“Hey cowboy, why aren’t you out with your friends?” the bartender asked, taking over her shift from the owner, who left at 10:00 every night to get home to his elderly wife before she went to bed. Tapping her code into the POS, she exchanged her drawer and prepared to work all while eyeing him.
Gabriel had come in from time to time, mostly alone, and always drawing her attention. It was his boyish smile and green eyes that seem to make her heart melt, but his large muscular frame didn’t hurt. What surprised her about Gabriel was all though he had true All-American charm, he didn’t give off an air of superiority like many of the agents and visitors that came to their town. Something in his eyes was kind and completely innocent.
Gabriel tipped his Yankees baseball cap up with his index finger on his forehead to see the woman better. “What friends?” he asked playfully. The dimple in his cheek exploded as he smiled.
The bartender, a thin brunette with glasses and braces who always wore the same ponytail and red bandana, smiled and poured another shot.
Setting it on the bar in front of him, she cocked her head. “Has anyone toasted you yet?” DEA and FBI graduations happened around here all the time and word normally got out, especially to local businesses who stood to capitalize off of an uptick in revenue.
“Nope,” Gabriel answered gloomily. Was it that obvious that he was the lone wolf?
She felt sorry for him. Twisting her lip up, she lifted the shot. “I’ll take one with you.” Waiting for him to lift his glass, she looked around. “Hurry up. I’m not supposed to do this while I’m working.”
Gabriel lifted the shot glass and gave a grin.
“Okay,” she said, glad that he was playing along. “Here’s to a successful career,” she said, raising a brow. “May it be the path to self-enlightenment.”
“Vashe zrodovye,” Gabriel said, clinking his shot glass against hers before downing the shot. He winced after the burn as it glided down his throat. It had been a while since he had something to drink. “That one didn’t go down so easy.”
The bartender laughed – equal mix flirting and amusement in her voice. “Want another? Practice makes perfect.” Leaning on the bar, she bit her lip.
“Why the hell not,” Gabriel said, happy to have some social interaction. It didn’t matter that it came in the form of the bartender. He’d take it over being completely alone any day.
One hour later, Gabriel felt the entire room spinning. After six shots of hard whiskey and a few beers, his light buzz had slipped up on him and turned into a full-on drunken state. Out of obligation only, the bartender had moved on to help the other customers, many who had flooded the bar as the night drug on, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
Not a good thing for Gabriel.
His mind wandered back to all the family time that he had missed as a boy - no classic Christmases, no traditional prom, no festive graduations from high school or college. Everything that would have made his life normal was forfeited and replaced by maids, butlers, headmasters and other hired personnel. For the most part, his young life had been riddled with absences and excuses. Mom had to go to some third-world country, and Dad was off breaking the law with his cohorts. It was as if he didn’t exist.
And at that moment, he wanted a damned explanation.
Money had never been an issue for him. He had been born with it, so why with all the money that his family had, did he not have a family there?
“You okay over there?” the bartender asked as she made her way to him. She noticed that his beautiful face had gone from a bright hue to a dark grimace. Maybe she had given him one too many celebratory shots.
“I’m fine,” Gabriel slightly slurred, head swaying a bit. “Can you call me a cab?” Throwing his keys down, he rested his elbows on the bar and propped up his head.
“Of course I can,” she said, taking his keys until the cab arrived. “Headed back to the dorm?” Putting the keys in her pocket, she threw the towel over her shoulder and debated on asking him to stay until her shift was over so that she could take him.
Gabriel nodded. “Yeah, I need to get back. Tomorrow’s a big day, and I’ve already been here too long.”
She hid her disappointment. “Okay. But before you go, let me fix this guy at the end a drink, and then I want to talk to you.” Her voice trembled just enough for Gabriel to notice that she slid a strong cup of coffee in front of him.
“I’ll be right here.”
Left alone again, he tried to get his wits about himself and overcome the thought-crippling fog of the booze. He smacked his face and started on the coffee that she had left. Feeling as though eyes were on his back, he noticed a woman glaring at him from down the bar. She was too pretty to be in a place like this. Blonde hair, blue eyes, very well put together and with expensive tastes from the look of her designer black dress.
Securing his attention, she got off the bar stool and seductively walked toward him, hips swaying with ever clink of her six-inch stilettos.
“You look like you could use a friend,” she said, looking at the empty bar stool beside him. “May I?”
“It’s a free country,” Gabriel said in a failed attempt at humor while eyeing her ample cleavage in her low cut ensemble. He guessed that as perfectly symmetrical as her breasts were, they were not real. Still, they looked nice. And smelled better.
She sat down, grasping the edge of the bar with her long red nails as she swiveled in the chair and slinked up beside him. “So what’s your name?”
“Gabe. What’s yours?”
“Kitty,” she said with a grin.
Gabriel’s brow rose. “Kitty?” He swallowed. “Really.” He was willing to bet that wasn’t on her license.
“Well, that’s what people call me,” she said with a wink.
“And what do you do for a living, Kitty?” Gabriel asked, pegging her as a high-end prostitute. The flush in his face started to disappear. What would the chances of a beautiful woman showing up in a grimy little dive bar for a late night drink and deciding to pick him up? Slim to none.
“I’m a broker,” Kitty said, reading his face.
“And what do you broker?”
“Gems,” Kitty said, sliding her card to him. “I’m here to meet with a few people in the morning about some gems that they need appraised and I figured I would step out and see the local wildlife since the night was still young.”
Gabriel felt bad about judging her. “What kind of wildlife interests you?”
“The kinky kind,” she said bluntly.
The bartender walked over with a painted on smile and put down a napkin in front of her. “Want me to bring you a drink down here?”
“Please,” Kitty said, barely acknowledging the woman. “Glenlivet 18 would be nice, if you have it.”
“Coming right up,” the bartender said, looking over at Gabriel. This was his last night in Quantico, she was sure of it, and she didn’t get a chance to tell him that she liked him. It was apparent by the looks of this woman that she never would. “Anything for you?” she asked Gabriel.
“No, I’m good,” Gabriel said, remembering he had already called for a cab. He turned his attention back to Kitty. “A scotch woman,” Gabriel quipped. “Now, I’m intrigued.”
“Well, you’re intrigued, and I’m horny,” she said, eyes burning through his. “Let’s cut through the formalities. I was never good at them anyway. You’re a big strapping young man, and I’ve got a hotel room.”
Coming in at the end of the conversation, the bartender slightly slammed the shot on the table. “Want to start a tab?”
The woman picked up the shot and downed it in one gulp. “I don’t know. Gabe, do you want another drink or do you want to get out of here?”
***
The Quantico Lodge definitely did not fit the overall high-class vibe that Kitty gave off, but Gabriel didn’t care. She was offering no-strings-attached sex with no numbers to exchange in the morning, and he had two condoms in his wallet. Following her to
her room on the second floor, he watched the shape of her tight, heart-shaped bottom as she wiggled the key into the lock then used her body to wedge it open.
Gabriel wasn’t new to sex, and he most certainly wasn’t new to sex without emotion, but something about Kitty and tonight’s happy ending had him extremely excited as one could well see from the bulge in his pants.
“Come on in,” Kitty said, leading him inside.
The air was blasting in the small hotel room that smelled of old cigarettes and bleach. With the lights off, his guard went up.
“Turn the lights on,” he said, running his hand over the wall to find an outlet.
As soon as the lights illuminated the space, he saw a ghost sitting in the corner with a bottle of vodka in his hands and his feet cocked up on the ottoman.
The door clanged as it closed behind him. “What are you doing here?” Gabriel asked.
Ivan put his bottle on the table beside his chair and sat up. Scratching his red eyes, his deep Russian voice croaked. “I was taking a nap, waiting for you to arrive.”
“No, I mean what are you doing here in Quantico?” Gabriel asked, voice rising.
Kitty made herself scarce, slipping into the bathroom and closing the door.
Ivan shook his head. “It’s your graduation night. Did you expect me to miss all of it?”
“You mean the way that you’ve missed the last two years of my fucking life?” Gabriel asked, face turning red.
“Stop being so dramatic,” Ivan said, voice still calm. “I’ve been extremely busy.”
“Mom died. I spent the last two years alone. I called you a hundred times. I went by your place. Nothing. Now you just want to show up? You’ve got some fucking balls!”
Ivan stood up from his chair and straightened his black suit. Walking over to his son, he looked him in the face. “You’re the son, eh? I’m the father. I don’t owe you a fucking explanation, but when I decide to give you one, you better not question me.”
“Question you?” Gabriel chuckled facetiously. “Fuck you. Fuck where you’ve been. I don’t need you now. You missed that.”
Ivan forcefully pushed his son backward. “Watch your fucking mouth, boy.”
Too angry to speak and still drunk, Gabriel gained his balance and ran straight into his father. When they made contact, he picked Ivan up and carried him several feet into the wall. Ivan raised an elbow and cranked it down into the center of Gabriel’s back while at the same time, kicking him with a knee in his abdomen.
Falling to the ground, Gabriel tried to get back up, but Ivan slipped his index finger and middle finger into his nose and twisted him around into a headlock. “That’s enough of that,” Ivan said, as Gabriel tried to get away. “I know you’re angry.”
“You don’t know shit,” Gabriel managed to get out, still on his knees, locked in place.
Kitty stepped back out of the bathroom in a black negligee and heels. Throwing her hair off her shoulder, she smiled.
Looking at the woman, Ivan sighed. “This is your graduation gift.” Letting Gabriel go, he pushed him forward on his knees as he walked back over to the table and picked up his bottle.
Gabriel got off the floor and spit. “This is supposed to make up for two years?” he asked broken hearted. “A prostitute?”
“She’s not prostitute,” Ivan explained. “She’s a gem broker, but she owes me big favor and I told her that this is what I want.”
“Well, Kitty, no fucking thank you,” Gabriel said, picking his baseball cap up off the floor. He slipped the hat back on his head. “A simple phone call here and there would have sufficed. Anything to let me know that you weren’t dead too.”
So that’s what it was? Ivan looked at his son and took a sip of the vodka. He hid his emotion, that somehow it moved him that Gabriel was angry because he was worried about him. With everything that had happened over the last two years, it never occurred to him that his son might care at all.
“Take her,” Ivan said, motioning for Kitty to go over and comfort Gabriel. “Fuck her. In the morning, you will feel better.”
“I don’t want her,” Gabriel said, raising his hand for the woman to stop advancing toward him.
“To be such big man, you act like a pussy,” Ivan seethed. “So what your mother died. So what you graduated alone. Much of life is about being alone,” Ivan said, watching his son’s chest swell. “Being alone never killed anyone, especially a trust-fund kid.”
Gabriel headed toward the door. “I’m a federal agent now. I can’t be seen with you.”
“You don’t think I know that? I went through all of this shit to see you alone,” Ivan said, voice raised. “You’re such a spoiled brat. Always whining. Always wanting more!”
“I just wanted you,” Gabriel said, turning around to look at his father. “I know that people said you were a fucking horrible person, but up until this very moment, I didn’t believe it.”
“Then that makes you an idiot,” Ivan seethed.
Gabriel wiped the tears from his eyes. “Mom asked for you before she died.”
Ivan’s eye twitched. “Da. What did she want?”
“She said to tell you that it wasn’t a mistake,” Gabriel said, not sure of what his mother meant.
But Ivan knew. Clenching his square jaw, he eyed his son. “She said that?”
“Yeah,” Gabriel said, wiping a hand over his face. “What was it that wasn’t a mistake?”
Ivan’s mouth parted. Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, he cleared his throat. “Leaving with you. Going to New York,” he lied. He knew that it meant that having Gabriel wasn’t a mistake.
“Maybe she knew that eventually, you’d just abandon me.”
Ivan had heard enough. The truth was far from what Gabriel had been told in his sheltered little life. Charging toward his son, he grabbed him by the collar and pushed him up against the wall. Looking into his eyes, Ivan breathed out his flared nostrils. “Listen, boy. This might be the last time that I ever lay eyes on you. So you need to hear me. This blood in your veins, my blood, has the power to either make you great or make you evil. Sometimes it can be both, but one way or the other, you’re going to have to accept that you are your father’s son.” His teeth showed. “My son. And your legacy if nothing else is to never…” Ivan shook his head and gritted his teeth, “never show weakness. If you’re smart, never have any.” He wished that his son could understand that he had only had one in his entire life and he was it. He loved him and he didn’t love anyone.
Gabriel looked back at his father with pain in his eyes. “And am I your weakness?” he asked, knowing it would be the last time that they saw each other. Why was it so hard to say something kind? Didn’t he deserve that?
Ivan released him and slid him down the wall. Slipping his fists into the pockets of his pants, he shrugged. “Time will tell.” But he knew that the answer was yes.
Looking back at his father one last time, Gabriel opened the door of the hotel and let it slam behind him as he strode back down the hall to the stairwell. What good was Medlov blood to him, if the person that he had received it from begrudged him for it?
All of his father’s cryptic advice had gotten him nowhere in this life. Don’t show weakness? That was his parting gift? What a fucking joke.
“Well, that didn’t end well,” Kitty said, taking off her shoes to change back into her other clothes.
Ivan turned to her. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Kitty was relieved, but she did well to hide it. “You said if I slept with him, then we were even. Well, your son doesn’t look interested. I met my end of the deal. I’m leaving.”
Ivan pulled off his suit coat and threw it over the bed. Fighting always made him horny. “There is still one Medlov here. The best one, in my opinion. Now, put your heels back on and bend over that fucking bed.”
She snickered. “You know, you’re a real asshole, Ivan. That boy was right.”
Ivan walked over to her
and threw her on the bed. “That boy is going to be a very powerful man one day. And even if I’m long dead and gone, my words will still be with him.”
***
Donetsk, Ukraine
Secret Nazi Compound
Present Day
Gabriel was mumbling something to himself as he sat tied to the chair in his holding cell. Dreaming, he whispered the words, Never show weakness, right before Yuri Danko threw the bowl of urine into his face.
“Wake up, my little toy soldier,” Yuri said, dropping the metal bowl on the floor.
Gabriel’s eyes flew open and he spit the contents out his mouth that drenched his black hair. “Son of bitch!”
Yuri chuckled. “Oh, he is mad. Look at that.”
Gabriel’s green mossy eyes blinked fast. “When I get out of here, I’m going to kill you.”
“I don’t know where you get your information, but you’re not going anywhere,” Yuri said, circling Gabriel as he taunted him. “Where did your man take Valeriya Nenya? I saw him with her right before the grenade explosion. I know you had him take her somewhere.”
Gabriel had been asked the question a million times since he had been here. He just didn’t know. “How many times are we going to go over this?” he asked, cracking his neck.
“Until you tell me the truth,” Yuri said, pointing at Gabriel. “I don’t give a fuck about you, but I do want that black bitch. No one has seen her. So I know that you made sure that she got out of the city. Where did you put her?”
“If Valeriya is alive, do you think that I’d tell you anything?” Gabriel asked, mouth sore from being beaten daily. “Not to mention that Yuri, you are horrible at this torture thing.”
“If you’re smart, you’ll tell me to save your own life. Why protect a woman that you only met a short time ago? Why protect a cause that you don’t believe in?” Yuri asked, trying to reason with Gabriel.
Gabriel's Regret: Book Two (The Medlov Men 3) Page 8
