by Alexa Davis
"Mr. Malin, you are absolutely incorrigible," she laughed softly. "Fine, but can you make them follow at a discreet distance? I just don't want to feel like I'm being tailed."
"I'll see what I can do," I said as I kissed her again.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Lexi
That afternoon, I met Viv over at the bridal shop to try on dresses. She was horrified to hear the tale of the morning's action and wanted to know what Max was doing to ensure my safety. I told her about the security detail and she nodded her approval.
"Damn right, he'd better hire someone to ensure your safety," she said as she pulled a fairytale confection off the rack and handed it to me. When I looked at her like she was crazy, she replied, "Just try it on. I want to see what it looks like on an actual human."
"Viv, you're nuts, you know that, right?" I asked as I handed the dress to the sales associate tasked with helping me find a dress and smiled as I rolled my eyes. She simply nodded and took the dress back to the massive room they'd set aside for my shopping trip. I pulled a simple sheath dress off the rack and held it up for Viv to see. "What do you think of this?"
"Um, no. It's not fancy enough for what you're doing," she shook her head and handed me another dress, this time covered in lace and beadwork.
"These dresses are hideous," I whispered, hoping that the associate wouldn't hear me dissing her inventory. "Why are you asking me to try them on?"
"I told you, I want to see what these horrible confections look like on a normal human woman," she said as she scanned the rack for her next pick.
"You're evil," I told her as I pulled out another simple dress, this time a column with thin shoulder straps and a scooped neck that had a classic look to it. "How about this one?"
"Yeah, sure, try it on," she said as she yanked a hideous strapless dress with waves of tulle layered in a way that was sure to make the wearer look like a crazed ballerina. She gleefully cried, "And, this one!"
"Viv, stop picking out the ugly ones," I scolded. "We are here with a purpose and that purpose is to find me an appropriate dress. With the emphasis on the word appropriate."
"I know, I know," she said dropping her head and looking duly chastised. We browsed the racks in silence until she went to pull out one more dress.
"Viv…" I warned.
"No, seriously, look at this one," she said, holding it up. The dress was a fitted sheath held up by cap sleeves connected to gracefully draped lengths of fabric in back. The tasteful v-neck design was sexy, yet appropriate for a wedding, and the long skirt ended with a feathery frill at the very bottom and swept out into a short train that looked manageable. I nodded as she handed it to the sales associate.
We'd chosen a wide range of dresses for Viv's turn as fake maid of honor, and now, we headed back to the fitting rooms to see if we had anything that would work. First, I donned the hideous dresses that Viv had chosen. One after another, I groaned as I pulled them on and looked at myself in the mirror. Viv sat outside on a velvet couch laughing until tears poured down her cheeks. In any other situation, I would have killed Viv for doing this to me, but the humor helped alleviate the anxiety I was feeling, so I welcomed the respite.
"Alright, alright," Viv laughed as she wiped her eyes. "Just stop already!"
"This is all your fault, you know," I said as I stalked back into the dressing room, trying to kick the layers of tulle and netting out of my way and failing miserably. I pulled down the simple sheath dress and pulled it on. Looking at myself in the mirror, I smiled. This was much more my style, though I doubted Viv was going to agree. I walked out and spun around.
"Too plain," she said waving her hand. "Need I remind you that you are marrying a billionaire?"
"Viv…" I said with a warning tone in my voice.
"Still, it's too plain," she repeated.
I went back into the fitting room and pulled the column dress. It looked a little less plain – more wedding and less summer picnic. I walked out and Viv let out a low wolf whistle.
"Now that one's a little more like it!" she exclaimed. The sales associate nodded as she moved to help me up onto the small platform in front of the mirror. "I like this one, Wally. You look sexy, but sophisticated in it. It's not too plain and not too fancy."
I stood on the platform looking at myself for a few moments before I stepped down and headed back to the fitting room for the last dress. When I pulled it on, I knew that it was the one. The dress fit me like a glove and the effect was stunning. I walked out of the dressing room and Viv's jaw dropped as I walked across the floor to the platform.
"Lexi, that's the one," she said with a reverence usually reserved for church. "That dress looks like it was made just for you."
"It doesn't look half bad, does it?" I asked as I turned around to see the back of the dress. "I look elegant and classy, don't I? This is just the type of thing a socialite would wear for her wedding, isn't it?"
"I don't know about that, Wally, but it's definitely you," she agreed. "And, you look amazing in it."
I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered where this was all headed. My desire for Max was exceeding anything I'd ever imagined, and he seemed to feel the same way. Maybe we had something real and could actually shape a real relationship for ourselves. Or maybe this farce of a wedding was pushing us in a direction that neither one of us would have ever gone. Maybe it was all just a fairytale and the prince was going to turn out to be one big fat frog.
I took another look, sighed, and decided to believe.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Max
It was hard to clear Lexi from my thoughts now that my office was filled with her scent and my mind was filled with images of what she looked like in the throes of passion. Twice in one day we'd amped things up, and I was lost in the memories of her body and the feel of her in my arms. A phone call from Feliks informing me that my father was demanding vengeance for my brother's death quickly brought me back to reality as I considered what my next steps would be.
I'd hired a security firm to guard the store and Lexi, but decided to forgo the protection for myself. If Dementyev and his thugs were going to come for me, there wasn't going to be a security detail alive that would stop them. Instead, I was going to go looking for them.
I closed the store early, stopped by the penthouse, and changed into a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and an old hoodie. I put on the steel-toed boots that Kristov had given me last Christmas as a joke. He'd decided that I needed to be a little more urban in my dress and had appointed himself the purveyor of urban fashion. He'd purchased several outfits for me and had them wrapped in plain brown paper and black ribbon. When I'd unwrapped the presents at our family's Christmas celebration, Papa had laughed heartily at the look of pure confusion that crossed my face. Kristov had patiently explained what each of the outfits was for, each more outlandish than the last, but the last one was the one he described as being "What you kill a thug in." I pulled it on and sent up a silent prayer for his soul.
I'd tracked Dementyev and his gang to a house on the West side, but I knew that the chances of finding them there were slim. Instead, I headed to the neighborhood dive a few blocks away from Ursus, sat down at the bar with a whiskey, and waited. The after work crowd began to filter in as I sat and sipped my drink and thought about what I would do once I found the man who had murdered my brother. I wanted to do what Papa had suggested: slowly torture the man to death as he begged for mercy or release. The thought of revenge gave me a sense of satisfaction, but it also made me sick thinking that I was turning into the very person that I'd tried so hard to avoid becoming – my father.
It wasn't long before Dementyev entered the bar with his guards. He was a tall man in his fifties who had the fair looks of someone with Nordic origins. His blond hair was cut in a tight, even square giving him a military aura, and he was dressed in casual clothing that looked anything but casual. Dementyev was a master of maintaining near invisibility by looking like he fit in anywhere, bu
t having grown up in the vore y zakone, I recognized the way he carried himself immediately. The resemblance between he and my father was uncanny, despite the age difference, and I felt my stomach flip over as I prepared to confront him.
"Dementyev," I said as I stood up from my barstool and faced him. "We need to talk."
"Malinchenko, how nice to see you," he said with a smile that slithered across his lips. "Come into my office and we'll talk."
I nodded as I followed him to the back of the bar. I had my misgivings about whether this was a wise idea, but we certainly weren't going to hold our conversation in public, so I took the only option offered. Dementyev's office was smaller than the one I had at the store, and as a result, his men had to remain outside.
"I'm glad you came, Maksim," he said as he took out two shot glasses and a bottle of expensive Russian vodka that I knew for a fact could only be bought on the black market. He poured two shots and offered me one saying, "Let us toast a productive conversation, shall we?"
We downed the shots and he poured two more. He handed me the glass as if daring me to say no; I accepted it without hesitation and downed it as quickly as the first.
"Let's talk," I said before he could pour a third, knowing that if he kept this up, I would soon be at a distinct disadvantage. "I want to know what is going on."
"What do you mean?" he asked as a small smile played at the edge of his lips. I knew I would have to proceed carefully or I'd soon be caught up in his web of lies and deception.
"You know what I mean, Dementyev," I said without humor. "What's going on with all the killings?"
"I haven't killed a single soul, so I don't really know what you're talking about." His long, thin fingers drumming the desk told me otherwise.
"There have been numerous executions here in Wicker Park," I said bluntly. "How many of them are your men responsible for?"
"Mr. Malinchenko, my men are not responsible for any of the murders here on the West Side," he said, leaning forward as his eyes sparkled and a cold smile spread across his lips. "Those were unfortunate thugs caught up in business I know nothing about. Perhaps, they deserved to die."
I wanted to fly out of my seat and pummel his smug face until he could no longer smile or even see, but good sense told me that this would be unwise and that if I did it, I'd most likely be dead within minutes. Instead, I leaned back and returned his smile as I acted like I had all the time in the world to have this discussion. What I wanted to know was whether he'd ordered Kristov killed and if he had, why.
"Perhaps they did," I said as I looked at my fingernails and then picked at something that wasn't there. "Perhaps they were simply bad apples who needed harvesting."
"Indeed," Dementyev smiled as he held up the vodka bottle offering another shot, I passed and watched him take a third shot as I thought about what to say next.
"Perhaps my brother was one of those bad apples," I threw out there and watched his eyebrows rise for a brief second before he regained control.
"Anything is possible, Malinchenko," he said, sitting back in his chair to look at me. "Are you asking if I killed your brother?"
"I am," I replied, thinking that it was better to admit what I was after than to dance around the subject with a man who had spent his life avoiding questions like these. "I just want to know who killed him. If not you, then who?"
"I did not kill your brother," he told me plainly. "It wasn't my men and it wasn't my order."
"Then, who did it?" I asked.
"Malinchenko, have you ever thought that about the fact that your father is knee deep in a river of shit?" Dementyev said with a cruel smile. "He's been losing his grip on the vore v zakone for a few years now."
"So, you're saying that his own men killed his son." I was hesitant to believe anything that came out of his mouth, but I was smart enough to know that he was baiting me, so I stayed calm.
"Am I?" he shrugged. Dementyev had an infuriating way of bringing up a topic and then letting it hang in the air while he moved on to something else. It was in this way that he played with his victims much the same way a cat plays with an injured mouse; except, I wasn't injured and I definitely wasn't a mouse.
"Why would my father want my brother dead?" I asked.
"You really don't know anything, do you?" The look of surprise on his face struck me as the first genuine expression he'd had since we sat down.
"What should I know, Dementyev?" I said, trying to sound bored. "Really, what don't I know?"
"Your brother was dealing drugs. He got in over his head and he owed money — not just a little money, but a lot of money," he said as he sat back in his chair and laced his fingers together. "Your father is a businessman, a hardcore businessman who doesn't take shit from anybody, not even his own son."
"Okay, so Kristov owed money. Lots of people owe money, and my father doesn't kill them," I shrugged. Dementyev dropped his hands and leaned forward across his desk as he looked at me as if he were trying to decide what to say to me next.
"Yes, but most people don't go around pulling the whores from your father's whore houses and transporting them off to some place safe," he countered without taking his eyes off of my face.
"You lie." I felt my stomach turn over and threaten to upend its contents onto Dementyev's desk. "You fucking lie, you sookin syn! My father never ran whorehouses. Drugs, weapons, theft, yes, he did then all, but he never ran whorehouses."
The room was suddenly filled with Dementyev's loud laughter. He laughed until he had tears running down his face and his guards peeked into the room to see if everything was okay. He waved them off and wiped his eyes as he held back the new waves that threatened to tow him back under. When he'd calmed himself, he looked at me and said, "You poor fool; you have no idea what your father does, do you?"
"I don't find any of this particularly funny," I replied. "In case you've forgotten, my brother is dead."
"I'm laughing about the fact that your father has fooled you for so long," he told me as he poured two more shots and handed me one. I tossed it back quickly and waited for him to continue.
"Your father is a cold bastard. He was considered brutal even by KGB standards, but he operated by the thieves’ code. Or at least, he did until he came to the States. They say that once he got here, his heart turned to ice. He's been the most dangerous man in Chicago for the past two decades, and now, he's losing his grip on power to the younger generation who have even less honor than he has, and he's panicking."
"Why should I believe a word you say?" I asked. I felt my pulse race as I listened to Dementyev tell me about my father. The fact that he was brutal wasn't a secret, but the brothels were. My mother had always accused my father of transporting girls into the U.S., but he had denied it until the day she died. He swore it was the one thing he wouldn't do. Now, Dementyev was telling me he'd lied about that, and it made me wonder what else he'd lied about, but I wasn't ready to buy the story just yet. "Show me some proof."
"I have none, just my word," he said as he looked at me. "But I'm telling you that I think your brother pissed off your father and your father ordered a hit."
"You have no proof, yet you want me to turn on my own father?" I scoffed as I stood up and prepared to leave. "What a fool you must think I am."
"I do not think you are a fool, Maksim Malinchenko," he said soberly. "I think you are a boy who wants his father to love him and is doing everything he can to make that happen. I also think that your father is a cold, cruel bastard who doesn't deserve to have a son like you or one like Kristov, for that matter. I think he's a terrible man whose death would improve the world."
I stood looking at him for a long moment, wondering if he really did know my father or if he was doing what any good carnival fortuneteller does by reading the signs and then telling the listener what they want to hear. At the moment, the whiskey, the vodka, and the grief clouded my judgment, so I nodded and then turned and walked out of the bar.
I just hoped Dementyev would tell
his men to back off and let me go in peace. Unlike my father had done.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Lexi
Two hours into my shopping trip with Viv, Peter called and told me to stop by the office because he had some news. I begged him to tell me what it was, but he said it was something that needed to be delivered in person, so I'd have to drop by to find out. I muttered a few choice curse words under my breath and told Viv that the trip needed to be cut short.
"What's up, Wally?" she asked.
"Peter has some kind of news for me, but he won't tell me over the phone," I replied as I shed the last dress Viv had brought into the fitting room. It was another of the big ugly dresses, and I had rolled my eyes and refused until she'd promised it would be the last one. It was truly hideous, and I was grateful to have a reason to take it off.
"Alright, well, I've got a makeover appointment scheduled for four, so this is perfect timing," she said as she changed out of the dove gray number I'd chosen as one of the possible bridesmaid dresses. I hadn't made her try on any ugly dresses and now I had a good idea of what I wanted her to wear. She held it up and said, "I kind of like this one, Lex."
"Yeah, me, too," I agreed as I pulled on my clothes and checked my hair. We put the bridesmaid dress and the one wedding dress that we'd loved on hold and said we'd be back over the weekend to make a final choice. The sales associate smiled, wrote the style numbers on my bridal card, and told me to let her know if I had any questions in the meantime.
Viv and I split on the sidewalk in front of the store. She'd refused a ride, saying she preferred to walk after being inside all day. I wanted to walk, too, but I was too impatient, so I hopped into a cab and directed the driver to Upper Wacker Drive and Peter's office. Once I arrived, I took the elevator up and told Peter's receptionist that I was there to see him.
"Oh, he's been waiting for you, Ms. Wallace!" she exclaimed as she led me back and announced, "Mr. Baxter, Ms. Wallace is here to see you!"