“It was a pleasure hosting you tonight,” he says, rising and standing at his office door pointedly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have roasts to carve for tomorrow’s lunch menu.”
“Well, that was a waste of time,” Lucya says on the drive home. “I thought we could sway him, I’m sorry.”
“Not completely,” Nikolai says thoughtfully. “He knew something. He started blinking rapidly when you mentioned Wozniak.”
“We can’t exactly torture an innocent man for keeping his word to stay neutral,” Lucya sighs.
“Why can’t we?” Nikolai asks, genuinely confused.
“Because we can’t!” she snaps. “Alexi, what about surveillance on the restaurant? I’m sure your men could bug some of the private areas.”
I lift her hand, kissing it. “It has been tried before, I’m sure. But not by us.”
“And we are tech geniuses,” Nikolai says. “Unlike some of the Bratvas, we have entered the twenty-first century.”
“Make some calls, brother,” I grin - not a pleasant one - because Lucya flinches a little. “We have a plan.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
In which there is love and betrayal.
Lucya…
“Is there anything Dmitri cannot screw up?” I groan, pacing through the kitchen.
“No, he is the master of fucking things up,” Alexi agrees.
The new Pakhan of the Turgenev Bratva was on the phone with Alexi the following morning, screaming in fury and demanding Nikolai return home immediately. I know without Alexi telling me that my soon-to-be husband would be traveling again, getting information with his fists and a gun instead of discreetly placed listening devices.
“Your father’s funeral and Dmitri’s wedding to Inessa are next week,” I remind him. “When does he expect us to be there?”
Strangely, I’ve tried calling Inessa repeatedly since Alexi returned my phone, and she never calls back. I haven’t seen or spoken with her since that horrible night when we were kidnapped.
She left one brief text about how busy she was, which makes sense. A wedding of this scale and enormous significance is Inessa’s ultimate goal in life. I’m sure she’s obsessed with every minute detail. I never thought much about my eventualwedding, other than being happy and grateful that Alexi would be waiting for me at the end of the aisle.
His phone buzzes and his expression darkens like a thundercloud as he recognizes the number.“Da,Pakhan?”
I can tell it physically hurts him to say that.
“I see. Which field?” Alexi’s jaw tightens. “Understood. We will be there.”
“What’s going on?” I ask. His expression is scaring me a little.
When he looks at me, his eyes are polar blue. The Angel of Death is back. “Dmitri is here.”
“What- in the U.S.?” I gasp.
“Not just stateside, but here in Boston. He’s at a private airfield on the other side of the harbor. He wants us to meet him,” he says, rapidly texting someone.
“He’s supposed to be in St. Petersburg. And this is a surprise. This is bad, isn’t it? From what I can remember, surprises from Dmitri are never good. Not like ‘Here’s a birthday cake!’ surprise, more like ‘I’m going to take everything you love’ surprise, right?” I’m rambling, I do that a lot when I’m nervous.
Alexi doesn’t seem irritated by it, abandoning his texting to hug me tightly. “He enjoys putting people on their back foot. Making them fearful. I won’t play his games, but unfortunately, if the Pakhan summons us, we must go pay our respects.”
“Yeah, your brother is just as tender and charming as a case of syphilis,” I mumble, and I catch him smothering a grin.
“Try to avoid sharing that observation when we see him, yes?” He gives me a kiss, cupping my face lovingly. “I find your honesty refreshing. Dmitri, not so much.”
“I know.” I try on a weak little smile. “I thought I could make dinner for you tonight and we could go ice skating on the rooftop. But seeing your brother is almost as good.”
