While Kirill’s name hadn’t been in the two paragraphs, he’d been linked. Why I didn’t know. The article itself was on how a powerful Pakhan had died, his son taking his place then disappearing.
Only to be labeled dead months later.
With the picture in hand and knowing his first name, I’d finally found out who he was. And the single picture of him that had been taken at his father’s funeral did little to assuage both the unwanted yet embraced emotions.
The photograph had been taken at an angle and his head was down in prayer, but there was no doubt in my mind the man standing outside at a cemetery on a cold winter day was the same man who’d been imprisoned in my father’s concrete shed.
And who was he?
Kazimir Chertov, firstborn son of Viktor Chertov, considered one of the most powerful Pakhans ever to rule the streets and countryside of Moscow. The man’s reputation had been not only brutal but lethal, a monster supposedly murdering dozens of people.
I’d been so excited by my findings that I’d continued surfing, finding another article that had been written by a reporter in Italy.
During the same time he’d been incarcerated at my father’s estate.
What was worse? He’d been visiting the country to meet with Giovanni Pollizi.
My father’s best friend.
My godfather.
What little I’d learned from there brought more curiosity than anything else. Soon, I’d put the pieces together from what little he’d told me.
Kazimir was said to have been just like his father, a carbon copy, the only difference being the son had been educated abroad. Cambridge no less. He could speak several languages and was considered highly intelligent. He’d known every word I’d said to him in Italian and English. Hell, I could have spoken German and he would have known. He lied to me, at least in terms of how intelligent and important he was to the Russians.
How many other things had he lied about?
Had he tried to kill my godfather? If he had, Kazimir would have been killed outright.
Unless the reason he’d been kept alive had been to provide both him and my father with a significant boost in power and wealth.
Kazimir hadn’t lied about the fact he was a dangerous man. Or that he’d murdered several men. I’d been so caught up in the fantasy about him as a stupid eighteen-year-old that I hadn’t taken the time to discover who he was. Maybe if I had, things would be different.
If Kazimir had come here, why now? Why not make an appearance earlier?
It took me a little while until I found out the identity of the two men with him at the funeral. His brothers.
I’d typed in Mikhail Chertov and was rewarded with more information than about Kazimir. He’d taken over control of the empire.
Something didn’t add up to me and I couldn’t put my finger on why.
Either the man I’d thought I’d loved was dead and whoever was tracking me was doing so for another purpose, or…
He’d been imprisoned somewhere else. But where in the world could that be that news hadn’t leaked out about how he’d been arrested for anything before being sent to prison? With a man like him, the news would have circulated across the world given the power his father had wielded.
And to be labeled dead meant there wasn’t a body.
Hmmm…
With Golden at my feet, I realized that there was no way she would have reacted so strongly to both the man at the fashionshow as well as to the scent inside my house if she hadn’t known the person who’d invaded my space and my life.
My heart fluttered.
Kazimir had been right that his very presence meant harm could come my way. One reason I’d believed he’d escaped was that nothing I’d given him had been found. I’d seen the shed months later when my father had been on a trip. The cinderblocks had been removed. While someone had taken the time to put new ones in their place, the difference in the mortar had been easy to see.
Maybe that meant someone else had captured him.
One thing was clear. I wasn’t going to find any additional answers sitting here or my asking my father a single question. Besides, I had a shift at the coffee shop.
