by K. J. Dahlen
Rugar nudged her hand and without thinking, she rubbed a spot behind his ears. He stood between her and the group of men in the room and she had no doubt if any of the them moved closer to her, Rugar would be alert to their new positions and would act accordingly. The only one of them he would allow close to her would be Barshan and she knew Barshan would never hurt her.
Talli sat down in her chair and rubbed her sore temples. The headache that began yesterday was back in full force. She knew it was mostly tension from the situation and the bump she took the other day but that couldn’t be helped. The men around her were working on the problem but she also knew that getting the two groups together might not be a good thing. They were both very strong units by themselves. Each group had their own set of values and strengths. Maybe it was a mistake to bring them all together and expect there would be no problems. That concern was no longer viable. At this point, neither unit was willing to let it go.
Sazon, who had been inside the room the whole time, carried a cup of fresh coffee toward her, along with his own coffee. He stopped a distance back and waited for her to motion him forward.
When she did, she grabbed Rugar’s collar and allowed Sazon to join her.
Setting the cup down in front of her, he waited for her to motion to the chair next to her before he sat down. “You have heard everything that’s going on here, what do you think about all of this?” She finally asked.
Sazon shrugged. “I think this is one very big mess.” He paused and lifted his own cup of coffee to his mouth. Taking a sip, he motioned to the others in the room. “You do realize these men do not like the others. They’re rivalry goes back to when they were living in the old country. None of them play well with the others and that includes my blood brothers. This meeting is unusual only because they all hate the other one. None of us is willing to give more than an inch and Ivan is mad about the fact that Barshan claimed you. But he’s only mad because Barshan got to you first. When the others join us, this situation could become volatile very quickly.”
“I understand that.” Talli nodded. “I also understand something else. Both groups need me unharmed and not threatened. Whatever my father may have hidden will stay hidden forever if anything happens to me. Only I know where the safe is and it won’t matter if your group or the other one touches me, any pressure from either side will end this before any of us gets answers.” She paused then added, “Ivan can go to hell. I would never be with him. Barshan has been very considerate toward me from the beginning and I feel safe with him. With Ivan not so much. With him, I would be looking over my shoulder for the knife he’d plunge into my back when I wasn’t looking. That is not a feeling I would want to have ever.”
Sazon snorted in amusement and raised his coffee cup a bit in a toast. But he didn’t say the words he was thinking. “You wouldn’t be so wrong about that.” Leaning forward he asked, “Do you have any idea what is in your father’s safe?”
Talli shrugged. “At the moment I have no idea. He showed me the safe when I was but a child. He told me that someday, I would be curious about the items he placed in there but that I should wait to see them. He said I would not understand them yet and that one day he hoped I would. He told me he would explain everything when I was older but he never got the chance. After his death, I didn’t think about it anymore. I had to keep my father’s business going and be there for my mother. Then I got so busy I forgot about the safe.” She turned her head and stared at Barshan. “But I think now that Russell Jerome is looking for something he thinks is in the safe. What he thinks it is I have no idea. I cannot even imagine.”
“I understand you believe he killed your mother.” Sazon took another sip of his coffee.
Talli nodded. “Of course there is no proof but I know what I feel. As soon as he put a ring on her finger, he began isolating her from me and her friends. She was looking for companionship, someone to love her and he took advantage of her. When he did allow me to see her the last few weeks she was alive, I could see the fear in her eyes. She would never say anything bad about him but she was my mother. I could read what not many people could see about her. Then she got sick and he wouldn’t even let me in her house to visit with her. The next thing I know the hospital is calling me to let me know they don’t think she’ll make it through the night.
Sazon reached out and patted her hand. “I’m so sorry.” He moved slowly and barely touched her because when he got close to her, Rugar raised his head and watched him carefully.
Talli dug her fingers into Rugar’s thick hair in a way to calm them both. “Russell searched the entire house, both my mother’s and mine. He tore holes in the walls and wreaked havoc destroying everything he could, looking for the safe.”
“Did he ever find it?”
Talli had a small smile on her face. “No and he never would have found it on his own. My father was a clever man. He hid the safe in plain sight and had it set up so only he or I could open it. Even if Russell found it, he would never get it open.”
The other men settled at the table and Demi told them, “I called Travern in New York and he is going to call Felix in Kiev. He was confident they both would want to be here. I told him Nikoli and Sergi were on their way as well. He thinks we should wait until they can get here to move forward.”
Yuri nodded. “It will take some time to collect Rizvan anyway. Our men can leave tonight and return as soon as they find him. That will give time enough for Felix and Travern to get here. I don’t think we can do much else until everyone is here. I do think we can dig into Russell’s background a bit deeper. I feel we need to know as much as possible about the man himself. Maybe then, we can figure out what he is after. In the meantime, we keep Talli protected and we watch over our city.” Yuri looked over at Barshan. “Regarding the men outside the mall yesterday, we followed them home and spoke to them. They admitted someone hired them to harass Talli, they were only supposed to scare her into running, but who knows how far they would have taken it.”
“Did they ever say who hired them?” Barshan asked.
“Da, they said it was an elderly man but he never told them his name. When I showed them a picture of Jerome, they confirmed he was the man that hired them.”
“So he’s still here then, hiding out somewhere in the city.” Talli sneered. Her fingers curled into Rugar’s fur and she felt her body shudder in disgust. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Demi turned to her and studied her for a long moment. “You have no idea what this man could be after?”
Talli shrugged. “I have no clue.”
“Why do I doubt that very much,” Demi replied. “I have a feeling you know exactly what he’s looking for.”
Talli shrugged. “I did overhear some of an argument a man and my father were having just before he was murdered. Most of the words were mumbled but then I wasn’t in the same room they were in. They were arguing in my father’s office at the shop and the door was closed. This man was arguing with my father about something priceless, something that had been lost for almost a hundred years, and something that could prove his connection to the royal family. That’s all I heard before my mother took me out of the shop. By the time we returned, the man was gone and my father was alone. It was shortly after that when my father was murdered. I told the police about the visit but I didn’t see the man my father was arguing with, so they couldn’t do anything about it. I only heard them shouting at each other.”
“Yuri tells me your father met with a man in secret that could have been Rizvan Dreususs. He said your father called him a Prince, what do you remember about that?” Demi wanted to know.
“Just what I told him earlier. I didn’t see the man except in profile but he wasn’t anyone I’d ever met before. I only caught a glimpse of him before my father closed the door and I haven’t seen him since. If he ever came to my mother, she never said a word about it. She knew about the hidden safe and she also knew only I could get into it.”
“Did she k
now where the safe was located?” Ivan asked.
Talli shook her head. “Only my father and I knew that. My mother didn’t want to know and my father protected her by not telling her where it was. She was okay with that, in fact she preferred it that way. She was a warm and caring person and she loved my father deeply. The two of them shared a secret that I wasn’t privy to and while that hurt when I was a child, I knew that my father held the secret to protect me. He didn’t want to put me in any danger by sharing this secret so I learned not to ask.”
“There will be more questions when our people arrive, I hope you realize that” Demi warned her.
“I can’t tell you any more than I already have I hope your people understand that.” Talli assured them. “I won’t disrespect them as long as they don’t disrespect me.”
Demi snorted.
“Hey I didn’t ask for any of this.” Talli frowned. “I’m not the one who forged the papers and I’m not the one who stole the money. None of this is my fault. If you and your people want answers, find the little worm that caused all the problems and get your pound of flesh out of him. Cuz at this point, I’m about done with this whole mess. I am so ready to tell you all to go to hell.”
“Please don’t do that,” Yuri asked her softly. “We need your help to solve this mystery and we are doing our best to protect you in the meantime. We are still looking into this Russell Jerome and what we are finding is not good. Nothing we think we know about him is true. Our manners might not be what you are expecting but this is the way we do our jobs. We deal with less than savory people at times and we may be rusty in our manners but this is something we need to solve.”
“I can understand that but you must also understand something. I haven’t done anything wrong and I feel you and those two…” She motioned at Demi and Ivan. “You guys are treating me like a criminal and I don’t like it. Then he threatens that his men will demand answers with the use of force and tells me that they will not ask but demand my cooperation. That doesn’t tell me they will be reasonable in their dealings with me.”
“I apologize if I implied that.” Demi shook his head. “As Yuri said we aren’t used to dealing with people like you. My people will be tough but they do respect the fact that you are an innocent here. They will demand what we have been able to find out about this man but they should be fair in their treatment of you.”
“I guess we’ll see when they get here then won’t we?” Talli rubbed Rugar’s ears.
“Let’s go back for a moment,” Yuri stated. “You said yesterday that this Leon Pavel claimed to be related to Rizvan Dreususs, a cousin or something.”
Talli nodded.
Yuri looked at Demi and then back to Talli. “Could your father have been holding something for Rizvan? Something that Russell would think he could claim by being a cousin to one of the last members of the royals?”
“Like what?” Talli asked.
“It’s been said that some of the royal jewels went missing just before Nicholas was arrested.” Demi mentioned the fact, as he knew them.
Yuri nodded. “I heard that as well. Those jewels have never been found. It was claimed that several members took the jewels to safeguard them from the people that stormed the palace.”
“It is said that the real family jewels were switched over to fake jewels to protect the stones,” Demi commented.
Talli shrugged. “But all this happened almost a hundred years ago. Most people have forgotten all of this.”
Demi growled. “This is our history. True Russians will never forget what happened that day in 1917. Nor will they ever forget the day the infidels murdered our true king. Yes, things were bad under his rule toward the end but he was still our king.”
“Russia is nothing now, our power is gone and our people are living hand to mouth.” Yuri shook his head. “Our people are starving in the streets, our women are selling their bodies just to survive. So much for the reform we were promised.”
“But what would having possession of the jewels prove?” Talli had to ask. “There is no more Russian Royal family and after this long, whoever did have royal blood wouldn’t be able to prove it anyway. The line would be too muddled with foreign blood to be considered pure anyway.” She shrugged. “I guess I just don’t see it.”
Yuri glanced over at Demi. “We’ll just have to wait until our people get here to figure this out.”
Talli checked her watch and got to her feet. “I have to get to work. I have someone coming in for a special order.”
Just then, her phone rang and when she looked at who was calling it was the police. “Hello.”
Listening for a moment she grew pale and then finally plopped down in her chair. Her gaze went vacant for a moment then she hung up the call.
“Sweetheart, what is it?” Barshan knelt down beside her chair.
Talli glanced over at him and whispered, “Someone threw a firebomb at my shop.”
“What the hell?” Demi swore.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Do they know what happened?” Sazon asked.
“They told me that at about two this morning a rusty car drove past and they threw a flaming bottle at the front window of my shop. Seconds later, the entire store was on fire. By the time the fire department got there, the whole front of the shop was gone,” Talli whispered brokenly. “I can’t believe this. Everything is gone.”
“Maybe not everything.” Barshan took her hand. “We won’t know until we check things out. We can go down there and walk through what’s left and see the damage.”
“Wait a minute.” She glanced over at Yuri. “What about the men you had inside? Did they get hurt? Are they okay?”
Yuri reached for his phone and discovered a missed call. “Kosta called me but I missed the call. Let me phone him and see what’s what.” Yuri got up and walked away from the table.
He spoke to Kosta for a moment then returned. “Kosta was there when the firebomb hit. He said it was the same group of guys we spoke to yesterday afternoon. He told me the front showplace is gone but the fire didn’t do much damage to the back offices. The water from the fire department took care of that. He did manage to save some of the paperwork and your drawings. He’s still there watching over everything along with one of Demi’s men. He’s also calling in some of the other guys for backup. He said everything in the safes is all right. The fire department said the safes were fireproof.”
Demi reached for his phone. “Let me get some more of my people there as well.”
Talli got to her feet. “No thank you gentlemen. I can take care of this on my own. Please excuse me.” She turned to walk away.
Barshan stopped her. “Sweetheart, you can’t do this alone.”
Talli wrenched her arm away from his hold. “Yes, I can.”
“Honey, they firebombed your place of business,” Barshan reminded her. “That means they won’t stop until they get to you. I won’t allow that to happen. You need us even more than ever before.”
Talli raised tear filled eyes to him. “Maybe I just don’t fucking care anymore. They destroyed the business my father began thirty years ago. If he were still alive, they never would have gotten close to that. He would have stopped them in their tracks.” Swiping the tears away she added, “Now some bastard has managed to ruin everything my father worked his whole life to build up. They have destroyed his dream and there is nothing left.”
Barshan raised his hands and thumbed away her tears. “That’s not true. The shop may be gone but your father’s dream still lives on in you. You are the future of your father’s legacy to the world. You are what matters, to me and a lot of other people.”
“But you don’t even know me,” she whispered. “Not really, deep down. We only met a few days ago.”
Barshan smiled. “Sometimes you know a person the moment you meet them. I knew you the second I saw you and our eyes met. My soul recognized your soul.” He exhaled a deep breath. “I may not know you well enough yet but I want the chance t
o get to know every asset of your being. I can’t do that if I let you walk away. If you did, I would lose a big part of my soul and I think you would too.”
Talli closed her eyes and leaned into him. “I can’t do this alone after all,” she whispered. “Help me.”
“Just lean on me and I’ll be there every time you need me sweetheart,” Barshan whispered in her ear.
He looked over at Yuri and Demi. Yuri nodded and motioned for Sazon to join them. “We’ll take care of things on this end, you do what you have to do at the shop.”
Talli might not have known what Yuri was talking about but Barshan and Sazon did. They knew he was going to hunt the little bastards down and destroy them. Maybe this was the one chance they would have to get their hands on Russell Jerome too.
When they arrived at the mall, Talli groaned at the burnt out wreck of her place of business. Firemen were still rolling up hoses when she walked inside and looked at the destruction. With Rugar and Barshan at her side, a small group of men stood waiting for her at the entrance to the back offices.
Barshan recognized Kosta and a few of the other men standing there. But there were several others he didn’t know.
Kosta broke away from the group and came toward them. He nodded at Barshan and Sazon.
“Who are these men?” Sazon asked.
“Ukraines. They said Demi sent them over to guard what was left,” Kosta told them.
Barshan nodded. “He made the call before we left the hotel this morning.”
“So we’re working with the Ukraines now?” Kosta raised an eyebrow.
Barshan nodded at Talli. “For now.”
Kosta gave a short nod. Looking over at Talli he told her, “I was able to save some of your designs before the fire department got here but the fire Chief would like to talk to you.” He motioned toward one of the men wearing a uniform.