Hidden Monsters (Volkov Bratva Book 4)

by London Miller

  Luka didn’t actually speak a word as the man continued to make his assumptions. No, he waited because the moment the man gave him a reason, he would end all this.

  “Word spread about the feud between the Russians and the Albanians. Kind of strange that the Russians would let someone from the very organization they hate work for them…unless they don’t know who you are. How much is that information worth, you think?”

  Luka shook his head, actually taken aback by this whole situation. “Idiot. Let me see if I got this right. You come in here and try to blackmail—wait, you are trying to blackmail me right?”

  The man glared but didn’t offer a response.

  “Like I said, you try to blackmail me, but the problem with that is that you know who I am and what I’m capable of. So, what exactly did you hope to accomplish here? Or maybe you have a death wish…”

  He must have realized the danger he was in because he brandished a pistol, aiming it at Luka’s chest. Now…there was fear in his eyes.

  There was no way this guy had been doing this for little more than a few months, at least in an official capacity. Plenty of people hung around hoping to become a part of whatever organization would allow them.

  He didn’t even realize that the safety was still on as he threatened him. “I want fifty grand or I’ll blow your secret and watch the Russians cut you into little pieces.”

  Creative, Luka would give him that.

  And maybe another day, he might have stayed and continued to play with him a bit more, but his nerves were shot and he wasn’t in the mood for this shit.

  Moving faster than the man could keep up with, Luka circled him, his arm going around the man’s throat as he expertly, and quite easily, began choking him, his muscles flexing as he squeezed, but even as the man clawed at him, trying to get free, he didn’t let up.

  The gun clattered to the floor as he fought to get free, landing at their feet, sliding across the floor.

  Luka sighed. “You should have known never to threaten me.”

  When the man made a strangled noise, kicking out with his legs, his foot connecting with the edge of the sink, Luka finally ended it, snapping the man’s neck.

  He dragged him into one of the stalls, propping him up on the toilet. Though he doubted it was necessary, he took extra care to wipe down everything he’d touched, pocketing the paper towel he’d used.

  Leaving the restrooms, his hands in his pockets, Luka headed back to where Mishca was waiting at the entry of the casino, along with the two men they’d been meeting.

  Mishca frowned. “What took you so long?”

  “Dead body in the toilet. Strangest place.”

  Rolling his eyes, even as the other men laughed, Mishca led the way outside toward where their car was waiting.

  When they were in the sky again, heading back home, Mishca looked over at him. “You really left a dead body in there, didn’t you…”

  22

  ____

  Comfort

  With Luka gone, Alex felt awkward remaining in his house without him there, but he’d made it clear that he didn’t want her to leave. Loki was still sitting proudly by her feet, his gaze intent on her, or maybe it was just the bacon she had in her hand. Not feeling very hungry anymore, she held it out to him, surprised by how gently he took it from her hand, as if he had practiced not snatching it.

  Setting her plate in the sink, she carried her glass of orange juice with her as she went about exploring his house, not that there was really much to see. Apparently, Luka didn’t believe in furniture…or even a TV, but a part of her thought that there was more to it than that.

  To her, his place seemed to reflect the kind of person he portrayed for others. Empty. Sterile. But she didn’t think that was what this house was saying. Empty, maybe, but the question was why. He’d once told her that people like him didn’t deserve nice things, but if he would let her, she would give him everything she could.

  That was when the idea struck her. Maybe she could repay him by helping fix his place up and making it feel more like a home.

  If her apartment was dirty, she hired someone to clean it. There were times when she didn’t feel like cooking, especially as of late, and chose to eat out instead. Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t think of the last time she had done something for herself or the last time she had done something for someone else without getting something in return. After all that Luka had done for her over the last week, she owed him, and while she knew he wouldn’t accept money, she thought of something better.

  Now, the only thing she had to do was get him to agree.

  Or…she could just do it while he was gone. Sure, he’d said that he would be back as soon as he could, but sometimes Bratva trips lasted days at a time, and if she were being honest, she didn’t feel like going back to her empty apartment in the city. Why not enjoy her time out here without the constant noise and bright lights, and instead, spend it with an over-eager dog.

  The more she thought about making herself useful, the more the idea appealed to her. Not to mention, it would keep her distracted for a good while because Luka had a lot of houses.

  Since she was in borrowed clothes, she made sure that they were relatively old before she got started, beginning in the room where they had spent the last four days. She stripped his mattress, tossing the sheets in a corner, going through the rest of the room to gather up empty containers and bottles that she had more than likely thrown to the side during her bender. Loki was ever present, sitting off to the side, watching her every move. Just clearing the room took half an hour, and by the time she finished sweeping up and dumping the sheets in the washing machine, another twenty minutes had passed.

  Finished with this room, she moved on to the one directly across the hall, hitting the light switch on her way in. There were bookshelves built into the walls of the room, but not a single book adorned the shelves.

  There were a number of milk crates around the room, all filled to the brim with books both old and new, but even they weren’t enough to hold all of them. More were placed in neat stacks along the wall. Some were novels, ranging from romance to classic literature, but what caught her attention was the number of books written in French, along with a dictionary. Not to mention the textbooks, a few on philosophy, others in psychology, and in a range of different subjects

  Had Luka taught himself how to speak it? And if he had, why? She had never questioned how he knew the language, figured he was taught as Mishca had been, but now she wondered. She kneeled next to them, running her fingers over their spines, reading the titles.

  She was surprised to find that many of them were her favorites, which brought a memory of its own back.

  ____

  Laying on her stomach, Alex ignored the men who walked through the foyer of the Manor, oblivious to them as much as they were oblivious to her. She was engrossed in a story, taking a much-needed break from spending the day with her mother who, despite the years, hadn’t grown any less annoying.

  Apparently, they were all preparing for Christmas dinner, a tradition that had been put on the back burner for the last few years, but this year was different if only because Mishca was bringing his girlfriend home to meet the family. Alex liked her well enough from her limited time in her presence, but that didn’t mean she understood why Mishca felt the need to introduce her, especially when she knew nothing about the life they were a part of.

  “What’s that?”

  Alex looked up, the butterflies that always laid dormant in her stomach until Luka came around fluttering to life as she heard his voice. There were men all around them, wearing suits despite the fact they were doing manual labor, carrying things in for Mikhail, and yet here Luka stood, wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt, always displaying the colorful ink that covered his arms.

  He leaned over the side of the couch, his expression unreadable even though she did detect a note of curiosity in his tone. As she turned over to see him better, his eyes scanned
over her, lingering in delicate places. Since the day she met him, she had found him interesting. Maybe it was because he was so different from the others who surrounded her family, or maybe it was just because he talked to her like she was someone.

  For a single moment, she had thought she’d seen interest in his eyes when they met, but it soon became clear that he wasn’t interested since he avoided her like the plague. Other times, she noticed him watching her in that intense way of his, and maybe—and this was a very slim possibility—it was because of their age difference.

  Alex didn’t know how old he was since he very rarely talked about himself, and anytime she tried to glean any info on him from Mishca, he either didn’t know or didn’t want to tell her.

  Instead of answering, she held it up for him to see, moving her hands so he could read the gold lettering on the spine. “One of my favorite novels.”

  He squinted, his lips moving wordlessly as he tried to pronounce the name. She did it for him.

  “It’s one of my favorites.”

  Plucking the book from her hands, he turned it over, his eyes scanning the pages. She smiled at his confusion. “It’s in French.”

  “You speak French?”

  “Yes,” she said flawlessly, smiling when his lit up as she spoke in the language she hadn’t used in the months since she had come back to New York. “But you would know this if you talked to me.”

  The amusement in his eyes didn’t look condescending in the slightest, but then again, he always looked at her like that.

  ____

  There was a book, however, one that was off to the side away from the others, its spine worn from age. The Little Prince. She’d often read that one as a kid, and she specifically remembered telling him about it. It was a reach, more than a reach if she really thought about it. Alex didn’t know how long he’d had these books—even if the majority of them looked moderately new—so there was no guarantee that he had learned the language recently.

  But what were the odds that he hadn’t known it back when she had first met him?

  Or that the only books he had in the language were all her favorites, favorites that she had mentioned to him at one time?

  It was too much of a coincidence.

  Leaving them be for the time being, she straightened up as much as she could, sweeping the floors and cleaning the shelves. When she was done with that room, she moved to the kitchen, then the living room, and practically everywhere else, but even after working for hours, exhausted after it was all done, she found herself drifting back to that room with the books, sitting on the floor beside one of the crates and pulling one out.

  For a moment, as she sat there lost in the world depicted in the pages, she remembered what it was like to be carefree. She remembered how easy it was to get lost in a book, away from the blood and death that used to make up her world. She couldn’t escape it now though. She was knee deep in it.

  ____

  When Luka wasn’t back a couple of hours later, Alex began to get a bit stir-crazy locked away in his house, especially since there was nothing more she could do. It wasn’t like there was anything to really clean besides the floors since he hardly owned any furniture.

  Speaking of…after swiping the keys to his truck, Alex ventured outside, breathing in the cool air that was rapidly chilling. She wasn’t particularly dressed for the weather, but that was the last thing on her mind as she climbed into his truck and started it up. The last time she had been in a car, it hadn’t ended well for the car, but as she pulled out of the driveway, then down the long stretch of street—not really knowing where she was going—she was determined to be more careful this time.

  It didn’t take long for her to realize where she was, and now that she knew, she committed the location to memory, but instead of heading back to the city, she made a stop just outside of it, pulling into the parking lot of a cluster of shops.

  Alex ventured through a couple of them, glad that one of them was a furniture store. She didn’t want to guess the kind of furniture he would like but did know he could use a few bookshelves and new linens. By the time she had finished and found everything she wanted, at least for the moment, she headed back to Luka’s place, giving Loki an affectionate rub on the head since he hadn’t made a noise since they left.

  Making it back, she went right back to organizing things, lugging in the two bookcases that she’d bought from the store. Without any tools, they would have to wait for later, but she was able to start fixing up what was to be his library.

  That was where Luka found her many hours later. Absorbed in what she was doing, she hadn’t heard him come in or seen him hovering in the doorway.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  Alex startled, turning to see Luka watching her, his face expressionless as he stood gazing at her, one hand out beside him to scratch behind Loki’s ear. Either she had been too absorbed in what she was doing, or they both had the silent movements down.

  Abandoning his original question as he looked from her to what she was standing on, his frown became apparent. “And what the hell is that?”

  “It’s not real,” she proclaimed in defense of the oversized sheepskin rug that she had been trying to center in his bedroom, having been moving his mattress to rest on top of it when he had come in. “And even Loki likes it.”

  “Where did it come from?”

  “I bought it,” she said, hurrying to add, “for you. I figured if you’d wanted a frame, then you would have bought one by now, but I thought you could at least use something to make your place feel more homey.”

  “So you thought I would want a rug?”

  She couldn’t tell if he was upset by the gesture or just confused…she hoped for the latter. “If you don’t like it, then I can exchange it for something else. You know, if you do actually want a frame.”

  “You staying here, that wasn’t an invitation for you to move in.”

  “I know, it’s just—”

  He shook his head, heading back out the room. “Whatever idea you came up with, let it go. We aren’t—”

  “For fuck’s sake, I was just trying to do something nice for you.”

  Of course, the one time she tried to do something without any ulterior motive, it was thrown back in her face, but what could she expect. As they always said, she was always fucking things up. No matter what she did over the last few hours, that couldn’t erase the last thirty-six.

  Grabbing her coat, cause she had stayed well past her welcome, she was ready to get out of there. She was more than ready to call a cab to take her back to the city, but Luka turned back to her suddenly, blocking her path.

  It was déjà vu all over again.

  “Move.”

  “Your feelings hurt?”

  “Do you have to be an ass all the time?” she asked, exasperated, ready to shove him out of her way.

  He shrugged a shoulder, seeming to take her question seriously. “Yes.”

  Tilting her head to the side, she met his gaze. “Why?”

  Luka looked uncomfortable by the question, his tongue swiping over his bottom lip, his eyes darting as he contemplated an answer. “Nothing is ever freely given. Better to know what you want upfront before you throw shit at me.”

  She was dying to ask him questions, finally break into his mind, but she knew she had to do this gradually because the moment she pushed too hard too fast, he would shut down. Then there would be no way she could get anything out of him.

  “I know the last four days weren’t…easy for you, so I thought I could repay you by helping you fix up your house. Debt for a debt, yes?”

  His eyes, softer than she had ever seen him, crinkled at the edges as the smallest and briefest of smiles curled his lips. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “But I want to.”

  Because she owed him for what he had done for her, not just three days ago, but for what he had been doing for her since the moment she met him. Really, it was the least she could d
o, and more than that, if this allowed her to stay with him for just a while longer, without the interference of their lives back in the city, she would take it.

  “It’s been a shit day for me.”

  Alex returned his smile. “Is that your way of apologizing?”

  He reached for the coat she was still holding, taking it and tossing it back where it’d been before she’d grabbed it. “Maybe.”

  “Not good enough.”

  His now empty right hand came up to rest on his chest, right above his heart, his fingers fanning out to cover the area. “Sorry.”

  Now they were getting somewhere. Feeling lucky, Alex carefully asked, “Do you want to talk about what made your day so bad?”

  She fully expected him to say no, had already prepared herself to hear the word, but instead, he asked a question of his own.

  “You hungry?”

  ____

  Down in the kitchen, Alex watched as Luka made his way around the kitchen, pulling out copper cookware and utensils, raiding his fridge next. Chicken, potatoes, asparagus, and a number of herbs and peppers were set on the counter.

  Though it had only been that morning that she’d watched him prepare breakfast, he’d already finished the majority of it by the time she’d gotten out of the shower and joined him. Now that she was watching him from the beginning, Alex realized just how good he was.

  Given his love of knives, she shouldn’t have been so surprised at how expertly he wielded it. It was like he was just as comfortable cutting up a lemon as he was cutting into a man.

  He’d just set a pan on the stove, turning one of the burners on when he spoke. “What’d you do after I left?”

  “Ate, took Loki out for a walk—you should have told me he hates leashes by the way—did a little blow, then went shopping for your place.”