by Beth Yarnall
My brother was a flaming idiot to run off with Kostya’s money. And he was a dead idiot for sure if Kostya got a hold of him.
“Can you get me in to see your uncle?” I asked.
“Why? Unless you’ve got two and a half million dollars, you’re not going to sway him. He wants his money and to set an example.”
“Please?” It was the second time tonight that I’d begged a favor from a man on behalf of my brother. I hated asking for favors and avoided asking for them like you’d avoid your creepy uncle who hugged too long and always wanted you to sit on his lap.
If Kostya didn’t kill Miguel I was going to for sure.
Sergei slid out of the booth and held his hand out for me to do the same. “I’ll take you to him, but I can’t promise you’ll get anywhere with him. He’s not a charitable man on a good day. And since he lost two and a half mil he’s barely civil.”
I put my hand in his and stood up. “I’ll take my chances.”
Sergei elected to ride in my car and have his chauffeured limousine follow us. I’d refused to ride in his limo. I wanted my own wheels should things go south with Kostya.
He directed me to the one restaurant in Phoenix that served authentic Russian cuisine. Ironically, Sergei didn’t like Russian food any more than he liked vodka, so he’d never taken me there.
I parked in the back as Sergei instructed. He put his arm around me as we approached the entrance. I let him. This was some kind of signal to the men at the door that I was allowed to enter. The inside of the restaurant was much fancier than the outside with plush chairs and heavy wooden tables. We found Kostya sitting alone at a table with a laptop open in front of him.
“Dyadya,” Sergei said, drawing the old man’s attention.
I’d met Kostya several times before when Sergei and I were together, so he recognized me. He said something in Russian to Sergei, and Sergei answered him back the same way. The old man shook his head sadly.
“Sit,” Kostya instructed. “Not you,” he told Sergei. “The pretty one. You give this to Anya.” He held out an envelope to Sergei. “And don’t come back until I call for you.” He turned to me when Sergei was out of earshot. “You have news of your brother and my money?”
“No. If I knew where he was I would’ve dragged his behind in here and made him give it back to you.”
“I don’t like being made a fool of.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Neither does my nephew.”
I was pretty sure he was talking about more than Sergei’s business venture with Miguel. Sergei and I had some unfinished business that as far as I was concerned could stay unfinished.
“And I don’t like having an idiot for a brother. Looks bad on my resume.”
“Ha! Pretty and funny. I like you. Always did.”
“Don’t forget smart. I’ll do what I can to get him back here…with your money.”
He stared at me for a moment. “What makes you think you can convince him to do this?”
“I have my ways. I’ll make you a deal: If I find my brother and bring him back here with your money, you don’t kill him.”
“And if I find him first?”
“Then I’ll have a dead idiot for a brother.”
He barked out another laugh, smacking his palm on the table and making his computer jump. “I like you a lot. You have guts. I’ll make that deal with you. On one condition.”
I never thought I’d get this far with the old man. He could slap whatever condition he wanted on the deal. “What’s that?”
“Sergei goes with you.”
Except that one.
I thought about the FBI Special Agent lying naked in my bed right now and it was on the tip of my tongue to tell Kostya no, no way in hell. But then I thought about my mother and how she’d blame me for Miguel’s death even though I’d have nothing to do with it. Not to mention the fact that I’d also have a dead brother. On the other side was a possible road trip with Sergei and a very pissed-off boyfriend.
“That won’t work for me,” I told him. “Sergei could tip you off.” There. Logic.
“Are you calling me a cheat?”
Shoot. Not very well-thought-out logic. “Not you. Sergei.”
“You know better.”
Kostya didn’t know his nephew like I did. Sergei would cheat a nun out of her scriptures if it made him money. “I don’t think it would be a good idea if we spent time together.”
“That’s my deal. Take it or leave it.”
Frick. Frack. Frikity frack!
As I shook Kostya’s hand, sealing the deal, I cursed my stupid brother and his stupid greed. Kostya would get his money back, but my brother’s life was still up in the air. I’d make darn sure Kostya didn’t get his hands on Miguel…so I could kill him myself.
I sneaked back into my apartment like a teenager breaking curfew. It was dead quiet. I kicked off my shoes and unzipped my dress just inside the door, then I tossed the dress down where I’d dropped it earlier when I’d seduced Super Agent and tiptoed down the hall. I could just make out Super Agent’s form in the bed. I’d done it!
The light clicked on. Super Agent sat up in bed wearing a look I’d never seen before. A very scary look.
“Where have you been?”
At this rate my brother was going to cost me more than a few lost hours of sleep. I took off the rest of my clothes, hoping to distract him again. No such luck.
“Maggie,” he warned.
I sighed and slipped into bed next to him. “Out looking for Miguel.”
“Is there a reason you didn’t take your cell phone?”
“I forgot?”
“Where did you go?”
“I went to see the man whose money Miguel absconded with.”
He tilted his head to the side. “What?”
“That investment thing Miguel had going? Turns out it was some kind of Ponzi scheme he cooked up. Miguel decided to take off with the money. Two and a half mil and then some.”
“Who was this man you went to see?”
“Kostya Levkova.”
“Uncle of Sergei Levkova and reputed mob boss…that Kostya Levkova?”
“That’s the one.” Wait. How did he…? “How long have you been awake?”
“Since you wiggled out of my arms and snuck out the front door.”
Frick. Frack. Frickin frack! I was clearly way out of practice. Back in the day I would’ve been in and out with no one the wiser. Ugh. I could only guess what Super Agent had been up to while I was gone. His favorite thing…research.
“You want to tell me about your real relationship with Sergei Levkova? The two of you didn’t just hang out, did you?”
“We did some of that.” In between a little breaking and entering and having sex like a couple of coked-up rabbits.
His gaze dropped to my chest, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t checking out my rack. “And getting matching tattoos.”
“Yeah, there was some of that too. You really want to hear about me and another guy?”
“I really don’t like being lied to.”
I went up to my knees and pointed at him. “And I really don’t like being accused of something I didn’t do.” Technically.
He flipped the covers back, got out of bed (naked!) and started gathering his clothes.
“Where are you going?”
He answered without looking at me. “Home.”
“Fine. You want to hear all about me and Sergei?”
I climbed off the bed and went to my dresser, the one with the special drawer. I unlatched the mechanism to the secret compartment and pulled out an envelope. Stomping all the way over to where Super Agent stood with his clothes bundle in his arms, I grew more and more furious.
There were very few things Super Agent didn’t know about me. He’d had me under surveillance for nearly a year while he investigated my dead senator ex-boyfriend. What wasn’t in my FBI file he got to fill in by watching me day in and day out. This envelope contained one of the few th
ings almost no one knew. My most precious and painful mistake.
I thrust the envelope at him with a look that dared him to take it this one step too far. There was no going back from this. He’d have stripped me bare of the most private parts of my life. We’d been on uneven ground from the start. This would put us miles apart. Miles I wasn’t sure we could ever cross.
“Well?” I challenged. “Aren’t you going to take it?”
He put his palm up, pushing the envelope back at me. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? You aren’t just accusing me of lying. What else are you accusing me of? Go on. Say it.”
“What am I supposed to think when you sneak out in the middle of the night to see your ex-boyfriend?”
“Right. Because that’s my MO. Sneaking off to see other men still stinking of sex and you.” It was kinda true in this case, but not the way he was making it out to be.
“Maggie.” He dropped his clothes and came toward me. “I’m sorry. I just can’t stand the thought of you with anyone else.”
Then he was really going to hate the little road trip I was about to take with Sergei.
“You either trust me or you don’t. Which is it?”
“I trust you.”
I glared at him for another minute before turning around and putting the envelope back. It was best left there hidden away in the dark where I didn’t have to think about it. I could feel his eyes on me as I climbed back into bed and turned away on my side. After a moment I felt the bed dip on the other side and the light went out.
Super Agent came up behind me and put his arm around me (still naked!). “I’m sorry.” He nuzzled my neck.
“If you think you’re getting any more tonight you’re as crazy as my Aunt Daisy.”
He chuckled. “I won’t push my luck.”
“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said since I came home.”
~*~
Super Agent kissed me goodbye the next morning, putting a little extra effort into it, which meant that by the time he was done I was swaying like a drunken sailor on deck during a massive storm.
“Wow” was all I could manage.
“I’ll see you tonight.” He opened the door to go off to work, but that’s as far as he got. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I peeked around Super Agent’s large frame to see who had made him go from zero to pissed-off in three-point-four seconds. For the love of all that’s fair!
Sergei.
The two squared off like a couple of bucks in mating season. I rolled my eyes at them and went in search of coffee. If it had been seven p.m. instead of a.m. I would’ve hit the hard stuff. It was way too early to deal with the waves of testosterone that pumped off of the two of them.
“Who the hell are you?” Sergei shot back.
“Let him in, Clive,” I told Super Agent.
Super Agent opened the door wider and waved Sergei in. They stood nearly eye-to-eye. While Super Agent had about thirty pounds of muscle on him, Sergei matched it in attitude. Super Agent closed the door but didn’t leave. He just stood there like a bouncer with his arms crossed.
This was going to be fun.
I made the introductions like we were at a cotillion or something equally civilized.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Sergei.
Sergei looked from me to Super Agent in his wrinkled suit and back again. It wasn’t too difficult for him to figure out what was going on here what with me still in my robe and a major case of bed-head. The flicker of hurt in his eyes didn’t surprise me, but it gave me a sharp pain in the chest all the same.
“I have a lead on Miguel,” Sergei finally said.
Super Agent stirred. “So give it to her and leave.”
“That’s not the deal.”
Darn Kostya and his darn deal!
“What deal?” Super Agent asked.
Sergei lifted a brow. “You don’t confide in him?”
“We were a little busy,” I shot back.
A corner of Super Agent’s mouth twitched.
Sergei got that look in his eye again. I knew it wasn’t fair of me to take my frustrations with Miguel and Kostya out on Sergei, but if we were going to do this thing I wanted to set some boundaries with him right off the bat.
I filled Super Agent in on the bargain I’d made with Kostya. Needless to say he was less than thrilled.
“No,” he said before I was even finished.
Sergei settled on the sofa for a ringside seat to my argument with Super Agent. I motioned for Super Agent to join me in the kitchen out of earshot.
“What happened to all that trust you had in me last night?” I whispered to Super Agent.
“I trust you, not him.”
“I’m doing this.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned in. “I can’t let anything happen to my brother. Please understand.”
He brought me in closer, smoothing his hands up my back. “You know I’m going to have to work this too.”
“You already are.”
“Are you going to give me the lead he says he’s got?”
“Depends on if it’s a good one or not.”
“You frustrate me.”
“You like it.”
He touched his forehead to mine. “I like it too much. Be careful.”
“I will.” I put a hand to his cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” And then he kissed me long and deep, going all out to prove a point to Sergei, who had clicked the TV on as soon as I put my arms around Super Agent. “I don’t trust him,” he said again when he finally let me up for air.
“I don’t either, but I do know that he’d never hurt me.” At least not physically.
To say Sergei’s and my relationship had been complicated was an understatement. There’d been a lot of pain that hadn’t ended when we had. I could almost feel the envelope through the wall to my bedroom. It contained the one thread I couldn’t cut that would always tie me to Sergei.
“Miguel hasn’t used his credit cards so wherever he is, he’s using cash,” Super Agent said.
“Thanks for the info.”
I walked Super Agent to the door and he gave me another kiss that had me fanning myself as I closed it after him.
“Sleeping with a cop,” Sergei said, clicking the TV off. “You can’t be that desperate.”
Sergei and I had both honed the skill of police-spotting at an early age.
“He’s a Special Agent with the FBI.”
“A Fed? Kostya’s not going to be happy about this.”
“Kostya can kiss my shapely behind. He made this deal. If he had more conditions then he should’ve been upfront about them. Besides, who’s going to tell him?” I glared at Sergei, daring him to snitch.
“He’ll find out one way or another.”
“Not my problem.”
My cell phone rang. Alice. I really didn’t have time to hold her hand.
“Hi, Alice.”
“Have you found him yet?”
“No, but I’m working on it.”
“I really need you to find him, Maggie.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“No. I mean I really need you to find him… I’m pregnant.”
I felt around for the barstool and sat down. “What?”
“You’re going to be an aunt.”
The joy in her voice made me unreasonably angry. How could Miguel have done this? I wished I shared her happiness. Best-case scenario here would be Miguel in prison, worst case…well, it would be the worst possible case. What kind of father could he possibly be?
“Congratulations,” I muttered. “I gotta go. Bye.”
I clicked End Call and turned to Sergei. “We need to find my jerk of a brother. Now. What’s your lead?”
“It’s not so much a lead as a hunch. A few months back we were shooting the breeze and he mentioned this place in Oregon. Coo or Coop something—”
“Oh, my God. I can’t believe I’m related to him so
metimes.”
“You know the place?”
“Coos Bay. Our dad took us up there to camp for his yearly forced visitation when we were kids. It makes sense. Clive says Miguel hasn’t used his credit cards.”
“It’ll be a long drive.”
“Let’s make sure he’s there before we hop in the car, Thelma.”
I brought up the campground we used to go to on my computer and called them. If Miguel was dumb enough to hide at the campground then he was probably dumb enough to use his usual alias.
“Hi. I wanted to check and make sure my husband made it to your campground. He’s not answering his cell and… Uh-huh. Michael Cast. Thank you so much. It’s good to know he’s alive so I can kill him.” I hung up the phone and rolled my eyes at my stupid brother’s complete and total stupidity. “He’s there,” I told Sergei. “Looks like we’re going north.”
Sergei and I flew to Eugene, Oregon, then rented a car to drive the rest of the way. We could’ve flown into a smaller airport within ten miles of Coos Bay, but besides the expense—which Sergei had offered to pay—we couldn’t give Kostya too big a clue as to where we were headed. Landing in Oregon was bad enough. We didn’t need to give him a road map with a big red arrow on it—Lookie! Here he is!
According to Super Agent, the FBI had gotten wind of Miguel’s little “investment” company shortly before he’d skipped town. Now that he was on the run they were more eager than ever to find him. We now had a three-way race. Actually a three-and-a-half-way race since I’d made a little side deal with Super Agent as backup insurance before boarding the plane with Sergei. I honestly didn’t care if the FBI beat us to Miguel as long as Kostya didn’t.
“We’re going to have to pay cash from here on out,” Sergei said as we climbed into our rental car. “And pop the batteries out of our cell phones so they can’t be tracked.”
We’d kept up only the most necessary communication. Eye contact was brief and awkward. I was having a really difficult time being around him again. Too many memories, too much to avoid talking about.
Sergei pulled out a paper map and handed it to me. “Old school.”
I unfolded the map, nearly clocking him in the jaw and causing him to crash. “Sorry.”
“No problem.”
Like I said, minimal communication.