From Russia With Claws

by Jacey Conrad

  He chuckled. “I know you can take on anyone and anything, Galya. And that you will win. I just wish it wasn’t against your brother.” He lifted her chin so he could kiss her lightly on the mouth. “You will do what must be done, of that I have no doubt.”

  Curling up next to him, Galina asked in a small voice, “Do you think Irina’s okay?”

  “Nik is with her.” Then Andrey’s face turned thunderous. “And if she is not, you will not be the only one Alexei will answer to.”

  She thought of Viktor riding with Andrey’s men. There would be no stopping him if Irina had come to any harm. Not that she would be particularly interested in stopping him.

  This was her family. Galina would do whatever she had to in order to see them all safe. Even if that meant killing her own brother to do so.

  The car pulled up in front of her father’s house. Through the tinted windows of the Maybach, she could see the cars already parked around the circular drive in front of the main house. Almost everyone would be out in the challenge circle. Galina smiled, a small vicious thing. Let Alexei be surprised by her presence in front of everyone. Let him know that his assassin—if Maksim could be called something so lofty as assassin—had failed. She had to admit that it was in Alexei’s style to half-ass his attempt on her life. He really didn’t see her as a threat.

  Good.

  That would make things that much easier for her when she challenged him for head of the family.

  That car stopped. Galina squeezed Andrey’s hand one last time, then slid out of the backseat once the driver opened her door. She waited while Andrey got out, and then turned to see the rest of their entourage disembarking.

  Nikolai was already waiting for her. He enveloped her in a warm hug, both for support and to whisper, “Rina’s okay, just a little banged up. But big brother is a slavering mess.” He let her go.

  Andrey put his hand on the small of her back. “We’re ready.”

  “Get everyone to the circle. Nik and I will get Rina and meet you there.” She gave him an encouraging smile when he rubbed her back.

  “Uncle Petyr is waiting inside,” Nik said. “So’s Maksim. He’s on Alexei’s crew now.”

  Andrey spun, ready to sprint inside. Galina pulled him back. “It’s okay,” she told him, squeezing his hand. “We’ll deal with him later. Let me get Irina.”

  Andrey stopped, scowling. “Fine. But I’m going to rip his guts out when this is all sorted.”

  Galina squeezed his hand before climbing the porch steps to enter Papa’s house. It would always be Papa’s house, no matter who lived in it. She sniffed. She could smell Irina faintly, but the scent of wolf overpowered much of anything else she might get. Where was Irina?

  Alexei’s guards occupied the front entryway and stairs. Guns appeared as if by magic and everyone one of them was pointed at her. Galina stopped in the threshold of the house, a slow grin spreading across her face. All of her brother Alexei’s bodyguards stared at her, as if she was about to devour their souls with a side of chili fries. They were nervous. Off balance.

  They were afraid.

  “What the fuck do you morons think you are doing?” Nik barked, his voice going Alpha. It was something he did rarely, allowing the tone to slip into his speech.

  Some of the guns trained on her wavered. One man said, “Your brother gave orders…”

  Nikolai cut him off with a scowl. “This is our father’s house. His daughter is always welcome here, no matter what my brother orders. Do you idiots understand that? Now, GUNS DOWN.”

  Galina watched quietly as each and every gun was holstered. Most seemed relieved to do so. She noted the faces of the few who tried to fight the order. “Shall we go see Alexei?” she all but purred. “I can’t wait to see his face.”

  Galina preceded Nikolai into the living area of the house, stopping in front of the closed door of the large parlor situated behind the stairs. She could hear muffled voices, but none of them were Irina’s. “Where is she?” she asked Nik.

  “I moved her to her old room,” he answered.

  Galina led the way upstairs. Nik followed. “Alexei wanted to keep her tied up his bedroom, but I moved her. I didn’t think it was a good idea to have her that close to him. I told her to lock the door and stay put.”

  “I should smack him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. Made of titanium,” she muttered. She stopped in front of Rina’s room, reared back with her leg and kicked the wooden door right next to the lock. The wood splintered with a low crunch. Nik put his should against the door, shoving it the rest of the way open.

  Irina sat up on her bed, hair tousled, looking twenty years younger. She blinked sleepily, as if the noise from the door had woken her up.

  Galina ran to her sister. “Are you okay?” She offered Irina a hand, pulling her to her feet. Galina inspected her sister carefully. There was some bruising on her face and scrapes on her body, but nothing looked permanent. Before Irina could do more than squawk, Galina pulled her into a tight hug.

  “Ow!” Irina hissed as Galina squeezed too hard against her bruises.

  “Sorry.” Galina said, backing up.

  “I’m actually doing pretty well, considering,” Irina told her, smiling bravely around the split in her lip. “I blacked Alexei’s eye and broke his nose.”

  Galya laughed, shocked, by the proud tone of her sister’s voice. “You did what?”

  “I hit him,” Irina said, nodding. “A lot. Viktor taught me systema and I used everything I could remember. And then I improvised and hit him in his stupid wolfy face with a log. But I think Viktor would have approved of that, too.”

  “What the fuck are you doing in here?!” Alexei’s voice boomed from the now broken door.

  She had to give it to her eldest brother. He only blanched slightly when he saw her face. Galina had been hoping her appearance here, in the pink of health, would rattle him more, but she’d take the little she could get right now.

  Uncle Petyr stood right behind him, a frown furrowing all the wrinkles in his face, giving him a bulldog-like expression. “Galina?”

  She let go of Irina and gave her uncle a hug. “But Alexei said you’d been stabbed.”

  “Oh, I was,” she said smoothly, giving Alexei a small smile. “I got better.”

  She took a step toward her oldest brother. “And as for what the fuck I’m doing here,” she gestured to the rope now decorating the floor of the bedroom. “I think that’s fairly obvious too. But you always were a little slow. I’ve come to get Irina and challenge you as head of the family.” She wrapped her arm around Irina and began to walk down the hall to the front door. “If you’ll all follow me?” She threw her request over her shoulder as if she were inviting them to a picnic. “The other families are waiting.”

  Galina heard Petyr ask Alexei what he thought he was doing, imprisoning his own sister. Alexei didn’t even try to answer him; her brother just snarled as he pushed past the older man and tried to catch up. Nik blocked him so he stayed well out of Galina’s way.

  The guards at the door bristled when they saw her and Irina. Galina growled low in the back of her throat, an Alpha threatening violence if her commands were not obeyed. They may not have been her men directly, but Alexei was no Alpha and she was. It probably scrambled their very tiny brains.

  “And now that we’re out of Alexei’s hearing,” Galina said, turning to her sister and punching her lightly in the arm. “Why on earth did you leave the safe house?”

  “I had to do something to help,” Irina said, rubbing her arm. “I couldn’t just hole up in the woods while the people I loved risked themselves for me. I’m Alexei’s weakness. If I showed up, unannounced, in a place Alexei was comfortable, I knew he would make a scene, come off looking crazy. And when, he, predictably, flipped the fuck out, I knew if I protested that I didn’t want to go back to Papa’s house, that’s exactly where he would take me. I had his laptop open and running less than an hour after we got here. I found all kinds of e-
mails between Alexei and some Italian guy who planted the bomb. I found schematics for Papa’s car Alexei downloaded from the net. But he caught me. He probably erased it all, but I doubt he’s smart enough to wipe his hard drive. I mean, he wasn’t smart enough to delete e-mails in which he explicitly planned his father’s murder.”

  Irina stared at her, voice a harsh whisper. “Who does that by e-mail, Galina? A crazy person, that’s who.” Her sister laughed and shook her head. “So I’m assuming that you got my message?”

  Galina raised an eyebrow. She hadn’t even checked her phone. “What message?”

  “What?” Irina groaned. “I thought that was why you showed up! I sent you an audio recording of Alexei ranting at me after he found me snooping through his computer. He went off how ungrateful I was, about what he’d done to get me out of my engagement to Andrey. He basically confessed to the whole thing. I was hoping the text went through before he smashed my phone.”

  Galina looked at her sister like she’d grown a second evil head.

  “What?” Irina asked.

  She smiled at Irina, ridiculously proud. “I turned my back for five minutes and you turned into a Bond girl, one of the smart ones that doesn’t get killed as soon as she sleeps with James.” Galina dug through her bag for her cell phone.

  “I go to the all of the trouble of coercing a confession out of our brother, and you don’t even check your phone?” Irina asked.

  “I’ve had a lot going on, Rina, it’s not like I had time to check my voice mail.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Irina paused. “What was that Uncle Petyr said about you being stabbed?”

  Galina waved away the question as she opened the text and pressed “play” on the audio file. Alexei’s shouting was tinny, but clear enough that Galina could make out everything he said. Galina could feel her breath hitch as she cradled the phone in her hand. This would do it. This would be enough to convince the other families that Alexei was unsuitable to lead, that she had every right to challenge him.

  They arrived on the fringes of the circle. Galina saw the knots of people demarcating the other families. A few of the bodyguards turned and signaled their bosses, who in turn signaled others. By the time her group arrived, a space had been made to allow them to join the circle. Low mutterings passed down the line of the assembled men.

  Maksim stood with the rest of Alexei’s crew, staring at her in speechless shock. His gaze skipped from her to Andrey, who was staring at him as if he was already imagining how his blood tasted on his tongue. She sneered at him. The Caviar Prince seemed one step away from pissing himself in fear. Galina turned her attention to the rest of the assembly.

  Suddenly, Irina went still beside her. She was staring, wide-eyed, at the man directly across the clearing, almost a head taller than all of the other gathered wolves. And that was the moment that Galina realized that in the tumult of the last few hours, she hadn’t yet told Irina that Viktor was alive.

  “Viktor?” Irina whispered, her hand creeping up to her throat.

  Galina glanced nervously around the circle at the sheer number of werewolf Mafioso. “Uh, Irina…”

  But Irina was off. “Viktor!” Irina streaked past bodyguards and old men to launch herself at her not-quite-dead lover.

  He staggered under the impact, but wrapped his arms around her tightly, lifting Irina off her feet. The crowd went silent as Irina claimed Viktor’s mouth in a kiss so fierce that Galina could practically feel the heat from across the clearing.

  “What the fuck is this?” she heard Alexei mutter behind her.

  Galina shared a grin with Andrey, who crossed the grass to stand beside her. The silence broke as many heads bent together, exclaiming and whispering over the shock of Ilya Sudenko’s sweet human daughter making a shameful spectacle of herself with a poor, unconnected Beta. Galina looked over her shoulder to see the monstrous sneer pass across Alexei’s face at the sight of Irina in Viktor’s arms. He stepped toward them, but Nik held him back.

  Irina let Viktor up for air just long enough to rear back and slug him with everything she had in her. The werewolf’s head snapped backward from the force of her blow, but his smile was blinding. Galina heard Andrey chuckle next to her even after Irina spat, “Don’t you ever do that to me again, do you hear me?”

  “Thank you all for coming,” Galina began, pulling the focus from her sister’s reunion with her beloved.

  Silence filled the yard. All eyes were fixed on her. She stepped away from Andrey and Irina, standing alone before all of them. Galina knew that she had to do this herself. It was the only way. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t nervous about challenging her brother to single combat.

  “I’ve invited you all here to bear witness.” Mutterings began, sweeping through the circle of people. She plowed ahead. “I, Galina Sudenko, do hereby challenge my brother, Alexei Sudenko for leadership of the Sudenko family.”

  Alexei looked murderous. The mutterings around her exploded, all shock and indignation over Irina’s behavior forgotten as shouts began to ring back and forth across the open space.

  “Nonsense!” Alexei scoffed. “A woman has no right to challenge me. Everyone knows females can’t run the business.”

  Petyr interrupted. “That is not the case. A woman has every right to initiate a challenge. It has happened in the past when Ykaterina Grenko challenged her husband.” The shouting settled down, Petyr’s words calming the more excited of the group.

  “This is ridiculous.” Alexei stalked up to her, trying his best to intimidate her through height. He looked ludicrous since he was only an inch or two taller than her. “What cause does she have?”

  “I don’t need a cause to initiate a challenge, or are you unfamiliar with the rules, Alexei?” She waited a beat before continuing. “But if you must have something, then I challenge you for the murder of our father, for the attempt on my life, and for the abduction of our sister—these are my reasons for challenge.”

  Galina watched as Alexei’s nostrils flared in rage. She hoped this would unbalance him further. He made stupid mistakes when he was angry.

  “And just in case there is any doubt that I have cause to challenge my brother.” Galina raised her arm, phone in hand, and pressed play. Alexei’s enraged voice rose to life, echoing through the trees as he explained his “efforts” to Irina.

  “Do you think it was so easy? Getting Papa out of the way? Do you know what I had to do to end this farce of an engagement to that Rom mongrel? Do you think I wanted to have Papa killed? No! But I did it, for you, Irina. So we could be together. I killed Papa for you!”

  Alexei howled in rage, barely audible over the rising crest of the crowd’s voices.

  Petyr nodded, holding up his hands for quiet. The list of accusations against Alexei and his own confession were too much for the crowd to take. Galina heard a few of them calling for Alexei’s blood.

  “And who will be your challenger?” Petyr asked.

  Galina smiled slowly, feeling it creep across her face like fog. “I will.”

  Again Petyr held up his hands for silence as the other wolves responded, still capable of shock, somehow. Alexei was grinning like a madman, obviously unconcerned about her challenge. He thought she wouldn’t know how to fight. She was counting on his being overconfident.

  “Galya,” Petyr said softly, drawing close to her, “this is madness. Let Nikolai handle this.”

  “No, Uncle,” she told him, shaking her head sadly. “This is between me and Alexei. He’s the one who stuck a knife in my back.”

  “A woman does not fight!” he scolded.

  “This woman does.” She turned back to Alexei. “I’m going to change.”

  “Why don’t you do it here?” he taunted.

  There were a number of reasons why she wouldn’t change in front of the group of men gathered. The most important was that she needed these men’s respect when she took over as head of the family and it was hard to do that once they’d seen her naked. And she really
liked the dress she was wearing; she didn’t want to shred it.

  Galina gave Alexei her most infuriating smile. “Because I think everyone should be focused on the fact that you’re a murdering coward and not on my naked breasts. Even if they are fabulous.” She walked away to a small copse of trees that Papa had planted decades ago for just such a reason.

  Andrey followed her. Before she could do more than remove her coat, he grabbed her roughly and kissed her. His mouth pressed hard against hers, demanding, wanting. She opened her lips beneath his, feeling his tongue slide against hers. He kissed her breathless, so deeply and desperately that she wobbled unsteadily against him.

  “Let me fight him,” he demanded, breaking away from her mouth.

  “You know my answer to that already,” Galina answered, kicking off her shoes.

  Andrey’s hands on her shoulders stopped her from undressing. “I can’t lose you.” His voice was soft, pitched for their ears alone.

  “You won’t,” she assured him with a confidence she didn’t feel. Galina knew only that she would never be able to live with herself if Andrey was hurt fighting her battles. “Do you really think I could stand losing you?” She held a hand to his cheek.

  “Be careful,” he said, moving his head so he could kiss her palm.

  “Watch my back?” She finished undressing quickly.

  Andrey grinned, his eyes never leaving her as she triggered her change. “When the back is as lovely as that, of course.”

  Galina padded toward the circle slowly, taking time to adjust to her wolf senses. It took her a few minutes to get used to four legs instead of two, a lower center of gravity, and how alive everything looked and smelled. Her senses were in overdrive, her thoughts scattered.

  Her sensitive ears picked up gasps as she stalked into the circle, Andrey behind her. Galina didn’t spend a lot of time in wolf form and hardly anyone here—outside of Nik, Alexei, and Rina—had ever seen her as an animal. Her coat was thick and white, her eyes the same icy jade as when she was human. She was large for a wolf, even larger than most males.

  Alexei had changed in the circle and he now growled when he caught wind of her scent. Galina ignored him for the moment, taking a turn around the area to inspect for things not visible to the human eye. When she was satisfied everything was to her liking, she sat at the edge of the circle and waited.