by Kenya Wright
Uh, Kaz, I think the job description is a bit too much.
Kaz glared at Boris. “You will die for her, if necessary.”
I stepped forward. “Thankfully, I don’t die easy and I’m not so fragile as it may be suggested.”
Boris smiled at my words.
“No.” Kaz’s voice came out calm but held an edge. “You don’t smile around her either.”
Boris straightened his face and turned back to Kaz.
I held in my sigh.
We need to have a discussion on social skills and how we should present our relationship to others. A simple, “She’s my girlfriend. Please, keep her safe,” would’ve done it.
“Give me your phone.” Kaz held his hand out.
Boris dove into his pockets and yanked out a cracked phone. He tried to hand it to Kaz.
“Oh no.” Kaz waved it away. “That won’t do. You’ll come with us. Bring another and leave the guns.”
Boris rushed to explain to his friend in Russian. One of them shook their head. He looked at the other, and he stepped forward.
“Okay. Yuri will come with us,” Boris said.
“Good.” Kaz walked off, still holding my hand. “You’ve got men, mysh.”
I hurried forward. “I figured it would be a little tenser than that.”
“Me too. Sometimes, I forget who I am.”
“You’ve been hiding for the past few weeks.”
“It was a nice vacation, but now I’m back.”
We returned to the car. Boris and Yuri stomped behind us. When we climbed in. They did too. Exhilaration buzzed through my veins. With Boris and Yuri, I could recruit more. With Kaz’s resources, I would have Sasha and Darryl in their graves by the morning.
Game on, motherfuckers.
We sped onto the highway.
Silence filled the car.
My heart boomed, hungry just as Kaz suggested on the sidewalk earlier. So hungry. I could taste the blood on my tongue.
I didn’t know about ways of the heart, but I knew about the ways of a gun. And I knew how to kill. I knew hurt. I knew how to get what I needed. I knew how to battle. I knew how to survive.
But all those times before, I’d done it for Darryl. To protect him. To make up for our lives. To heal him in some way. To heal me too.
But now, it would be all about me.
Kaz was fighting for his domination over the Bratva and Sasha’s audacity to think that he could kill him. I was fighting for love. Most relationships began with a kiss. Ours would begin in blood.
My phone buzzed. I pulled it out and answered. “Hello.”
“Yo!” Max yelled on the other line. “Why the fuck isn’t your Russian answering the phone, man?”
“He tossed it. What’s up?”
“I need him here.”
“Where?”
“St. Petersburg.”
“Max, you’re in St. Petersburg?” I turned to Kaz. Although he’d been driving, he glanced my way.
“Give the phone to the Russian,” Max said. “Is he there?”
“Yes.” I handed the phone to him.
“My penthouse?” Kaz scrunched his face. “What do you mean it’s now Misha’s penthouse?”
Kaz listened for a few minutes. “The brothel?”
A muscle under his eye twitched.
Kaz asked, “How many of them are dead?”
What? Who?
Maxwell’s voice came out intelligible on his end. He sounded like he was yelling out several details at a rapid speed.
“Did Valentina bring Oleg? No? Lucky for you that she didn’t. She could’ve died. He’ll kill you still.” Kaz gripped the steering wheel. “No, you can’t kill him.”
Whatever Max said on the other line, it didn’t improve Kaz’s mood. Rage covered his face.
“What’s the name?” Kaz asked. “Okay. I’ll be there.”
He gave the phone back to me. Max had hung up. I looked at Kaz. He gestured to Boris and Yuri in the back. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want to talk about in front of them.
Max, what are you doing in St. Petersburg? And what does that have to do with Valentina and Misha? Are they working against Kaz? Or is this all about the ballerina?
“I’ll have to drop you off and take the helicopter to the airport.” He looked pained to say the next words. “Can you handle what we need to do tonight?”
“On my own? Yes.”
“No.” He shook his head. “You don’t act against Sasha without me.”
Boris stirred in the back at the mention of Sasha’s name.
“I’m talking about putting everything together.” Kaz noticed and kept his voice low. “You know our plan. Set it up. But don’t make any move, unless I’m around.”
“Okay.”
He gritted his teeth. “We should delay this and go to St. Petersburg together. When we divide, people die.”
“When we unite, they die.”
“Still, I don’t know if I’ll be back in time.”
“How long is the flight?”
“An hour and a half.”
“Three hours for flight time. That gives you two hours to get to where you have to get to, handle the situation, and get back.” I checked my watch. “You’ll be in by night. When would…our host have the dinner?”
Kaz turned back to the road, but rage blazed in his eyes. “Whenever I tell him.”
“Maybe he can make it a late dinner and we show up afterwards. Sasha will be relaxed.”
Kaz considered it. “No.”
“No?”
“When we separated, people died. This time, I stay with you. They can handle it. I’ll send some men. Now I know who was working against me.”
Tension eased in my chest. Kaz didn’t say more, probably due to Boris. We weren’t sure how much we could trust him yet.
Maxwell figured out who’s working with Sasha? Good. But what the hell happened there?
“No,” Kaz answered as if he’d been having an argument in his head. “We don’t divide anymore. They’ll handle this.”
I feared for Maxwell and whatever was going on out there, but I knew Kaz had a point.
“We stay together. We handle this tonight. Together, no one can fuck with us.” Kaz gazed in the rear-view mirror at Boris. “Stay close and keep her safe.”
Boris’s words came out shaky. “I will.”
Kaz appeared beyond angry. He gripped the steering wheel so hard, I thought he would tear it off.
“What happened in St. Petersburg?” I whispered.
“A lot.” He gritted his teeth and stared ahead. “I’ll catch you up.”
Twenty
Maxwell
Twenty-four hours ago
I found that I was really enjoying hanging with Russians. They added a certain spice to life. I didn’t even know Misha for more than a few days, but already I had a great respect for the man.
No wonder Kazimir knew he didn’t do it. He’s not a killer. He just could kill you.
There was a certain finesse to Misha. He talked with his hands, moving them back and forth. Dotting his index fingers in the air, when he ended his sentences. Raising his hands, when he had a major point to declare.
We’d already put his plan in motion. Barely an hour away from Moscow, Valentina went to the pilot and told them to change the route to St. Petersburg. Misha had a lot of friends there and several spots to hide out in, if we needed to. Apparently, he also had a lot of ears to the ground. People would be on the lookout for any sign of Sasha.
As soon as we landed, Misha pulled out the small phone Valentina had found behind the toilet and typed a text message that we landed in St. Petersburg and were heading to a brothel.
SASHA: Will he be there?
We assumed he was Kazimir.
Misha typed back that Kazimir and Em would arrive that evening. And then we shut off the phone. I was sure there was a tracker on it. Sasha would see that we were definitely in St. Petersburg.
The phone had been
shut off, when we found it. There’d be no reason to keep it on.
“But do we keep it on the plane?” Valentina sipped a glass of wine. She’d ended up ordering dinner for the three of us. “Maybe we want this bastard to sit on the plane, check his phone, and think everything is okay.”
“True.” I munched on my sandwich. “But he might text Sasha that something is wrong. He may even see our text.”
“We can delete the text.” Valentina sipped the wine.
“No.” Misha stabbed at his steak. “We keep the phone just in case. We’ve got the rat in the cage.”
I looked at him. “Do we?”
“Yes.” Misha gestured outside of Valentina’s bedroom to where the others sat in the cabin. “The plane drops us off. We tell the pilot to take the plane back in the air with everyone else on it.”
“And go where?” I asked.
Misha shrugged. “Australia. South Africa. It doesn’t matter, we keep the plane in the air. The rat remains in the cage.”
“Oleg comes with me,” Valentina said.
Misha and I shook our heads.
“Oleg isn’t helping Sasha.”
“We don’t know that, princess.” I took another bite of my sandwich.
“I’m not letting Oleg sit in some plane for hours—”
“Then, what?” I asked.
“Let’s keep the plane on the runway.” Valentina finished her wine. “They can wait.”
“If it’s Oleg, he would kill the pilot and anyone else and come for us.” Misha shook his head. “I say, let the plane take off.”
“No.” She batted her eyes. “And you’re right. If it is Oleg, he would kill the pilot. And so it wouldn’t matter what we did. Oleg would sense trouble if he’s on the plane and it went somewhere else.”
“What about Luka?” I asked.
Misha glanced at the door. “Luka’s always been devoted. I don’t know.”
“Luka knew Kazimir was alive long before that text to Sasha at the airport. He’d gone out to get Chinese food for them. He could’ve grabbed a phone right around the block.” I wiped my face with a napkin. “But, if it was Luka, why didn’t he tell Sasha earlier? After the bombing, we all were at Em’s. That morning, Valentina arrived. We flew out that afternoon.”
“Which brings us back to Oleg.” Misha turned to her. “It wouldn’t have been your other cousins. They can’t piss without someone holding it.”
“Oleg or Luka?” I took a swig of my beer.
“We should just end the mystery and kill them both.” Misha poured himself a glass of wine. “I have other things to do. It would save some time.”
“No one’s killing Oleg.” Valentina widened her eyes. “But…if I find out that it is him, I kill him myself.”
“No.” Misha shook his head. “Whoever took a picture of my father with that phone will die by me.”
Valentina rolled her eyes. “You don’t even like to kill.”
“Do you?” Misha eyed her.
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me.” Misha raised his glass. “To death and all that comes with it.”
Drinking probably wasn’t the best idea for us. Especially being on a plane with the person that had been helping Sasha. But we drank and talked. One would’ve thought we’d known each other for years. One would’ve even thought that Misha had not thrown bloody ballerina slippers at Valentina the other night, or that I was just getting head from her in the bathroom a bit earlier.
Every moment was surreal with these Russians. And I was finding that I didn’t like the idea of not being around them anymore.
The plane landed an hour later.
We decided to bring Oleg and Luka with us. Neither asked a question about where we were going or why. They didn’t even go back to that bathroom, when we landed.
Misha, Valentina, and I had been watching.
Whichever one it is, he knows something is up. He’ll play along, until he can’t anymore.
We all rode in the limo and Valentina stayed close to Oleg. I remained with Luka. Misha kept his men close. He’d talked to them a few minutes before everyone got into the limo.
The ride was awkward. Tension filled the air. Everyone knew something was up, without having a clear reason for why. Yet, the whole ride, I tried to put myself in their shoes and figure out what I would do if I was innocent or guilty like them.
This is interesting. I think Oleg would’ve at least asked Valentina why they were in St. Petersburg.
I studied the man’s face. He scowled at me in his usual way. I turned to Luka looking at him as if for the first time. I’d barely conversed with him. He stayed by Em’s side, and usually when I came around, he went off as if taking a break from having to babysit.
Luka gazed at me through that big ugly face. There was no fear, but I didn’t expect any.
Which one is it?
We entered a luxury neighborhood and Valentina hissed. I turned to her, but she glared at Misha and spat out several Russian words.
Misha smiled. “I’m multitasking.”
The limo dropped us in front of a building.
“What’s going on?” I gazed out of the window. “Where is this?”
“Kazimir’s ex-lover used to live here. Olesya.” Misha grinned at Valentina. “I had planned on looking it over, after Moscow, but I figure now is a good time.”
I didn’t know what was happening between them, but I knew I would have to deal with it. Kazimir had put me on to figuring out who killed Olesya, but there were too many things going on. Besides the fact that we all knew Valentina did it. We just didn’t know why.
For Kazimir and Misha, the why for Valentina’s death was way more important than if she did it.
What’s up with this ballerina?
We climbed out of the limo.
Valentina stomped ahead of us as if she knew the way. When she got to the entrance, the door man smiled and opened the door.
We followed her in.
“Were they friends?” I asked Misha as we walked several feet behind her.
He scowled. “They were more than friends.”
“So, Olesya was hooking up with Kazimir and Valentina?”
Misha nodded.
“Did Kazimir know?” I asked.
“No.” Misha shook his head.
“How do you know about Valentina and Olesya?”
His jaw twitched. “I caught them.”
“You’re pretty forthcoming with information.”
“It’s because I know Kazimir wants you to look into this.”
I stopped in the hallway and turned to him. “How do you know that?”
“I have police in Prague. They were at the hotel room, when you went in it. What did you find?”
“The same thing you did.”
Everyone else continued down to the elevators.
“Why do you care about the ballerina’s death?” I asked.
“Because her death is causing someone a lot of paint and fear. And I happen to care about that person a lot.”
“Who?”
“She has nothing to do with Valentina and Olesya.”
“So, it’s a woman.” I nodded. “What about Valentina? Do you have feelings for her?”
“No, and I would appreciate it, if you never say that again.” Misha adjusted his tie.
“I figured you liked Valentina—”
“No.”
“It didn’t seem like that on the plane. You knocked on the bathroom door.”
Misha laughed. “I don’t trust Valentina to not be a bitch. I want you to find out whatever you need about Olesya’s death, get the information, and give it to Kazimir. He’s the only one that can deal with his sister.”
“But I don’t get why you care?”
“That’s not your job.”
We met everyone at the elevator.
Valentina looked angry as we got all inside. A few of Misha’s men stayed behind with Luka. Oleg came with us, standing right next to Valentina as
he usually did.
From our plan, we were just supposed to sit in an apartment across from the brothel’s address that we’d typed to Sasha.
We don’t even know if that number is Sasha.
We’d tried calling Kazimir. His phone went straight to message.
“He’s off-the-grid.” Misha hung up the phone. “He should’ve done that in the first place.”
“Hmmm.” Valentina’s expression brightened. “Then, I know where he is.”
“Where?” I asked.
“With our mom.”
Misha didn’t seem to get what Valentina was saying, and it didn’t matter for the time being. We’d send Sasha to St. Petersburg. If Kazimir wasn’t here, then we could talk to him later. It was time to end the bullshit of having to look over our shoulders as we buried people that weren’t meant to die.
Pain hit my chest as we rose in the elevator.
Xavier never had anything to do with this. That’s bullshit that he died.
The more I thought of it, the more I agreed with Misha. Why not just kill Oleg and Luka and be done with the mystery? According to Valentina, Luka was as close to a best friend that Kazimir could have besides Misha, who more seemed like a brother.
I doubted Misha and Kazimir related to each other. Misha seemed pretty into technology. We talked about our shared knowledge of hacking. Even though a rich kid in the crime world, Misha had a rebel side. He’d come pretty close to admitting to taking down electronic banks accounts and giving them to poor people.
The elevator stopped at the top floor and opened right into the apartment.
Damn, Kazimir. This is how you wife your females? I might consider dating you now.
The place must’ve been worth a few million.
I whistled. “Damn, how much is this place?”
Valentina glared at me.
What did I do? I didn’t bring you here.
Misha got to my side. “The penthouse is worth 8 million.”
“That’s a lot.”
A Steinway piano sat in the center. Valentina touched the stack of moving boxes by the piano. “How did you know the value, Misha?”
“Because I bought it.”
Valentina gave him a cruel expression. “Why? What is wrong with you?”
The windows held a spectacular view of downtown St. Petersburg. The only thing I knew about the city was that Russia’s President Putin had been from here.