KISSING THE
ENEMY
HELENA NEWBURY
FOSTER & BLACK
CONTENTS
Copyright
1. Angelo
2. Irina
3. Angelo
4. Irina
5. Angelo
6. Irina
7. Angelo
8. Angelo
9. Irina
10. Angelo
11. Irina
12. Angelo
13. Irina
14. Angelo
15. Irina
16. Angelo
17. Irina
18. Irina
19. Irina
20. Angelo
21. Angelo
22. Irina
23. Angelo
24. Irina
25. Angelo
26. Irina
27. Irina
28. Angelo
29. Irina
30. Irina
31. Angelo
32. Angelo
33. Irina
34. Angelo
35. Irina
36. Irina
37. Irina
38. Angelo
39. Irina
40. Angelo
41. Irina
42. Angelo
43. Irina
44. Angelo
45. Irina
46. Irina
47. Angelo
48. Irina
49. Angelo
50. Angelo
51. Irina
52. Angelo
53. Irina
54. Angelo
55. Angelo
56. Irina
57. Angelo
58. Irina
Epilogue
Lying and Kissing Chapter 1
Lying and Kissing Chapter 2
Lying and Kissing Chapter 3
Lying and Kissing Chapter 4
Contact Me
Copyright
© Copyright Helena Newbury 2016
The right of Helena Newbury to be identified as the
author of this work has been asserted by her in
accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act
1988
This book is entirely a work of fiction. All characters,
companies, organizations, products and events in this
book, other than those clearly in the public domain, are
fictitious or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to
any real persons, living or dead, events, companies,
organizations or products is purely coincidental.
This book contains adult scenes and is intended for
readers 18+.
Cover by Mayhem Cover Creations
Main cover model image licensed from (and copyright
remains with) Tverdohlib.com/Deposit Photos (head),
Curaphotography / Deposit Photos (body)
1
Angelo
It was raining, the day she danced into my life and
changed it forever.
It was February and New York hunkered under a sky
the same color as the sidewalk. Bullets of freezing water
hammered the car’s windows. I hate winter. Give me a
roasting summer sun any day. I got my driver to drop
me six feet from the building, but my hair and the back
of my neck were still soaked by the time I made it
inside.
People scattered ahead of me: my size or my expression
or maybe just my reputation. As I passed, the
receptionist got as far as calling, “Sir…?” before a
security guard put a hand on her arm and shook his
head. “That’s Angelo Baroni!” I heard him whisper.
Any other time, that would have pleased me. But I
wasn’t in the mood.
Up on the twentieth floor, I marched straight into the
office of Peterson, the little prick I’d come to see. He
turned pale as I came around his desk, craning his head
to look up at me. “Mr. Baroni! I wasn’t expecting—”
I put my foot on his chest and shoved. Peterson and his
office chair shot across the room towards the floor-to-
ceiling window. He screamed in terror, clutching at the
arms of the chair... and crashed to a stop. He sat there
panting, eyes huge, staring down at the ant-like people
twenty stories below. There were hairline cracks
spreading across the glass, but the toughened pane had
held.
This time.
I hooked my toe under the front of his chair and tugged
him back towards me, castors squeaking. My voice was
low and very, very cold. “You were good to me,” I told
Peterson. “You made sure our containers got through
customs. So I was good to you.”
Peterson nodded. Sweat was beading on his forehead
and trickling down under his shirt.
“But then you had to get greedy,” I said. And I shoved
his chair towards the window again. It crashed into the
weakened glass and this time there was a definite
cracking sound. A spider web of lines fanned out across
the glass. Peterson began to panic-breathe.
I’m a big guy. Six-three and most of it muscle. But
when I’m really pissed off, my voice can go what people
call dangerously quiet. I hauled Peterson back towards
me. “I even let you take bribes from other people. I said
you could smuggle what you wanted, except for one
thing. Do you remember what that one thing was?”
“I swear, Mr. Baroni, I don’t know what—”
I shoved his chair again, this time putting every ounce
of my anger into it, and it hit the glass with the force of
a quarterback going into a tackle. The window finally
caved, becoming a flexible sheet of frosted white held
together only by its safety film. “Women!” Peterson
screamed. “You said no women!”
“Women,” I confirmed. “You smuggled women. In my
fucking city.” I put my foot higher on Peterson’s chest
and pushed. The chair tipped, the whole window slowly
bowing outwards over the street twenty stories below.
Peterson’s feet lifted off the floor.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I told him. “You’re
going to keep our containers moving. You lose your cut
for the next six months. And if you ever, ever help
someone traffic women again, I’ll chain you to that
fucking chair and toss you into the harbor myself.”
Peterson nodded frantically. I lifted my foot and his
chair crashed down onto its wheels. Peterson hurled
himself out onto the carpet, then scrambled on hands
and knees away from the window. The temperature in
the office dropped as the outside air started to howl in
through a thousand little cracks.
“Thank you, Mr. Baroni.” Peterson dug in a pocket,
hands shaking. “Here! Take these. A gift. My company’s
a sponsor. Tickets to the ballet.”
“Do I look like I go to the fucking ballet?” I snatched the
little strips of cardboard out of his hand and stuffed
them into the pocket of my overcoat. I could feel the
thick, black rage boiling up dangerously high in my chest
—I was this close to picking him up like a bag of trash
and hurling him through the glass for what he’d done.
But he was still useful to me and he wouldn’t dare try
anything like this again. So I straightened my tie and
smoothed down my lapels—my equivalent of counting
to ten—and stalked out of his office before I changed
my mind.
In the hallway, office workers scattered ahead of me.
The women shrank back against the wall, paperwork
clutched to their chests, eyes a little too wide and
breathing a little too fast to be just fear. When I’d gone,
they’d tell each other how terrified they’d been, and how
they hated men like me. And then, that night when they
were all alone, their hands would creep down between
their thighs….
That’s what I am to them: a monster, a fantasy. I live
outside their safe, happy little world and I’m fine with
that. I don’t want their fucking world. I have my own,
one built on power, honor and respect. One that
touches theirs in a thousand subtle ways every single
day.
Those designer sneakers that were such a bargain?
They came from us: we stole the truck carrying them
and sold them off cheap. That cute little coffee shop you