Nanny for the Russian Mafia (A Man Who Knows What He Wants Book 102)

by Flora Ferrari

  I watch as her body goes limp and she falls to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  “Call the garage and tell them to pull the car up front…Dimitry,” Alexei says.

  “Da,” Dimitry replies the affirmative in Russian.

  Alexei stands there as Dimitry talks into his tiny comms device. Suddenly he steps forward, putting his hand over microphone.

  “Your car…not mine,” he says in English.

  What the?

  Dimitry finishes the call and Alexei rips the comms device from him.

  “Don’t move,” he says to Dimitry, shutting the bathroom door, pulling a key from his pocket and locking it from the outside. I guess as a mafia boss you have to be a bit paranoid in all matters and think of everything...including the ability to lock someone inside the bathroom when the time comes.

  “You okay?”

  “What’s going on? What’s happening?” I’m frantic, completely lost.

  “We’re getting the fuck out of here…for good.”

  Alexei takes me by the hand and we race to Vitaly’s room. He’s sound asleep.

  “Vitaly,” Alexei says. “Time to go for a trip, buddy.”

  Vitaly mumbles something and Alexei scoops him up in his Spiderman pajamas.

  Seconds later we’re back at the bathroom and Alexei reaches inside his pocket, pulls out a key, and opens the door.

  “You’re running to the airport to pick up the president of Syria, got it?”

  Dimitry nods.

  “You deviate, you’re dead.”

  Dimitry nods again.

  “We walk out together. You tell the valet to bring around another car. When he’s out of sight we’re going to crawl in the trunk and you drive. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” Dimitry says…without any detection of a Russian accent.

  Alexei leans forward, taking Ludmila’s purse, and we walk toward the front of the estate.

  “Did you just rob a dead woman?” I ask.

  “That’s not a woman, woman.”

  EPILOGUE

  Crystal

  The next afternoon

  Alexei laughs as he shuts the door behind us to our room overlooking the water…what body of water I have no clue.

  “Bet you weren’t expecting that.” It’s the first words any of us have said since we left his house last night.

  “Can you please tell me what’s going on?” I’m at my wit’s end right now. I’m exhausted, confused, completely lost, and I need a drink.

  “Allow Wolf Blitzer,” he says, flipping on the TV and then turning it to CNN.

  Wolf is broadcasting live from…right in front of Alexei’s home. I recognize it in the background, clear as day.

  “So they’ve taken Berlusconi, Sergei Roldugin, who serves as Putin’s bagman, Bashar al-Assad, and a whole laundry list of famous figures into custody.”

  “Unbelievable,” the news anchor back in the studio says on the split screen. “And what can you tell us about the owner of the house.”

  “The owner is dead as is his nephew, both nannies, and a few other figures.”

  “Unbelievable. And from what we know the nephew’s parents were just killed in the last few months, and now the sole survivor of that poor family is also gone.”

  My eyes scan the room, realizing that Vitaly is already passed out on the couch.

  “Don’t worry. I wouldn’t let him see this,” Alexei says, watching my eye movement.

  “I’m…we’re…dead?”

  “As doornails.”

  “But why?”

  The TV shows the raid of the property. The footage is a bit grainy and it’s obviously dark.

  “That was no more than fifteen minutes after we left.”

  “You knew that was going to happen?”

  “I’d been working with the C.I.A. for months.”

  “The C.I.A.?”

  “How else was I supposed to put my Russian Mafia days behind me, and live to tell about it?”

  “Wait…you’re out of the family, or whatever it’s referred to in Russia?”

  “Out of the family? We’re dead.”

  “Okay, Alexei. Please. Start from the beginning.”

  I plop down on the couch and bat my eyelids a few times. I pinch my thigh and feel the pain. Yes, I’m alive and this is real, not something out of a crazy fiction novel.

  “Dimitry was C.I.A. I knew it, but he didn’t know I knew. He was the one leaving the notes you found…the notes Ludmila was desperately looking for. Dimitry knew he was relaying information, he just didn’t know to whom. The C.I.A. was using him as a way to get information to me when they thought my electronic channels were compromised.”

  “Where’s Dimitry now?”

  “I don’t know. We left him back in Switzerland.”

  “Switzerland?”

  “That’s where we changed planes and got our Antigua passports.”

  “When did we get Antigua passports?”

  “When I took Vitaly to the bathroom.”

  “Wait a second. We switched passports in Switzerland?”

  “In the bathroom, yes.”

  “I didn’t even know we were in Switzerland.”

  “That’s the point. We weren’t. We’re dead, remember?”

  “Oh my god. Alexei!”

  Even my yell doesn’t wake Vitaly up. The little guy is conked out.

  “Probably not gonna go with Alexei any longer, but I’ll go ahead and answer to it for the rest of the day.”

  “You think this is a game?”

  “Well, if we’re being honest and laying everything on the table right now—“

  “Yes! Always.”

  “When I applied for a new nanny, suspecting Ludmila all along, I thought they’d send in another agent. When I took one look at you I realized you were the real deal, and not an agent. No way they’d send in an eighteen-year-old young woman. The C.I.A. couldn’t have trained you that fast. I was expecting someone closer to twenty-five that looked young, traveling on a fake passport. I was shocked, in the best way possible, that you weren’t part of the game.”

  “This isn’t a game. This is my life.”

  “I know, beautiful,” he says, taking a seat next to me. His big hand takes mine. “I knew that right away.”

  “After you knew I wasn’t some government agent you mean.”

  “Exactly. You were the most refreshing, pure thing, to ever enter my life and I fell for you instantly.”

  “What about those notes I found. I still don’t get it.”

  “The American government was intercepting Kremlin transmissions. They knew someone was going to make a play on my life, hence the woman in the red dress.”

  “But there was no woman in the red dress.”

  “Ludmila, until she wised up and changed her dresses. Probably just a lucky guess on her part, but a good one nonetheless.”

  “So who was Ludmila?”

  “Ludmila killed Vitaly’s parents. I’m sure of it now. One of the C.I.A. agents I was in communication with couldn’t confirm it on record, but when I asked him point blank his body language gave me one hundred percent confirmation of my thought that she’d done it on orders from the Kremlin. And she was the one with the nerve agent in her purse that she was going to drop into my drink, and the drinks of others who could testify against the Kremlin, at the event.”

  “What event?”

  “The bunga bunga party?”

  “What’s this bunga bunga business I keep hearing about?”

  “It became famous a few years ago. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was hosting what became known as Bunga Bunga parties for all these international figureheads and quote unquote leaders. Basically it was a bunch of old men and high end escorts, some of them underage, in private villas doing exactly what you might guess.”

  “How did you get involved in that?”

  “I was ordered to host one, as I was connected to the Kremlin, but not able to be directly linked back to
them. I tried to refuse, but was told in no uncertain terms that that wasn’t an option. That’s when I went to your government…I mean your former government.” He pauses before continuing. “Because of my initial attempt to refuse the Kremlin’s request to host these events, and my visible discomfort at these distasteful and despicable events, they decided to end me and my closest family members. They must have thought I might share information with my sister and her husband or give them some sort of proof in the ‘unfortunate’ case that anything was to happen to me.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Just as unbelievable as Imane Fadil, who was an underage Moroccan model at one of these parties years ago and who had been recently set to testify against Berlusconi in Italian court…until she was found dead of radioactive poisoning in a way that has a very Russian fingerprint to it.”

  “You think Putin was behind it?”

  “He was great friends with Berlusconi. It’s hard not to connect those dots.”

  “So what happens now?”

  “Now we let all those men who were in my basement last night try and fight their way out of it. Unfortunately some probably will. Thankfully others probably won’t. If nothing else we get a little bit more justice in the world and we make a dent in human trafficking.”

  “And what about us?”

  “We write our own ticket. We can stay here in paradise or assume new identities and go wherever we want.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “You know that old mafia saying, ‘I offered him a deal he couldn’t refuse?’”

  “Yes.”

  “I went to the Americans with a deal they couldn’t refuse and they gave me one in return.”

  “So we’re in witness protection?”

  “Something like that, but not really. We’re dead. No one’s looking for us.”

  “Eventually they’ll figure it out.”

  “The ambulance took out multiple bodies last night. There were a few dressed as we were.”

  “And you planned this all out?”

  “I started from the end and worked backwards.”

  I’m completely shocked.

  “Or should I say…the beginning.”

  “The beginning?”

  “Beautiful, we’re just getting started.”

  Alexei slides off the couch, dropping to a knee as he keeps both my hand in his one hand but reaches in his pocket with the other, pulling out a small, black velvet box. He flips the top up and back with his fingers, revealing a huge diamond that would literally have me leaning to the left if it was on my finger.

  “In all my thirty-one years I’ve never felt more alive than I do now. It’s like everything that ever happened before was just practice, just preparation for this moment right now…my chance to start truly living for the first time in my life, the way life is meant to be lived…with my woman, my perfect pairing, my mate, right there by my side to live life to the fullest with. I want to share all my smiles with you…and there will be many. To share all our accomplishments…and there will be many of those too…together. And most importantly, there will be many more children, because when I see you I see my wife, the mother of my children, and the love of my life. Forever. And forever starts now, if you’re ready to be mine…always.”

  He takes the ring and places it at the tip of my finger. I can see the eagerness in his eyes. It’s true that the eyes are the window to the soul, and despite his past, and mine, I can see his soul is full of love, protection, and possessiveness…for me and the family we’re going to build together.

  I started off as the nanny to a child he unexpectedly became a father too. Now it’s time to make plans of our own, together, and watch this family we’ve got grow.

  And that all starts with…

  “Yes.”

  Before I know what happens he slides the ring on my finger and scoops me up in his arms, kissing me hard as he carries me out onto the balcony.

  “Only now is this truly paradise,” he says as the crystal clear blue waves lap at the white sandy beach below us. “Because I have you to share it with.”

  EXTENDED EPILOGUE

  Alexei

  Five years later

  I double-check the baby seats for our bicycle built for two, or technically four. The bike is built for two, but I put in one baby seat in front of each of the adult seats.

  “We’re good to go,” I say.

  Crystal gets on the front adult seat and I slide Anastasia in the front baby seat, in front of Crystal.

  Then I carefully slide her twin brother Artem in the baby seat in front of my back adult seat and get on myself. Getting our two babies loaded is a bit of a challenge, but it’s worth every second.

  Our two babies are the cutest things in the world, although they came later than expected. I thought for sure I’d gotten Crystal pregnant on our first night, but apparently our bodies and minds were too stressed out during that period to conceive, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise as it gave us more time to enjoy each other and for Vitaly to bond with the both of us.

  We take off down the path with Vitaly at our side on his own bike. He’s ten and a terror on two wheels.

  “Wait for us, son!” I yell, but it’s no use. He’s already well on his way to the waters of the Caribbean.

  Lucky for us Tulum, Mexico is a peaceful somewhat hippy town where everyone is very friendly and easy-going. The city is full of tourists, which works perfectly for us. Our privacy minded lifestyle goes completely unnoticed. Nobody has time to care about us when they’re too busy enjoying their week or two of yearly vacation.

  Plus, for fun, we changed our names in public. It’s become a bit of a running joke to use Spanish names when we go out, but it’s really fun and I think it’s good for the kids creativity.

  Speaking of creative, I’m glad my plan to convert twenty million in cash to Bitcoins before we bailed on Russia worked. With the Internet it’s easy to convert it slowly back into cash as we need it. The beautiful thing is that after making so much money I now know that money doesn’t mean much anymore. Sure, I need it to provide for my family and give them the best life possible, but the best things in life truly are free.

  Watching the sunset as a family. Free.

  Going for a swim in our infinity rooftop pool. Priceless.

  Having the woman of my dreams and our children by my side every day and night. Paradise.

  “Ha! Tricked ya, dad!” Vitaly yells as he comes up from behind.

  “Hey! How’d you do that?”

  “Shortcut through the jungle.”

  “You’re too smart,” Crystal says, complimenting him. She’s been great at that since day one and we’ve reached a point where he’s put his past behind him too. We’ll never forget his mother, my sister, and her husband, but he’s a fully adjusted, happy and healthy ten-year-old boy now. I’d like to take some of the credit for it, but I know a large majority of it goes to my woman.

  She spent so much time with him, just listening to him and being there for him.

  The way the two of them connected is amazing. I’m sure the people that see us never doubt she’s his mother, which is why he calls her “mom” these days, and has for a few years now.

  I followed the trials that happened after the arrests five years ago. I was happy that the justice system was able to prevail in quite a few of them. I was surprised considering the unlimited access to funds most of those big wigs have. But for every dollar they had, the government had minutes of security footage from my place…security cameras that I just so happened to point in the direction of those low lifes which recorded so many of their bad deeds.

  But that’s in the past now and the only deeds we’re teaching our kids are good ones, which is why Vitaly’s bike comes screeching to a halt just up in front of us.

  “What’s going on, buddy?”

  “It’s a sea turtle, dad. Why is he way up here?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he got lost.”

&nbs
p; “Can I put him in my basket and take him down to the beach?”

  “I bet he’d appreciate that.”