by Bella Rose
He had hardly thought about how those words could be misconstrued when the dressing room door burst open. Kira stood in the doorway, her father just behind her. Her eyes were wide open and staring almost balefully at Viktor.
“You used me,” she whispered. “Here I was believing that you had decided you wanted to make an honest try of our relationship, and the whole time I was just bait.”
Nicholas was smirking. It occurred to Viktor that this was his punishment for defying his brother in front of the council.
He could not lose Kira like this. “Kira, wait. Please let me explain.”
“Why?” She swiped at her eyes. “I am not Elena. I will never be Elena. I am only in the way. Your way, my father’s way, your brother’s way, it does not particularly matter. Perhaps I should simply remove myself from the equation.”
She snatched up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. Without another word, she stalked off down the hallway and disappeared into a throng of dancers streaming toward the exits.
Viktor started to follow, but Berezin grabbed his arm. “Let her go. Haven’t you done enough?”
“Are you kidding me?” Viktor asked in astonishment. “Me? The two of you have been manipulating us both since this all began.” Viktor turned angrily on Nicholas. “And you! I’m not letting you get away with this little scam you have going on. The council needs to know the truth about their leader.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Nicholas snarled.
Nicholas moved to grab Viktor, but Viktor ducked out of range. Leaving his brother and Berezin behind, Viktor made to follow Kira. He dodged his way around the mass of humanity that seemed to be exiting the theater all at once. He heard several people speak of a wrap party at a nearby pub. There were cast, crew, dancers, lighting technicians, and set engineers flooding the hallways. Viktor finally saw another exit sign and headed in that direction away from the masses.
His path spilled out into an alley beside the theater. It was dark. The only light came from a lonely orange bulb placed at the corner of the old building’s facade. He looked right and left, but saw no evidence of anyone else. Heading in the direction of the street that fronted the theater, he hoped to find Kira soon. Something about this entire situation felt wrong. It seemed staged.
“Kira?” he called out. “Please don’t run from me. Let’s talk!”
The unmistakable sound of someone else in the alley gave him pause. Viktor stopped moving and stood still. He listened to the breeze whipping through the metal bars of the fire escape overhead and rustling through discarded newspapers and playbills on the ground. There was a dumpster only a few yards away. The ripe scent of garbage overlay the smell of dirty asphalt and exhaust.
Finally, Viktor heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps.
“Kira?” he called out.
“No. Not Kira, I’m afraid.”
Viktor spun on his heel to face his brother. “Nicholas.”
“That’s right.”
“So it was you. This whole time you’ve been behind the attacks and the murders,” Viktor said with disgust. “And yet you consider yourself fit to lead the organization?”
“Those old fools on the council need to be replaced,” Nicholas spat. “Berezin was easy to bend to my will. His greed will be his downfall. I will soon replace others with men half their age who possess the drive to make this organization into something great once again. There will be no more worrying about offending a neighborhood business owner, or forgiveness of a debt due to hardship.” Nicholas’s face contorted into something truly ugly. “I am tired of being in the business of cultivating weakness! And the first place I will start is by thinning the ranks in my own family.”
“If you think I’m just going to stand here and die, you’d better think again,” Viktor snapped. “What have you done with Kira?”
“Oh, she’s in good company.”
“With her father’s men?” Viktor felt an overwhelming sense of urgency.
Nicholas smirked. “You thought those were Berezin’s men? How typical. Everyone belongs to me, remember? I just chose those three because it would put Berezin in such a nice, awkward spot.”
Viktor steeled himself, knowing that this was no time for any remaining brotherly attachments.
Chapter Thirteen
Kira had her head down and was walking quickly. She should have been paying more attention to where she was going, but none of that really mattered anymore. She just wanted to get home. It was a night to curl up in her bed—alone—and watch an old movie on her tiny television set. Maybe she could find a romantic comedy with no Russian mobsters who only pretended to care.
“Well, well, look what we have here?”
Kira froze. She looked up and felt a pit of dread open up in her belly. She should have never ventured down this alley. She should have stuck to the main roads and the hordes of people leaving the theater. Now she had come too close to the spider’s web.
Vasily was leaning against her father’s car with a smirk on his face. Taking a deep breath, she began walking a path that drifted off to the right. She needed to skirt the vicinity of her father’s car and get out of there. Now.
Then Ivan appeared in front of her, blocking her path. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Away from you,” she snapped. “Now get out of my way. My father told me what happened. He told me what you did. But all of that is over. You don’t have his protection anymore. Whatever you do now, you will pay the price.”
Vasily’s cold laugh stopped Kira in her tracks. She was bluffing, and they knew it. Ivan’s hand closed around her upper arm. His grip was painful.
She could not believe that it was all going to end like this.
Wrenching her arm away from Ivan, she turned on him and bared her teeth. “I am so sick of men thinking they can do whatever they want without consequences! Look at you! So smug after you murdered my friend Atalya! You knew her! How could you do such a thing?”
Vasily stopped laughing. His expression grew stormy. In the lights spilling down into the alley’s mouth from the main thoroughfare, he looked almost haunted. “You think I murdered Atalya?”
“I heard the three of you talking…” Kira tried to recall exactly what she had heard. “You harassed someone. I know that you did.”
Ivan’s voice came from just behind her shoulder. “We scared some women. Who cares? We were ordered to do so by—” He exchanged a significant look with Vasily. “—someone who outranks us all. We did not murder them.”
“Then who did?” Kira felt slack jawed with confusion. “Who would order such a thing?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Yakov appeared from the deep shadows to the left.
Both Vasily and Ivan looked surprised to see him. They exchanged a look, and then to Kira’s surprise, Ivan shoved her behind his back. Her father’s two favorite enforcers were defending her now? What sort of sense did this make?
VIKTOR RAMMED HIS shoulder into Nicholas’s midsection. His brother grunted in pain, and Viktor swore he heard a rib crack. Lifting Nicholas off the ground, Viktor hoisted his brother higher and then slammed him to the asphalt. Nicholas’s back hit so hard his breath whooshed out of his body.
“You bastard!” Nicholas wheezed. “You attacked me! Your leader!”
Viktor went to kick his brother in the ribs. “You’re not my leader anymore.”
Nicholas caught Viktor’s foot. Twisting his body, he used his momentum to pull Viktor off balance. Viktor crashed to the ground. Nicholas rolled atop of him and landed two punches to the jaw. Viktor felt as though his brain were rattling inside his skull. His vision blackened and curled in at the edges, but he refused to lose consciousness. Kira would die if he gave up.
“You were always selfish,” Viktor grunted.
Arching his back, he threw Nicholas off balance. Lifting his right leg, he hooked his calf around Viktor’s chest and reversed their positions with one clean move. He pinned Nicholas on the ground and punched hi
m hard across the face. He wanted to knock his brother out. He didn’t want to have to go any farther.
Unfortunately, Nicholas was not of the same mind. He levered his body half off the ground, groping near the small of his back. Viktor tried to block the move and was too late. Nicholas grabbed the butt of his gun anyway. Pulling it out, he leveled the barrel at Viktor.
There was a split second to choose. Instead of backing away, Viktor tackled Nicholas again. He grabbed his brother’s gun arm. They rolled on the ground as they fought for control of the weapon.
The gun went off. The sound was deafening in the close space. A wrenching, sharp pain shot through Viktor’s arm. He knew his shoulder was hit, but he could not let go. Nicholas was still fighting to put the gun to Viktor’s head. They grappled again, and this time when the gun went off, Nicholas went limp on the ground.
“Nicholas!” Viktor’s agonized cry bounced off the unforgiving stone of the alley walls.
He got to his knees beside his brother. Nicholas was bleeding profusely from a wound in his chest. He was laughing, the sound choked as his lungs filled with blood from his injury.
“Leave me.” Nicholas weakly pushed at the hands Viktor was using to press against the bullet hole. “You have no idea what I’ve done.”
“You’re my brother.”
“I’ve hated you my whole life.” Nicholas coughed and sputtered. “Elena chose you.”
“What?”
“You took her from me,” Nicholas accused. “I wanted to punish you, but she wouldn’t leave with me.”
“You.” Viktor dropped his hands to his sides, horrified by what Nicholas was implying. “You killed her?”
“It was an accident.” Nicholas was fading fast. “I didn’t mean for her to die.”
KIRA PEEKED AROUND Ivan’s bulk, barely understanding what was happening in front of her. The only thing that was apparent was that her father was no longer calling the shots for his men. Then two gunshots shattered the air. She squeaked in shock, but her two surprising rescuers did not look relieved. If anything, the tension between the three men had just increased tenfold.
“Yakov, no.” Vasily held up his hand. “The boss told us. You know this. It is over.”
“The two of you are nothing but pawns,” Yakov sneered. “Do you know this? Do you know what just happened only a few hundred yards from right here?”
“That does not matter.” Vasily was creeping closer and closer to Yakov. Kira could see the gun tucked beneath his jacket at the small of his back. To reach for it, he would have to show his intention to Yakov.
In front of her, Ivan also had a gun. Was Vasily trying to cover for Ivan so he could reach his weapon? Were they actually going to shoot Yakov?
She felt almost lightheaded with the knowledge of what she had to do.
Yakov was laughing. “The little Domnin is dead now. Do you see? The idiot Berezin will take the blame. The council will look to us and agree that we have done nothing wrong. Were we not simply following orders?”
“That was before,” Ivan told him. “You have lost your mind. Nobody said to murder the women.”
“I didn’t kill them.” Yakov actually looked insulted. “Have you not figured it out yet? It was the Domnin that did it. He is our leader, the boss of the entire organization. He was the one to decide who lived and who died.”
Kira gasped in shock as she realized that Viktor’s brother had been behind it all. From the moment everything had begun. He had been pulling all of their strings. Anger swept through her like a dark wave, and she knew she had to do something. She could not believe those gunshots meant that Viktor was dead. Viktor was strong. And dammit, she needed to apologize for believing the worst about him. Again.
Reaching for Ivan’s weapon, she closed her hand around the smooth butt of his pistol. It felt clumsy in her hand. That didn’t matter. Stepping out from behind the protective covering of Ivan’s broad body, she leveled the weapon at Yakov.
“Drop your gun,” she ordered in a loud, clear voice. “Now!”
“The kitten has grown claws,” Yakov cooed. “How sweet.”
“I said drop it!” From the corner of her eye, she could see Vasily getting ready to reach for his gun. “You don’t think I’ll shoot? Is that it?”
“Pretty much,” Yakov said with a nod.
She squeezed her finger on the trigger. The gun leaped in her hand as a loud retort shattered the air around them. Yakov yelped as her shot skimmed his boot. It wasn’t exactly what she was aiming for, but she took hold of the weapon with two hands and pulled the barrel up higher.
“I don’t think you want to take the chance that next time I’ll get closer to my target,” Kira told him. “Especially since I’m aiming for your belly and my shots seem to go low.”
Yakov’s eyes nearly bugged out as that little fact sank in. “All right, all right!”
VIKTOR ARRIVED ON scene just as Yakov dropped his weapon only to be rushed by Vasily and Ivan. The two men jumped on their comrade and strung him up between them like a limp rag.
“Kira,” Viktor said, knowing he sounded exhausted and weak. “Thank God you are safe.”
“Where is my father?” The hunted look on her face suggested she thought her father had been one of the casualties in the alley.
“I don’t know.” Viktor hadn’t thought about it until now. “He never came out of the theater.”
Vasily shifted uncomfortably. “The boss was waiting for us to distract you so that he could skip town.”
“With funds stolen from the organization?”
“Embezzled, yes.” Vasily shrugged. “He’s been skimming for years.”
Viktor secretly wondered if the man didn’t have the right idea. “Thank you for being honest, Vasily.”
Kira gazed at the two men who she had once told him liked to intimidate her. Now she was frowning as though she couldn’t figure them out. “Why did you help me?”
Ivan shrugged. “We always thought you were a spoiled princess.”
Kira’s strangled laugh was enough of a response for them.
Vasily pursed his lips. “Then we heard your father talking with Nicholas Domnin one night and realized you were just a game piece to them.”
“We felt bad,” Ivan admitted. “And now I also feel bad that we never realized who Yakov was really working for.”
“The rest of your orders to attack and intimidate the men were coming from Nicholas as well,” Viktor explained. “The council will not hold that against you. I’ll see to it.”
They both ducked their heads gratefully. Glancing at each other, they looked at Yakov.
It was Ivan who finally asked. “What should we do with this sack of shit?”
“Take him to Anatoly’s house. Tell Anatoly what you saw here tonight. Nothing more. I will take care of the rest.”
“Yes, boss,” they said in unison.
“Boss,” Kira murmured. She turned and gazed at him with such sorrow in her eyes. “Does that mean Nicholas is gone?”
“My brother is dead.”
“Viktor.” She was biting her lip now. “I heard something tonight that makes me think about Elena.”
“I already know.” Viktor’s throat felt incredibly tight and raw. “Nicholas said much before he died.”
“Viktor, I am so sorry.”
He gathered her into his arms. “As long as I still have you, I can move on from the rest.”
Chapter Fourteen
The echoing room inside the old, half-renovated restaurant was filled with council members, their wives, and the top lieutenants of the Russian mafia presence in New York. Still, it would have been possible to hear a pin drop. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. All eyes were on Viktor Domnin as he stood in the center of the room.
Anatoly gestured to Kira. “You keep strange company, my friend. All things considered, anyway.”
“She is my wife,” Viktor said clearly. He turned a half circle so that he could make individual eye contact with every man t
here that would soon be calling him “boss.” “I want no part of her father’s crimes to fall on her shoulders.”
Viktor put out his hand and waited. He didn’t have to wait long. Kira laced her fingers with his and stood by his side as his equal. It was as it should have been. He felt a shot of pride at the woman she had become. Strong, determined, dedicated, all of these things and more made her a worthy bride for any man. He happened to be the lucky one who had managed to capture her heart.
There was movement at the back of the room. He felt Kira tense as her three half brothers were herded into the room like sheep to the slaughter. Viktor nodded his thanks to Aleks. His friend had almost immediately been dispatched to make certain they didn’t weasel away after their father.
Anatoly waved a hand to indicate the young men. “And her brothers?” Anatoly and the other council members shared a few hushed comments before he spoke again. “Can you trust them not to stab you in the back?”
Kira’s grip on his hand grew infinitesimally tighter. She might not like them especially well, but they had still grown up as her brothers.
Viktor sighed. “Let them be placed as low ranking enforcers under your leadership, Anatoly. If they prove themselves, they can rise through the ranks. If not?” Viktor shrugged, showing that he held no grudge, but cared not for their fate.
A gleam of something Viktor would have called approval lit Anatoly’s eyes. “A wise choice.”
“You’re a hard taskmaster,” Viktor retorted. “I came up through your ranks as a young man.”
“I remember.” Anatoly sighed. “The council has heard the story of your brother’s treachery.”
For once, someone else spoke. Rotund and white haired, Denis Igorevich was one of the oldest members of the council. “How do we know he will not turn on us like his brother?”
“His father was a good man,” Anatoly reminded Denis.
Denis harrumphed. “I say the Domnin blood is tainted!”
“I say I will prove myself over and over again if need be,” Viktor said loudly. Now he addressed the room at large. “I was never meant to lead. I was thrust into this position. But I remember what it was like to follow orders be they good or bad. My brother gave orders to hurt and even kill our family members.”
