Vassily: Perfect Pain - a Bad Boy Mafia Dark Romance

by Alice May Ball

  Vassily waits. Then he says, “Are you asking me?”

  “I’m asking you if you will be ready to do it. If you can. I would always rather deal direct, but I may not be able to. He might not feel able to talk to me. Afterward. And I may not be able to stand the sight of him.”

  “You’re saying that you want him to kill his son, Caterina?”

  “I’ll give him some time to do what has to be done but he has to know that if he doesn’t do it, I will.” She looks down for an instant then straight back up. “I don’t care how it’s done, if he does the deed himself or if he hires someone. I know that if it were me, I couldn’t leave it to another person. But maybe that’s just me.” She makes the smallest shrug. “But if Medved won’t do it, I will. I’ll do it myself. He will not want that.”

  She takes a sip of water. “If he leaves it to me, it won’t be clean or quick. And for the sake of a good working relationship afterward, I want to give him the chance of doing it in his own way.”

  Vassily nods.

  She says, “Make him understand,” the quiet power in her voice shocks me, “My choice would be to do it personally.” The moment’s silence is scalding hot. “Make him understand that I’m making him a gift.”

  Silence hangs heavy in the room for a few moments. Then Caterina rises. Vassily and I both move to get up, but she raises a hand to stop us. She looks Vassily in the eye and thanks him before she turns to leave.

  ith Caterina gone, I’m looking at Katya. We still don’t talk. What Caterina came to say was hard to hear and she’s in a tough place. I understood her not wanting expressions of sympathy or any personal talk. It’s not a time for that. Not for Caterina. Katya was strong throughout it, though. She held her reactions in check. I didn’t see her flinch once.

  We seem to have gotten in tune like we’re thinking on the same line. I know she’s been through a lot of heavy times and she’s held herself together with amazing strength. I was surprised earlier at the sight of her, naked with a gun in her hand. The way she held the gun and aimed it, it was definitely something she had done before. Crouched in the doorway with the gun in both hands, pointing it at arm’s length, turning side to side, I never saw anything hotter in my life.

  There’s always more to discover about this Russian doll and every surprise makes me want her more.

  I’m starting to wonder about the dolls inside the doll. I think last night she let me see some of what she keeps locked away inside.

  Pierce comes in. He tells me, “I know a couple of guys who can help. Men you wouldn’t want on your trail at any price. Ex-special forces. If anyone can find the little fucker, they can.” I nod.

  “Give them Mikhail’s number as well as mine. We absolutely need the boy alive and talking.”

  Pierce taps his phone, “I’m sending you their contacts now. I’ll copy them to Mikhail, too.”

  “Those documents we talked about? I need them sooner rather than later. You need photos?”

  “My guy will want to make his own photographs.” He looked at Katya, “If you have any pictures of yourself from a year or two ago, they would help.” Her head shakes. I’m just now realizing that whatever possessions she has are all at Marco’s. Not a place I want either of us to go right now. I should probably send someone to collect her stuff but then, where would it go?

  Pierce interrupts my train of thought. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen this guy work miracles with Photoshop.”

  My phone rings. It’s Mikhail. I tell him, “I’m with Katya and Pierce.” I catch sight of her noticing the fact that I said her name first. “I’m going to put you on speaker.”

  Mikhail says, “I just left the house. There’s no doubt about who it was. Why, though, Boss? Why do you think he would have done it?”

  “Aside from the fact that he’s a mean, dumb little fuckwit? My instinct is that he got himself played.”

  “You know who by?”

  I look at Katya. Then at Pierce. I tell him, “No. But we could make a guess. ”

  “Boss, we may have found a photo from St. Petersburg. It’s old and it’s close to useless and we can’t even be certain that it’s him, but I’m sending it over.”

  “Thanks, Mikhail.”

  A blurred picture arrives on the screen. It was taken in a crowded club or a restaurant. The main figure is almost completely in shadow. He’s seated at a table with another man. He’s big and bulky, in a black two-piece suit. Probably bald. His face is completely obscured.

  Katya’s gasp is like the swish of a knife when she sees the image. Her reaction sets off a charge in me.

  She murmurs, “That’s him.”

  “Mikhail, the bullet-headed guy with him. Any idea who that is?”

  “He’s how we got the clue to the picture. We think it’s most likely to be his general, Leon Kursk.”

  I say, “We’ve seen him, Mikhail. He was at the club last night. I saw him leave, exactly as the attack started.”

  I can almost hear Mikhail’s memory snap in as his voice speeds up. “Boss, I’ve seen him, too. I think he was there the night before. He came up with us in the elevator.”

  “Look over the CCTV.”

  “I’m on it, Boss.”

  Before we leave, I ask Pierce if he thinks Princess might have some clothes that Katya could borrow. “What you said about old pictures for the passport made me think,” I looked Katya up and down, “It could be a good idea if you didn’t look so much like yourself for a while.” then, “Although, it would be a shame.”

  Pierce smiles, “Good luck making her look less distinctive.” Then he holds out a hand, inviting her, “Let’s ask Princess if she has anything. I’m sure she’ll come up with a few good ideas.”

  ~~

  I call Carmine first. Bring him up to date, send him the picture of Maleovich. He tells me that he’s seen Leon Kursk too. He can’t remember where, but he says he’ll be in touch when it comes back to him.

  Then I call Marco. He’s pretty upset with me. “Why did you keep me out of your big council of war, Vassily? And why did you steal my best girl?”

  I tell him he’ll get over it.

  “You could make it up to me if you paid me for her.”

  “You know that isn’t going to happen.” As we’re talking, I think about what Katya must have been through, having men treat her as like she was a piece of property. Haggling over her. Bargaining. The phrase that really stuck with me was when she said that a man had ‘stolen’ her.

  I tell him I’m going to send someone for her things. then I send him the picture.

  “The bald guy, the one facing the camera? He was here.”

  My blood runs cold. “When?”

  “He’s been a few times. Let me think.” I wait. I wonder if Marco is going to play one of his little games with me. String me along. Try to get me to pay for the information.

  “We’re all at risk here, Marco. Those guys are planning a very hostile takeover, I’m certain of it.”

  “Oh, now we’re all in the same boat? All for one and one for all?”

  I wait.

  “He came here three nights ago.”

  “The night before Mikhail and I were there?”

  “That’s right. But he’s been before. Once at least. I’ll check the records.”

  “Anything you have would be a big help.” then an idea came to me. “Do you think he saw Katya there?”

  “It’s not impossible.” he thought for a moment. “Yes, he did. I remember it now, he was sitting in a booth with Svetlana and Olga when Katya walked across the room. This guy, what did you say his name was?”

  “Kursk. Leon Kursk.”

  “Right. When he saw Katya he watched her like a snake watching a white mouse.”

  “Why a white mouse, Marco?”

  “Did you ever keep snakes?”

  “No.”

  “I kept pythons and cobras at home in Sicily. They love white mice.”

  ~~

  When Katya and Princess r
eturned, Katya was in jeans and a sweater with her hair tied up tight. With her face practically scrubbed of makeup, still she looked fabulous. She had the kind of careless look that some girls would spend hours to achieve. She carried a small grip with her.

  Princess has lent her everything she needed, she says, and I can see that the two gorgeous women have bonded. Almost to confirm it, Princess touches my arm and says, “Take care of this one, Vassily.”

  “I take great care, Princess. Of all of them, you know I do.”

  She punches my arm playfully, but she says, “I’m serious.”

  “I know.” Katya is smiling. It’s the most relaxed I have seen her since we met. Her smile warms my heart. It makes me nervous, too, though. We all know that we’re headed into very dangerous times.

  ierce’s passport guy, Macon Henderson, is a fashion photographer with a loft space off 42nd Street. He has a little digital camera on a tall, thin tripod.

  He takes some pictures and he asks me for some details. When he tells me that he wants to know the details of my real identity, I’m pretty hesitant. Vassily tells me that he understands but that I can trust this guy.

  “It’s not only a matter of trust, Vassily. I haven’t told any of these things to anyone. Not for a really, really long time. Not since… not since I was very young.” I can’t help it. My eye twitches and it waters.

  Macon slides a reporters’ notepad across the table to me. He leans near and in a quiet voice like it’s going to be our secret, he says, “Just write it all down on here. I’ll burn the pad after. really, I will.”

  After I give him what he needs, Vassily asks him, “How long?”

  “These are going to be genuine documents. Not even from the embassy here. They’ll come from Moscow. Should be here with me by the end of next week.”

  Vassily thanks Macon. As we’re leaving the building, he tells me, “I was planning to get you the new passport first, so that then I could get you a marriage license against your real identity.”

  “And?”

  “And I don’t think we can risk waiting that long. I think we need to get you documents right away. We’ll drive out to Albany.”

  “Today?”

  “Now.”

  ~~

  Justice Oakley is a kindly older guy. He works out of a pretty, colonial style corner house with a wraparound porch. The house is on a quiet street in what feels like a little hamlet outside a suburb of a suburb. His sweet, white-haired secretary acts as a witness and his daughter comes in to sign as the second witness. The whole thing takes less than ten minutes. We drove nearly three and a half hours to get here.

  The wedding is exactly what I predicted for myself. Anonymous, meaningless, empty, and dry. It’s a functional transaction. The old Justice couldn’t be sweeter, his daughter and his secretary smile in a way that could not be warmer or more genuine. Inside I’m crumbling. I wouldn’t care, it really wouldn’t mean a thing, but against all of my reason and good instincts, feelings are growing inside me for this man.

  Each time we say “I do,” it’s like I hear a bell tolling far away, signaling an ending when it should be a beginning. The justice says, “Now, kiss the bride,” and my heart backflips as Vassily takes me in his arms, but the kiss is like the kiss you might give an aunt.

  The fact that he’s doing this for me now, especially now when I know he really can’t afford the time, it makes me fall apart inside. And he doesn’t see it. He smiles like we’re buying a piece of office furniture together or renting a car. Like it’s nothing. To him it is nothing, I’m sure.

  And to me, too, that’s what I tell myself. It means nothing. It’s a piece of paper and that is literally all there is to it. It has no more significance than a betting slip for a race that’s over. A bet that didn’t win. Nothing. He is doing it as a kindness, Katya. You should thank him nicely. then forget all about it.

  I hate the physical thrill as he puts his hand on my waist to guide me outside. Birds sing and the sun is shining. The lawn outside the pretty house is perfectly manicured. A soft, emerald green carpet. Now I wish I had a blade or a key.

  The warmth of the sun and the heat of the strong man beside me, in a borrowed pair of jeans and a sweater; I could be happy with an occasion exactly like this. I could if it were with a man exactly like him.

  Just knowing that makes me much sadder than I was prepared for. The bitter contrast between what a ceremony like this should mean, how it is meant to be the beginning of a lifelong journey, as it is for so many people.

  For me, it’s just a very stark and bright reminder of the normal life I can never have.

  His hand holds mine as he looks down into my eyes. He’s going to kiss me. Not out of sympathy, I don’t think. Not as a consolation – I really hope it’s not that. I think just out of companionship. We’re together in a dangerous situation. He’s a good man, for all the bad things he might have to do, and I think he genuinely cares.

  Not in the way that I would want, obviously. But why should he do that? Why should he do any of it, really? And why should it matter to me? His hand on my waist starts a pulsing, way down inside me.

  “Now I’m going to take you home.”

  “Where do you mean? To your club? Are you going to install me there as one of your girls now?”

  “The other girls might not like that. More to the point, neither would you. You’d be good at that line of work, but I don’t think you’d enjoy it all that much. No, there is a different job for you in the club if you want it, but I’m talking about home. My apartment.”

  “What do you have in mind to do there?”

  We’re both thinking of the same thing, I’m certain of it.

  Four black Mercedes minibuses with blacked out windows turn purposely to slide into the curb beside us.

  Maybe someone is getting married with a little more ceremony and a few more guests.

  I glance up at Vassily. He looks down and his eyes half close. When he holds my waist more tightly, pulls me toward him, I’m ready to melt. His face bends closer. I taste his breath and my head tips back. “Why?” I said. “Why was it you that came to rescue me? Why couldn’t it have been someone else? Anyone else?” He stood back, frowning. “I am grateful, of course I am. But I wish it could have been different.”

  Two men rush from behind me and jump on Vassily. They knock him to the ground and they pull out guns.

  I’m seized from behind. Yanked off my feet and hauled across the lawn. I’m bundled into the rear of the front minibus. The door slams shut and the tires screech as it kicks away from the curb.

  was still reeling, trying to make sense of what Katya said. It’s my own fault. That moment for me seemed almost perfect. the idea of a woman to settle down with, a life partner, a wife, was never on my radar. Any time a relationship looked like it could go that way, I was out of there so fast.

  I didn’t think about marriage to Katya in any way beyond how it could help to keep her safe. I never even stopped to question why I thought of it in the first place. Obviously, there was a deeper thought involved. One I didn’t even consider consciously. When we stood on the thick, homely rugs in Justice Oakley’s office, looking down into the glow of her face, holding her left hand to slip on the ring, hearing her say, “I do,” I thought, Yes. I do, too. This could work. I could settle with a partner. Be the perfect couple. Cook for one another, just for the pleasure of bringing a treat, to see her face light up. Sharing jokes. Knowing that you had someone to protect. To care for. I thought, Yes. This could work.