I swallow against the tightness in my throat. The physical grief doesn’t come every time I think of Mikhail, but it does often enough.
“He died.”
I think of the final messages from him on the night he died while back in his homeland.
Mikhail:I should have brought my gladiator son with me.
From the moment I read it, that message filled me with dread. From half a world away, I sensed what it meant. Not that he missed me, or at least not only that. He was telling me that something had happened, something that might have been prevented if a fighting man in his prime had been there.
About ten minutes later, the final text I’d ever get from him came through.
Mikhail:Don’t let anyone take the things I left for you.
Publicly the family claimed he’d had a heart attack. I paid to get into the funeral home at night. If there was a heart attack, it was caused by the two stab wounds in his chest.
“Someone killed him,” I say.
Natalia sets the card down and comes back to the bed. She sits next to me and takes my hand.
“Before he left, my mother was worried because he didn’t take the men he usually had around him. He said the trip to Russia was a family visit. He didn’t need them, and they were needed more here.” My jaws grind against each other. “I think he might have left them to watch out for me. He’d just entrusted a few things to me, and Egorov and some others weren’t happy about it.”
She frowns. “He was Mafia?”
I nod.
“And you work for this man?”
“No, not in the usual sense. I took over management of a few legal businesses. The two restaurants are well known in our community. Russian Tea House and Red Square Caviar.”
“I hear of these bars. Very elegant and very much money to eat there. Egorov offers to take me many times… if I will be his mistress. He says they belong to him.”
“He wants them to belong to him. Maybe they do now. We’ll see what Mikhail’s will says.”
“Egorov is son-in-law, so he works for your foster father?”
“Yeah. He married Mikhail’s daughter to insure his position as heir to the business. But it seems like Mikhail had other ideas. We’ll see.”
She nods, rubbing my hand. “You must be careful, Alexei.”
I glance at the drawer in the nightstand that holds a small box that was also a gift from Mikhail. I opened the puzzle box to find a safe deposit key and bank address. I know without being told that a copy of his last will is inside the box. When it’s time for the will to be read, I’ll have reviewed the copy he left for me to be sure that the public reading matches what he intended.
Don’t let anyone take the things I left for you.
No, I won’t.
I would’ve honored any dying wish of Mikhail’s. The fact that his last wish was to give me a gift for being the son of his heart means I won’t let anyone stand in the way of my claiming it, especially not Egorov.
A noise downstairs causes my head to turn. It sounds like the wind’s rattling the door, but a moment later a security alert sounds on my phone. My feet hit the floor an instant later. I drag on a pair of jeans and go to the closet. Popping the false back open, I swing the secret door open. As I retrieve the loaded assault rifle that’s hidden inside, I whisper, “Get your clothes, Natalia. Quietly.”
Natalia looks startled and doesn’t move.
“Now,kiska.” My stern tone causes her to spring into action.
CHAPTER16
Alexei
Natalia scoops up some clothes and looks to me. I grab the puzzle box from the nightstand and then wave for her to follow me to the back stairwell.
