by Bella Rose
Pyotr’s gaze slid to Annika. “If you’ll excuse us?”
“No.” Feliks didn’t wait for his friend. He was already heading off to Pyotr’s study. “Annika stays with me.”
“As you wish.” Pyotr’s face was tight with some suppressed emotion he tried unsuccessfully to hide.
Feliks entered the study but couldn’t sit down. His arm hurt like hell. He was pretty sure he was still sluggishly bleeding everywhere. On top of that, he was beginning to suspect the people closest to him had been lying through their teeth ever since he could remember.
“Now.” Pyotr shut the door. “Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?”
Annika had taken a seat on the couch where only a few hours earlier Feliks had sat discussing his suspicions about the council with Pyotr. Her expression was stoic. She looked worn out. Her hair was tangled and her clothes were rumpled, but there was a fire in her eyes that told him she was far from down.
Feliks cocked his head at Pyotr. “You’re not even going to comment on the fact that I’ve been shot?”
The older man didn’t answer right away. He meandered toward his desk and took a seat in the comfortable executive chair that gave him a command view of the room. “I figured that the story of how you’d come to be shot was part of the reason you wished to speak with me.”
Feliks hated how suspicious he felt of this man he had known almost his entire life. Still, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have reasons to be. “The gunshot is courtesy of Yuri Orlov.”
“Yuri shot you?” Pyotr’s incredulity seemed genuine, but Feliks suspected he had already known the particulars.
“Yes,” Feliks confirmed. “And Vadir Polzin is dead.”
“What?”
Feliks felt his anger rising as he watched Pyotr’s facial expression. “Now that was a shock.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Feliks glanced at Annika, wanting to confirm what he already knew. She gave him a barely perceptible nod. She’d also noted the difference in the veracity of Pyotr’s responses.
“You weren’t surprised that Yuri shot me,” Feliks explained. “Yet you were stunned that Vadir was dead.”
“How did it happen?” Pyotr demanded through clenched teeth.
Annika finally spoke. “Yuri Orlov shot him in the head. They were fighting, but I’m not entirely sure why. My father had already told us many things about your syndicate and the business deals that often happened between him and your council.”
“Why don’t you just tell us the truth?” Feliks said, his tone razor sharp.
“What is the truth?” Pyotr said.
“That you were taking bribes along with the Orlovs,” Feliks guessed.
Pyotr didn’t even bother to try and hide the truth. He simply nodded. “Business is business, you know. It does not matter how an end is achieved as long as the goal is met.”
Feliks felt every bit of respect he’d ever had for this man shriveling away to nothing. “So making money was the goal. And it did not matter how you got it, as long as it happened.” Feliks paced more energetically, feeling the bleeding in his arm intensify as his anger caused the blood to pump furiously through his veins. “All of these high ideals about playing by the rules and respecting the syndicate and the council’s decisions. That’s all bullshit if it conflicts with your income.”
“Spare me your idyllic bullshit,” Pyotr scoffed. “Vasily and I disagreed on this perk of being a council member. He felt exactly as you do.”
“Which is why you didn’t mind so much when he was murdered.”
Pyotr sat forward, his face a mask of anger. “Do not dare to suggest that I was responsible for Vasily’s death.”
“You let it happen,” Feliks accused. He stood in front of Pyotr’s desk and placed his hands flat on the top. Leaning forward, he glared at the older man as though he were going to rip him apart. “You didn’t stop it. And you could have. You knew he was going to the warehouse to try and catch Vadir and the Orlovs making a deal. You knew he would never make it out of there alive.”
“Vasily was never supposed to die,” Pyotr snapped. “It was meant to be a lesson.”
“And my father?” Annika asked bitterly. “Do you suppose that he’s learned his lesson now too?”
“Your father was an insolent piece of shit who refused to follow anything but his own rules. He died because he was too stupid to respect his betters,” Pyotr seethed.
She leaped to her feet. “Did you send Yuri to kill my father?”
Pyotr rubbed one hand down his face and sighed. “At this point nobody is sending Yuri anywhere. He’s completely gone off on his own. The boy has always been headstrong. Now he is power mad and determined to destroy everything.”
“I noticed,” Feliks said sarcastically. “He seems to have far more information than I would imagine it is wise for him to possess, and he has a keen desire to use it to his benefit. He’s a bit like a cockroach.”
Pyotr’s throat moved as he swallowed. “What sort of information?”
Was it Feliks’s imagination, or did Pyotr look nervous? “He claims the only reason the council would ever support me on a bid for position was because Vasily was my father.”
ANNIKA DIDN’T NEED a very intimate knowledge of Pyotr Alkaev to see the truth written all over his aging face. The man looked positively ill. She tried to imagine how it had been possible to keep such a huge secret from Feliks for his entire life.
Feliks chuckled, the sound horribly bitter in the close air of the study. “I can see that I don’t really need a confirmation. Your expression says it plainly enough.” Feliks clenched his fist, anger evident in every line of his body. “My father was Ioann Koslov. The council was joking about the meaning of my name a few weeks ago. How is this possible?”
“Koslov was the man Vasily chose to marry your mother once she became pregnant. He was already married to his first wife. Vasily loved your mother, but she was a mistress, not a wife.” Pyotr’s pity was almost as despicable as his words.
“And Ioann Koslov. He knew? Why would he be so kind to me as a child if I was no kin to him? He was distant at times, but he was a busy man. He never treated me as anything but his son,” Feliks insisted. It tore Annika up inside to see what it cost Feliks to rethink the entire relationship he’d had with the man he had thought to be his father.
Pyotr cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable. “I was not aware that Yuri knew about the connection between you and Vasily.”
“But Yuri’s father knows.” Feliks was most certainly fishing for the truth. “How long has Motya Orlov known about the connection between Vasily and me?”
“I’m not entirely certain.” Pyotr steepled his fingers in front of him and closed his eyes. “I believe it has been many years. Vasily suspected that he’d had too much vodka one night with Motya and somehow let the truth slip.”
Annika could see what it cost Feliks to set aside the ramifications of that truth and focus on its application to their current predicament. The strength of his resolve was awe inspiring. She felt a jolt of pride and a wave of possessiveness that made her want to shout from the rooftops that this man belonged to her.
Feliks exhaled slowly, obviously focusing on the most important thing about this situation. “So why is Yuri claiming that is the only reason the council would ever approve my appointment?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes. You do.”
Pyotr cursed in Russian, letting his mask of civility slip just long enough for Annika and Feliks to see the selfish man who lay beneath it. “Vasily was going to put a stop to a council member’s right to make deals with men like Vadir Polzin!”
“Good.”
“Not good! Do you know how much money that would have cost me?”
“You? What about Orlov? I thought he was the one who had a grudge against Vasily!” Feliks snarled. “Now I hear you were counting on money from bribes. Who killed Vasily, Pyotr?”
“Yuri Orlov kille
d Vasily.” Pyotr shot to his feet. “It wasn’t supposed to happen, but Vasily could never keep his mouth shut. He threatened to tell the other members of the council.”
Feliks curled his upper lip in disgust. “Did Vasily know that you were a liar who took bribes?”
Annika had focused so intently on Pyotr, waiting for an answer, that she failed to see the fourth person who had entered the room until it was too late. Yuri Orlov snatched her from her seat on the couch. He wrapped his arm around her neck and put an incredible amount of pressure on her collarbone. The pain was instant and terrible.
She made a strangled noise.
Feliks hads also been focused on Pyotr. Now he drew back from the desk and spun around to face Annika and Yuri.
“Let her go, Yuri,” Feliks said quietly.
Yuri snorted. “I don’t think I will.”
Annika was afraid to move. If he cranked her neck around any more it was going to snap. She breathed shallowly, trying not to move. From the corner of her eye she could see the murderous rage on Feliks’s face. Yet she didn’t want him to do anything rash. He was already injured. Now wasn’t the time to get into a fight with Yuri. The man had already proven himself to be a wily opponent.
Pyotr pulled a weapon from his desk. He leveled the barrel at Yuri and took aim. “Yuri, this is not what we agreed upon.”
“I find I don’t like what we agreed upon,” Yuri taunted. “So I’ve decided to change things to suit me. I hope you don’t mind.”
Yuri pivoted, dragging Annika with him. She moaned in pain as he wrenched her neck even farther. Her joints creaked in protest. A cold shot of dread slipped down her spine. This was not going to end well. It couldn’t.
“Let her go!” A shrill, female voice rang through the study.
The heavily accented voice could only belong to one person. Annika felt the tears begin when she saw Irina enter the room holding another weapon. Her hands shook, the barrel of the gun bouncing as she trembled with obvious fear.
“Come on, Irina.” Yuri’s voice was filled with loathing. “Although I suppose I cannot fault you for interfering. Whores always stick together. No?”
“I heard these men talking,” Irina said haltingly. “You killed my husband!”
“Vasily?” Yuri’s flippant disrespect for his vanquished opponent seemed to enrage Irina even further. “Yes. I killed that silly old bastard.”
“You will die for that!” Irina screamed.
Annika closed her eyes when Irina squeezed the trigger. Her position left her so close to Yuri as to be nothing more than a human shield. Either Irina was a crack shot, or Annika was going to be full of holes. The odds didn’t look so good for Annika.
The shot came, but there was no pain. Annika opened her eyes, confused. Then she saw Irina sinking slowly to the floor. There was a bullet hole in her forehead. Behind her, the wall of Pyotr’s study was covered in blood and brain matter.
Annika retched at the sight. The coppery scent of blood was overwhelming. She could hardly breathe, and yet Yuri was still dragging her toward the doorway. He was about to make his exit. This man who deserved to die so many times over.
“Yuri Orlov! I’m coming for you!” Feliks shouted.
Yuri threw one look over his shoulder. “Oh I’m counting on that. Come to my father’s home in an hour. There’s a council meeting, and you’re required to attend.”
Chapter Thirteen
Feliks couldn’t think straight. Not with Pyotr’s incessant weeping as the man cradled Irina’s lifeless body in his arms, and not with the fear he felt in his belly for Annika’s fate. Feliks had never experienced this sort of indecisiveness. His world was usually so ordered, completely cut and dried. There was a job. He developed a strategy to complete the job, and then he was done and on to the next thing.
“I am so sorry, my old friend,” Pyotr wailed. “Vasily! I promised to care for her and now she is dead. Dead!”
“Mama?” Oksana poked her little head into the room.
Pyotr struggled to turn his back in order to keep Oksana from seeing her mother in such a way. “Feliks! Get Oksana out of here. Please.”
Feliks stood and scooped the girl into his arms. She started to cry. He was helpless as to how he might soothe her. He could hardly imagine how to soothe himself.
“Uncle Feliks, why is Mama on the floor?” Oksana asked, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“She’s gone to be with your papa, little one,” Feliks said softly. “It will be okay.”
“But who will take care of me?”
Oksana sounded small and helpless, and Feliks realized that a child of her age had so little understanding of death that she might not truly realize what had happened. The thought made him incomparably sad.
He stroked Oksana’s blonde head. “I will take care of you, little one. I promise.”
“Will I go to live with you?” she wanted to know.
Feliks thought of the horror his life had just become in the last twenty-four hours. Yet there were so many good things as well. For the first time in his life he had something to live for. He cared whether he lived or died. There was a future for him, a family, and a woman who looked at him as though he were her world.
“Yes,” Feliks told Oksana. “You can come to live with me once this is all finished.”
He entered her room and glanced around. There was a bed and a tiny table and chairs. A few toys were strewn about, but for the most part it was the room of a child who worried very much about pleasing the important people in her life.
Setting Oksana on the floor, Feliks squatted down to her level. “I need for you to stay here in this room until I come back for you. All right?”
She nodded, her big eyes filling with tears. “Mama is gone. Isn’t she? Just like my papa is gone. It’s just like you said.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “It is.”
“I miss Mama.”
Big tears coursed down her chubby cheeks, and Feliks welcomed the feel of her little arms around his neck. It occurred to him then that this tiny cherub child was actually his half sister. The knowledge only made him more determined to survive the night, rescue Annika, and return to collect this poor orphaned child.
Yuri Orlov had ruined the lives of so many. It was time for him to pay the price for his arrogance.
“Let’s put you into bed. Okay?” Feliks suggested.
She nodded.
He could see from the rumpled covers that Irina had already put Oksana to bed once this evening. It gave him a strange feeling in his midsection to think of that woman tucking her child in for the very last time without even realizing it. Life was so fleeting.
“I need you to stay in bed, deep down beneath the covers. Okay?” Feliks told her. “No matter what happens. You stay right here until I come back for you.”
“Yes, Uncle Feliks,” Oksana said softly. “Good night.”
“Good night, malenkaya.”
He cast one last look over his shoulder at the tiny bed with its precious cargo before turning off the overhead light. He reached over and pushed the switch for the nightlight. Instantly the ceiling was covered in prancing unicorns and castles. The innocence in the scene bolstered his resolve. Survival was not a question. It was imperative.
Closing Oksana’s door, Feliks made his way back downstairs to the study. Pyotr was exactly as he had been the last time Feliks saw him. He held Irina’s body and stared at the wall as though catatonic.
“I’m sorry,” Pyotr said as Feliks entered the study.
Feliks didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say. Instead, he went directly to the button beneath the desk that opened a secret compartment in one wall. A veritable arsenal of weapons was exposed.
Choosing a few items that he would need, Feliks tried not to think of the possibility for failure. He remembered Oksana and Annika. He focused on those two people and the tiny life within Annika’s body that would eventually be his very own child.
“I should come with you,”
Pyotr said dully.
Feliks snorted. “I hardly think you would be of any use.”
“I can still hold a gun.”
“Then choose one and be done.”
Pyotr struggled to gain his feet. Walking unsteadily, he made his way over to retrieve his personal sidearm.
“I’m going to take Oksana with me as soon as this is over,” Feliks told Pyotr. “I thought you should know.”
“My housekeeper will be glad of that.” Pyotr put his suit jacket on over his weapon, straightening his lapels as though he were truly getting ready for any old council meeting. “She complains nonstop about the nuisance of a child in the house.”
That only decided Feliks more firmly. He and Annika had to live through this ordeal. If for no other reason than fate seemed determined to make them parents.
ANNIKA TOOK DEEP breaths, trying to stay focused on the concept of escape. It was a possibility. It had to be. She refused to just give up. So as the dark car hurtled through the approaching dawn, she racked her brain for anything that might be leverage against Yuri Orlov.
“It really is too bad about your papa.” Yuri’s casual tone was almost an insult to Vadir’s memory. “He was good for money. I think of him as a man who knew what was important.”
Annika couldn’t help it. She had to say something. “In other words, you appreciated his selfish nature because you feel like it validates your equally selfish nature.”
He belted out a laugh so loud it hurt her ears within the close confines of the car. “Da! Exactly! It is good that you can see the practical side of things. That will make today much easier for you.”
“Oh, you mean when you kill me?” It hurt to say the words, but she wasn’t about to back down. She wanted this asshole to acknowledge that he was taking her life. She wanted him to see her as a person before he attempted it.
Yuri steered the car between two narrow brownstones, heading into a tiny parking area located in what had probably once been a carriage yard. He parked and then shut off the engine. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her. There was something so frankly assessing about his gaze that it gave her the creeps.
