Midnight Purgatory - A Mafia Romance

ALYSSA

There comes a time in every young woman's life when she finds herself in something of a sticky situation.

This is my time.

I'm hanging by my fingertips halfway up the fence that separates my backyard from the backyard of my gorgeous, billionaire neighbor. Normally, that seems like a solvable kind of problem, right? Just finish climbing over the fence, you silly goose.

An important detail here is that, by some cruel whim of the universe, my leggings have just caught on a protruding nail and ripped wide open. That pesky little snag is doing two things: one, pinning me in place; and two, revealing to any soul who might happen to walk by that yes, I am wearing a hideously worn-thin pair of granny panties, and yes, they do in fact feature Garfield with a mouth full of lasagna saying I Hate Mondays. The fact that it's Thursday only makes it that much worse.

There are other problems, too.

Such as the fact that the box of my newly-purchased sex toys I came here to steal back from my neighbor is currently lying on the ground at my feet, juuuust out of reach.

Such as the fact that I'm technically trespassing here and, if the rumors are to be believed, my neighbor is exactly the kind of violently litigious tech tycoon with questionable mob affiliation rumors who will haul my ass straight to court if he catches me.

And, last but not least, such as the fact that said neighbor is currently crossing his lawn toward me right now.

Think, Alyssa. Think. What would Ziva do?

I cringe as soon as the thought crosses my mind. Ziva would never be in this situation in the first place. But Ziva isn't here to bail me out of it, either.

Neither is my best friend Elle, who is the person who's really to blame for all this mess.

Well, sort of. See, technically, they're not my sex toys I came here to retrieve. The box of dildos and the like from Eve's Garden is a gag gift-no pun intended-for Elle's upcoming bridal shower.

Just thinking about the contents is enough to make my cheeks go red. I've checked the receipt about a thousand times since I finally dared to place the order, so I know the contents by heart. It contains the following:

– One (1) pair of handcuffs lined with glittery pink fur

– Four (4) leather limb restraints (two each for the wrists and ankles) that apparently fasten to some sort of steel ring at the lower back and leave the wearer trussed up and exposed like a Thanksgiving turkey (basting sold separately)

– Six (6) different varieties of flavored lube with cringeworthy suggestive names-crème brû-labia, very-berry-pop-my-cherry, and so on and so forth.

And the pièce de résistance:

– One (1) purple alien tentacle dildo, complete with a suction cup and knotty, weird-looking flanges that make my thighs press together at the mere thought of those things going inside of me.

It's been two weeks since I ordered this My First Sex Dungeon starter kit. I've spent that time alternating back and forth between morbid terror at the whole idea and laughing hysterically at the thought of Elle opening it up in front of every female member of her entire extended family.

If that sounds cruel... well, she deserves it. Ever since we met in elementary school and she came up with the nickname Shylyssa for me, Elle has made it her life's mission to see me blush as often as possible.

But she gets away with it all because I really do love her and she really does love me. And when everything happened with Ziva, Elle was there for me when I needed it.

She's not here for me when I need her now, though. In fact, all of Los Angeles seems to be holding its breath, like the whole damn city is thinking, How's this dummy gonna get herself out of this debacle?

Excellent question.

I wish I had an answer.

Because the silhouette that can only belong to one man keeps advancing.

It's taking a long time for him to reach me because it's an absurdly big property. I sure as hell don't belong anywhere on it. It's only by some weird quirk of zoning laws and the chaotic urban sprawl of Los Angeles that my two-bedroom bungalow abuts Mr. Uri Bugrov's sprawling three-acre estate on one tiny little side.

My house literally sits in the shadow of his mansion. But I've got a window from my reading nook that gives me a direct line of sight to his front door. That's how I recognize his silhouette-because I've seen it night after night after night.

It's always the same ritual. Like clockwork, at 9:00 P.M., Uri Bugrov arrives back home in one of his sleek and no doubt ridiculously expensive luxury cars. Some inevitably stunning woman with Jessica Rabbit curves you could see from outer space gets out with him. They go inside. They do (I assume) the kinds of naked, horizontal things that adult women do with men as jaw-droppingly gorgeous and wealthy as Uri. Then they re-emerge, Uri puts the woman in a cab, and she disappears, never to be seen again.

It's not weird that lots of beautiful women want to sleep with Uri. He's rich, he's famous-well, infamous-and he is very, very easy on the eyes.

What's weird is how jealous I feel sometimes of those women.

I've had sex before, though only a handful of times. The whole dog-and-pony show makes me nervous, if I'm being honest. It's so intimate. People in your space. Breathing your breath. Sweating your sweat.

Er, no thanks.

A therapist I saw for a bit after Ziva suggested that I might have "intimacy issues." I laughed and said, "No, I don't have intimacy issues-I just don't want anyone close to me ever because if I open up to someone then they might just die and leave me and I can't bear the thought of that happening, so I shut myself off to the world before the world can inflict any more cruelty on me."

Come to think of it, she might've been onto something.

The silhouette grows closer. Ten seconds or less to impact.

An hour ago, life was just peachy. I was refreshing the Eve's Garden shipment tracking info again and again. Three stops away. Two stops away. You are the next stop. I waited for the doorbell to ring, but...

Nothing.

No knock, no doorbell ring, and, when I went downstairs to check the stoop, no discreetly wrapped package of purple alien dildos.

But as I glanced up, I saw in horror that the mailman was walking up the drive to Uri's mansion-with my package tucked under his arm.

I should've done something then. Screamed, tackled him, maybe even sniped him from my roof with a bow and arrow. Instead, I just stood stupidly in place and watched as the mailman set the package down on Uri's front step. Then he walked back down to his van, got in, and drove away.

After that, I started panic-dialing any post office phone number that might be useful so they could send in the Postal Service S.W.A.T. team to rescue the goods. But I kept getting bounced around from call center to call center. No one could help.

The end result was that my package was still marooned at the Bugrov estate and I had only one way of getting it back.

Going to do it myself.

But that thought made me want to curl up under my bed and never come out. Giving the gift to Elle was gonna be humiliating enough. Marching up to Uri's massive front door and demanding the blue-eyed titan who lives there to, ahem, hand me back over my giant purple alien dildo, please?

That's asking for death by embarrassment.

What other choice did I have, though? I tried telling myself that Uri or his housekeeper would just throw it out. That I could just order a replacement and forget all about this embarrassing little oopsie-daisy. But none of that calmed me.

The most painful part was that I could still see it sitting on his front stoop. Right freaking there. That was when my worst idea came to life. If I waited for nightfall, maybe I could sneak over the fence and steal it back without anyone being the wiser...

Somehow, of all my plans, that was the one that won out.

I told myself I'd be fast. In and out like a ninja. I even changed into all black clothes so I didn't raise any eyebrows.

"It's all gonna be fine," I whispered to myself just before I stepped out into my backyard. "In and out like a ninja. In and out like a ninja."

If Ziva could've seen me then, she'd have busted her gut laughing. I glanced over at her picture sitting on the mantel. A photo of the two of us at high school graduation. The Walsh twins, both of us in matching mauve dresses with matching seventeen-year-old smiles.

Mine hasn't changed much over the years.

But hers is frozen like that forever.

I ripped my gaze away. I needed to focus. Eye of the tiger time.

At first, everything went well. I hopped the fence like I was on American Ninja Warrior: Sex Toy Exfiltration Edition.

Darted up to Uri's stoop.

Picked up my package and high-tailed it back to the fence, tossed it over into my backyard, started the climb myself...

Then: disaster struck.

The nail struck, more specifically. It sliced open my thigh and pinned me in place. Garfield came out to say hello.

And now, the man of the hour is here to ask me one very reasonable question.

"What the hell are you doing on my property?"

2

URI

There's a half-naked girl hanging from my fence.

I pause a few feet away from her and stop to survey the scene. She's dangling helplessly. One hand on the top of the boards, so close to freedom and yet so very fucking far away. There's some kind of orange cartoon cat printed on her ass. The tattered material of her leggings flaps in the wind.

She doesn't look like any assassin who's ever tried to kill me before.

But there's a first time for everything, so I keep my distance for now.

"What the hell are you doing on my property?" I snarl.

She flops where she's hanging, enough for the curtain of hair to flow back from her face. I vaguely recognize her as the girl who lives next door, in that little shack the city zoning board refused to let me bulldoze.

"Most people would offer a girl some help down," she gasps. She kicks again and sucks in a sharp wince.

My eyes track downward to see blood on her skin. There's a loose nail responsible for cutting her open. She needs medical care and a tetanus shot.

But she chose the wrong property to trespass on if she wants a Good fucking Samaritan.

"That's not an answer to my question."

"I'm-" She coughs and winces again. "Can't breathe..."

My God. If she is in fact one of Boris Sobakin's hired killers, like I first suspected she was, then she's his most pathetic attempt yet.

It'd be easy to leave her here. My security will come to do what they've been trained to do with thieves and would-be criminals. She'd disappear forever. Hell, I might be able to finally raze her house to the ground.

But something stops me. Fuck if I know what that something is. Pity, maybe.

Or maybe it's the curve of her leg peeking off from beneath the ruined leggings. Maybe it's how depressing I find her washed-too-many-times, never-been-seen-by-a-lover panties. They tell a story of a life spent shying away from the gaze of men like me, men who dominate everything set in front of them. Maybe it's that I want to rip those things off and see if her pussy is as sweet and innocent as the rest of her.

"Pity" is the simplest explanation, though.

Rolling my eyes, I stride forward. I put two hands on her hips, lift her carefully away from the protruding nail, and set her down on her feet.

I ought to let her go once the job is done. But my hands stay plastered on her waist for a few seconds longer than they should. My eyes bore into hers. She's got light blue irises, almost translucent, cotton candy cerulean. Her lips are soft and bow-shaped and a tiny, scared breath passes between them as she looks up at me and swallows.

Too innocent by a fucking mile. I peel my hands from her hips and tuck them in my pockets where they belong. Just touching this girl is almost enough to ruin her. Entertaining my fantasies of shredding that orange cat underwear to pieces would absolutely do the trick.

"I'm not most people," I murmur.

She recoils and blinks in confusion. "What?"

"You said 'most people' would help you down. I'm not most people."

"Oh. Well, yeah. Duh. You live in a castle, for starters."

I snort and glance back at my house over my shoulder. Compared to her tiny little hovel, it does have some castle-like qualities. "Envy is unbecoming," I remark as I turn my gaze back on her.

The girl rolls her eyes. "Ah, the luxuries of being able to shit in a different bathroom every day of the week. Good to know it hasn't gone to your head."

"I was an egotistical bastard long before the house."

She claps two sarcastic hands to her face. "It's self-aware, too!" Then, gesturing vaguely at me, she adds, "Were you also an egotistical bastard before all this?"

I follow her gesture in confusion. I'm wearing my usual: charcoal Cesare Attolini suit, black Hermes tie, Tom Ford loafers as dark as my hair. The watch on my wrist reflects the rising moon. "Before all of what?"

"Don't act like you don't know you're well-dressed and good-looking."

"Don't act like I'd be any different if I wasn't."

"My God, do you have a smooth retort for everything? It's infuriating. I feel like you're reading off a movie script."

I shift in place as the breeze wafts her scent to my nose. A sweet, salty sweat and vanilla perfume. My cock stirs. "What happens next in this movie then?"

She crosses her arms over her chest. "We just established that you're the one with the script. Why don't you tell me?"

"Dinner," I answer immediately. My response takes even me by surprise. I have to run a hand through my hair and bring myself back under control before I add, "You're going to come sit at my table and explain to me what the fuck you were doing on my property."

I watch intently as the girl swallows again. Her throat bobs nervously and she toys with a charm bracelet on her wrist. I don't think she's even aware she's doing it. I glance down to see a link with the letter "Z" embossed in rose gold as she twiddles it back and forth.

"I don't think so," she says at last. "It's nice of you to offer, though."

That pisses me off. People don't tell me no. Not anymore. "It wasn't an offer, narushitel. Let's go. You're coming with me."

I start to turn away, but she stays stubbornly rooted in place. I pivot back in exasperation.

"My mom taught me a long time ago not to just go off into strange places with strange people," she explains.

"And mine told me to shoot trespassers on sight. Whose mother should we listen to?"

Even in the moonlight, her face goes pale. I feel a twinge of something I don't feel often: guilt. She looks terrified suddenly and I don't blame her-my mother did tell me that, actually, and it was my first instinct when my security team informed me that someone had passed over the southwestern gate.

But shooting her would be a waste of a bullet. She's no killer and she doesn't know a damn thing about who I am or what kind of organization I lead. She's just a shy, scared woman-albeit an irritatingly attractive one-and so interrogating her over dinner sounds like punishment enough.

Sighing, I point at her. "You just tore your thigh open on a rusty nail. You're favoring your other leg, so I know it hurt worse than you're willing to admit. I also know that there isn't a fucking chance you have an extra tetanus shot lying next to the half-eaten salad and the moldy loaf of bread that are no doubt rotting in your refrigerator right now. I happen to have medical supplies aplenty. So do yourself a favor: stop being stubborn, come join me for dinner, and I'll give you the medical care you need. Otherwise, you're going to wake up with lockjaw, trespassing charges, and an ugly scar that'll last you the rest of your life."

She still doesn't look convinced. So I stick out my hand. She flinches away before she realizes what I'm doing.

"I'm Uri Bugrov," I tell her. "No longer a stranger."

Delicately, she places her tiny hand in mine. "Alyssa Walsh."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Alyssa. Now, are you going to walk to my house or am I going to have to carry you?"

3

ALYSSA

I opt to walk.

One, because I don't want him to think I want him to carry me.

And two, because if he so much as tries, I'm gonna blush so bad that astronauts flying through space will be able to see my red cheeks. Uri will feel me radiating nuclear-level embarrassed heat and will assume the obvious: that I'm completely and utterly infatuated with him.

Which I'm most definitely not. Apart from having a healthy appreciation for his rock-hard physique and symmetrical bone structure, that is. I mean, physical attraction is only skin-deep, right? Practically meaningless.

I mean, sure, I have been known to ogle him in the past from the reading nook in my bedroom. But I ogle Henry Cavill, too. Doesn't mean I'm in love with him.

It's a long, silent trek across the lawn back to the mansion. He leads me inside without any sense of pride or even the slightest hint that he knows he lives in the fucking Taj Mahal of L.A. I do my best not to gawk as we pass by double-height floor-to-ceiling windows, dark oil paintings, and black leather couches big enough to hold everyone I've ever known.

The living room overlooks the garden, which can be seen through the massive bow windows that hug the curve of the room. A maid cleaning one of the nooks startles when she sees Uri, then blushes bright red.

Yeah, I feel ya, sis. Better you than me, though.

"Mariska, can you bring in the first aid kit, please?"

Hm-polite to his household staff. Didn't expect that.

Then again, what did I expect? It's not like I know everything about this man. But also, I'd be lying if I said I knew nothing about him.

I know he likes to entertain women. Mostly blondes with the superhuman proportions of a Kardashian. But it's not the only piece of information I have.

I also know that he likes to toss around a football on the front grounds of his property with a younger man that looks too much like him to not be his brother. I still remember the first time I saw them playing. My head was first turned by the shirtless, sculpted perfection of Uri's abs. But it stayed turned because of the way he interacted with his brother. Not the usual no-nonsense, don't fuck with me vibes that he always exudes even from a hundred yards away. But something more relatable.

He looked like an average guy. Well, that is, if the average guy is over six feet tall with impeccable biceps, washboard abs, and a face that could make the angels weep. More to my point, he looked like a big brother having fun with his younger brother.

It reminded me of the way Ziva and I used to be with each other. Comfortable. Easy. Effortless.

It made me sad and envious and needy all at the same time. That was the real reason I was maybe slightly too interested in Uri Bugrov. That was the real reason I couldn't totally hate him.

And maybe, just maybe, that was the reason I just accepted this invitation into his home.

Because I wanted to see if there's a human behind the flawless mask.

"Sit."

I obey before I even realize what I'm doing, taking a chair facing the windows. I scowl at my submissiveness, but it's too late to muster up some backbone, so I just sigh and sink into the seat. He wasn't wrong-my leg does hurt.

"You have a nice house," I remark.

He doesn't smile like most people do when people compliment their homes. He just nods apathetically. "I do."

"The humility is astounding."

"One of my finer qualities."

He's not looking at me. He's rummaging through a cabinet nearby. I clear my throat awkwardly as I look around in search of something to talk about. I'm not the greatest with tense silences. Or awkward silences. Or really, silences in general.

"You live alone?"

He frowns as though he finds my question offensive. "I have staff. Some of them live on the property."

"No family?"

Maybe the guy I've seen him play football with is not actually his brother. Maybe he's just a friend? A coworker? Secret lover?

Now, wouldn't that be a plot twist?

I glance around the room and notice that the maid, Mariska, left the door to the cabinet she was cleaning open. I can see a frame peeking out, half a photo, a few stoic faces.

"Is that your family?"

Before I know it, the cabinet door is slamming shut. Uri's blue eyes skewer me impatiently. "I don't talk about my family. Don't ask me about them again."