Randy’s nostrils flared with another, harder, sigh.
“You’re still going behind a desk, Barrett.”
Eija opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand.
“Dominik Sokolov is back in Moscow. That means the transfer of power will happen as planned. Luckily, we still have quite some time before the ceremony, the Koronatsiya, but we’ll have to start from scratch. Colin will take the lead on this one.”
She wanted to vault from her chair and demand the roles be reversed, but they hadn’t thrown her out on her ass. Had it not been for the dynamics of her mentor-mentee relationship with Randy, she would have been packing her bags yesterday.
She nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Why do you want this so much, E?” Randy asked, studying her with his head slightly cocked to the side. “The Russians did some dirty shit to you or something?”
Whenever he called her E, that meant he’d transitioned from Randy the hard-ass to Randy the mentor.
“The one that got away,” she said, and it was an odd moment to think about Andrei, but she pushed the memory to the side. “The Sokolov Crime Family is my golden egg, and each time I reach out, they move just past the length of my fingers. I want to be the one to put a face to Dominik Sokolov’s Red Notice.”
Randy smiled. “If every officer here had both you and Favreau’s bite, I could retire at the end of the year.”
“So, we’re back on it?” Colin asked.
Randy hesitated, back to picking his lip. “Yes, and that work starts today. Eija, I want you inside that family unit, in some capacity, before the transition ceremony in eighteen months. I don’t care how you do it. Make it happen.”
Eija stood.
Randy flitted his fingers at the door. “Go. I’ll have someone send Vasily back to his keep.”
She turned to leave.
“And remember what I said, Eija. Stick to the objective at hand.”
Her jaw pulsed. “I understand, sir.”
The door to Randy’s office opened. Another agent, Tyrese Janvier, started to enter but pulled up short.
“What is it?” Eija asked.
“Your suspect’s dead.”
“How?”
Tyrese stuck a finger in his mouth and tapped one of his canines. “He had cyanide hidden in a fake tooth.”
Eija closed her eyes and said a quick prayer before she asked the next question.
“Is it the blond one or the one with all the tattoos?”
“The blond. The tattoo guy’s already dead. Same method.”
“Fuck.” She wanted to slam her fist against something, but only Tyrese was nearby, and he took a half step backward. “This Sokolov shit can’t possibly get worse.”
Colin squeezed her shoulders from behind. “The moment someone uses that phrase, things get worse. Shut it. Let’s go. We have next to no time to prepare. We have to get a team together.”
Eija left Yuri’s office and headed directly to hers.
“Where are you, Dom?” she whispered to herself, her palms pressed on her desktop. The photos of Ekaterina and Yuri stared back at her from their perch on top of a world map. “I want to see your face.”
“Hey, E?”
She looked up. “April. Come in.”
April Silva was her protege; the slightly younger woman just didn’t know it yet. They had a lot in common—island backgrounds, notable achievements and accolades, and a tenuous relationship with authority. Though, April was less inclined to sit topless on a target’s lap.
“Before we head to start the Sokolov meeting, I wanted to run something by you,” April said, her low, jet black haircut perfectly suited to her oblong face and mahogany skin tone. “Randy believes Nikolai Sokolov will be our in.”
“Yuri’s grandson?” Eija asked. “Why?”
“He has a nanny who’s with him everywhere he goes. However,” April handed over an image, “Yuri might be sleeping with the nanny.”
The picture clearly indicated something was going on. Yuri, the younger woman, and Nikolai were in attendance at Wimbledon, and Yuri’s lips were close to the nanny’s ears. From the smile on her face, whatever Yuri told her was salacious in a way the woman loved.
“That’s going to be difficult as hell to pull off,” Eija pointed out. “The nanny’s one of the closest roles to the family.”
“Me, you, Randy, and Colin can pull this off. I’m sure of it.” April looked down when she said Colin’s name and then changed the subject, much like Colin did whenever April was mentioned. “On another note, E, how was it to be back in tropics?”
Eija tried not to think of Andrei.
If they’d had more time, it made her shudder to think what they could have become. What she could have felt for him.
“It was,” she clicked her tongue, “fun.”
April cocked her head to the side. “Oh…fun.”
“Dinner at my place. I’ll tell you all about it. How detailed do you want me to get?”
“Very.” April leaned closer to her. “Anyone special?”
“Kind of.”
“Aww—”
“Ugh, stop.” Eija laughed and stepped from behind her desk. “Let’s go. We’ll catch up tonight. Should I invite Colin?”
April looked toward an overstuffed bookshelf on the wall that wasn’t nearly as interesting as her current expression made it seem.
“You can do what you want.”
“Aww—”
“Ugh.” April followed her out of the office. “Stop.”
Chapter 7
15 months later
Moscow, Russia
Three months until Koronatsiya
Dominik stared at the woman across the table from him. She wasn’t terrible company—she had a pretty face and a nice voice. It was obvious she was educated and the kind of woman who would be happy as a diplomat’s wife or something along the same vein. She’d known the restaurant where they’d arranged to have dinner was named after Alexander Pushkin. She’d even known about some of the history and architecture of the building, speaking confidently and eloquently.
They dined in a private hall with ornate columns, a crackling fireplace, and crystal chandeliers. It was the kind of place his father should have taken his mother. She’d deserved to be wined and dined and fawned over. Instead, all Yuri had wanted from her was for her to be on her back when he called and exclusively available until he grew bored.
“And my mother actually helps my father with all the contracts.”
Dom looked up into green eyes and long brown hair that flowed past the table’s edge, with no recollection of any part of their conversation.
“You could expect that kind of due diligence from me as your wife.”
He closed his menu and clasped his fingers on top of the table. “Leila—”
“Leah.”
“Leah, I have a personal question for you.” He motioned to her, himself. “Why are you doing this? What would possess you, a woman with a law degree from Cambridge, to get tied up in something so…archaic?”
Three months to the day, on the same night as the koronatsiya, there was a ceremony known as Dostavka. There he was supposed to present his future wife to the heads of all the major crime syndicates in attendance, including the heads of the different factions of the Bratva. That meant he had three months to choose a wife, and due to the Bratva’s longstanding position of power within the realm of organized crime, his choice had to be calculated.
Leah cleared her throat, visibly uncomfortable. “It’s my duty, Dominik. Same as you. You know what our union would mean for our families.”
It wasn’t that she wasn’t pretty. She was beautiful, educated, and he supposed if he actually listened to her, she would make good company. But he didn’t want a wife. Even if he did, he wouldn’t choose one this way, and he would never allow his father to choose one for him.
“Don’t you want to marry for love?” he asked. “Isn’t that what people want these days, if they want
to marry at all?”
“My parents didn’t marry for love, but they learned to love each other over time.”
“And you think that could happen between you and me?”
She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Yes. I do.”
He had at least a dozen other prospects to choose from, all who looked nearly identical to this one. His father knew absolutely nothing about his tastes if he hadn’t so much as attempted to diversify his female companions.
He’d tried finding Eija for several months after their last night together, but then he gave up when he realized he’d left in the middle of the night after having sex with her. Note or not, he was probably the last person she’d want to hear from.
“In addition, we’re both attractive.” Leah lowered her lashes and ran her fingers through her hair. “If not love, there are other things we can connect on.”
That, he hadn’t expected, and he liked the hidden twist.
“I’m a lot of man to handle.”
Her cheeks pinked. “So I’ve noticed.”
He wanted her to ask him why it was fair that he was the one with the right to make the choice. She came from a well-known Italian family. Her grandparents had ties to the Bratva going back decades. She didn’t need any of this if she truly wanted something else.
Their server entered through a door behind them and asked, in Russian, if they were ready to order.
“What do you think I should have for dinner, Leah?” he asked.
She scrunched her nose. “I don’t know you well enough to make that decision.”
“I don’t mind if you guess.”
“In time, if things work out between us, I’d be happy to. Please let her know I’d like the ravioli.”
He ordered ravioli for her and a rack of lamb with cherry sauce for him.
They ate in silence, and he found his mind going back to the Fish Friday in Grenada. Fancy restaurants were nice, and he didn’t mind a setup like this every once in a while. But, for balance, he wouldn’t say no to another evening eating street food while listening to lively music with arms wrapped around him from behind.
After dinner, they returned to his father’s penthouse where all the women and their families were currently staying as guests. When the car stopped in the parking deck, Leah kept her head tilted toward the hands she wrung in her lap. Her teeth grated over her bottom lip.
“Everything okay?” Dom asked, turning half of his body her way. “You seem on edge. You didn’t have a good time?”
“I did.” She chanced a glance his way, cheeks turning the color of roses. “But, to be honest, when Yuri told me his nephew would be going up for Koronatsiya, I wasn’t expecting…you.”
He tipped up an eyebrow. “How so?”
“You’re,” she darted another glance his way, “very attractive.”
“And you’re so red, I could cut you open and still wouldn’t be able to tell where you bleed.”
She choked out a nervous laugh. “I suppose I am. I’ve never been in a situation like this.”
“You want something.”
Her head slowly bobbed. “I do.”
“Tell me what you want.”
“I, uh,” she tugged on her fingers, “would like to kiss you good night.”
Dom spread his arms wide, extending one behind her head in the back of the Maybach. Heat suffused the cabin, casting a foggy mist over the windows. Her chest rose in a quick tempo.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked.
She sucked in a breath, turned, and dove for his mouth. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of brown.
“Ouch!”
He blinked Leah back into focus and found her rubbing her lip.
“What happened?” He asked the question to the woman in the car, but his eyes searched the penthouse doors for the woman he swore he’d seen standing there seconds ago.
“Teeth,” Leah said.
Dom tore his attention from the doors and let it all fall on Leah. “To be my wife, you’re going to have to learn how to take a little bite, sweetheart.”
She replied with a breathy, “Okay.”
Dom tapped on the window and one of the house staff opened Leah’s door. She cast a glance back at him but then left without another word. He was about to go home when the door on his side opened and Pavel peered in.
“Yuri needs to see you.”
He followed Pavel to the far end of the penthouse where Yuri’s office was located. Yuri sat at his desk, his headful of wavy silver hair bowed over a short stack of papers. A large framed black and white photo of him, Ekaterina, and their daughters took up most of the office’s right wall, a room that had been designed primarily with wooden accents, leafy plants, and olive paint. Dom didn’t look at the photos on the left wall where he’d find images of him over the years interspersed with uncles, nephews, and cousins, burying him like a Where’s Waldo? book. Behind Yuri, views of the sparkling center of Moscow at nighttime glimmered, the lights along the Yauza river, the Kremlin, and Evolution Tower in the distance.
Pavel stood behind Yuri and off to the side at his left hand. The family housecat, a gray, domestic shorthair they’d named Lyubov, prowled around the office as though papers and pen would transform into prey.
Dom sat in the leather guest chair on the other side of the desk. When he’d left, his father’s deep voice bellowing objections for him to stay at his back, he’d always anticipated his return. His aunt had warned him that once the Brotherhood sank its fangs into its prey, it locked its jaw.
He hadn’t expected to love the city again. He didn’t like the reason he was there and didn’t care for the people he spent time with, but that wasn’t the city’s fault. It wasn’t even the country’s fault. Every nation had its waste.
Yuri’s hand moved in quick succession, signing papers in a folio on his desk. “Pavel, can you get me a cigar?” he asked. “I want to smoke with my son.”
Pavel left the room and came back with a thick Cuban, already cut, on a silver platter.
Smoking cigars wasn’t something Dom indulged in much, but it was a good way to unwind. As much acrimony as he’d had toward Yuri over the years, he could admit that it felt good to sit across from his father having a cigar like a son Yuri hadn’t spent his life denying.
Pavel held a lighter to the butt of the cigar, and Yuri took two puffs, leaned back, and propped his expensive loafers up on his desk. Lyu strolled over and tangled her claws in his dress socks.
“How was your evening, my son?” Yuri asked. “Leah, she’s a member of the Strinati family.”
Dom did his best to dance around the question. “What’s their family into?”
“Her great-grandfather, Nuncio, is a former Boss of the Sicilian mafia.”
“La Cosa Nostra?”
Yuri flicked his wrist, the smoke creating a ring around him. “Nothing so sentimental.”
“What if I want a nice, normal girl?” Dom asked. “Maybe a teacher.”
Yuri stared at him, wordless for a moment.
“It’s a serious question. What about an opera singer? A concert pianist?” A woman with a passion that consumed so much of her time, they would scarcely see each other. “An actress from America.”
Groaning, Yuri took another puff. “You’re sending me to an early grave, Dominik.”
“Okay, what if she looked different?”
“Different how?”
“Shape, hair, eyes. Skin.”
Yuri slid his feet off the desktop, left his chair, and walked around to perch on the edge. Lyu curled up next to him.
“An exotic woman?”
Dom shrugged. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
“As a mistress, I highly recommend it.” Yuri nodded, the corners of his mouth drawn down. “But not as a wife. You’ve lived abroad for too long. You do understand how things work for us?”
Dom took a puff. “No. Why don’t you explain it to me?”
“The woman from…what’
s the island called, Pavel?”
“Grenada,” Pavel supplied.
“Yes, Grenada. The woman I found you in bed with, what was her background?”
“I don’t see why that matters.”
“Then, I’ll make a guess. She was a local. And her type, they are vixens in the bedroom. Their bodies were made for cock.” He slowly shook his head, a corner of his bottom lip between his teeth. “However, it’s the optics, my son. I love all women, but there is a way things are done. The Brotherhood would not accept a woman like her on your arm.”
Yuri knew more about Eija than he’d claimed, and Dom didn’t trust that it had taken over a year for this to become evident to him.
“Got it,” Dom said. “Optics.”
Yuri spoke to him about more business.
Dom listened to half of it. It wasn’t until he heard his nephew’s name that he found himself once again engaged in the conversation.
“Nikolai has a new nanny?” he asked. “Since when?”
Whenever he and Nikolai spent time together, it was at his apartment or somewhere outside the city. A few times, outside the country. Every trip to the Sokolov penthouse, at least for him, had to be meticulously planned.
“He talks about her all the time, Dominik. Perhaps you should come around more often.”
“Miss…Miss…” Dom tried to pull up the name. “Korich-nevna.”
“Nikolai is really taken with her. He says they’re going to be married when he grows up. Maybe, by then, the world will change, and he’ll be able to do just that as the head of all this.”
Nikolai's mother, Sonya, had died when Nikolai was a year old. She’d lost the battle against potent pharmaceuticals and illicit substances, which she’d been exposed to because the family had a major hand in their global circulation. Because she’d used while pregnant, the first three years of Nikolai's life had been filled with endless medical specialists. It was part of what Dom had learned since he returned, and he’d bonded rather quickly with his five-year-old nephew.
The door behind them squeaked, and Nikolai came charging into the room.
“Papa!”
“My boy.” Yuri grabbed him up in a hug. “Are you all ready for bed?”
Prince of the Brotherhood: A Mafia Romance Page 6