Finders Keepers (Syndicate Book 1) Read online

  Jensen wore a charcoal gray suit with no tie or vest, just a crisp white dress shirt with an open collar under his jacket. He had both Aleksander and Rafael stand up with him today, and they were both dressed similarly in gray suits but with kelly green ties to match Sarah’s dress.

  As I looked around the small tent, I noticed our little group had already put quite the dent in the food and alcohol present. They were talking and smiling and laughing, and I don’t think I could have been much happier.

  I gazed up at my handsome husband’s face. “Hey, baby?”

  “Hm?” he responded.

  “Do you ever think about giving up your life of crime?” I had already decided I was officially retired from the field of antiquities procurement.

  His lips twitched slightly. “Completely? I’m not sure it’s possible, pixie. I’m in too deep.” He must have seen the disappointment in my expression. “But, I have already taken measures to, shall we say, restructure some of my business models. I promise to keep you safe. I just need you to trust me.”

  I smiled. “I do trust you. And I love you. So very much.” I leaned up to kiss him.

  It was only a few moments more before Jensen decided that the wedding night portion of the festivities needed to commence sooner rather than later. Taking my hand and leading me off our makeshift dance floor, we barely made it inside the backdoor when we both froze in our tracks. Standing just inside the kitchen, holding a gun, was Dmetri Sokolov.

  Chapter 28

  Charlotte

  “I’m impressed, Miss Benson, or I guess it’s Mrs. Holm now, isn’t it? I sent you here to retrieve the amulet and you manage to steal the man’s heart instead,” Sokolov sneered.

  “How the fuck did you get in here?” Jensen hissed. He glanced around quickly, obviously wondering how Sokolov got past the guards.

  “You’re not the only one with connections, Holm,” he said cryptically. He waved his gun in the direction of the front of the house and said, “Let’s move our little party elsewhere, shall we? We wouldn’t want those enjoying themselves in the backyard to look in here and think there’s anything wrong.”

  I chanced a quick glance over my shoulder to make sure nobody was looking in our direction through the sliding glass doors. The last thing I needed was my family or Sarah coming in here and getting themselves shot.

  Once we were in the formal living room, Sokolov positioned himself between us and the front door while Jensen positioned himself between Sokolov and me. “Where is the amulet?” he asked Jensen.

  “Secure. Why do you want it so badly?” Jensen asked.

  Sokolov shrugged. “It’s very valuable to me.”

  “Is it? Or is it valuable to the Bratva?” When Sokolov didn’t immediately answer, Jensen continued, “You’re scared. You should be. The Bratva will carve you up before they kill you.”

  Sokolov shifted his weight and raised his gun toward Jensen.

  “Tell me, how long have you been working with my mother?” Jensen asked him.

  “What?” I said, shocked. Jensen squeezed my hand, and I took it as a hint to keep quiet.

  “Margaret has been very… accommodating,” Sokolov sneered. “Bitch will do anything if you wave a little cash in her face. Now, stop stalling, and take me to the amulet.” He raised his gun at us again, and a shot rang out.

  But it was Sokolov who took the bullet. Jensen raced to Sokolov’s body and grabbed his gun, putting another bullet between his eyes. I gasped as my hands flew to my face. This was the third time I had seen Jensen kill someone, and I was sure it was a sight I’d never get used to. Nor would I want to. Suddenly realizing that the shot that took down Sokolov didn’t come from either of us, I spun around only to find Jason wrenching a gun from Sarah’s tight grip.

  “Sarah?” I approached her hesitantly. She looked like she might be in shock.

  When I got to her, her eyes snapped to mine. “He was going to hurt you,” she whispered. “I couldn’t let…” Her words ended abruptly because she started sobbing.

  I looked to Jason. “I’m trusting you to take care of her.” He nodded and took Sarah in his arms.

  I turned back to Jensen, who was on the phone ordering someone to come clean up the mess in the living room. I closed my eyes and let out a sigh of relief. Despite this shit happening on my wedding day of all days, I’m grateful that Dmetri Sokolov is no longer an issue for us. The Bratva, on the other hand….

  “Hey, guys! Look who I found!” Chace exclaimed with fake cheerfulness as he entered the room with Margaret Thompson in tow.

  Looking between Chace and Jensen, I finally put two and two together. “Recon, huh?” I said drily. Chace just winked at me.

  Jensen nodded at one of his men, and the man stepped forward to take custody of Margaret. Where they were going with her and what they planned to do, I probably didn’t want to know.

  “Do we know how they got in?” Jensen asked the room at large.

  Turned out there were two guards down at the gate, but they weren’t discovered right away due to everyone being distracted by the festivities. Thanks to Chace’s recon, they had known Margaret was near or on the property, but they hadn’t been expecting Sokolov to show his face. That just proved his desperation in trying to get his hands on the amulet.

  That damn amulet. More trouble than it was probably worth. I was going to have a chat with my husband about that as soon as possible. In the meantime, I was going to ignore the fact that a body was being removed from my living room, and I was going to take my husband upstairs and give him his wedding gift.

  I stood in the middle of the red playroom, naked and blindfolded. I had forced myself to spend time in here on occasion just to get over what happened in here the first time. Now that I knew Jensen, and trusted him, I had nothing to fear.

  I felt what I thought might be a feather caress my upper arm and shoulder before gliding down my back.

  Smack. I gasped.

  Nope, not a feather. My wicked husband was wielding a flogger. The sting on my ass was both pain and pleasure, and I felt my arousal flood between my legs. Jensen lightly tapped the insides of my calves so I would spread my legs wider. I felt the the leather strips graze over my sex right before a quick snap of the leather against my skin had me on the edge of orgasm.

  I heard a soft thud, which must have been the flogger hitting the floor. He wrapped his hands around my waist and his lips around my nipple. He suckled and nipped at me, while I threaded my fingers through his thick hair and gave a firm tug. “Jensen…,” I whimpered.

  “My sweet pixie. My sweet, sassy, sexy pixie. Would you like to come?” he purred.

  “Yes,” I moaned.

  “Now?” he asked, flicking my clit with a finger.

  “Yes,” I moaned louder.

  I squealed when I suddenly found myself hoisted into the air and flung over Jensen’s shoulder in a fireman’s hold. He smacked my ass and shushed me as he carried me across the room. He maneuvered us around until he was sitting, and I was straddling him. He slowly removed my blindfold so that we were gazing into each other’s eyes.

  “What do you want, pixie?”

  “To come,” I breathed.

  “Then ride me,” he dared.

  I lifted my hips and teased him by stroking his erection against me but not taking him inside me. He groaned, and I watched as his eyes drifted closed and he bit his bottom lip. I reached down with my other hand and lightly grasped his balls.

  “Pixie,” he warned. “If you don’t fuck me, I’m going to blow my load all over your tits. Those are your two choices.”

  While I thought that seeing his come all over my chest, marking me, was something I might enjoy, I really needed an orgasm of my own. I lifted up and paused to make sure he was watching me, then I slowly sank down on him until he was fully encased in my wet heat. I started out rocking and grinding into him, but the need became too much, and we both needed more. I lifted up and stroked back down once, and his hands went to my hi
ps to help guide my motions.

  Our mouths came together, and our pants and moans mingled as we moved together faster and more urgently until we shouted each other’s names as we came apart at the seams.

  “Mine,” Jensen whispered.

  “Yours,” I agreed.

  Chapter 29

  Charlotte

  In the days that followed the wedding, Jensen and I had a serious discussion about his businesses, and he filled me in on all the changes he was planning to make, which ones had already been implemented, and which ones were still in process. I felt much better about our relative safety knowing that Jensen and I were on the same page, and that he was handling things. We also talked about the Bratva.

  “I have an associate I’ve already contacted,” he said. “I’m going to gift Ivan the Terrible’s amulet to the Bratva as a peace offering with the stipulation that they never make any moves against me or my family. I don’t have any personal beef with them, so if the amulet is truly all they want, they can have it.”

  “I agree. It’s not worth risking our family,” I said as I laid my hand over my belly.

  “No, it’s not,” he said, stroking his thumb over my bottom lip.

  We also discussed the possibility of taking a honeymoon and the merits of doing it now versus waiting until after the baby was born. As I was only around ten weeks along, we had plenty of time before it became unsafe for me to fly, and life was going to be so different with a baby. That’s why I opted for a honeymoon now. Jensen didn’t want to leave the country until he felt confident that his plans concerning his businesses and the Bratva were on solid ground. So, we waited about two weeks while he got a few things in order and we made plans to visit Paris and Vienna, two destinations on my bucket list, and Jensen wanted some tropical beach time. He made no bones about the fact that he couldn’t wait to watch me prance around in a bikini. I didn’t consider myself a woman who pranced, but if it made my man happy, I would put on a bikini and shake my ass all over the Caribbean or wherever it was we were going.

  So, leaving Sarah in charge of the household, with Jason’s assistance, I was sure, we set off on our happily ever after.

  Strutting my stuff in a bikini on a beach in Thailand was far more fun that I had anticipated. I glanced slyly over my shoulder at my husband. The tent he was pitching in his board shorts was impressive. He was so riveted by my ass he almost missed the call that was coming in.

  “Baby, answer your phone,” I giggled.

  “What?” he snapped as he did as he was told. “Oh, hey, Chace. Everything go okay? I mean, you’re talking to me, so they obviously left you breathing,” he smirked. “Okay. Good. Yeah, see you at home,” he said as he ended the call.

  “What was that about?” I asked, ever concerned where my baby brother was involved.

  “That was Chace. The hand-off went smoothly, and my terms were accepted,” he explained.

  “Hand-off? Terms?” I shook my head in confusion, and then I remembered. “You sent Chace to meet with the Bratva?!” I screamed. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?!”

  “Pixie. Calm. Down,” he ordered me sternly. “This is precisely why I didn’t tell you. Chace actually volunteered. He did the job, and he did it well. Don’t worry so much,” he chided.

  I huffed. “Unbelievable,” I mumbled. Chace had apparently taken to working for Jensen and obviously neither of them felt the need to fill me in on anything. “You’re driving me to drink,” I accused as I flagged down an attendant.

  “You can’t drink, you’re pregnant,” he scolded.

  “Yeah, and whose fault is that?” Hormones were making me snarky. I ordered a virgin daiquiri and melodramatically threw myself into my lounge chair. Jensen didn’t answer my question, but when I looked over at him, he was smiling.

  “This is going to be fun,” he mused as he gazed out over the ocean.

  “What is?”

  “Life with you.”

  Epilogue

  Jensen

  Charlotte’s grip on my hand was strong enough that I heard bones crack. Fuck. Her yelling and swearing would have been comical if she wasn’t in pain and I wasn’t utterly fucking terrified.

  “Just one more push, Mrs. Holm,” cooed the nurse as she glanced between my wife and the doctor about to deliver my son.

  “Stop telling me what to do, you strawberry cuntcake!” Charlotte screamed at the red-headed nurse.

  I was, undoubtedly, going to have to make a substantial donation to the hospital before we left.

  “Come on, sweetheart, you can do this,” I encouraged her, which only caused her to turn her ire on me.

  “This is all your fault! You and your stupid sperm! I should cut your dick off!” she screamed at me, causing some of the hospital staff present to chuckle.

  As I met her eyes and stared at her, her expression went from one of pain and fury to one of remorse. “I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t mean that,” she whimpered.

  “I know, pixie, it’s okay.” I kept my eyes on hers. “Just give us one more big push and you can hold our son in your arms. You want that, right?” I soothed.

  “Yeah,” she said nodding, and then turned her attention back to the doctor.

  When the doctor gave her an encouraging nod, Charlotte bore down, and by the time she was done, the room filled with the cries of baby Elijah Holm.

  Five years later

  Charlotte

  Sarah and I sat by the pool while we watched Elijah and Mason, Sarah and Jason’s son, run around the yard. Elijah had Jensen’s dark hair but my green eyes. He also somehow ended up with his Uncle Chace’s daredevil personality. It really was a cruel twist of fate. It’s also why I insisted that Chace babysit as often as possible. So he could feel a little of what he put me through. Mason looked more like his dad, mostly. He had Jason’s dark blond curls and blue eyes, but his complexion was that of his mother’s. It was an interesting and exotic combination.

  While the eldest two boys played, my three year old daughter, Alexis, was attempting to teach Sarah’s two year old daughter, Molly, how to best wrap her daddy around her finger. As if that wasn’t already the case. The two girls were showing their daddies how they are supposed to beat up boys who “try to get handsy.” Personally, I thought two and three were a bit young for that particular lesson, though I couldn’t fault the sentiment behind it. Start ‘em young, I guess.

  “Baby, we need to get the food ready, everyone should be here soon,” I hollered at my husband.

  Aleksander and Rafael were coming over with their families, and I expected Chace and his wife any minute now. Sarah and I headed into the kitchen and threw together the last few things we hadn’t already prepared while the men manned the grill.

  An hour later, the whole lot of us were gathered around the giant hand-carved picnic table Jensen bought me because I insisted on these huge get-togethers. Looking around, everyone had heaping piles of food on their plates, full glasses of water, tea, or beer, and smiles on their faces.

  “Happy birthday, pixie,” Jensen whispered and kissed the shell of my ear.

  “I’m so glad you found me,” I whispered back with a smile I’m sure was bright as the sun.

  Other books by BJ Bentley:

  The Intuitive series (Books 1-3):

  Handcuffs and Coffee: A Psychic's Guide to Dating

  Masonry and Margaritas: An Artist's Guide to Dating

  Temptation and Tea: An Empath's Guide to Dating

  Let’s be friends!

  Facebook: Author BJ Bentley

  Twitter: @bj_books

  Instagram: @authorbjbentley

  Goodreads: B.J. Bentley

  BookBub: BJ Bentley

  Amazon: BJ Bentley

  Website: https://bjbentley.wordpress.com/

 

 

  .Net