The Florentine didn’t ask who Oleg was asking about. He simply nodded.
“And you are free?”
The other fire vampire glanced at Tenzin. “In a way.”
Oleg nodded. Despite the instinctive aggression that burned in his veins, he recognized… something.
Not a kinship. But something.
“I cannot do it myself,” Oleg said quietly. “Not even for the good of our people. But name your price, Khazar. And I will make sure your path is clear.”
“There will be more blood after,” she warned. “We will only take Truvor. Others will scrabble to take his place. The rest is up to you.”
Blue fire rippled softly over Oleg’s hands. “That blood I will shed.”
He flewfrom Sochi to Odesa via an inconvenient route that was enough to allay government suspicion and keep humans from paying attention to him. When he arrived in Odesa, Mika and Petr were already waiting.
“Do you do this on purpose?” Mika spoke in Old Estonian because Petr was there. “Go and blow things up with your brothers to give me a headache?”
“You cannot get headaches.” Oleg patted Mika’s shoulder when he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Are you jealous? Did you also want to be part of the fun?”
“There aren’t many vampires who can take out an entire manufacturing plant in under ten minutes while leaving a near-pristine perimeter,” Mika said softly. “Ivan is going to know it was Lazlo or Rudov. Or one of the others who are equally powerful, and there aren’t many of the old blood who could?—”
“Ivan already knows we are the ones sabotaging him.” Oleg shrugged. “Or he suspects it. It doesn’t matter. He cannot accuse me publicly.”
Petr walked over and put a coat over Oleg’s shoulders. It was raining in Odesa. Then his secretary took the briefcase that the air steward Cesar handed him.
“Thank you, Petr.” Oleg left the coat draped over his shoulders as he walked to the car. “No one would believe I would be willing to lose so much money to undermine my owngovernor.” He slipped into the waiting sedan, and Mika joined him in the back seat as Petr got in front with the driver.
Mika was still irritated, but Oleg knew he was seeing reason.
“To the house, boss?” his driver, Seban, called from the front of the car.
“Drive me to the office first.”
“Why?” Mika asked.
“Yes, boss.” Seban rolled up the black divider, and the silence was like a blanket over his ears.
Oleg breathed deeply. Then he turned to his spymaster. “The rest of the world and the average soldier in Moscow will soon begin seeing Ivan as not only brutish—which they will put up with if it makes them enough money—but also incompetent. They will not put up with that.”
Mika nodded. “They will be grumbling for a new leader soon.”
“Exactly.” The sedan pulled away from Oleg’s private airstrip, and a few minutes later, it merged onto the pitch-black streets on the outskirts of Odesa.
“And you will do what?” Mika asked. “Give it to them? There are no such things as elections in the Kievan Rus. You’re going to have to kill him.”
“I don’t think so. I can call him to the citadel. Keep him there, and when enough time has passed, I will ask my chosen successor?—”
“Ludmila.”
“Dear God, she would hate me forever,” Oleg muttered. “It might be worth it to hear the endless stream of Russian curses she would wish on me and all of my blood, but no, it will not be Ludmila.”
“Oksana then. She has leadership potential and is blood mated to Ludmila. You would have two governors in reality for the price of one in name.”
“No, she’s too young.” He raised a finger. “You are not wrong. Oksana will have her own territory one day—perhaps Rudov’s when he gets tired of governing—but for now she is too young, and she’s not our blood.”
“Lidik is not our blood. I am not your blood.”
