“Dominik Sokolov was in Grenada. Our intel wasn’t wrong.”
Colin lay Shiloh on his stomach. “What are you talking about?”
“Andrei, Colin. Andrei Falcone is Dominik Sokolov. He was using the name Andrei because he was trying to fly under the radar. I didn’t find out until that first day I spotted him at the penthouse, and Yuri introduced him to me as Dominik.”
Colin’s eyes went wide, his mouth even wider. “What?”
“I’d still planned to carry out everything, as agreed. At first.” She went over and sat next to him. “But then he turned out to be the same guy. He was just as funny, just as sweet. The more time I spent with him, the more I realized I couldn’t set Shiloh’s father up to die.”
“You looked for him, E. Even after she was born.”
“I wanted her to know him. I,” she studied her daughter’s adorable sleeping face, “didn’t want to assume that because of our short time together, he wouldn’t want to know he had a kid.”
“Does he know now?”
“I left a note in his jacket pocket.”
“E,” Colin slowly shook his head, “we stripped him as soon as he got here. He doesn’t know.”
“Is he alive?”
He didn’t answer right away.
“Colin.”
“Yeah. Yeah, he’s alive.”
Even if she asked, Colin wouldn’t tell her all what they’d done to Dom. Especially not now that he knew what he knew. From his tight expression, she could tell he understood her conflict, but he didn’t appear to agree with it.
Whatever.
It was in the past now.
She was on suspension. Maybe she’d quit altogether. Go back to the States, reconcile with her sister, and introduce Alecia to her niece. Get a desk job. It wasn’t appealing, but for Shiloh, she would do anything.
The first time she’d seen that little face, those round eyes and pink lips, she’d been awestruck. Never in a million years would she have ever thought she’d be a mother. Randy had backed her into a wall the size of a tidal wave, but with no family in France, she’d wanted her baby nearby.
“I don’t agree with a lot of this,” Colin prefaced, “but Sokolov, at least, deserves to know he has a daughter. Especially,” he looked down, “one as beautiful as my goddaughter. I’ll pull some strings and get you in to talk to him.”
His phone chimed.
A few seconds after he raised it to his ear, he started arguing with the person on the other end.
“You can’t…how…Randy, that’s bull—” Colin lowered the phone and brought it around to his face. “He hung up on me.”
“What’d he want?” Eija asked, lifting Shiloh into her arms.
“They’re thinking about letting Dominik walk in exchange for his cooperation on bringing Yuri down. How? It’s not like we have lawyers negotiating shit.”
Eija hid her relief. “Randy is?”
“Yeah.”
“You won’t win that fight.”
Colin shot to his feet. “I’m going down there to see what’s really going on. I’ll call you when I find out. And I’ll call you about the other thing too. Dominik’s where he belongs, but at least Shiloh will be able to meet her father.”
Colin gave her a quick hug and bolted out the door.
She took a deep breath and maneuvered until she was on her feet, Shiloh tucked in her arms. At least now, she would no longer have to sneak down to Colin and April’s for only a few hours with her daughter. She would no longer have to sleep with one eye open in the nursery at their Moscow apartment in the event Yuri came looking, or be showered with guilt over the fact that she’d taken her infant daughter on an op. It was the last thing she’d wanted to do, but what would she be able to offer her child without a career?
“Well, Shi, I guess we’ll go to bed at,” she glanced at the clock on the stove, “eight today. Maybe you’ll sleep through the night, hmm?”
Dominik appeared in the front room from the hallway. And somehow, she’d expected it. Felt it. The minute Colin said they could release him, she’d hoped he’d end up here. She just hadn’t expected tonight.
Bruises created morbid artwork on his face in hues of black, purple, and red. A cast had been molded around his left wrist. Though covered in blood and wrinkled, he filled out his tux. Colin hadn’t starved him, at least.
He took a step forward, and it looked like it pained him so badly, she stopped him.
“Let’s talk in my room,” she said, holding up a hand. “I’m assuming you already know which one that is.”
He turned and waited for her to walk ahead of him.
She set Shiloh in the middle of her bed and sat along the edge. Dom gingerly lowered next to her. A gorgeous pair they were, Miss Bruised and Mr. Battered.
Much needed silence passed between them. He deserved this moment to stare at Shiloh, to get his thoughts together. It was one thing to find out she’d been spying on him—if he was here, he knew.
It was another thing, entirely, to find out he had a baby.
“I got your note,” he said, patting his jacket. “And the picture.”
“Since I didn’t get yours in Grenada, I had to put this one somewhere you would definitely find it. I had the stylist stitch in that little pocket just before you left.”
He reached out and tentatively stroked Shiloh’s pinky with a fingertip. “When we were in London and you said there was something it was too late to tell me, was it her?”
“Yes.”
“For what it’s worth, no matter when you’d told me, it wouldn’t have been bad news.”
She reached for his face, and he sucked in a breath before her fingers even made contact.
“You’re not going to ask me how I’m here right now?” he asked.
“No.”
“You could be harboring a fugitive, Eija.”
“Who also happens to be my daughter’s father.”
The whites of his eyes glistened. “I...I don’t even know what to say. She’s so damn cute.”
“She looks like you.”
“I noticed.”
Eija stood. “Are you hungry? Did you eat?”
She turned to leave, but he grabbed her hand.
“Eija, wait. I need to ask you something.”
She returned to her spot on the bed, the space still warm, and prepared herself. She’d been preparing herself for this moment ever since she found out she was pregnant. In Grenada, she’d hounded him until they finally fell into bed together. In Moscow, it had taken a while for them to sleep together, but he had caught her in the middle of going home with another man she’d met at a pub. She wouldn’t have actually gone home with “Wesley Langstaff,” but Dom didn’t know that.
“Do you know someone named Linda Vincent?” he asked.
“Dom, I won’t be offended if you want to take a DNA tes—wait, what?”
“I’m not worried about if she’s mine, Eija,” he said. “But, Linda Vincent. She’s CIA, and the one who sent you to work with Randy Almas.”
Eija glanced at Shiloh. “I don’t know who these people are.”
“My mother was Aani Almas, Randy’s sister. I know Linda and David. And Randy doesn’t work for INTERPOL. Not officially. I guess, in a way, neither do you.”
She remained quiet, one eye on her daughter.
“I’ve been with the agency since I graduated,” he continued, and she kept her expression blank, though pure shock rocked her on the inside. “Randy’s my uncle.”
Next to them, Shiloh stirred, stretched, and yawned. Her eyes opened, and when she noticed Dom, she graced him with an enormous smile before her eyes closed again.
“Damn. I felt that.” His hand went to his chest. “Can I hold her? Or would I wake her up, you think?”
“Even if she wakes up,” she set Shiloh in Dom’s arms, “it’s to meet her father.”
“Daddy,” he said, trying to find a comfortable position for both his wrist and daughter. “I want her to kn
ow me as ‘Daddy.’”
Eija remained quiet, but she couldn’t rein in the smile on her lips.
“At ease, Miss Barrett.” He smiled back. “I’m telling the truth.”
“So, no venture capital?” she asked.
“I really am Yuri’s son. I invested my trust fund in risky startups, hoping for failure because I didn’t want Yuri’s blood money. It backfired.”
“And your mother’s related to Randy, you said? Actually, hold that thought. I’ll be right back.”
It pained her to look at him, so she left to get her First Aid kit. Now, she preferred the shorter hair. She couldn’t imagine seeing those dark, beautiful locks in the same condition Vasily’s had been in.
He continued his story while she patched him up. Even if he’d just gotten her to blow her cover, he was Shiloh’s father. She couldn’t have him sitting across from her in pain.
“Randy’s birth name is Rahman, and my mother met Yuri through Randy. It was one incidental meeting but, apparently, it was all it took. Yuri’s whole back story? Fabricated. A story created by the agency. Yuri and Randy were partners working covert intelligence back when the USSR still existed. It was Yuri’s idea to infiltrate the Bratva, take it down from the inside. By then, the CIA had already theorized that the Brotherhood would rise into power after the Russians ousted Gorbachev. The goal was to monitor nuclear technology. Given Yuri’s ties to the country, he spearheaded the project, going undercover as Krestniy Otets. Pakhan. Boss. Then, he went rogue.”
“And where do you come in?”
“My mother didn’t know Yuri had gone rogue. When they ‘met up’ again in California, she got pregnant. My grandparents tossed her out when they found out, so she went to live with my aunt. Aunt Nasrin was ten years older than my mother, and my grandparents had already kicked her out years before for liking girls, weed, and converting to atheism. Somehow, Yuri found out my mother was pregnant and went to California promising to reconcile. He then brought her to Russia and sold her to get rid of her existence.”
“With a baby in her belly.”
“Yep. She was still,” Dom’s jaw pulsed, “useful in that industry. Some men preferred a pregnant woman for the night. Then, she had the baby, and Yuri found out it was a boy. His only son. That part was true, him looking for us and finding us when I was six.”
“So your mother wasn’t an escort?”
“Nope.” He brushed a reticent kiss over the top of Shiloh’s head. “She wanted to go to medical school. In the beginning, so did I, but Randy found me at Stanford and told me who he was. He’s even older than Aunt Nasrin, so I’d never heard of him before that day. After meeting with him, I decided I’d go to the CIA. I’m, honestly, not much different from Pavel.”
Eija cocked her head to the side. “Pavel?”
“He’s one of ours. An informant. The Bratva killed his entire family.”
“Pavel’s disposition makes sense,” she said. The quiet ones were often the most terrifying. “But yours, I wondered about. I didn’t peg you as someone who could sell women without blinking.”
Later, when she was alone, she’d scream her relief.
“By the way, what does your camp want with him?” Dom asked.
The longer he held Shiloh, the more comfortable he grew with her. Eija was grateful he hadn’t put her through the whole “she’s not my kid” ringer. Between the leg surgery and roller-coaster past couple of weeks, she wasn’t sure she would have been able to handle it.
“Yuri obtained information that could be potentially damaging to three major counterintelligence agencies, if not more,” she explained. “We don’t know what he plans to do with it. All we know is that the CIA, MI6, and DGSE want the information retrieved and destroyed. My speciality,” she splayed her fingers across her chest, “is espionage. I work primarily with organized crime units infiltrating their sects to dismantle the regimes from the inside. We’ve targeted and taken down parts of La Cosa Nostra, the Irish, the Albanians, major drug organizations in South and Central America. Usually, we can disable their supply chains, reroute shipments…things like that. It helps keep a great deal of product, whether its drugs, weapons, or humans, out of the wrong hands. This time, with Yuri, is the first time we’ve had such a major threat to global security.”
He stared at her, unblinking.
“What?”
“It makes sense now how you went from Miss K to Miss Komandir in an instant at the ceremony. I’d already had my eyes on Favreau and the other agent—”
“April. She came on to ensure Shiloh’s protection.”
“It never crossed my mind you could be working with them.”
“Well, for now, I’m suspended. Though, if we’d crossed paths at the agency before this, Shiloh would have been like seven by now.”
No matter how she’d met Dom, as long as they’d gotten to know each other, she believed they would have ended up in the same place.
He laughed, and it was nice to see that smile again.
“I’m reading between the lines, and I’m hearing that my actual job was securing your cover,” she said.
It took him a moment to answer. Shiloh cooed in her sleep, and it had him completely enraptured.
“Randy said you’re a Rottweiler,” he replied. “You found out Yuri had a son despite the agency’s, and Yuri’s, best efforts to bury my existence.”
“So, what was it? If I ID’d you, they’d pull you?”
“Yes. And you did. But you didn’t turn me in.”
“Because I liked you.”
“And now?”
Now, he was sitting across from her holding their daughter, and he wanted Shiloh to know him as “Daddy.”
Eija slapped her hands on her thighs, stood, and wobbled a little before she found her balance. “Well, since I’m not truly harboring a fugitive, how about I get you something to eat?”
He eyed her, and his face flashed with a question she hoped he didn’t ask.
“Can I put her to bed?” he asked instead.
“Of course.”
She’d already made macaroni pie, baked chicken, and coleslaw for dinner, so she reheated a plate for him and set it on her barely used four-person dining table. When he entered the front room, it was without his jacket, and she got the feeling he’d kept the shirt on because things underneath were worse than what was on his face.
He pulled out the chair and carefully took a seat.
“I don’t have vodka,” she said, setting a fork next to his plate. “But I do have wine.”
“Water’s fine.”
She poured him a glass.
“I don’t have men’s clothes here, either, but I can wash those for you. I’m good at getting out bloodstains.”
“Like that knife wound?”
“About that.” She raised her shirt. “Not a knife wound. I didn’t really get that big with Shiloh, but she still gave me a couple of stretch marks. I didn’t want you to feel them and start asking questions.”
He used the hem of her shirt to draw her closer. “Every time we made love,” he traced the marks with his thumb, “it was in the dark, or you kept your top on. I didn’t notice until now.”
“Eat, Dom. I’ll get you whatever you need to take a shower. Leave your clothes on my bed. You can strip all the way down.”
“I don’t—”
“You can strip all the way down,” she reiterated. “It’s okay. I know what my division does. I know how it operates. I won’t judge you and, if you don’t want me to, I won’t touch you.”
“Why wouldn’t I want you to?”
“If it’s painful.”
While he ate, she set out a towel, toothbrush, and extra gauze and bandages. Then she worked on his clothes while he showered, scrubbing them before tossing them in the washing machine. She didn’t want to think about how many designer labels she’d destroyed with her practical laundering skills, but she wanted the bloodstains gone. The bruises, the evidence of what they’d done to him, would
linger for a while, so she’d control what she could control.
She heard when he left the bathroom, saw when he passed the bedroom door, a towel wrapped around his lower half. Shiloh’s bedroom camera showed him doing what Eija had done every night she could—watch Shiloh sleep.
He returned to the bedroom, and she kept her eyes glued to the TV. It was another crime show, in French with English subtitles. If she looked at him, she’d stare at his injuries.
The bed sank with his weight.
The covers shifted as he slipped beneath them.
“What’s this one about?” he asked, once settled.
“Women who are deadly,” she said. “It’s one of my favorites.”
“Why, because you’re deadly with a handgun?”
She peeked and found the covers drawn up to his waist. His bruises looked like tattoos, and she wanted to punch Colin in his fucking face. Was it right that this pissed her off when Vasily had been put through the same thing?
No, it wasn’t.
But she didn’t have a child with Vasily. She wasn’t in love with Vasily. So, right now, fairness didn’t matter.
“I’m good with a rifle, a shotgun, and a semi-automatic,” she said, miming taking a shot. “You name it, I’ve fired it.”
“Eija?”
“Hmm?”
“I want to be in her life.”
She went to him, and he folded her into his chest from behind. He smelled like her soap. And those knots only Dom could give formed in her belly.
“I want to be in your life too.” He kissed her neck, behind her ear, the back of her head. “If that works for you. We’ve…lied about a lot of shit, but I don’t think we lied about how we felt. Unless I’m wrong, but you’d have a hard time convincing me of that with how you’ve treated me since I got here.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t lie about how I felt about you.”
“You’re just not ready to tell me exactly how that is.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Okay.” He pointed to TV. “Now, this woman poisoned her husband.”
“Nope, Mabel likes to get her hands dirty,” Eija said. “She strangled him.”
A few minutes later, the narrator revealed Mabel had actually set the family car on fire with her husband, still alive, inside.
Prince of the Brotherhood: A Mafia Romance Page 21