Status Quo_The Last Ones Standing

by Monique Chanae

  Chapter 36

  Back at the Hospital

  For a while neither Stepan nor Nefertari spoke a word to the other. Stepan sat observing Nefertari from across the table and Nefertari sat a bit uneasy, but she refused to let him see that.

  “Tell me how you’re feeling, Nefertari.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, tonight alone you’ve been through quite an ordeal. You almost lost your life. Your brother too. How does all of that make you feel?” Nefertari took a deep breath and mulled the idea over in her head for a moment.

  “I’m happy to be alive but I feel guilty. Cori is laying back there in a coma and it’s all my fault. Had she not been there protecting me, she would be alright.” Tari put her head down in disappointment and Stepan took note. Tilting his head sideways he replied to her comments.

  “Unless you had something to do with the explosion itself, none of what happened today is your fault. Cori was there not just to protect you but because you asked her to be. My daughter does not let people into her world easily. She must’ve seen something in you worth sticking around for. She already has a core group of friends; and she has seemingly added you to it. That says a lot.”

  “I appreciate your words, Mr. Romanov, I really do. And like I said earlier, I really wish we could’ve met under different circumstances. More than anything I just wish Cori would wake up with one of her signature ‘don’t worry about me’ speeches. I could really use one of those right now.” Nefertari said curling her lips up to force a smile.

  “In due time, she will Tari. But first things first, we find the bastards who did this to my daughter.”

  "I'm hoping by now Jason and your brother got some information to lead us to who did this." She said. Tari glanced down at her phone when she heard it go off. She saw that it was her parents' house number. She looked up towards Stepan.

  "I need to take this call. It's probably my son calling to say goodnight." She told him.

  "Go right ahead. I need to call and check on my little girl." He said. He caught the look she gave him and chuckled.

  "I thought Cori was an only child?"

  He nodded. "She was until about a year ago when I adopted my youngest daughter Naya. She's six years old."

  "Oh, Cori never mentioned her." Tari answered the phone and told the caller to hold on for a minute.

  "Cori is very protective of Naya. She was one of the little girls we came across when we stumbled upon a human trafficking ring. She was the only one who had no family to go back home to when we rescued the girls. Cori didn't want to give her to the state, so I decided to adopt her as my own. So, now I have two daughters who I love very much and would do anything for. You will find out soon how I react to people who hurt either of them when we find the people who set those explosives."

  Tari could see the anger in his eyes. She placed her phone to her ear and got up to talk to the person on the phone. She soon found out it was Kiyan.

  Stepan watched her for a few seconds before he pulled his own phone out. He dialed home and waited for someone to answer.

  "Hello..."

  "Hello, mother." He greeted when she answered the phone. While he was in the States, his mother took care of Naya with the help of her nanny and Maxim, who he trusted with his little girl's safety.

  "You're calling to check on Naya?" She asked already knowing the answer.

  "Yes, has she been behaving?"

  She chuckled. "Of course, she has. She's a little angel until she’s being messed with."

  Stepan frowned. "Who has been messing with her?"

  "No one has papa bear. Hold on, let me go get her." She placed the phone down.

  A few minutes later Stepan smiled when a small hyper voice came through the phone. "Daddy!"

  "Hello princess."

  "Daddy, I tried to call Cori but she's not answering the phone. Can you call her for me?" Naya asked.

  Stepan sighed. He didn't tell Naya or his mother what was going on with Cori. Only a select people knew and most of them came here with him.

  "Princess, your sister can't talk to you at the moment."

  "Why? She always calls before bedtime and its bedtime out there isn't it?" He could tell from her tone that she most likely had a frown on her face.

  "Yes, it is. She was so tired that she fell asleep without calling." He said while hating the fact that he had to lie to her.

  "Oh... well can you give her kisses for me? I miss her. She said that she'll come to visit soon. I can't wait to show her how good I am at speaking Russian now. She's going to be so proud of me." She said barely taking a breather.

  "I'm sure she will sweetheart." He heard a beep signaling that he had another call coming in on the other end.

  "Naya, I'm going to call and check up on you before your bedtime. Continue being good for your grandmother and Maxim, okay?"

  "Okay daddy and I'm good for Sarah too." She said referring to her nanny.

  Stepan chuckled. "Of course, you are, sweetheart."

  "I love you, daddy and don't forget to give Cori my kisses. She usually can't sleep well without them. That's what she told me." Naya said.

  "I won't forget... I love you too."

  "Okay, see you later alligator."

  He smiled. "See you later baby girl."

  Stepan ended the call and clicked over to his other line which had begun beeping during his call with Naya.

  "Yeah?"

  "We got a lead on those explosives. We're headed back to the hospital now." Alexei said.

  "See you when you get here." Stepan said before he ended the call. He glanced up at Tari who was headed back over to her seat. She looked like she had just received the same call as he did.

  "What's next?" She asked.

  "We wait and see what they got. Then we move on from there."

  Tari nodded as a sign that she understood. Her thoughts slowly traveled to her brother. When she last saw Will, he was keeping himself together and she hoped that it stayed that way. The last anyone needed now was him going on a rampage throughout Chicago.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Alexei and Jason arrived back at the hospital almost thirty minutes after their phone call and headed straight for the café where Stepan and Nefertari was already waiting for them. They were comfortable leaving Will on the floor with Cori in case anything happened and just to be sure, Skip was posted up outside her door and Fallon was sitting behind the nurse’s station making sure to check out the personnel as they went to and fro.

  “You mentioned a lead on the phone, brother. Let’s have it.”

  “Marino.”

  “Marino?” Stepan scrunched his face up as if he didn’t believe it. “No, you must not have heard him correctly. The Marinos don’t own any businesses out this way. All of their businesses are in New York.”

  “Yes, all except for one. A landscaping company in Rockford. It holds a different moniker but if you search through enough paperwork it bears the name of the family patriarch, Vincenzo Marino.”

  “If what he said was true then Vincenzo and I are going to need to have more than a little chat. Nefertari, can you call your tech guy and tell him I need him.”

  “Kumar’s already on his way here.” Nefertari spoke matter-of-factly.

  The foursome discussed how they would go about confronting the Marinos momentarily before Nefertari got a phone call from Kumar stating that he was down in the parking deck. The four of them all boarded the elevator together and headed straight for Kumar’s Jeep Wrangler.

  They spent a total of two and a half hours going over their plans in the confines of Kumar’s vehicle. From there, they would split up and track down the Marino family. Nefertari, Jason and Alexei headed to the Marino construction site while Stepan decided to hang back and do a little of his own work with Kumar.

  “Nefertari and Jason think your talents are top notch…” Stepan began.

  “I do my best sir.” Kumar’s voice was a bit shaky as he was nervo
us to be in the presence of one of the most feared men in the world.

  “Do me a favor and look up all that you can on Vincenzo Marino.” He instructed.

  Kumar pulled his laptop out from the backseat and opened it up. "Who is Vincenzo Marino?" He asked as he powered the laptop on.

  Stepan looked over at him without saying a word. Kumar caught the hint and nodded his head with a light chuckle. "Right, I'm supposed to tell you that."

  As Kumar typed away on his laptop, Stepan pulled his phone out. He scrolled to the photos in his phone and clicked on a picture of Cori and Naya. The picture was taken the last time Cori had visited them in Russia. Since Naya had come into their lives she made it a priority to visit more often. She loved Naya and the feeling was definitely mutual. That was why he hoped that Cori pulled out of the coma soon because there was no way Naya was going to continue to fall for her going to sleep early excuse.

  Kumar calling out to him brought Stepan out of his thoughts. He glanced over at him and gave him his full attention.

  "What did you find on Vincenzo?" He questioned.

  "Vincenzo Marino, father of three sons. One Joseph Marino, who has been dead for over twenty years now. His death is labeled a mystery though. It doesn't say who his killer is or how he died. It just has deceased by his name. The other two sons are twin boys Marlo and Brando Marino." Kumar said as he looked over at Stepan.

  "What else do you got?" Stepan asked. Everything he had mentioned so far was information he already knew.

  "Well, Vincenzo had been lying low in New York for a few years now. Now here's where that gets interesting though. A few months back Vincenzo was out in Russia. He wasn't there for long, but when he returned from Russia around the same time his other two sons Marlo and Brando took up residence in Chicago."

  Stepan rubbed his chin. "So, it's true that some of the Marino family is here in Chicago. That can't be a coincidence." He said more to himself than Kumar.

  "Oh shit." Kumar mumbled, but Stepan heard him clear as day.

  "What?"

  "I got emails from Vincenzo and a woman while he was in Russia. They had also been communicating recently. The emails don't give much, but you could tell that they were planning something big."

  "Send me a copy of those emails. Who was the woman?"

  Kumar looked at him and braced himself for what he was about to say next. "The woman Vincenzo Marino was emailing was Elise Romanov."

  "Give me the laptop." Stepan demanded.

  Kumar didn't have to be told twice. He handed the laptop over with no complaints. Not that he would have anyway. It was Stepan Romanov for Christ sakes. If he told him to hand over his first born, that kid was as good as gone.

  Stepan looked over the emails between Vincenzo and Elise. He knew that Kumar could feel the anger radiating off him.

  "That disloyal bitch!" He spat in his native Russian tongue.

  Things were about to get worse than they already were. Stepan had just been shown proof that his own sister was plotting with the enemy against the family.

  "Pull up everything you can find on Elise Romanov. I want to know every fucking thing she has been up to for the last six months to a year!" Stepan shouted before he handed the laptop back to him.

  "I’m on it, say no more." Kumar said before he got to work.

  Chapter 37

  Pulling onto the lot for the construction site, the trio checked their surroundings. The place was desolate and empty as if no one had been there in weeks.

  “There’s a sign on the door.” Nefertari pointed towards the front door of the office trailer that sat in the middle of the lot. “It says closed, what do we do now?”

  “That sign means nothing. I’ll take the back, you two take the front entrance. We reconvene in the middle.” Alexei instructed them and seconds later, they all exited the car. After jimmying the lock, the trio went inside and began looking for clues. They wasted no time searching every inch of the office. Nothing was off-limits to them in the pursuit to find answers. In a way, Cori’s life may depend on it.

  Jason knelt down behind the boss’s desk and pulled out a pocket knife to pop the lock on a file cabinet. Once he unlatched it, he began pulling out papers and skimming through them looking for anything bearing the Romanov family name. When he found nothing in the first stack, he continued to the next three drawers and did the same.

  While Jason went through mountains of paperwork, Nefertari studied photographs and ledgers. For the most part, the Marino’s business looked to be on the up and up but Nefertari of all people knew just because it looked legitimate didn’t mean a thing.

  “Hey, Jason.” Nefertari called out to Jason as he stood a few feet away from her thumbing through a folder from the desk top.

  “Yeah, T, what’s up?”

  “I found a stack of pictures. Come look at these.” Nefertari walked over to where Jason stood and passed him a stack of photos. The first photo was a snapshot of the Romanov estate in Russia. Nefertari had remembered seeing pictures of Cori’s family home one day when Cori was showing her photos of herself and her father. That first photo ignited a pain in Nefertari’s heart; it was the absence of Cori. She had spent the last two months with Cori almost day in and day out and she truly missed the new friend she had gained. Jason taking the photos out of her hand and flipping to the next one snapped Tari out of her trance and together they looked at the other photos. The next few pictures were family photos of the Romanov clan - most of the photos showed Cori, Stepan, Alyona, Alexei and Sofia. By the time they got to the sixth photo, it became apparent who the intended target was.

  "Oh my Gosh, Cori." Tari covered her mouth as she spoke. The sixth photo was a picture of Cori and Stepan on her last visit back home to Russia. There was a huge X drawn across Cori's face in red marker with a message that read "Die Princess".

  “Cori isn't their only target. My brother is on their hit list as well." Alexei explained as he walked through the room holding a single photo in his hand. In the photo Stepan was standing outside of his home and a picture of a hollow tip bullet was drawn right where his heart would be.

  “I’ve already called my brother. He wants us to meet him back at the hospital.” Alexei said taking a look at the other photos that Jason had handed him. “The Marinos have had help and Stepan knows exactly who it is. Come on, he’s waiting for us to arrive.”

  Chapter 38

  Upon their arrival to the hospital, the men headed straight to the parking deck to Kumar’s car while Nefertari decided to head up and see Cori. For the longest she couldn’t bring herself to enter Cori’s room but she knew she needed to. Cori needed to know that their relationship was not one-sided and that she would be there for her as well.

  Knock Knock!

  “Come in.” Tari heard Will call out from the other side of the door. Slowly pushing the door open, Tari entered the room and saw her brother sitting at Cori’s bedside holding her hand in his.

  “She looks like she’s sleeping.” Tari said as she walked over to the side of Cori's bed opposite to where Will was.

  "I wish she was just sleeping, sis. I need her to wake up."

  "Will, how come you never told me about Cori before this?"

  "I've never been in love before, sis. Outside of you and Ma, I've never even given another female the opportunity to know my heart and if we're being completely honest I don't think I gave Cori the opportunity either; it just sort of happened."

  "You know as well as I do that Cori will pull through this. And we won't rest until she does." Nefertari let out a soft yawn that Will noticed out the corner of his eye. She was starting to develop bags under her eyes that she had never had before, and her body was starting to seem beaten down.

  "Sis, when was the last time you got some sleep?" Will asked genuinely concerned for her wellbeing.

  "Umm I honestly don't remember. Between planning the meeting and being antsy since Trent’s death months ago, insomnia and I have become good friends. Why?"

&n
bsp; "Because you're tired; it’s written all over your face. Kiyan is still with Mom and Dad right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You need to go home and get some rest."

  "Will, Cori and I have gotten really close these past couple of months. I can't just leave without her waking up and knowing I’m here for her. What kind of friend would I be?"

  "Rule number one in being a Boss and a Friend: in the middle of a crisis, remain calm and continue to conduct business as usual." For a moment Nefertari just glared at her brother without speaking. Will returned her stare with one of his own.

  "Have Zel take you home." He said in a tone that left no room for objection.

  "You’ll let me know if anything changes with her condition." Nefertari said knowing better than to argue with her Godbrother.

  "That goes without me saying." He replied. Tari knelt down to Cori's ear and spoke.

  "See, this is why you need to get your butt up. He is being so bossy and I know you would've shut him down just now." She giggled. Walking over to her brother Nefertari gave Will a kiss on the cheek and promised to call him when she made it home safely. On her way out the door, Tari stole one final glance at Cori and Will and she silently prayed that they both would be okay.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Stepan glanced out the window and saw that his brother and Jason were headed his way. He didn't know how Alexei was going to take the news he had recently discovered. They had never had family betray their own. That was just something you just didn’t do in the Romanov family. This was something new to them, but it wouldn't be handled any differently than if it were an outsider. If his sister played a part in trying to have his daughter killed, then she would die with the rest of the people involved.