’t make it any harder on yourself.”

He disappears from the room, and from my life, as another man takes his place. It hurts for a long time. But the lines are blurred and I can’t be sure if it’s the physical or emotional. It never seems to end.

I don’t know how many there are. I don’t know anything but the pain.

And when I close my eyes, I try to find a way to transcend it. Thinking that it will help. But the only thing I can see is Mack’s face. My best friend and my sister and the only person on this earth who loves me.

She doesn’t know where I am. Because I was too angry to tell her the truth.

There’s a well-known saying about everything becoming perfectly clear in hindsight.

In hindsight, I never realized exactly how pivotal that moment was. My best friend and I, sitting in a café together, eating lunch. About to have one of our many arguments. It was the last time I saw her.

People always say they wish they’d known what was about to happen before disaster strikes. I would have said that too, at the time. I would have told Mack where I was going. And then I would have let her talk me out of it.

But looking back on it now, I don’t think I’d say the same.

I had to go to hell to find the person I am today. And in the end, the road through hell led me straight to him.