by Kat Mizera
“But Sergei knew about Tatiana.”
He sighed. “He figured it out even though I never did. Apparently she didn’t trust me enough to tell me, and I have to confess that still hurts. Not because I love her, but because I obviously was not the man I thought I was. The woman I loved—and when we were younger I loved her very much—was being manipulated and abused, but she didn’t feel she could come to me and I didn’t even notice. Yet my younger brother, who at the time was just a friend, was the man who stepped up to take care of the problem. What does that say about me?”
“I don’t think it says a lot about you,” she said slowly. “It says more about the relationship the two of you had. She made choices and then realized that it would ultimately hurt her relationship instead of helping it. That’s on her, not you.”
“But she didn’t think she could trust me to tell me she made a mistake. What kind of man am I that I’m that unapproachable, even to the women I love?” He met her eyes and his meaning went much deeper than anything to do with Tatiana.
“Ten months, Toli. She’d had you for years at that point, so I can’t speak to what she did. I’ve only been with you for 10 months and I was in a foreign country with my child. There’s no comparison, because ultimately, I came back.”
There was a knock on the door and Sergei stuck his head in. “We need to talk—all of us. You two going to join us?”
“Yes, just a minute.” Toli nodded at him and then looked down at Tessa. “Let’s go hear what everyone has to say and then I can explain more about what happened. Is that okay? Can we talk with everyone first, before we sort out the details between us?”
“We have to,” she said simply. “Because I feel like there are a lot of parts of this story missing.”
He wrapped his good arm around her and held her close, opting not to say anything else and hoping that the beating of his heart would somehow tell her all the things he wasn’t sure how to explain. If their love was as deep as he thought it was, she would sense how much he loved and needed her. And how he would do almost anything to fix this mess.
“Let’s go,” she said after a moment. “I’m dead on my feet but I need to know everything.”
He held her hand and noted that her wedding and engagement rings weren’t there. “You took off your rings?”
“Yes and no.” She managed a small smile. “I took them off because Louie said it was safer not to wear a diamond that big with what we were doing.”
He nodded. “They are in a safe place?”
“With Tiff, in the safe at their house.”
“Do you plan to put them back on?”
“You asked me if we were getting divorced a little while ago,” she whispered. “So I don’t know.”
“We’re only getting divorced if you don’t love me anymore.”
“That’s not even possible,” she admitted. “I want to pretend I’m a strong, modern woman who wouldn’t put up with a man who cheated, but deep down, I would have forgiven you.”
“I would never do that,” he whispered against her hair. “Never. I’m not perfect, but that’s not something I could do. I never cheated on Tatiana and I will never cheat on you. I swear that to you, Tessa.”
“I just need to know one thing.”
“Anything.”
“What did Tatiana whisper to you in the hospital?”
He smiled faintly, and looked down into her eyes. “She told me I should be honest with you and tell you what I’d done. Secrets aren’t good in a relationship.”
Tessa swallowed hard. “I wish you’d listened to her.”
“Me, too.”
Chapter 16
They joined everyone in the living room and Tessa found herself suddenly ravenous. When Anastasia brought out a dish with cookies and fruit, she was unable to resist and she put several on a napkin, nibbling as Louie began to talk.
“I swept the apartment for bugs, found one and put it in a planter outside, so hopefully it buys us a conversation before they notice we’ve gone silent.”
“I hate to speak for Tatiana,” Sergei said quietly, his eyes red and shoulders slightly slumped. “But these events were set in motion by things she did.”
“Bah!” Anatoly made a face. “I set this in motion before you are even born! I am KGB in the 60s and 70s, and for this I push my sons to leave Russia and play hockey in America. I do not want them to be involved, but Toli, he is always big target. First son, big star in NHL and KHL, girlfriend is the daughter of big shot in Russian mafia—”
“Russian mafia?!” Anton blurted out the words before he could help it.
“From what she told me, the KGB made a deal with her father’s organization when she was a little girl,” Sergei said to Toli. “They wanted you to be a power couple—the son of a high-ranking KGB official and the only child of one of the most powerful mob families in Russia. She had no idea, of course. You were in high school together and her parents took her to one of your hockey games. Her father told her she should have a big, Russian hockey star for a boyfriend. Do you remember?”
Toli nodded. “Yes, of course. She was shy, but very pretty and smart. I liked that she didn’t giggle and fall all over me, like most of the girls at the rink.”
“Her parents encouraged it until you went into the Army. You left school halfway through your last year so you could do a brief stint in the military. That’s not standard, but we all assumed it had something to do with hockey.”
Anatoly nodded. “Yes, I do this so he will be allowed to go to U.S. I know he will be drafted in NHL but without military service, I am afraid they will not allow.”
“Tatiana’s father was furious when Toli went to play in New York,” Sergei continued. “When Anton was born, he told her about the family business and that if she wasn’t going to bring the Petrovs into the fold via marriage, she had to earn her place some other way.”
“This was because of my father’s affiliation with the KGB?” Toli looked confused. “But the KGB had already disbanded in the early 90s? By the time we started dating they didn’t exist.”
“Well,” Anatoly coughed. “Not as KGB, but they existed under many other names, and the different mafia factions wanted involvement with underground activities and access to the most powerful members. I was one of those.”
“You and Tatiana started to grow apart, though,” Sergei said. “You were still paying for many of her school expenses and stuff…so her father started to interfere. She would get a good opportunity somewhere and he would make a phone call and it would suddenly be rescinded. He didn’t want her to succeed as a surgeon because he figured she wouldn’t go to America with you if she was doing well here. Instead, she went over his head, to a more powerful mob family, and asked if they would help. She offered to get them classified hospital records on powerful politicians and diplomats in exchange for continued professional success. With another family secretly getting valuable information from her, her father would be less able to manipulate her professionally.
“But then it escalated,” he continued softly. “The files weren’t enough—they wanted more. They wanted Tatiana as a woman too, and she gave in because at this point she was caught between her father and his enemies. If she told her father what she’d been doing, he would probably kill her. She was too ashamed to tell Toli and she knew this other family would not just go to her father, they could also have her thrown in prison and/or destroy her medical career. If they told anyone she’d been giving them files, she had no chance of continuing as a doctor. So she did what she had to do. By the time I intervened to get her away from them, Toli was pressuring her to get married and she just wanted out. When Toli went to go play for the Sidewinders, it was a relief. Her father couldn’t blame her because Toli had been the one to leave, and of course I’d bought out her debt to the family who’d helped her.”
“She was finally free,” Toli said quietly.
“It is never so easy,” Anatoly sighed. “The government was still interested
in you, Toli, as a type of ambassador for the Russians. They want you to speak about Russia to all the Russian hockey players in the U.S. and Canada, to remind them to come home to Mother Russia, not to forget roots. I cannot allow this, so I come out from retirement and work again—to have favors so they leave Toli alone in U.S.”
“And then I fucked everything up,” Toli groaned.
“You were already on their radar,” Sergei continued. “When I told Tatiana what you did the day before the wedding—”
“Wait—you lost me.” Tessa had been listening intently, trying to keep track, but now she felt like she’d missed something. “What did you do before the wedding?”
“I called Grisha,” Toli sighed, looking at Tessa guiltily. “I was worried about Marco. I had a feeling he would try something at our wedding and two days before, I panicked. I called what I thought was an old family friend—I didn’t know exactly what my father had been doing all those years, but I had an idea and this guy had been someone my father talked about often. So I got ahold of him and told him what had happened in Switzerland with Marco and Tiff and he said he would make arrangements to have some very special security lurking around our wedding. Just in case Marco showed up.”
“So technically this is my fault,” Zakk spoke for the first time, a look of frustration on his face. “Because of our friendship, and my participation in the events in Switzerland, I made it so that you needed protection at the wedding.”
“No!” Toli scowled at him. “Do you think I would trade our friendship over this bullshit? Come on!”
“That’s just it,” Sergei interrupted. “Mikhail was so mad that Toli had left Tatiana again, he was watching him, waiting for a chance to get back at him for jilting his daughter. He knew about what happened in Switzerland and he’s the one who approached Marco, told him he would supply the man power he needed to get his revenge and get Tiff back during the wedding. When I told Tatiana what Toli had done, she was afraid that things might get out of control and called her father. She told him if anything happened to Toli she would call Pavel.”
“Who’s Pavel?” Tessa asked.
“How did Tatiana know her father was involved?” Anton asked at the same time.
“I’m lost,” Dom muttered.
“His biggest rival,” Sergei grimaced, answering the first question. “The man she’d been sleeping with before I paid them off.”
“Tatiana knew her father was involved?” Tessa asked in confusion.
Sergei shook his head. “No, but she knew Toli was on her father’s radar, so when I told her he’d contacted Grisha, she had a feeling her father would hear about it. She called him to be proactive, hoping to prevent what happened here in Russia from happening at the wedding, not knowing that it was already in the works.”
“So her father supplied Marco with the men that were supposed to—what?” Toli frowned.
Sergei looked down. “Kill Zakk, take Tiff, wound you and—”
“Wound me?” Toli was shocked. “Not kill me? To what end?”
“So that you would have to retire and come back to Russia. If they ruined your career, you would have to come home.” He hesitated. “But you didn’t let me finish. The last part of that was that they would also kill Tessa, removing the last barrier between you and Russia.”
Tessa gasped and Toli growled in frustration.
“That makes no sense,” Anton said, scowling. “Were they going to get rid of me, too? ‘Cause with me in the U.S., my dad wasn’t going anywhere.”
Sergei smiled fondly at him. “Many of the men here—especially the ones like Mikhail—don’t have relationships with their children like you and your dad have. I think they were counting on your going off to college and/or the NHL and being too busy to care about your dad.”
Anton’s mouth fell open. “Too busy for the guy who’s supported and taken care of me and been my biggest fan? Not a chance.”
Toli couldn’t help but smile at him, reaching out to ruffle his hair. “You get extra money for Christmas.”
Anton rolled his eyes. “I have one of your credit cards, Dad. Duh.”
Toli pretended to be shocked. “You do? I better lower the limit.”
“I’m still confused,” Zakk said. “So Marco kills me and Tessa, takes Tiff and shoots Toli in the shoulder. Toli recovers—finding out whether he plays hockey or not could take months. What’s the short-term goal?”
“Short term, they destroy his confidence and work on ways to get him to come home. Ultimately, I think they were counting on Toli coming to Russia to find out why the protection never arrived and being able to get to him here.”
“And that still doesn’t explain why my protection didn’t arrive,” Toli grunted.
“Since Mikhail knew you’d called for help, his men were ready and obviously got to them before they could do anything.”
“But how did Mikhail know?” Toli demanded. “Does the MGB report to the mafia?”
“Not necessarily, but Grisha might.” Anatoly spoke coldly, his face hardening.
Sergei ran his hands over his face. “Tatiana hadn’t been able to find out, but how else would they have known? Grisha isn’t someone we can necessarily trust.”
“So Mikhail was after Sergei,” Dom said slowly. “The MGB had Toli in their sights. And Grisha is…” He glanced at Anatoly. “Ex-KGB? Current MGB? Mafia? Something else?”
“All of this,” Anatoly shrugged.
“At this point, does it matter?” Zakk asked wearily, fighting a yawn. “Tatiana’s dad found a weakness in Toli because he helped me get Tiff back. Mikhail arranged to help Marco get what he wanted in exchange for Mikhail getting something he wanted, which was Toli and Sergei. Toli added a layer to the clusterfuck by calling Grisha directly.”
“Grisha never got any help for me,” Toli muttered. “He only said he would, because he knew there was already a different plan in place.”
“So Marco’s insanity just turned out to be convenient for Mikhail?” Tessa frowned.
“Tatiana started to figure it out when they took Anton,” Sergei sighed. “She texted me to tell me men had shown up here looking for you girls and that’s how she knew her father was involved. I told her where we were and she said she was on her way. She was afraid he would kill Anton and Tessa to control Toli and, although she didn’t say it, she also had to assume they would kill me. That’s why she went in. I shouldn’t have followed...”
“I think this is enough for tonight,” Anatoly said quietly, looking at his younger son sadly. “You have many things to do regarding Tatiana and—”
“Right now, I have to pretend it’s not real,” Sergei said, taking a deep breath. “If I allow myself to start to grieve, there’s no way I’ll be able to fake shock and horror when they come to tell me. I need a shower and—”
“I must destroy clothes,” Anatoly said wearily, getting up. “You shower and I’ll get rid of them.” He was speaking in Russian now, his demeanor turning hard and professional.
“We need to get out of the country,” Louie said. “There’s a transport leaving in two hours. I think we should be on it.”
“I can’t leave now!” Tessa looked horrified.
“Sorry, sweetie, but you, Dom and Zakk are here illegally and we need you out of here before the shit hits the fan.” Louie looked apologetic but firm.
“Absolutely.” Toli gripped her hand.
“I’d love a quick shower,” Dom said, looking down at himself. “I rubbed myself in Dumpster dirt.”
“Ach!” Anastasia made a face and motioned for him to stand up. “Dumpster?! Up! Up!” She went off in a torrent of Russian, talking about her clean couch and his filthy clothes, morphing into a teenage boy’s mother and Dom obligingly let her fuss at him as she ushered him into the back bathroom even though he didn’t understand a word she said.
“I think we all have to rest,” Sergei said after a moment. “It’s been a long day and I’m not sure what’s going to happen when the bodies ar
e found.”
“There will be an investigation,” Anatoly said. “Police and who knows what else. You will not be allowed to leave Russia.”
Sergei looked at Toli. “Will you take Nikolai home with you? I don’t want anything to happen where they try to keep him here.”
Toli looked at Tessa, whose eyes had widened.
“Please?” Sergei met his brother’s eyes. “I don’t know how to protect him in the middle of all this.”
“Chances are this is over,” Anatoly said firmly. “This sort of thing happens within the mob world all the time. Most likely they’ll chalk it up to mob wars and leave it be—MGB doesn’t want anyone to know they associate with the mafia so they’ll feign innocence.”
“Can I go with Tessa?” Anton grumbled. “I’m kinda tired.”
“I can make that happen,” Louie nodded, glancing at Toli. “You want me to take him?”
“Yes.” Toli nodded abruptly. “Absolutely. As long as there’s no issue with the State Department since he used his passport to get out of the U.S. but then would not use it getting back in?”
Louie smiled. “Leave that to me.”
“You sure, Dad?” Anton suddenly looked hesitant.
“Yes. Go home with Tessa, and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Okay.”
“Toli…” Tessa stared at him worriedly. “I’m afraid to leave you.”
“Come.” He took her hand and pulled her into the bedroom, shutting the door behind them. “We’ll work things out as soon as I get home.”
“I’m worried about what might happen while you’re still here!”
“You think they can’t get to me in Vegas?” he shrugged. “That’s why I need to stay a few more days. I have to make sure there are no more loose ends so that when I come home, we don’t have to worry about this anymore.”
“I’m so confused,” she admitted. “Not about us, but about everything that’s happened. My head is spinning.”
“Go home. Sleep for 24 hours. Rest your body and your mind. By the time you’ve started to assimilate all the information, I’ll be home.”