BAD APPLE: The Complete Series (Parts 1-5) Read online

  I’m begging, something I haven’t done since I held Minkie’s tiny little hand and prayed to God, begging him to save her, not to take her from me. I feel that same hopeless desperation right now and I can’t take knowing that I’ll be forsaken again.

  “Fuck off and die,” Eliza yells.

  “Irina, please. What I have to say is very important,” I yell, slamming my fist into the glass. “I have to tell you!”

  Oh yeah? So important you never once told her how much she means to you?

  She’s my hope. My insane dreams for a better future. One filled with happiness and laughter, children, connection. I haven’t felt that connection for so long that it almost fells me when I realize it’s been there with her all along and I just refused to see it.

  I need it back. I have to have it or I’m not sure I’ll survive losing this last miracle I didn’t see coming.

  Too late, I think as I see tears sparkle in the golden eyes, her lips quivering so hard I ache to kiss them and stop the movement. The sight reminds me of that night, that perfect night when she gave me everything, her eyes shining up at me brightly. Open. Raw. Hopeful. So much hope that it made me ache even as elation took hold of me.

  It filled me up, filled all the empty space I’ve been dragging around for years, and made me feel like life has a purpose. Irina gave me purpose. She gave me her fragile heart.

  And what the fuck did I do? I said thank you. As if she’d made me a cup of coffee and handed me my morning bagel.

  Christ, I am the world’s biggest freaking asshole.

  “I don’t want to talk to you, Misha.”

  She comes closer after saying it and stands right in front of me, her face so pained, I feel my chest squeeze tighter.

  “Don’t shut me out, angel. I’m begging you to just hear me out. Please.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You don’t understand. I need to tell you so much.”

  Those eyes close and her teeth sink into her lip as she visibly comports herself and shakes her head.

  “Too little. Too late. You had your chance last night when I opened myself up to you. You had the chance when I practically begged you to see me, not just the wife you have because of one drunken episode or a stabbing that brought out your protective instincts. You didn’t even want me to touch you,” she gasps, making my eyes tear at the hurt I see there. “I heard you with her, you know. On the phone. Talking to her so softly. So tenderly. So lovingly. It hurt me to hear you that way with her when the only time you’re that way with me is when you’re fucking me.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  “Oh yeah you were. ‘Oh sweetheart,’” she mocks, a fire lighting in her eyes, vanquishing the hurt, replacing it with an anger I haven’t seen in Irina before.

  It hits me then. What I’ve done to her, what I’m doing now, has hurt her so much she’s not even herself anymore. Gone is the kind, tender joy I always see there, and in its place is a disillusionment that makes my knees lock to keep me from dumping my ass to the floor.

  “I feel so terrible for you. I cried when she told me about your baby. I cried for you because I knew how devastating that must have been. I even got why you were so comically terrified to knock me up when you no longer needed a baby to hold me. What I do not get, Misha, is how an intelligent man with a loving family can look at a woman so cold and love her. You had me. I loved you. I fucking loved you so much I didn’t even care that you couldn’t say it back. And you love her? She won’t even look at you unless she sees that you’re happy! Then she sees you because she doesn’t like that, does she?!” she yells, her fists hitting the glass before clenching at her sides. “It’s so horrible that I feel worse for you than I do for me right now, because I can try to get over this and move on, Misha, but you…you just keep going back for more.”

  “Angel.”

  “I’m so sad for you right now, Mish, that I even considered just staying and trying to make something work. Isn’t that just pathetic?”

  Help me, I beg when she drops the anger and smiles at me so tenderly, I want to outwardly mourn my own loss.

  “I deserve better. Go away, Misha. Go love your Mina. Or don’t. I don’t even care anymore. Just, for God’s sake, leave me alone before you break me more.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Irina

  Love sucks a lot.

  That’s my newest motto, even as I walk through my days feeling all that love still burning brightly inside me. It’s so bad that I found myself watching freaking action movies all night last night because they remind me of Misha and the playful arguments we’d have when I voted for Titanic and he threatened to shoot himself to escape the pain.

  It’s been eight days since he showed up at Sweetness and looked at me in a way I’d prayed to see for so long. It almost killed me to stand firm and keep my head up when all I wanted to do was unlock that damn door and throw myself at him to soothe the pain I saw in his eyes.

  The anguish I witnessed made me cry for hours, and it hurt more to realize I’d put it there by reminding him of the loss he suffered when little sweet Minka was taken from him.

  I feel wretched about it, because I know deep down that he’s a good man. He’s capable of strong, true love. I’ve seen it when he looks at his mother and father and even his irreverent brothers who exasperate the hell out of him. I’ve seen it shining so brightly that it makes me happy even as I cry because he never once looked at me that way.

  I know he’s a good man, no son of Mama’s can be any other way. Unfortunately, he’s good but not right for me, because I know he’ll just keep hurting me, and pretty soon I’ll be that person I don’t want to be.

  I don’ want or need that.

  I deserve more.

  That, however, does not change the fact that I am now sitting across a desk with a gun pointed at my face and absolutely no one to help me. And I’m not alone, because as things just so happen to go, I’m pregnant. For real, this time.

  “You really should have stuck with that thug you married. He had you so well protected, even I couldn’t get to you. Thanks for making this easy, Irina. You did me a real favor.” The man laughs.

  “Doctor James?” I squeak, my mind blanking a little as I struggle to play catch up with my current situation and the absolute fear I feel hitting me.

  “Doctor James? Come on, woman, surely you don’t think I’m that stupid fucking quack anymore? Nice tits, by the way. I like mine bigger, though, so I’m pretty relieved I get to just kill you instead of taking you.”

  “Wha—I…I don’t understand.”

  The man is sitting behind the desk, calmly pointing a gun at me, his ice blue eyes so dead that I feel my bones lock. He just smiles darkly and shakes his head.

  “I never fail, sweetheart. Everyone knows that. You’re my first miss. The first unfinished job. I hate unfinished business, you know, especially when I did it so well the first time and still managed to outrun your brothers.”

  Oh God. I recognize that voice now and it sends chills down my spine as my muscles quiver, threatening to send me into flight despite the gun aimed at my chest.

  The fear gets worse, a lot worse when he calmly rises from the chair and unsheaths a knife, smiling broadly.

  “Shall we try this again?”

  PART IV

  Chapter One

  Irina

  I’m going to die. The man who stabbed me weeks ago and left me for dead on the floor of my bakery starts strolling around the desk. The doctor’s coat he’s wearing is only to fool me. It’s all I see as terror has me leaping up and backing away.

  There’s nowhere to go, though. As my back hits the wall, I have one of those cliché moments I always laughed about—the one where everything freezes and your life flashes before your eyes.

  I think about recent times.

  Meeting Misha. Falling in lust with his sparkling blue eyes and wicked smile. Being his friend. Waking up to realize I’ve married one of New York’s richest businessm
en. The hot sex. The pregnancy scare that got us back together after I caught him kissing his ex-girlfriend on my sofa in my new penthouse home. Being stabbed after I went looking for my birth family. Getting a hit put out on me. Finding out Misha had a daughter who died when she was just two years old. Grieving for him. Loving Misha and telling him that, even though I knew he didn’t love me. Hearing him on the phone with Mina when he knows how I feel about them together. Feeling betrayed. Leaving him. Misha coming to the bakery, begging me for another chance, pleading for me to hear him out. His pain. Misha leaving when I told him he broke me. Misha falling to his knees on the sidewalk as Vadim and Leo reach to pull him up. Misha giving up. Misha gone. My heart freezing. Finding out I’m pregnant.

  Staring into the eyes of a killer and knowing I’m about to die.

  Again.

  With that last thought, I see him advance with the knife, the gun still trained on me as he cautions me to silence and smiles broadly. I feel myself heave when nausea hits me.

  “I’m going to do you a favor, Mrs. Novac. See, I usually go for the gut. It hurts more and I get to see the pain before you bleed out quickly. Today, because you are pregnant and I do not wish your little one to suffer, I will go right for the heart. Quick. Almost painless.”

  “Please don’t. Please don’t. Don’t do this. Not again. Not with my baby growing in me,” I plead, crying as I battle the sobs and my vision blurs.

  I’m plastered to the wall, my hands lying over my stomach in a protective gesture that I know is useless against this monster. I’ve been here before, at his mercy, and I know exactly how deadly he is. How futile it is to struggle. The man’s street name is The Knife, for God’s sake, and after what Feliks and Misha told me, I get his anger right now.

  He has never failed in a kill.

  Till me.

  I want to yell at him that he didn’t fail. That I did die and that Misha, my crazy stubborn Misha, breathed life back into me, refusing to let me go.

  “Do not beg, Irina. It is hopeless and beneath such a woman as yourself. Strong women do not beg or plead. They accept—”

  “Help me!” I scream, yelling my lungs out when he lunges, the knife cutting into my right arm as I throw myself to the right and roll for the desk, my nerves strung so tight, I feel my skin go ice cold.

  I can’t die here. I just can’t. I need to get the hell out of here and tell Misha he’s going to be a daddy. I need to tell Tatiana that Leo is in love with her and she needs to give him a chance.

  I need to do so many things that I haven’t done because that mariachi band that’s been serenading my pity party held me in its thrall. Most of all, I need to live because I just found out I’m going to have a baby, and I refuse to let this piece of filth take that away from me.

  “Shut up, bitch.”

  “No! You shut up, you ass pile. I’m not just going to let you kill me.”

  That’s the spirit, Ri. Now if only you stood a chance in hell.

  The only exit is closed and blocked by the psycho knife-wielding ass holding a knife, and from the deathly silence I hear and the lack of pounding footsteps, I’m assuming there’s no one left to come to my rescue.

  “Why are you doing this?” I gasp, dodging around the side when he comes my way.

  We’re playing a game of cat and mouse right now, and it’s the only thing I have left as he smiles and starts flipping his weapon from one hand to the other, taunting me.

  “You need to die.”

  “Why? Who wants me dead and how much are they paying you? Misha will triple whatever it is.”

  “This is not about money, Irina. No amount of money in this world can save you now that you’ve been marked for death. I have to kill you.”

  “Why? Tell me why. I deserve to know,” I pant, my lips trembling when I glance at the door and note that it’s locked.

  I won’t make it out, not even if it were unlocked, and my last desperate hope has just been quashed.

  “You went looking for answers that stirred up a hornet’s nest, Irina. The Chenkos cannot afford for your father to learn of your existence. Not now. They’re too weak to stand against Max, and they need the money that other bitch is paying them to get rid of you.”

  He fakes left and dodges right, and I scramble to correct my movement, keeping the desk between us as he slashes out, almost slicing me before the training Feliks drilled into me kicks in.

  “What other bitch?”

  “The Ternav princess. Mina. You know her? She married that old man from the Ternav clan and fucked him to death before moving back to her family. They’re all scum, but they have what the Chenkos need. So I’ll do my job and get rid of you. It’s not personal.” He shrugs, his eyes narrowing at me when I feel my anger rise.

  Hormones. Gotta love them. They engulf me in a torrent of rage that completely obliterates the fear and helps me to think calmly. Unfortunately for me, I have no opportunity to suddenly turn into superwoman when he vaults over the desk and knocks me to the floor, his bigger mass slamming into me and keeping me pinned, even as I struggle and scream, slapping at his face in a way that would make poor Feliks hang his head in shame.

  The blows do nothing but irritate him, and I whimper in pain when he backhands me, my head ringing with the blow. It’s so hard that I stop fighting and slump beneath him in a daze, my eyes going wide as he kneels over me, raises the knife high, and starts descending with a macabre smile that’s pure evil.

  I’m going to die.

  My eyes close of their own volition and I squeeze them tight, not wanting my last image to be of the murderous scum above me. It takes hours for the blow to land, at least it feels that way, and I scream again when I feel him jerk, the hot sprays of blood hitting my face making me cry out again.

  Oh God.

  I keep my eyes firmly shut, my senses frozen as I go wild.

  “Stop.”

  The harsh voice makes my eyes fly open, and I realize I’m staring up at a man, a stranger. And Mr. Knife is slumped over beside me, his eyes staring sightlessly as a hole between his eyes lets me know that I am not yet destined for a blade to the heart.

  “I…please,” I moan, terrified at the sight of a gun dangling from his hand as two more men rush in, taking in the scene with curses.

  “She okay, Davi? He’ll kill us if she’s got a hair outta place,” the blond, short little man on the left mutters, peering down at me with curious intent. “Shit, man, would ya look at them eyes.”

  The giant, gun-wielding guy snarls at them and leans down to grab my arm, pulling me up with a curse and far less gentleness than I am comfortable with, given the fact that my legs are lame and I fall against him in a weak sprawl.

  He curses and tosses the gun to Blondie before sweeping his arms beneath my shoulders and knees to cradle me against his chest.

  “You’re okay, Irina. Stop looking at me like I’m going to murder you when I just saved your life girl.”

  I…shit. I’m so confused right now that all I can do is stare wide eyed at the three men as my savior starts barking orders and Blondie and his girlfriend, Redhead, start jumping to it.

  “Clean this shit up. I want everything that puts her here swept, and I want this place locked down now. Call Francis and get the man to bring in a cleaning team.”

  Yeah, okay, I am definitely in deep shit if that cleaning team is what I think it is.

  I watch TV and I know what mob slang is. At least I think I do. All I know is one whisper of ‘sleeping with the fishes’ or ‘cement shoes’ and I am gone.

  “Er, what’s going on?” I ask as he carries me down the corridor in quick, long strides and bursts out the back, shoving me into the back of a black SUV before coming in behind me and ordering the driver to put foot.

  “Don’t ask me shit right now, lady, I gotta make sure no one’s following us before we can get the hell outta here. What the fuck were you doing in there without your security?” he grates, spiking my temper as the adrenalin that coursed throug
h me takes a nosedive and hormonal rage kicks in.

  “What was I doing there? I was getting the results of my freaking blood tests, you ass. Oh God, that was so rude. I am so sorry. It’s just that I’m not in a good place right now, and that guy tried to stab me in the heart, and I think I’m about to have a nervous breakdown. Why do people keep trying to kill me?” I whine, breaking out in sobs.

  Getting yelled at right now is not helping, neither is the dawning realization that I am trapped in a car, speeding through New York traffic with men I do not know who could, in fact, be out to kill me too.

  “Oh God. Oh God. If you’re going to kill me, please just let me call my parents and tell them I love them. Why did I let them take me so easily? I should have taken Feliks’s lessons more seriously. You could have done so much better. Now you’re stuck in a car with two would-be psychos and you didn’t even get to eat the leftover pizza you were eyeballing this morning. And Misha doesn’t even know! You’re so stupid for having left him. Why didn’t you stay with him where it was safe, huh? What’s wrong with you? Oh God, please don’t let me die yet. I’m not ready. I haven’t had sex with Brad Pitt yet.”

  I’m babbling through a river of tears and snot as we keep speeding, and it takes me a minute to realize that I’m hearing laughter around me.

  I like being laughed at about as much as the next person, and I stop my ranting to scowl and show my disgust.

  “What the hell is so funny?”

  “You,” Gun wheezes, throwing Driver a look that makes my temper spike another notch. “You’re just like Vika. God, Max is going to love this.”

  Chapter Two

  Irina

  “Are we there yet?” I ask them for what must be the millionth time and get two irritated snarls in return for my efforts, which I’ve been keeping up nicely for the last hour since they deemed us safe and actually chose a direction to drive in.

  Call me crazy, but I feel more secure by the second as we race away from the scene of the crime and get further away from whatever the heck I’ve managed to get myself involved in.