I shrugged, not sure what that had to do with me, then instantly drew down my shoulders. “Take me with you,” I said. “Sorry, I mean, can I please go with you?”
He rolled his eyes, and once again I assured him that wasn’t sarcasm. I really did want to go with him because there was absolutely no chance of escaping this estate that was crawling with security guards. There might be a chance to slip away wherever he was going, or perhaps someone might recognize me and get word back to my cousins.
He laughed, giving me a knowing look as if he could actually read the desperate thoughts that spun in my head.
“No. Too many people want to take you away from me, and that’s not going to happen.” He tapped my chin again, laughing some more as he strolled out of the kitchen.
Chapter 10 - Gavril
I got out of the kitchen after my first breakfast with my wife, before I either throttled her or kissed her senseless again. I couldn’t decide if I was disgruntled or delighted. She wasn’t such a basket case this morning, and I found her absolutely charming. Yes, even when she made a crack about our age difference.
Judging by how she reacted to my kiss last night, she wasn’t overly repulsed by the years between us. The fact that she wanted to go with me was the icing on the cake. Despite having no use for books whatsoever, I could still read her as easily as if she were a kindergartener.
It was written all over her face that she wanted a chance to make a run for it, and the fact that I discovered she’d never be able to successfully lie to me put a swing in my step as I headed out to take care of some unsavory business. I definitely would have rather spent the afternoon with Lilia.
Right now, I had to make nice with the treacherous people in my own organization so they didn’t spill the beans about my marriage to the pretty Petrov I was saddled with. At the moment, with her sassy tone still fresh in my ears, she didn’t seem like such a burden. She was going to be a pain in the ass, but in a fun way. Not having to console a shaking, crying maiden first thing in the morning, but instead being teased by her, was a pleasant surprise.
I had to keep her here because it was imperative she stay hidden, and no one outside my most absolute trusted inner circle knew about this mansion. It was bought and paid for using so many layers of secrecy and diversion that I would have been hard-pressed to trace it back to myself if I ever needed to prove I owned it.
To the Collective and anyone else I did business with in LA, I lived in an upscale high-rise downtown, and that was where I was headed to start the necessary negotiations to get what I wanted.
Which was Lilia.
I arrived in time to take a moment to myself on the twentieth story balcony, looking out over the city I had decided to make my own. The skyline still gave me a thrill, but my hopes of reigning supreme weren’t as high as they were when I first left my old life. I loved a challenge and had never backed down from a seemingly impossible task. The rewards would be great if I just kept going and remained single-minded. The only problem was that I stopped being single-minded when I signed my name to the marriage contract with Lilia Petrov.
She was the key to everything, winning or losing so spectacularly, I probably wouldn’t live to mourn the defeat. If I could get all the pieces to fall into place, the victory might just be as sweet as her kisses.
As I half expected and also hoped, Luigi’s fragile ego was still too dented after I ruined his auction, and he sent his half-brain-dead lackey, Meathead, along with someone who had recently come under Luigi’s favor. I didn’t know this guy well, but he seemed to have more sense than a chimpanzee, once we got down to business.
“I get where you’re coming from,” he said after I explained why stealing our most powerful foes' young family member wasn’t a good look. He paused to chomp on an unlit cigar before adding, “But surely you can see where Luigi’s head is at, too. You say you’re sick of the Petrovs, but yet you sit with your thumbs up your ass and do nothing.”
Meathead snickered at this lovely turn of phrase, and I gave him a look that it would be something more painful than a thumb up his own ass if he didn’t pipe down.
“Maybe he didn’t inform you of this,” I said to the new upstart. “But Luigi knows full well that we’re under major scrutiny by the feds right now. They didn’t take too well to finding out one of their top agents was working for us, and on top of losing him, our other inside people have gone to ground and are refusing to work with us until things settle down. That’s all because of the Petrovs.”
“So we hit back harder,” he insisted.
I leaned over and grabbed him by the lapels, slapping the cigar out of his mouth. “It’s simple physics,” I said. “You hit something heavier than you, and you’re going to get knocked back. Right now, the Petrovs are a lot heavier than us. Think immovable object. You know how rivers end up creating ravines through mountains? We’re the river.”
“And we don’t have millennia to wear them down,” he argued, sticking to the talking points Luigi must have drilled into him. “Bring Lilia back so Luigi can finish what he started.”
I sat down, considering shooting this asshole and sending his corpse back to Luigi. I managed to keep it together, but didn’t want to hear my wife’s name out of his mouth again. “I can’t believe I thought you might have a glimmer of intelligence,” I said, ignoring his fists rising. Let him try it so I could go with the corpse plan. “Do you have any idea how nuclear they would go if word got out their youngest cousin was sold to the highest bidder?”
He gave me a long look. “I don’t know. Maybe we should find out?”
Meathead nearly pissed himself when I shot the guy. I turned to him, his eyes bulging at the fresh body staining my carpet. Not the first time I had to have it torn up and replaced because of insubordination. Maybe this was a rash move, but I wouldn’t stand for such threats. No one was taking that woman away from me. She was mine.
“Take this back to Luigi,” I said. “Tell him that the girl can be used as a pawn to get the Petrovs under control, but only when the time is right. No one better cross me on this.”
I left him to clean up, sending in a couple of my trusted guys to help so he wouldn’t make an even bigger mess. As if the mess would ever stop growing.
Sending the body back to Luigi would buy me some time, but I still couldn’t trust anyone on his end. I missed the time when I was solely in charge of my territory back in Russia. Money rolled in so fast we could hardly launder it. I was branching out to Italy, having one success after another, when the Collective contacted me while brokering an important deal in Milan. We did so many lucrative deals together that they finally asked me to take over their LA territory after I had proven my ruthless leadership abilities.
Good times. The few enemies I had quickly folded, begging to be let in instead of a grisly death. The ones I kept alive and gave a chance were among my most trusted men now.
My bitter laughter made the guard going down in the elevator with me jump. I ignored him; the laughter cut off when I realized those days were well and truly over. That would never happen here. As much as I wanted the man’s death that afternoon to mean something, shooting people wasn’t much of a deterrent to Luigi. Not when he could recruit new, low-levelcriminals off the streets to fill in the gaps. Not a loyal bone among them.
The main forces that I kept butting heads with continued to refuse that I was in charge, going along enough to stay alive, but whittling away at my authority in the background. They were too powerful in their own right to just do away with, though I dreamed about it at night. One day soon, if I could get the pieces to fit together and the timing was right.
