by Holly Bargo
He looked her over. This woman’s body disdained athletics. She was soft and curvy with satiny skin that invited a man to stroke her. She did not have the hard, lean, muscular look of a woman who needed to be sanded down.
“Why do you ask?” he finally replied.
“My fiancé,” she said, “will be moving to San Antonio and is interested in opening a martial arts studio.”
“Fiancé?”
She pulled her engagement ring from the front pocket of her pants and put it on. “I don’t like wearing it when I’m cooking.”
Jaime sighed with disappointment. He’d not be inviting this Marilyn Monroe lookalike to his bed anytime soon, like he’d anticipated, especially if her man was a professional fighter. This unseen fiancé was probably the jealous type, too. He would be if he’d gotten to her first.
Leaning back in his chair, he asked, “So, where did you meet this man?”
“Cleveland.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“No. I grew up in southeast Indiana.”
“Never been there.”
She laughed. “Batesville’s not exactly a popular tourist destination.” She rose from the chair and covered her mouth as she yawned. “Thanks for the opportunity, Jamie. What time shall I be here tomorrow?”
“Eleven o’clock.”
“Will do. Good night.”
He watched the gentle sway her hips as she walked out of his office and wondered if her unnamed fiancé really existed. But then, he remembered the dreamy expression that she wore when she mentioned him and knew that the man was no figment of her imagination. A predatory smile stretched his lips. He’d see how long it took for this fiancé to join his new chef and then he’d be there to console her when the man never showed up. He placed a call to one of his old acquaintances.
“Pedro, I have a favor to ask.”
“Hey, man, it’s no favor. I already owe you.”
“I need to find out about a woman named Cecily Carrigan.”
“You need her to disappear?”
“No, I want to find out about her. She moved here recently from Cleveland. You got any connections up there?”
“I don’t but Viper knows someone who knows someone.”
“Thanks. I appreciate your asking around for me.”
“You need a hit on someone, I’m your man, Jaime. Like I said, I owe you.”
“Yeah, you remember my cook, Jeffrey?”
“That skinny dude? Looks like a toothpick with bad acne?”
“You got him.”
“You need him bumped?”
“Not yet. Right now, I need him quiet. He knows my recipes.”
“We’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks, Pedro. Bring the boys in for dinner tomorrow. It’s on me.”
“You sure we won’t scare away your high-class clientele?”
“I’ll make sure you get the party room.”
“That’s cool, man. All we can eat?”
“All you can eat.”
Chapter 10
She called home. Or, rather, she called Pyotr as she lay in bed, rubbing one aching foot and then another. Because Cleveland wasn’t home. She looked around her bedroom, the faded wallpaper lending a homey touch of a house well lived-in where family loved and played and argued. It reminded her of her family’s farmhouse. Her damp hair, freshly shampooed, curled against her scalp.
“Vozlyublennaya, it’s good to hear your voice,” Pyotr’s baritone rumbled across the connection, making her belly quiver.
“I miss you already,” she whispered.
He groaned softly in response.
“Have you spoken with Maksim yet?”
“Not yet, Cecily. There’s some difficulty with business and he’s not in any mood to be approached with something like this.”
“Oh. When do you think you’ll have an opportunity?”
“I don’t know. All I do know is that he’s speaking to Giuseppe Maglione and it’s got something to do with the yakuza. They’re making inroads into our territory.”
Cecily’s eyebrows flew upward. The yakuza in Cleveland? Didn’t they confine themselves mostly to Los Angeles and San Diego? She shook her head, because Pyotr was still talking.
“I’ve got a fight tomorrow night. If I win, it will help with paying my exit fee.”
Exit fee?
“Um, Pyotr, what exactly is entailed in getting out?”
He hesitated before answering. “Moya lyubov, should Maksim even be willing to entertain the idea of releasing me, I will have to fight my way out and pay an exit fee to compensate for the loss of my future service.”
“And if he doesn’t ‘entertain’ the idea?”
“Then I stay.”
“I don’t like that.”
“You could return to Cleveland. Marry me here. Live up here with me. You’d be near Gia and Latasha. Olivia will treat our children like her own grandchildren. It’s not such a bad life.”
“It’s wrong, Pyotr,” Cecily said, the words softly spoken and with heartbreak. “What you do for the Bratva is wrong.”
In Cleveland, Pyotr hung his head, hearing the steel behind the softly voiced refusal. Right and wrong never particularly bothered him before. Before Cecily there was only honor and duty. He valued Vitaly’s friendship. He admired Iosif’s iron confidence and strict adherence to an even stricter code of honor. And, until Cecily, he’d not experienced true softness. Sure, he’d fucked women, whores mainly or a girlfriend occasionally, but they’d been as hard as the cash in which he’d paid them or the gemstones he’d given them upon termination of their so-called relationship. Whether they were honest about the payment hadn’t mattered; none of them had loved him and he hadn’t loved any of them.
“I must go, Cecily.”
“Wait!”
“What is it?”
“I—I got a job today.”
“That’s good, vozlyublennaya.”
Her voice gained strength with the rise of her enthusiasm. “It was serendipity.” She giggled. “You can tell Gia and Latasha that I do know some big words. Anyway, I was in the right place at the right time.”
“And?” he prompted, smiling at her good cheer.
She told him of meeting the famous San Antonio chef and of her impromptu test. She added, “Pyotr, he hired me. Me! I’m working for Jaime Tobiano!”
“I’m proud of you,” he said, forcing sincerity when he wished that she would have remained happy in Cleveland with him.
“Come back here soon, Pyotr. Please.” Her voice softened, turned pleading.
“I will do my best,” he promised. “Dream of me, moya lyubov.”
Ending the call, he knew he would certainly dream of her. He looked up at a knock on the door. That could only mean one thing.
“Da?”
“We have to deliver a message,” Iosif’s muffled voice came through the door, speaking Russian, since that gave them a small measure of safety from nosy eavesdroppers.
“I’ll be right there,” he called back and quickly threw on some clothes. In a couple of minutes, he opened the door and gave Iosif a nod. “Both of us?”
“Bogdan and Gennady, too.”
Pyotr wanted to wince. If Gennady were involved, then they were going to deliver more than just a beating. Iosif’s hard eyes glinted as he delivered a penetrating look at his brother-in-arms.
“You’re getting soft, Pyotr.”
Pyotr exhaled softly, but did not deny the accusation. Cecily made him soft and he rather liked it. But admitting it would do him no favors.
“I’d rather not watch Gennady work.”
That time, Iosif frowned. He didn’t enjoy watching Gennady work either. “Maksim asked him to refrain from using his knife.”
Pyotr doubted the women whom Gennady was assigned to rape that night would appreciate the reprieve.
“Why do this?” he asked Iosif. “We all know those women aren’t part of this. They’re probably just whores purchased for the
evening.”
“Because it sends a message that can’t be ignored. You know that.”
All Pyotr could think about was his Cecily being used so brutally to send a message. It was a possible fate he could not endure. He knew he would kill any and all who brought such ugly violence against his beloved Cecily—and damn the consequences.
But whining about the unfairness of it all would do exactly nothing to deter it. So, he and Iosif joined Gennady and Bogdan in the black GMC Yukon that Gia dryly labeled a suburban assault vehicle. They drove to a modest neighborhood. The four men exited the SUV, which was parked several blocks away, and crept toward their target, a modest ranch-style home in that quiet neighborhood. They used all the stealth taught to them in the Voyska spetsialnogo.
Iosif peered through a window and signaled to the other three what he saw: six men, two women. Gennady peeked through a few more windows: no occupants in those rooms. Bogdan did the same and signaled back: one man, one woman, both tied up and in bad shape. The four Russians decided that those two were likely the legitimate owners of the house the rival gang had decided to occupy. Pyotr felt a little better about their mission, since they’d be performing a rescue rather than just beating the hell out of some people. Of course, with Iosif present, a beating more than likely escalate into a killing. Iosif didn’t always know when to pull his punches.
As discussed in the car, the four Bratva warriors burst into the house, surprising their quarry. With the preparedness of hardened criminals, the yakuza men did not let their surprise discombobulate them. They whipped out guns and knives and threw themselves at their attackers. Pyotr found himself enjoying every bone-crushing thud of his fists into yielding flesh, every grunt and scream of pain that he delivered. He let his gaze pass over what Gennady was doing to the yakuza’s women as he concentrated on dodging bullets and grabbing a thug’s gun to use on its former owner.
He heard a buzz like an angry wasp and a hot stripe of pain streaked across the top of his ear, followed by a scream. Looking up, he saw the smoking muzzle of Iosif’s gun. Iosif nodded at him and moved on to his next target. Pyotr looked behind him at the dead man with a small hole in his forehead and the back half of his skull missing. Instinct made him weave aside as a heavily booted leg swept where he had been standing a second ago. The yakuza thug bared his nicotine-stained teeth at Pyotr. Pyotr’s upper lip curled in a sneer and he slid into a blur of violence.
Krav Maga worked well to quickly and effectively incapacitate an opponent in close quarters. Pyotr was a master of it.
The confrontation took only a few minutes. Pyotr ignored a woman’s screams as Gennady dragged her by the hair and one arm into another room to deliver the Bratva’s message on her body. Whether she was merely a whore rented for the night or something more meaningful to the dead yakuza didn’t matter.
Perhaps that brutality would steer her to a less dangerous life.
Pyotr rushed to the small room where the likely homeowners sat tied to chairs. He whipped off the bag over the man’s head. One eye was swollen shut, the flesh around it bruised and sluggishly bleeding. Snot covered his lower face. Dark, swollen bruises over his cheekbone and along his jaw made his face lumpy in the dim light.
“Don’t speak,” Pyotr ordered when the man opened his mouth and tried to talk through split lips.
The man attempted to speak again. Pyotr cuffed him upside the head.
“I said don’t speak.”
Fresh snot oozed from the man’s nose and he sobbed, a wet sound of terror. Hooded and shivering in blind terror, the woman seated beside him sniffled.
“The yakuza who took over your home are dead. I will untie your hands. Wait five minutes, then call the police.”
The man nodded, not wanting to be cuffed again.
“We were never here.”
The man shook his head.
Pyotr stared hard at him, then nodded. The man would no doubt tell police that a group of thugs had broken into his home and killed the first group of thugs, but he hoped that the light was too dim and the man’s one good eye saw too little of him to make a positive identification. The idea flitted across his mind that, if law enforcement had his description, then he’d be too hot for Maksim to keep on the payroll. He dismissed it immediately. If he became a liability, Iosif might very well be ordered to kill him. Pyotr respected his longtime comrade too much to risk forcing him to do that.
Besides, he did not want to die. He wanted a long life with Cecily.
In San Antonio.
The bitter March wind tore at his breath as he and the other three men left the house, being sure to pocket the guns they had used. They melted into the darkness and returned to the car. Taking a circuitous route through the city, they paused on a bridge over the Cuyahoga River. Taking the firearms, Gennady threw them over the bridge as far as he could. After he returned to the welcome warmth of the car’s interior, the men went home. Bogdan pulled out his cell phone and called their boss.
“It’s done,” he said and disconnected.
Back home, Pyotr made quick work of throwing his clothes into the wash to clean them of blood and cordite. He hopped into the shower to wash himself thoroughly. He swallowed a couple shots of whiskey to burn the taste and smell of blood, gunpowder, and fear from his mouth and nose and the back of his throat. Then he went to bed.
The police did not knock on his door.
Morning came all too soon with a phone call from his boss.
“Pyotr, I need you to drive me to the capo dei capi’s house.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, Maksim.”
“Khorosho. Iosif says you left two people living.”
“They were innocent, the homeowners victimized by the yakuza.”
“Can they describe you?”
“Nyet.”
“Khorosho. But you mustn’t take such risks. I’d hate to lose you.”
“Prosti,” Pyotr apologized. “It won’t happen again.”
“Khorosho, khorosho. Now get your ass over here. It will look bad if I’m late to my appointment.”
Pyotr made haste.
Maksim met him at the door, but before he could be on his way, Olivia pushed through and asked, “Did you see Cecily? Is she all right?”
Pyotr could not help but smile at the feisty woman who ruled Maksim as much as that man ruled them.
“Da. She is in San Antonio and content there. She has found a job.”
“Bah. She had a job here. She was happy here.”
“Nyet, she was not happy.”
Olivia tapped her foot impatiently. “And why was she not happy. Did you not fuck her often and well?”
Red bloomed across Pyotr’s sharp cheekbones. Averting his gaze, he mumbled, “She wanted to get away from snow and the Bratva.”
Maksim’s eyes narrowed. “And is that what you want, Pyotr?”
The younger man raised his gaze to his boss’ icy glare and stood calmly, stoically. “Da. It is what I want.”
Olivia’s eyes gleamed. She turned toward her husband and slapped him on the arm. Maksim grunted and raised an eyebrow, but otherwise showed no reaction. His wife said, “See? I told you so. He’ll do anything to make her happy.”
“We’ll talk later,” Maksim said, the tone of his voice ominous.
Pyotr nodded to his boss and hurried forward to open the passenger door to the limousine. Maksim, followed by Vitaly, entered the vehicle. Closing the passenger door, Pyotr climbed into the driver’s seat. The glass divider between driver and passengers rolled up and sealed him from whatever conversation Maksim would hold with Vitaly. Gia, being female, would not have been invited; in fact, she was probably working in the university’s laboratory on some project to follow up on her findings regarding the effects of pollution in Lake Erie. Her research and paper had caught the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency and several local and regional environmental conservation organizations. The resulting furor made national news. Pyotr thought it likely she ha
d no idea that this meeting was taking place.
He knew the route well and waited patiently while Maksim and Vitaly discussed business with Giuseppe Maglione and his grandson and heir Giovanni. He’d met Giovanni a handful of times. The young man had a confident self-possession and cool, incisive intellect that would have made him a great white shark in the business world and did make him a worthy successor to Gia’s grandfather. Pyotr liked the man, especially since Giovanni obviously cared for his cousin.
Maksim glowered when he and Vitaly returned to the car. Pyotr caught Vitaly’s eye and the other man responded with a minute shrug. He knew Vitaly danced a delicate line between the Italian mafia and the Bratva. Perhaps, he thought, Vitaly ought to move himself and Gia to San Antonio, too. Or Iceland.
He drove back to Maksim’s spacious home. Olivia met them in the foyer, her hand draped over the thin, narrow shoulder of the young boy whom she and Maksim had adopted. Pyotr knew the boy as the only child of Carmen Montoya, a thief and spy who had stolen from Maksim and not lived long enough to spend her ill-gotten gains. The boy tended to be quiet and withdrawn, but Pyotr had confidence that Olivia would soon transform him into a boisterous, rowdy, happy child.
Entering the house, Vitaly pulled some candy from his pocket and handed it to the boy. The child’s dark brown eyes blinked once as he solemnly accepted the offering. He murmured a polite thank-you in Spanish.
“In Russian, Dzhon,” Olivia reminded him gently. She looked up at the men who towered over her and said with pride, “Dzhon is taking lessons in Russian and in English. He’s progressing quite well.”
“Spasibo,” the boy said, the Russian expression of thanks sounding odd with a Spanish lilt.
“Giancarla is determined that our children will learn Italian,” Vitaly said with a grin. “I am just as determined that they will learn Russian.”
“It’s good to know many languages,” Maksim said. “What one language cannot express well, another can. It is why my mama wanted me to learn French.” He sighed with regret. “But I was too young and arrogant to listen to my mama.”
“Yes, but now you have me,” Olivia said.
“And now I have you,” Maksim agreed and caught her to him for a quick, hard kiss that left her a little dazed. The other two men looked on in amused silence, though neither of them made the mistake of grinning. Olivia’s fury was best avoided.
