With the issue settled, Yuri’s attention went back to Eija’s chest. Even when she didn’t want them to be, her breasts always seemed to end up exposed. This, she wouldn’t tell Colin. He was a gossip, and all her stories made it back to the agency, turning her into a walking wet pussy.
Speaking of which…
Eija glanced at Lyu who, thankfully, looked better than she had a minute ago.
“Oh, Miss K!” Leah stepped in front of her. “You’ll need to change. I’m so sorry for startling you.”
“What were you two doing in here?” Dom questioned. “Miss K, did you need something from me? Maybe you reconsidered my offer?”
It was Eija’s face’s turn to burn.
“Miss K was already in here,” Leah said, uselessly attempting to tug both halves of Eija’s shirt back together until Eija had to swat her hands away. “I followed her in here.”
Though Yuri and Pavel asked the same question, they asked with different undertones: “Why’d you follow her in here alone?”
“I followed the cat,” Eija said. “I think I’m about ready to give up on her liking me. Plus, I didn’t want her to destroy anything in here. I grew up with a cat. I know how they can be.”
Pavel remained skeptical.
Yuri nodded. “Thank you. She’s not supposed to be in here without me. How’d she get in?”
“The door was cracked,” Eija answered.
Dom and Pavel glanced at each other.
“Gideon must have forgotten to close it when I sent him up here earlier,” Yuri said. “I’ll make sure he remembers next time. Ladies?”
Eija and Leah left the office, Pavel trailing behind them, holding Lyu like he had no clue what to do with her. At the end of the hallway, they split up—Leah went up to the third floor where the rest of the potential wives were housed. Eija and Pavel headed downstairs.
“We’ll stop by your place on the way,” Pavel said. “So you can change your top. Then, according to Gideon, you have lunch?”
Eija nodded. “That’s right. But, can we go to my place after the vet? I’d like Lyu to see someone as soon as possible. I have my coat to cover…these.”
“Are you sure, Miss K?”
“Ahh, yeah. I nearly killed her.”
“If Nikolai didn’t kill her as a child, you won’t. Trust me, she’s been through the wringer.” He cracked a rare smile. “Since I’m taking over for Gideon for the afternoon, will I be joining you for lunch, or do you usually eat alone?”
“I usually eat alone. Gideon’s joined me a few times, but I usually eat alone.”
“Are you meeting someone?”
She paused. “Yes. A man I met the other day while at the gym.”
“You know protocol is for us to check out anyone you intend to build a relationship with,” he reminded her. “It wouldn’t be the first time someone has tried to use staff to get closer to Yuri.”
They stopped at the door for Eija to slip into her coat, and then made their way to the parking deck where Gideon stood, the car door open. From the look on his face, she hoped she saw him again after this. It had only been a few months, but she’d grown to like him.
“To be honest, Pavel, this won’t be a relationship,” she confessed. “I’m not interested in anything with anyone. It’ll detract from my focus on Nikolai.”
He shot her a look, that look alone calling her bluff.
“That’s not the reason this man doesn’t interest you,” Pavel said, “but that’s all I will say about that.”
Given the circumstances from a few minutes ago, she didn’t know if he was implying she and Leah had been carrying on a secret relationship, or whether he knew she and Dom…flirted.
Gideon tipped his head. “Miss K, have a lovely lunch.”
“Thank you, Gideon.” She squeezed his wrist. “I’ll see you later?”
Though he nodded, his eyes said something different.
Chapter 12
“How did you find out that Dominik is my son?” Yuri asked, tugging on the trigger of a power drill.
Gideon yanked at the ropes around his wrists, but there would be no getting out. He’d secured Gideon’s hands and feet to a wooden chair. They were in the middle of nothing, just outside of Moscow. Not a single residence was near enough to hear his cries.
“Sir, I didn’t know,” Gideon pleaded. “I swear, I didn’t know.”
“Then why was Dominik attacked?”
Sweat poured in streams down Gideon’s temple. “When was he attacked?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t feign innocence.”
“I swear, sir.”
“So what are you saying, then?” Yuri stood over him. “You’re saying I orchestrated my son’s attack?”
“No, sir.”
Yuri pressed the drill bit against Gideon’s thigh. “That’s what it sounds like. You just called me a snitch. I’m my own snitch, Gideon?”
“I would never betray you, sir. I swear.”
Yuri depressed the trigger and bore down. Gideon screamed, the muscles in his neck straining.
Yuri let up, and Gideon slumped forward, breathing hard. “I don’t enjoy getting my hands dirty anymore, Gideon,” he said. “How could you make me do this?”
He moved to the other thigh, drilled again. Gideon no longer screamed, pain forcing him in and out of consciousness. Even if the man wasn’t responsible, someone had to be made a scapegoat until the actual canary was revealed. Gideon’s whereabouts were the only ones he hadn’t been able to account for at the time of the attack at Dom’s apartment.
“You won’t survive this.” He crouched and looked up into Gideon’s face. “So, I suggest you make peace with your God.”
Chapter 13
“It belonged to Dominik’s mother.” Eija stared at the necklace Colin turned, over and over, in his hand. “Yuri told me he’s going to give it to Dominik when he arrives.”
She felt sick.
But there was no going back now.
Periodically, they looked up and scanned their environment. The cafe where they’d met was far enough from the city center that she didn’t expect any of Yuri’s thugs to be walking around—other than Pavel, who lingered but kept his distance. They weren’t Secret Service. It wasn’t like she was such a vulnerability to national security, they had to watch her pee.
“Dominik’s mother.” Colin released a laugh of disbelief. “We never considered it couldn’t be Ekaterina. Do we at least know who she is?”
“No, but I’m thinking it was an affair of some sort.”
His head bobbed slowly, rhythmically. “How’d you get your hands on the necklace?”
“Chance. But, whatever you have to do to it, you only have tonight. I need to put it back in place before Yuri finds out I took it.”
“It’s actually quite beautiful. Simple and beautiful. Who do you think the woman engraved on it is?”
“Knowing Yuri?” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he engraved Dom’s mother on it.”
Colin flicked a glance her way. “Dom? Shit, E, you’ve been doing this too long. You’re getting familiar. After this, take an extended vacation.”
“I already planned to.”
“You forget that I know you. You have a tendency to change your mind.”
Work had taken too many things from her already. Despite organizing it, she’d almost missed her grandfather’s funeral, showing up at the last minute, and the tension she’d expected between her and her sister hadn’t occurred. At the end of the service, she’d even seen an opening, albeit tiny, for reconciliation…if work hadn’t been a factor. Even her father, who’d been a physician, had made time for family.
These months with Nana were precious and precarious, and she was missing them all the same. Without her sister, if she lost Nana, what else would she have?
Colin tore his attention away from the necklace. “Are you coming by after your shift?”
“As usual.”
“You didn’t come by last t
ime.”
“I ended later than,” she sighed, swallowing an unexpected bubble of tears, “anticipated.”
“You might think you’re incapable of love,” he said, “but the fact that you’re even taking this big of a risk tells me otherwise. If Randy found out you brought Nana on a top secret, covert op…”
She’d be suspended.
Or worse.
“It wasn’t like he gave me a choice,” she argued. “You were there when he said what he said. I can’t afford to lose everything I’ve worked for. Not now.”
“I know. I’m sorry you have to deal with all of this shit on top of having to take care of family.”
“Which is why I’ll never stop thanking you and April for stepping in.”
“Come on, Eija, me and you, we’re family. Plus, I’m trying to make April Mrs. Favreau, so she will be too.” He winked and dropped the necklace into his pocket. “Now, about London. What do you know?”
“Very little. It’s some sort of business function. Yuri wants me there as part translator and for my usual nanny duties. It’ll last one week, and Ludmila told me he goes twice a year. The meetings aren’t held in the same city every time, either.”
“Do you know where you’re staying?”
“The Havre.”
Colin whistled. “Nice. But, I don’t know, E. Are you sure you want to go out to England cold? It’s too risky. Thinking about it makes me all sick and shit. What if they make you?”
“It’s a risk I have to take, Colin. I can’t just not go.” She placed her hand on Colin’s. “We’ll have a way to communicate. I’ll be careful. Hell, I might be with Nikolai the entire time, and Yuri won’t let anything happen to Nikolai.”
Colin hated the plan; his desire to argue against it created lines on his face, and he flexed his forearms, over and over, in restraint. But speaking up wouldn’t matter. She had to go. If she didn’t, Yuri could fire her, and then what would they have?
“Now,” Eija began, “tell me about the photos I took.”
He chuffed out something between a laugh and a sigh, head shaking. “I don’t know what the fuck it is, E. Shit doesn’t make sense. It looks like, on every page, the person started sketching or writing something, got distracted, and never got back to it.”
“Have you sent the images to Randy yet?”
“Not yet. I want more time with it first.”
She scanned for anyone who might look out of place or too invested in their conversation.
“Well, I’ll see what else I can get in the meantime.”
“These photos and this necklace are huge, E.” His phone rang, and a smile spread across his face as he raised it to his ear. “April, what’s up?”
While he and April chatted, Eija ran through, in her mind, how she would return the necklace to Dom. After she returned it, she’d then have to tell Colin when Dom, specifically, wore it. She didn’t know if they’d seen her with him already and, because she hadn’t ID’d him as Dom, they didn’t ask her who the tall, gray-eyed man was. If they had, she’d have some explaining to do once that information became known.
Colin ended the call and set his phone on the table. “There’s a meeting going down tonight over in St. Petersburg. Word is the Bratva prince might be there.”
“St. Pete?” She angled her head. “Could it be that he’s been there this entire time?”
“Could be.”
“So…what? Late night surveillance?”
“Are you up for that?”
She waved away the question. It had to be her, and he knew it. “I’ll be downstairs and ready tonight. Now, you have to go. I see Pavel.”
Colin stood, and they exchanged a few words—as though he was trying to get her to go out with him a second time. She politely rejected, and he left.
She locked eyes with Pavel through the lunch crowd and headed over.
“How was your lunch?” he asked.
She smiled up at him. “Good. I had something called solyanka. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t beef stroganoff.”
His hand covered the small of her back, navigating her toward the car. “Some things, like the sweet things, are easier to get used to. Others, they’re good because they come with a memory, and the memory is more important than the taste.”
She slipped inside the car, Pavel following.
He shut the door, and Mikhail pulled off.
Lyu lay in her crate on the front seat, asleep. A white cast covered one of her front paws, and Eija spotted fresh stitches in her ear with each errant twitch. How much damage had she done to the poor cat, and what would that mean for her position?
It was Pavel who’d found Lyu behind a dumpster near the penthouse a couple of years ago. Yuri, against Ekaterina’s wishes, had taken the kitten in and nursed it to good health. Usually, he doted on Lyu, and the only reason he’d hesitated to run to Lyu in his office was likely because he’d been picturing her and Leah with their tongues on each other. Now that the haze of lust had cleared, she hoped he could forgive her. She doubly hoped she wouldn’t have to convince him to.
“So what you’re saying is, there are some foods I’ll never get used to?” she asked, one-half of her thoughts on Lyu’s ear. The vet had replaced her collar as well.
“Never.” Pavel gave an emphatic shake of the head. “But it won’t be much. Now, what’s first on that list from Kat?”
Chapter 14
“So, this is the mysterious prince…”
Dom scanned the meeting room filled with some of the most clandestinely powerful figureheads around the globe. They’d met in St. Petersburg in a designated space inside the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. Yuri believed that, in good faith, nothing violent would happen within church walls. Dom had started to remind him about the church’s desecration during Russian Revolution in the early part of the twentieth-century, and the church’s role as a temporary morgue during the Second World War, but it had been Yuri’s meeting place for over a decade without incident. Perhaps the man knew what he was talking about.
Their meeting room was just as ornate as the rest of the house of worship. Mosaics made up most of the ceiling, images venerating saints, major biblical figures, and religious reenactments. A series of chandeliers provided lighting, but the room still had an ominous, mysterious aura to it. The death that had happened there, Dom felt it in the air. The walls. Too many of them currently sat in a single location, and this group in particular had common enemies.
“I’m not a prince.” He locked eyes with Clodagh Ronan, the head of the once defunct Irish Mob. She ran a sect in the United States, buried in Utah instead of the east coast in the New England area where most of the clan was usually found.
“Ya father is the last Sokolov alive, dear,” Clodagh insisted. “You, Dominik Sokolov, are the Prince of the Bratva.”
The leader of the Yakuza, Moriyama “Mori” Masahiko’s dark eyes assessed Dom.
“You still don’t look dangerous, kid.”
“Neither do you,” Dom shot back.
Mori grinned.
Mori’s father’s assassination had thrust him into the role of the “family boss” of the Japanese crime syndicate, to Mori’s chagrin. High on Mori’s list were parties, women, alcohol, and the occasional hallucinogenic pill or powder. Leading the Yakuza hadn’t made the top one-hundred. Dom had known Mori since childhood, but after he left for California, it would be twelve years before they spoke again.
Also in attendance was Igor Kuzmin, the head of the Avtoritet, Yuri’s intermediary for communicating with the main Bratva cells; Ale Strinati, Consigliere of the Sicilian mafia and Leah’s father; and Musa Ujima, whose actual name was John Clarke, a Jamaican drug lord who regularly networked with Colombian and Venezuelan cartels.
Mori was the only one without a spouse, mistress, or lover of any sort in attendance. Dom had more than once found himself considering what pursuing something with Eija could mean for her life in the long run.
“Now that you have m
et my Dominik,” Yuri announced, and Dom tried to ignore the love and pride in the man’s voice, but it always proved difficult, “let us move to other business. The dostavka and the koronatsiya.”
Clodagh smiled at Dom. “Have ya found yourself a wife?”
Clodagh had a harem of lovers as young as twenty-one to her sixty-seven years. In her youth, she’d lived an austere lifestyle. Now that she had her business handled, it was time to focus on pleasure—at least, that was the way the older woman had put it. Her mantra was to never make love to fewer than two people at a time.
Dom started to reply, but Yuri squeezed his knee. “There is plenty of time to choose a wife, and the selection is quite…what is the word…”
“Vast,” Dom supplied.
“Not too vast, I hope,” Ale jumped in. “To not choose my Leah would be a tragedy.”
Dom looked away from the man. He couldn’t see himself, as a father, being so accepting of having his daughter “chosen” by someone rather than the other way around. Leah had much more to offer than it appeared her father believed, or cared to believe. Maybe, had he never met Eija, that would have been enough for him.
Musa craned his neck for one of the ladies he’d brought with him, who’d switched places on his lap all night, to pop a pale-yellow berry into his mouth.
“But why marry?” he asked. “Why not have fun?”
“It is tradition,” Yuri said.
“And we can expect a peaceful transition afterward?” Mori questioned. “A lot of what the Yakuza does hinges on the Bratva.”
“Everything will go smoothly,” Dom reassured the table. “Be more concerned about keeping up your agreements with the Bratva.”
Yuri squeezed his knee again, this time out of encouragement. Even when he hated the man, Yuri never ceased to see him as some sort of rose growing in a forgotten cemetery.
After discussing each organization’s responsibilities in relation to the koronatsiya and dostavka, the meeting concluded. The other members left the church, leaving behind Dom, Yuri, Igor, Pavel, and their security.
Prince of the Brotherhood: A Mafia Romance Page 11