The room was mostly dark with shadows, save for the outdoor street lights streaming through the windows that casted a bluish, eerie glow over Dimitri’s face. It added a sinister quality to the atmosphere that made me unaccountably nervous.
“The danger has passed?” I asked. “Has Batya settled all of his debts?”
If it weren’t for that bluish light, I would have missed the way Dimitri’s jaw hardened. “The matter has been handled. That’s all you need to know.”
“And the Voiny? Have they been subdued?”
His eyes narrowed just slightly before clearing. “I’m afraid there is no subduing them. But that matter has been handled, as well. There is nothing to fear. We can finally leave this godforsaken city.”
Still, I didn’t move.
Something felt seriously off with this situation.
For one thing, why were the byki here? I was under the impression that all the byki were standing vigil by Batya’s side, protecting him. Why did Dimitri need these men with him? And for the second thing, if the danger had been alleviated, why hadn’t my father come to collect me himself? He’d said he would.
“May I please speak to my father? It would make me feel better to hear his voice.”
Dimitri finally lowered his hand. His shoulders shifted restlessly in his black bomber jacket. “You may call him as soon as we leave this place. I do not relish the idea of staying here a second longer than we have to. I don’t know how you were able to stand being around this man for so long. These Rossettis are thick-headed vultures who like to feed off the remains of those who do the actual work. They stand on the broken backs of the heavy lifters.”
That pinged an inner alarm.
Sure, Nico and Dimitri hadn’t exactly shown affection toward each other. But Batya had trusted Nico enough to provide me with shelter and protection for almost two months. That should have been endorsement enough for his underboss.
“Nico has kept me safe, Dimitri,” I said in a stern voice. “He has honored the deal he made with Batya and respected his wishes. At the very least, he should receive the same kind of respect from you.”
Dimitri’s eyebrow climbed up his forehead. “And yet he let you walk off his property, completely alone and defenseless. Some protector. He didn’t even realize when you left, did he?”
Who knows? He sure hadn’t chased after me. He either didn’t know I was gone or simply didn’t care.
As irrational as it was, that strange defensiveness toward Nico remained. Apparently, my heart didn’t realize it had been bludgeoned to oblivion. It still loved Nico, still wanted to protect him. Though my brain steadfastly maintained that while I might love him, that didn’t mean I had to like him anymore.
“If I had been in imminent danger, he would have protected me,” I stated firmly. “He is not a coward. My father knew that. Otherwise, he never would have entrusted me to him.”
Dimitri visibly vibrated with anger. “Your husband couldn’t stop Raphael Esposito from escaping, and he got shot in the shoulder for his troubles. Do you really think he’ll be able to protect you if Esposito decides to come after the Rossetti family?”
Was his reaction purely from a jealousy standpoint? Based on the crush I’d always sensed he’d harbored for me? Or was this something deeper? Because it felt deeper.
The thought of the sadistic Raphael coming after any member of the Rossetti family again, especially Nico, caused my stomach to violently churn with nausea. Those people had become very special to me. I loved them as much as—
I took a step back. “I never told you where Nico was shot, Dimitri.”
His brow furrowed. That was either confusion or anger, but I couldn’t discern which. It was almost as if he couldn’t believe he’d—said that out loud. Slipped up.
Oh…God.
“I never said anything about his shoulder,” I reiterated. “How would you know where the bullet hit him?”
It was like Halloween. Or a weird Sci-Fi movie.
Dimitri dropped all pretense in that moment, like he was shucking an elaborate costume or a mask. His shoulders slumped in relief, his face transforming completely. He bared his teeth in more of a sneer than a smile. And his eyes…they were no longer warm with familiarity but cold with ruthless aggression.
He shot a look over his shoulder at the byki. “Fucking finally, da?”
The two men snickered.
When my long-time friend finally turned back to me, I didn’t recognize a single part of him. “Yes, I think you finally seeing it for yourself will work much better for me.”
I moved back again, sensing I needed to put as much distance between us as possible. “Seeing what for myself?”
He smirked. “What Sergei was too naïve to see for years. He only recently wised up, the old fool.” He held his trunk-like arms out to the side, palms skyward. “Behold the future of Russia.”
Was this man demented? What the hell was he talking about?
Dimitri walked along the wooden bar, dragging his hand across the smooth surface, skirting right past the exact stool Nico bent me over a mere three weeks ago. It already feels like a lifetime has passed since then.
“Times have changed, Alexia. And men like your father can’t keep up. His era of leadership is falling by the wayside, and men like me have to step up in order to safeguard our country’s future.”
I slowly wound my way around a table, keeping a chair in front of me. “You’re not a politician. What do you think you’re going to be able to do?”
He laughed manically. Nothing like the sound I’d grown so accustomed to over the years. “It is Russia, kotyonok. The land where criminals literally run the country. Do you not think your father has had influence with every major political agenda in Russia since he became vor? His compound holds more secrets than the Pentagon or the Vatican.”
I never would have thought that Dimitri was capable of hurting me, but I knew I needed to get the hell out of here. Only problem was, there was no way in hell I’d reach the exit before Dimitri or one of the byki caught me.
My gun.
Was upstairs in my purse in Nico’s office.
“So, this is all about you wanting to become vor?” I asked, knowing I needed him to keep talking for as long as I could.
“Hardly. It cannot be questioned that I earned my place in the organization. Because of that, I made the Voiny what it is today, all on my own.”
He was behind the Voiny uprising?
All this time, it was Dimitri who’d been threatening my father’s life? How can this be? This man had been my…friend. My only friend for so long.
He smirked again as I reacted to that admission. “But taking your father’s seat? As vor?” He shook his head. “That’s my goddamned birthright.”
“What do you mean?”
He pulled a whiskey bottle from behind the bar, the same bottle of Saluzzo Reserve that Nico had opened for me the day of the stool sex. Dimitri yanked the cork out and drank straight from the bottle. With a disgusted twist of his mouth, he launched it at the wall behind the bar, shattering it.
I jumped at the sound, my hand automatically covering my belly in a gesture of protection.
“These fucking Americans and their rotgut whiskey,” he roared. “I’m so sick of this motherfucking country!”
I wanted to scream, “Then leave it! We don’t want you here!”
But I knew it probably wasn’t wise to upset an already deranged, and possibly homicidal, man.
He reached around the bar again and snagged an expensive bottle of vodka. After chugging down several drinks, he sighed. “Much fucking better.” He pointed to me with the bottle. “What do you say we bring your father out for this next part, da? Or should I say…our father.”
Had I just heard him correctly? He couldn’t have actually meant…?
Dimitri truly was insane.
He murmured something I couldn’t hear to one of the byki. The bodyguard stomped across the taproom, past me, and through a
door that led to the room where the liquor was made and stored. The humongous copper vats were back there, whirring away as they distilled the alcohol that would eventually be served in this very room.
Moments later, the byki returned, dragging a limping man with him. He dropped the man to the floor like a sack of potatoes, mere feet from me. It was clear the man was injured and maybe not even fully conscious because he barely made a noise when his body hit the hardwood floor with a resounding thud.
The byki yanked off the black hood covering the injured man’s face before returning to his position by the door.
A scream rose up my throat and filled the room when I got a look at the captive’s face.
Dimitri glowered down at his boss. “Hello, Batya.”
I didn’t know when my feet started moving again, but I suddenly found myself back downstairs, facing the nervous looking members of my family.
“She’s not here,” I rasped, feeling numb. “She’s supposed to be here.”
“What happened, Nico?” Mom placed her hand on my shoulder. “Where did Lexi go?”
“We had a fight,” I said in monotone voice that even I didn’t recognize. “I thought she was working with Dimitri behind my back. I—I told her I was giving her back to Sergei.” I stabbed my fingers through my hair. “I called her a liar.”
And now she was gone.
I couldn’t believe she just fucking left.
Mom’s face paled. Her hand trembled as it covered her mouth. “Nico…you didn’t. You made her leave?”
I skated over her odd reaction when a thought occurred to me.
I had GPS trackers on each of my cars, in case some moron decided to ever try and steal one. The same technology had proved life-saving when Stefano Esposito kidnapped Jasmine in one of Cris’s own cars. He’d been able to pinpoint their location by that GPS signal. If Lexi had taken one of mine, I’d be able to easily track her down.
I opened the app on my phone that allowed me to access the security cameras around my property, hoping I’d see footage of her driving off in the Audi she’d been using. But when I rewound the recording from the past couple of hours, I was swamped with a fresh wave of dismay.
“She left in a goddamn cab.”
Throwing me the bird as a final parting shot in a classic Lexi move.
Nothing I didn’t deserve. In fact, that was the very least of what I deserved.
“Where would she go?” Jasmine hurriedly asked.
I shook my head. “I—I don’t know. Everyone she knows in this country is in this room. Except for—”
I dropped my phone.
FUCK.
“Dimitri,” Dad finished for me.
“She doesn’t know he’s behind all of this.” Fear coiled in my stomach like a poisonous snake. “He’s roaming our streets while she’s out there all alone. Hell, she may have gone right to him. He could already have her!”
Not to mention, Raphael—the mafia boss with a giant vendetta against my family—was traipsing the earth as a free man. Obviously, he’d never been kidnapped, never been tortured. God knew what kind of plans he’d been making since his escape.
Lexi was out there among killers with a bright red bullseye on her back.
I had never wanted to beat the shit out of myself so badly in all my life. And I’d been at war with myself for a long damn time, so that was saying something. How could I have been so goddamn stupid? So blind? So callous? I hadn’t even listened to her when she’d tried to explain herself. I hadn’t cared. I’d been ready to throw her out on her ass without hearing her side.
“Oh, my God,” Mom cried, choking back a sob as she fell onto the couch. “Nico, what have you done? You have to find her.”
Where would she have told that cab to take her? I wracked my brain, but the only answer I could come up with was by far the most infuriating.
And disturbing.
She had trusted Dimitri for years, just as Sergei had. He was family to her. I could absolutely see her running to him after I’d turned my back on her. She would trust him to return her safely to Sergei.
“I could try to track her cell phone,” Ace offered.
“Do it,” I snapped. “Now.”
When Mom started openly crying, Gia and the girls surrounded her. “She’s going to be okay, Mom. We’ll find her.”
“You don’t understand. It’s not safe for her out there.” Mom’s tear-filled eyes met mine. “She didn’t tell you, did she?”
I froze.
Dread settled over me like a lead weight. “Tell me what?”
She pinched her quivering lips shut, as if conflicted over whether or not she should say it. “Lexi is…pregnant.”
The ground disappeared beneath my feet.
It was like I was floating in some sort of limbo, all other noises and voices a distant drone in the background. Despite my disassociation, I noticed that no one else in the room moved. Nothing so much as a whisper passed through anyone’s lips as they gaped at Mom, who was still watching me.
“She—” I licked my lips, swallowing around a dry mouth. “She…told you that?”
Mom’s mouth twitched. “I guessed. After six pregnancies, I can sniff one out like a bloodhound. She only took the test just this morning. She said she was going to tell you tonight.”
But instead, I’d accused her of being a deceiving harlot. She’d never gotten a chance to spill the beans. Who would have wanted to in the face of my assholery? Knowing Lexi’s pride the way I did, there was no way she would have after the verbal beatdown I’d delivered. And I couldn’t blame her. Not at all.
Jesus Christ.
I.
Fucked.
Up.
Baaaad.
“She is carrying your child, Niccolò.” Tears tracked down Mom’s face. “Your wife and unborn child are out there and in danger. My grandchild. Your family.”
That’s when it really hit me.
Lexi had my baby inside her. Our baby. I was…going to be a father. My son or daughter rested inside my wife’s belly—
And someone wanted to hurt them? To take my family away from me?
Oh, fuck no.
Kade’s words from the day of Cris and Jasmine’s wedding popped into my head. You don’t know real fear until your woman tells you she’s carrying your baby. You don’t have a fucking clue how far you’ll go to protect her until that day comes. Until you think about someone harming them.
Lexi was mine. That was a fact long before I found out about this baby. Now, I had even more to safeguard. More to value. More to lose. More at risk. And damned if I wouldn’t go to the ends of the fucking earth to protect all of it.
I’d kill for her.
I’d die for her.
I’d sacrifice anything for them.
Because I loved my wife. So much it was making it hard to think straight.
I faced my brothers. “We’re going to find her.” Anything else was unacceptable. “And we’re going to bring her back.”
And kill anyone who gets in our way.
“Got her cell signal,” Ace announced.
I rushed over to him and his laptop. “Where is she?”
“Well, I know where she was an hour ago. That was the last signal the phone sent out before it dropped off. It either died…”
Or it was destroyed. Which likely meant that someone was with her who didn’t want her found.
“Where!” I shouted.
Ace’s gaze flew up to mine. “Brooklyn Armor House.”
My distillery? Why would she have gone there?
In my hands, my phone started blaring an alarm, drawing everyone’s attention. I literally felt my heart stop beating for a dangerous number of seconds.
Because I knew that sound.
“What is that?” Cris demanded.
My finger was shaking as it swiped over the screen. “I get alerts on my phone if the fire alarms at any of my properties go off.”
Dad eased closer to me. “Which one is that?�
��
I stopped breathing altogether.
“Brooklyn Armor House.”
There was a fire at my distillery.
And the last place we knew for sure Lexi was…was inside that building.
“Stop!” I yelled when Dimitri kicked my father in the ribs, pulling a groan from him.
I ran to his prone body and knelt down to check his pulse. Weak but steady. I swallowed down bile when I took in his swollen-shut eyes, cracked and bleeding lips, blood-matted hair, bruises covering almost every inch of skin I could see, and numerous cuts and gashes, all of varying depth.
“What is wrong with you?” I screamed at Dimitri. “Why are you doing this?”
“Haven’t you been listening, Alexia?” He came up behind me and placed his mouth right at my ear. “I’m here to claim what is rightfully mine. I am owed the vast Kozlov fortune, considering the fact that I am Sergei Kozlov’s only biological child.”
I gasped. “You’re his illegitimate son?”
Batya had never mentioned this.
Dimitri picked up a barstool and threw it across the room. “I’m as fucking legitimate as you could get! Far more than you, the adopted orphan he plucked right off the dirty Siberian streets. I am the son of Sergei and Claudia Kozlov!”
My mind swam with all the stories I’d been told my entire life. “No…they never had a child together. Claudia had a miscarriage.”
“She lied. She was three months pregnant with me when dear old dad here drove her away to the goddamn ghetto. She felt she had no other choice, and he just let it fucking happen. She ended up marrying a man who used his fists on her and on me, and Sergei never once cared to check in on the woman he claimed to love so fiercely. But she never left him. He left us first. She didn’t want this life, and he didn’t love her enough to walk away from it.”
I couldn’t believe this. All this time, Dimitri had been my father’s son. Batya had been Dimitri’s real father.
I scooted closer to Batya, who was struggling to remain conscious, moaning in pain every few seconds. He grasped my hand and squeezed, as if trying to communicate with me. Had he heard everything Dimitri just said? Did he know his own underboss was actually his son?
“Shh,” I whispered to him. “Save your strength. It’s going to be okay.”
Booze and Bullets (Brooklyn Brothers #3) Page 31