I don’t know these men. I have no idea what actually just happened, besides almost getting killed and learning that Mina is trying to get me killed.
What I do know is that if not for these men, I’d be stone-cold dead, and my baby along with me.
So I’m feeling grateful.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not a little scared, because I heard the name Max and I know I’m about to meet my father. And Vika, whoever the heck that is.
I look like hell. I can feel it even though I haven’t looked in a mirror. My hair’s gotta be a rat’s nest, my shirt and black slacks look like I rolled out of bed in them, and I’ve probably got pit stains from the way I was sweating when Mr. Knife chased me around that office.
Stop freaking out, Ri. You’re alive and relatively unharmed.
I say relatively because now that I’m not three sheets and a step away from lunacy, I can feel the slow throb of the slice on my arm and the swelling of my cheek where I took that backhand.
“Where are we going? Why is this happening? Could I get a burger? I’m hungry. All I had for breakfast this morning was dry toast since Tatiana doesn’t seem to eat anything else. Can we stop for a potty break? My bladder hurts. What’s your name?”
I keep firing questions at him, my nerves and real need to urinate so ramped, I can’t stop myself even when he turns to me with a deep scowl and all but growls at me.
For the first time, I take a really good look at the man and feel myself melt into a puddle of appreciation. Dark brown hair, cut short at the sides and a little longer on top. Eyes the color of dark chocolate and a face that is hard but so appealing that I swear, I could totally try to forget Misha even exists.
This man is smoking hot, and with that air of danger and his very real attempt to look it, he’s exactly the kind of man I’d picture while reading a steamy novel.
“Christ. My name’s Lincoln. I work for Maximillian Leonides. Your father, or at least he thinks you’re his from all the reports that have been thrown around. He wants to meet you and he would have weeks ago if that crazy-ass husband of yours hadn’t refused,” he growls, throwing me a filthy look. “No to the potty break. Burgers aren’t food for a pregnant lady, and I don’t approve of dry toast for breakfast, either. Now shut the hell up before I get myself killed for throttling my own fucking cousin, lady.”
Cousin? I just macked on my own cousin?
It’s not my week, month, or year, it seems, as I feel my cheeks color and catch the driver smirking at me knowingly. The tongue I stick out at him earns me a chuckle, and I turn back to Lincoln to study him further.
On further inspection, I totally change my mind about his hotness and silently apologize to Misha for even thinking another man could be hotter. Even if he isn’t my favorite person at the moment.
“You’re my cousin?”
“Maybe. I’m Max’s brother Jakob’s bastard son, so we are related if you’re his and Vika’s. That’s all I know and all I have to say. Now shut up and try to calm down before we get there.”
Rude much?
“Look, Lost Link, I’ve been through a freaking ordeal here and I’m injured. You may not know this since we’re strangers and all, but I usually go to the freaking emergency room when I get a hangnail, so be fucking happy I’m not yelling my head off when my arms practically half-cut off,” I yell, bringing my arm up to inspect the finger-width cut that’s started burning like a mother now that I’m paying attention.
Lincoln gives my life-threatening wound a dismissive look and rolls his eyes at the other man.
“It’s a fucking scratch.”
“Scratch! I need to go to the hospital before gangrene sets in, you ape.”
“Jesus, can’t you go any faster, Lucas?” he snarls, making the man laugh and speed up.
“She’s so adorable, man. Doesn’t she remind you of Vik? I swear the dramatics must be genetic. Remember when she pinched her finger in the pasta roller?”
Lincoln’s mouth tilts up and I feel my own amusement flare at his look of complete adoration before he totally ruins the effect by scowling at me again.
I swear if he’s rude again, I’ma shove his nuts into his sinuses. From the bottom.
“I know you’re scared, traumatized, and nervous. Or whatever. But we aren’t here to hurt you. Max and Vik have been waiting to meet you for a while now.”
“Vik?”
“Don’t ask because I won’t answer any more questions. Just know that you’re safe and we won’t hurt you.”
Maybe not. Okay, definitely not, I think when his eyes go a little soft when I start chewing my bottom lip again.
“I need to go home, Lincoln. Misha—”
“Won’t miss you, sweetheart. Not where he is right now. Trust me,” he growls, folding his arms and looking away.
Lucas winces and I see sympathy in his eyes before they both proceed to ignore me and the questions I throw at them.
Shit. I knew I should have just stayed in bed and pillow-cried this morning. So much for Mama’s assurance that today would be a whole lot better.
So far, I think it may be the worst.
“What do you mean?”
I shouldn’t push, I know this when both men refuse to look at me at all, but I’m not in a good place and I am especially raw about the state of my marriage right now.
If they know something, which they certainly must because it hits me that they weren’t just there coincidentally, they had to have been watching me…
“Drop it, Irina.”
“No.”
I can’t. It’s been eight, long, excruciating days of pretending I don’t feel anything when I’ve been crying inside and into my pillow at night.
I miss him like a physical wound has opened in my chest. I hardly sleep because no matter how hot the temperature is, I’m cold at night without his warmth.
I miss the way he plays with my hair, the way he places little kisses on my nape, the low hum he doesn’t realize he makes as if he’s soothing me to sleep.
I miss the security I feel with just the lightest touch of his skin to mine and the weight of his arm at my hip.
I want it all so bad that I obsessively listen to the last voice message he left me before we parted because he chuckles in it.
“Irina…this is not—”
“Look, asshole, I don’t know you. I don’t know if me being in this car is even a good idea, but I’m trusting my instincts right now because it’s all I’ve got. On top of that, I just found out I’m freaking pregnant by my husband who I left but miss so much, my freaking chest is always tight. I almost died today. Died! Do you get that? And I’m a raging bag of hormones, so unless you want all this sweetness I’ve had brewing for the last twenty-five years to turn into evil rage, I’d answer my Goddamn question. Why won’t Misha miss me?”
Good God, I must have really taken a hit to the old personality in that office. Does PTSD make one do a three sixty on a dime? Because right now I don’t recognize myself.
Lincoln sighs heavily and throws Lucas a look before meeting my eyes.
“Your precious husband,” he spits, “met his ex for dinner last night.”
Okay, breathe, Irina. Breathe through the pain. You knew this would happen when you walked out and gave him the green light. It’s not exactly unexpected.
“See! This is why I didn’t want to tell you, woman,” he says, shoving a hand to his head in such a Misha way, I burst into tears immediately and start blabbering as I throw myself into his arms.
“Irina.”
He’s gone totally stiff and tries to push me away, but I cling all the harder, shoving my nose into that space between his neck and shoulder, getting my fluids all over his skin. Hmm, smells nice. But not hot nice, since we’re cousins. That would just be gross.
“Stop.”
“No. You need to comfort me and hug me and make it all better.”
“Who said that?”
“Those are the rules.”
“Ch
rist. Fine, but stop getting all your mucus and shit on my neck. It’s disgusting.”
“We’re family. We have the same DNA,” I mutter, only sniffling now that he’s wrapped his arms around me and is awkwardly patting my back.
Misha would be all over me, kissing my snotty face and rubbing against me to soothe me. The memory serves to make things worse, and that’s exactly how I meet my birth father for the first time. A wet, wailing, dramatic, unpleasant mess.
Chapter Three
Misha
I’m having a bad day. Worse than the days before. That’s saying a fucking lot since the last eight days have been utter hell since I looked into Irina’s eyes and realized the kindest thing I could do for her would be to walk away and let her get on with her life.
As a man who goes after what he wants and takes it, I am not familiar with sacrificing my own wants and happiness for others. That just goes to prove that what I feel for Irina is stronger than anything I have ever felt before.
It scares me because I think…I think it’s love. Honest, unadulterated love like I have never felt before but for one person—my child.
As it hits me, I feel it all just sink into place, like the puzzle pieces that have been missing for years, and I fall back into my chair, closing my eyes as a wave of anguish nails me right in the chest.
I should have known when she lay dying in my arms and my world stopped spinning that I’d fallen. Shit, I should have accepted it when I saw Mina again and felt nothing for her, not even contempt.
I love Irina.
So much so that I feel broken as I sit here in my office, a place that was once my haven, and have not the slightest ambition to do anything but wallow in my misery.
I know that if I’d told her I loved her that night, she would have given me a chance to explain and I’d still have her.
Fucking fool.
I am the world’s biggest idiot, a stubborn ass who would rather pretend not to feel anything than risk getting hurt. How did I not see that there was no danger with my angel? How could there be when she’s so full of love, I feel it coming from her in waves of glorious comfort?
I’ve been so blind, so cold, just for the sake of sparing myself any further pain, that I caused it anyway.
I want her back and yet I won’t go after her again, no matter how the desperation claws at me, because I know she is right.
She deserves so much more than a messed-up, broken man who could never be what she truly needs.
So instead of trying, I’m being noble and letting go.
The thing is, I have nothing left now. I don’t give a shit about the bottom line, my business, the family troubles. I care for nothing. I wake in the morning, when I can manage to sleep an hour or two and roll out of bed feeling nothing.
I’m running on autopilot, drifting, doing the barest minimum because I have to, because I need to safeguard Irina, and there is only one way to do that.
That is all that keeps me moving, or I fear I would have fallen back into a bottle and never gotten up again. My driving force since she left me has been Mina, the Chekovs, and gathering evidence of their alliance so that I can get rid of the threat.
And I will. I’ll ensure that I can safely take them all out once and for all, if only to ensure that Irina is never harmed again. And then I’ll live each day with nothing but her memory.
“We have a problem.”
Vadim’s voice snaps me out of my maudlin thoughts, and I raise a brow, not truly bothered or even curious as he slams into my office and comes at me like a raging bull.
“I don’t care. Take care of it or don’t.”
“Irina is gone, Misha.”
“I know. You think I don’t know? I—”
“I mean she’s fucking gone! Gone, disappeared. Vanished. Missing,” he snarls, the urgent fury in his tone sending me to my feet in a panic.
“What are you talking about? Tony would have called.”
“Tony. Joe found Tony unconscious and bleeding from a gut wound in the alley beside Tatty’s building an hour ago. According to Tatty, Irina wasn’t feeling well this morning and decided to go in late. Only she never made it into work. She’s not at the apartment and her phone goes straight to voice mail, Mish. She’s gone.”
I’m running for the door as he speaks, not knowing where I am headed, what I’m doing, just knowing that I need to move and do something to find her.
“You’ve spoken to the girls?” I ask as we reach the elevator and I punch the button with enough force to snap a finger.
“Da. They’re in a state. Nik’s been walking the neighborhood all morning and Eliza’s about ready to rip her hair out. We called Feliks as well, but none of them have heard from her. Leo even went around to her old building since she has a habit of drinking tea with a little old lady who lives there. Nothing.”
We exit the elevator at a run and dive into the car where I pause, frozen and trembling when it hits me. I have no idea where to start looking.
“Vadi, I-I don’t know what to do.”
The feeling sends me hurtling back to the past when I felt just as helpless, just as frantic and terrified, certain that I would lose the only thing I held dear in this world.
Just as I did then, I feel reality slipping precariously, my mind blanking of everything but sheer terror.
There’s only one thing I know right now, and it’s making my palms sweat so much that I’m not sure I could drive even if I wanted to. Tony was found with a knife wound. To the gut.
“The Knife,” I grind out, keying the ignition and slamming the car into gear.
The illegal U-turn has tires squealing and horns honking as I put my foot flat and head east. If they’ve hurt her in any way, I will personally take them all out. Every single one of them.
I don’t care who, why, where, or what repercussions will come my way. I’ll kill them all if they’ve hurt Irina in any way. She may no longer want me, but she will always be mine and I will always watch over her.
“Stop and think first, Misha,” Vadim growls, grabbing on to the door when I make a wide right turn and accelerate even more, my only thought right now to get to Irina.
“I’ll kill them.”
“Stop! Think. You had dinner with Mina last night. What did she say?”
Nothing, which almost had me reaching over the table and wrapping my hands around her throat. I fucking despise that bitch, so much that it stunned me as I sat across the table and pretended to give a shit about her vain, preening ass.
She’s so vapid and spiteful that I can’t believe I was ever blind enough to believe I could love a thing like her. Where once I saw beauty, all I see now is an empty, ugly shell that houses a soulless void of greed.
Mina has no light in her, no excess of love and warmth like my angel. She’s got no natural beauty past what little is left over after years of enhancements and dieting that have left her skinny, wasted, and hard.
She’s as ugly outside as she is on the inside, and just thinking that I once let that snake touch my skin makes me feel dirty.
“She said nothing. She spoke for hours about her dead husband and his money. And tried to seduce me back into her bed, as if I could even get hard for her after having Irina,” I spit.
Vadim chuckles a little and curses as I take another turn, my foot nowhere near the brake, the ass end of the car swinging out before righting itself.
“For God’s sake, Misha, just stop and think, brat. We need to think before we burst in on one of the families and start shooting. This could cause an all-out war and have the council on Papa’s ass. Mina must have hinted at something. I know that bitch and I know she would have said something.”
His words have the calming effect I need and I slow down as I start replaying last night’s ordeal in my head, my teeth grinding with disgust for ever going near that vile snake after tasting Irina’s lips.
“She spoke about going to the Hamptons over the weekend and seeing an old friend.”
And t
hen it hits me.
“The Chekovs had a meeting with Rafe. She went on and on about how they didn’t deserve to be ousted.”
“Okay. Then let’s think about how to find her instead of going in there guns blazing.”
“Vadi—”
“We won’t get to her even if they have her, Mish. You know this. She’ll be dead before we get there, and if it was their flunky who got to Tony, she could already be dead.”
“Shut your fucking mouth! You don’t say that,” I roar, my control slipping even more with the thought that she could already be gone.
“Our best bet right now is to find Ri. We went to Tatty’s apartment and there was no sign of struggle, so we know she must have left of her own accord. We need to know where she went.”
“I can do that,” I mutter, pulling over with a jerk of my wrist and slamming of the breaks. “Joe.”
It takes him two rings to answer before I’m barking at him.
“Get Lyle. I want him to access the tracker on Irina’s phone. I need to know where she’s been, if not where she is right now.”
“Hang on.”
The line is filled with Joe’s muttering and indecipherable chattering as he uses his private line to call Lyle, and then he’s back.
“Her last location was on Third.”
“What’s on Third?”
“An art studio, numerous little shops, and a doctor’s office.”
“Shit. I know where she went. How’s Tony?” I ask as I zip back into traffic and make a left.
“Alive. The wound just missed his liver and we got to him before he bled out. He’s out of the woods.”
“Good. Let me know if anything changes.”
“Boss? You need an extra set of hands on this? I don’t want you going into something alone,” Joe says, making me smile.
The man’s an asset, one I love having for those hours I can’t be with Ri, but if he believes that I need anyone at my back with what I’m capable of, then he’s going to get a rude awakening one of these days.
“I have Vadi. Call Leo and tell him to lock up and get the girls back to my place. I want them locked down till I find Irina, and I don’t want to have to worry about anything happening to them. And call Papa. I want two of his on Tony’s door while you and Lyle do what I asked this morning.”
BAD APPLE: The Complete Series (Parts 1-5) Page 21
