“Because your questions show that you don’t trust me and there can’t be any ‘us’ when that trust is missing.” Marisha stood to push past him as she crossed the room to stand near the open doorway. To his credit, Jericho let her go when he could so easily have stopped her. “You still haven’t told me whether Boris is alive or…or dead.” Her voice broke as she said the latter word.

  Jericho was reluctant, after Marisha had almost fainted just now at the possibility of Boris’s death, to actually confirm or deny the situation.

  He’d never met Borzikov, but he’d seen photographs of the other man when he’d been the one Leon was expecting to come to New York to represent the Moscow bratva. Tall, trim, and gray haired, with eyes of a pale and cold blue in a handsome face of sharp angles, Borzikov was aged in his late forties. Almost thirty years older than Marisha.

  And…?

  Wasn’t that the definition of a sugar daddy? An older man paying the living expenses of a much younger woman for the privilege of her exclusive company and to have regular sex when he wanted it?

  Although, if Marisha was telling the truth about her innocence, sex didn’t seem to have been part of their deal.

  Jericho found it difficult to believe that the beautiful Marisha had actually lived with one man, seemed to be the sugar baby of another, and yet still was a virgin.

  He knew he wouldn’t have been able to keep his hands off her in the same circumstances.

  Besides, Marisha hadn’t actually said there hadn’t been any sex, only that she was still a virgin. There were a hell of a lot of things a couple could do together, several other places for Boris to put his cock, without his having to take Marisha’s virginity.

  And so lessen her value?

  What the fuck!

  He wasn’t going there. “Tell me who and what Boris was to you,” Jericho demanded, completely out of patience with her prevarication.

  “I’m not allowed to talk about it,” she answered softly.

  It was more of an answer than she’d given Jericho before, but it still made his back teeth clamp so tightly together, he was in danger of breaking his jaw. “Why not?”

  “Because then someone might be able to take that knowledge and use me to…” Marisha trailed off, her face becoming even paler as it occurred to her that scenario had already happened. “Who are the Federovs?”

  “As of a week ago, Sergei is the new Pakhan of Moscow. Vasily is his second.”

  Every vestige of color left her cheeks. “And my—Boris?”

  A nerve pulsed in Jericho’s jaw at hearing Marisha refer to Boris as “my” anything. “He’s believed dead, the whereabout of his body unknown.”

  This time, Marisha didn’t just look as if she was about to faint. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she literally crumpled to an unconscious heap on the hard wooden floor.

  She remained that way as Jericho easily lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed before gently placing her on top of the rumpled bedcovers. He ignored the fact the sheets smelled of the two of them, of their intermingled arousal and release.

  He looked down at her for several long seconds before lying on the bed beside her and pulling her into his arms. He didn’t give a fuck who or what Boris Borzikov or any other man had been to her. The intimacy between them this morning meant she now belonged to Jericho. As such, he would protect her with his life, if necessary.

  Marisha began to sob before she’d even fully regained consciousness.

  It took her several seconds, once she was awake, to remember why she felt such emotional devastation. Once she did, she buried her face against the warm chest beneath her cheek and began to cry harder.

  Strong arms tightened about her, and a large hand began a soothing caress up and down her spine.

  “You’re safe here with me, Marisha,” Jericho’s warm voice comforted against her hair. “I’m not going to let anyone hurt you again. Ever.”

  Jericho’s words of reassurance only made her heartbreak deeper.

  Because she knew his promise to protect her in future implied her two previous protectors, Boris and Toly, were both dead.

  If that was true, how could such a thing have happened?

  The Federov brothers, came the unequivocal answer.

  The same two men who had kidnapped Marisha as soon as she arrived back in Moscow five days ago.

  She—

  Jericho had said Boris died a week ago.

  But that couldn’t be true, because she’d spoken to him before boarding the flight back to Moscow six days ago.

  Had he been killed by the Federovs after that conversation?

  If that was true, then why had the Federovs needed to kidnap her at all?

  More importantly, why bother bringing her to America with them just three days ago?

  Something about this scenario wasn’t adding up.

  Hope began to blossom in her chest as she pulled out of Jericho’s arms and sat up. “Boris isn’t dead,” she stated with certainty. She turned to look directly at Jericho as she added, “My father isn’t dead.”

  Jericho could kick himself as he realized he had been so jealously fixated on Boris Borzikov being Marisha’s lover that he hadn’t considered the obvious alternative.

  That the Russian Pakhan had been her father.

  That the older man had employed his relative, Anatoly Borzikov, to be the bodyguard to his daughter, not his lover.

  Now Marisha seemed certain that her father wasn’t dead at all. Unless that was just wishful thinking?

  “Think about it, Jericho,” she encouraged excitedly. “My father called me six days ago, before my plane took off from England. He couldn’t have done that if he’d been killed the day before that. Also, there would have been no reason for the Federovs to kidnap me to use as leverage against him only five days ago.”

  Those events did seem out of sync… “Maybe they were using you to keep down any rebellion from what’s left of your father’s men.”

  “Except no one has ever known I was his daughter. I didn’t know until I was sixteen.”

  “The Federovs obviously did and do.”

  Marisha seemed to give that some thought. “The only people who knew the truth about me were my foster parents, Galina and Paval Agapov. My father paid them to look after me from the age of five, but I didn’t know that or him.” She released a shaky sigh. “My mother and—and sister were killed, both gunned down in the street. We had gone shopping.” Her thoughts had turned inward. “A man just stepped out in front of us and started shooting.” She shuddered. “I remember my mother trying to shield Nina and me from the gunman. There was blood everywhere, and Mama and Nina were both dead.”

  Jericho couldn’t have ever begun to guess Marisha’s true history. Or the fear she had gone through as a five-year-old, when she lost both her mother and sister. A fear that had no doubt been resurrected when she was kidnapped outside Moscow airport just days ago.

  The Federovs deserved to be killed twice over for what they had done to her, for the bruises they had inflicted and the memories they had evoked.

  But what if Marisha was right about her father still being alive?

  “I need to go to Moscow,” he decided.

  “We need to go to Moscow,” Marisha corrected firmly.

  “No,” Jericho bit out. “Absolutely, unequivocally, no.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “I still have no idea how you managed to convince Leon to let you come with me to Moscow.” Jericho glared across the table that separated Marisha’s seat from his own on one of Leon’s private jets.

  The other ten seats were occupied by more of Leon’s security team, and consequently, they were also Jericho’s men.

  Another plane had taken off a few minutes after this one. On board were Gregori Markovic, head of the London bratva, and his second, Nikolai Volkov. Volkov grew up on the streets of Moscow, and not only was his name feared there, but he also knew every backstreet and alleyway in the city. If anyone could find information on Boris Borzikov’s fate, whether he was alive or dead, then it would be Volkov.

  Besides, it was in Markovic’s best interests to see that harmony was restored in Moscow by reinstating Boris Borzikov as head of the bratva there. The Federov brothers were still safely locked away on Leon’s estate, and Markovic had already agreed that the only way the brothers would leave was in two body bags.

  In the meantime, the lighting in the main cabin of the plane had been lowered and most of the men were already asleep, including his brothers, Kieran and Liam. They were all taking advantage of the ten-hour overnight flight to rest so that, once they arrived, they were suffering with as little jet lag as possible from the time difference between Moscow and New York. It should be early afternoon when the plane touched down at the private airport outside Moscow.

  “Oh, wait a minute,” Jericho continued sarcastically. “You didn’t convince Leon of anything. You’re here because he made the mistake of introducing you to Carla and Grace.” Thank God Killian and Natalia had already left for Milan, or it would have been all three women against Leon for having initially backed up Jericho’s insistence Marisha wasn’t returning to Moscow with him.

  He felt for Marisha, he really did. What she’d gone through as a child, to lose her mother and sister in such a brutal way, was horrendous.

  He didn’t want to risk losing Marisha the same way.

  He also knew he didn’t have the right to stop her coming with them to look for the only parent she had left. If Boris was still alive.

  Marisha’s lips twitched now, as if she was having trouble holding back a smile at his obvious disgruntlement. “Those two ladies are very nice, and they were incredibly kind to me.” She kept her voice low, probably so as not to disturb or wake any of the men. “They were also very helpful in convincing Leon I should come to Moscow with you,” she acknowledged when Jericho continued to scowl at her.

  “It isn’t safe,” he bit out through clenched teeth. “That group of clowns who came to New York with Sergei and Vasily won’t have been all their men. With Sergei and Vasily unreachable, we could be walking into a firefight with their men that will make the incident at the airport two days ago look like child’s play.”

  Minutes after Marisha told Jericho exactly what she was to Boris, he had put a call through to Leon. The older man’s instruction had been clear: come back to the estate now, and then we’ll decide what to do next.

  Jericho was relieved the bollocking he’d received from Leon for having gone off alone with Marisha in the first place had been made in private.

  As had Jericho’s admission of having acted that way because he had feelings for her.

  Except Leon, even with that knowledge, had still agreed to let Marisha fly back to Moscow with him.

  Jericho didn’t believe it had been done out of a deliberate need to punish him, but Leon hadn’t looked too unhappy that it had succeeded in doing that anyway.

  Marisha leaned across the table to place one of her hands on top of his linked and tightly clenched fingers. “Leon agreed to my coming with you because if my father is still alive, then I know where he is.”

  Jericho’s glare didn’t lessen in the slightest. “You could have just told me where that is. You didn’t need to put yourself in danger by coming with us.”

  She lifted her hand to carefully unlink his fingers before turning one of his hands and curling her fingers about his palm. “I’m perfectly safe, Jericho.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do,” she murmured softly.

  “How?” he snapped in irritation with this situation.

  She met his gaze unwaveringly. “Because I’m with you, and I know you won’t let anything, or anyone, hurt me.”

  “You— I—” Jericho gave an impatient shake of his head. “You should know I’m going to turn feral if anyone tries.” His behaving like a damned Neanderthal over this woman was completely new to him. He didn’t like it, felt slightly out of control. Make that a lot out of control!

  She looked at him searchingly for several long minutes. “Jericho, what happened between the two of us at the cabin—”

  “Don’t even think about giving me the ‘it was a mistake’ speech,” he snarled. “Because if it was, then it was the best fucking mistake of my life.”

  Her eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Really,” he confirmed tersely.

  Her chest lightened immeasurably. “Me too. And I’d like to repeat it,” she said softly. “As often as you would like to. In fact,” her fingers tightened about his, “why don’t we go into the privacy of the bedroom at the back of the plane right now and do just that?”

  Not too many people succeeded in rendering Jericho speechless, but Marisha was constantly doing exactly that.

  She looked so damned innocent—she admitted to being an innocent, in the true sense of the word—and yet the warm invitation in those mesmerizing blue eyes told him she meant every word she’d just said.

  Marisha held her breath as she waited for Jericho to answer her.

  She’d taken a risk by so openly revealing her desire to be alone with him, but she had no idea when or if she would ever have the opportunity to be this private with him again. For some reason, none of the men had chosen to sleep in the bedroom at the back of the plane.

  Maybe because they were leaving that for Jericho and, consequently, her?

  Or it could just be a man thing that none of them had opted for the comfort of a bed to rest on rather than slump over in their seat, she accepted ruefully.

  Truthfully, she was still having trouble believing she was even here.

  Before they left the cabin in the mountains, Jericho had been adamant she wouldn’t be going to Moscow with him. But then the two of them had been separated as soon as they returned to the Brunelli estate. Leon had introduced Marisha to his wife, Carla, and niece, Grace, before taking Jericho away so the two men could no doubt discuss the fact that she was Boris Borzikov’s daughter.

  Growing up with her foster parents, Marisha had never heard of Boris Borzikov, least of all that he was her father. She had only met Boris when she was sixteen, and he had confided the truth of their relationship to her, along with making Toly her bodyguard. He had also made her promise never ever to reveal that he, Boris Borzikov, was her father.

  As if she would ever want to share with anyone the knowledge that her father was the Pakhan of Moscow!

  She’d been even less than thrilled after she’d told Boris of her decision to go to university in England and he’d insisted Toly would be accompanying her and staying with her at all times. Just in case anyone should ever discover she was Boris’s daughter.

  As the Federovs obviously had.

  Was it possible Galina and Pavel Agapov were responsible for revealing that truth to the Federov brothers?

  She sincerely hoped not. They might not have been emotionally close enough to her to ever be considered her surrogate parents, but she had lived with them from the age of five. Boris had paid them to care for her from the age of five. A payment that had ceased when Marisha reached the age of eighteen and went to England for university and stayed in her own apartment whenever she was back in Russia.

  Was it possible the couple had resented the cessation of those payments and decided to sell the knowledge of who Marisha’s father was to the Federovs?

  It was a distinct possibility.

  There would be time to deal with that problem later.

  Here and now, Marisha knew that when—if—they managed to find her father alive, then her whole focus would need to be on him. Because he had to be seriously injured or a prisoner himself not to have contacted her since just before she left England six days ago.

  The fact he hadn’t contacted Leon Brunelli either, when the other man had been expecting him to join them in New York for the talks that might mean peace between several of the world’s criminal organizations, meant Boris had to be seriously incapacitated.

  She could only hope it wasn’t because he was fatally wounded, or worse, dead, as the Federovs claimed he was.

  In the meantime, there was no point in her worrying about any of that until they reached Moscow. Which meant she and Jericho still had the long flight to enjoy each other…

  If he ever answered her.

  She gave an instinctive jolt back against her seat when he rose abruptly to his feet. He kept a firm hold of her hand so that he could pull her up beside him, a smile slowly curving her lips as he dragged her along behind him toward the back of the plane.

  She had her answer!

  Jericho barely kept himself in check long enough to close and lock the bedroom door behind them before clasping Marisha’s hands in his and raising them above her head. He used his body to press her up against the door and claim her lips with his own.

  Taking.

  Devouring.

  Possessing.

  The moment his lips touched Marisha’s, it was as if he could finally breathe again after hours of merely existing. As if she was responsible for breathing life back into him.

  How this had happened so suddenly and so quickly after years of him not giving a rat’s arse about any particular woman or a relationship, Jericho had no idea. But he already knew that this new, Neanderthal side of him wasn’t going to let Marisha walk away from him once this mess was sorted.

  But first he needed to try to convince her that she didn’t want to walk away from him.

  Still kissing her, he released her hands to place them beneath the globes of her bottom and lift her. Her legs instinctively wrapped about his waist, her arms linked around his neck as he carried her across the room before placing her on top of the double bed.

  He inwardly thanked Leon for liking to travel with the comfort of a bedroom available.

  Not just for the comfort, but the walls of this bedroom had been soundproofed since Leon met and then married Carla.

  Which was just as well, because Jericho didn’t want any other man to hear Marisha’s groans of pleasure or hear her crying out each time she climaxed. Those sounds belonged to him and him alone.

 

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