by Wilde, Leah
“Are you suggesting we just waltz into the mayor’s mansion and question him?” Ricky asked.
“That’s exactly what I’m suggesting. But we’re going to keep this interaction with him professional. I don’t want anyone flying off the handle,” I explained.
“But won’t he hear us coming on the bikes?” Chase asked. “Won’t that give him a heads up so he can be ready for us?”
“That would, yes. That’s why we’re not taking the bikes. We’re going in the Suburban. He’ll probably see us coming either way, but he won’t recognize us as quickly that way,” I told the kings.
“When are we leaving?” Ricky asked.
“Why not right now?” Juarez chimed in.
“I’m with Juarez,” Chase said.
“So, it’s decided,” I said. “We’re going now.”
We pulled up to the mayor’s gated residence a few minutes later in the black Suburban. With the gates closed, we were unable to pull into his driveway, so we parked beside his property and climbed the wall surrounding his house. We approached from the front, trying to look as transparent as possible in our intentions to talk with the mayor.
He had obviously seen us approaching. He opened the door to greet us himself.
“Gentlemen! I’ve been expecting you,” he said with his trademark white smile.
I shot Angelo a look. He caught the expecting, too.
“Of course,” I said politely. “I think we have some important business to discuss, Mr. Mayor.”
“In private,” Angelo added.
“Certainly. Right this way.” The politician didn’t miss a beat. He ignored the implication of five bikers in t-shirts and fully decorated cuts standing on his stoop insisting on a private meeting with him. Seeing as how he was one of Ivan’s clients, he was probably accustomed to the risks that came from dealing with people like us.
He led us into what looked like a personal library. It was a large, mostly square room with floor to ceiling windows gazing out onto the front lawn. Across from the windows was a large, dark wooden desk immaculately clear of clutter. The walls were lined with bookshelves. I sincerely doubted he even knew what titles he had on those walls.
“So, are those real books, or just fakes to make you feel smarter?” I couldn’t resist the jab.
“Most of them are real,” he answered. “I don’t remember which ones.” I got the feeling he was playing along.
He motioned for two of us to sit in the two large leather chairs in front of his desk. Angelo and I took the seats. Angelo took seniority and rank over the other Kings, though he was rarely present. In fact, his field position came from the time he’d served under the president before me.
“I’m sorry I can’t accommodate more guests,” our gracious host apologized as the other three lined up behind us.
“That’s fine,” Chase said. “We don’t mind standing.”
Calm down, boy, I thought. I could hear the unspoken threat of violence in his voice. As he stood behind me, I was sure he was imagining jumping across that desk and handling this conversation with his fists.
“So, how can I help you gentlemen?” The sleaze ball politician sat down in the chair behind his desk and leaned back. He wore a slate gray suit with a red tie. His salt and pepper hair was slicked back. He looked like he should have held a cigar in his mouth when he spoke, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he offered us a car while we were there.
“We understand you have a meeting coming up soon with Ivan Danilovich, the Russian drug lord operating here on our streets,” I said, trying my best to get right to it. I felt the air thicken with silent tension at my use of Ivan’s full name.
“I know who Ivan is,” our mayor said.
“And?” Angelo asked.
“And what?”
“And answer the question,” he finished.
“I’m sorry, but do I look like I have time to deal with that kind of scum on my streets?” he asked.
“Yes, you do.” I looked around his study. “In fact, I’m willing to bet you make more money off of Ivan than you do at work.”
“Listen, punk,” he said, sitting forward suddenly in his chair, “I’ve got a city swamped in crime, poverty, and drugs. Why would you assume I would be buying drugs to further pollute my streets with?”
“A little birdy named Dimitri told us,” I answered.
His face when pale white.
“That’s what I thought.” I stood up. “So, here’s how the rest of our little meeting is going to go, Mr. Mayor. You’re going to tell us when the deal is going down, and where you’re meeting your boy, Ivan. If you don’t, my boys Chase and Juarez will be more than happy to persuade you.”
“I…I don’t know when or where. He’s supposed to call me,” our host protested.
“Guys,” I said, ordering Juarez and Chase in position. They stepped around the desk and stood on either side.
I cocked an eyebrow. “Again, Mr. Mayor. When and where?”
His eyes darted back and forth. He didn’t look the least bit worried. In fact, he seemed to be weighing options he didn’t really have.
“If you wish to call my bluff, Mr. Mayor, I’m sure my guys will be happy to prove you wrong,” I said.
I nodded to Chase and Juarez, and they closed in on the mayor and took turns slugging him once each right in his gut. He started to double over, but they grabbed him and held him back against his chair so that his wincing face stared at mine.
“As you see, we’re not afraid to get our hands dirty, not even with you,” I said, leaning across the desk. “Now, when and where?”
He looked at me and groaned from the pain in his stomach. “What does it matter to you?” he asked.
“We’re shutting Ivan down,” I said. “We’re going to take over his supply chain, and we’re going to take this city back. It belongs in the hands of people from here. He’s not invested in this place. It’s just another market to him. He doesn’t care beyond his clients.”
The mayor sat and thought for a minute. “So, you’re not planning to interrupt the flow; you just want to take it over?”
I yawned dramatically. “I’m growing bored with our conversation, Mr. Mayor. Just understand that you don’t need to know what my intentions are. You just need to know that if you don’t comply with our wishes, you’re going to be a dead man.”
I nodded at Chase and Juarez again, and they slugged him once again, planting their fists deep into his gut and letting him double over. I nodded again, letting them plant a few more punches into the crooked politician.
Finally, he held up a hand. “Alright, stop. I’ll tell you.”
My boys held him back in his chair.
“I’m meeting up with him in two days on a yacht on Lake Michigan,” he said desperately.
“Who else is supposed to be there?” I asked him.
“I don’t know. I swear. All I know is I’m showing up with my people, and we’re making a large purchase,” he answered.
Chase clocked him in the mouth.
I shared a look with Angelo. We had the information we needed. We knew where Ivan was going to be and had a rough idea of when. This was our chance to take Chicago back from these commie bastards.
“Thank you for supporting local businesses, Mr. Mayor. Boys, make sure he doesn’t tell anyone we were here,” I said as Angelo, Rick, and I turned to leave.
“Wait, what?” the mayor asked right before a few punches landed on him.
“I want you to remember that if you talk, we will be back, and you won’t walk away.” We turned and left him sitting in his chair while Chase and Juarez worked him over for me.
Chapter 22
Julia
While Gage and the leadership of the Kings of Hell MC were out talking to the mayor, I ran downstairs to see Dimitri again. I wasn’t sure what I expected to gain by going to see him, but I felt like visiting him was necessary. I felt trapped by Gage and the MC, and I knew Dimitri was literally in the same position
I was in. Sure, I wasn’t tied to a chair, but I might as well have been. I had tried to leave once, only to be drawn back in, as much by my attraction to Gage as by anything he’d done to persuade me.
“I’m surprised to see you again,” he said when I entered the room. “I figured you would have been long gone by now. I gave you what you needed. Why are you back?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed to him. “I just felt like I needed to come down here.” I really couldn’t explain what had driven me to come back to see him. I felt responsible for him for some reason, like he was my prisoner as much as he was Gage’s or the MC’s. I’d spent so much time working with him that he had become my personal project by that point.
“You seem confused,” he said. “Have a seat.” He nodded at the chair in front of me. His voice was still rough sounding.
“How are you feeling?” I asked him as I took the chair in front of him.
He shook his head. “They beat the hell out of me to get me to talk to you,” he told me. “I can’t believe I gave in, but they were very persuasive with their fists. How did you get mixed up with these guys?”
“Gage offered to pay me a large sum of money to come down here and talk to you. I had no idea this was what I’d be doing,” I opened up to him. I needed someone to talk to, and I knew that if I had reached out to anyone in my life outside the Kings of Hell, it would have been nothing but questions about where I had been and what I had been up to. Dimitri was the best option I had right now.
“Easy money, huh?” He shook his head and smiled at my foolishness. “You should know better. There’s no such thing as easy money, Dr. Danvers.”
“Please, call me Julia.” I put a hand on his knee and recoiled immediately from my tender gesture.
He heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry you had to witness all of this. This isn’t the place for someone like you. I’m going to assume you’re a very successful professional outside of here.” He narrowed his blue eyes as he talked.
“I wouldn’t say very successful. Moderately, maybe. But, yes, I’m a professor of Russian history and culture, but I thought you already knew that,” I told him with a smile.
“You might have told me,” he said thoughtfully. “It sounds familiar. Still, you definitely carry yourself more like a professional than one of their girlfriends. You don’t seem like the type to hang around thugs like Gage and his men.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re right. I’m definitely not.”
“Well, look, let’s get out of here,” he said nonchalantly.
“I don’t know, Dimitri. There are a lot of guys still here. What if they see us?”
“They won’t notice. And if they do, we’ll be far enough away that it won’t matter. Besides, it’ll be easy to get out without being seen. I saw how little they guard this place,” he persisted.
I thought about it. I really did pause for a moment to let it roll around in my head.
“It would be nice. I already tried to leave once. I think you remember that, but Gage came and pulled me back in,” I explained.
“No, he didn’t. Julia, I’ve already read you. You came back because you wanted to. You felt like you had some kind of responsibility to finish the job you started. And I know why you took this job in the first place,” he said.
My veins ran icy cold, and my stomach dropped. Did he know about my mother? Did he know the financial state I was in? How did he know about me? Did everyone out here on the street know about Dr. Julia Danvers?
“You took this job because you can’t resist the opportunity to work with someone from Russia. You can’t resist the way Mother Russia calls to you. I see it in your eyes when we talk. No matter what else you’re thinking, I can see that letting the Russian words roll over your tongue is like magic to you. It is like exploring a mystery or searching for long lost treasure. What did you lose in Russia?” he asked.
“I didn’t lose anything,” I answered. “I just fell in love with the sound of the language and the people I met through my mother. There’s such a rich history there. The Russia I saw when we visited was not the Russia I saw from home when we came back here. That’s why she draws me in so much. That’s why I can’t resist her. She is beautiful in a strange, misunderstood way.” I let my voice trail off. Why was I opening up to this man? Didn’t Gage tell me that Dimitri would rape and kill me if he had half the chance?
Yet it was Gage who had used sex to keep me here. He knew I wanted him, and he exploited my desire to make me work for him.
“Listen, Julia, I don’t care why you love my home. I am flattered that you do, for sure. But if you let me go, I will make sure you get out of here. I will help you escape with me. Then, you can return to your scholarly life and get away from these hellions.”
I stared into his eyes for a moment. He certainly looked genuine. The worst that would happen would be getting caught and ending up right back here with him, I figured.
“Okay, let’s do it,” I told him.
“Good. If you go out into the garage from here, you should be able to find a knife or something else that will cut these ropes. Then we can leave, and I’ll show you how easy it is to get by these drunks without being seen,” he said.
I opened the door and crept into the pit under the garage. There were a couple of workbenches on the adjacent wall, and sure enough, one of them had a large hunting knife sitting on it.
“A hunting knife? Really? What do you guys need a…” I started to ask, but I figured I already knew the answer to that question. Dimitri was probably supposed to end up on the receiving end of that knife, or one like it.
I grabbed it. Wrapping my fingers around the rubber grip, I felt a strange surge of power rush through me. It was as if the knife was asking me to use it for its intended purpose. I pushed that idea out of my head and laughed at myself. There was no way a knife could be telling me that. No, the real reason I felt that power in my hand was much more disturbing. It was coming from a meaning and purpose I had attached to the knife as soon as I touched it.
Well, I certainly wasn’t going to use it to hurt anyone. I rushed back into the interrogation room in the basement and started cutting the ropes holding Dimitri down while he kept talking, apparently still trying to seal the deal with me.
“You know, I bet Gage is talking to the mayor right now. I bet they’re roughing him up and trying to find out when and where the deal is going down. See, I already know this information, but I’m using someone else’s knowledge to get them out of here so I can escape. And I’m helping you in the meantime.”
“You don’t have to keep trying to convince me,” I told him while I cut the ropes from his arms on the bottom of the chair’s arms.
“I’m just explaining to you what will happen if you decide to stay. When Gage gets back, he’s going to be the Gage I know. He’s going to be focused on handling Ivan and breaking up that deal. Suddenly, the sex you think meant something won’t mean anything. He’ll put you down here with me. And you’ll probably have to see shit worse than what you’ve already seen.” He talked as if he were imparting the meaning of life.
I stood up and held the knife under his chin. “I have the power right now, Dimitri. If you keep running your mouth, Gage will have to figure out what he’s doing with your corpse when he gets back.”
He swallowed hard. “Okay, got it.”
He held his free hands up while I freed his legs and then cut the ropes wrapped around the back of his chair.
He groaned as he stood up. He stretched his arms and legs. Then, he twisted and stretched his back. He towered over me, taller than Gage and almost twice as wide. He had to have been close to seven feet tall.
No wonder it took two men to bring you in, I thought.
“Give me that,” he said, reaching for the knife in my hand. “You don’t need to be waving that thing around and sticking it in people’s faces. Let me carry it so that we’ll have some kind of protection in case anyone wants to play hero.”
Suddenly, he had an arm around me, and the knife was against my throat. I tried to struggle, but the blade pressed against my skin and felt like it was trying to dig in.
“Now who has the power, Julia?” he asked. “You’re going to make great bait for Gage. Just don’t struggle and you might actually make it to see him when he comes to your rescue.”
He pulled me to the door, and we walked through it into the pit. Then, we walked up the stairs sideways so that the blade stayed on my throat the whole way. I couldn’t believe he’d tricked me! Gage had been right about him. He was going to kill me.