Chapter 8

Fired.

Jane sat slumped in her car, her cold face pressed against the steering wheel, her hands gripping the hard plastic on either side of her head. She felt broken. Like she couldn't sit up properly and breath. She could only lay against the steering wheel of her car, motionless, outside of her former place of employment where moments before she had been forced to give up her gun and her badge.

In a humiliating meeting she'd been called into the department head's office and made to explain her relentless pursuit of an upstanding citizen that led to his complaining to her superiors and threatening to withdraw funding from vital city projects. According to Jane's boss, Vladimir Sitnikov's lawyer had demanded the person responsible for dragging Sitnikov through the mud be held accountable. Of course, she knew it was by his order, not the lawyer's.

A sob escaped her lips and she shook her head in despair. She had always been a cop. Right from the moment she turned eighteen and could enter the academy. She'd turned her back on her home and her family and made her way in the only other place she had ever known, the city she loved. The city she loved to protect.

All for nothing. Because he had beaten her. He'd won.

Instead of seeing him rot in a jail cell, she had lost her job. The job she loved. The job that defined her. Now she was nothing.

Hot tears coursed down her cheeks and splashed against the hard plastic of the steering wheel. She sat in her car and cried in broken-hearted abandon. After several minutes she scrubbed her hands over her face and forced her spine to reassert itself. She took gasping breaths and tried to calm herself enough to drive. She needed to do something before she could set about rebuilding her shattered life. She scraped rough fingers through her hair, dislodging the bun she had so carefully tucked her hair into that morning in anticipation of executing the most important search warrant of her career. Her hair slid free in silky dark waves, tumbling to her shoulders.

As she turned the key in the ignition she looked up to see Gruber standing on the steps of the police department, watching her with shadowed eyes. It was beginning to rain and she had to turn her wipers on to see him clearly through the drops. She wondered if he wanted to talk to her, but he just stood there looking at her as though lost. That was Gruber though. He had never been fully comfortable with Jane as his partner. She was too dogged, too honest and persistent. They'd often clashed. She imagined he was sad to see her go, if only because the department had lost a great officer in her. Maybe he would get a partner more to his liking now. Jane didn't know and she no longer cared. She lifted her hand in a quick salute and steered her vehicle out of the parking lot for the last time.

* * *

The moment Sitnikov opened the door to his mansion, Jane lost her cool. She slapped him as hard as she could, which was a far cry from how hard she wanted to hit him. She was a good deal smaller than him and couldn't put enough weight behind the hit to really emphasize to him how much he had pissed her off. She stood on his doorstep, her hair and clothes soaked from the rain, seething in anger.

He stared down at her, his gaze a strange combination of utter triumph and anger from the hit she meted out. She was exactly where he wanted her. Alone and friendless. No longer a cop. She had planned on confronting him in a more civilized manner. Congratulating him on his victory and then telling him to stay the hell away from her, but something about him brought out the savage part of her nature.

"You ruthless bastard," she hissed, venom dripping from each word. "You knew this would happen to me. You knew I would lose my badge. Somehow you set me up, knowing this would be the result."

He didn't answer, just stared down at her with icy triumph. He didn't need to speak. She knew the truth. He had set her up almost from the beginning. He probably even had his plan set in motion before he visited her apartment. Somehow he had leaked information to her CI and orchestrated the search of his own property.

"Why?" she asked, her voice a cry of anguish and resentment.

He took a moment to speak, but finally answered in his deep accented tones, "Because I wanted you. There was no other way."

"Because you fucking wanted me?" she snarled, slapping her palms against his chest and shoving.

He barely moved so she kept doing it, slapping her hands against the muscles of his chest over and over again. Finally he grabbed her hands when she curled her fingers into fists and went for his face again, managing to rake a fingernail over the scar on his jaw and drawing blood before he could stop her.

"Enough," he growled.

"It's not enough, I can't ever hurt you enough!" she snarled back, tugging on her hands. She brought her leg up in a kick, driving her knee hard into his side. He grunted, but retaliated quickly, bodily picking her up off the ground and tossing her over his shoulder. He booted the door closed and turned to the table in the front entrance. He swept the crystal vase off the table, heedless of the shattering glass and spilling flowers across the marble of the entryway.

Jane kicked and screamed as he jerked her roughly off his shoulder and slammed her down on the table. The breath was driven from her lungs as the table shuddered under the impact. He leaned over her, caging her in his arms while she squirmed and tried to kick out at him. She used every self-defence move she'd ever learned and nothing got under his guard. He held her as easily as he would a child.

He forced her body to still until she had no weapons left but her mouth. She clamped sharp teeth down on the forearm he had foolishly placed within biting distance. She would have bit down even harder, sinking her small teeth into his muscle, but he jerked his arm away.

She snapped her teeth again. Irritated, Vlad picked her up by the waist, turned her struggling body around and slammed her facedown over the table. She shrieked and tried to launch herself back, but he took both of her wrists in one hand and jerked them up so she had no choice but to lay flat on the table.

She bucked backwards against him, but he had her in a brutal hold that would bruise the delicate bones of her wrist. As she finally quieted down she began to recognize the sizeable erection that was pressed against her backside. She froze.

"I should strip these jeans right off your body and fuck you right now, Jane," his voice was tense and husky. His words penetrated her furious haze of retribution. He licked the back of her neck. "I want you so bad I can already taste you."

"You've taken everything else I have," she cried out bitterly. "Why don't you take me now if that's what you want? Why torment me, destroy my career and leave me hanging? Just get it over with. Fuck you, Sitnokov, and your threats!"

"If I take you right here on this table you won't be ready for me. I'll hurt you," he said, biting the back of her ear and sending a shiver down her spine. When he spoke in an accent thicker than normal, his hot breath caressed the side of her neck. "And I find that I'm loath to do that. More than I would have thought. But let me make something perfectly clear, woman. I have waited patiently for you. I won't wait much longer. Keep testing my patience and you will find out exactly where it ends."

Jane bucked back against him, but his grip only tightened unbearably until she thought her wrists would break. She breathed heavily, feeling more helpless than she ever had in her life before.

Sitnikov held her tightly, his breathing also heavy, but for another reason. He was ruthlessly holding himself back from hurting her. He leaned over her back and gritted in her ear, "You destroyed your own career, Jane. I merely handed you the means to do it."

The tension slowly drained out of her. Finally, he backed up, pulling her body upright as he went. He cautiously let go of her wrists and stepped away from her, giving her space to recover. She turned slowly and looked at him, rubbing at the aching skin where he had held her. Jane considered striking out at him again, but subsided, knowing he would retaliate. She didn't think she could handle any more devastation tonight.

She clenched her hands at her sides. "Why are you doing this?" she demanded wearily. "Take what you want and be done with it. Maybe then we can get on with our lives. You can stop playing God in mine and I'll stay the hell out of your way from now on. I don't understand why you're hesitating. If this is what you wanted then why aren't you fucking me?"

He looked her up and down and said coldly, "Too easy, Jane. You're emotional, unstable, pathetic, not the determined woman that I want in my bed. Go rebuild your life. I assure you, I will be in the shadows watching."

"Waiting to strike you mean."

He shrugged and moved to the door, opening it. Glass from the shattered vase ground beneath his heels. "Leave now before I change my mind and decide I'd rather have even a fragment of Jane now than wait a moment longer."

For the second time that day Jane left Vladimir Sitnikov's mansion in furious humiliation.