Shit.
Anatoly raised a thick blonde brow and slid back in his chair, unsure if Gabriel understood the depths into which he was submerging himself. Hadn’t his cousin learned the signs over the years? This was not a time to express frustration, not with Dmitry. Family or not, the man only understood one thing when it came to business – money. And they had just potentially cost him a lot of it. Covering his face with a hand, he waited for the explosion.
Gabriel felt a cold chill run up his spine as he watched the vein in Dmitry’s forehead protrude and pulse like a heartbeat in the flickering rays of sunlight that beamed across his face. Evidently, that little opinion had offended his uncle. Immediately, he felt his manhood under attack without so much as a word from the men around him. He’d need to explain with a more careful tone, if he was going to survive this. “I don’t understand how we are culpable, is what I mean.” A knot formed in his stomach and his throat tightened around his clumsy words. “The shipment was delivered as we said it would be to the place we originally agreed. That was our responsibility, and we fulfilled it.” Drowning in his own words, he looked over to Anatoly for help, but Anatoly’s face was stone. He turned back to Dmitry, blinking quickly. “We can’t help it if at the last minute they needed a special escort. I don’t understand how this situation suddenly became our obligation. This is their incompetence, not ours.” The sincerity in his voice was louder even more so than his trembling words.
Anatoly shook his head. Big mistake.
Postured in an authoritative upright position, Dmitry glared at Gabriel like at any moment he was going to reach out and literally snatch his soul out of his body. Finally, he smacked his lips and smirked, his voice deceptively calm. “I don’t know what bothers me more. Your arrogance or your naiveté.” He pushed up in the chair and planted his sharp elbows on the table top. Lacing his fingers together and gripping them, his knuckles turned white. As he did, the myriad of tattoos lining his forearms were put in clear view.
Gabriel sat back in his seat and rubbed a hand through his hair. “Uncle, I’m…sorry.”
“No one gets to where I am without having made a few mistakes along the way, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that your actions were because you did not know any better.” Dmitry rolled his broad shoulders in agitation. “However, the benefit of the doubt isn’t enough for this situation, is it?” His eyes burned through Gabriel, like a father scorning his son.
“No,” Gabriel answered, head cowering down.
“No,” Dmitry repeated, eye twitching. “Do you know why you don’t have any tattoos, Gabriel?”
This was a sore subject for him, but Gabriel answered. “Because you wanted the new guys to blend more in regular society.” Gabriel’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “And because I never did any time, never really served with any real guys, so it would be forced, therefore disrespectful to the code.”
Dmitry’s square jaw clenched as he grinded his teeth. Such haughtiness. Such entitlement. It was enough to make him spit. “When you really drill down the crux of it, it’s because I paved the way for you to be able to blend, because I served the time in a hell-hole prison with animals who would have rather eaten my intestines for dinner than cut me an ounce of slack, because I built this with my bare fucking hands with your father well before you were a thought in this world.” His scowl stretched the span of his angelic face and he was no longer an uncle; now he was a boss.
“The reason you and your cousin are doing ten-million dollars deals in five-star hotels is because of the hundred dollar deals I did in pissy, whore-infested alleyways of Moscow two decades ago. The reason you have a jet to jump your narrow ass on and fly around the world to redo shit that should have been done right in the first place is because I bought the plane and I fucking have the relationships. The reason that you can come home, fuck your pretty little psychotic girlfriend and wreak havoc during my Saturday afternoon cookout is because of the men that I pay to keep you protected while you’re out there with your bullet-proof cars and your thousand dollar suits using my last name every time that your fucking feet hit the pavement.”
Dmitry’s booming voice rose, echoing around the room, past the doors, down the hall long hallway. Turning his eyes to Anatoly, he sucked his teeth. “So when I tell you to do something, when I tell you that you’re making a mistake,” he slowly began to rise from his chair and planted his fingertips on the desk, “when I advise you to handle relationships that I have been growing for years with a little more care, then you damn well. Better. Fucking. Listen!” His large hand balled into a fist and slammed down on the wooden desk, leaving a crack in the middle and knocking the crystal trinkets onto the floor.
A bemused Gabriel sat frozen in place, eyes wide, muscles locked. Quiet chaos enveloped the room and heartbeats became palpable rhythms beating against both men’s chest cavities. Swallowing down nervousness, Gabriel looked up at Dmitry with absolute fear and in that moment, he knew that he had crossed a line that he would never cross again.
Realizing his anger may have gotten the best of him; Dmitry looked down at the broken desk and wiped his foaming mouth. Calmer, he began again, “From what I understand, according to the two of you, the Ukrainian contact was killed, the shipment taken and my name tarnished all in a matter of hours.” Brushing a finger over the dent in the desk, he looked up at Gabriel. “Is that correct?”
“Yes, sir,” Gabriel answered quickly.
“It was my fault, Papa. I told him to do it when he called and asked me what to do,” Anatoly said, trying to carry some of the heavy burden for Gabriel.
Dmitry waved a dismissive hand as he moved from behind the desk. “You’re both equally responsible. He looked at Gabriel. “I put you two in charge of these deals because I trust that you not only have exceptional business acumen,” he glanced at Anatoly, “but also common sense. Between the two of you geniuses, someone should have been able to step up and get this done right.”
“It will never happen again,” Gabriel promised.
“Oh, I know,” Dmitry said, his voice laced with grave warning. His tone lightened as he gave a facetious toothy grin. “From now on, I want finesse. I want relationship-building. I want fucking top-notch, five-star excellence.” He curled his lips. “But for now, I want you two out of my sight. Go deliver the product, fix my reputation and more than anything, do not come back here without my ten million dollars. As I have discussed with you previously, the Ukrainians, specifically the Romanuk family, does business with us at least four times a year at forty-million dollars a year in munitions buys. You either convince them to continue the relationship or pay me the revenue I lose if they take their business elsewhere. End of story.”
Having heard quite enough, Anatoly stood up from his chair. “I’ll be back in five days.”
Gabriel stood up as well, feeling far more responsible for the deal, because he had been the one to arrange it. “I’ll be back when I’m sure I’ve taken care of things. On my word as a Medlov and a Vor, I will fix this.”
Dmitry didn’t respond, instead he pointed his index finger to the door.
Walking out of the study together feeling equally emasculated, Anatoly smirked at Gabriel as they darted down the long hall past the security personnel.
“What?” Gabriel asked, knowing that Anatoly had something smart to say.
“That last part was a bit over the top, even for you.” Anatoly mocked his cousin. “On my word as a Medlov and a Vor, I will fix this.” He shook his head. “Like you have a fucking choice in the matter. When the old man says do it, it doesn’t matter who you are, you fucking do it…or die.”
“Do you really think he’d kill us?” Gabriel asked, feet echoing against the limestone.
“Well, let’s see. He had your father and my grandfather killed and that’s just the family. What do you think, college boy?” Anatoly asked, knowing that his father would never kill him at least. However, he wasn’t sure about Gabriel.
Obviously, the outburst had affected Gabriel based upon the sweat still lingering on his brow. Anatoly rubbed a hand over his beard and chuckled. “Well, I didn’t know that you were going to say something so stupid.”
“What would you have had me say?”
“Nothing at all would have sufficed.” Anatoly began to walk again. “I’ve only got a few minutes to say what I need to say to Renee. I’ll meet you back down here in 10 minutes. Don’t be late fucking with your girlfriend.”
“Ten minutes?” Gabriel frowned. He stopped at the bottom of the stairwell. “Are you not going to pack? We’re going to be gone for at least five days.”
Anatoly headed up the stairs in the foyer toward his wing of the mansion. “There will be no packing, cousin. We can regroup when we get to Prague, where it’s safe.”
***
The relaxing music bellowing from the downstairs veranda drifted up to the second floor balcony of Renee and Anatoly’s bedroom suite as early afternoon turned into a lazy Saturday evening. In the dark gray room, illuminated only by the open windows casting a calming glow, Renee listened to Al Green sing about love and happiness as she waited, naked and heated, in their marriage bed for her husband to return.
In the middle of what promised to be a very enjoyable oral confrontation earlier with Anatoly’s skilled tongue, his cell phone had rudely interrupted them. Locked in a passionate embrace, her legs were wrapped around his neck; fingers planted in his mass of wild blonde hair, the phone on the nightstand began to sound loudly. Instantly, the sound of it made her heart lurch. Anatoly’s phone only rang when there was an emergency; therefore, he always answered it no matter the time.
With an apology, he rose from her supple thighs, dragging his nails against the back of her legs and grabbed his phone, answering with her wetness still lingering on his lips.
“Chto eto?” he had asked, sucking her essence off his bottom lip.
She heard a man’s voice, urgent on the other end. The man went on for minutes before taking a breath and with each second that passed, she knew that it was someone calling Anatoly away from her once again. Rising up on her elbows, she looked at Anatoly as his face went dark and then slack, like he had had just received very bad news. She watched on quietly as he hung the phone up and stared at her naked form, covered in a thin layer of sweaty mist, and then pulled himself shirtless out of the bed.
“I’ll be back,” he had promised as he stood beside her.
“Will you?” she asked.
He bent to her body once again and kissed her inner thigh. “I will.”
Now, here she was, hoping against hope that he’d come back and finish her off, but after years of being with him first as his colleague and now as his wife, she had learned that work came before play, even when he was playing with her.
Looking at the crystal chandelier above her, she heard the door knob turn. She flipped to her side and watched as the door creaked opened and Anatoly appeared. The somber look on his face told her everything that she needed to know. Growling, she threw herself back into the large sea of soft designer pillows.
“Ana!” she said, hitting the bed with her small fist. “Are you serious?”
A gust of wind blew through the curtains as he closed the door behind him. He looked at her brown temple and the stark contrast of her skin against the silver sheets.
“Baby, I’m sorry.”
One of her petite mahogany legs jutted from under the sheet as she rolled over on her stomach to pout fully. He walked over to the bed and ran a finger down the back of her calf down to her diamond anklet. “I can’t stay. There’s work.”
“I know you can’t stay.” She huffed into the pillow. “I can always tell when you can’t stay because you make that same face and your shoulders slouch the exact same way…every single time.” Still, she knew she couldn’t beat him up for having a job to do. “How long this time?”
Unable to resist getting close to her one last time before he left, Anatoly crawled into the bed on top of her. Burying his head into her shoulder, he kissed her neck. “Five days at most.”
Renee was not surprised. Voice still muffled into the pillow, she croaked, “Is this Gabriel’s fault?”
“No. It’s mine.” He rubbed her bare side. “But I will fix it.” His manhood pushed against his zipper, aching to be released out of its hold. “And then I’ll come back and finish what I started.”
Five days was a very long time. Just the thought of being without him made her sad. Renee rolled over and looked up into her husband’s blue eyes. Touching the side of his face, she whispered sincerely. “Be careful.”
“I always am.” He inhaled her perfume and looked down into her bright eyes. Feeling her rounded hips under him, he longed to slip out of his jeans and into her soft little spot. He wanted her more now that he could not have her.
“Where are you going?” she asked, knowing he would never tell her.
With his hands planted beside her, Anatoly bent to her brown nipple and sucked it slowly, savoring the taste of the perfume on her skin. “Gotta go,” he said, standing up. “I love you.”
“I love you,” she said, sinking down into the sheets.
***
Gabriel didn’t want to go back upstairs and say one more word to Briggy, but he knew that if he just left without an explanation, it would be one more thing he’d have to hear about later. With haste, he rushed up the back stairwell and found her in the second floor media room, resting on the sofa. Now fully dressed in a pair of jogging pants and a T-shirt, face washed of all makeup, she rested and watched television.
As soon as he walked through the door, she turned and glared at him. Her face was a mix of disappointment and hope, neither which he could understand.
“You okay?” Gabriel asked, noticing that she looked peaked.
“Nauseated,” she answered.
Gabriel threw himself in the chair beside the door and looked at his watch. Ten minutes had turned into five. Might as well get this over with, he thought to himself. “I’ve got to go again.”
Briggy turned down the television mounted on the wall across the room and looked at the floor. “Is it because of me?”
“No,” Gabriel answered quickly. “It’s because I fucked up. I have to go and make it right.” If she had only seen the ass chewing he had just suffered at his uncle, she might have felt better considering she seemed to love him in pain.
“Will you be long?” She turned to him and noticed that he seemed drastically different from when he first arrived.
He shrugged. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be. Days. Weeks.” His voice trailed off.
“I wanted to talk to you about…” she struggled. “I want us to try again, Gabriel. I want us to try for real this time.” Her adorable overbite showed as she took a shaky breath. Looking to him for understanding, she prayed that he would just give in a little to her desire to make things better between them. “I said horrible things before, but I promise I didn’t mean them.” Her brow furrowed. “I was angry, but I had no right.”
What a day? Gabriel thought to himself as he shifted in the seat uncomfortably. Even though he appreciated her kindness, he was empty for her inside and unfortunately that had not changed even with the time that they had spent apart. “Briggy, I don’t want to fight. It upsets the baby.” He looked at her stomach and then up at her eyes, still red from crying. “It upsets you.”
Briggy hung her head in defeat. “So that must mean you don’t want to try.”
“No,” he answered honestly. “I don’t. I just want to find you a safe, nice place where you can start over again. You deserve that.”
“Then why bring this baby into the world at all?” Tears as big as jewels
dropped from her long lashes and streamed down her hot cheeks. “Why do this at all?”
Gabriel had asked himself that same question a thousand times, but he had no answer. “It’s always been your body, your decision. I’ll support you no matter what you decide, but it is pushing 20 weeks. Pretty soon, I imagine that option won’t be on the table either.”
Briggy knew her heart, if she knew nothing else, and she knew that her threats were idle. She would never hurt the baby inside of her, not only because she had made it out of love for him, but also because of how great he or she would be considering the family that it had come from. There was no question that this child would be superior to any that had ever been born to her family before it. However, it was painful to know that he wouldn’t fight her for it, to save it, to save them. Tucking her knees under her on the sofa, she turned away from him in pain. “Just go, please. Just leave.”
Not realizing that he was up against time constraints that pulled his attention elsewhere, she trembled when she heard him actually stand up.
Gabriel rubbed his head. “If you need anything, just call.”
Her voice sharpened. “What I need from you, you won’t give me,” she sobbed. As she watched him prepare to bail out of the door, she spoke one final time. “I hope that you find what you’re looking for out there in the world, Gabriel.”
Surprised by her kindness, he turned to look at her. “Thank you.”
Inhaling a breath, she wiped her face. “And when you’ve found it, I hope it crumbles in your hands, destroying any hope you ever have of loving anyone ever again. Then you’ll feel how I feel inside for you.” Her eyes had turned to ice. Biting her lip, she turned from him and turned the volume up on the television.
Gabriel stared at her back and shook his head. “Wow.” Walking out of the door, he turned his thoughts from her to the job at hand.
***
Only four hours after he had left the jet, Gabriel boarded it again, this time with Anatoly, Boris and his usual bodyguards. However, this time, he wasn’t in the best of moods. Taking his normal seat, he kicked off his shoes and took his drink from Diane with a lot less humor and flirtation.
Gabriel's Regret: Book 1 (The Medlov Men Series 2) Page 7
