THE BEAST
by Denise Daye
Find it:
Goodreads, https://books2read.com/THEBEASTDAYE
BLURB
He's a cold-blooded killer, devilishly hot and wildly dangerous.
Most people would tell me I'm crazy. Most people would call him a monster and tell me to run. But in the broken world I live in, that's the only sort of man I want.
When he found me in a puddle of blood, at the mercy of my mobster husband's thugs, I was ready to die. I just looked at him with empty eyes, giving him permission to keep walking and never glance back. But instead, he told me to look away and then took care of business. My nails dug into his steel-hard arms as he carried me to his car and declared I was now his.
Of course I knew who my dark knight was.
Andrei f$$$ing Kowtisch.
Feared assassin. Merciless beast. A man who fights fire with fire.
I guess that means it's payback time,
because nobody touches Andrei's property. Unless you're the most dangerous
mobster on the East Coast who swore to get me back no matter the
cost . . .
Goodreads, https://books2read.com/THEBEASTDAYE
EXCERPT
Chapter 1
Andrei
It had been almost two years since my younger sister had made the innocent mistake to fall madly in love with an undercover cop who used her to get to me. I was forced to flee the US or put a bullet in his head, which my sister wouldn’t have taken to kindly, and I loved her, so here I was.
I had mastered a lot of things through running. I learned to be extremely sensitive to my surroundings. Running from federal agents has a way of making you scan a restaurant, moment to moment, even if you’re just sitting there with a steaming plate of sirloin and potatoes. It makes you consider people in a different way, discerning their intentions just by looking at them.
And that’s what I was doing—discerning, studying—as I sat in the elegant hall of a restaurant on 9th Avenue in Durban, South Africa. The gleaming chandelier above me, the delicate tinkling of silver on porcelain, the aroma of bergamot in the air. Classic.
I had tried to maintain a low profile since I stopped saving the world from monsters like me—and by “saving,” I meant assassinating criminals and perverted politicians for money.
I took a deep breath and sipped the scotch in my glass, feeling it burn its way down my throat. Again, I scanned the lobby, probably for the hundredth time since I’d sat down. What a tiresome life this was . . . yet it was the world I was used to.
The restaurant was mostly full except for a few empty tables. No one looked particularly suspicious—not the sour-faced couple wearing matching green jackets, the color of the nation’s flag, nor the older couple who were more interested in their phones than the meal on the table in front of them. They all looked like they were here for standard reasons: the food and for snapping Instagram-worthy pictures of it. But I still stayed alert. You never could tell how far the CIA would go.
I checked my watch. Nine p.m. This was the best time to get out a bit, run around the city, let off some steam. I may have been on the run from the CIA, but I still needed to stretch my legs like anyone else. And their agents were usually less active at night. Lazy bastards, good for me.
Scanning the room again, I watched as a lady entered at the far end of the hall. Her back was turned to me, but I could still sense her elegance in the way her hair was neatly packed in a tight ponytail. And then there was the dress she wore, short, just above the knee . . . no bra. Who was she here to meet?
I scanned the door to see if anyone was with her. She didn’t look like an agent, but you could never be sure. The CIA could trace me down here, I wagered. And if I needed to run, I could run fast.
Despite an empty stomach, my appetite was gone, so I took the napkin from the table, wiped the corners of my mouth, and casually swept my eyes around the room one more time. I nudged the brim of my hat a bit lower over my brow just in case.
“Are you enjoying your meal?”
Annoyed, I swung my eyes up sharply at the waitress who'd sidled silently up behind me. She’d been quiet, and that alone was unnerving. I should have noticed her approach, even as busy as the room was. Unless she was trained . . .
“Yes,” I grumbled, shifting in my seat so she’d get the message.
I glanced at the other side of the room to see where the lady in the ponytail had gone. She was sitting now, her knees elegantly nestled against one another, reading a copy of the Cape Times. Her position seemed odd. Suspicious. Especially since her other hand rested inside her purse without getting anything out. She could be holding onto a weapon. A pocket pistol, most likely. It was the sort of gun that would fit easily in a designer bag like the one she carried. I leaned back against my chair and inhaled deeply.
Surreptitiously, I felt for my pistol right beneath my jacket’s lapel and clicked the safety off. My movements were slow and practiced, and my jacket was bulky enough I knew no one would notice I was carrying.
“So you’re on vacation?” the waitress asked, still standing at my table. “I know the city well. I can . . . you know . . .” she said, inhaling deeply, which caused her already generous chest to swell even more. As if I hadn’t seen her cleavage since the first time I walked into the hall. Slowly, she slipped a finger into her bra, as if she was fishing for something.
There was something strange about her. She was trying too hard or something, but whatever it was, it made me giddy. It was time for me to go.
“Thank you, but I don’t need anything else,” I said, throwing some cash on the table, hoping she’d leave. But she leaned closer instead, putting both hands on the table and staring into my eyes. “Are you sure about that?”
She shifted her shirt so that I could see even more of her full breasts. Enough. I looked away. The only thing I cared about was getting out of the room. Now. Something was off.
I rose suddenly and moved toward the restroom. I budgeted my movements, moving fast but not too fast to alert anyone. By my calculation, if one of these two women was an agent, backup would be well on its way. A few moments more, they might have the building surrounded.
Go, I told myself. Now.
Just before I reached the bathroom, a door on the right side of the lobby started to open and someone stepped out. Nope. Smooth as a cat, I slid into another door before the person noticed me.
It was the kitchen.
“Sorry, this looked like the exit,” I said as a dozen chefs swung their heads toward me, astounded by the interruption.
“What the hell are you doing?” the head chef demanded. I gave him a sheepish smile as if I was confused by it too. Then I walked to the door at the end of the kitchen and tried the handle. It wasn’t locked. I swung it open and started running down the alleyway that opened before me.
The wind was cold on my face as I ran. I didn’t care. I just kept running, not looking back. I wasn’t sure if anyone was following me, but I wasn’t taking any chances. Call it paranoia, I call it the key to my long survival . . .
From time to time, I swung my eyes upwards, scanning the windows for anyone who might be watching to take me out. That’s how I would have done it. Send an agent in to spook the target, then place a sniper up high somewhere to finish up.
A few blocks away from the restaurant, I crossed the road and then turned down another shadowed alley. The light was dim, but I could make out the forms of a few guys leaning idly against the brick wall behind them. I knew they weren’t up to any good; they had that feel about them. But let them try—they’d be in for a little surprise.
They started to shift nervously around me. Hell, the way I was running, why wouldn’t they?
My pace changed into a more relaxed jog until I finally emerged on a busier, livelier street. I stifled my heaving chest as best as I could and started walking, head down, trying to blend in with the natives who were taking their after-dinner strolls.
I’ve had a map of the city in the back of my mind ever since I moved here. Every night, I studied it so I’d never get caught in a dangerous situation without knowing my way out.
I looked back occasionally, scanning the faces around me. A glance into someone’s eyes was enough to know if they wanted me behind bars or if they just saw me as another regular dude with a beard. No matter how trained the agents, they couldn’t help but give themselves away when they spotted a “most wanted” so close to their grasp.
And I wasn’t on that Most Wanted list by coincidence. I was Andrei fucking Kowtisch, the world’s most dangerous assassin who killed for governments and criminals alike—as long as the targets were scumbags like me.
I hurried along, my feet feeling the hardness of the pavement. Heading home wasn’t a quick option, as I’d parked my car some miles from here. I did that a lot: park in a safe location and take a cab so no one could trail me.
Maybe I should just forget about my things in the cabin leave. The woman in the restaurant with the hand in her purse, not moving it once, was more than suspicious. Maybe my place was already bugged. Either way, I could move to a new city, start over with a new identity and a different way of life. I had until morning to figure it out.
I walked around for a while and checked my wristwatch. It was 12: 13 a.m. I could sure as hell walk out this town. My car was not far from here. I could drive throughout the night. The farther I got away from Durban, the better.
I took a left turn and headed down another dark alley, almost feeling safe again, when I heard a cry.
I slowed down as my eyes scanned the walls around me. I had probably stumbled upon something illicit. South African city streets were full of that. Not my business. Keep walking.
Up ahead, I suddenly made out the forms of two men leaning against the wall, holding bottles and puffing cigarette smoke out of their mouths. The cry came again, this time louder and closer, and so desperate that it stopped me in my tracks. It was a woman. I looked back at the men to see if they would do anything, but they looked totally unbothered and didn’t seem to care about the crying woman or me.
The terrible cry echoed again; this time it sounded like the woman was in physical pain.
Shit.
As if my body was not my own, I started to follow the sound of the cries. I couldn’t help myself. Sure, I was a monster, a man who killed men without remorse. But even I had some morals. If someone was raping a woman nearby, what kind of a man would I be to just keep walking?
As I neared the source of the cries, the sound became more desperate and persistent, but I couldn’t tell where precisely the woman was. She could be in any of the apartments above the street or behind any one of the many doors that lined the tight alley. As if the poor girl heard my thoughts, a door in front of me swung upon and a woman in her late twenties bolted out. She lost her footing and fell onto the concrete. Blood was running out of her mouth, forming a small puddle where she landed. I expected her to jump right back up, but instead, she just remained on the floor, crying against the cold of the stone underneath her.
Suddenly she looked up at me. At first, her fear made her stunning green eyes wide, but then she just looked at me in calm nothingness, as if she was giving me permission to just keep walking and let her die here all alone.
God damn it.
I kneeled next to her and hesitated for a moment before I gently tucked a black, sweaty strand of hair that had fallen over her face behind her ear. She just laid there, motionless, her eyes staring at me in one of the emptiest gazes I had ever seen—and I have looked into the eyes of death on more than one occasion.
“Who’s done this to you?” I asked in a calm, low voice. I had no idea why, and maybe it was the way she looked at me asking for nothing when most people would have begged and screamed, but I felt like she was mine now to protect, no matter the cost.
Just then the door swung open and a tall, muscular man stumbled out.
“You bitch can run, I give you that.” The man was an absolute giant, six-seven, maybe taller. A fistfight would not be advisable with a beast like that.
“Piss off, asshole,” he threatened me, pulling out a knife.
I rose to my feet. “You have ten seconds to leave,” I said with a low voice.
“You fucking joking?” the man growled back.
“Ten. Nine.” I started the countdown, but then one look at the woman again changed my mind.
“Ah, fuck that. Look away,” I said to her, stopping my countdown at eight as I pulled out my gun. The look of amusement in the giant’s expression faded from one second to next, just right before I pointed my gun at him and pulled the trigger. The echo of the shot thundered through the alley as the bear of a man dropped to the floor like a lifeless sack of rocks.
I tuned to the woman whose eyes were widened at me in fear and something else I couldn’t make out. I reached down to pick her up. Most women would have screamed for help or wiggled to fight me, but this one didn’t even move one inch.
“Good girl,” I said to her in a low voice. Her nails dug into my arms as I carried her into the direction of my car. “For as long as you’re with me, you do as I say.”
Chapter 2
Elise
Moments ago, I had made my peace with leaving this piece-of-shit world that had tortured me all my life. I had fought my husband and his thugs for too long already. So when I finally fell onto the hard, cold concrete in an attempt to flee Loronzo, his righthand man, something in me had just given up. I had lain in my own puddle of blood when I decided I was too tired of running just one more step. I could rise no more. And as sad as it was, I told myself it was okay. I had given my asshole husband a hell of a fight, an ordinary woman against one of the East Coast’s biggest mobsters. I would leave this world proudly, and at least I would be finally free.
But then my eyes found his. A stranger as handsome as the devil. Muscular, lean, tall. At first, I thought the poor guy had no idea what he was getting into. I gave him permission to not even bother, to keep walking and save himself. But he leaned over, his touch on my beaten face like the warmth of the summer sun on a frosty morning. I was struck by his fearless calm.
I expected Loronzo to punch the stranger straight in the face, even stab him if that wouldn’t do. Loronzo had been working for my husband for the past ten years, carrying out his dark business, running errands in the shadows. If someone needed to die, he was the chief executioner.
But this elegant stranger had the balls to threaten him.
Loronzo tensed his neck with rage, pulled out a knife, but in no time the stranger told me to look away and shot Loronzo right in the chest. Loronzo’s bewildered face and body dropped right next to mine. His dull eyes and mouth were torn open in horror.
I almost smiled in relief.
Later, Loronzo. Guess I am the last woman you get to beat.
But none of this was anything to grin about. This whole thing was a mess, a calamity that would beget a bigger calamity. Not only did I escape again, but this time someone also killed one of my husband’s favorite thugs. I had no doubt he would now make it his only goal in life to kill me.
The smart thing would be to get up and run, but I didn’t know where I could go. I had started running months ago, but they always found me. I sniffed back tears and willed the tightness in my throat away. With the help of a friend, I had escaped to South Africa. But like the devil my husband was, he’d even found me here, thousands and thousands of miles away from New York.
So, when this dark knight bent down and, in one smooth movement, slid his arms under me as he lifted me off the ground, I dug my nails into his steel-hard arms—not to fight him, but to make sure he wouldn’t let go. He lowered his voice and whispered to me, “For as long as you’re with me, you do as I say.”
And as tired as I was of life on the run from my husband, I was okay with that.
Most people would tell me to run. That this man was a killer and a monster just like my ex. But in the world I lived in, this was the only sort of man a woman like me needed by her side. And what else could he possibly do that hadn’t been done to me already?
The answer to this question was as depressing as it was true.
Not much.
I leaned my head against his chest as he carried me. I could feel the ripple of his muscles beneath his jacket, and the strength of them soothed me somehow. Maybe I was tired, maybe it was just my nerves, but in that moment, I felt that he would be able to protect me even from a monster like my ex.
He carried me a few blocks, then stopped in front of a black SUV.
“Can you walk?” he asked. I nodded, so he put me down. It was silly, but somehow I regretted being back on me feet again. In his arms, I was like a little lamb protected by her shepherd. I willed my eyes to scan the street around me.
Some cabs drove past us, honking their horns. I couldn’t help myself and my eyes drifted up to the stranger’s face with curiosity. He looked down at me.
“What?” he asked.
“No . . . nothing . . .”
He put his hands in his pocket and brought out a wad of cash. He didn’t count the bills, he just pulled out a few notes and handed me the rest.
“If you want to, go home.” He added, “Or rent a hotel somewhere safe. Do whatever you need to. Call the police or have someone pick you up. But if you get in this car with me, you do as I say.”
He walked around to the black SUV’s driver side and opened the door.
My stomach fell. I couldn’t go on like I had been. I couldn’t just go to another hotel tonight, and I didn’t know where else to go. I had been running for so long, but in the few minutes I’d spent with this total stranger, a killer, I’d felt safer than I’d felt for months.
“Wait,” I said firmly, then smiled sheepishly. “Can I go where you go?”
“Not advisable. Whatever trouble you’re in, I’m in more.”
“I doubt that.” I wiped the blood from my lips with my sleeve. The metallic taste became less. My teeth had sunken onto my tongue when Loronzo had hit me in the face. It bled like hell but wasn’t anything too worrisome.
His brows knitted above his blue eyes and he paused for a moment, searching my face as if he would find some answers in it.
“Please,” I whispered. “Maybe just for the night. Tomorrow, I’ll figure something else out.”
He pressed his lips together in thought. “Again. Not advisable.”
“Please.”
“You’d have to do as I say. No buts or ifs.”
I nodded enthusiastically.
He sighed. “Get in.”
I opened the door and slid onto the passenger seat. The car growled to life and we were moving.
He was quiet as he drove, and I allowed my thoughts to wander a bit. I thought back over the last hour—this strange man who’d stumbled into my life and what I knew of him. I could already tell he wasn’t from Durban. His accent had given him away. American like me. But what the hell was he doing here in South Africa shooting people?
I sighed and looked out the window. I felt him hit the gas and I looked at the speedometer. It read ninety miles per hour. We were running, and that was exactly what I wanted. Getting out of the city as fast as possible? Count me in.
I took a deep breath and allowed my head to roll back against the headrest, then turned toward him. Our eyes met briefly. He had been wearing a baseball cap this whole time, so it had been hard to see his face well. But he was tall, well-built, and strong. His icy-blue eyes seemed cold and distant.
The car was getting hot, and I watched as he tugged at his jacket, one hand still on the steering wheel. When he managed to wiggle out of the coat, he flung it into the car’s back seat. His sleeves of his button-down shirt were rolled up, revealing his perfect muscles—and those tattoos! Both arms, even part of his neck, were covered in tattoos. Rings, skulls, and stars.
The marks of the Russian mob.
I sighed . . . in relief. My husband was Italian. This man didn’t work for him. No Russian ever would.
I stared at his arms. Maybe I could make out a symbol that would give his clan away? But when his cold eyes glanced at me, I willed my gaze away and stared out the windshield.
I cleared my throat. “Thank you.”
He nodded, removed his hat, and placed it on the dashboard. His face was clean shaven, which complemented his basalt jaw and broad shoulders. He kinda reminded me of the actor in the Russian mobster movie Eastern Promises. Which matched the way he had taken out Loronzo. Not even a blink.
When he looked at me, his eyes showed a glimmer of warmth for the first time. It only added to the intensity of the moment—that sex appeal, that mystery.
He looked away, leaving me to wonder how safe I would still feel in his arms now that I knew he was Russian mob.
I faintly smiled and bit my lower lip, hands on my thighs.
“This is only for tonight. So what are your plans for tomorrow?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess just to get to the hotel on Sandile Thusi Road. Spend the night there and then figure out where to go next.”
“You think it will be safe there?”
“Not really,” I said drearily.
He was quiet for a moment, thinking. “Who was that guy?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I lied. As a mobster himself, there was no way he didn’t know who my husband was. Everybody knew Marcello Russo, the monster who ran the drug and women trafficking ring. The very two reasons why I’d rather die running than living lavishly at his side.
But if whoever my dark knight was found out who was really after me, he’d stop the car right here and throw me out.
The gunshot echoed in my head and the memory of Loronzo’s horrific face dropping next to me made me shiver. He deserved it, but still . . .
The man watched me, then nodded. “All right . . .” was all he said.
We drove past the Girls’ College in Essenwood and made a left turn. I’d spent some nights around here a month ago. I’d stop by a local café and spend the money I’d stolen from Marcello on buying books. I relished those moments, imagining I was free from my husband with endless cash. No walking on eggshells any longer. No more torture when my mouth opened and he didn’t like what came out.
I turned to look at my savior. He was watching me again, pushing his back against the seat and moistening his lips with his tongue.
“What’s your name?” I asked. “I’m Elise.”
He remained silent, so I added, “Considering what we just went through together, I thought it would be nice to know each other’s names.”
“Andrei,” he returned.
I stared at the road. Nothing seemed familiar. Everything felt different in the dark. Wherever this man was taking me, he could do with me as he pleased. But so what?
I can’t go back. I don’t want to. Not ever.
“We’re almost there,” he said. “But don’t expect much.”
About Denise Daye:
Author Info
Denise is an Amazon best-selling author who graduated with a master’s in Social Work from an ivy league school, the University of Pennsylvania. She has spent many years of her life supporting families and individuals in need of assistance. She has always had a passion for reading and writing, especially steamy romance, but it wasn't until her own baby boy was born that Denise turned her passion into her profession. Whenever Denise is not typing away on one of her books, you can find her caring for her son (a.k.a. one of the toughest jobs in the world), binging Netflix with her beloved husband, or chasing after her puppy (who should technically be an adult dog by now).
Join Denise’s newsletter for romantic FREE books and exclusive material: https://www.timelesspapers.com/newsletter.html
Giveaway Details:
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winner will win a $10 Amazon GC courtesy of Rockstar Book Tours, International.
Ends March 14th, midnight EST.
Tour Schedule:
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2/27/2023 |
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3/10/2023 |
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Gorgeous cover, love it especially the colors!
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