Kostya

by Roxie Rivera

  Checking his rearview mirror, Kostya kept track of the vehicles on the street behind him as he drove away from the bakery. The idea that he might be under surveillance even right now annoyed him, but he was better than any bullshit Houston police detail. If anything, it might be fun to play cat and mouse.

  He pulled into a rundown food mart, ducked inside and waved at the elderly owner who allowed him to use the phone. He kept trouble away from the store and paid the old man’s protection tax to the Asian syndicate. Making sure the door to the office was closed, he picked up the phone and dialed Fox’s private business line.

  “Hen House Security. You’ve reached the Fox.”

  “Fox, pull up everything you know about Marco Villarreal. Go deep. Arrests. Bank accounts. Cell records. Landlines. Vehicle registrations. Property taxes. Liens. All of it.”

  “Hang on,” she said, her voice fading away as if she were reaching for something. “Okay. Marco Villarreal,” she muttered. “What else, Big Papa?”

  Frowning at the nickname, he quickly listed off the other pieces of information he needed. “Look into the girl he’s run off with and her parents,” he added, wanting to make sure all his bases were covered. “The girl might try to get money from their accounts if Marco runs short.”

  “How quickly do you need this?”

  “Yesterday,” he said before hanging up and dialing the number of the tire rental joint where Lobo worked part-time. He was the silent backer in the string of franchises that former loan shark John Hagen had started years earlier as part of his legitimate retirement plan. Lobo worked there under a clean ID they were using to build her “legend.” It was important that she have a solid life history—a diploma from homeschool, a work history for Social Security, 1040s filed with the IRS, medical and vaccine records, a good passport. Someday, she might want to get out of the underworld and clean record would help her.

  “EZ Rental Tires and Rims. This is Emily. How may I help you?” Lobo answered in a cheerful tone.

  “Emily, I’m looking for a set of new tires for my 2014 Chevy Tahoe.” Using her fake name felt strange to him even after all the years they had been using it in public. “I have chrome wheels with gold spokes and royal purple detail. Custom,” he added, describing the vehicle Marco was known to drive. “Do you have tires to fit that?”

  “You’ll have to bring in your vehicle for measurement, sir. My shift ends in half an hour, but one of my other associates would be happy to assist you.”

  “I need the job done by tonight. It’s important.”

  “We have a satisfaction guarantee, sir. Should I schedule you in for an appointment?”

  “Yes.” He hung up, dropped five crisp hundred-dollar bills on the desk for the store owner and left without making eye contact with the handful of patrons. When Lobo finished her shift at the tire shop, she would find Sunny and together they would track down Marco. His little spiders were crafty and would find Marco before anyone else. He was sure of that.

  Chapter Nine

  “WE’RE CHASING DOWN a lead,” Lobo informed him later that evening. “Sunny’s wagging her tail like a bloodhound.”

  He smiled at Lobo’s description of her partner-in-crime. Once she got a whiff of a target’s scent, she wasn’t coming back without her prey clamped between her jaws. “Update me in one hour.”

  “Will do.”

  He pulled into the parking lot of Ivan’s warehouse. He noticed the small changes Erin was making on the exterior of the gym. The building was still a rundown looking wreck from the outside, but there was a new sign with the logo she had commissioned. Markovic MMA also had a newly paved parking lot with actual slots marked by crisp white lines. Gone were the days of Erin stealing car keys from lockers to move trucks and cars that were double parked, blocking fire lanes or making it impossible for deliveries to be made.

  Inside, the gym looked the same as it had always been except for updated equipment and mats. Ivan allowed Erin to do whatever she thought was necessary for promotion and marketing and keeping the books clean, but the gym itself was his domain. Judging by the way their business was expanding, their arrangement was working well. Ivan had never liked handling the money and business side of things; Erin was an accountant by trade and a party planner as a side hustle. She liked to plan and crunch numbers and boss people around the place.

  But most importantly, in Kostya’s estimation at least, Erin had developed a mothering instinct looking out for her junkie sister and her close-knit group of friends. This warehouse was Ivan’s den, and she had embraced her role as the den mother. She knew which fighters were having problems at home and which fighters were running short on cash. At the first sight of a limp or a wince, she had ice and bandages and ibuprofen at the ready and the direct scheduling lines for doctors and physical therapists.

  Crossing the narrow pathway between mats, he spotted Ivan and Nikolai standing outside a cage. They were watching Kir working with one of the new fighters Ivan hoped would be able to take Sergei’s place in the underground fights. By the looks of it, this kid wasn’t going to work either. More and more, Kostya wondered if their days of fielding powerhouse fighters and dominating the underground tournaments were done.

  Stepping up to the cage, he caught Nikolai’s eye. With a slight shake of his head, he answered the boss’s silent question about Marco. Nikolai’s mouth settled into an irritated line, but he didn’t say anything.

  Ivan had a smile for him and a handshake. “Are you here to scope out the new fighters?”

  “Can any of them take Nate Reyes?”

  “If he’s drunk? If he’s sick? If he has two broken arms? Sure.”

  Laughing, Kostya glanced at the cage and delivered his verdict with a frown, “He’s not you, and he’s definitely not Sergei.”

  “The only chance we have of finding another Sergei is pulling his brother in to fight for us when he gets here or bringing in some new blood from somewhere else.”

  “Bianca will burn this warehouse to the ground before she lets Sergei or his brother get dragged back into fighting underground,” Kostya warned. He wasn’t exaggerating. That woman had gone to great lengths to save Sergei. She had only recently married the man she loved and word on the street was that they were expecting twins. Bianca would savage them like a mama bear if anyone tried to tear apart the family she was building.

  “Then we need to start a recruiting drive,” Ivan suggested, only half-joking.

  “Brighton Beach,” Nikolai cut in, his gaze never leaving the cage. “I’m drafting some new soldiers.”

  Kostya eyed Nikolai with barely contained surprise. This was the first he had heard of such an idea. The order must have come down from Moscow and very recently. There had to be some weight behind the order, a threat or a bribe. There was no other reason Nikolai would agree to bringing in fresh blood. He liked to handpick his men. Everyone one here in the Houston syndicate shared the bonds of childhood friendships or prison time together or blood relations. Taking these castoffs from New York was a risk. They were likely to be dead weight, idiots and fuck-ups.

  “This kid is okay, but he needs a lot of work.” Nikolai shook his head and turned his attention to Ivan. “What about Boychenko? How is he coming along?”

  “He’s good, but he doesn’t have the power or the size to fight underground. If he was legit?” Ivan shrugged. “The kid could be competitive in the right weight class.”

  It was Ivan’s subtle way of asking permission. For some reason, the ex-enforcer had developed a seemingly paternal affection for Boychenko. Ilya had complained that Ivan was trying to talk Boychenko into leaving his crew.

  “That’s up to him,” Nikolai replied. “He can do whatever he wants with his life. He can stay with us—or he can leave.”

  Kostya shared a look with Ivan that said everything. Boychenko had never been arrested. He was as white as snow and had options that men who had been in the family longer had forfeited. He hadn’t even gotten his first tattoo yet. He co
uld leave and make a life for himself doing anything else.

  But he wouldn’t. He had gotten a taste of their illicit life, of the shadowy world and the strong brotherhood that held them all together.

  Nikolai’s phone rang, and he reached into his suit pocket to retrieve it. He stepped away to answer it, but Kostya could hear most of the boss’s side of the conversation. It was quickly apparent that it was Vivian on the other end of the line.

  “Yes, he’s here with me. Why? Is there a problem at the house?” He paused. “Your bracelet? I can get it for you.” As he listened to whatever she had to say, he cast a strange look Kostya’s way. “I see. Well, I don’t think…” He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. “Yes, yes, you were right about that, but…” He exhaled a long, slow breath as if trying to remind himself that his wife was pregnant and prone to mood swings. “Fine. Yes. I’ll do it. No, no, I won’t be late. I’m having dinner with Ivan and Yuri and then I’ll be home.” He went quiet again. “I always am, and I love you, too.”

  When Nikolai walked back to the cage, Kostya asked, “Is everything okay?”

  He nodded stiffly. “We need to talk.”

  Not taking his eyes off the fighters in the cage, Ivan gestured to the suite of newly renovated offices at the rear of the warehouse. “You can use my office or Erin’s if you need privacy.”

  He followed Nikolai into Ivan’s office and shut the door behind him. Nikolai leaned back against the desk and leveled a hard stare. “What the fuck is going on between you and Holly?”

  Taken aback, he said, “What I do on my private time doesn’t concern you.”

  “It concerns me when it’s my sister,” Nikolai hissed, his voice low and dangerous. “You told me there was nothing but friendship there. That she was only a neighbor—”

  “She was when we had this conversation before, but—”

  “But?” Nikolai leaned forward, as if ready to launch toward him.

  “But things have changed,” he confessed, fully expecting to be punched at any moment. “I spent the night with Holly after all that shit went down in her salon. The next morning, I told her about me and this.” He gestured between them. “She knows I’m in the mafia.”

  Nikolai gripped the edge of the desk, narrowing his eyes in that menacing way that made other men squirm. “Are you in love with her?”

  That was a question that made him swallow nervously. “I’m not sure.”

  “Don’t fucking lie to me,” Nikolai shot back. “I can see it in your face, and if I can see it, other people can see it, too. You know what that means.”

  “It means that I’ve put her in the same position that you put Vivian in,” he replied with an edge to his voice. “You don’t get to stand there and lecture me on putting Holly in danger when you did the same thing to Vivian.”

  Nikolai didn’t have an argument for that point. Better than anyone, he understood what it meant to drag an innocent woman into the life they had chosen years earlier, before thoughts of love and family had ever entered their heads. Eventually, Nikolai exhaled noisily and said, “The old man is going to lose his shit if he finds out you’re with Holly.”

  “Maksim is the least of our worries when it comes to Holly.” It was a fact that he worried about constantly. Someone out there knew that she was Maksim’s biological daughter and wasn’t above using that information to hurt her.

  “You destroyed the tests?”

  “I burned them myself.” As soon as Max’s tests had confirmed Nikolai and Holly as half-siblings with the same father, he had destroyed the evidence. “I’m still working on getting her mother’s DNA. She’s been traveling, and when she is in town, she’s very careful. Too careful,” he added with a knowing look.

  “You’re still convinced she’s like you?”

  Like you. Not a mobster, but a spy. A covert operative. Probably old school KGB. “She’s too clean. Her legend is flawless. Both parents? Dead. Homebirth? The doctor who signed her birth certificate? Dead. Her high school diploma? Lost in a school fire. Until she showed up at college, there is no trace of her. No photos in papers. No birth announcement. No obituaries for her parents. There are no loose ends for anyone to dig up.”

  “That doesn’t mean that she’s some kind of operative, Kostya. She could have just been unlucky. You are paranoid as fuck.”

  “For good reason,” he shot back. “You don’t know the things I know. My parents were involved in heavy shit. The whole reason I was born in Dresden was to help my parents build my identity so that I could work for foreign governments without the barriers my Russian nationality would have caused. There were dozens of us, Nikolai. And not just in East Germany. Here, in America, and in England and France and Canada.”

  “So what? You think Holly’s mother came here like your parents and brought Holly back from Russia to—what? Become a successful hair stylist? How is that helpful to the Russian state? It’s ridiculous, Kostya. This whole thing is ridiculous.”

  “What if Holly’s mother came here as a teenager? What if she’s working here without cover or protection? She has the perfect job. She can travel to places in the Middle East and Russia and China without rousing too much suspicion. She is directly involved in US energy policy now that she’s on an advisory council to the president. She’s acted as a conduit between her Russian oil and gas contacts and the State Department here.”

  Nikolai didn’t want to hear it. “Even if what you say is true, we don’t need to get involved in it. You need to stay out of it. You were burned, Kostya. You have no protection on that level anymore. If Holly’s mother is what you say she is, she could hurt you and she could hurt us.” He slashed his hand through the air. “Leave it alone, Kostya. Whoever she is and whatever she might be, Maksim trusted her to raise and protect Holly. I don’t think she’s a risk to us if we just leave her alone.”

  Kostya wasn’t so sure. People in his line of business always had an ulterior motive.

  “You said you told Holly about the mafia. What exactly have you told her?”

  “I only confirmed what she asked. She wanted to know if I was in the mob. She had heard rumors about you and Ivan. She put two and two together. I told her the truth. Mostly.”

  “And?”

  “And I told her that she should take some time to think about what getting involved with me would mean,” he answered matter-of-factly.

  “Apparently, she’s done thinking.” Nikolai shoved off the desk and crossed the space between them. “Vivian conveniently left her bracelet at the salon today. She wants you to go pick it up. She also said you need a haircut.”

  Kostya touched the long ends of his shoulder length hair. It was getting scruffy, and he had been entertaining the idea of a change. Knowing Vivian had pulled a similar stunt with Sergei, pickpocketing Bianca’s phone and sending Sergei to take it back to her friend, he warned, “Your wife is devious.”

  “I’m not sure whether I should be proud or afraid,” Nikolai admitted with a smile. His smile faded, and he turned serious. Taking a step closer, Nikolai invaded his personal space. “If I find out that you dishonor my sister, I’ll cut your fucking throat myself.”

  From anyone else, it would have been a bombastic and empty threat. From Nikolai, it was a promise. The boss had softened some after marrying Vivian, but he was still an extraordinarily dangerous man. He didn’t have a relationship with Holly, but she was family. He was a man who do anything for his family. To make them happy, there was no limit to his generosity. To keep them safe, there was no limit to the violence he was willing to perpetrate.

  “I don’t want to hurt her.”

  “You will,” Nikolai said sadly. “We always hurt the ones we love.”

  And he would know best. His love for Vivian had put her in danger, had gotten her kidnapped and almost trafficked. He had hurt her in other ways, too. But he had made his amends, and she had forgiven him.

  Would Holly be so generous when she learned the whole truth about him? Probabl
y not, he silently acknowledged as Nikolai left the office. Holly didn’t have the sort of life experiences that mirrored Vivian’s. She had grown up privileged and protected and knew nothing of heartbreak and sadness and pain.

  Troubled by his thoughts, Kostya drove to the salon and parked in the back. It had been closed for an hour, and there was only one vehicle—hers—left in the salon’s marked spaces. He stepped out of his car, locked the doors and retrieved his personal cell phone from his pocket. It was the phone he used only for legitimate business contacts and friends. He dialed Holly’s number as he walked across the parking lot and waited for her answer.

  “Hello?” she answered breathlessly. “Kostya?”

  The sound of her panting voice did wild things to him. He tried to shake the images the sound inspired from his head as he asked, “Holly, are you okay?”

  “Sorry, I had to run from the stockroom to my office to grab my phone. I recognized your ringtone and didn’t want to miss your call.”

  He couldn’t ignore the heavy beat of his heart at her mention of a special ringtone. It was a simple, silly thing and he didn’t want to read so far into it, but he couldn’t stop himself. “I’m at the back door. Can you let me in?”

  “You’re here?” She seemed excited. “Sure. See you in a bit.” She hung up, and a few moments later unlocked the back door. She greeted him with a beautiful but shy smile. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he echoed, suddenly at a loss for words.

  Still shy, she asked, “Are you here for Vivian’s bracelet?”

  “She asked me to come get it.” Remembering Vivian’s other instruction, he reached up and touched the ends of his hair. “I know you’re closed and it’s late, but do you have time to cut my hair?”

  Holly seemed surprised by his request. “You want me to cut your hair?”

  “I can come back in the morning if that’s better,” he offered, all the while hoping she would tell him to stay.