The train had just pulled into the station. In the glass of the nearest window, she caught the reflection of a familiar face, and her grief turned to fear.
Roman.
Her heart leapt into her throat. Thank God the train hadn’t pulled away yet. She heard a crackling metallic voice announcing departure soon and pushed her way through the opening door, taking off through the cabin and into the next subway car. A quick glance behind her revealed that Roman had, indeed, spotted her. He bolted toward her.
Alexandra wove past a throng of teenagers, almost tripped over an elderly man seated with a newspaper, and rushed to get out of the car. She heard the door slide on the opposite end of the train, imagined Roman right behind her, and rushed out of the train against a flow of incoming passengers.
People were staring now, trying to make sense of the puffy-eyed woman with windswept hair running as though her life depended on it. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Roman reach the closing doors of the train car as it pulled away from the station.
She let out a rattling exhale of relief, slowing down slightly, and continued jogging. She’d go back up to the street.
She still had to get to Uncle Tolya.
19
Viktor
Viktor watched Alexandra disappear past the gates from the front window in the sitting room. She had been insisting that ‘Uncle Tolya’ could help, and he assumed she was going to try and bring her uncle here. He sincerely hoped that, whatever she did, it would not interfere with his plans. Deep in his heart, he also hoped that she would forgive him.
He sent Roman after her, then disappeared upstairs to the boardroom in his private office. Restrained to a chair, Sergei sat staring at the table with a shell-shocked expression. His head lifted when he heard Viktor enter and he opened his mouth to talk, but Viktor held up a single index finger and began speaking before Sergei had the chance.
“There is a power drill tucked away in this room. It has been used before on men twice your size. I do not wish to use it again.” He entered the room painfully slowly, tension building, and carefully closed the door behind him. This time, he made sure to lock it. “Do not make me use the drill. Just answer my questions simply and honestly.” Viktor spoke with an even, deliberate voice.
“Where is Alexandra?” Sergei asked. He appeared shaken, but still full of resolve. Viktor didn’t respond, and instead allowed tension to rise while he resisted the urge to grin and shake his head; now he knew where Alexandra got it from.
The urge to grin faded quickly, however, as he remembered how horrified she had looked before she’d taken off. Remembered how she had called him a monster.
Ordinarily, he would have taken ‘monster’ as a compliment—this was the mafia, after all— but for some reason, it had stung to hear it from her lips. He wondered if he would have the nerve to torture or even kill Sergei, depending on how the interrogation went.
Should he wait for Alexandra to return and give her a chance to speak? She had seemed so determined.
“Where is Alexandra?” Sergei asked again.
“I am not here to discuss your daughter. I am here to discuss you.” Viktor pulled up a chair and sat across from his wife’s father. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and locked eyes with his captive. “Do you know why you are here?”
How easy it would be, Viktor thought, if Sergei just confessed outright.
“Because you have brought me here?” Sergei’s reply was confused, without a trace of sarcasm. Even though the response was genuine, Viktor found its directness irritating.
“And why might I have brought you here?”
“I am being honest right now, Viktor, when I say I truly do not know. We are in-laws. Why kidnap me? Why not just call and ask me to come over?” “Tell me what your relationship with my father was like.”
“Your father… Boris? He was a good man, a very generous man, and I am sad to have lost him.”
“Why was my father generous?” Viktor’s words were slow, seeping from between his lips—he hoped to entrap Sergei.
“He was there for me in times of need. Most men are not half as honorable and loyal as your father was.”
“It didn’t have anything to do with the almost quarter of a million dollars he lent you?”
Sergei’s face tightened, but he said nothing. Viktor stared him down and let the silence ring in their ears. The tension was palpable. It constricted like a tightening chain around them.
Finally, after a minute that felt like an hour, Sergei answered. “You are trying to get me to confess to his murder, but I have nothing to confess to, other than missing him. I am innocent. Right now must be a very hard time for you, Viktor, and I’m sure—”
“Killing him would have ended the debt by erasing it from our minds,” Viktor interrupted. He leaned closer, their faces separated by a few inches of air. He could smell the faint reek of cigar on Sergei’s breath. “In the grief and confusion, it would have been overlooked. But that’s not the case now, is it? Your attempts have blown up in your face, and they’re about to cost you dearly.”
“I’m sure,” Sergei continued from where he had been cut off, “that you are very hurt right now. Angry. Confused. But—”
Victor didn’t hesitate to interrupt. “You have two children, a beautiful wife. I’m sure she has expensive tastes. A family with mouths to feed, and a business to run. Who could blame you?”
“I did not do it! I am innocent.” Sergei’s gaze locked on Viktor’s again, this time with concern and fear searing his eyes. “Where is Alexandra?” he repeated.
Viktor snorted, and a grim chuckle escaped his lips. “Trying to save you. She insists that ‘Uncle Tolya’ can save you, but I doubt that.”
“Anatoly?” Sergei asked, confused. “How… well, I’m not sure how he can help.”
That name rang a bell. Viktor recalled the mention of an Anatoly at both of his most recent group meetings.
“Uncle Tolya… is short for Anatoly? What is his last name?” Viktor questioned.
“Popov.”
Viktor’s mask of indifference melted as shock and realization struck him, and knocked the wind from his lungs.
Alexandra’s ‘Uncle Tolya’ was Anatoly Popov, the gunrunner who had recently begun making inroads into business which had always been Sokolov turf.
“So Anatoly Popov, Alexandra’s uncle, is… your brother?” Viktor asked.
“No, no blood relation,” Sergei answered, apparently confused by the turn in the conversation. “He’s just another good friend of mine, a friend of the family, her best friend’s father. Alexandra’s known him for so long, he is like an uncle now.” Sergei’s concern mixed with bafflement. “Why?”
“How good of a friend?” Viktor asked slowly, and then he listened carefully for the response.
“Very good. I’d say he’s my best friend, now that your father is gone. Or at least, he was—he has been distant recently,” Sergei replied.
“How much do you confide in him?”
“Quite a bit, to be honest. A lot of man’s talk. The kind of things you don’t tell your wife.”
“Things you don’t tell your wife, like debts?”
The gears were turning in Viktor’s head.
“Well, yes. He has always been good with money, good business sense, and it was eating me alive to not say something to my wife.”
Sergei looked genuinely remorseful now. In fact, not once so far had Sergei given Viktor any reason to doubt him. Viktor was adept at sensing dishonesty; from his tone to his body language, he now felt sure that Sergei was being sincere.
And that chilled Viktor’s blood when the realization hit him. Viktor scooted backward from his captive and sprung to his feet. An uncharacteristic hint of panic tinged his voice.
“She’s going right there. Alexandra is going straight to him.”
Viktor moved quickly to undo the restraints holding Sergei to the chair, then pulled his phone from his pocket and called R
oman. It took several rings before Roman answered.
“Roman. I need you to catch up to Alexandra, make sure she’s safe. Stay with her, and whatever you do—” Viktor was cut off.
“I lost her. She was on the subway, but she stepped off the train just before it left and I couldn’t get off in time,” Roman said. “I’m getting off at the next stop, but I don’t know where she went.”
“Fuck.” It was the only thing Viktor could think to say. He had allowed his wife to go straight to the real enemy, alone. He told Roman to return to the mansion, then jabbed the ‘end call’ button so hard he feared the screen might crack.
Viktor’s muscles tensed as he imagined what he would do if the same man who’d murdered his father did anything to his wife.
“Is my daughter okay?” Sergei asked, fear creasing his features as he rubbed the raw, red skin on his wrists.
“She will be—I’ll make sure of it. What is Anatoly’s address?”
20
Viktor
Viktor’s motorcycle was gassed up, shined, and sitting in the garage waiting for him. He rushed to it, climbed on, revved the engine, and took off down the drive. He had to get to Alexandra to keep her from spilling any information to Anatoly Popov and potentially endangering her own life.
“Please, please be safe,” Viktor whispered into the wind as he pulled onto the road. He was thankful for the blissfully minimal traffic, until he realized the congestion on the main road ahead. The bright red dots of tail lights trailed off into the distance and all four lanes of cars putted forward at a crawl.
Traffic was thick, but Viktor had no time to spare.
He veered between the lanes to drive on the white dotted line in the middle, then upped the throttle. The engine roared, and the speedometer climbed. 20 mph. 30. 40. Another bike appeared ahead, splitting lanes and riding the white line, as well, but not going nearly fast enough.
Victor veered around the right lane to get onto the shoulder, coming dangerously close to the edge of the road. Heads turned as he approached, cars honked, and someone even had the audacity to stick their middle finger out the window at him. He wanted to break the finger clean off, but instead of raging, he managed to turn his anger into focus.
He continued weaving through traffic, speeding so fast that the world was a blur, and praying for his wife’s safety. Streets and pedestrians passed at breakneck speed.
Until a wide truck appeared in the right lane. He slowed, easing his way between the truck and a sedan on the opposite side as he moved at a snail’s pace with what limited room he had. As he crept on, he could feel the clock running.
Again, he remembered Alexandra calling him a monster, and again, he swallowed down his sadness. Would that be the last conversation they had—him refusing to listen to her?
Even though he had continued to tell himself—no, lie to himself—that the affection he had shared with Alexandra had simply been to get her to yield to him and confess, he knew better.
Her dazzling smile, her cute ringing laugh, the smell and touch of her skin, how she could find optimism even in the darkest of times, her unending resolve: Viktor had fallen head over heels for her, and he was grateful with everything he had in his soul that she and her father were innocent.
He just prayed he wasn’t too late to make sure she knew it.
After a series of turns that cost him precious time, he zipped toward the address Sergei had given him, then slowed and frantically scanned the sidewalk for Alexandra. His heart crept into his throat, his hands shaking as he struggled to keep steady on the throttle and clutch.
Had he been too late? Just as he considered circling back and checking the block again, he saw long blonde hair and wanted to weep with relief.
Alexandra.
She was only a house away from Anatoly’s. Viktor pulled up to the side of the street, slowed, and called to her.
“Alexandra! Stop!”
Her head snapped toward him, and dismay twisted her face. “Viktor? What are you doing here?”
“Stop and come with me!” he called out to her, his eyes scanning both ways to try to find a way he could maneuver across the busy street to stop her.
“No, Viktor! I’ve had enough of this. Uncle Tolya will set everything straight.”
Alexandra looked unafraid, but Viktor was—for her.
“You’re in danger,” he told her, willing himself to remain calm so that he didn’t scare her away. “We need to go home. Now,” he added.
“And why should I trust you? You didn’t want to listen to me, so why should I listen to you?”
“I’m trying to protect you!”
“From what? The only person I need protection from right now is you!” Alexandra crossed her arms against her chest with the last word, and then kept walking.
Viktor hopped off the bike, finally understanding she wouldn’t join him, and popped down the kickstand in a hurry.
Only a few dozen more steps now, and Alexandra’s hand would be on Anatoly’s buzzer. The light from the streetlamps painted her in shadows—the closer she drew to the door, the darker it got. A sinking feeling tugged at his stomach, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that, if he let her go any farther, the shadows would suck her in and never let her back out.
He bolted across the street and down the sidewalk, sprinting toward her. She saw him approach and rushed up the front steps, reached for the door, and—
Viktor grabbed her.
“Let me go!” Alexandra kicked at him and struggled, but he held on. Clasping a hand over her mouth to keep her from making any more noise, he dragged her away from the house. Silently, he prayed no one would see him and think he was kidnapping her. All he wanted in the world right now was to keep her safe. His eyes darted up toward the security cameras near the door, and fear gripped him anew.
“We need to go,” he said. Alexandra thrashed like a fish caught in a net, but Viktor managed to get her safely down the front steps and back onto the sidewalk.
She landed a particularly painful blow to his shin. He hissed through his teeth and held her at arm’s length to face him. Alexandra slowed her struggling only when she saw his expression, and stared at him in confusion as he spoke.
“I promise, I believe you, and I swear on my life that your family is safe, but right now I need to make sure you are safe. I need you to be quiet for us, please. It is very important,” Viktor emphasized. With his words, she froze, and he loosened his grip upon seeing that she at least seemed ready to listen.
“Safe? Safe from what?”
Viktor considered his options. If he told her flat-out that her Uncle Tolya was the murderer, she might march back to his house to try to save him without listening first, just as she’d run off to save her father.
He took her hand with absolute tenderness and laced their fingers together, and then, silently, he led her away from Anatoly’s house, down the sidewalk and toward the bike. Alexandra looked suspicious and confused, but she didn’t fight him.
“I know I can be scary sometimes. I know I have hurt you in the past, and I am deeply sorry for not believing you when you said that you and your father were innocent.” Viktor’s eyes, usually so cold, brimmed with warmth as he glanced back to her, still pulling her along. Once they were across the street and standing by his bike, he pulled Alexandra in for a hug. Against his chest, she felt so small, and so cold.
At first, her arms hung limply at her sides, as though she was resisting. Gradually, though, her arms raised and wrapped around him. She pressed her head against the hard muscles of his chest and exhaled softly.
“You believe me?” she asked, speaking into the fabric of his shirt.
“I believe you.” Viktor tilted her face up by the chin and pressed their lips together. “Let’s get you home, and I will explain everything.”
21
Alexandra
Alexandra sat to Viktor’s right at the head of the table and looked the group of men over. She recognized a few of them, albeit
vaguely, from the meeting she had interrupted on her first day in the Sokolov mansion. The collection of mafioso had reported solely to Viktor previously, but today Alexandra was welcome at the table.
Despite Viktor’s insistence that she join them, though, some of the men seemed uncertain toward her. A few had initially given her glares which had seemed downright hostile. She hoped this gathering would clear any and all doubt in their minds about her and her family.
“Sergei Volkin is innocent,” Viktor announced. Some of the men glanced to one another with quirked eyebrows, and a few whispered. Alexandra was as delighted to be involved in the discussion as she was uncertain what to say or do. Her gaze shifted among the faces of the men, trying to read their reactions.
“Then who killed Boris?” someone asked with a touch of incredulity.
“Anatoly Popov.” Viktor leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Sergei told no one of his debts to my father. No one except Anatoly, whom he trusted. When Anatoly decided he wanted to start to take over business that was rightfully Sokolov, he poisoned my father, knowing that it would come back to Sergei.”
No matter how many times Alexandra had heard the story that night, no matter how grateful she was that her father was proven innocent, she still struggled to process that Uncle Tolya—a man she’d known for most of her life—had betrayed her family. How could someone seem so loving, so safe, and in turn be such a heartless killer?
“Are you certain, Viktor?” another man asked with an almost apologetic expression. Viktor gave a stiff nod, his mouth a thin line. Alexandra was surprised to see him calm in the face of someone potentially questioning his authority. She’d heard how he spoke to guards who asked too many questions, and would have thought for sure Viktor would fly off the handle at something like this.
The Sokolov Brothers: The Complete Series Page 10