Her Ruthless Russian (Karev Brothers Book 1)

by Leslie North

  "Peter has advised my father on more than one occasion," Madison said carefully. "Our family has always found his legal input invaluable. But I can see now where we might have made a mistake."

  "Maddie, I promise I'll explain everything to you when I can." Unbelievably, Peter grasped her by her shoulders. Clearly he wasn't reading Vlad's body language the way she was. Clearly he couldn't see the way the Russian tensed like an apex predator watching his conquest get stolen out from underneath him by a scavenger. "But right now I need you to answer something for me. Just a quick answer, and I'll be out of your hair. The both of you," he amended with an apologetic, faintly oblivious glance at Vlad.

  "Go on," Vlad instructed. "Ask her."

  His challenge was a clear assertion of Vlad's authority over Peter Franklin. He was effectively forcing the lawyer who worked under him to conduct his business with a third party present.

  Before she could turn and request the privacy she thought due to her, Peter said, "Maddie, when was the last time you saw Sergey?"

  Now that was unexpected. She completed her turn toward Vlad, who bore a stricken look in the immediate aftermath of the question. She thought his expression must mirror her own.

  "About a month ago. I left Sergey a note," she said, her eyebrows pulling together. "From my father. But you knew that already, Peter."

  "Where is that note now?" Peter prompted her. Was it her imagination, or was the tension in Vlad's body bordering on petrification? He looked like a statue that had escaped the gallery standing there.

  "I have no idea," she replied. "And frankly, I'm surprised you would come all the way out here to ask me that… at this hour." She rested her hands on her hips and directed her most pointed gaze toward the lawyer. "Especially considering I told precisely no one where I would be."

  That wasn't exactly true but Savannah didn't know Peter and certainly wouldn't have ratted Madison's whereabouts out to him.

  "It's nothing," Peter dismissed quickly. "I had a feeling you'd be here. That's all."

  But nothing about your feeling indicated that I would be here with Vlad. She had always been tight with Peter, but she wasn't sure that their close working relationship would continue now that she knew he was on the Bratva's bank roll.

  Then again, so was she.

  "Vlad, have you seen Maxim around recently?" Peter asked, switching over to addressing the silent Russian.

  Maxim? Who is Maxim? Another member of the mob? With a name like that, he had to be, she decided. She filed the information away for later.

  "Not since the funeral," Vlad answered him.

  Peter nodded, wearing an odd expression that Madison couldn't quite place. There was a lot about this surprise meeting that she couldn't quite place.

  Peter Franklin waved as he departed, hustling back down the stairs and popping the collar of his coat against the night.

  Vlad’s expression was easier to read now. His eyes were slotted, narrowed in a glare powered by an anger Madison hadn't expected to see; especially not directed toward someone who secretly worked for his family.

  "Vlad?" she asked hesitantly. "What is it?"

  He didn't answer her. Madison raised an anxious hand to the side of her hair and pressed it flat. Her curls were already starting to fall out.

  "When I mentioned I delivered a note to your father—" she started.

  "I'll call you a cab," Vlad interrupted her. Her heart lodged in her throat. She tried to search his expression for some tell, some indication of what she had done wrong or why the night had gone sour so quickly. All she could think was that her downfall had begun with Peter's arrival but what had she said to warrant this reaction?

  Vlad moved down the steps to signal for a cab. Madison hurried after him. "You know, I… I'm perfectly capable of finding my own way home!" She was at a loss of how to recapture what they had, where they had found themselves, only minutes before. She could still feel the hot, possessive imprint of Vlad's hand burning between her legs; more infuriatingly, she found herself still aching for the touch. If only she hadn't halted things inside the gallery, maybe they would—

  "You said you didn't live close." Vlad's voice was chilly, so cold that it momentarily froze Madison to the spot.

  So that was how it was. He was calling an end to their night together, just like that. Well, she wasn't about to give him any more reason to believe she might be devastated by the lack of an outcome.

  Madison whirled on her heel and walked away from him, hiking the strap of her purse up over her bare shoulder. Behind her, she heard Vlad's sigh of exasperation, and the brisk staccato of his footsteps as he followed after her. She cursed privately and hopped up onto one foot to divest the other of its heel; soon enough she was bare foot and gaining speed, but Vlad caught up to her anyway.

  He didn't speak a word to call her back or put out a hand on her arm to stop her. Instead, Madison felt a surprising weight settle on her neck and shoulders: Vlad's dinner jacket, still warm from his body heat.

  She paused. Then, without saying a word, she kept walking.

  5

  Just like that, the enchantment of the evening was over and Madison, his Cinderella in a midnight-black dress, escaped into the night. She had looked every bit as stunning in it as he had imagined.

  Vlad drove home alone. Maybe that had been his expectation earlier in the evening, but as the date progressed, he thought it less and less likely that he would be able to separate himself from her when the time came. Their heated moment in the shadows behind the column had solidified his opinion of where the fiery woman belonged: beneath him, beholden to him and the pleasure he alone could bring her.

  He could see now how impossible his wish was. Madison O’Connor had submitted herself to him only once, and he doubted she would let herself get into a similar situation with him again. What's more, he shouldn't want to find himself further entangled with the woman; she was a dangerous distraction from his investigation. Especially now, considering that she had outright admitted to being the one who had delivered the note to his father on the night of his murder.

  She was as much a suspect as anyone, as far as he was concerned. If only he could convince himself to stop wanting her long enough to see that.

  Less than ten minutes later, he was turning the key to unlock his apartment. He pushed the door open slowly, surveying his domain with minimal interest. He wasn't a poor man, none of the Karev brothers were, but he lived sparingly, deliberately. He supposed he lacked imagination, or at least that his brother Dmitry must not have been far off in accusing him of such a deficiency.

  The apartment was one of the larger one-bedrooms in the building. Vlad kept no pets and no plants. The paneled wood floor boasted no rugs, ornate or otherwise. He did not have a TV. There were dishes piled in the kitchen sink, but they hadn't been there for more than twenty-four hours and were certain to be dealt with immediately now that he had arrived home. If he didn't command a cozy environment, then at least it was an easily managed one, a controlled one. He owned a couch and an armchair, and in the armchair sat someone who had decidedly not been there when Vlad left that evening for his date with Madison.

  Vlad felt no fear at the discovery, only a flood of coldness. Even stranded in the darkness of the apartment, the shape of the figure's slumped shoulders wasn't unfamiliar to him. He reached out and flipped on the light.

  Maxim Karev sat in the chair, pouring himself a glass from the bottle Vlad normally kept perched atop his fridge. He had been planning to help himself to it before starting the dishes. Vlad tossed his keys down onto the barren table in the entryway and crossed his immense arms in disapproval.

  "Looks like you're missing something," his eldest brother remarked, never lifting his eyes from the fast-thinning stream of alcohol splashing across the ice in his glass. He had let his dark beard grow in, Vlad noted. It added to the impenetrable nature of the shadows cast around his brother's expression.

  "Yeah. My vodka." Vlad nodded pointedly with a sing
le jerking movement of his head as Maxim finished emptying the bottle. His brother set it aside on the stand beside the armchair and sat back, rolling the glass in his hand.

  "What happened to your dinner jacket?" he prompted.

  "Dinner ended." Vlad moved into the open kitchen. He didn't feel like engaging with his brother, not tonight. They both knew exactly where the conversation would go, and what terrible words risked being exchanged.

  This didn't appear to deter Maxim. Then again, Vlad wasn't sure much could deter his brother at this point. Not only had he let himself into the apartment, when Vlad had been certain to never give him anything even resembling a copy of the apartment key, but Maxim must have been drinking for the better part of an hour to have already succeeded in finishing a half-empty bottle on his own.

  "Was it nice?" Maxim asked.

  "Why are you here?"

  Vlad pushed up his sleeves and started in on the dishes. He watched for a moment as the water splashed over his wrists, darkening the tattoos on his arms. He kept his hands from clenching into fists through a conscious exercise of his will. He had already come to blows with one brother today. Better not to lose his temper now, even if his aborted date and mounting suspicion about Madison made him want to punch a hole into something pliant. Another human being, especially one as annoying as Maxim, seemed like the optimal target.

  "Dmitry said you stopped by today," Maxim said, which didn't strike Vlad as an especially illuminating answer. "He seemed worried about you."

  "I can take care of it." Did he dare qualify what he meant? Or did he let Maxim keep guessing? He hadn't been home for more than five minutes and they were trespassing into dangerous territory already. "I don't need you coming around to breathe down my neck about the family business when you've made it very fucking clear you want no part in it. You can take whatever insight you think you have on how I'm running things and shove it up your zhopa."

  "Is that what you think I'm here for?" Maxim laughed, and Vlad's blood boiled at the mocking tone in his voice. Maybe it was the liquor making the bitter humor come so readily to his brother now. "To criticize you?"

  "Every Karev has an opinion," Vlad snapped. "But only one of them is running the show. I don't need advice on how to operate, either personally or professionally, from someone who tucked tail and ran from his responsibilities."

  Maxim sat up straighter in the chair, shifting forward on the cushion until he looked about to fall forward or spring up; his leg jogged, the lamplight reflecting off the gloss of his expensive dress shoe. He still dressed like Head of Security for the mob, even though it had been two years since he had officially relinquished the title. Looking at him now, and feeling like he was seeing the old Maxim, made Vlad despise him more. His brother had cut himself adrift, so why didn't he own it? Why didn't he pursue whatever insipid, promiscuous life he wanted and quit sniffing around Vlad's own?

  "Hey. I didn't come here looking for a fight, but don't think I have any reservations in beating your ass, Vlad," Maxim warned. " I'll give you a scar over your other eyebrow to match the one I left you with last time."

  The threat was real, but Vlad doubted it would go down quite the same way tonight if they did wind up resorting to violence.

  Maxim was obviously drunk and seemed less in possession of himself in recent days. Where he might have once dominated Vlad in the boxing ring, Vlad doubted he could so much as tear open a crate of boxed wine at the moment without a soberer pair of hands to assist him.

  Maxim sighed and settled back in the chair once more. He looked exhausted. It startled Vlad to see details of his own reflection, in the wake of their father's death, evidenced in Maxim's face. "No. I'm sorry. That wasn't what I came here to say, not at all. Jesus, this is starting to feel like the last time I saw Father." He reached up to pinch the straight bridge of his nose with so much force that Vlad thought he would bend it; then Maxim gave his head a shake as if to clear it.

  Vlad felt a sudden chill spreading up his back between his shoulder blades. He leaned back against the sink, large hands wrapping around the lip of the counter to hold him up… or to hold him back. "What do you mean?" he asked eventually. "When was the last time you saw him?"

  "You mean besides at the old man's funeral?" Maxim smiled bitterly. "I saw him the day before Peter found him lying face down on the floor of his office in a pool of his own proud blood. Hell, I was in that office with him not even twenty-four hours before, getting chewed out and disowned all over again for simply trying to talk to him!"

  "You saw him." Before Sergey Karev died, Maxim saw him. Fought with him. The revelation left him with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach he couldn't seem to shake, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that it was Maxim he was now factoring into the scenario of Sergey's death. "Were you as drunk as you are now?" Vlad demanded. "Did you make these sorts of threats against him? Similar threats?"

  "You son of a bitch!" Maxim catapulted out of the chair, and Vlad was already halfway across the kitchen ready to meet him. Maxim's response was immediate, volatile, and in Vlad's private estimation, completely out of proportion to his questions… Then again, maybe Maxim wasn't as fucked up in his current state as Vlad presumed. "Don't you dare try to turn this around on me! Don't try to make me into what you… I know what you're trying to do!" Maxim thrust out with the glass of vodka, and Vlad snatched it from him. He wasn't eager to see his only glass broken, let alone potentially used against him as a weapon.

  "I know what you're trying to do." Maxim breathed out shakily. "What you're trying to think. I can't believe you'd even consider it, but… here we are. And here I go." He started for the door. "I'm leaving. I should have never come here. I thought I could talk to you about Father, and about how I… about how we ended things. We never thought that would be the last time we saw each other. I didn't expect him to die! I didn't want him to die!"

  "Neither did Sergey," Vlad said.

  The two brothers glared at one another. Vlad noticed the fevered sheen in Maxim's eyes and wondered if it came from being intoxicated, or something more. If he was drunk and emotional enough to threaten violence against his brother, whose apartment he had forced his way into, what else might he be capable of?

  Maxim rarely allowed Vlad, or anyone else, to have the last word, but tonight appeared to be a night for revelations. Vlad watched as his brother turned away once more and departed without a word, catching himself slightly in the doorframe on his way out.

  The green numbers on his microwave blinked ominously, signaling that it was well and officially midnight.

  It was the one-month anniversary of their father's murder.

  Vlad had errands to run the next morning. He needed to have the locks on his apartment changed.

  He also needed to swing by the O’Connor Fine Arts Gallery and deal with developments there. It might require seeing Madison again. This time, Vlad Karev wouldn't be incognito when he dropped by. He dressed that morning for battle, donning his best and blackest suit like armor, tightening his cuffs like protective gauntlets. He ran a fine-toothed comb through his blond hair until it laid flat back against his skull, as perfectly tamed as his severe, considering expression.

  No matter how bad his brother had looked last night, and no matter the renewed suspicions Maxim's erratic behavior had inspired in Vlad, he wasn't ready to give up Madison as a potential suspect just yet. The woman had revealed herself to be the one responsible for delivering the note to his father and setting up a meeting between the patriarchs. If Carson O’Connor was in any way involved with the events leading up to Sergey's death, then Madison herself had acted as an accomplice, unwitting or not.

  And Vlad knew there were very few things unwitting about the woman who operated the art gallery. If she was capable of making him forget, even for a moment, about his investigation, then it was also possible she was playing him. He might have had his hands on his own father's murderess last night.

  So when he put in the order for a
lock and key change, he also had another set of keys made for himself. He placed a call. Then he drove down to the gallery and let himself in through the front doors.

  "Vlad!" a hearty voice called over to him a half hour later. Vlad stood before the mural that had been the inspiration for his passion the night before, trying not to see himself in it. The voice was a welcome interruption; he had a feeling he had been standing in a state of consideration longer than was good for his rough image.

  "Over here," he said. He tucked an unlit cigarette behind his ear as Lukas Safin joined him. The other was lugging a duffle bag loaded to the seams with tangled electrical cords and rattling equipment. He dropped the bag between them and held his arms out to Vlad.

  "Good to see you! How you doin', buddy?"

  Vlad's mouth twitched in a smile, and he took Lukas up on the offered embrace. They cemented their bodies together briefly in brotherhood, and Lukas clapped him on the back. He didn't even hug his own family outside of funerals, but Lukas was his best and maybe his only friend, and Vlad trusted him with his life. The pool of people he could confidently say that about was fast dwindling.

  "Glad you called," Lukas said as he drew back. "I just need a signature for the paperwork and then we can get started with the installation."

  Vlad appreciated the show Lukas was putting on. Most of the paperwork that circulated between them during jobs was for posterity's sake. All it required was a quick scribble from him and they could get down to the real business at hand.

  He handed the clipboard back to Lukas. The latter grinned, before his expression caved all at once at something over Vlad's shoulder. The Russian felt his pulse still, and he was overcome by a strange inner quietude. The calm before the storm. He knew before he turned around to see what Lukas saw walking toward them.