“Fifty of the best,” Vasily answered. “Every qualified asset with a background in black bag operations.”
“And how is the turncoat holding up in the barn?” Dmitry asked, anxious to get to Prague to conduct the interrogation himself. “I don’t want a stitch of hair on his head touched until I arrive.”
“The prisoner has not been molested in any way.” Vasily stood and straightened his black tailored suit. “He’s stewing in his own shit for the moment. From what Nadei has reported, he’s too disoriented to make heads or tails of what happened.”
Dmitry slapped his face to jolt him awake and stepped around the desk. “Well, let’s not keep him waiting,” he said, grabbing his suit jacket and throwing it on over his shiny guns holstered under his arms. He pulled the jacket down to fit over his massive frame and ran a hand through his blonde hair. “Poyekhali.”
***
Anatoly hadn’t spoken two words since he boarded the jet with his family. Instead, he sat in the corner on his computer typing quickly and sending texts. Renee had sent the baby to the bedroom with the nanny while she sat across from his watching his every move. She hadn’t seen him so tense since Anya had been taken a few years ago. Still, she wasn’t sure how to comfort him. Gabriel had never been on his favorite person list that she had known, but Anatoly had a way of hiding things, especially his feelings about family.
He rarely talked about his sister and brothers back in Moscow and when he did, it was cryptic at most. And while he adored his father, he never said a word about him to her either good or bad. Her husband was a rock all to himself for the most part. And that was her burden to bear, because she wanted more than anything for him to open up. But getting him to do so now would be an impossible ask. She was surprised that he had even revealed to her that Gabriel had been taken.
Unlocking her seat belt, she walked over and sat in the chair right beside him. Grabbing his hand, she pulled his attention away from his computer.
He looked over at her, crystal blue eyes blazing with anger and parted his lips like he wanted to say something.
“Baby, talk to me,” she said, voice soft and wispy as a feather floating on a gentle breeze. “Are you okay?”
He looked down at her hand, small and delicate and raised it to his lips to kiss it. It was not her fault that he felt this angst boiling inside of him, but he was certain that there was nothing she could do about it. “Not now, Zhenshchina.”
Renee would not take no for an answer. A gentle smile crossed her full lips. “You can’t keep this bottled up.” She looked around at the other men occupying the room and motioned toward the bathroom. Her voice lowered. “Let’s go in there and talk for a minute.”
“I don’t have minute,” Anatoly said, hitting send on his phone. He set it down on the armrest and took a deep breath. Patience was a virtue with women. He had learned that the hard way.
“Of course you have just one minute.” Renee said lovingly. “Just tell me how you are feeling. Tell me what you need, Ana. I want to be there for you.”
“You are there for me. Just sitting there.” Anatoly softened at the pet name his wife used for him. Pushing the computer away from him, he turned to her. His blonde hair cascaded over his shoulders. “Do you know what I just did, right then.”
Clueless, Renee looked at the phone. “No.”
Anatoly raised a brow. “No, you don’t. And you don’t need to know. If you want to be here for me, just sit here. Let me smell your pretty perfume and look at your sexy legs while I work.” He could see her black brow shoot up in protest. Pushing closer to her, he moved her chocolate bob from the curve of her brown round face. “We’re going to war, baby. Until I get him back, I don’t’ have the luxury of time. I may seem distant. I may seem like an asshole, but my mind has to be in a different place right now. You understand, da? You know what you married, who you married?”
Renee released a breath and twisted up her lip. “I understand.”
“Good,” he said relieved. “But great news is that Briggy is on another plane. So, you don’t have to look at her for 18 hours.”
“Thank God for small favors.” Renee laughed despite herself. He always knew how to brighten up the darkest of situations. She rested back in her seat and waved for the stewardess. “Can I get two screwdrivers?” She figured the least that she could do was get them a drink.
Diane, the stewardess, nodded her way. “Of course, ma’am,” she said, heading back to the bar quickly to fix her a drink as she requested.
Anatoly pulled his computer back to him and quickly began to read a transmission coming across his screen. Just as he was about to respond, Renee interrupted again as curiosity sparked.
“What did you just do, Ana?” she asked, unable to help herself. She looked at his cell phone. It wasn’t her fault for asking. He had brought it up. Plus, it was the first time that he had ever really spoken about work or allowed her to ask any questions.
She expected a lie or a diversion from her husband, but he didn’t bother with either. It wasn’t his desire to hide anything from Renee, just protect her. He pulled his eyes from the computer and picked up his phone. Putting in his passcode, his baby sister’s birthdate, he opened up the text and showed her what was displayed. END HIM. He put the phone back down and lowered his voice. “I just killed two men,” he said honestly. “Nothing to do with getting Gabriel, I’m afraid. It was other business.” His face was stoic and completely unmoved by his action. “They didn’t deliver on a promise and so I ordered them to be killed.” He waited for her response.
She looked at her beautiful husband, an image of perfection on the outside and a cold enigma on the inside. “I’m not blind as to what you do, but do you ever feel bad about it?”
It wasn’t her intention to make him feel bad about it, but she couldn’t help but honestly ask.
Anatoly didn’t blink, didn’t flinch, and didn’t care. Licking his wide-set lips, he rubbed her hand. “It’s business. Everything I do is business, except what I’m going to do to get my cousin back. That’s personal.” His eyes blazed. “And that I won’t tell you about.”
Renee looked up at him and blinked quickly. Lord help anyone in that man’s cross hairs. Sitting back in her chair, she tried not to seem as shocked as she truly was by his honesty. “I’m sorry that I asked,” she said as Diane brought over their drinks. “You’re right. It’s business. I shouldn’t pry.”
“I just want to keep you safe,” Anatoly explained honestly. He had been thinking about this since Gabriel had been taken and was glad for a person to explain himself to. “You and my daughter mean everything to me. And I have to make an example out of these people to prove once and for all that taking one of us will cost a hundred of them. I have to prove that we are the most treacherous men this world ever created. My father won’t always be here, and if they think we are weak, this will happen again. It’s the only way to secure my legacy and the only way to protect my daughter. Things are going to get rough, Renee. And in the process, you might see some things that you can’t un-see, but just know that whatever I do, I do it for you.”
***
Briggy wanted to die at the moment. While little information had been given to her about where Gabriel possibly was or who had taken him, she had been informed by Royal that he had been kidnapped. The news had come like a ton of bricks falling on her head. And she had nearly collapsed because of it.
Royal was there to break her fall. She caught her and helped her sit down on the same chaise lounge that she had just days before chastised her on. After getting her a glass of water, she explained that Briggy would be accompanying the family back to Prague to the compound where operations were being set up to get him back.
This was Anya’s situation all over again.
Not to mention that she had not graced the presence of that place in quite some time. Going back there now was only a reminder of how everything had come full circle. Prague had been where she had met Gabriel, where she h
ad fallen for him and where Anatoly Medlov had dumped her. Now, she was going back as the ostracized pregnant woman that no one wanted around, but couldn’t afford at the moment to get rid of.
Thinking about her last words with Gabriel face-to-face, she felt the food in her stomach turn. She had said horrible things to him – wished him ill – before he left. And now if he died, she’d be stuck with those as her last words to him forever.
Sitting on the small charter jet with her nurse and a few underling bodyguards, she realized just how low on the food chain she had fallen. A year ago, she would have been on the plane with Dmitry and Royal and now, she was subjected to the charter. It was embarrassing, really.
Rolling her eyes, she adjusted in the small seat and looked out of the window at the clouds and sun in the distance. How many more views from a jet would she have now that her relationship with Gabriel was over?
He had all but banished her. And the Medlov family had signed off on it. Anatoly especially. The day before, she had run into him in the kitchen, which was quite unusual. He was sitting there, perched on a bar stool looking at the news and eating a bowl of cereal. When she walked into the room, he cut his eyes at her and continued eating as if her presence was unbearable for him. It was his continuous arrogance that bothered her the most. He was so smug and blatantly rude with her when no one was around.
So she poked the bear. After all, what could he do to a pregnant woman?
“Why do you hate me?” she had asked him, planting her hand on the countertop and the other on her hip.
Anatoly kept eating for a moment, lurching over his food like a lion over his dead prey. When he was done, he wiped his blonde, bearded face and stood up. “I don’t hate you,” he finally said, throwing the bowl on the countertop. Milk splashed on the granite. “Hate would require some emotion.”
“What have I ever done to you that makes you feel the need to be so evil, Anatoly?” she snarled, praying no one walked in to interrupt them before she could get an answer.
Calm and collected, Anatoly stalked over to her in his black t-shirt fitting his bulging chest and dark jeans that hugged his thick thighs. Only inches away from her, he kept his voice low and sinister. His long blonde hair fell over into his enchanting face as he stared through her like she was nothing – no one. “Because I feel responsible. If I had never fucked you, then you wouldn’t be here and if you weren’t here, my cousin would be a better man. So fucking you, fucked him. And I resent you for it.”
She had been too stunned for words.
Stepping back as he moved past her, he grabbed an apple from the island and left the room. She had stood there after that for what felt like hours, until the maid came in and began to clean up Anatoly’s mess.
It was then that she knew that he had begrudged her all along. Only in her mind, all this time, she thought he had felt something else. Love. Regret. Anything other than resentment.
Now on this plane, she wondered where Gabriel was, if he was being strong. The last time that she spoke with him over the phone, he had not sounded like the man she had known. His voice was deeper, tougher, like he had changed overnight.
She had brought that out of him with every cruel word that she had said. Somehow, she had lost sight of what was important. And maybe, the only reason that she had come this far with him was because subconsciously she was still chasing Anatoly Medlov, at least up until yesterday.
***
Prague, Czech Republic
The Medlov Chateau
Nadei had taken Valeriya, her brother Andriy and the driver who had helped them completely out of the country. Within hours, they had been evacuated out of Ukraine and jetted directly to Prague. When they arrived in the city by plane, they were put on a helicopter and brought to this place. They landed in the front yard of a palatial mansion deep in a valley and was escorted by men with guns into the biggest home her eyes had ever seen. Now, they waited on the other Medlovs to arrive and per Nadei’s instructions, not allowed to leave their rooms on the third floor of the east wing of the house. Andriy had been placed in the adjoining room beside her, connected by a door that allowed them to see each other without going out into the rest of the home.
Valeriya sat in the bedroom she had been given on her bed after a shower in a marble and gold-gilded bathroom that rivaled the Kremlin, wrapped in a towel in complete silence. The room, a specular showplace with such tall ceilings, intricate crown molding, breathtaking art, extravagant furniture, plush carpet, large open windows with fine drapes and the smell of fresh lavender everywhere – was a marvel all in itself. She was in a palace – a real, aristocratic palace.
Her mind could not process it all. Such wealth. Such opulence.
Was Gabriel Medlov really this rich? Was this the life that he led every day?
It was almost uncomfortable to be here in such luxury. It was even harder to fathom that he wanted to stay with her in the Ukraine, which in comparison was the bowels of the earth. What he must have thought of her and her existence in comparison to his own?
This mansion had so many rooms until she could barely count them all as she was taken to her quarters. And there were so many staff members, and bodyguards and everything. How had he survived even one day in her war-torn city having come from…royalty?
Blowing a breath out of her mouth that made her jaws swell, she tucked her legs under her on the bed and wrapped her arms around herself. She felt small in this place – small and insignificant. As grand as it was, she knew that this was no place for the likes of her. She needed to go home where she was needed, where she understood things, where she felt in control.
This grand fortress was too much for her.
A knock on the door made her put away her insecurities for the moment. “I’m just getting dressed,” she said, walking to the closet.
Nadei told her that he had sent for clothes for her before her arrival, so there would be any and everything that she needed in the closet.
As she opened the door to the closet, she took another deep breath. Damn.
This “closet” was bigger than six or seven of her hotel rooms back home. It was filled with racks of clothes, shoes, coats, and mirrors. Most of them were men’s clothing. There were tons of framed mirrors from every vantage point.
As she walked in and the lights automatically turned on. They had sensors in the closets.
“Goodness,” she said, shaking her head. This place was ridiculous.
On a large, oval wooden table in the middle of the closet floor was a stack of clothes. Jeans. A comfortable yellow t-shirt, silk underwear, boots that were remarkably her size and a host of deodorants and perfumes. Dropping her towel, she slipped them on and folded up her towel.
“All of this and no dirty clothes hamper?” she asked, looking around. Throwing the towel over her arm, she walked back out of the closet and closed the door.
“Sestra, are you in there?” Andriy asked, voice squeaking in adolescent change.
“Coming,” she said, opening the door that led between their rooms.
He looked her up and down with approval. “You look nice.” He motioned over his new clothes. “But not as good as me. It’s like Santa came, eh. You should see it. My room is fucking amazing, it is.”
“Language,” Valeriya corrected. She tried not to seem enthused about all of the amenities for her little brother’s sake. “Don’t get used to it, Andriy. We aren’t staying.”
Andriy breezed past her into her room and looked around. “Wow, yours is even bigger than mine.” He took a seat on the king-sized bed. “I’m not complaining though.” Reaching over to the nightstand, he picked up a green apple from the fruit basket. “It’s like we died and woke up in the Four Seasons.”
“I hope you heard me,” Valeriya said, closing the door behind them. “We are not staying.”
Andriy bit into the juicy apple and narrowed his eyes at her in judgement. “Why do you have to be like that, eh?”
“Like what?” she aske
d, folding her arms across her chest.
Andriy shrugged in frustration.
“Like…completely ruining everything.” He shook his head, unable to express himself. “Why can’t you just enjoy not being in the filth for five minutes? I mean, look at his place. It’s better than any singular place you have ever been in your entire life. Admit it.”
Valeriya rolled her eyes. There was no need to admit it. He already knew it was true and so did she. “I don’t want you to get any ideas, Andriy.”
He scoffed at her sudden need to be a killjoy. “Too late for that. I love this place. If they say that I can stay, I’ll never leave. I’ll work here in the field if I have to. Anything is better than Donetsk.”
“I doubt that they’ll let you stay here, Andriy.” She walked over and sat beside him. “This is someone’s home.”
“Yeah, Gabriel’s home. A rich, smart guy who is in love with you.” He smiled at Valeriya. “And I always thought you had bad taste in men.”
She resented, even if it was just a joke, anyone thought she was with Gabriel for his money. In fact, she could care less about it. “We’re here for one reason and one reason only. We’re going to help these people get Gabriel back home safely. And then we’re going back to the fight.”
Andriy’s face darkened at just the mention of going back there. “The only thing I’ve ever wanted in life was to get out of that place, Valeriya. If this is my way out, I’m taking it. You should too.”
“What about our country? What about responsibility?” she asked, trying to keep him focused.
Andriy put the apple down. “What about what you promised me?” he asked seriously. “Aren’t I worth more than that country? You said I’d have a better life. Now that our own people have turned against us, maybe this is what we have left. Alexei is dead. Mom and Dad are dead. The Revolutionaries turned on us like spoiled milk.” He looked around the room again in wonderment. “I don’t know about you, but I think Prague is a damn good place to be.”
Gabriel's Regret: Book Two (The Medlov Men 3) Page 3
