by K. J. Dahlen
“She loved me,” Nicky said simply.
“She did indeed,” Nikoli agreed.
Yuri felt a moment of jealously rush through him. He knew it was a different kind of love but it was still love and he wanted that feeling from her. He’d fallen for her very quickly but he knew she was everything he wanted in a woman. He’d only known her a few days but he knew she was the one for him. Now, he just needed time to convince her of that fact. He had to convince her that she couldn’t live without him. He’d lived his whole life without finding this kind of love and now at the age of forty two, he’d finally found it with a woman almost half his age.
Yuri knew one thing for certain—he couldn’t lose her, not now. He’d only just found her.
Chapter Ten
An hour later, the penthouse had been invaded by four bigger than life men. When they joined Yuri and Nikoli, there had been a lot of laughing and back pounding as each man reveled in the fact that Nikoli had finally found his son.
Nicky laughed and stood tall with the other men and Raven felt happy for him.
These four other giant men were Sazon Demiko, Roman Salizar, Barshan Stanikoff, and Mikial Bannonkov. They all ranged in age from thirty eight to forty two. Sazon was the youngest of them and Yuri the oldest but Raven could see in the lines of their faces that each of them had led a harsh life.
When she’d been introduced to Sazon, she realized she’d seen this man before. She couldn’t remember where at first but as the evening progressed, she recalled the when and the where. It had been three years ago and the encounter had almost lost her Nicky.
She hadn’t realized Nicky had just wanted to belong somewhere so badly that he would run away from her to find his own family. They’d been living the lives of vagabonds so long, Nicky just wanted somewhere to call home. He began to rebel about that time and had fallen into a bad bunch of people. They called themselves the Collective but Raven recognized the fact that they were little more than a gang of thieves and wanna-be criminals in training. They got their money the easy way by stealing it or pushing drugs and she’d been worried about Nicky getting involved with them.
This gang had lived on a farm just outside of the city. The whole place was filthy and dangerous with garbage and junk cars everywhere. The young men and women who lived there rarely bathed and the women paraded around in various stages of undress. The one and only time she was present had been at a party where everyone had been stoned out of their minds.
It all came crashing down one night when Nicky was with another member of the Collective. They were going to a MMA fight to watch the bout between Sazon and another headliner, Vincent Cruz. The main fight was the last of five that night.
Raven had come to watch over Nicky. She didn’t want him there but she didn’t tell him that. He’d been pulling away from her and it frightened her. She knew he was getting to the age he could go either way and she prayed he would stay with her. What happened next was never clear to her but suddenly, there was a scuffle as the man with Nicky pulled a knife and stabbed the man in front of him. There was screaming and pushing as people tried to flee the fight.
Raven had gotten close enough to Nicky to pull him to safety and for a moment, she thought he looked almost relieved at her interference. When they’d gotten back to their apartment that night they’d had a long talk and Nicky had told her about why he wanted to join the Collective so bad.
That’s when she knew their lives had to change. Nicky needed to settle down in one place long enough to call it home. From the moment they left Carlos’s house, they’d been on the move every three months or so and Nicky just wanted to stick around. He’d needed stability, so Raven took a big risk and found them a place to live.
She’d gotten a job at the Tea House and slowly they got settled in. They had to be very careful not to bring attention to themselves as they never knew when Carlos would pop back into their lives and that was one thing Raven hadn’t wanted at all.
She hated leaving Nicky on his own but if they were going to stay in the city, she had to earn enough money to pay the rent and to buy food. Nicky surprised her by getting a job and helping her to pay the bills. He kept himself out of trouble and began to thrive.
Nicky had been in a little bit of awe when Nikoli introduced him to Sazon. He laughed and found his sister’s eyes when Sazon shook his hand. Raven chuckled and told the other man, “We almost saw you fight once about three years ago.”
“Oh?” Sazon remarked. “What do you mean almost?”
Nicky blushed and told everyone, “It was during the third fight before yours that we ran into some trouble. The idiot I was with stabbed the man in front of him for no good reason and there was a mad scramble to get the hell out of the arena.”
Sazon laughed out loud. “I remember that. Several men that night were arrested and the stab victim barely survived. He was one of many people carted to the hospital.” He frowned then looked over at Nikoli quickly. “Wasn’t the man who stabbed the guy a member of a gang?”
Nicky nodded sadly. “Yes, he was. He was a member of the Collective. They were recruiting me to become a member but thank god, Raven pulled my ass out of there.”
“What on earth were you doing with them in the first place?” Mikial asked.
Nicky shrugged but didn’t say anything. It hadn’t been one of his finer moments in what they call life.
Raven chuckled to break the silence. “It was his act of rebellion. Thank goodness, it was his only act, as I don’t know if I would have survived otherwise. It was after that, we decided to settle down and call one place home. He was seventeen at the time and we’d been moving around for a while by that time. He never did like to move from place to place.”
Mikial frowned. “How long had you been moving around?”
“About eight years by that time,” Raven told them.
“Your parents couldn’t decide where they wanted to live or what?” Roman scoffed.
“We had no parents,” Nicky told them softly. “It was just Raven and me.”
Raven stood tall and looked them straight in the eye. “You may as well know right now, my mother’s name is Andria Waterson. Although, I have asked Yuri not to call her that anymore. She was never a mother to me and she is the person who stole Nicky away from his father.”
There was complete silence for a long moment then Yuri shrugged. “You can never pick your parents but thank god, Raven picked Nicky to watch over.”
Sazon chuckled. “I’d say. She’s been his angel all this time.”
Nicky wrapped his arm around her shoulders and hugged her close. “Watch her guys, she may be small, but she packs a powerful punch.” Looking over at Sazon, he told the other man, “You may be an MMA champion, but she will lay you out and still walk away.”
Sazon and the rest of them lifted their glasses and toasted her.
“Gentlemen, we’ve called you altogether for a reason,” Nikoli began. “I wanted to share my good fortune in the fact that my son has been returned to me but we also discovered the reason behind his kidnapping and my wife’s death. We have two of the three people behind the plot against my family but we need your help to uncover the mastermind.”
“What can we do to help?” Barshan asked.
“We have Andria in custody as well as Carlos Lopez,” Yuri started to explain.
“Carlos Lopez?” Roman interrupted in rage. “What does that little worm have to do with this?”
“He was the middle man,” Yuri explained. “He kept track of Andria for the first decade or so. Then he took the kids into his house for two years. He taught them how to steal and then had plans to sell them to the skin trade. When Raven found this out, she took Nicky and ran. She kept him safe until he came back to Nikoli.”
“And what of Carlos?” Barshan questioned. “What do you plan for him?”
Yuri nodded. “Carlos used Raven’s love for her brother to get her to steal the Council’s Medallion. She took it and kept it safe for ten years
. When Carlos came to confront me claiming he was in possession of the Medallion she was there to return it to me,” he paused to give them an evil grin. “The prick thought to pull a gun on her and he was taken into custody at that point. His thoughts were to simply push us out of the city and take over our powerbase.”
“What an idiot!” Roman exclaimed.
“It was after that, we found out his role in the kidnapping,” Nikoli explained. “But as of yet, we still don’t know who masterminded the plot.”
“What do you need us to do?” Sazon asked.
“We took all Carlos’s files and we hope to find the answers in them,” Yuri replied. “But Nikoli has a three day deadline to get back to New York. He hasn’t told anyone there that he’s found his son.”
Roman rubbed his hands together and raised an eyebrow at the challenge. “So we have three days to uncover a plot two decades old. This should be fun.”
Sazon shook his head. “I hope you plan to feed us at least. I was looking forward to consuming a huge steak tonight.”
Yuri laughed. “You’ll get your steak. I’ve ordered steaks for everyone. They’ll be here in half an hour.”
“Until then, let’s get things set up,” Barshan suggested. “We are under a severe deadline.”
“We’re all set up in the dining room.” Leading the way, Yuri ushered them into the dining room.
When they found the table hidden under box after box of files and notebooks, they groaned as a collective but each one of the sat down and grabbed a box. Pulling out file after file, they skimmed each one and more often than not tossed it to the middle of the table.
Sazon held one of the files and was sitting tipped back in his chair. When he whistled, he flopped forward and scowled. “This bastard was into some pretty nasty stuff, wasn’t he?”
“What did you find?” Yuri asked curiously.
Sazon glanced over at Raven and shrugged. He seemed unwilling to say anything at the moment.
Raven squared her shoulders. “If that’s my file he was going to sell me at fourteen to a pimp named Big Jimmy. If it’s Nicky’s, he was going to be sold to a pedophile by the code name of Captain Silver. Carlos was just waiting until Nicky turned ten, which was a few months away from the time we left.”
“Sweet Jesus.” Roman swore under his breath.
Nikoli got to his feet and stomped out of the room. A moment later, they heard his roar of rage and a shattering of glass. A few moments passed, then he returned and apologized to Yuri. “I owe you a glass decanter filled with bourbon.”
Yuri nodded. “At least, it wasn’t the vodka. I have to import the good stuff from Russia and that stuff isn’t cheap.”
Nikoli nodded then turned to Raven and Nicky. “I apologize to you two as well. I cringe in dread every time I hear another tale from the misery you called a childhood. I realize not everyone has a good time being a child but I thought in this country that kind of horror didn’t exist.” He turned to Raven and bowed to her. “I owe you so much. I’ll never be able to repay you for your courage in keeping my son safe from all harm.”
Raven reached out touched his cheek. “I did what I did because I loved him, nothing more, nothing less.”
He grasped her hand and pressed it to his face. “Then I thank you for loving him so selfishly. You were his saving grace.”
Raven smiled. “He was very easy to love.”
“Don’t let her elfin look fool you gentlemen,” Nicky commented. “This little woman can bust your balls without messing up her hair. She’s a tough little thing.”
Raven snapped her head around and glared at him. “And don’t you forget it buster.” She growled then flung herself at him.
He picked her up off her feet and hugged her to him. “I love you brat.”
“I love you back moron,” she teased.
“I think now would be a good time to stop for supper.” Yuri got up throwing the file in his hands down on the table as he stomped out of the room.
Sazon and Roman looked at each other in surprise at Yuri’s obvious anger.
Nikoli chuckled under his breath and motioned for Nicky to leave the room. When Raven followed him, Nikoli turned to the other and informed them, “I do believe Yuri has claimed his woman.”
“Really?” Barshan exclaimed. “Then why the anger toward your son?”
“She doesn’t acknowledge the claim and as long as she doesn’t, he has a problem when Nicky hugs her.”
“But there’s nothing between them correct?” Sazon asked.
“She looks at Nicky as her brother and he views her as nothing more than a sister. There is no more connection between them than that but because Yuri knows they are not related, he fears they are closer than he is comfortable with.”
Mikial chuckled. “Our dear friend is caught between a rock and a hard place in his pants. It’s about damn time!”
Sazon laughed out loud and slapped Mikial on the back. “I just hope he survives.”
Nikoli nodded. “If she feels half as much for him as he feels for her, he’ll more than survive. He found in her what I have so briefly with Bethany.”
All five men heard Yuri yell from the other room, “Are you guys coming? Your steaks are getting cold!”
They all looked at each and shook their heads.
There was much laughter and comradery during the meal. When they began comparing stories of their childhoods, Raven and Nicky joined in with the laughter and the stories. After their plates had been cleared away, they all went back to the dining room reluctantly.
“Barshan is correct,” Yuri claimed. “We are under a deadline and as much as I don’t want to, we should get back to the task at hand.” He placed his hand on Raven’s back and walked her into the dining room. He showed her to a seat next to his and pulled her chair out.
Sazon glanced at the others and they all burst out laughing.
Yuri glared over the top of Raven’s head but said nothing. As he sat down, he picked up the account book they’d found in the wall safe.
An hour later, he swore out loud. Looking up, he glared at Nikoli. “I found something. I found the list of payments to Andria. They began before your son was even born.”
Nikoli nodded. “I did tell you she wanted to get me into her bed months before the baby was born. Bethany was about five months along when Andria came into the picture. She tried her damnest to entice me but I had no desire to be with her.” He shrugged. “I thought the matter was over until the night she showed up with a knife in her hand. I couldn’t believe it when she stabbed Bethany and ran off. By the time we got to the hospital and Nicky was born I was in shock. My whole world had fallen apart. My wife was dying and I couldn’t stop it from happening. All my money and power did nothing to stop death from claiming the love of my life. I was sitting beside her body praying for her soul when the nurses came in to look for the baby. When I told them he was in the nursery they claimed I sent someone to bring him to me.” He looked troubled as he remembered it all. “I made no such request and by the time we got back to the nursery, the boy was gone. It was later when we checked the tapes, we saw exactly who had taken the baby.”
“I was five years old when my mother came home with a tiny baby boy. She told me the baby was now my brother and that I had to take care of him. We were living in a small trailer near Lake Charles at the time. We weren’t allowed go outside and none of the neighbors ever came around us so no one knew there was a small baby living there.” Raven explained.
“But didn’t you go to school?” Barshan asked.
Raven shook her head. “No one knew I was there either, so no one expected me to go to school.”
“How long did this go on?” Sazon asked.
“She took us to my grandmother’s when Nicky was about three. I was eight by then and we left in the middle of the night, so no one saw us go. When we got to grandma’s house, she told grandma that she had to leave but she couldn’t take us with her. She said no one could know we were there
. We lived there for four years before the day four men came looking for Andria. My grandma wasn’t a well woman and she tried to tell the men that but they didn’t listen. While they were there, she had a heart attack and they just left her there.”
“And how do you know all this?” Mikial asked.
“Because Nicky and I were there at the house. We were hiding and could hear everything that happened.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus!” Barshan exclaimed under his breath.
“Did you ever see your mother again?” Sazon asked.
“She did come to Carlos’s house once. She didn’t see me but I saw her.”
“How did you end up at Carlos’s house?” Sazon asked.
“We found out that he requested our placement from his contact at Social Services.”
“Apparently, that’s about the time the payments to Andria stop,” Yuri added.
“Is there any record of who the payments originally came from?” Nikoli asked.
“Perhaps not in there but I found something interesting,” Nicky announced. Looking up from the file, he was reading he handed it to Yuri.
Yuri scanned the file quickly and as he did, he swore. He passed the file to Nikoli.
Nikoli read the information in the file and glared at Yuri. Nikoli was known to have absolute control over his emotions but right now, his rage was very clear in his cold eyes. “I’m going to crush that slimy little bastard,” he vowed.
“Be very careful my friend,” Yuri warned. “You need to clear this through Moscow first.”
Nikoli sneered. “Moscow will not stop me from killing him.”
“Perhaps not, but you still need their approval.”
“Who are you going after?” Sazon asked.
“Grigori Demencoff. He’s been trying very hard to get me kicked out of power and take over my place. From the beginning, he’s been trying to get me to step down to deal with my personal issues regarding the death of my wife and ” Nikoli growled. “Lately he’s begun rumors about my state of mind, concerning the disappearance of my child.”
