Redemption: (Dark Desires Book 3) (12 page)

Vladimir sat in the nondescript
white 1995 VW. He had driven from Cape Town to Stellenbosch in search of the
next man on his list – the cab driver who had been paid to take her from the
home she was moving out of to the airport. Jaco had let a man that Val didn't
know into the back of his car. He was an idiot for choosing to remain in the
country. At least Mehmet had been smart enough to relocate.

He’d parked the car a few
blocks away from Jaco’s house and kept himself busy with a few local newspapers
he’d bought. As the sun set and the streets darkened, he put the papers away.
His target should be home anytime now. He got out of the car and decided to let
himself in through the back. This place was even less impressive than the last
where he’d taken care of the other cab driver who’d taken Valerie from Qatar to
Saudi. Yusuf was now meat on a stick for the vultures that circled the An-Nafud
desert.

Vladimir sat on the couch in
Jaco’s lounge cloaked in darkness. They didn't need to know who their reaper
was; they just needed to know why their time was up. The door opened, and when
Jaco closed it behind him, he was shot in the back. It was only a tranquillizer
dart that hit him with a four-hour dosage. He had been sloppy with Mehmet.
Since then he'd learned to improvise when it came to covering his tracks. A
desert worked out well the last time and in Stellenbosch, the next best thing
would be the open veld that lay a few hours north. He tied him up and waited
for nightfall when everyone fell asleep.

Jaco woke from the deep sleep
he was in. He couldn't remember passing out. One minute he was parking his car
then entering his home and the next… nothing. He tried to move, but his hands
and legs were bound. He looked at his surroundings and realised that he was in
the back of a car.

“You must be worried,” a voice
said from the driver’s seat.

“Where are you taking me?” he
asked.

Vlad smiled at the question.
Valerie must have thought the same thing when his cab detoured from the route
she was expecting. “It’s an intense feeling isn’t it?  Fear. Not knowing
where you’re going. Take what you’re feeling and multiply that by two. There
were two men in that car alone with one woman.”

“I don’t know what you’re
talking about,” said Jaco trying to figure out why this madman had chosen him
of all people.

“Don’t worry; it will come to
you soon enough."

An hour later they arrived at
what looked like the perfect spot. He opened the trunk and yanked the man's bound
body by the collar. Jaco landed with a heavy thud. He pulled the body a few
feet away from the car and turned him over to lay on his stomach. “
Wat doen
jy?!
”
What are you doing
? shouted Jaco in a panic.

 
“Three months ago a man by the name of Mehmet
paid you to pick up a woman from her home and take her to the airport. That
woman was my wife.”

“
Ek het nie geweet nie! Ek
het nie geweet nie!" I didn't know!
pleaded Jaco.

“Do you know what they did to
her?”

“
Nee
,”
No
said
Jaco his eyes watering in fear.

"We'll play a game, and if
you can guess her name, I'll let you go. How does that sound?"

“O-okay,” he said willing to do
anything to get out alive.

Vladimir pulled out a box
cutter, released the safety latch and slid the blade up by two inches. He
ripped open the man's jacket and shirt. The blade sunk into Jaco's skin,
drawing blood as he carved the letter V into his back. 

Jaco screamed in agony, screams
that filled the night air and died without the hope of being heard. They were
alone in the veld with the wine lands a few hours behind them.

"I wrote a letter, can you
guess what it is?"

"
Asseblief
,
please
, I'll
do anything you want."

"Wrong answer."
Vladimir continued the sadistic game, slowly drawing out the letters
A.L.E.R.I.E with the blade. Her name was perfect; his wife was perfect. He was
balancing the scales of justice for her. He knew that the man beneath him was
probably not paying attention, too caught up in his pain to concentrate.

“Have you figured it out?”

“I’m sorry.
Asseblief!
”
Please!
Jaco begged.

“It’s not me that needs your
apology, those words are meant for her. And it’s too little too late for that.”
He kicked the man over to his back, the dirt of the ground seeped into his open
wounds. He walked back to his car and brought out the stake he’d placed across
the folded backseats along with Jaco’s comatose body earlier that evening. He
had made his point, and Jaco hadn't even tried to play the game -pathetic. He
mounted Jaco on the wooden pole and planted it into the ground. The impaled man
looked up at V, gasping through the pain, probably trying to beg for his life.

"Her name was Valerie,"
he spat before walking back to the car and driving to Cape Town.

Vladimir's list was still
incomplete, but he needed to go back to Val. He hadn’t called the house to
check on her because he knew that if he heard her voice, he would cease his
trail of vengeance and return to her. He would return home an even bigger
monster than he already was having taken three lives in the most gruesome of
ways. No, he needed to see this through. He would keep going; he would wash
away this stain he had put in her life with their blood.

Vladimir drove to Seapoint,
back to the beach house that he shared with his wife. Being in their bed brought
back some semblance of the man he was with Valerie. He slept on her side,
inhaling the lingering scent of her perfume and cocoa butter cream she used on
her skin.

A couple of hours into sleep,
he woke in a cold sweat with his heart beating a rapid, disturbing rhythm. He
went to have a cold shower to wash off the remnants of the nightmare he’d had.
Keyaan was back, taunting him as he raped Valerie over and over again. The
coward always tied him up, incapacitating him from doing anything to save his
wife. As much as he wanted to continue his mission, he had to return to Pushkino
and see for himself that she was safe.

*****

“Valerie,” called Vlad. It had
taken him six hours to board the next flight to Moscow and another sixteen
hours to get here. He didn’t want to rouse her, and he was exhausted himself,
but he had to hear her voice before he even thought of sleeping. He gently
kissed her closed eyes. “
So
ṭ
ie mea
,"
my wife
he whispered in her ear.

“Vlad?” Where were you?"
she asked waking up to find her husband in bed as if he'd never left.

“I missed you.”

He said it with such sincerity
she couldn’t help but say it back. “I missed you too. Why didn’t you tell me
you were leaving?”

He cupped the back of her neck
and kissed her deeply, reaffirming that she was real, that she was safe and in
his arms. He ran his hands along her back, sliding his fingers into her
underwear to cup her ass. She pushed into his groin wanting to feel him inside
her. It had been too long. Vlad pulled away from her to lift up one of his
t-shirts she'd worn to bed. He took off his boxers next, and she got rid of her
underwear. When they were both naked, he lay on his back and beckoned her on
top of him.

She slid one leg over Vlad's
body and straddled him, reaching down for his cock. She stroked him a few
times, running the pad of her thumb over the leaking tip. She positioned him
over her core and slowly, she worked her body down his rod, rocking up and
down, taking him in deeper each time, until she was fully seated. She stopped
for a few seconds, adjusting to the feel of his thickness stretching her to
capacity.

Vladimir was home. He growled
at the feeling of her tight, wet heat that enclosed his throbbing staff,
wishing she would move. He stroked her thighs gently, letting her know that
they would go at her pace whenever she was ready. His soft touch encouraged her
to move. She took his hands in hers and slid up and down his cock, then rocked
back to front, adding a swirl of her hips now and then. When she found her
rhythm, a pace she could keep, she threw her head back and worked her body over
his.

Having him back was what she
thought about since the first night he’d left. Her body vibrated with the
euphoria of being joined with his. She leant forward and kissed him, loving the
soft feel of his lips against hers and the strong tongue that duelled and
conquered her own.

Vlad wrapped his arms around her
back, locking her in place and drove her to the edge with quick, powerful
thrusts from the bottom. Her thighs shook against his sides with the oncoming
orgasm that washed over her. He continued to pump his cock in and out of her
sopping heat until she finally let go, breathing heavily against his ear. Vlad
shortly followed her into the abyss, expelling his seed along her walls in a
jerking motion that rocked his large frame against her softer, smaller one.
Mine,
forever mine
.

He rolled her onto her side
without breaking their connection. They looked at each other, both exhausted by
the reunion and happy to be see the other. God she loved him. However, he
wasn’t going to get out of not answering her questions by sexing her to sleep.
“Nice try. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

He didn’t say anything, simply
kissed her nose and fell asleep with his wife wrapped in the protection of his
arms.

When Valerie did wake up, the
bed was empty. Was last night a dream? She pulled the covers up and found that
she was naked. There was an ache between her thighs, the tell-tale sign that
she had sex the night before. The question now was where Vladimir had
disappeared to again. She got out of bed and went to take a shower. She needed
to clean up the sticky mess he had left behind.

At the breakfast table, she
found her husband and breathed a silent, sigh of relief. He was in talks with
Andrei ignoring the daggers Macy threw his way. "Morning Macy," she
greeted her friend breaking the hostile stare she had been sending his way.

“Hey Val, surprised that you’re
up and about.”

“Why…”

“By the sound of things, you
had a busy night,” she mock whispered.

“I heard it too,” Andrei added
to her horror. "Very disappointed in my brother, though. It sounded like
he was having a hard time keeping up.” Vladimir whacked him on the head before
getting up to greet her.

He wrapped his arms around her
and bent down to whisper in her ear, "Remind me to have our room
soundproofed if we're going to have guests staying with us in future." He
kissed the crown of her head, took hold of her hand and led her to the chair
next to his. He pulled out the seat for her and fixed her a plate with a little
bit of everything from the buffet styled breakfast.

Valerie looked at the small mountain
that he expected her to eat. “I can’t finish all of this.”

"Try," he winked at
her and said something to Andrei, who scowled at him like a petulant child.

“What’s wrong Dre?”

“He hit me! He thinks I’m still
ten!” he complained.

“No, more like five. Yes,
you’re still five,” Vladimir replied with a smirk.

"I'll take that as a
complement to my innate fountain of youth. Anyway, this five-year-old has a
business to run." He got up and went over to Valerie kissing her on the
cheek. "Call me if you need help with that ogre.” He then turned to Macy
on the other side. “May," he called out and winked at her with a smirk
before heading out.

"Do me a favour," she
asked before he had disappeared.

“What?” he asked turning back
to face her.

“Go find a tree and hang,” she
replied as she focused on cutting her omelette.

The smug look on his face fell
and he stormed off.

Macy and Valerie had managed to
get time alone to discuss how she was doing.  For the most part, she was
happy and in love with her man. Macy was still not satisfied with her choice in
a husband, but after spending time with the couple, it was clear that he
worshipped her. In between the looks of adoration he threw Val's way when she
wasn't looking, there were the gazes of intense hunger that led to Macy falling
asleep on the couch until she was certain the animal noises in their zoo of a
bedroom, located next to her own, died down. Satisfied that nothing was amiss,
she packed up and headed home at the end of the week. She could only hope that he
would never let harm come to her doorstep again.

Back at home with his wife at
his side had quelled Vlad’s fear and anger. However, it didn’t quell his
bloodlust to exterminate the existence of those involved in her suffering. He’d
made note of the changes in Val’s body over these past few days. Her nipples
were very sensitive, and the swell of her lower abdomen was becoming more
prominent. They were a reminder that she was pregnant – a fact he tried very
hard to forget. Were her children his or Keyaan’s? That small, unknown detail
compelled him to finish the task he had set for himself.