The Hot Lawyer (A Romance Love Story) (Hargrave Brothers - Book #4)

by Alexa Davis

  "Oooh, he'll love that! Hold on a sec, hon!" she squealed before putting me on hold and transferring the call.

  I listened to Frank Sinatra croon about wanting to be flown to the stars as I waited for the agent to pick up. It took several minutes, and by that time, I was questioning my choice of agencies.

  "Peter Baxter here!" the man shouted as he picked up the line. "What kind of actor do you need?"

  "Hello, Mr. Baxter," I said taken aback that he hadn't asked for any credentials, or even my name, for that matter. "I'm Max Malinchenko, I'm looking for an actor to help me open my new jewelry store."

  "You a Russian?" Mr. Baxter demanded.

  "Yes, my family is from Moscow originally," I replied.

  "You any relation to a Vladimir Malinchenko over on the South Side?" Mr. Baxter bluntly asked. I was taken aback because I hadn't thought about how deeply my father's connections might run and that I might not want to have the family name associated with my business.

  "He's my father," I admitted.

  "Yeah, well, you might want to lop off the ‘chenko’ part of your name if you're looking to start a business, son," Baxter said.

  "Mr. Baxter, while I appreciate your attempt to advise me on how to name my business, I did not call you for that purpose," I said in a stern tone, hoping to get him back to the conversation about finding an actor.

  "Hey, don't get all pissy with me, son," he said. "I'm just telling you that your pop is a known mafia man and if you are looking to start a legitimate business, then you'd better make some adjustments, so you don't get lumped in with the riff raft."

  "Mr. Baxter, my father is a businessman and he runs a number of legitimate businesses, and I resent your accusations," I said as I felt my blood began to boil. My father might be a mafia leader and a dangerous man, but that didn't give a perfect stranger the right to say these things about him to his son. "If you want my business, I suggest you change your approach."

  "Jesus, son, I've lived in Chicago my whole life, which is probably a hell of a lot longer than you've been alive," Baxter shouted into the phone. "Get off your high horse and take my advice or don't, but I'm not going to send one of my actors into a situation that I know is going to be dangerous if you're associated with a Russian mafia leader!"

  "Touché, Mr. Baxter," I said finally understanding that he wasn't a nosy, old man, but a shrewd businessman who was invested in keeping his people safe on the job. "I wasn't thinking of it that way. I'll give your suggestion some serious thought."

  "Good, now what do you need?" he yelled. "What kind of actor do you need? Tall, short, fat, thin, blonde, brunette?"

  "How did you know I needed a woman?" I asked. "And why are you yelling at me?"

  "It's my damn job to know, son!" he yelled. "And, who's yelling? I'm just trying to speak clearly over this damn line!"

  "Very well," I yelled back. "I need an attractive woman who can act like a jewelry salesperson for a couple of weeks. Someone smart and a quick learner."

  "Why are you yelling at me?" he shouted. "I can hear you just fine, dammit!"

  "Sorry, I need a young woman actor who can play a jewelry salesperson," I repeated.

  "I heard you the first time! I'm just looking through my files to see who've I've got available!" he yelled. "No, no, no, that one's out of town, hmmm, this one might work. Yeah, I think I've got one for you, Mr. Malinchenko!"

  "Just one?" I asked dubiously. This guy didn't seem to have a large stable of actors if he could only come up with one for me to interview. I sighed as I resigned myself to having to call multiple agencies and have this conversation multiple times over the course of the day.

  "One is all you'll need," he shouted. "She's a great one. Smart, pretty, but not too pretty, you know. She's a character actress, so she's used to playing a wide range of roles, and she's got a mind like a steel trap, I tell you. Straight As and can memorize any script in under forty-eight hours. I think you'll like her."

  "Sounds promising," I said as he piqued my interest with the description. I tried not to get my hopes up, knowing that it would be unlikely that I'd strike gold on the first try.

  "I'll call her and get here over here today," Baxter assured me. "What time do you want her at your place for the interview?"

  "You'll send her to my store?" I asked.

  "Hell yeah, they're all used to going out on audition calls. How the hell else do you think you're going to know if she works?" he shot back.

  "Good point," I agreed. "I'm at 5 South Wabash in the Loop. The store isn't open yet, so please give her my phone number and tell her to call me when she's on her way. I don't want to have to wait around all day for her to show up."

  "Hey, my people are professionals, son," he yelled. "If I say they're going to show up at a specific time, they do!"

  "No offense intended, Mr. Baxter," I said as I wondered what I was getting myself into and whether it was worth it or not. Baxter had moved on.

  "What's your phone number, son?" he shouted. I gave it to him, and he replied, "I'll call you back and let you know when she'll be there."

  As I hung up, I sighed and looked up at the picture of my mother hanging on the wall and said, "I hope this turns out all right."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lexi

  I showed up at Peter's office an hour and a half after he'd called. I had no idea where Peter was planning to send me for an audition, so I'd chosen to dress professionally, and had picked out an emerald green blouse that softy draped low enough to be sexy, but not so low that I looked slutty. I'd paired it with a black pencil skirt that had a moderate slit up the back and a pair of black pumps that were high enough to make my legs look longer than they really were, but were still functional for walking on city streets. I'd put my hair up in a loose French twist and gone easy on the cosmetics so that I looked fresh and natural.

  "Kid, you look dynamite!" Peter crowed when he saw me. He wrapped me in a big hug and asked how I was doing.

  "I'm okay," I said hesitating. I didn't want to spill the Josh-saga and end up crying before he sent me out on an audition.

  "You know, that McClean was an ass, kiddo," he said unexpectedly. "I'm glad you dumped him and moved on. You deserve someone much better than that two-bit hustler who can't act his way out of a wet paper bag."

  "Peter!" I exclaimed as I began laughing. Somehow hearing Josh described this way by someone in the business took a bit of the sting out of him dumping me. "How did you know?"

  "Aw, kid, don't you know by now that I know everything about everyone in this business?" he bellowed. "It's how I've stayed in business for as long as I have! Besides, that punk of a manager of his called and asked if I knew of other actors in LA who might need a roommate. Apparently, your boy didn't have a solid plan once he got to the city. What an idiot."

  "Peter, you're the best," I said shooting him a grateful look. Even if he was making up a story, which he often did, it was a good one and it soothed my bruised ego. "Where do you want me to go?"

  "Kid, I've got an odd job for you, but you're the only one I thought could play the part," he said as he looked at the paperwork on his desk. "I’ve got a guy who needs someone to play the part of a jewelry salesperson for a few weeks, and I think you'd be a hit in the role!"

  "Wait, you're asking me to work retail?" I narrowed my eyes. "I don't like the way this sounds, Peter."

  "No, I'm not asking you to work retail," he said and then stopped to rethink. "Okay, yeah, I'm asking you to work retail, but it's more of an acting job than a sales job. You need to play the role of a smart, sexy sales clerk in an upscale jewelry boutique while the owner searches for someone who actually knows what they're doing."

  "Peter, this makes no sense!" I cried. "This isn't acting! It's just another way of putting me in a job that sucks by telling me it's an acting role. You're selling me false goods, my friend."

  "No, actually I'm not, kiddo," he smiled. "I know what it looks like, but what if I tell you that the wages for thi
s particular job are one thousand a week? Does that interest you?"

  "Wait, what?" I said doing a double take. "One thousand a week? One zero zero zero, per week?"

  "Yep, one thousand a week," he grinned.

  "For playing the role of a sales clerk?" I asked.

  "Yep, that's it," he nodded.

  "Wait, what do I have to do after hours?" I asked suspiciously. "I smell some kind of shady activity going on here."

  "You don't have to do anything after hours that you don't want to," Peter said calmly. "It's literally going in and playing the part from eight to five every day and then going home. There are no tricks or hidden catch."

  "Who the hell is this guy who needs to hire an actress for this job? Why can't he hire a real salesperson?" I asked. "There have to be thousands of them around town, and for those wages, he'll be able to hire the best of the best!"

  "He needs someone immediately and none of the candidates he's interviewed have met his requirements on all levels," he said. "Now, he just needs someone to fill in the gaps while he takes the time to find the right person. Look, it's an easy job, do you want to audition or not?"

  "Sure, I definitely want to audition, but you understand why I'm a little skeptical, don't you?" I wondered what the employer was like. Was he particularly unattractive? Is that why he couldn't be out on the sales floor himself? Did he have some kind of disease that wouldn't let him come in contact with the public? "Who is this guy?"

  "He's a Russian, and he's got a new store over on Wabash. It's not open yet, so you'll have to help him get it ready for the opening," Peter warned.

  "What's wrong with him?" I blurted out.

  "Wrong? Nothing's wrong with him," he said, but I got the feeling that Peter wasn't telling me the whole story. He often left out the more unsavory parts of the story when he really wanted someone to take a job.

  "If I get there and find out that you've sold me into sexual slavery so that you could collect an agent's fee, I swear I'm going to find a way to escape and come back to get you, Peter," I told him in an ominous voice.

  "Oh, get over the dramatics, will you?" he waved me off. "It's a straightforward job with a hefty paycheck and good hours. Take it. You won't be sorry."

  "Fine, where do I report for my interview, er, audition?" I asked. Peter gave me the address along with the man's name and cell number.

  "He said that you are to call him when you're on your way so that he can make sure he's at the store," he warned. "So make sure you call!"

  "Yes, sir," I said as I mock saluted before tucking the paper in my briefcase and heading out the door. I turned and looked back, and quietly said, "Thanks, Peter. I mean, for…you know."

  "Aw, go on, kid," he shooed me away without looking up. "Go land the job and make me proud!"

  I turned and headed out the door toward the elevator, hoping that I wasn't making a serious mistake.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Max

  After my phone call with Peter, I hopped in a cab and headed over to the Wicker Park to meet my father for lunch. I knew this was going to be a tense conversation, but after talking with Babi, I also knew that the longer I put it off, the worse it would be. I normally used a car and driver in Chicago, but I also knew that my car was regularly followed by a variety of friends and enemies, and this time, I didn't want anyone to know I was visiting my father.

  My father, Vladimir Malinchenko, had been an undercover agent for the KGB during the ’70s and ’80s. He'd spent time gathering information in East Germany and then had disappeared for a few years, or at least, that's what Babi had told me. I could never get my father to talk about that time, so I'd always assumed that he'd been on a secret mission, but as I got older, I learned to read the tattoos of the men who were vore y zakone and realized that my father was part of an underground group of men who fought to uphold the old traditions of the bratán.

  When I was nine and my brother was twelve, my father came home one afternoon and told my mother to pack our suitcases. She refused to do it at first, crying and pleading with him not to do this to our family. He held his ground and warned her that if she didn't obey, he'd make her sorry that she hadn't. I didn't understand what was going on. My father had always been a tough man, but he'd never once hit or even threatened my mother; in fact, he'd been the man that all the other husbands on our block complained about setting too high a standard. He might go to the bar and get stinking drunk with his friends on Saturday night, but he never once failed to bring my mother flowers for her birthday or a holiday and he always came home in time for dinner with the family. He was a hard man, but a fair one.

  My mother finally gave in and packed our bags, and by the next morning, we were on a train that was heading out of St. Petersburg toward Finland. My father didn't say much on the train ride, but my mother cried the entire trip. Once we arrived in Helsinki, my mother stopped crying and she and my father took us to the American Embassy and asked for asylum. Given the fact that my father had been a member of the KGB for over two decades, the American government was happy to grant him anything he wanted in exchange for information about the operation.

  For two months, we lived in a one-bedroom apartment near the embassy while my father told them everything he could remember about his time in the KGB. I remember going to school with Finnish kids and not understanding a word they were saying. I tried to make friends with a boy who was bilingual, but his classmates teased him until he shrugged and walked away. I pulled inward and tried to be as invisible as possible. Kristov, however, did the opposite, and he was soon suspended from school for fighting with the other boys over a soccer ball. My mother kept us home after that, and soon after, we were put on a plane heading for Chicago.

  "Sir?" The taxi driver had stopped in front of the address I'd given him and was waiting for me to get out. "Sir, we're here."

  "Huh?" I shook my head to clear it and then looked out the window. "Oh, yeah. Thanks."

  I exited the car and walked up to the front door of my father's bar. The sign over the door read “Ursus” and had a ferocious brown bear with sharp fangs and claws carved into the wood above the bar's name. I shivered a little as I pulled the door open and entered. Inside, the place smelled of beer and cigars, and there was a sad Russian love song playing on the overhead speakers. The interior looked a lot like Babi's apartment. It was heavy, dark oak and walnut carved with intricate, traditional designs. The bar ran across one entire wall and had every brand of Russian vodka a customer could possibly want, including the stuff that was my father brewed in a homemade distillery contraption made of a washtub and several lengths of pipe.

  "Papa?" I called as I moved toward the back. "Papa, are you here?"

  "Maksimka!" my father exclaimed as he exited the back room. "You are here! I've been waiting for you all day!"

  "Hello, Papa," I said as he grabbed me and hugged me tightly. "It's good to see you."

  "Why so formal, Maksimka?" my father asked. "Come, come, I've got lunch ready in the kitchen. Are you hungry?"

  "I'm fine," I said as I warily followed him to the kitchen. Years of watching my father operate had made me wary of his overly magnanimous ways, as that was usually when he cut someone off at the knees – and food made everything trickier. "What did you fix, Papa?"

  "I made borscht and a good, thick rye bread," he smiled as he grabbed a bowl and began dishing up the deep red soup and stopping to spoon a healthy scoop of sour cream into the middle of the bowl before grabbing the bread knife and hacking off a large slice of warm bread. "Eat! Eat! You're too thin! Why aren't you bigger like your brother? Kristov is strong and healthy! You look weak and hungry."

  "Thanks, Papa, you always know how to compliment me, don't you?" I muttered into my spoon. The borscht was fresh and delicious, and I had to admit that if my father knew one thing, it was definitely how to cook a delicious meal. He'd learned this from Babi, and she was proud of the fact that her son knew all the family recipes.

  "Oh, don't get your
head all twisted up with craziness," my father scolded me. "I'm just worried about you. Your mother would be worried if she saw you right now."

  "Babi saw me yesterday and she didn't seem too worried," I said defensively.

  "She was, she just didn't say anything," he said as he sat down on a stool across from me and sipped from his ever-present cup of strong, black coffee. "She wondered why you were so thin and worried."

  "Papa, cut the crap, you know why I'm worried," I said as I dropped my spoon in the borscht and splattered red juice everywhere. My father grabbed the towel he kept tucked in his belt and wiped up the mess.

  "Maksimka, why do you talk to your father like this," he asked with a dangerous glint in his eye. "I'm trying to keep the family business intact, and in order to do that, I need you and your brother to work together."

  "But, Papa, I don't think the business needs me," I said. As a child, I'd always done what I was told, and as an adult, I'd kept the habit with very few objections, but at that moment, I felt strongly about objecting to this particular obligation and I knew it was going to come at a rather high price, but I couldn't stop. "I feel like I could do something more useful for the family if I ran my own shop and created another stream of income."

  My father leaned back on his stool and considered me very carefully. He weighed his words before he spoke, but when he did, I felt a chill run down my spine. Papa was a man who knew what other people were thinking, sometimes even before they knew it themselves, and while it made him a powerful businessman, it also made him an extremely dangerous opponent.

  "Maksim, you think I run a bad business. You think I'm a vore v zakone. You think I'm a bad man," he said giving voice to some of my most private thoughts. The thoughts that I knew I'd be punished for if they ever saw the light of day. He continued, "All of this may be true on some level, but I will tell you this: I have never done a dishonest business deal, I have never hurt anyone who has not hurt me first, and I have never treated anyone badly who didn't deserve it."