If You Love Me Read online

  “Mamya?”

  “Yes, Catyisha?”

  “How did you and my father come together—exactly? You’ve never really told me.”

  “It’s simple, really,” she told the literal truth. “He swept me off my feet. I had no choice but to surrender to him. He was too powerful, far too masculine for a woman like me to resist.”

  “My Ulexi is like that. You should see him. He saved my life, you know. Some people were going to do something bad to me. I wanted to pay him back, but he wouldn’t let me. Sex isn’t like that for him. It has to be for itself, not for money.”

  “Yes, that does sound good.” Julyana knew the young woman was only glorifying some gangster. Let her have her illusion, while she could, though. All too soon she would see that all men are alike. Police and businessmen and thugs; cut from one mold.

  And lesbian women, too. All of them born to prey on vulnerable females. Like her and Catia.

  Except Catia wouldn’t stay submissive. She had fight in her and sooner or later it would come out. She only hoped it wouldn’t cost her too heavily.

  Julyana squeezed her daughter’s hands. There was nothing more to say. “May god go with you, little one.”

  “Yes,” said Catia. “And you be well, too. Don’t let anyone...don’t let them...” She choked on the words.

  “It will be all right,” Julyana assured her, taking on the role of her daughter for the moment.

  Up till then Julyana had not realized how much Catia had had to grow up and at such a young age. What child should have to watch her mother enslaved by a troupe of men, a parade of sadists with no respect for anything but their own desires?

  How could Julyana ever fault her daughter for doing what she needed to do to overcome that? On the other hand, she need not feel guilt, for as she saw her daughter flying free of the nest, finally, she realized that life was so much bigger than both of them.

  Beyond their control, and that of the men, too.

  Fate, in the end, was Master over all.

  And He was a sadist, to be sure.

  Chapter Five

  Had Catia been a little more worldly—or a little less in love—she might have realized that Ulexi’s plan was reckless, almost to the point of insanity. As for Ulexi himself, who can say what possesses a man like him, with the street smarts to survive all this time with no family, no friends and a succession of hostile governments, to try and match his wolf cubs against a gang of bears led by the likes of Ivan the Terrible.

  Perhaps his boredom ran much deeper, to suicidal depression. Perhaps he had come to believe his own propaganda, that there was nothing and no one he couldn’t take on.

  “We will be legends,” he told Catia, running his hands up and down her svelte body as they prepared to enter the club. “They will remember our names forever.”

  “I don’t want to make a mistake, Ulexi. I’m nervous,” she said.

  He cupped her ass cheeks, pulling her against him. “Do you trust me?”

  “Yes, Ulexi.”

  “And do you belong to me?”

  “Yes...” Her nipples rose to meet him through the tight dress, cut low on her bosom and barely covering her thighs. She wore no underwear. Tonight she would seduce, fast and hard. Twenty minutes was all the time she had to convince Govalsh, Ivan’s lieutenant to take her upstairs to one of the rooms.

  Once there, she would get his pants off, she would get him on top of her, she would keep him distracted...giving Ulexi time to do his thing.

  “Then what’s to worry?” He nibbled hotly at her ear, burning her flesh.

  “Ulexi,” she sighed, feeling the intoxication that surrender to this man always brought. “Oh, god, let me...let me please you first.”

  He grabbed her arms, preventing her from kneeling. “There isn’t time. You can suck me off later.”

  “How about a fuck, instead?” She ground her pussy against him. “You can do me right here.”

  “Save it,” he smacked her bottom. “For Govalsh.”

  “Will you wait that long?” she wondered. “Will you let him get inside me?”

  “Is there any reason I shouldn’t?”

  “Cause I’m your horny little girl slut,” she purred. “See?”

  He let her push his hand up into her pussy. “Damn, baby, you’re on fire.”

  “For you, Ulexi. All for you. I’m gonna seduce Govalsh for you, gonna let him touch me...and then I wanna watch you kill him for it. And then...”

  “And then we get the key,” he interrupted. “And after that, we get the money. No fucking around until it’s over.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “I mean it, Catia.”

  She pressed her lips to his, drunk with the danger, the electric tension in the air. “Tell me, again...how you’ll do it.”

  “I’ll choke him. I have a wire.”

  She rubbed his cock. “You’ll kill Ivan, too, one day. You’ll be the biggest, baddest boss in the city.”

  “Not if you keep talking my ear off all night.” He spun her about, moving her forward with a brisk slap to the ass. Her pussy clenched in reply. This was going to be one fantastic night, all right. Especially now that she didn’t have things with her mother hanging over her head. It was like a weight lifted. She was free now, to be herself. To be who he needed her to be.

  Govalsh was a short, squat man, with a loud mouth.

  “That’s him,” Ulexi pointed him out, keeping them out of sight of the table where he was holding court with four or five other sharp dressed men in pinstripe suits and brightly colored shirts. Two others were standing up, looking at the crowd. Bodyguards.

  “I’ll be here. Watching,” said Ulexi.

  “Tell me again,” she squeezed his arm.

  “Tell you what?”

  “That things are...right. That you’re in charge.”

  He knew just what to say as always. “I’m not fucking around, Catia. And I’m through talking like a couple of old women. Go over there and do what you’re told or I swear to god, I’ll put your ass on the street turning tricks and teach you real slavery.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, fortified. “Yes, Sir.”

  Catia made it as far as the bodyguards.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” asked one of them, a bull dozer of a man with a goatee.

  “I want to see Govalsh.”

  “Got an appointment?” asked the other.

  They both laughed at this.

  “I just want to see him. Please?”

  The goateed man frowned, patting a lump under his jacket. “Maybe we didn’t make this clear. No appointment, no see. Ask again and it’ll be the last fucking question that ever comes out of those cute little lips.”

  “I’m not cute. And I’m not going away,” she insisted.

  “You asked for it.” The man took her by the hair.

  “Roosho, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing, Sir, just one of the club rats.”

  “It’s nothing when I say it’s nothing,” snapped Govalsh. “Bring her to me.”

  “Yes, Sir.” The bodyguard gave Catia a ‘you’ll pay later look.’ “Come on, girl, don’t keep the man waiting.”

  Govalsh looked her up and down. “What seems to be the problem, little sister?”

  It was an affectionate, innocent enough term for an older person to use with a younger, particularly one who was underage, which she was not. “I’m not so little,” she said boldly. “And I don’t have to be your sister.”

  The men at the table went into an uproar. “Now that’s what we need,” one of them pointed. “Women with some spunk. Give me about a hundred of these and I could take over the rackets from here to Sicily.”

  Govalsh was less impressed. “Give me a reason not to kill you girl.”

  “Because I’m a good fuck and I don’t charge.”

  “What you are,” said another man at the table. “Is fucking dead. Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”

  “A power
ful man,” she said, having come too far to back down. “Anyone could see that.”

  “She must have an angle,” reasoned another man. “She can’t be this stupid.”

  “I like giving myself to strong men.” She looked right at Govalsh. “I like them to use me.”

  “And what’s in it for you?” Govalsh wanted to know.

  “It gets me off,” she shrugged.

  Govalsh considered. Catia knew her life hung in the balance as the man decided what to make of her. “I’ll tell you what it is,” he tapped the table at last. “It’s this new generation. Greedy little consumers, selfish, maniacal. Fear Factor, no? Nothing is too much for them. Their only enemy is boredom. They poke golden needles in themselves, just like Dostoyevsky’s Underground Man predicted.”

  “Exactly,” the men murmured in agreement.

  “Who’s Dostoyevsky?” asked Catia.

  “Tell her,” said Govalsh. “Anyone.”

  The table was silent.

  “Ignoramuses,” he spat on the floor. “They pretend, but they know nothing.”

  “We’re wasting time,” said Catia, who was no longer speaking as herself but as Ulexi’s vessel. “There are rooms upstairs. You could be putting your hands all over me, forcing me down on the bed.”

  “You like it rough, eh?” His eyes were aglow.

  “Why don’t you find out?”

  “You have a big mouth, little girl.”

  “The better to please you with...Sir.”

  He pursed his lips, considering again. “If I sample the merchandise and I don’t like it...”

  “In that case, I suspect you’ll kill me,” she said; Ulexi’s blood in her veins, his mastery over her driving her forward. She would go anywhere, into any territory to please him. “Either way, I suspect you’ll enjoy yourself.”

  Another pause...and then laughter. As soon as the others saw him laughing, they laughed, too.

  “Come,” he said, like a man who had all the time in the world. “Sit on my lap. Let’s get to know each other.”

  Catia licked her lips. She didn’t have all the time in the world. Ulexi said twenty minutes. “I think you know plenty,” she said. “Why don’t you meet me upstairs?”

  She walked on past him, swaying her hips.

  “Stop,” he ordered.

  She kept going, her hand on the railing, unhurriedly climbing the stairs.

  “Stop,” he repeated. This time he pulled a gun and fired it, splintering the wood of the banister and grazing her fingers.

  Catia didn’t stop. He didn’t shoot again.

  “Should we take care of her?” someone asked.

  “No,” she heard him say as she reached the top. “I’ll handle her. Don’t you worry about that.”

  Catia floated down the hall. She found an empty room and went inside, leaving the door ajar. Leaving her back to it, she gave in to the urges, right there, thrusting her hand under her dress and between her legs. She was dripping wet, hotter and more aroused than she had ever been in her life.

  She had defied a mobster. And he was coming after her. She was in trouble...and all she could do was stand here, playing with herself.

  She heard breathing behind her.

  “You take big risks, little girl.”

  Catia held her breath, but she didn’t stop her masturbation.

  “I’m talking to you,” he growled.

  He whipped her around by the arm and struck her across the cheek. She tasted blood.

  Air rushed through her head. She thought of Reggio and his attack games. The rush that came from being the prey of a powerful, lust crazed man.

  “If you want it,” Catia gritted her teeth. “You’ll have to take it.”

  Govalsh grinned. “You really don’t know do you, what you’re dealing with?”

  “Neither do you.” She kicked him in the crotch.

  He doubled over. “That’s it,” he groaned. “That is it.”

  She was standing against the wall as far from him as possible when he straightened himself again.

  He pointed to her and then to the bed. “You got exactly ten seconds to get your clothes off and get on that bed, bitch.”

  She pulled her dress over her head, praying Ulexi would get there soon. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “Everything you deserve.”

  Catia crawled onto the bedspread. “How do you want me?”

  “Ass in the air, face the wall, head down.”

  “We’re gonna start with my belt,” he told her. “Then I’m gonna send for a nice, empty bottle to shove up your ass. Then I’m gonna send for some of my boys to work you over. And every one of them, including me is gonna come all over your sweet little face, and then—“

  Catia heard gurgling. “Ulexi,” she cried. She turned around in time to see her boyfriend strangling the man, using the wire like he’d said.

  “Wait,” said Catia. “Don’t kill him.”

  “Why in hell not?”

  “I don’t know.” She was confused. She kept seeing her mother’s face, and the secret police men who would give her candy and pat her head, telling her to always be kind and obey the law. “I just don’t want him to die.”

  “Well he has to die.”

  “Can’t you knock him out instead?”

  Ulexi let go, letting him slump to the floor. “Fuck, I don’t know. I can’t think straight when you get like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know what it is, but you just irritate me. Help me go through his pockets, find that key. We have about ten minutes left to get across the street to the hotel and get the money from Ivan’s strongbox.”

  She crouched down beside the body, digging into his front pocket. “It’s a lot, isn’t it, the money in the safe?”

  “I told you it was,” he snapped, trying to get at the other pocket. “Damn it, you were supposed to have his pants off. This is impossible.”

  “Not as impossible as it’s going to get,” called a voice from behind them.

  They hadn’t even heard the door open and now it was too late. Five, six, seven gunmen were there, pistols drawn. And in the middle was a man at least seven feet tall, with a thick, Russian beard and the coldest black eyes Catia had ever seen.

  “Ivan,” she whispered.

  Ivan looked her up and down. Then he looked at Ulexi. “Get away from my associate,” he said at last. “If you please.”

  Catia wanted to say something but Ulexi spit out a command, telling her to stifle. It was only then she realized just how dangerous the situation had become.

  “Rouse Sleeping Beauty,” said Ivan.

  They dumped water on Govalsh’s head. He sputtered, sitting up.

  “Thank you,” Govalsh said. “You saved my life.”

  “I did nothing of the sort,” said Ivan, taking one of the men’s pistols and aiming it at his head. “I just wanted you to be awake when I shot you.”

  “But, Ivan,” he pleaded. “I was tricked. It was an honest mistake.”

  “I’m sure it was. And now you will die an honest death. Goodbye, Govalsh.”

  Ivan pulled the trigger twice, hitting him square in the temple both times. “What’s your story?” he asked Catia.

  “I’m with him,” she said, indicating Ulexi.

  Ivan laughed. “She certainly ratted you out fast enough.”

  “She’s not a rat,” said Ulexi proudly. “She follows my orders.”

  “Big man, eh?” said Ivan. “Big time slave owner.”

  “Catia is my woman, that’s all.”

  Catia bit her lip. She did not think it wise to talk back to a man like this. He seemed like the type who would find the worst possible way to hurt a person.

  “I see,” said Ivan. “Grigori,” he called to one of the men. “What is her worth?”

  A flat nosed man stepped forward. “Hands over your head,” he ordered Catia.

  She looked at Ulexi.

  “Do it,” said Ulexi.

&nbs
p; The inspection was brutal, the man’s hands everywhere, fingers inspecting her teeth, manipulating her nipples, squeezing her breasts, masturbating her cunt.

  He left her panting, shamed and broken.

  “A thousand euros,” estimated Grigori. He wiped his glistening fingers on her belly.

  Ivan nodded. “Now tell me what shooting Govalsh just cost me.”

  Grigori narrowed his eyes. He made a series of blinks, like he had a calculator in his head. “There’s recruitment of a replacement, training time, amortized decrease of efficiency based on Govalsh’s overall experience, plus the value of any serendipitous actions he might have performed over the rest of his estimated career...I’d say in the neighborhood of a million euros, boss.”

  “Does that include the bullets?” Ivan asked.

  “Sorry, Sir. I overlooked that. Were they hollow point?”

  “Never mind, your estimate is close enough. You there, slave owner, you owe me a million for the loss of my man. Minus the one thousand I’m giving you for the girl, that leaves you with...oh, hell, Grigori, what does that leave?”

  “Nine hundred ninety nine thousand, Sir.”

  Ivan grinned, baring gold teeth. “Would you like to pay me in cash or by credit card? Sorry, I don’t take checks.”

  “Please, Sir,” Catia intervened. “He hasn’t that kind of money.”

  “Mikhail,” said the well dressed giant to yet another of his associates. “Kindly silence my slave.”

  Mikhail took her from behind, clamping his hand over her mouth. His other hand snaked her waist.

  “I’m waiting,” said Ivan to Ulexi. “Pay up or join Govalsh in the afterlife. I’m sure he would love to give you a little pay back.”

  “There must be some other way...” Ulexi’s voice was cracking. She had never seen him so scared, so...human.

  Ivan rolled his eyes. “They always beg. Disgraceful.”

  “Let me pay you back,” Ulexi found his tongue.

  “That might work,” Ivan said. “Grigori, what do you think?”

  “The girl has more value. You could net fifty, sixty thousand a year if you place her right, though she’ll only last a year or two in a brothel. The boy, not so much. He’s got guts though; he could make a decent entry level enforcer. That’s worth maybe twenty a year.”