He held up a hand when Alek, naturally, went to protest.
“Don’t bother, son. He’s on you whether you want the company or not. We all have to deal with it; why should you be any different? And you’ll soon find having him at your back is more a comfort than a nuisance.”
Alek bit into his apple and gave in gracefully. One, because he liked and respected Anton. Two, because he could now hear the fucking guy in the foyer, talking quietly with Dmitri. And, three, when Vasily used that tone, there was no point in arguing.
He’d learned that lesson when he was eight years old and his eighteen-year-old uncle would visit with Alek’s grandfather. Everyone was different when Ivan Tarasov was present. Especially Vasily. He would follow his father into the study, unsmiling, and would remain in there with up to a dozen other men for hours at a time. Alek would sometimes wait outside the door and listen, trying to pick out his uncle’s voice. He’d never liked the way it sounded during those meetings.
But then the Pakhan would leave with his men. And it wouldn’t be Vasily who turned from the doorway with that playful glint in his eye. It would be Alek’s beloved Vasya. That was when Alek would run away laughing, and after being allowed to think he’d gotten away, Vasily would come out of nowhere and scare the hell out of him. Then they’d spend the rest of the day together; uncle patiently being led around by nephew, enthusing over things that must have bored him to tears.
All that had changed when Alek was nine, when, for a while, Vasily’s visits had trickled to almost nothing. Alek now knew that was because his uncle had met Kathryn. Things were never the same after that.
“I know it bothers you when I ask,” Vasily continued, moving on, “but can you tell me if Maksim has mentioned anything he might be doing to find our problem?”
A grave silence descended between them. It had nothing to do with ratting out his friend. “What’s going on? Have you learned something?”
“Answer my question.”
He barely stopped his eyebrow from popping when Vasily barked at him in a way he rarely did. “No. From what he told us, you ordered him to keep his nose out of it, and he is. If he’s taken it upon himself to dig, he hasn’t shared that with me. I can’t speak for V or Gabriel, though. You’ll have to ask them personally.”
“I have, and got the same response.” He sipped his coffee and then got up and went to the bar. He brought back a bottle of Stoli and two glasses. He poured one and hovered over the other, raising his brow. Alek shook his head for the first time in a long while and took another bite of his apple. He wanted a clear head tomorrow. “I’m having a hard time believing he’s let it go,” Vasily murmured.
“Why are you holding him back from this one? If he starts up, I’m sure he’d put the pieces together as only he can and you would have this fucker sooner rather than later.”
“I don’t want you sharing what I’m about to tell you.” Vasily tossed back the shot then sat forward, rolling his empty glass between his hands.
The artistically done setting sun on the top of his right caught Alek’s eye. On its own it would signify freedom. Vasily’s had a thick strike through it, which meant he’d never be free of this life. If he could walk away, would he? Alek had never asked because he wouldn’t have wanted the question to imply he was seeking the information for his own benefit. As violent and sometimes corrupt as their world was, it was all Alek had ever known, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to find a home anywhere else.
“Lucian has gotten himself involved.”
Lucian Fane was the single most powerful of all the leaders. In complete contrast to Vasily, the Romanian ran his legitimate business empire side-by-side with his not-so-legitimate one, and he had enough heavy hitters in his pocket to save him from having to completely hide that fact. He was feared, and rightly so. Lucian’s ruthless reputation was well-earned from actions taken when deemed necessary. There was no such thing as a warning from the Fane camp.
Reaching across to pull a napkin from the pretty dispenser Sacha had brought home one afternoon after a trip to Chelsea Market, Alek wrapped up his apple core and was tempted to take a shot of the vodka after all.
“What is it about the situation that interests him?”
“Our associates are drawing away until this is dealt with, and that’s being discussed. Lucian doesn’t want the attention it’s bringing to our deals.”
“I’m surprised he hasn’t pulled out.”
“He’s confident his reputation will make it so our problem doesn’t target him or the business we’re doing with him, namely the four cargo ships he is now monopolizing.”
Alek was properly impressed. “Four?”
“He’s moving a lot of product between here and Europe; steel, construction equipment, building supplies that are going out weekly. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was building his own fucking city.”
“Wouldn’t shock me,” Alek murmured, his business side tingling to get involved. The Romanian would certainly be able to afford it. “I see Gotham when I picture it.”
Vasily smirked. “The vampire-turn-bat thing. Yeah, that gets me a lot too when Lucian is in the room. Must be his heritage. Never joke about that with him. He’s…sensitive.”
“I’ve seen his ‘sensitive’.”
“It’s pretty impressive. To people like us, I mean.” Spinning his glass on it’s edge, he caught it before it rolled away. “Apparently, one of Lucian’s men had a sit-down with the clerk who has taken a couple of calls from our snitch. He gets an outline and then forwards the info onto our friend, Detective Smythe. Eight of the eleven calls they’ve received have come from a number that can’t be traced by the NYPD. Lucian gave it to his people and it led his boys to my warehouse in Brighton Beach.”
Shock had Alek sitting back with a thump. “What the fuck? This son of a bitch is that close?”
Vasily nodded. “The other three calls were made from an untraceable cell that came from an unknown location in Nassau County.”
Alek’s stomach rolled in a sickening wave. They lived in Nassau County.
“Now, I understand that’s a large area, but it’s our area. My main residence is there. So is yours. This bastard is close enough to have the ability to enter my office at the warehouse without causing suspicion. And he hasn’t only made his calls from our area, he’s been invited into my home. I trust him enough to have left him unsupervised for the length of time it took him to get into my private files and find the paper trail that led him to Eva’s mother.”
Holy shit. “What paper trail?” Alek knew very little about Kathryn Jacobs. Basically, only that she existed. He’d heard Eva talk about her as a daughter would her mother, but never Vasily.
“When I left them,” his uncle surprised him by saying, making it appear Alek’s ignorance on the subject was about to change. “I arranged for a solicitor to contact Kathryn with a story of an uncle of hers who died without a next-of-kin. His ‘estate’ went to her, and a deposit was made into her account every month.” He got to his feet and went over to stand before the window. “I left her completely alone with a three-month-old infant. She had no support. Her father had been a state trooper who’d been killed when she was fourteen. Her mother—who I never got a chance to meet but who sounded like a bitch—had moved back to France, her home country, the year before I met Kathryn.”
Vasily turned back to the room, and Alek noted his stare was unfocused. His uncle was no longer here with him but in the past.
“Eva’s mother was…brilliant. She was so small. Blonde. Sadly, our daughter doesn’t resemble her much until she smiles. Or cries. Though she does have the same astute mind. Kathryn would have swept through seven years of college in under four if I hadn’t come along. She’d have been a licenced pharmacist before the age of twenty. Isn’t that impressive? I was in awe of her.”
He came back and stood next to the chair he’d vacated. “I met her on the Tacoma campus of the University of Washington. She thought I was a s
tudent.” He smiled as though remembering something. “You have no idea how pissed I was when she told me she was only seventeen. Not that I wasn’t willing to risk jail time to be with her…but luckily, her eighteenth birthday was less than a week away so I didn’t break any laws where she was concerned. Until later, of course.”
He fell silent and Alek was overcome with sympathy. The loneliness filling the room wasn’t something he’d ever been allowed to witness. It struck him then that Vasily had been alone for nearly twenty-five years. Twenty-five fucking years.
“This leads me to my reasons for keeping Maksim away from this. If he finds the person responsible for Kathryn’s death before I do, he will be tempted to kill him. That can’t happen.”
Alek would understand why. “You’ve never spoken of her before now.” He didn’t mind admitting he was mildly disturbed to be hearing his uncle do so now.
Vasily shrugged. “She’s been coming to me a lot lately. I’m hoping if I purge some of my memories I might find some peace.” As he came over, he offered a not-so-confident smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He didn’t believe that. “You have no idea how relieved I am that you won’t be following in my footsteps after all.” He kissed the top of Alek’s head before taking the bunched up napkin and his dirty glass over to the sink. Once there, he took his phone out and read a text. “Maksim is going incommunicado.”
Alek jumped to his feet. “What?” He ripped his phone out and called the idiot. “He can’t do that now.”
“Said all the interruptions are hindering his work and he’ll call you the second he has her.”
Frustration sizzled through Alek’s blood as the generic voicemail greeting came on. He stabbed his thumb on the screen to disconnect.
“Now that there’s no chance you’ll go off with your lined trunk and ready body bag,” Vasily said with a wink. “I’ll leave you to get some rest.”
Alek walked him out and said his goodbyes. He came back in with Anton and they talked for a while about what to expect from each other. Confident they were going to get along fine, he found himself wandering around the apartment. He kept thinking about the expression Vasily had worn when he’d talked about Kathryn Jacobs. It had been familiar.
When he realized why, he took his phone out and called his cousin. His goddamn cousin who was working his way through something none of them could hope to comprehend. Alek had seen Sacha tonight, received another chance. He could have held her, kissed her, touched her. Tomorrow he might argue with her, then make up. They would sit down and talk, maybe laughed, hopefully love.
His cousin never would again. Not with his wife, and not with his son.
“You there, Alek?” Sergei’s voice registered when he spoke louder.
He cleared away the knot that had formed in his throat. “Hey. Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. Are you busy?” He wandered down the corridor and into the master bedroom.
“Not that busy. Do you need me?”
His kept his eyes away from the bed that should have scorch marks around it. “No, brother. I’m good. How are you?”
A heavy silence descended, lingering when Sergei got what was being asked. “Same. Why do you continue with this? That question is pointless because the answer will not change. Stop now, please.” The guy had hung from a thread for months but now seemed to be pulling himself up from his death spiral. Alek couldn’t imagine how.
He stood in front of the window and felt ashamed as he watched the light flurries. He and Sergei had been living in their misery for the same amount of time, but when one compared the two…
“I’m sorry. I can’t help it. Want to come over for a drink?”
“No, thanks, man. I am getting shit done.”
His lip quirked at the expression Sergei had laughed at when he’d first heard it upon settling in the States five years ago. Alek was convinced it had been Sergei’s mother who’d pushed her son to relocate. Vasily had gone to see his much older sister before she died and she’d told him to expect Sergei and his family in America within the year. They’d shown six months later, so a promise must have been made. The regrets and what-ifs must drive the guy insane. Had he stayed in Russia, he’d still have his wife and child.
“If you finish up early, swing by the Flatiron apartment. I’ll be here all night.”
There was a tense moment of silence. “It is true then? I heard the boys say something about Anton being assigned to you because you were bringing your female back into the fold. I was on the phone and thought I had to be mistaken. What has happened?”
Almost feeling cruel, Alek kept it short. “We were at the restaurant and she walked in.” Sergei hadn’t come to the engagement party for obvious reasons. Watching a couple begin their new life together could only add insult to injury.
A thump sounded. “Just like that? You are kidding me. Are you with them now?”
“Who? The boys? Did you drop something?”
“Yes. My gun. I almost shot Reynard.” He chuckled tightly and Alek heard Sergei’s regular partner curse in the background. “Uh, yes, are the boys with you? Or her? Did you speak with her? What did she tell you?”
Knowing Sergei’s English suffered when he was agitated, Alek made sure to cover all the bases because he wasn’t sure what exactly he was being asked. “The boys are home, as far as I know, and Vasily just left. As for speaking to Sacha…” He hesitated when he felt something he hadn’t felt in well over a year. The stirrings of desire. Not a simple hard-on, but a rush of heat centered in his groin that grew in strength and hardened him to stone. Sacha. Sacha. By releasing her back into his consciousness, the woman was doing what she’d always effortlessly done; light him up.
He cleared the roughness he knew would be in his voice and went on. “We talked, and will do so again tomorrow. She was with someone.”
“Who? Did you see her? Meet her?”
“It wasn’t a woman friend; it was a man.”
“What! A man. What man? Are you certain they were together? That isn’t right!”
Sergei’s explosion came out in Russian and Alek was touched by the outrage he could hear in his cousin’s voice on his behalf. “My thoughts exactly. I plan on taking care of it tomorrow.”
“Alek, are you sure this is wise? You should think about this before you go any further. What if something happens? What if they are left unattended—?”
“I won’t allow anything to happen,” Alek cut in, then questioned, “Who’s ‘they’?”
“The family you must want with her!”
Fuck. Why had opened this can of worms? “Oh, right. I don’t have to think about this. I know now that I’ll do anything I have to do to protect them.” A family with her. Fuck, that sounded beautiful.
“Oh. Yes, I think I see now. You will not allow harm to come to them. You will do what you must to protect them.” Sarcasm dripped from his cousin’s words. “I see. So I allowed my wife and child to be chopped up by our uncle’s enemies. Having them live an hour outside the city and not returning home for sometimes days at a time when the family was on high alert was not protection enough.”
Alek’s spine shot straight. “No! Jesus Christ, Sergei. You know that’s not what I meant.”
“I heard you!” he shouted away from the receiver. “I have to go.”
“Hey. I never meant to imply you failed to do all you could for your family. I swear to God.”
A rough sigh came after a long moment. “I know you didn’t. Forgive me. My fuse is not what it used to be. I should not taint your reunion with the misery of my experience. I truly wish you well, cousin. And much luck to you. I think you will all need it.”
♦ ♦ ♦
Sergei Pivchenko slammed his phone so hard onto the bathroom counter the face cracked. He sucked in a few breaths, and when that did nothing to calm his racing heart, he grabbed the broken cell and banged his hand on the switch to kill the lights as he left the room.
The moment he reached the main floor of the house, he heard her scream
ing that name. Pounding down the stairs into the basement, he blew into her room, sending his guest stumbling back from where she’d been shouting and crying at the door.
Just as she did every time, she attempted to get around him and dart out. He easily clamped an arm around her waist to prevent her escape. She struggled like a little animal as he got her on her cot. Holding her there with a knee on her chest and a hand around her throat, he uncapped the syringe he’d snagged from the bookshelf just outside.
“No! Don’t! Please…stop…this…” she rasped, trying to breathe over the pressure he was exerting that must be crushing her lungs. He jerked her arm straight with more force than he normally used and jabbed the needle into her vein. “Let me…go…please…”
He tipped his head, giving her a patronizing look that she didn’t see because her wet eyes rolled back in her head as she lost consciousness.
“Your pointless dramatics have become more than a nuisance.” He jerked away from her, still taking deep, slow breaths, hoping to get a grip on himself before he did something stupid like kill this one because she was in front of him.
He paced in a circle and felt his pulse begin to slow as his and Alek’s conversation played over in his head.
When Alek had first ended his relationship with Sacha, Sergei had been tasked with babysitting the girl, and he had, but only for a short time. Once she changed locations to an address he hadn’t shared, he’d considered his job done and had pretended to lose her. But by then, he’d been busy. His resolve had cemented. Within weeks of being left alone in his misery, and with nothing but his thoughts for company—aside from the ghosts of his loved ones, of course—he’d gotten serious in his attempts to destroy the organization that had done such irreparable damage to his life.
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