“You ready to bury your daughter next to her mother?” The Romanian’s voice was harsh.
A chill of dread brushed over Vasily’s skin, and it took him a moment to compose himself. “It certainly didn’t take long for my personal business to reach your ear. Did you learn of her from someone in my camp? Or was it information you came across elsewhere?”
Even though he knew Lucian wouldn’t reveal his sources, Vasily asked because if the info had come from his camp, he might be that much closer to finding out his snitch’s identity. Because he had one in his organization, close enough to have gotten into his home and into his personal records, which was how they’d found out about Kathryn and Eva. His bank records showed the deposits he made into Kathryn’s account every month—transfers that supposedly came from the estate of a distant uncle of hers. It wasn’t hard to connect the pieces from there.
“When you spoke to me about needing Gabriel on something you didn’t trust your own boys with, I knew it had to be something big. I dug around and found out.”
Vasily was surprised he’d gotten even that small explanation from him. “I just spoke to Gabriel, and he said Stefano was moving. What have you heard?”
“The same. He’s planning to use your daughter as his means to an end. He sent two of his men to Seattle—one was easily taken out. The other, Furio Abella, is waiting for who-knows-what before he makes a move.”
Fuck, he should be there helping Gabriel. “Furio? Why the hell is he doing the legwork?”
“I’d like to know that myself. It’s his personal involvement in this situation that’s making me nervous. Well, not quite nervous.” Lucian chuckled arrogantly, as if nothing had the power to do that. “But you know what I mean.”
Vasily cursed the very life he lived. “How did you hear about all of this?”
“I’m finding myself getting impatient with that question,” the Romanian drawled in a bored voice. “Just be glad I did. I would suggest getting back to the States. I think Gabriel is dragging his feet on doing what he knows must be done. Although,” he added, suddenly sounding thoughtful, “from what I’ve been hearing, he may not have to.”
Vasily kept one eye on Viktor Baikov still yakking it up on his cell and tried to calm the rage building within him. How dare Stefano target his daughter? And what exactly was Gabriel doing about it if not taking out the threat?
There were two reasons Gabriel hadn’t done away with Stefano before now. One, he was a loyal man, and no matter what, Stefano was his brother.
And two, “He doesn’t want to step in as Don,” he said aloud.
“No, he doesn’t,” Lucian agreed. “But if Gabriel is as smart as I know he is, it’s becoming clear to him he’s struggling for nothing. That family will not be led by anyone but him. And the sooner he realizes that, the better off we’ll all be. Oh, and one other thing.” Lucian’s tone dropped to a mildly threatening hum. “You ever dismiss me like that again, my next call to you will be with my condolences.” Click.
Vasily slid his phone into his pocket. No matter how powerful a man was in this business—and without conceit, Vasily had to admit he was up there with the best of them—there was always one more powerful. In this case, that would be the elusive Romanian who had just verbally spanked his ass.
Even though he was younger than Vasily’s forty-three by only a few years, Lucian’s rise to the top had been swift and absolute. It helped that the guy had more money than God, which put him in the billionaire bracket alongside Bill Gates—in the same intellect bracket, too. Which explained how Lucian kept track of the many fingers he had in so many fucking pies.
“Everything okay?”
Nodding once at Dmitri’s whispered query, Vasily contemplated what Lucian had just told him. He had full confidence in Gabriel’s ability to keep Eva safe, but even the best couldn’t control every aspect of a situation. Would Gabriel have let him know before today that a situation had developed with Stefano had he been able to reach him?
It wasn’t imperative that Vasily know, because Gabriel was clearly handling things, but he wanted to know nonetheless, dammit. He was somewhat of a control freak like that. Especially when it came to his daughter.
Which was why, when Gabriel’s weekly report hadn’t been waiting in his inbox last night, as it normally was, he’d put a call in to his nephew, placing Alekzander in the very uncomfortable position of having to rat out his best friend. After a whole lot of what-the-fuck-do-you-think-I-ams, Alek had given up that their boy was now in full contact with Eva.
And he’d stressed, rather uncomfortably, that full contact now meant full contact.
Vasily’s teeth ground together at the memory. Because despite her being a grown woman, Eva was still his goddamn daughter.
That hadn’t been part of Gabriel’s assignment.
Settling himself farther back in the doorway, eyes trained on the man putting off his imminent death by lingering over a phone call, Vasily wondered if he might be lucky enough to be in Seattle by this time tomorrow. He needed to be there to protect his daughter in a way he hadn’t her mother. The thought had him willing the idiot to hurry the hell up.
Vasily’s heart jerked as Kathryn’s image slid into his mind. Eva’s, as always, was not far behind. He’d have given anything to have spent his life with them, but it hadn’t been possible. Mainly because back then his father had already chosen a bride for him here in Russia and had been impatiently prodding him during every phone conversation to finish with his “fun” in the States and return home for the wedding. Vasily’s marriage to the politician’s daughter would have created an alliance damn near impossible to take down. But he hadn’t wanted to marry at nineteen years old, not unless it was to the mother of his child. So he’d told his father that he was in love with Kathryn, omitting Eva’s existence until he knew what he was dealing with, which had been Ivan Tarasov’s disapproving silence over the line.
If you do not return home and fulfill your duty to this family, the reason for your hesitation will be dealt with accordingly.
His father’s threat had set fear into his soul. Knowing that unyielding tone, Vasily had gone to the loft and had made love to Kathryn for hours while Eva dozed in her crib in the corner. Once his beautiful sated blonde had fallen asleep, he’d given her a final kiss and gone over to share a quiet good-bye with his daughter. He’d picked up the wide-awake Eva, staring into eyes identical to his, and cradled her against his breaking heart, asking her forgiveness for his desertion of them.
He’d brought Eva to the bed and placed her in her mother’s arms, waiting until Kathryn tucked her child to her breast, protective even in sleep. He’d watched them with a yearning he didn’t think was possible, until he’d had to break the connection by closing the door to their small apartment for the last time.
Ivan Tarasov had never learned of his granddaughter’s existence. Vasily often wondered if his father had known about Eva; would it have made a difference to the old man? Would he have allowed Vasily a pass on the arranged marriage?
Probably not.
The tragedy was that Vasily’s forced nuptials never took place. The politician, along with his wife and three children, had been killed in a plane crash that everyone knew had been staged by the opposition, but no one could prove it. As was the norm in their world.
But by then, having seen the same tragic outcome that could one day come to Kathryn and Eva in a variety of ways, Vasily had vowed to continue staying away from them. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to keep them from the same fate as his fiancée. And eventually, the same fate as Vincente’s mother, and Stefano’s intended, and Gabriel’s parents, and so many other hits he had no personal investment in. He refused to allow his family to die that way.
But Kathryn had anyway.
And now Eva was being threatened.
Viktor Baikov’s cracking laugh echoed off the buildings, preceding the end to his call. A bead of sweat ran down Vasily’s
back as the guy continued on, retrieving his keys as he approached the loaded car that sat in front of an empty building—empty, they knew, because Vasily’s men had done a final sweep not fifteen minutes ago before leaving the area.
Without a backward glance, Vasily slipped out of the doorway, Dmitri right behind him, and headed down the street in the opposite direction. They hung a tight right, disappearing between two buildings. They’d just reached the end of the long laneway when a massive explosion rocked the dirty concrete under their boots, lighting up the darkness. The abandoned building next to him shuddered from the force of the blast.
“Holy shit,” Dmitri chuckled. “Could the boys have used a little more RDX?”
A small smile lifted Vasily’s lips. His humor died when the scream of sirens split the air. Damn. The police must have been nearby. His eyes met Dmitri’s for a split second, and then they were hauling ass to the beat-up Lada they’d “borrowed.” Vasily slid behind the wheel and started the engine as Dmitri dove into the passenger side. He gunned it before the doors were even closed, keeping to the escape route they’d planned.
As he drove away, leaving the authorities to deal with yet another unsolved murder, Vasily’s only thoughts were that his daughter was now safe from his rivals, at least for the time being. Her mother avenged. And he was free to head to Seattle to help Gabriel deal with the situation there in the only way he knew to finally end this feud between the brothers.
Stefano Moretti had to die.
Eva pulled up the e-mail that had just showed up in her inbox from Natalie, her only contact in the New York branch, and printed off the list of people she had to get in touch with in order to set up her office in Manhattan. Gabriel had given her carte blanche earlier today, telling her to purchase whatever furniture and office equipment she thought she might need. Whatever will make you most comfortable, get it, he’d said.
What would make her most comfortable would be getting out of this damn office. Maybe she could look into having some sort of dividing screen put between their desks. She’d been embarrassingly unprofessional with her study of him all freaking day.
Which was ridiculous considering how she’d come to be here. How he’d admitted to lying to her. She was pissed. But somehow her anger didn’t cancel out the attraction she felt.
Unfortunately.
He lifted his dark head, breaking his focus on the laptop screen, and got to his feet. She glanced at the clock near the window—seven, on the nose—and dropped her pen as he leisurely approached and sat in one of the chairs in front of her desk. He leaned back, bringing his hands up to link his fingers behind his head in a completely relaxed position. His long legs fell open slightly, his white shirt stretching taut over his chest and abs. He’d lost his suit jacket hours ago.
Much to her chagrin, she gulped audibly.
Holy hell, he is beautiful.
“So,” he drawled, watching her through heavy eyes. “How did you enjoy your first day?”
Unsure what to say, she remained awkwardly silent. So far, he’d adhered to her stipulation of remaining strictly professional, but this didn’t feel as though he was asking for a critique on how efficiently her computer had worked.
His brows rose, and Eva couldn’t remember ever having seen a look of such blatant arrogance on a man’s face before. Would it kill him to smile or something? It seemed all he’d done throughout the day was scowl her way. As if he was angry at her for some reason. She was the one who had the right to be angry. Not him.
She busied her hands by needlessly shuffling papers around. “I enjoyed it.” Before she could gauge his reaction, her phone chirped to signal an incoming text.
“It’s Caleb, honey. Read up.”
She almost died on the spot. Having her phone go off at work was bad enough, but for the ringtone to be her friend’s deep male voice!
Gabriel held her gaze, clearly waiting to see what she would do. She didn’t even weigh her options. It would be unprofessional to check her phone with her boss right in front of her—even if that boss was Gabriel. So she returned his stare, hoping that would be the end of it. No such luck. Within moments it sounded again.
“It’s Caleb, honey. Read up.”
“Need to get that?”
“No.” She wouldn’t give the arrogant bastard the satisfaction of breaking eye contact first.
“It’s Caleb, honey. Read up.”
Gabriel’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Would you answer the goddamn thing. It won’t stop going off until you do.”
“Okay,” she said happily, as if she was only following orders. She had to remember to change the tone when she got home later. She glanced down at the screen.
Info is scarce. Forget about SM
She frowned. She had actually forgotten about Stefano Moretti and her other disturbing problems. Hadn’t thought about them once today. She sent back a quick
OK
and returned the phone to its place on her desk.
“Buddy in New York?”
She looked up, surprised at the sharp edge in Gabriel’s tone. His cold stare made her nape tingle. “Caleb. Yes.”
“Something important?”
“Um, he was looking into . . .”
You two are business associates, remember? You wouldn’t share this personal information with Natalie. Why share it with Gabriel?
“It’s nothing.”
“Then you’ll let him know not to bother you with ‘nothing’ again during working hours. I’m not paying you to sit here and relieve his boredom.”
Eva silently counted to ten and tried not to react. A motion caught her eye, and she watched as Gabriel’s hands curled into tight fists. He pushed them down on his thighs, cracking each knuckle with sharp little snaps.
“Fine. I’ll let him know.”
“Good.”
“Good,” she repeated, realizing the extent of his jealousy. Then again, had she been any different this morning when she’d immediately concluded he was on the phone with another woman? The horrible emotion had tried to eat her alive.
Changing the subject, she said, “Why don’t we get back to talking about how I enjoyed my first day?”
Before he could respond, there was a hard rap on the office door. She stood and walked across the room to welcome the visitor into his office.
It was Alek, TarMor’s other CEO, whom Eva had met last night. The one she’d thought would be her boss. Jesus. He’d known she would be working for Gabriel when they’d been introduced.
She felt her face flush with embarrassment. Alek was also well aware that she’d slept with her boss last night. Could possibly have even heard them if the walls were thin enough in the hotel!
Oh, God.
“Hey, Eva,” Alek greeted as he came in. “How was your first day?”
She absolutely forced her smile to stay in place and hoped her face didn’t appear as red as it felt. Gabriel’s dishonesty had made her the office slut, she realized. She was now the woman everyone would talk about at company parties. The one who’d banged the boss to get her job. She hadn’t. But they wouldn’t care about that small detail.
Alek was looking at her with innocent inquiry, his pale-blue eyes friendly. But all Eva saw in her mind’s eye was him lying in bed with a pillow over his head in an effort to drown out her orgasmic cries.
“It was fine. Excuse me,” she said, attempting to breathe through the mortification drowning her. She turned toward Gabriel and felt the smile fall from her face as if someone had pulled a plug. After aiming a daggerlike glare at him, she went to her desk to retrieve her purse and then disappeared into the large cream-and-white restroom in the corner.
Without hesitating, more humiliated than she’d ever been, and so, so angry, she crossed over and flung open the second door that connected the restroom to the hallway.
As she stormed down the empty corridor toward the elevator, she wanted nothing more than to be alone. She cou
ld not go back into that office knowing what thoughts would be going through Alek’s head.
Or Gabriel’s.
Or hers.
Tears burned beneath her lids, and she wanted to rail. She’d been a virgin for twenty-four fucking years and the night she decided to give it up, it was to her new boss!
CHAPTER 11
Slamming into her house thirty minutes later, jamming her finger too hard into the keypad to shut down her beeping system before wiping roughly at the drying tears on her cheeks, Eva cursed the man who’d put her in this position. She wasn’t equipped to deal with people’s judgments, goddammit! She didn’t have skin thick enough to let them think what they would without caring.
She’d spent her whole life striving for perfection.
God, what would her mother think of her now?
She went to the small table against the wall and slammed down her purse before picking up the cordless phone to call Nika. She’d have tried from the car but her cell was still on her desk! “Gabriel!” she shrieked, slamming the phone down when she got Nika’s voice mail. “This is all your fault!”
She stilled, struggling to control her spinning emotions. She was going batty. Yelling at no one. Blaming someone else for her own forgetfulness—or cowardice, depending on how you looked at it. With a shake of her head, she stomped upstairs to change.
I have to quit my job. There’s no other alternative. She untied and ripped the scarf from around her neck. After only one day. Off came her jewelry. How humiliating. She tore the binding from her hair. But I can’t keep a position that people will think I screwed myself into. Her shoes were next.
She also couldn’t do her job well remembering what her boss had looked like naked. What he’d felt like. Sounded like. The way he’d made her feel.
Aw, shit.
Eva fell to the edge of her bed and stared at the pale-blue throw rug under her feet. She was furious at Gabriel. Furious! That he’d lied to her. Turned her into this paranoid people-are-judging-me person that she hated. Furious that he’d given her so much pleasure that she wouldn’t be able to enjoy again, because she wasn’t going to be with him again.
A Love of Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 1) Page 16
