Nikolai

by Ava Bloom

  “I will think this over and make a plan,” Evgeni said, standing up and clearly signaling that the discussions were over. “We will make our move tomorrow. It’s Sunday, so most of Audaz will be with their families or at their churches or otherwise enjoying their day of rest.” He grinned. “If they want to continue to play dirty, I’ll match them at it.”

  He turned towards me. “Nikolai, you and I will discuss in private. Come to dinner tonight.”

  I nodded at him, hardly trusting my voice. But it seemed that a verbal answer wasn’t necessary; no sooner had I nodded than Evgeni was strolling out of the room.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew that there would be words that evening, when it was just the two of us alone, but if he were planning on making an example of me, he would have given me a dressing down already, in front of everyone else. I didn’t think things were going to be too bad; despite my anger, I had managed to present a valid argument.

  Diego caught my arm and pulled me off to the side. “You’re right that there are some similarities between your situation with Emily and how I would feel if it was my wife that Audaz had kidnapped,” he said in a hushed voice. “But there is one key difference.”

  “And that is?” I asked, trying not to feel waspish at his patronizing tone.

  Diego gave me a serious look, though. “I’m married to my Julia,” he reminded me.

  “Why should that matter?” I asked. “It’s still my fault that Emily is in this situation.”

  “It is,” Diego agreed. He paused. “But part of why I got married so quickly is exactly this reason. Evgeni understands that he can’t send me on missions like this anymore. There’s a reason I haven’t been doing as many deliveries. There’s a reason I wasn’t the one sent to Madrid. You know he never would have given you a mission like that before, not if he could help it. It’s an inconvenience and one that you, his right-hand man, should never have to put up with.”

  I frowned. “And what, Julia wouldn’t let you disappear to Madrid for the day with no word?”

  Diego gave me a look. “Now you’re just being petty,” he said. “Of course it’s nothing like that. Julia doesn’t get to say where I go or when. If it was something to do with work, I would do it, no questions asked.”

  “But Evgeni doesn’t ask you to do things like this anymore,” I said slowly, turning that information over in my mind. I remembered what I’d been thinking about on the train to Madrid, about how a relationship with Emily could compromise me. How it could draw my focus away from the things I needed to focus on.

  “It’s about more than just a lack of focus,” Diego said, as though reading my mind. He shook his head. “It’s the fact that I might no longer be rational. There is something that I value more than I value the Volkov family, our reputation, or even my own life. If someone came after Julia, I would have no choice but to go after her, whatever the cost. And you made it very clear, today, that you feel the same way about Emily.”

  I snorted. “So what, you’re suggesting that I marry her?” I asked. “Is that all marriage is about, finding someone who needs your protection and putting a ring on their finger.”

  Diego gave me a mild look. “Of course not,” he said. “But Kolya, you took an unnecessary risk by agreeing to deliver that package, if you had these feelings for Emily. You realize that if we get into a fight with Audaz, it’s because you couldn’t let this lie—because you let them set the perfect trap?”

  “That’s not fair,” I complained. “I told Evgeni that we shouldn’t deliver the package in Madrid, that we were risking a fight.”

  Diego sighed. “That package that you delivered, though, went to Boris Nikolaevich,” he said.

  I stared at Diego. “Boris Nikolaevich, the head of the Moscow mob?” I asked.

  Diego nodded. He looked around to make sure that there was no one there to overhear us, but most of the others had already left headquarters, no doubt disliking the current tension in the air. “I don’t know what it was that you delivered, but I have my own sources, Spanish sources,” he said in an undertone.

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to know anything more about it,” I said, even though I was more curious now than ever. But I was in enough hot water as it was.

  Diego clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You probably think it’s a little early to be considering marriage,” he said. “You know I felt the same way about Julia. But you owe it to the family to make it clear if you’re truly compromised.”

  I nodded, even though there was no way in hell that I was proposing to Emily. I had yet to sort out this tangled mess of feelings that had been stirring inside me ever since she had been kidnapped. Since before, that, really.

  She’d said that she was surprised when I invited her out again. I had been surprised as well, when I found myself dialing her number. It wasn’t just that the sex had been exceptional, though; wasn’t just that she had reacted so beautifully to my fingers against her skin. There was something more to her that I liked. The ease of conversation between us, her nervousness and those adorable blushes of hers, and the way she sometimes tripped over her words as she was talking to me. She was smart, I could tell. And just…sexy, in ways that I couldn’t even begin to describe.

  And now, it was my fault that she was currently being held in Audaz’s headquarters, having who knew what done to her. I swallowed hard. I would be lucky if she ever deigned to talk to me again. Marriage was definitely out of the question.

  Not that I was really considering it.

  Was I?

  Chapter Eight – Nikolai

  I stared out at the building, thinking wildly that this wasn’t the way these things ever played out in the movies. We weren’t here on a dark and stormy night. No, we were here in the middle of the day, on a Sunday. As Evgeni had explained, it was one of the best times possible to catch the Spaniards flatfooted.

  It also meant that it was surprising that we had so many Spaniards there to help us out. I frowned, looking around at our small group, where we were assembling in a warehouse near Audaz’s headquarters. Suddenly, I saw someone else that I wasn’t expected.

  “Diego, what are you doing here?” I asked, pulling him off to the side. “After everything that you told me about yesterday, about how you wouldn’t take part in anything dangerous anymore, for Julia’s sake, I wouldn’t expect you here.”

  Diego sighed. “How do you think all these men got here?” he asked, gesturing around. “I called in a few favors. But none of these guys would be here if I weren’t here. They’re loyal to me, not to you Russians.”

  I frowned at him. “You think we’re going to need backup.”

  “I know we’re going to need backup,” Diego said, shaking his head. “I just can’t shake the feeling that things aren’t going to go smoothly today. Audaz must be expecting us. Maybe not today, maybe we have the upper hand there. But they have to know that we’re not going to let them just get away with what they did.”

  “You think there’s going to be a fight?”

  “If there’s going to be a fight, I want to make sure we’re prepared,” Diego said simply. “I want you to try to make it out of there without incident, of course. But I owe Evgeni one last favor. This buys my freedom, so to speak.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t like this,” I said flatly.

  “I don’t either,” Diego said simply, shrugging his shoulders. “But there’s no other way, not if you want to rescue Emily.”

  And that was it, what it came down to. We didn’t have the manpower to take on Audaz, no matter what sort of stunt they’d pulled. But my personal decision was coming down to, did I protect my family or did I protect Emily?

  At that moment, I wasn’t so sure that I was making the right decision. Not knowing the danger that Diego was putting himself into. But then again, Diego at least knew the risks. Diego knew exactly what he was getting himself into, and he didn’t have to be here if he didn’t want to be.

  Emily had had no such choice. Sh
e hadn’t known anything about this. And so I had to rescue her.

  I just had to try to do it without being detected.

  I nodded at Diego and then impulsively pulled him into a brotherly hug. Then, I turned, nodded my head at Aleksander, who had somehow managed to get insider information about the very layout of the Audaz headquarters building, and headed out of the warehouse, leaving the backup forces gathering there.

  We snuck into the headquarters building. It was another former warehouse. There was a popular club in one corner, Audaz’s main business front. But we were headed much deeper than where the public usually ended up.

  We crept slowly along, taking out cameras as we went, neither of us having to speak.

  After a while, Aleksander tapped me on the shoulder and jerked his head towards a doorway, and I followed him through it. “This is their command center,” he said under his breath, gesturing around at the many screens, some of which had flickered out as we’d passed. They weren’t incapacitated permanently; the tool that we were using instead interfered with their signals for about five minutes, long enough for us to creep past, and then they would flicker back online.

  We had hoped that it would keep from raising suspicion among Javier’s men. But apparently, we needn’t have bothered: there was no one there to watch the screens.

  I raised an eyebrow at Aleksander. “Does any of this feel weird to you?” I asked. The fact that we’d encountered no one in the building, the fact that the command center was empty… It was almost as though Audaz had deserted the place.

  Or like they had laid a very intricate trap.

  I swallowed hard, scanning the screens for Emily, desperate to assure myself that she was still there. And there! She was huddled in a screen in the bottom left corner, in a room that appeared to have a bunch of storage boxes.

  “How do we get there?” I asked Aleksander, hoping he would recognize it.

  He frowned. “That looks like the storage rooms for the club,” he said. “Those are beer crates that she’s sitting against.”

  “Lead the way,” I said.

  Aleksander was still studying the screens though. “There’s no one here except us,” he said, shaking his head. “You and me and your girl.”

  I frowned, realizing that he was correct. I was starting to get an increasingly bad feeling in my gut. “It’s a trap,” I said. “But what kind of trap?”

  I didn’t have long to wonder; just then, there was static in our headsets. “Nikolai, Nikolai!” Diego said, his voice frantic. “You’ve got to get over here—Audaz has us surrounded and they’re picking us off!”

  His words were punctuated by bursts of static. In the background, I could hear what sounded like gunshots.

  There was no way the police weren’t cracking down on us after this. I felt a rush of guilt go through me as I thought about what Diego had said, about how the gang violence would be all my fault when it erupted. But no matter how badly I wanted to run outside, to help them out, I had to finish what I had come here for. I looked back at the screen and then over at Aleksander, who was waiting for me to make a move.

  “We have to get her out of here,” I said, jerking my thumb towards Emily on the screen. “If the police come down on us, she can’t be here. She can’t be caught up in all of this.”

  “Okay,” Aleksander said simply.

  I spared a moment to wonder when I had gained such authority in our circle. I had questioned Evgeni during the meeting, and everyone had ended up siding with me. Now, here was a man whom I hardly knew, and he was trusting me to make decisions that could impact his whole life.

  It was a responsibility, I realized suddenly, that I didn’t want. I might have been working towards it the whole time that I’d lived in Barcelona, taking on whatever Evgeni asked of me and learning the working of the family and the group and the broader gang network in Barcelona. But I had no desire to take over for Evgeni.

  Instead, I wanted to rescue Emily.

  I raced after Aleksander, skidding on the smooth, tile floors as we left the rougher, warehouse-like sections of the building and moved towards the parts that the public might actually see. We burst through the door into the storeroom, and Emily rolled her head towards us, clearly drugged.

  “Emily!” I cried, flinging myself down at her side.

  She sighed softly, a small smile coming to her face. “I knew you’d be here,” she murmured. Then, her eyes fluttered closed.

  I looked over my shoulder at Aleksander. “Get her out of here,” I told him. “Bring her back to my place. Get her comfortable. I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”

  “Yes, sir,” Aleksander said, no trace of irony to his tone.

  I nodded at him and then got to my feet. It was easy enough to find the exit to the club, and from there, I found my way out onto the street. The sounds of the fight were clear from here, and I paused in the doorway, knowing they were probably looking for me, ready to shoot.

  I darted across the street when there was a break in gunfire. When I entered the warehouse that I’d left the Volkov men, along with Diego’s men, in, I paused, staring around at the carnage.

  “Diego!” I cried, flying across the room and skidding to a stop next to my best friend, who lay on the ground clutching at his stomach.

  He looked at me with wide eyes. “Kolya,” he whimpered as I tore off strips of my shirt to use as a bandage. “Kolya, you have to look after Julia for me,” he said.

  “No I don’t,” I snapped. “You’re going to be fine. This is just a…flesh wound.”

  It was anything but, I could tell as I moved his hands to the side. It was bad. But he was Spanish; that meant I could take him to the hospital and there would be no questions asked. It was a hunting accident or something.

  It might be a little risky, I reflected, since the police were sure to be investigating this. In fact, it was strange that they weren’t here already…

  As though that thought had summoned them, I suddenly began to hear sirens outside, a sure sign that the fight was over. I just had to get Diego to the hospital. Then go home and make sure that Emily was okay. And then go find Uncle Evgeni and apologize for screwing things up so badly.

  Because men had died today. I could hear screams all around me, could smell the blood thick in the air. If there had been any question remaining in my mind, it was gone now: I didn’t want the responsibility of this. I didn’t want to be the one who made these sorts of orders in the future.

  Diego coughed, and blood spattered his lips. He caught my hands as I started to tie rough bandages around him. “Get out of here,” he said. “Go. But take care of Julia for me…”

  “Diego,” I said, feeling tears in my eyes. But I knew, deep down, that he was right. There was no saving him now. “I’ll avenge you,” I swore. “I’ll make those Audaz sons of bitches pay. I swear it.”

  Diego looked like he wanted to say something in response to that; there was a final moment of clarity in his eyes. But before he could give voice to those words, he breathed out one last, raspy breath, and then the awareness faded from his eyes.

  I reached out and closed his eyes, but that was the best that I could do. I did a cursory look to see if there was anyone living that I could drag out of there with me, but the rest of our guys seemed to have already finished that job. All that was left was to get out of there before the police arrived.

  So I fled without a backwards glance, kicking off my shoes outside the building so that I wouldn’t leave a trail of bloody footprints behind me.

  Chapter Nine – Emily

  I shifted against the sheets, surprised at how silky and smooth they felt. I ached all over, and I tried to remember why. Had I gone for a long run the previous day? Maybe down to the beach…

  The beach.

  I sat bolt upright, remembering the picnic with Nikolai, remembering the guys that had taken me and locked me in that storeroom. I swallowed hard, trying to piece together where I was since I definitely wasn’t there anymore.
My hands were clenched in the soft fabric of the blanket, and I slowly turned my head to the side. I had been here once before, I realized. In Nikolai’s bed. And there, slumped in a chair next to the bed, was Nikolai.

  My eyes widened as I stared at him. He looked pale and exhausted, and there was blood smeared on his clothes, his cheeks, his hands.

  “What happened?” I asked hoarsely. “Are you okay?”

  Nikolai stared at me for a long moment and then nodded. “I’m okay,” he said.

  “But you’re…injured?” I asked, gesturing towards the blood.

  Nikolai blinked, and it was like he only suddenly became aware of the picture that he presented. “I’m fine,” he said, leveraging himself out of his seat. “I should…shower.”

  I swallowed hard, wanting to talk to him. But I couldn’t think of the words to say, and he was already drifting off out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. I realized, as he went, that I really didn’t want to be in there alone.

  I shakily pushed the covers aside and followed him, glad that he hadn’t locked the door behind him. Nikolai was already under the spray, his body mostly obscured by the steam, outside of a sharp outline.

  I slowly stripped off my clothes and stepped into the shower with him, burrowing into Nikolai’s warm side. He didn’t say a word, just slipped his arms around me as I started to shake, tears falling from my eyes. But I wasn’t scared anymore, not now that I was there with him. I felt so safe, so protected. Nikolai had come to find me, wherever I had been taken.

  And even though I knew that I should be running the other direction, that it was his fault that I had been kidnapped in the first place, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he had come to rescue me, that even though I’d been kidnapped, he’d come to save me.