by Maura Rose
Then Sean opened another door, and Ivan realized what this place really was.
The back room was a professional, completely set-up hospital room, complete with a heart monitor, IV drips, and so on.
There was currently only one bed, although it looked like there was room for two more. There might even be another room just like it upstairs. Ivan had a similar setup of his own with his family doctor, only they operated out of the back of a veterinarian clinic.
Lying on the bed, pale and unmoving, was a man that Ivan vaguely recognized. Sitting to the side, holding the guy’s hand, was a woman.
She had dark honey blonde hair pulled back, and piercing blue eyes set in a slightly round face, with a full, lush mouth. Ivan kind of stopped in his tracks for a second. It had been a long time since he’d even given a woman a second glance. Not just because he was busy with the family business, but because he tended not to be impressed easily. He took one look, brought them back to his apartment—the one Viktor had ruined, thanks brother—and then sent them on their way. But a second look?
Most weren’t worth that.
This woman, though, had a gaze that was hypnotizing. Like she was slowly and methodically stripping away the layers of you down to the bone.
It was definitely intriguing. It helped that she wasn’t all that bad-looking, either. She wasn’t what one would call sexy or gorgeous, or even decidedly pretty, the way that Viktor’s girl had been. This woman was handsome. There was a kind of power and regality to her looks that put her firmly in that category.
She stood up once she saw them, carefully setting down the hand she’d been holding. “Father.” She eyed Ivan up and down, her expression far from friendly. “What is he doing here?”
It seemed that she knew who he was, then. That meant she had a leg up on Ivan. She was obviously Sean’s daughter, going by those eyes and what she had just called him. Ivan knew that Sean had a daughter, but he couldn’t remember anything else about her—name or otherwise.
“This is my daughter, Kelly,” Sean said, gesturing in between the two of them. “And he’s here to help us out.”
Kelly snorted. “Right. A Sokolov helping someone. That’s a cute idea.”
Sean gave her a stern look and Kelly took a step back, folding her arms across her chest.
Ivan looked down at the man in the hospital bed. He had a feeling he knew why he vaguely recognized the guy now, but he waited for Sean to confirm it.
Sean sighed heavily and gestured at the bed. “This is my son. Shane.”
Kelly walked around and helped Sean to sit in the chair she’d just been in.
“He’s my older boy. My younger one, Connor… he didn’t make it.”
“What happened?” Ivan was confused. He hadn’t heard anything about a gang war, or an accident. He hadn’t even known that Sean’s two sons were hurt. Something like that, the heirs of a boss being attacked, that made the rounds pretty quickly.
“They were ambushed,” Kelly said, bitterness infusing her tone.
“I managed to keep it hushed,” Sean said. “Nobody knows. I’ve told everyone that Connor’s gone back to Ireland to take my place at a family funeral and that Shane here’s gone up to Canada to fix some passport business issues.”
“Those lies won’t hold for long.” The heir of the family was supposed to stay close to home, and while the younger siblings could get away with traveling, someone would quickly notice that there wasn’t really a funeral and that Connor hadn’t been seen.
“I’m well aware,” Sean replied.
“Any idea who did this?” Ivan had an awful suspicion that Sean wanted him to help get revenge on whoever had attacked his sons, and Ivan had no plans to be a part of instigating a war. Wars hurt everybody, from other mobs to innocent civilians, and then inevitably the police got involved and it was just a huge mess from start to finish.
Sean shook his head. “Not exactly. But I do know… it was someone from within.”
Chapter Four
Kelly watched Ivan Sokolov’s face carefully as Father talked with him.
Everybody knew how psycho the old bastard Sokolov had been. They’d called him iompróidh mire: the crazy bear. She hadn’t blamed the younger son, Viktor, in the slightest for offing him. Someone should’ve done it long ago. That man had been a bloodthirsty thorn in everyone’s sides for ages. Why Father hadn’t just killed him and annexed his territory, Kelly didn’t know, but she certainly wouldn’t have stood for it if she’d been in charge of things.
But of course, she wasn’t in charge of things—and never would be. She didn’t know if it was her father being old fashioned or if he thought she was lacking in backbone or something, but Kelly knew she’d never been and never would be considered for heir.
Now he’d brought this Russian bastard in.
Seeing him in person, Kelly could understand why Ivan had a reputation as a bit of a lady-killer. He was tall, well-built, with dark hair and gray eyes. He had that whole strong-jawed thing going on, and Kelly hated herself for finding him attractive.
Attractiveness, she reminded herself, did not equal effectiveness at, well, anything. Including sex. She’d met plenty of good-looking men who sucked at it.
Of course, there were all those rumors about the women Ivan would pick up and bring back to this love nest he—supposedly—owned…
Kelly mentally slapped herself. All rumors, and all probably made up by the man himself just to earn a reputation.
The other rumors, the ones about his father and missing brother, those were the ones to pay attention to. Nobody knew exactly how or what had gone down. All they knew was that old man Sokolov was now dead, as was his main lieutenant, and his younger son Viktor was missing—supposedly having done the deed himself—and there was something about a girl, that Viktor had done it for some immigrant’s daughter. Whether it was to save her or because she was secretly FBI or there really was no girl and it was all just a romance made up by somebody soft in the head, no one really knew.
And honestly, did it matter why Viktor had killed the guy? Everyone had a dozen reasons to kill the man, he was a butcher and everyone knew it. He’d squeezed his shop owners and murdered with impunity and, it was rumored, dealt especially nastily with women. Good riddance, Kelly said.
Didn’t mean his offspring was any better. Apple and the tree and all that. Why Father was trusting an outsider with this particularly delicate business, Kelly didn’t know and didn’t care.
She was going to find out who’d betrayed them and she was going to bring a whole new meaning to the term ‘sleeping with the fish’.
“You think this is an inside job?” Ivan asked. “FBI, local police, or rival family?”
The police and the government liked to pretend they were better than the mafias they hunted, but Kelly knew plenty of stories, had seen for herself that the so-called law enforcement got just as brutal as the criminals they fought against at times. It wasn’t really about morality, it was about power, and if seizing your power back meant arranging for a shoot-out then so be it.
It made her sick. At least the crime families were honest about who they were and what they did and didn’t strut around, pretending to be good people.
Her father shook his head. “None as far as I know.” He sighed, and Kelly put her hand on his shoulder. She knew how hard these last few months had been for him.
“Most people aren’t aware of this either, but my health’s been on the decline. All that smoking, you know. If one of my lieutenants wanted to overthrow me, now’s the perfect time.”
“You think that someone’s getting a little power hungry?”
“Everyone’s always power hungry, Sokolov, don’t be deliberately obtuse,” Kelly snapped.
Ivan glared at her. “Maybe you’d like to give me a short list of suspects, then, Miss O’Gill, since you’ve already clearly figured this whole thing out.”
“Maybe I have,” Kelly replied. “It wouldn’t be the first time Father’s fail
ed to listen to my perfectly reasonable suggestions.”
“I am not letting you get involved in this, and that’s final,” Father replied in his coldest, firmest tone.
Most people backed down when he used that tone, rightfully scared for their lives. But Kelly had been arguing with the guy her entire life. It would take him pointing a loaded gun in her face, and maybe not even that, for him to scare her.
“I know this organization like the back of my hand. Nobody is better equipped to investigate this than I am.”
“You are within the family, Kelly. You’re too close to this thing. You find the guy, you’ll murder him before we can even find out how and why he did what he did.”
Kelly snorted. “Does it even matter why and how?” She gestured at where poor Shane lay, hooked up to life support. “He—whoever he is—he took our boys from us. I say a swift execution is more than he deserves.”
“And I’m saying that you’re going to let your emotions rule you, as they always have,” her father replied. “Ivan here is an outsider. He has no stake in this and he doesn’t have any biases or history with anyone. He can be an impartial investigator.”
“And you really trust him?” Kelly looked over at Ivan, feeling anger rise up in her throat like hot, thick tar. “The playboy who’s half-drunk on vodka all the time, trying to play at Daddy’s game? Probably just as bloodthirsty and insane as his father, and you want him to be the one to run the investigation on this.”
“I’d watch your mouth,” Ivan all but spat, his gray eyes darkening with anger. “Were you in my territory, you would be asking for a slap.”
“We’re not in your territory, you’re in ours,” Kelly reminded him. “If anyone has to watch their tongue, it’s you.”
“I wasn’t aware your daughter was a spoiled princess,” Ivan said, turning to her father.
Calling the daughter of a mob boss a ‘princess’ was, in many ways, rather accurate. It was also considered an insult and usually the best way to get yourself punched by said boss’s daughter. Especially in recent years, as the women in the crime families had become more prominent and open in their roles, forcing everyone to acknowledge the power they’d always wielded. Calling Kelly a princess meant he was calling her useless, someone who got to take advantage of the family’s connections and wealth but who didn’t actually help out or involve herself in the business.
That. Fucking. Bastard.
Kelly started to stride forward but her father grabbed her wrist. “No.”
She yanked her arm free. “You would have let Connor or Shane burn him if he’d just insulted their honor the way he insulted mine.”
“I’m not letting your temper start another fight,” her father replied. He turned and looked at Ivan. “Kelly here has been a trusted lieutenant of mine in her own right for some time. She’s been involved in the family business for ten years now.”
“Since I was fifteen,” Kelly clarified, in case Ivan thought her father had made allowances like letting her start her involvement late. Most people started in their early or mid-teens. It was a sign of being spoiled or a schism in the family if someone didn’t join until they were in their mid-twenties, although nowadays many younger siblings would take a break and go to college in order to earn, say, a helpful criminal justice degree.
“I want you to investigate this matter,” Father went on. “I need to know who tried to kill my boys. Who succeeded in killing one of them.”
“Who might yet succeed in killing the other,” Kelly added. Shane wasn’t out of the woods yet. Dr. Richards had said he was a fighter, but they wouldn’t know for certain for another few days. His body might reject some of the treatments.
Her father inclined his head in acknowledgment of that.
“Wait,” Ivan said, his brow furrowing. “You started when you were fifteen, and been doing this for ten years—you’re twenty-five?”
“You got a problem with that?”
Ivan looked over at her father. “Last I heard, Shane was twenty-two and Connor was twenty-one. Why isn’t she the heir? She’s the oldest.”
“It’s been agreed that Shane would be my heir,” Father replied. His tone conveyed the message that Ivan wasn’t to pry any further into the family politics.
Ivan nodded his head respectfully, accepting the answer, but Kelly saw the way that Ivan’s eyes flicked over to her momentarily. He wasn’t satisfied with that answer.
And why should he be, she thought bitterly. She was the oldest. That meant she should be the heir. Especially now in the goddamn 21st century. Hell, the biggest racket in Chinatown was run by a woman, Mi Ling. Old lady, blind as a bat, but everyone was terrified of her.
Father hadn’t ever been clear with her on why he’d passed over her. Old-fashioned sensibilities might be a part of it. But Kelly’s temper might be another. She didn’t know. He was vague and irritable whenever she asked him.
And she definitely wasn’t going to ask him now. Not while her brother was fighting for his life.
“If I help you out,” Ivan said, “You’re going to mentor me? No strings attached?” He sounded doubtful.
“I know, it sounds like an easy bargain. Too easy. I’d be suspicious as well, if I were you. But the fact is my entire empire’s at stake here. If I don’t find out who the traitor is… well. I can’t trust any of my men at the moment. That means my operations are basically at a standstill. And if I stay this way for too long—”
“Others will move in on your business.” Ivan nodded once, sharply. “Understood.”
“Not to put too much pressure on you, boy, but you’re saving my family if you solve this for me. And I don’t just mean my flesh and blood.”
“I’ll need access to all the information you have.”
“Done.”
There was none of the drunk womanizer of rumor that Kelly could see in Ivan now. Whatever he had been before his father’s death, that person was gone. This man was intelligent and had a certain quality of ruthlessness to him that…
That she wasn’t going to bother thinking about, definitely not, nope.
Ivan looked over at her. “I don’t suppose you’ll be nice and cooperative.”
“I’d hate to disappoint you,” Kelly replied. “But I can play the ditzy blonde if you’re really in the mood for a frustrating interview.”
Ivan scowled at her and Kelly mentally gave herself a point in her own favor. “A lot of the papers are in Gaelic, by the way. I hope that’s not too much of a problem for you.”
“I’m sure I can handle some translations.”
Good fucking luck. Gaelic was actually a catch-all term, slang, if you will. What most people considered ‘Gaelic’ was actually Insular Celtic, the name for the languages that had originated in the United Kingdom. There were the Brittonic languages: Breton, Cornish, and Welsh, the last one being the most spoken in the present-day. Then there were the Goidelic languages: Manx, Scottish Gaelic, and Irish Gaelic.
Oh, and the fun part? Those were the traditional Middle English versions. There was also Modern Gaelic, different versions of which were spoken in Scotland and Ireland. What Ivan was going to need to read was An Caighdeán, the type of Irish taught in schools over in Ireland and adopted as the official language by the government and used on all government papers—including passports and birth certificates. Problem was what was on paper didn’t always match the actual spoken dialect, thanks to lots of fun things like the lingering influences of Rome and Latin, and the whole Ireland versus England debacle.
Have fun, Ivan.
“Kelly can translate for you,” Father said.
Kelly glared at him. She was going to do no such goddamn thing. That guy wanted to investigate their family then he could damn well wade through it all on his own with Google Translate.
Father sighed. “If you could please give us a moment?”
Ivan nodded and exited, looking properly stoic. Kelly wanted to roll her eyes.
“What the hell do you think you’
re doing?” she asked. “Letting a stranger into our home, looking at our books, probably learning everything he needs to take us down?”
“Sokolov has just as much to lose from this as we do,” Father told her. “He’s floundering, even if he’ll never admit it. He hadn’t even started training to be the replacement yet when his father was offed. All he did was party and hookup with women and now he’s got to learn the family trade without his father to guide him. One wrong step and he’ll go down for good.” He sighed, then continued.
“He needs us as much as we need him.”
“But we don’t need him.”
“We do, whether you like it or not.”
“Let me investigate,” Kelly pleaded. “I’ll find out who it is, you know I will. Nobody knows the records better than I do; I know all the lieutenants and the schedules. I’ll sniff the traitor out.”
“I refuse, and my word is final—or at least it should be. God knows you’ve never listened to that.”
“And why not?” Kelly replied, anger making her skin feel hot. “Why can’t I investigate?”
“Because whoever killed your brother might get you next!” Father hissed.
He gasped, falling back, and Kelly quickly crouched down, rubbing his back soothingly. “Just breathe, Father, in and out slowly.”
She hated seeing him like this. Her once tall and proud father, a man who could take anyone in a brawl, reduced to a shell of himself. His mind was as quick as ever but his body wasn’t cooperating.
“Thank you.” Father reached out and took her hand, squeezing it. “Kelly… I’ve lost one child. I may yet lose another. I couldn’t bear it if you put yourself in danger.”
“If someone is trying to take us over then they’ll come after me anyway,” Kelly pointed out. “Just because you haven’t named me as heir doesn’t mean that the line of succession won’t fall to me if you and Shane die. They have to know I’d die before I let anyone else take over the operation.”
Father chuckled dryly. “Oh, I’m sure everyone is aware of that.”