by Jacey Conrad
One of Alexei’s goons pulled his SUV around to the valet station and Irina was unceremoniously loaded into the backseat. As the car door was slammed in her face, she could have sworn she saw Viktor’s face fading into the shadows near the restaurant entrance.
Clearly the stress of playing spy was taxing her brain too much.
She continued to make a show of protesting that Alexei should just drive her home all the way to Papa’s gate. With Timur behind the wheel, Alexei had held her hand for the entire drive, clutching it to his chest and assuring her that everything was fine now. He would take care of her. She had nothing to worry about. Wanting to avoid any potentially mind-scarring conversations that might happen in the comfort of his territory, she feigned exhaustion as he scooped her out of her seat and carried her up to her old bedroom. She tilted her forehead against Alexei’s shoulder while he carried her up the staircase and pretended to drift off to sleep.
Alexei had tenderly laid Irina down on her childhood bed, taken off her sneakers and pressed his trembling lips against hers in a kiss that lasted too long. He kissed her forehead and said, “Welcome home, darling” and walked quietly to the door.
Irina gagged and rolled her face over her pillow, wiping off Alexei’s kiss. “I am going to need a Crying Game shower,” she whispered, wiping at her mouth with a sheet.
Irina sat up, flicking on her bedside lamp. Her eyes immediately fell on her vanity, the place where Viktor had made love to her, knotted her. The memory hit her like a physical blow, reminding her that nothing like it would ever happen again. She was alone. She could feel Viktor’s hands on her skin, his lips on her neck. She flopped back on the mattress, pressing the blankets over her face.
She had to do this. She couldn’t go back to wallowing in Viktor’s memory. She couldn’t rely on Galina to swoop in and save the day. She’d come here to accomplish something and by God, she was going to do it. She just had to wait for Alexei to get comfortable enough for her to move around the house. In the meantime, she turned off the lamp, because she didn’t need to sit here for hours, staring at her memory-sparking furniture.
Irina sat in her darkened room, listening at the door for the sound of Alexei drinking himself stupid with his buddies in Papa’s old office. She slipped into her running shoes and carefully padded down the hallway. Galina had said that Alexei was using Papa’s old room, so she snuck in there.
She closed the door quietly behind her, creeping to Papa’s old desk, the place where he’d handled minor correspondence and the family bills. He’d tried to keep that separate from his large formal office downstairs. Nothing. No papers. No notebooks. No computer. She did find her cell phone, which she hadn’t even felt Alexei slip out of the back pocket of her jeans. That was upsetting.
She searched Papa’s bookshelves, his nightstand, the closet. Nothing.
She remembered that when they were kids, Alexei use to hide his favorite GI Joe in his pillow case, because he liked to be able to gnaw it while he slept. She wondered if he carried the hoarding habit into adulthood. She reached under the pillows in Papa’s enormous sleigh bed and her hand struck a flat metallic shape.
Alexei’s laptop was the latest sleek Mac model, which surprised her. He wasn’t exactly a tech geek. Then again, she did remember a story Nik told about Alexei booting a Blu-Ray player out of his backdoor because he couldn’t get the director’s commentary on Hostel to work. Maybe he’d destroyed the last computer and replaced it with the shiniest one he could find.
Irina took the laptop to the desk and opened it. The password prompt popped up and Irina tried to think of Alexei would use as a password. “Password” or “Alexei” were options, but she was sure that it wasn’t that simple. She cringed as she typed in her own name, sighing, “Please, don’t let this be it.” And then thumped her head against the desk when his desktop opened. “Damn it.”
Sighing, Irina opened the file directory and sifted through Alexei’s downloads. She found a PDF document that contained schematics for Papa’s model of Mercedes. She opened up his browser and e-mail login. “I would really, really like to be wrong,” she prayed as she typed her name into the password window.
“Gah,” she groaned as the e-mail account opened.
Alexei apparently didn’t send very many e-mails, most of them from online vendors confirming purchases. But just to be sure, Irina typed “bomb” into the search function, to try to find messages involving that word. Nothing. She typed “explosion” nothing. She chewed on her lip, and searched the term “car,” which brought up dozens of e-mails, including promotional offers from a local Mercedes dealership. She scrolled through the messages and noticed one personal e-mail address mixed in with all of the promotions: [email protected].
She opened the first message she found. There was no salutation or closing line. Just:
Job completed to specifications.
Payment expected within 48 hours.
A tingle of triumph zipped up Irina’s spine. This was it. She opened all of ProblemSolver’s e-mails. Alexei was smart enough, at least, not to discuss the bombing directly. They were very vague exchanges in which Alexei discussed delivering a “package” and sent ProblemSolver a copy of Papa’s weekly schedule. There wouldn’t be enough detail to hold up in court, but it would help Galina.
She selected all of the messages from ProblemSolver101 and forwarded them to Galina’s account. She opened a new message, told Galina what she’d found, and attached the downloaded car schematics, and sent it to Galina, too. Then she deleted the sent messages so Alexei wouldn’t be able to see that Galina had the information. She was so concentrated on this task, that she didn’t hear Alexei’s footsteps approaching the door.
He frowned at the sight of Irina bent over his computer. “What are you doing?”
“I just needed to send Galina an e-mail to let her know I was in town, safe and sound. I think I misplaced my phone.”
“You’re letting Galina know you’re here?” Alexei asked, frowning. “Are you really so ungrateful after all I’ve done for you?”
The hairs on Irina’s neck stood up. Something about the timber of Alexei’s voice, the plaintive whine, had her pulling her phone out of her pocket. She kept it under the desk as she thumbed across the screen, opening an app that took dictations. She used it at the shop sometimes when making observations for appraisals.
“Well, why wouldn’t I?” Irina smiled blithely. “She’s my sister, just like you’re my brother.”
“Why are you always so loyal to Galina?” Alexei demanded, his eyes wild and unfocused. She wondered how much Bullet, exactly, was in his system right now. “Why do you always go to her first? Why don’t you ever come to me? Do you ever think about how that makes me feel?”
“Galina’s my sister,” Irina said, emphasizing the word “sister” in a way she hoped was pointed enough. “It’s natural that we’re close.”
“But you never allow me to get close to you,” Alexei whined. “You never—you don’t appreciate what I do for you.”
He dropped to his knees in front of the desk. Irina shook her head and played the innocent human. “What do you mean, Alexei? I don’t understand.”
But Alexei was beyond hearing. “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?”
“No, Alexei, I’m sure it wasn’t. Tell me so I can understand.”
“I did it all for you,” Alexei whispered, his face flushing red. “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!”
This was enough. Irina let loose a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Under the desk, she hit “stop” on the dictation app and glanced down to find the “share” button. She entered Galina’s cell phone number in the prompt window, so the file would be sent as an attachment to a text.
She’d no sooner hit “send” when Alexei demanded, “What
are you doing? What are you looking at?”
He tossed Papa’s desk aside as if it weighed nothing, flinging his computer against the wall and splintering the screen. He saw the phone in her hand and shouted. “What is this? Why do you have your phone? Are you recording me?”
Alexei swiped the phone from her hand and shattered it against the wall. Irina side-stepped him, backing toward the door.
“Why would you do this, Irina?” he howled, clenching his hands into fists. “Why would you do this when I have done everything for you? All I’ve ever tried to do is make you happy! I love you! All I’ve ever wanted is you!”
“Whatever you’re feeling for me, it’s not right,” she told him, keeping her voice calm as she hit the bedroom door. “I’m your sister.”
Alexei followed her into the hall. “I’ve never seen you as my sister, Rina. You’ve always been so much more to me. I could make you so happy, Irina. That’s all I want, to marry you, make you happy, give you babies. Don’t you see? That’s why Sergei never got you pregnant, because you were meant for me.”
“You’re disgusting,” she spat, glancing down the hall toward the main stairs. Alexei grabbed her left sleeve, dragging her back toward Papa’s room. Irina wrapped her arm around Alexei’s, trapping it under her own and using her free hand to crank his joint painfully toward the ceiling. He yelped as his arm buckled and Irina swung her right hand toward his throat, punching his Adam’s apple hard enough to make her knuckles crack. Alexei made a strangled hacking wheeze, collapsing to his knees on the carpet.
“Fucker.” Irina took advantage, kicking him in the face before leaping over his body and scrambling down the stairs.
Alexei’s men were too dumbfounded by the sight of his sister, dashing through the house like her hair was on fire, to try to stop her. She didn’t feel her feet touch the ground as she ran across the side yard to the entrance to the running trails. There was a back gate to the property, a maintenance entrance to the enormous fence on the far side of the property that so few people knew about, Papa rarely posted men there to guard it. She doubted if Alexei would have had the foresight to do so. If she could get through the woods and the gate, maybe she could get to Galina, tell her what she’d found.
Irina was grateful that she knew the running trails around the house better than Alexei or his men could ever hope. She was making good time, taking the more complicated and winding route around the property. Alexei would expect her to take the most direct route. She hoped that he would be so enraged by getting beat up by his sister that he wouldn’t able to follow the looping, twisting trail of her scent. She ran until she thought her lungs would burst, willfully ignoring the sounds of wolves hunting behind her.
The trees were growing thicker, denser as she neared the back edge of the property. She was close enough now that she could actually taste freedom like it was a special flavor on the wind. And of course, that was the moment that her brother exploded out of the tree line like something out of a horror movie, landing in her path and snarling for all he was worth.
Irina skidded to a stop, her feet slipping out from under her on the pine-needled covered path. As she landed, she spied a fallen branch the length and thickness of her arm. She grabbed it and jumped to her feet before Alexei could advance any further.
“Alexei,” she shouted. “I know you can hear me. If you come any closer, I am going to hurt you.”
Alexei growled, lunging at her. Irina swung the branch at his thick gray snout. He ducked at the last second, but was right where she needed him when she whirled the club down in a vertical swing. It hit right between the ears. Alexei howled and dropped to the ground in a heap. She stepped around him, but he sprang up, snagging the back of her jeans at the waist and tossing her down to the ground. She landed hard enough to knock the wind out of her, struggling to breathe while Alexei planted his feet over her shoulders. She shuddered, shirking away from his hot, rank breath on her face.
She twisted her hands in his fur and tried to yank him off of her. But he growled, dropping his weight on top of her. He huffed as the two more wolves slithered through the trees and flanked him. Vasily and Timur. She was outnumbered. By werewolves. And grappling with werewolves was a subject that Viktor had omitted from her martial arts education.
“Fine,” she growled, flopping back to the ground. “Fine. You fucking cheater.”
Alexei and his men switched back to human form and forced her to walk back to the house. Alexei was looking worse for wear, with a face covered in rapidly healing bruises and one eye swollen shut. She’d done that. And the sight of it made her heart swell with misanthropic glee.
“This isn’t going to work, Alexei,” Irina told him. “You won’t be able to keep me prisoner. Galina knows I’m here.”
“Galina doesn’t know shit,” Alexei shot back. “Galina’s dead.”
“You’re lying,” Irina shouted as they left the woods and stepped out on the driveway. “You’re lying!”
Irina kicked the back of Alexei’s knee, making him fall to the pavement. Alexei snarled, turning to backhand Irina, sending her sprawling onto the asphalt. She clutched her hand to her cheek, but she was smiling when she glowered up at him. “I’m not as fun to have around anymore, huh? Now that I’m fighting back?”
“You’re just confused,” Alexei told her, wiping blood from a nose that was obviously broken. “In a few days, you’ll be back to normal. You’ll see sense.”
“I’m going to keep fighting you, Alexei. Every step of the way, I will make this as painful as possible. I will humiliate you in front of your own men. I’ve already done it tonight. How long do you think you’ll last as the big boss when word gets around that your little human sister is beating you up? Not to mention that scene you made at the restaurant. Do you think people are going to want to do business with a guy that’s in love with his own sister? It’s fucking gross.”
“You shut your mouth!” Alexei roared at her, swinging his hand up as if to smack her again. But Nik came running out of the big house and stopped him.
“Alexei, what are you doing?” Nik demanded, catching his hand before the strike could land.
“What are you doing here?” Alexei spat, jerking his arm out of Nik’s grip.
“I am not welcome in my father’s house?” Nik asked, pulling Irina to her feet. This prompted a snarl from Alexei. “Why are you hitting Irina?”
“She’s gone crazy,” Alexei said as Nik led her into the house. “Ranting and raving at me in public and claiming that I had something to do with Papa’s death. I’m just trying to protect her from herself. She needs to be locked up.”
“Okay, then, lock her up, but don’t hit her,” Nik cried. “She’s human. She can’t take a hit from an Alpha.”
Irina raised her eyebrow at Nik, who shrugged. Apparently, they were keeping up that pretense. Over her shoulder, she heard Timur murmur, “Could have fooled me.”
Irina spent the next hour sitting in her old room while Nik and Alexei argued outside of her door. Alexei wanted to bind Irina’s hands with plastic zip ties and keep her in Papa’s old room, but Nik had shoved Irina inside her childhood bedroom and told her to keep the door locked. And he insisted on calling Uncle Petyr to calm Alexei’s crazy ass down. After years of defusing and redirecting Alexei’s raging narcissism, Nik was an expert in keeping Alexei distracted from his more destructive goals.
Unfortunately, after doing an inventory of her room and finding that her teenage self had kept nothing on hand that could be used as a weapon, Irina suffered the inevitable adrenaline crash. She passed out under the canopy of her princess bed and slept until she heard a splintering kick delivered to her bedroom door. She bolted up from bed and almost shook with relief when Galina came bounding through from the hall.
“I should smack him on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. Made of titanium,” she muttered, pulling Irina into a tight hug. “Are you okay?”
“Ow!” Irina hissed as Galina squeezed too hard against her
bruised ribs.
“Sorry,” Galya said, loosening her grip immediately.
“I’m actually doing pretty well, considering,” Irina told her, smiling despite the split in her lip. “I blacked Alexei’s eye and broke his nose.”
Galya laughed. “You did what?”
“I hit him,” Irina said, nodding. “A lot. I used everything I learned. And then I improvised and hit him in the face with a log. But I think Vitya would have approved of that, too.”
Before Galina could respond, Alexei appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, shouting. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
Irina could tell from his aghast expression that Alexei meant it in every sense of the word. He wasn’t just shocked to see Galina in Papa’s house, he was shocked that she was on the face of the planet. What the hell was going on?
Uncle Petyr’s expression was troubled even as Galina threw her arms around him. “Galina? But Alexei said you’d been stabbed.”
“Oh, I was,” she said smoothly even as Irina gave a distressed cry. She gave Alexei a sly smile. “I got better.”
Galina took a step toward her eldest 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 untie 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 called casually. “The other families are waiting.”
“What are you thinking, Alexei?” Petyr demanded as Galina led Irina past the guards in the foyer. “How could you lock your sister in your father’s room like she’s some sort of prisoner? What is going on in your head?”
Alexei snarled as he pushed past the older man and ran after Irina and Galina. Nik blocked his way. “Alexei, stop this. You’ve done enough to Irina.”