Ivan (An Out of the Cage Novel Book 2) Read online

  Unable to deal with the humiliation of his questions, I quickly pull my dress and shoes back on then tiptoe out of his room. Thankfully, neither Ivan, Gabby or any of his roommates are in the dark hallway, so I quietly hobble out the front door on my broken heel thankfully unnoticed.

  Chapter Five

  Ivan

  My legs are so wobbly that I nearly run into the wall, twice, on the way to the bathroom. Not even being fuck-drunk can rain on my parade, though.

  I just had amazing sex and I crossed the finish line!

  Finally.

  Fuck, if I wasn’t starting to think that I would never be able to have a voluntary orgasm again and then, bam…I came like a freight train. It felt like years of cum erupted from my cock in the most mind-blowing sex ever. Not that I’ve tried to have any in the last six years, but I didn’t expect it to be this damn good.

  As I reach the toilet, I shove my shorts down and pull out my cock to piss. And jeez, I’m so sticky down there I’ll definitely need a shower before I go back to Maylin. But when I glance down, I realize it’s not just cream coating my cock but also…

  Dammit.

  My poor, unsatisfied cock was in so much pain that it must have bled when I finally came for the first time in the months it’s been since my last involuntary wet dream.

  How fucking embarrassing is that?

  If Maylin didn’t think I was a complete weirdo before because of my problem, she certainly does now. She’s probably in my bedroom freaking out, wanting to get into the bathroom and clean my disturbing mess off of her.

  Unable to go back until I shower to remove every trace of my fucked-upness from me, I quickly rinse and soap up under the showerhead before drying off and returning to my bedroom, hoping this won’t cause Maylin to refuse to have sex with me again. It was too incredible to only have once…

  “Maylin?” I ask when I walk into my room. The overhead light is on and the bed sheets are rumpled like I left them, but there is no sign of the beautiful redhead. “Maylin?” I say again as I step into the hallway, looking for her. The living room and kitchen are empty, and since we only have one bathroom, I know she’s not in there.

  Did she go looking for Gabby? They’re friends, so maybe…

  I rap my knuckles on Cain and Gabby’s bedroom door and wait.

  Eventually, I hear Cain grumble a sleepy, one-word response. “What?”

  “Is Maylin in there?” I ask through the door.

  There’s a long pause, and then he calls out, “Are you drunk? Go to bed, Ivan.”

  I take that as a no and shuffle back to my room that’s still empty.

  Where the hell did she go?

  When I go over and flop down on the bed, I see the stains and realize exactly what happened.

  She freaked out and left.

  “Fuck!” I shout in anger, hating that I messed everything up. Maylin will never speak to me again after how bizarre I acted tonight, and I doubt I could even look at her after all the embarrassing shit she witnessed. She was the rare cure to fixing what’s wrong with my fucked-up head and dick, and now she’s gone.

  …

  Maylin

  “Where the hell have you been?” Otis, the guard Ivan put a surprise hurting on back at Escapades, barks at me when I show up on the front porch of our two-story colonial.

  “Does my father know I was gone?” I ask him, holding my breath in concern.

  With a heavy exhale, the massive man’s shoulders broader than a doorway finally relax a little. “No,” he answers with a frown. “He has enough to deal with. We didn’t want to worry him.” He pulls his cell phone from his black suit jacket and starts pressing buttons. “I came home to wait for you, and Winston is still outside the club.”

  Right, the two men didn’t want to get their asses chewed out and fired by admitting to my father that they lost track of me.

  Finished with his texting, Otis slips the phone back into his jacket and points a thick, meaty finger at me. “If I ever see that asshole you left with again, he won’t walk away!” he warns.

  “It’s not his fault you’re a shitty bodyguard,” I tell him before I push past him and head into the house, racing straight upstairs to shower. I need to wash away the proof that I’m no longer a virgin, along with the embarrassment that goes along with knowing Ivan’s figured out my secret.

  As I stand underneath the hot, flowing water, I realize that tonight was not how I ever imagined I would lose my virginity. Actually, I assumed I would be married and I would make love to my husband for the first time on our wedding night thanks to my overprotective father.

  Never in all my dreams did I think that my father’s life of crime would take away my choice in the matter of who would be my husband in that scenario.

  Spending my life with a man who looks at me from across the dinner table each and every night with love in his eyes, and our children surrounding us, was what I pictured.

  In just a few hours, I’ll be handed over like a piece of property to endure who knows what with a man I’ve never seen to live out that same life only in a warped, alternate universe that may end abruptly if my husband decides to punish my father by killing me.

  Chapter Six

  Ivan

  Like usual, the punching bag can’t absorb the rage inside of me no matter how many times I hit it. All I manage to do is hurt my hands, which only pisses me off even more.

  On top of the normal shit-storm that constantly swirls in my head, now there’s a new addition — Maylin.

  I keep waiting for my roommate, Gabby, to say something about the other night, but so far she hasn’t mentioned her friend telling her how fucked up I am or had the look of pity or disgust on her face like I expected. I guess that means Maylin hasn’t told her what we did.

  While I knew bringing her home was a bad idea, I couldn’t seem to help myself. After six years of celibacy with only a handful of actual orgasms in my sleep, I wanted to be normal for one night. Or at least try to be. But I screwed it up.

  I’m not sure which was more embarrassing, my first time or the other night with Maylin. The night I technically lost my virginity was a helluva lot more traumatizing.

  Growing up in a brothel, I learned what sex was before I started school. It was everywhere, all the time. It’s actually surprising that I didn’t lose my virginity before I was thirteen.

  Jenny was just sixteen, but she had been with several men before she offered to pop my cherry. And I didn’t turn her down, too eager to see what all the fuss was about. She was gentle and kind when she undressed me and then started riding me. It felt amazing too, but then my world was turned upside down.

  Right when I was about to come inside of a woman for the very first time, I heard ear-splitting screams, not from Jenny, but coming from down the hall. It only took a moment for me to realize it was my mother. When Jenny jumped up and dressed to go check on her, I followed her. A few other women had gathered at the locked door where a man’s shouts and my mother’s screams could be heard. No one would unlock it, so I peeked into the keyhole. Inside the bedroom, a big, burly man with shoulder-length dark hair and a crescent-shaped scar down the side of his face was holding my mother down on the bed, fucking her, with a gun held to the side of her head. He kept shouting about what a slut she was and hitting her in the face with the pistol. I heard him say that he wasn’t leaving “without the boy.” My mom told him that he couldn’t have “him” and that she would die before she let him lay a finger on her little boy.

  Since I was the only boy in the whole brothel, I was certain they were talking about me.

  Miss Wynona, the brothel madam, and Jenny were arguing about something before Jenny grabbed my hand and pulled me away. I tried to fight her and begged the women to unlock the door and help my mother. We didn’t even make it down the stairs before the two consecutive gunshots went off.

  I didn’t need to see her to know she was dead, but I still wanted to. Jenny wouldn’t let me. She told me we had to leave
or he’d kill me too. So I left with her, and we ran all the way across town to Mrs. Engle’s house. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was an orphanage type home funded by the Italian mafia for them to raise fighters and dancers for their club.

  For the first few days, I didn’t speak a word to the sweet, little old lady who ran the place, Knox or the two older girls, who also lived there at the time. I was confused, angry and sad, unable to figure out why someone would hurt my mother, who was nothing but sweet and loving. There wasn’t a violent bone in her body, and that asshole murdered her without any hesitation.

  I also blamed myself. If I hadn’t been in Jenny’s room losing my virginity, then maybe I could’ve done something, like just left with the evil man, since it sounded like I was the one he wanted, before my mom got hurt.

  Eventually, Knox convinced me to come to the gym and workout with him, release some of my aggression. Mrs. Engle fed me comfort food constantly to put weight on me and bought me clothes for school. It didn’t take long before that house and the people in it became like a new home. I still missed my mother like crazy, but I knew she was gone and never coming back.

  While I may have been too young and too weak to do anything to stop that asshole from hurting her that day, all I’ve wanted since then is to make him pay for taking her from me.

  One day I will.

  If I ever find the son of a bitch.

  I’ve been back to the brothel twice since that awful day, and no one knew his name or who the hell he was. But whenever I walk down the street, I look for him. At every fight, I search the crowd for him, yet I keep coming up empty.

  I bought a gun about a year ago once Knox, Cain and I got our own apartment, hoping to one day use it on him like he used it on my mother. Who knows, though. By now he could be dead or living anywhere across the country. I don’t even own a car or know his name, so my options for tracking him down are limited. When the guys and I were being questioned by a detective a few months ago for Gabby’s brother’s murder, I even asked her about the man with the crescent scar on his face, but the detective had no idea who he was either.

  Although it’s been six years, I still haven’t forgotten seeing that asshole with my mother, hurting her, yelling at her, killing her…all because of me. Any thought of sex takes me right back to that night, that house, the screams, and that room where she died because I was so selfish and eager to lose my virginity at the one moment my mother needed me.

  I don’t know what kind of sick fuck he was or what he wanted to do to me, but whatever it was, my mother protected me from him when she could’ve easily told him I was right there in the house. I wish she had. Or that I would’ve spoken up or done something to stop him before it was too late.

  Whatever he wanted with me, I could’ve been strong and taken it if it meant my mother would still be alive.

  I can’t let go of the blame or the guilt, and I don’t think I ever will until I know for certain that the bastard is dead.

  For now, all I can do is keep punching shit and trying to forget everything about that night except for the man who deserves to die. Hopefully, I’ll find him someday.

  While Maylin may be the gorgeous, redheaded girl from my dreams, even if she wanted to see me again, she was a one-time distraction. I’m grateful for her, but she deserves better than a freak of a man like me who is haunted by his demons and a man with a scar.

  Chapter Seven

  Maylin

  “Where are we going?” I ask my father.

  “It’s time for me to hand you over to Jimmy. We set up a neutral spot in broad daylight to do that,” he says, eyes focused out the SUV window, watching buildings pass us by.

  “He’s gonna hurt me, isn’t he?” I ask, trembling despite my desire to be strong right now.

  “Yes,” he answers without looking at me.

  “Kill me?”

  Sighing, my father says, “Probably not, but there are no guarantees.”

  Great.

  “I’m sorry –” he starts to say, but I interrupt him.

  “Don’t! Your words are worthless,” I tell him with tears stinging my eyes and fear grabbing me by my throat. I don’t want to do this. In fact, right about now I would rather be doing anything else than being dropped off with my father’s enemy where I have no clue what will happen to me. But I don’t have a choice unless I want my father’s blood on my hands, along with dozens of other people’s.

  Eventually, the SUV comes to a stop in an empty parking lot of a shopping center. Based on the broken glass and graffiti painted on every inch of the large building, it looks like it’s been abandoned for some time.

  When one of the guards opens my door, I take a deep breath and climb out in the baggiest, most unattractive jeans and sweatshirt I own even though it’s a warm, sunny day. Not bothering to put on any makeup or do more than brush out my hair, I’m hoping this man is so unimpressed with me that he sends me away.

  I come to a stop next to my father and four bags of my luggage that the guards set out. Five feet away stands a group of men, most big and bulky in dark suits, likely Jimmy’s guards or enforcers. I try to pick out which one is my husband to be, but can’t decide which sleazy bastard is going to be my groom.

  When the pudgy man steps forward in a charcoal-colored suit and matching chin-length hair slicked back to accentuate his receding hairline, I nearly bolt. His narrow eyes are cold and dark, and there’s a big, ugly scar on the side of his face that makes him look even more sinister.

  “Liam!” the man I assume is Jimmy Russo says in greeting to my father. “You actually showed. I wasn’t sure if you would really give your baby girl to me or let the killing spree continue.” His eyes then land on me and do a slow appraisal from head to toe and back up again. “Even prettier than I remember with a body made for fucking.”

  “Watch it!” my father warns as he steps up, going toe to toe with the pervert.

  Oh god. Seeing them side by side, it’s clear that this man is older than my father and so disgusting that I’m pretty sure I would throw up if I had to hold his hand, much less let him touch me in other places…

  I don’t know if I can do this. In theory, I figured I could survive anything if it meant the lives of my father and all the people under him would be safe; but now, seeing my future husband in person, I would rather do the selfish thing — run and never look back.

  When I start to turn around, one of my father’s guards grabs my elbow and gives me a shove toward the two men.

  “Say goodbye to your sweet, innocent daughter,” the asshole says to us with a sneer. “She won’t remain that way for long...”

  “You agreed not to hurt her,” my father says through gritted teeth.

  “No permanent damage. And I wouldn’t want to mess up her pretty face before the wedding photos,” Jimmy Russo agrees.

  Are his words reassuring in the least? Hell no. Do I have a choice in leaving with him? Sure don’t.

  “Bye, Daddy,” I say, giving my father a hug around his neck. He holds me tight for several long moments before he pushes me away.

  “Love you, May,” my father says with a sniffle before he turns to walk away and climbs into the backseat of the SUV. His guards quickly follow, leaving me behind with this strange man, who looks like he enjoys hurting people for fun.

  “Come, my bride,” Jimmy says before he grabs my elbow and tugs me toward one of the dark sedans with tinted windows parked behind him. His guards gather up my bags while he holds open the door for me to get into the back first, so I slide into the leather seat. Even when I hit the opposite door, it doesn’t seem like I’m far enough away from the man scooting in next to me.

  Jimmy comes all the way over until our legs are touching, and then his hand drops down on my thigh, covering my jeans.

  “I can’t wait to fuck you,” he says without preamble as I lean as far away from his face and garlic breath as I can to keep from gagging. His hand moves a little further up my leg before he says, “B
ut I promised your father I would wait until we’re married. Silly, old-fashioned tradition, but an agreement is an agreement. Liam wants his daughter to remain pure until she’s a married woman.”

  A tiny breath of relief escapes me hearing I won’t have to deal with that unfortunate ordeal tonight at least, which is also good because I’m still sore from my first time with Ivan last night.

  “Your father assured me that you’re still a virgin. Was he lying?” Jimmy asks, and I shake my head, assuming that my virginity may be the only reason he’s agreed to wait until we’re married to have sex.

  “Good,” he says with a squeeze to my inner thigh, the side of his hand pressing against the seam running up between my legs. “Because in a week we’ll be married, and you better bleed when I fuck you in your ivory wedding dress or you and your father are both dead for lying to me.”

  Oh, God.

  I’m so screwed.

  A few hours ago, I recklessly slept with Ivan in defiance to this stupid arranged marriage, and now that decision just might cost me and my father our lives.

  Chapter Eight

  Ivan

  Four days after the night with Maylin and she’s still all that I can think about, every second of every day.

  Despite my embarrassment, my dick has been hard since she left, yet days later I still can’t give myself any relief even when I think about being with Maylin. My balls ache so much that I think ripping them off would hurt less.

  That’s how I manage to overcome my shame and set off for Escapades in search of just getting a glimpse of Maylin again. Okay, and maybe to talk to her to find out why she bolted, hoping I’m wrong and it wasn’t because I’m a freak.

  I’ve made sure to avoid Gabby as much as possible this week too, because I wasn’t sure if Maylin would keep her promise about not telling anyone about my problem. I would die if Gabby and the guys found out the shit I put her through. I even lied to Knox and told him I lost my nerve then went home alone that night.