by K. J. Dahlen
“I thought you weren’t coming for two days,” Yuri mentioned as they embraced.
“I needed to be here now, not two days from now,” Nikoli commented. “I just had this feeling I should come early. I don’t know why.”
Yuri’s eyes flashed over at Raven and when Nikoli saw them shift, he turned toward her. He frowned as he observed the young pale woman standing beside the window. “And who is this?”
“This is Raven Casseni, she is a hostess at the Tea House,” Yuri told the other man.
Nikoli held her gaze for a moment before he turned back to Yuri. “Dismiss her. We need to talk,” he told him in his native language.
Yuri shook his head. “I cannot do that. If I let her leave this room, she will disappear,” Yuri spoke in Russian.
Nikoli turned to watch her then asked, “What is her story?”
“I’m not sure yet but she’s protecting someone very important to her. I want to know why.” Yuri shrugged. “Not only that but she may have read the file we have on Andria.”
Nikoli started. “She knows Andria?”
“I’m not sure and she isn’t saying. But yes, I think she knows much more than she is saying.”
Nikoli turned to face her. When he took a step toward her, he noted she took a step back. He quirked his eyebrow at her action. His eyes went back to Yuri before they turned on Raven again. “Who are you child?”
Raven paled and shook her head. “I am nobody.”
Nikoli reached out and took her hands in his. “I do not believe that for a moment. Come sit with us.”
Raven shook her head. “I can’t. I don’t want to be here.”
Nikoli pulled her over to the desk and sat her down. Placing his hand on her shoulder, he said, “My friend thinks you have something to tell us but he also says you won’t, why is that? He thinks you are protecting someone. Are you?”
Raven shook her head. “I have nothing to say.” She turned her head away from him and stared at the floor.
Nikoli raised his eyebrow again. Even he could hear the denial in her voice. The fact she wouldn’t meet his eyes told him more than her voice did. Reaching out, he cupped her chin and brought her face around to his. “What is it child? What aren’t you saying?”
Chapter Five
Raven trembled against his hand. She couldn’t believe how much he looked like Nicky. The weight of what Andria had done pressed down on her. She couldn’t help but stare at the older man. He was powerful in the way he carried himself but his face was still very handsome. If he were Nicky’s true father, Nicky would be very good-looking, as he grew older.
She swallowed hard. Her tongue peeked out and wet her dry lips. “I don’t know anything.”
Nikoli shook his head. “I don’t believe you. I think my friend Yuri is right. You are hiding something from us.”
She shook her head.
Nikoli and Yuri could read the fear in her eyes. Before either of them could say anything, a knock sounded at the door. Yuri called out and Kosta joined them placing a photo on the desk between them.
Yuri glanced at the photo and growled passing it over to Nikoli. Raven caught sight of it and gasped. Fear brought her to her feet and she turned to run out of the room but Nikoli caught her around the waist holding her in place.
“No!” she cried out. “I have to get out of here. You don’t understand. I have to get out of here.”
“Whoa child…” Nikoli reasoned as she struggled to get free of him. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
Yuri came around the side of the desk and stood in front of her. Cupping her jaw in his hand, he brought her face up to look into her eyes. “What is wrong? Why are you running away?”
“I can’t be here now,” she whispered brokenly. “I have to leave.” Tears rolled down her face as she begged Yuri to let her go. “Please I have to leave. You don’t understand.”
“Why? What has changed in the last few minutes?” he demanded.
“I’m not safe here anymore,” she whispered as she closed her eyes.
Yuri rolled his eyes. “You are as safe here as you were a few minutes ago, maybe safer.” He paused then asked, “What’s going on here?”
Sweat beaded on her temple and ran down the side of her face. “I can’t stay here. I’m sorry but I have to go. Please let me go. I promise to never darken this place again.”
Yuri walked over to the desk and picked up the photo Kosta just brought in. He looked at it then looked at Raven. “Is this the reason for your flight? Do you fear this man?”
Raven didn’t say a word but she couldn’t take her eyes off the photo.
“Do you know who this is?” Yuri asked.
Raven didn’t answer.
“Who is this man?” Nikoli asked.
“His name is Carlos Lopez.” Yuri growled. “He is a parasite of the underworld. A man who uses children and junkies to do his dirty work. He gets rich from their labors. He teaches them to steal for him, then when they reach a certain age, he sells them to whorehouses or men who prefer little kids.”
Nikoli looked from the photo to the girl in his arms. “What would you have to fear from such a man? Do you have a connection to him?”
With Yuri’s words, Raven felt more frightened until she could barely breathe. She didn’t even hear Nikoli’s questions.
It wasn’t until Nikoli felt her dead weight crumbling forward that any of them realized she’d fainted.
Yuri stepped around him and took her in his arms. Walking across the room, he laid her out on the couch.
Kosta went into the bathroom and brought out a damp washcloth and handed it to Yuri.
Nikoli went over to the bar, poured a small glass of vodka, and brought it over to where Yuri knelt beside Raven. When her eyes blinked open, Yuri raised her head and brought the glass to her mouth.
As the liquid trickled down her throat, Raven began choking on the harsh taste. She pushed the glass away from her and tried to sit up on her own.
Yuri slipped his hand behind her head and assisted her to sit up. Then he handed her the rest of the liquor. When she shook her head, he pressed the glass against her lips.
Raven opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t want it but Yuri poured the rest of the liquor into her mouth. She glared at him as she swallowed it. Coughing and wheezing at the harshness, she pushed him away from her.
Yuri sat back on his heels and asked, “What happened? Why did the mere mention of Carlos Lopez’s name make you faint?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Raven’s lips tightened as she shook her head.
Yuri surged to his feet. “It’s time for you to stop lying and start telling us the truth.”
Raven surged to her feet as well. “I don’t have to tell you anything, you big oaf.”
“Then let me put this another way…” Yuri leaned toward her. “You aren’t going anywhere until we get some answers. How about that?”
Raven sneered. “We’ll see about that. You can’t hold me here if I don’t want to stay.”
“Enough!” Nikoli shouted. He turned to Raven. “You can go round and round with us or you can tell us what we want to know and we can protect you against the likes of Carlos Lopez.”
Raven shook her head. “You can’t promise me that. Carlos has a long reach and his fingers are into a lot of pies. He can get around you and your men like they weren’t even there.”
Nikoli stared at her. “And you know this how?”
“Carlos is legend in this town. Everyone who’s ever lived on the streets know about him. Most steer clear of his kind of trouble but there are those who are sucked in, looking for protection from the worst kind.” She shook her head. “What they don’t realize is that Carlos knows everything there is to know. He will find you and he never forgets when you cross him.”
“And you crossed him?” Nikoli asked.
Raven shrugged. She neither admitted nor denied anything. She couldn’t tell them about her last job for Carlos. Th
at was the night everything in her world went to hell. Instead, she looked over at Nikoli. “So what are you going to do with me? I really do have to get out of here and I’m sure you and your people have better things to do than ask me a bunch of stupid questions over and over again.”
“The questions we are asking are for a purpose,” Nikoli told her. “A very long time ago, a woman betrayed me in the worst way humanly possible. She took the life of the woman I loved and then she stole my son. My people have been searching under every rock, down every single hole they could find big enough to hold this snake and have found nothing.”
“Why would she do this terrible thing?” Raven had to ask.
Nikoli began to pace. “Because she thought she should be mine. She didn’t care for me in any way, shape or form. It was the power I represented and the amount of money in my bank that she really wanted. I certainly didn’t want her. I wanted to remain happy with the woman I did have and we were going to have our first child. But this insane woman got it in her head the woman I did have was the one thing that stood between her getting what she wanted. She took the life of my wife and she stole my son. Then the witch disappeared from the face of the earth. My men haven’t found her or the boy yet. I know he’s out there somewhere, or at least I hope he is. I don’t know for sure but I pray he is still alive. I have been looking for him every day.”
Raven felt the weight of her silence pressing down on her. His words touched her in a way she hadn’t expected. This man loved his son and for a moment, she was jealous of the feeling crowding her. Nicky would be loved. This could be his chance for a better life. She hung her head. This was everything she wanted for her brother. But if she did this, she would have to admit he wasn’t her brother, and he would never be her brother again. She would be alone again, if she did this.
She’d been alone before but not since Nicky came to live with her. Since that day, it had been the two of them against the world but now it would be only her. When she thought about it, she knew she couldn’t deny Nicky the chance this man could give him. She had to do right by him. She looked over at Nikoli.
She saw the lines of stress on his face. It was there in the deep lines bracketing his mouth…there in the silver color at his temples…in the frown lines in the middle of his eyebrows. Evident in the strength of his stiff shoulders and the flexing of his hands into tight fists.
However, before she could do anything she had to talk to Nicky. She didn’t know how but Carlos had found out Yuri was looking for Nicky and that brought another problem down on her head.
Ten years ago, Carlos had used her brother to get her to do one last job for him. Under protest, she’d done the job and when she’d come back she found out Carlos planned to separate them by selling Nicky to a friend of his and he was planning on turning her over to a nasty little whoremonger. They both were nothing to him but a way to make money.
She’d turned the tables on Carlos’s plan by stealing Nicky away from his control. She wouldn’t let him take her brother then and she wouldn’t let him take him away now. She’d rather turn Nicky over to his father first.
She knew Carlos would come after her for her betrayal, but she could go somewhere where Carlos wouldn’t find her, Texas maybe or she could go north. If she stayed here, Carlos would be waiting for her and she’d never see the bullet coming until it was too late to stop it. His warped sense on honor would demand he make an example of her.
The afternoon seemed to drag for Raven. She grew more and more anxious as the time came for her shift to end. Nicky would be expecting her to come home at the end of her shift and when she didn’t, he would come looking for her. If Carlos found him before she did—she didn’t even want to think about that.
She’d read the file Yuri had on Andria. She’d read everything and seen the pictures of the destruction she’d left in her wake and in the back of her mind she knew Andria had done it. She also knew the moment Andria knew they were getting too close to finding her. That was the day the men had come to her grandmother’s house.
Andria had called just that morning in a panic. She tried to warn her grandmother but it was already too late. The men were getting out of their vehicle and pounding on the door. Raven had taken Nicky and had crawled into their hiding place. They both had to listen to what happened next. She remembered clinging to Nicky even long after the shouting and harsh words stopped. They had both cried so hard that day. But that day was the last day they cried. Their whole world had fallen apart but no more tears had fallen.
She couldn’t recall the next six months, they’d gone from one foster home to another before they ended up with Carlos Lopez. She’d been twelve at the time and over the next two years, she lived every day in fear. Carlos taught them well how to steal and rob other people. He also liked to intimidate his kids. Everyone in his house knew that day could be the one he would sell to someone unsavory. The girls he would keep until they reached the age of fifteen, then he would sell them to various people that would use and abuse them. They would learn quickly just how to survive working the streets where they would entice different men. The boys would be sold to pedophiles. They never heard from the kids Carlos sold again.
When she heard about the plans Carlos had for her and Nicky, she grabbed him and ran. They hid for the last ten years and now, she knew time was running out. Carlos had come here looking for Nicky. He’d come into the den of the Russian Bratva looking for her brother. He was either an idiot or he was finally showing his contempt for the Russian Bratva thinking no one would touch him here. She knew that Carlos didn’t respect them that had been evident when he’d sent her out on that last job. If he had his way, he’d force the Russian Bratva all the way out of town. Then he planned to step into their territory. They had spent years working up their powerbase and Carlos thought he could just move them out and take over.
She glanced over at the desk Yuri was sitting behind. Nikoli had gone with Kosta to review the security tapes and evidence they had been gathering. Raven got up from her place at the sofa and went over to the desk, sitting down opposite him. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and faced him.
Yuri sat back in his chair and stared at her. “What can I do to help you?”
Raven swallowed hard. “I do have something to tell you. It may or may not be related to your problem but you need to know about it.”
“And what would that be?”
“Carlos Lopez is looking to get rid of you and your organization and step into your base of power.”
“And how do you know this?” Yuri asked with a frown.
“Ten years ago, I lived in his home,” she admitted. “I was one of Carlos’s kids.” She didn’t avoid him but met his gaze head on.
Yuri felt furious. She had lied to him. “It was seeing him on security tapes that had you freaked out enough this morning to faint wasn’t it?”
Raven nodded. “Yeah, he might be looking for me and I don’t want him to find me.”
“Why?” he asked. “What did you do to him that would cause you to fear him?”
“Ten years ago, I did my last job for him. I was supposed to be free after that but he double crossed me that night. When I got back to Carlos’s house, I overheard him telling his friends in a drunken stupor that by morning I would be out of his hair. Big Jimmy was coming for me at dawn.”
Yuri knew who Big Jimmy was…a low class owner of a whorehouse down on Cannel Street. He was one of the worst pimps in the city. Yuri’s mind went blank when he thought about Raven working for Big Jimmy. He couldn’t imagine what her life would have been like. “What was the job you were supposed to do for Carlos that night?”
“He had me break into a home on St. Charles Avenue. One just off Cannel street.”
Yuri gasped. “You took it? You took the medallion? And the flash drives?” He surged to his feet and came around the corner of the desk. Grabbing her arms, he yanked her to her feet. “Where is it? What did you do with the piece?”
Rav
en gasped as his fingers tightened on her arms.
“Did you give it to Carlos? Is that why he thinks he can step in to our place?” Yuri shook her he was so mad. His finger bit into her arms.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. “No I never gave the box to him. I still have it.”
“How do I know you are telling me the truth?” he growled. “You’ve done nothing but lie to me. I can’t trust you.” He tossed her back into her chair and began pacing in front of her. “Do you know what he had you steal?”
Raven rubbed her arms. With tears streaming down her face, she nodded. “He told me,” she said quietly. “He bragged about the medallion and what it represented to you. He said the medallion was a very old piece of your history and that when your people came over here from Russia, they brought it with them. He told me your people had the piece blessed by a voodoo priest. He said that if you lost it, you would lose your place in the city. He was going to bring it to the next Council meeting and claim his place. He claimed that whoever holds the medallion holds the top place in the Council.”
“He would be right,” Yuri admitted. “Each faction here in the city has one and we all have to produce it when a special election is held to admit a new group to the Council. We’ve been lucky that no election has been held in the past ten years.”
“Carlos never got his hands on your medallion,” Raven told him. “He can’t claim his place if he doesn’t have it.
“The problem is that we don’t have it either.” Yuri pointed out.
“I have it. That might be one of the reasons Carlos is looking for me.”
“There is more than one reason?”
“There could be. I thought I was safe here. I never thought he would come this close to you.”
Yuri paused and thinking a moment, then he reasoned out loud, “I wonder why he did come here today? This is a little out of his range, isn’t it?”