“Your aunt would love to see you again,” he agreed. Lowering his voice, he said, “I would suggest you stay away from Ivan’s camp from now on, Valya. A body just turned up, and your presence is somewhat suspicious. You’re lucky it was me who came along.”
She blinked at him. “How terrible. We certainly don’t want to get caught up in any trouble here. Nikolai wanted me to extend an invitation to Ivan to join him for dinner one night, but his camp troubles need to come first.”
Grigory studied her for a long time. He grinned and shook his head. “You’re even better at playing the game than your mother was.” He paused and added, “Ivan’s locking down the camp right now. Lena’s going to be here any minute, and it’s too big of a security risk for you to remain. Your window to get out is closing.”
Valentina tilted her head, curious about the purpose in two of their more established leaders meeting together in the middle of the night. If Ivan and Lena were working together, that might have all sorts of political ramifications. “Lena’s meeting with Ivan?”
Grigory nodded. “A personal meeting of sorts. Now, shall I escort you out of here?”
Valentina frowned. She hadn’t been aware they were sleeping together, but that might be something to explore later. Unfortunately, Grigory was determined to shoo her and Yuri out of the camp. She hadn’t wanted to involve him, but her options were limited.
Making it a point to avoid glancing toward the building where Sergei was probably already in position, she said, “You have my word we’ll leave in ten minutes, but there’s something I need to do first.”
Grigory arched an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”
“Valya,” Yuri began, obviously worried about involving someone else.
She put her hand on Grigory’s arm. “Uncle, I have nothing but the utmost respect for you. But I would be remiss in sharing my plans with you. You have my word I don’t have any ill intent toward Ivan or his camp. We are simply gathering information on a matter that affects all our people. Once I’m free to do so, I will gladly share the outcome of this investigation.”
Grigory considered her for a long moment. Finally, he inclined his head. “Very well. I’ll leave you to it. But Valya, you should consider getting out of this line of work. Your parents were taken from us too soon, and I don’t want to see the same thing happen to you. Get married. Have babies. Life is far too short for it to be all about duty.”
Yuri made a strangled noise and quickly covered it with a cough when she glared at him. Turning back to Grigory, she pasted on a pleasant smile. “Thank you, Uncle. I’ll keep your words in mind.”
Grigory chuckled and kissed her forehead. “You are definitely just like your mother, except she would have taken a knife to me for suggesting the same thing. I’ll look forward to seeing you again soon.”
She watched him walk back down the alleyway, waiting until he was out of sight. That was a little too close.
“Babies, huh?”
“Shut up,” she muttered, grabbing Yuri’s arm and dragging him toward the building. Of all the people Grigory had to say that in front of, it had to be Yuri. Although, Sergei wouldn’t have been much better. Oh, who was she kidding? There wasn’t a good option. Valentina blew out a breath, determined to focus on their objective. “Let’s do this before Sergei gets impatient or we get interrupted again.”
Yuri chuckled. “I’m just trying to imagine you married with a baby on your hip. Although, he did say babies… as in more than one. So two? One for each hip?”
They were close enough to the building for their plan to work. A little deviation was warranted. Whirling around, she shoved Yuri a little harder than necessary. Raising her voice, she shouted, “For the last time, I’m not getting married and having babies, so drop it!” Without another word, she ran toward the building.
One of the men caught her around the waist as she entered. She covered her face with her hands, pretending to burst into tears.
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
“You don’t understand,” she wailed, still covering her face. Dammit. She hated trying to cry intentionally. Maybe she should have pretended to get angry at Yuri for feeling her up instead.
“What are we supposed to do with her?” one of the men spoke to someone else, his voice slightly panicked.
“I don’t know. Get her out of here though. We’re supposed to be on lockdown.”
“I’m sorry, miss,” the first man spoke again. “You’re going to need to leave.”
He started to drag her to the door, but she buried her face against his shirt and sniffled. “I’m sorry. I just… I need a minute. He’s so unreasonable. He keeps talking about marriage and babies!”
The man holding her hesitated. She clutched him a bit tighter and lifted her head. Blinking back tears, she put a slight hitch into her voice as she said, “Would one of you talk to him for me and get him to back off? He might listen to you. I just… I can’t talk to him about this right now.”
The man standing behind them said, “For fuck’s sake, Anton, just take her back to the boyfriend and deal with this. We’ve got work to do.”
Well, that wouldn’t work. She needed both of them engaged in this little charade. Leaning against Anton, Valentina buried her head against his chest, pretending to cry even harder. “I don’t understand how he can be talking about babies when I know he’s been sleeping with that whore on the construction crew!”
Anton floundered. “You’re going to need to talk to him and get him to back off. She won’t get off me.”
“Fine,” the other one snapped, and she heard his boots stomping toward the door.
Excellent. One down. And Yuri would get to deal with someone who was convinced he had babies on the brain. Ha!
As soon as he was gone, Valentina lifted her head and sniffed. She caught a glimpse of Sergei sneaking into the room behind Anton. “Will you go with me when I go out there? If he starts making promises, I’m not sure I can handle it. I just don’t know what to believe anymore.”
Anton sighed. “Fine. You’re going to need to learn how to handle your man on your own. Babies, indeed. Who the hell wants to deal with them anyway?”
She nodded. “I know. I really appreciate your help though.”
“Really, Valya?” Yuri muttered as they headed back to where the speeders were parked. “I was somewhat looking forward to groping you in front of Sergei. Instead, those two recruits spent over ten minutes telling me I was an idiot. Apparently, I’m the one obsessing about babies.”
She snorted, climbing over a pile of rubble in the darkness. “You inspired the idea with your baby talk. Besides, you sold me out to Sergei earlier. Maybe you’ll rethink that next time.”
He chuckled. “Maybe I’ll—” Yuri froze, grabbing her arm and hauling her back. He ducked down, and she immediately did the same. Peering over the rubble, Valentina saw a group of people walking in their direction. One of them was carrying a handheld light, and it illuminated enough of their faces for her to recognize Lena’s entourage. Dammit. They’d be doing a full sweep of the area, if they hadn’t already started.
Valentina pulled out her commlink and quickly sent a message to Sergei. They were going to have to find another way around. Unfortunately, they were now sandwiched between Ivan and Lena’s people. This was going to be a problem; the darkness wouldn’t mask their identities if they got too close.
Yuri leaned over and whispered, “We’re going to have to backtrack and find a place to wait until they’re gone.”
She nodded, not seeing an alternative, and slid her commlink back into her pocket. They started to go back in the direction they’d come from, but footsteps were rapidly approaching. Yuri grabbed her arm, and they ducked behind a crumbling wall. They were still somewhat exposed, but it would hopefully provide them with some temporary cover in the darkness.
The footsteps stopped almost directly in front of them. Yuri pulled out his knife and waited. Valentina put her hand on his arm,
a silent gesture to hold off. If necessary, she’d come up with something. They couldn’t risk dispatching anyone this close to Ivan or Lena’s inner circle.
A woman said, “After you finish, get a copy of Ivan’s shipping schedules for the next two weeks. I suspect he’s asked me here to help supplement his missing supplies.”
“Of course, Lena,” a man replied.
“I need a breakdown of everything we have left in our holding location. If we need to move anything out, I want a heavy escort with it when it’s transported. Also, find out what’s going on in the towers. Now that the construction crews are back at work, they should be expecting another delivery soon. I want to know what and when.” There was a lengthy pause before Lena said, “Ivan, it’s wonderful to see you again.”
“Lena,” Ivan replied. “It’s my pleasure. I trust your trip went well?”
“It was as expected…”
The voices trailed off as they began moving away.
Valentina frowned. The conversation was troubling. Lena didn’t care much for Nikolai or his politics, but Ivan had always been neutral. If Lena was offering to bail Ivan out of trouble, she might demand he agree to certain concessions. Depending on what they were, it might not bode well for Nikolai’s future endeavors.
Lena’s mention of a holding location was also somewhat curious. Nikolai used various storehouses around the world to store excess supplies while keeping smaller supply caches with them. His network of camps wasn’t as vast as Lena’s though. Valentina hadn’t heard about Lena missing any shipments, but the woman was secretive. It was possible she was trying to prevent additional thefts by using holding areas to stockpile supplies and then distribute them in a controlled manner, but there was no way to guess. Valentina didn’t know enough about the inner workings of Lena’s camps.
Valentina had contacts within some of them but not anyone close to the older woman. The personal connection between Lena and Ivan was worrisome as well. If the two of them were in bed together, a merger between them could shift the entire power structure within the Coalition. As two of the longest-held leadership positions, their combined holdings dwarfed most of their other leaders.
What they needed was more information. Grigory might be willing to share some insight about Ivan, especially in exchange for supplies. But she had the suspicion Grigory would be reticent about saying anything negative about him.
Ivan had known Valentina’s parents too, but she’d never shared the same type of familial relationship she had with Grigory. Dammit. She needed more information.
Yuri tapped her wrist to get her attention and gestured toward the alley. She nodded and followed him, careful to keep her movements silent. It would take a lot longer to get back to Dmitri and the speeders, but it was better than the alternative. They’d already had too many close calls for one evening. Finding out more about Ivan and Lena was going to have to wait until later.
Chapter Four
Valentina and Yuri climbed up the hill toward where they’d left Dmitri and stashed the speeders. Sergei emerged from the shadows. “Are you all right, Valechka? What happened?”
“We almost ran into Lena and Ivan on the way back, so we had to go a different direction,” she admitted, stepping over some debris. “Apparently, the two of them have been sleeping together and decided to use this camp as a meeting place. That’s why security is tighter than we expected.”
“At least I’m not the only one having their evening interrupted because of clandestine meetings,” Yuri muttered.
“I offered to bring Brant with me instead,” Valentina reminded him.
When Yuri grumbled something derogatory under his breath about Dmitri and Brant, Valentina decided to ignore him. “Ivan’s having problems with shipments going missing too. We also overheard Lena asking one of her people to get Ivan’s shipping manifest. I don’t know if she’s investigating Ivan or considering bailing him out.”
Yuri frowned. “I’m not sure how much they’re working together. Otherwise, Lena would have gotten the shipping information directly from Ivan. For all we know, she could suspect Ivan’s involvement and is looking for proof, or her people could be behind the thefts and looking for a new shipment to target.”
“You’re right, but I think we can narrow down a few things based on what we’ve learned so far,” she admitted, taking Sergei’s hand as he helped her over a ruined wall. “We have three possible suspects: Ivan, Lena, and Peter.”
“Other than Nikolai, Oleg is the only other leader in the area,” Sergei said, ducking under a low-hanging beam.
She nodded. “But we’ve ruled out Oleg as a suspect. I have a contact amongst his advisors, and Oleg isn’t responsible for the thefts. He’s just curious about OmniLab and interested in the new tower. So it’s just the other three we need to consider.”
“I wouldn’t put it past Peter,” Yuri muttered.
Valentina glanced over at him. Yuri’s perspective had shifted dramatically a few days ago after she’d met with Viktor, Peter’s second-in-command. Through Viktor, Peter had extended Valentina an offer to join his camp. Yuri hadn’t taken it well. Granted, she had her own issues with Viktor given he’d stabbed Sergei and nearly killed him.
“I’m not fond of him, either, but we need more facts,” she reminded him gently. “When I met with Viktor in the towers, he insinuated one of our leaders was responsible for the attempt on Sergei’s life. Our stolen weapons were used during that ambush, so it’s safe to assume there’s a connection between the thefts and the person who targeted Sergei. We need to start ruling people out, and I intend to start with Ivan. From there, we can investigate Lena and Peter.”
Sergei stopped while they were still far enough away so Dmitri couldn’t overhear their conversation. He studied her for a moment and said, “You’ve thought of something, haven’t you?”
“A loose plan, but yes,” she agreed. “One of Grigory’s shipments went missing. He was here speaking with Ivan about it. I offered to have Nikolai replenish his missing supplies, and in exchange, I’ll ask him for information about Ivan.”
Sergei’s entire body stiffened. “You ran into Grigory here?” He glared at Yuri. “You didn’t think to intervene? Grigory’s always been a wildcard. He’s supposedly allied with Ivan, but he does as he damn well pleases most of the time.”
“You mean, Uncle Grigory?” Yuri said, crossing his arms over his chest. She glanced over at him and frowned. Apparently, he was still a little annoyed she hadn’t shared that information with him.
Valentina sighed and placed her hand on his arm. “My history with him wasn’t important, Yuri. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I haven’t seen him in years. His interests rarely intersect with Nikolai’s ventures. I’d never intentionally keep something like that from you.”
Yuri’s shoulders relaxed, and he nodded. “Does Nikolai know about your connection?”
“Yes, but he suggested I not use our friendship unless it was necessary. I agreed, and until now, there’s never been a need.”
“That sounds about right. Nikolai’s always been a righteous bastard,” Sergei muttered.
Yuri smirked and gestured toward the building where Dmitri was waiting. “Speaking of bastards, do you think he’s still alive? Or should I take Valentina for another trip around Ivan’s camp so you can take care of him?”
Sergei grinned.
“Very funny,” Valentina retorted, but she was secretly glad Yuri had gotten over his snit. He was so strange sometimes— leave it to the threat of murder and mayhem to brighten his mood. “Were you able to set up the relay, Seryozha?”
Sergei nodded. “Nikolai is running the club surveillance images through the database now. We should have at least a partial list by the time we return.”
Sergei placed his hand against her back and led her into the building. The sun would be coming up soon, and they needed to be gone before then. The effects from her earlier adrenaline rush were starting to fade, and this was the time when mistakes
were easily made. They couldn’t afford more.
Dmitri was pacing when they entered but stopped short at the sight of them. “Are you all right, Valentina?”
“Mmhmm,” she agreed, heading over to Yuri’s speeder to retrieve a few hydrating packs. She tossed one to Yuri and Sergei before opening hers. Over the years, she’d come to realize she needed to drink more often, a direct correlation to her water channeling abilities. She drank it and then disposed of the empty container. It helped clear her head a bit, but they’d all need to get some rest soon.
Picking up another hydrating pack, she walked over to Dmitri and offered it to him. “Thirsty?”
While he opened it and took a drink, she said, “I need to meet Nikolai, but Yuri can take you back to our camp until we alter your records to mask your identity. It’ll only take us a day or two at the most to change them. In the meantime, if there’s a particular place you have in mind where you’d like to be transferred, we can begin making the arrangements.”
Dmitri finished his drink and crumpled the hydrating pack. “I’d prefer being stationed in Nikolai’s camp. I understand he’s been expanding quite a bit. He’s going to need more team leaders soon.”
Valentina nodded, not terribly surprised by the request. “Very well. I can’t promise you the position, only the opportunity to apply. Nikolai handpicks his team leads since he works so closely with them. But if you wish to join his camp, I’ll make sure you have a place there. If you change your mind later, let me know and we can transfer you.”
Yuri chuckled and slapped his hand on Dmitri’s shoulder. “If you think staying near Valya will increase the likelihood of getting back into her bed, you’re going to have a lot of lonely nights in your future.”
Dmitri kept his gaze on her. “I’m willing to take that chance.”
Sergei straightened and picked up her helmet off his speeder before handing it to her. “When we changed locations to meet you here, we had to leave your speeder behind, Valechka. We’ll need to collect it later. In the meantime, it looks like I’ll be the one,” he gave a meaningful glance at Dmitri, “giving you a ride tonight.”
Spirit of the Towers Page 5
