by Bella Rose
Grinding her teeth together, Maria willed herself to calm down. It wouldn’t do any good to go off on Sasha now. He was completely secure in his ability to handle everything. He also thought he was right all the damn time.
Finally, she heard Sasha’s feet padding across her floor. The door clicked, and he was gone. How did such a huge man move so quietly anyway? She sat up and threw the covers aside. It was time to stop being so passive and get some answers!
Grigori might have been a jerk, but he hadn’t deserved to be murdered by the Tarasovs. Her father needed to know what was going on. She still couldn’t decide whether Sasha was completely aware of the situation. Did he know what his men were up to? Or was he in the dark and only pretending he was in control of the Tarasovs’ vast organization? She didn’t know which was worse, to be honest.
Maria threw on a pair of jeans and found a sweater that would keep her warm against the early spring chill. She was pulling her hair up into a high ponytail when she spotted Ana. Maria could see the maid’s angry expression in the bathroom mirror. Trying not to seem nervous or guilty, Maria spun around to face the woman. She had no idea what to expect from her, but it wasn’t likely to be good.
Maria lifted her chin and stared Ana down as best she could. “Can I help you?”
“You fired Olga.”
“Yes.”
“She needs this job! It’s a big deal to work for the pakhan,” Ana insisted. “She’s been here for nearly five years. It’s her job!”
Maria raised her eyebrows. “Is that really your argument for me to let Olga come back? Because the woman is a sassy busybody who disrespected me at every turn. Why would I ever hire her back?”
Ana opened and closed her mouth like a fish going after bait. Then her gaze narrowed, and she started to look downright mean. “You’re getting rid of all of us so you can bring in your Sokolov relatives! That’s what you’re doing!”
Maria rolled her eyes. That didn’t even rate a response! So far she had been forgiving of Oksana. Not to mention all the crap she had put up with from Olga and Ana. “How typical that you would think that of me when I’ve done nothing but try to be friends.”
“You haven’t!” Ana insisted, but her gaze skewed downward. “You’re a spoiled brat!”
“Who has never said a damn word about the fact that none of you clean my suite. I’ve just cleaned it myself, haven’t I? I’ve never mentioned it to Sasha. I’ve never asked you to take care of it. I’ve never asked you to lift a fucking finger for me, and I’m the wife of your precious pakhan.” Maria advanced on Ana. She had had enough of this crap! From every single one of them! Maria pointed at Ana. “So help me, I do not care what that bitch Tatiyana has said about me and Sasha. We’re married. I’m living in his home, and I’m the lady of this house. It is mine! You can have your own damn house and run it how you want. But if you want to work in my house, you’d better change your fucking attitude!”
Ana’s mouth was actually hanging open. She fell back a few steps. It was just enough for Maria to push past and leave the bedroom. Right now it didn’t matter what Ana was up to. Maria had more important things to do. She was going to find the warehouse she had discovered on that shipping manifest. Surely a woman could call a taxi and leave her own home to go “shopping” if she wanted.
She made the call, then grabbed a quick breakfast while she waited for the car. She watched for it from the living room window. She’d have to make a quick getaway and keep the cabbie from honking the horn or calling the house if she were to get out unnoticed. There it was! She waved to the driver from the window and moved as casually and quickly as she could.
She’d made it nearly to the front door when a hulking man emerged from the shadows beneath the second-floor balcony. He had a square face and a caveman brow. His gaze suggested he only knew how to take orders. Great. She hurried toward the door hoping to get out before Caveman figured out what she was up to.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
His thick Russian accent made his words barely intelligible, but she wasn’t sure she could use that as an excuse for disobeying him. “I’m going shopping. They’re having a sale at the mall, and I want to make sure I get there before it’s all picked over.” She used her best silly-girl attitude and tried to make herself sound as brainless as possible.
“You must stay here.” He folded his arms.
This pissed her off. A lot. She was tired of every single person but her making decisions about her life. So she poked Caveman in the chest. “Look here, you caveman-looking moron. Get. Out. Of. My. Way. If you have a problem with it, go get Sasha. He doesn’t care if I go. So why should you?”
Caveman’s eyebrows launched so far up they nearly left his face. “Pakhan said you can go?” He sounded stunned.
“It’s my choice!” There. She wasn’t really lying. She was just sort of misleading the poor bastard.
Caveman shrugged. He could not seem to process the possibility of conflicting orders from his boss. “Okay. You will come back soon?”
“Of course.” She nearly laughed in his face. She was free!
***
“And why exactly was the merchandise missing last night?” Sasha swung himself back and forth in his desk chair and tried to quell the urge to pull his gun and shoot the low-ranking soldier who had been sent to give the pakhan the bad news.
The poor kid was quaking in his boots. He kept staring at the ground and fidgeting. Sasha sighed. The young ones were like puppies inclined to piddle on the floor when they got in trouble. It was low for Yuri to send the boy in here for such a task.
Sasha pinched his nose with his thumb and index finger and tried not to explode. “You do realize that two hundred thousand dollars worth of firearms do not simply get slipped into the wrong mailbox, correct?”
“I do, sir.”
“And where is Kirill?” That was the million-dollar question. Kirill and Dimitri had gone out that morning before Sasha had even made it to his office.
The kid swallowed. He rose quite a few notches in Sasha’s estimation when he managed to lift his gaze and actually look at Sasha. “I don’t…I don’t know where Kirill is. He left with Dimitri. The two of them were going to the harbor.”
“I see.” Sasha was all too afraid that he did see. “And what were they going to do at the harbor?”
“They were meeting someone.”
“And you know this how?” Sasha prompted.
Now the kid looked terrified. “I heard them talking.”
“Ah. So they did not tell you?”
The boy’s head swung from side to side like a bobblehead. “No, sir.”
“You may go.” Sasha waved the kid away. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Stop worrying.”
The young man stumbled as he tried to spin around and hurry out the door at the same time. The poor kid tripped on his own feet, caught himself on the doorframe, and barely made it into the hallway without incident.
Sasha could remember being a youth like that. He had been all arms and legs and feet too big for his body. Dimitri and Kirill had been there with him. The three of them had grown up within the Tarasov ranks. Of course, Sasha had been the son of the pakhan, but his father had forced him to perform the same menial tasks as everyone else. Not that people believed that to be true. Kirill, especially, had teased Sasha about his father paving his way through the ranks. Sasha knew better. If he hadn’t hit a growth spurt his sophomore year of high school, he likely would not have lived through the experience. It was amazing what six inches in height and a hundred pounds of muscle could do.
Standing and stretching, Sasha went to the window and stared out into the yard. Perhaps Dimitri and Kirill thought that he would not investigate when a huge shipment of weapons went “missing.” It sounded as though they were going to attempt to sell the weapons to another buyer—maybe he should train that young man with good ears to be a spy. Those missing weapons would cause grave problems for the Tarasovs, but nothing compar
ed to the problems that would result if they had been purposefully diverted by his own men.
“Pakhan?”
Sasha turned at the familiar voice. Ivan was not the smartest man, but he was reliable. “What did you need, Ivan?” He was careful to keep the irritation from his voice. Ivan would be quick to assume he’d done something wrong.
“Why did you tell the woman she could go to the mall?” Ivan scratched his head, looking confused. “You told me she had to stay on the grounds.”
“The mall.” Sasha was trying to catch up with Ivan’s nonlinear logic. “Who was going to the mall?”
“Your wife.”
Sasha felt his temper beginning to boil. “And she told you that I said this was okay?”
“Yes. She said you told her to go.” Ivan nodded, looking very serious. “She said all the good stuff would be gone. Picked over or something.”
Why would Maria go to the mall? She hadn’t said anything about it. Was this some belated attempt to exercise independence? Sasha ground his teeth in irritation. The mall would have to wait. He had to find out if his idiot avoritets were about to turn the Tarasov operation upside down and bring the whole thing crashing to the ground.
“Ivan?”
“Da?” Ivan looked eager to help out.
“Have Pyotr bring my car around. I’m going out.”
Ivan’s eyebrows sloped down. He was obviously upset. “What about the lady?”
“She’s at the mall,” Sasha muttered. “She’ll come home when she’s ready.”
“Okay.”
Ivan went to find Pyotr, and Sasha was left with nothing but his temper to keep him company. If something happened to Maria, he was going to kill her. Of course there was no logic in that, but there was no logic in anything that happened where that woman was concerned.
Chapter Fifteen
This sneaking around crap was harder than it seemed. Maria squatted behind a dumpster and wrinkled her nose. It smelled awful and something distinctly disgusting trickled down the dented metal side of the thing. She tried not to breathe, but of course that was impossible. She settled for not retching, which would have likely alerted the two Tarasov soldiers standing ten yards away.
She knew Kirill and Dimitri only from her limited interactions with them around the house. Kirill was the rude bastard who had told her to go around when she’d been trying to get through the door from the backyard to Sasha’s offices. Dimitri was larger, louder, and probably stupider if his conversation was any indicator.
“Where is that Italian bastard?” Dimitri glanced at his watch.
Maria struggled to keep up with their rapid-fire Russian. She’d been picking up more and more around the house because Olga, Ana, and Oksana found it so amusing to use Russian to her face, usually to say something horrible about her. Nothing quite motivated a person like the desire to know what people who disliked you had to say on the topic.
Kirill was leaning against a stack of crates. He appeared to be flipping through images on his phone. “Do you think I should buy that house in Moscow with my share of the money?”
“Why would you want to go back to Moscow?” Dimitri casually reached around and smacked Kirill in the back of the head.
“Uh, because we’ll need to leave the country before Sasha finds out what we’ve done.” Kirill looked at Dimitri as though he were completely stupid. “He’s going to find out, you know. And he won’t take kindly to us stealing from him.”
Dimitri scoffed. “I’m not afraid of that little prick. Without his papa around to make us bow and scrape to him, he’s nothing but a pansy with a gun.”
Maria mouthed the words she was hearing. Pansy with a gun? She thought these men were supposed to be Sasha’s avoritets. In the Bratva, that was like a captain or a lieutenant. These men were supposed to be leading the soldiers. They’d taken the thief’s oath and vowed to live with honor among thieves. Stealing from their pakhan was serious business. She pitied the idiots. When Sasha finally got hold of them, he was going to tear them to pieces.
“Look!” Kirill was gesturing to the mouth of the alley. “There’s our contact.”
“Are you sure?”
“Who else would be down here?”
Dimitri shrugged, looking mystified. “I hope he has the cash.”
“Do you think that Grigori prick was on the up and up?” Kirill muttered. “He seemed a bit sketchy.”
“Was that before or after we cut his throat?” Dimitri actually laughed.
Maria squeezed her hands into tight fists until her nails cut into her palms. These men were laughing about how they had casually murdered her cousin. Grigori was a bit of a tool, but he deserved better than this!
“Shut up. It’s become such a pain the ass by now that I wish we’d have let the little shit live! His share of the cut wasn’t worth the risk,” Kirill told his friend. “Damn. Whoever is in that truck is getting out. The truck isn’t even big enough for these crates. Are you sure this is our contact?”
“Hello, boys.”
It only took Maria about five seconds to recognize her uncle. Carmine had been her mother’s brother. He was a capo in the Dinozzo crime family. What in the name of all the saints was he doing here?
“Carmine!” Kirill waved him over. “You didn’t bring a truck big enough for your loot. Did you change your mind?”
Even Maria could tell that Kirill was not the best businessman. Carmine’s smirk suggested he knew it too. The Italian mobster had shoulders twice as wide as Kirill’s and was even taller than Dimitri. He looked dangerous and came complete with three soldiers who exited the car at his signal.
“That’s the thing, boys,” Carmine drawled. “I just don’t think that doing business with you is a good idea.”
“Why is that?” Dimitri demanded roughly. He put his right fist in his left hand and looked menacing. “We have the goods. Right? What does it matter where they came from?”
“A lot of men think stealing from Sasha Tarasov is a bad idea.”
“Then they don’t know Sasha Tarasov,” Kirill shot back. “He’s weak.”
“I’ve seen the man fight,” Carmine told them. “He’s not weak.”
“Fine.” Dimitri started shoving the pallets back toward the cracked doors of the warehouse. “You don’t want the goods? I’m sure we can find someone who does.”
“That’s not what I said,” Carmine said. Then a wide smile split his face. “I just thought I should get rid of the middlemen. I’m sure you understand.”
The whole world slid to a near stop. Time slowed. Maria watched in abject horror as her uncle’s men pulled out their weapons and fired half a dozen times into Kirill’s and Dimitri’s bodies. The two Russians collapsed to the ground. Their blood soaked the pavement, and the coppery smell made Maria’s stomach lurch in disgust.
The sight and smell of the dead men’s blood, mingled with the scent of the dumpster, was too much. Maria fell to her knees and heaved. She choked as she retched, and the acid burned her throat, until she had nothing left. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, she looked up and realized that she now had an audience.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Carmine said with amusement. “This is certainly one complication I did not foresee.”
“What are you going to do?” Maria could not stop her voice was quavering. “You can’t hurt me. These men were thieves.”
“And that’s why you were here? Trying to sort out the thieves?” Her uncle sounded understanding until he reached down and yanked her to her feet. “You cannot possibly understand how much this pains me to do.”
“Then don’t—don’t do it,” she begged. She didn’t even know what he was threatening, but she had a feeling it was bad.
“You should have stayed home,” Carmine said ominously. Then he turned to one of his men. “Get the truck in here and these crates loaded before this bitch’s poor sap of a husband comes looking for her.”
***
Pyotr carefully navigated the alley
behind the warehouse. It was all Sasha could do to keep from begging the man to speed up. Pyotr was a cautious driver. His unwillingness to rush into anything had saved Sasha’s hide more than once. At the moment, however, he had very little patience for delay. Sasha wanted to hurry up and get to the mall. He needed to find his wife and yell at her until he felt better about the stupidity she had shown in leaving the safety of their home to go shopping.
“There are bodies,” Pyotr called over his shoulder. “Do you want me to stop here or try to get closer?”
“Stay here.” Sasha grimaced. He had a really bad feeling about this situation. “It’s possible that we might need to get out of here quickly. I don’t see any other cars, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a unit of soldiers down here to handle this?” Pyotr asked for the thousandth time.
“No.” Sasha sighed. “I’m fine on my own.” Truth be told, he did not want this information about Dimitri and Kirill getting out to the rest of the organization before he had a chance to sterilize it a bit. Having two avoritets go bad was not a confidence booster.
Sasha did not have to be a mind reader to get a sense of Pyotr’s uncertainty. He tried to relax anyway. He needed to keep his head if he was going to figure out what was going on. Right now, that was what mattered most.
The car came to a complete stop, and Sasha got out. He pulled on a pair of black leather gloves and strode toward the two bodies lying in the alley. He knew immediately that they were Dimitri and Kirill. He felt a moment’s loss. And anger—with them, with whoever killed them. It was complicated. They had betrayed him. They had shown themselves to be bad friends and worse subordinates. They could have been kings within the organization. They were both leading men within the Tarasov Bratva. Yet it hadn’t been enough.
Sasha squatted down and gazed at Kirill’s blank eyes. There was a bullet in his forehead, along with half a dozen shots to his torso. Obviously someone had wanted him very dead. Dimitri appeared to be in the same condition. The shots had come as a surprise—no guns in their hands nor on the ground. They had died without attempting to return fire or even pull their weapons. Sasha could see Kirill’s .357 peeking out from beneath his jacket. He had been armed. He simply hadn’t thought he had been in danger.
