Kings of Brighton Beach Bundle

by D. B. Shuster

  “The question makes you nervous?” He perched on the corner of the table and leaned toward her. He smelled of Old Spice and spearmint gum.

  “What? No.” His questions didn’t make her nervous. The true answers to them did. What kind of business were her father and brother really involved in?

  “Do you have any idea who your father or brother might have upset? Or who their competitors are?”

  “Is that what you think this is all about? Some business competition?” She took another sip of water.

  “No, Inna. It’s not what I think it’s about. It’s not what you think it’s about either. Is it?”

  The events of the day were taking their toll. Tonight was a hell of a night to stop her medicine cold turkey. She gripped the empty cup under the edge of the table, holding on so tightly to her slipping control that she crushed the cup in her hands.

  “Your family’s involved in organized crime.”

  She inhaled sharply at the idea and choked on the water in her mouth. She coughed and sputtered. “You mean, the mafia? That’s not possible,” she said reflexively.

  Once, she had imagined the very same thing, only to reject the notion. Her papa, the honorable and distinguished man she knew him to be, couldn’t possibly be a white collar criminal. Instead, she had latched onto the idea that he might be a spy, a theory terrifying in its own right, but one that elevated him above the criminal element. She recognized the romanticism now.

  Organized crime? She thought about Igor, dead in the back of his own delivery truck. Maybe it was possible. She had vowed to consider the possibilities. To look at what was in front of her.

  Detective Hersh cocked his head. She could feel him studying her, eyeing her sweaty face and shaking hands. She imagined she looked like a junkie in detox, not at all credible. Mentally unstable, Dr. Kasparov had said. Paranoid.

  If she truly considered the possibility of her family’s involvement in organized crime, was she now lucid, seeing clearly? Or was she sliding into the rabbit hole of fear and suspicion that would ultimately land her in an asylum, where white was the new black and no one cared if you drooled out of the side of your mouth?

  She shuddered at the thought. The threat of institutionalization had always snapped her back to reality and motivated her to bury her unfounded suspicions.

  But maybe they hadn’t been unfounded.

  “Are you okay?” the detective asked.

  “No,” she said as the repressed memories bubbled up—snatches of conversation that quickly ended when she entered the room, an expired Russian passport with her father’s picture and a different name printed on it, and the lucrative warehouse almost empty of supplies. Puzzle pieces that together had seemed so damning.

  A lot of nothing, Dr. Kasparov had told her. An overactive imagination. Paranoia that latched onto conspiracy theories. Hallucinations. With each new sliver of evidence she presented, Dr. Kasparov had told her that she was clinically delusional and needed her medication adjusted.

  She hadn’t broached this particular topic with Dr. Shiffman, too afraid of opening the Pandora’s box of fear and illness. She wanted to get better. She wanted a normal life.

  Hersh took off his glasses. He took his time cleaning the lenses with a cloth that he pulled from his pocket. Her hands shook harder as he waited for her to speak, as if a demon locked inside of her rattled its cage to get out.

  She wasn’t ready to voice any suspicions again. Perhaps it was enough, for now, to acknowledge them to herself.

  Finally, he put the glasses back on and let out a deep sigh. “You’ve had a rough day. A rough couple of days. How about I send you home, and I’ll stop by tomorrow to talk with you?” He once again shone his compassion on her and treated her kindly.

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak and dreading their next encounter.

  He walked her out to the front of the precinct. Mikhail was waiting on a wooden bench, and he rose when he saw her. “I came to take you home.”

  He laid his hand on her shoulder, and she almost flinched at the contact. While she was grateful for his efforts to protect her this morning, she didn’t want him touching her. She remembered all too clearly the horrific pass he’d made at her, when he’d promised to grab her hair, rip her panties, and make her scream for mercy. To be fair, he didn’t know what had happened to her in college, but he creeped her out all the same.

  He might be her brother’s friend and maybe she should forgive him for the off comment he’d made, but her instincts screamed to stay away from him.

  Hadn’t she promised herself not to ignore her intuition?

  He was too smooth, and he stood too close. She imagined other women found him attractive. Perhaps they even liked his straightforward offer of rough sex, but she didn’t. She dodged him by turning toward Detective Hersh. “What about Vlad? I promised I’d wait for him.”

  “We have more questions for him. It might be a while.”

  “See?” Mikhail said. “No reason you should cool your heels here. Look at you. You’re exhausted. And shaking. Have you even eaten anything?” He grabbed her hand and started pulling her toward the door.

  Inna supposed she must look a wreck. Should she struggle? Cause a scene? She didn’t want to go with him, but maybe he was right. Maybe she needed to go home, eat something, rest up.

  She glanced back at Detective Hersh. He didn’t seem alarmed at all by the prospect of her leaving with Mikhail. Were her fears unreasonable?

  “I’ll let Vlad know that you went home,” Detective Hersh said, as if he agreed with Mikhail’s course of action.

  She let Mikhail lead her away, but she stayed wary.

  MIKHAIL

  “COME ON, INNA,” Mikhail coaxed. “Look at you. You need to eat something.”

  “I’m really not hungry,” she protested.

  He caught her hand and felt the tremor in her fingers. He stepped closer, into her space. She was seated at the kitchen table in her stark industrial-style kitchen with its polished concrete countertops and stainless steel appliances. The rough wood table was covered with the fast food feast he’d insisted on buying for her, but she hadn’t touched any of it. Not even a salty french fry.

  Didn’t matter. He didn’t care what she ate so long as she took a few good long gulps of her milkshake.

  “Please, Inna.” He caressed her with his voice while he held her hand. Her eyes widened, but she looked more ready to bolt than swoon.

  He wanted to kiss her, to see her eyes widen even more, perhaps even to shock her with the force of his passion for her. He held back, careful of frightening her just now, but imagining how he would like to take her here, now, on the floor of her spotless kitchen.

  He wondered how long it would be before she relaxed and warmed in his presence. How long before he no longer needed to alter her state to get what he wanted from her?

  When she was out, he could do whatever he wanted to her, but he thought he might like her participation. He’d like to override her resistance.

  He would overpower her, overwhelm her, throw her down hard against the cold tiles, make her writhe under him, and beg for anything and everything. For release. For him to stop. For him to take her harder and faster. It didn’t matter, really, so long as she eventually gave him her total submission.

  He relished the vision of Artur’s little princess kneeling at his feet and begging him to dirty her up or let her suck him off.

  Abruptly he cut off this line of thinking. Now was too soon to act on even a fraction of his impulses. She was too skittish, too likely to scream and call for help.

  A dose of the newest cocktail he and Aleksei were selling, even a small one, would fix that.

  This new drug would lower Inna’s inhibitions and make her more susceptible to Mikhail’s expert seduction. Once she stopped being so skittish, the right words and the right touch would light her up.

  “At least drink some of the milkshake,” he urged. “It’s vanilla. Your favorite. Right? I remem
bered,” he said. “Drink a little. Just a sip even. Your father won’t forgive me if you pass out from hunger. And he’s already angry at me as it is for the scare you had this morning.” He infused his request with the lies most likely to guilt her into compliance.

  Her father had no idea Mikhail was here with her now. Artur hadn’t called him. His boss wouldn’t, not after the abrupt dismissal he’d given Mikhail this morning. But Inna didn’t know that.

  She also didn’t know that the man he’d hired to chase her this morning had been spying on her all day, waiting for her to leave Koslovsky Imports to make another grab for her and steal her away from Vlad, giving Mikhail another opportunity to play hero. Neither he nor Vitaliy had expected another set of kidnappers to show up.

  “Fine. I don’t want you to get in trouble.” She sighed, and he had to hide his smile at her capitulation, all the sweeter since her surrender was tied to concern for him. “But honestly I’m fine. Just tired.”

  He placed a hand on her shoulder. She pulled back, and he clamped his hand tighter. “Drink,” he ordered. He pushed the straw into her mouth, but gently.

  Her lips were plump and moist, and he imagined how he would lick and bite her, how she would welcome his advances once she succumbed to the influence of the tasteless, odorless drug he’d concealed in the frothy shake. He watched the movement of her mouth and throat as she sucked and swallowed.

  “Again,” he said, his voice thickening with lust. Soon, so soon. “Please, let me take care of you.” His words, or maybe the silken quality of his voice, affected her. She blushed prettily, but then she ducked out of his hold.

  For a brief moment, he was tempted to grab her, to pull her head back by her hair, and pour the milkshake down her throat.

  He quashed the impulse. That wasn’t the way to win her, and, even if he could rush things along in the bedroom with a push of enhancers now and again, he needed to win her devotion. He needed her to be his even when her father disapproved.

  He watched her carefully, waiting for the moment he could finally make a move without her drawing away. He touched her shoulder again. This time, she didn’t make her usual sidestep, but she maintained too much distance.

  Just a few more minutes. That was all he needed. Then she would want him.

  This time, she would want everything, remember everything. Tomorrow morning when she awakened in his arms, she would finally know she was his.

  “You should go,” she said. She headed for the door, determined to send him away.

  Hadn’t she drunk enough? Why was she being so difficult? His anger swelled, but he controlled it. “I’m here to protect you.”

  “I’m sure I’m perfectly safe in my home,” she said, but he noticed the lack of conviction. “I’ll lock the door behind you.”

  “Are you sure you’ll feel safe? I thought you’d want someone nearby.”

  “I just want to be alone in my space,” she said.

  “Vlad crowded you today?” He took a guess. He couldn’t resist casting Artur’s favorite in a negative light, lest Inna start to admire the man and his firepower.

  “No,” she said. Then, to his immense relief, she immediately retracted. “Well, yes, actually. If I’m honest. You don’t like him. Do you?”

  He was touched that she had noticed. “No, princess. Can’t say I do.”

  “Princess?” She crossed her arms as if she didn’t approve of his chosen term of endearment.

  “Should I call you something else? Darling? Baby?”

  “No—”

  “I’ve always had a thing for you.” He cut her off before she could protest the newfound familiarity he wished to impose on her. “I’m just more aware of it now after all of the close calls you’ve had the last few days.” He pushed a lank strand of hair out of her face, and she didn’t shrink away from his touch.

  That’s right. Just a little longer. A few more minutes, and you’ll be all mine.

  VLAD

  SHE’S SAFE. SHE’S safe. She’s safe. Vlad repeated the mantra over and over. The cops had left him in lockup, separated from Inna. He didn’t know where she was right now or what she was doing. He had to hope the precinct was one of the safest places she could be, provided she had actually arrived in one piece and that she didn’t leave without him.

  She had said she’d wait. What if she didn’t?

  The cops had clapped him in handcuffs and dragged him in here. He couldn’t blame them for that. After all, they had found him with a smoking gun and two dead bodies. But once they got his statement—and Inna’s and Nick’s—they should have let him go. The gun he’d used was registered, and he’d stopped those men from abducting Inna.

  He’d killed them, but that didn’t mean whoever had sent them wouldn’t try again.

  He folded his hands behind his neck and dropped his head down. At this rate, he’d go insane worrying over her.

  Why was he still here? The cops had taken his statement and then put him back in lockup. Surely they couldn’t be thinking they would press homicide charges.

  He was feeling rather homicidal at the moment. God help them if they didn’t reunite him with Inna soon.

  The vein throbbed at Vlad’s temple. It seemed like hours before someone came to get him. Detective Sharp.

  The choice of interrogator could only mean someone liked to fuck with him. He could easily guess who that was.

  Sharp led him, handcuffed, to an interrogation room, as if he were the most dangerous of criminals. Once they were seated in the cinder block room with its viewing mirror, Detective Sharp said, “I have a witness who says you took money for a hit from Ivan.”

  “Your witness is lying,” Vlad said.

  “Did you do a hit?”

  “No.”

  Vlad knew exactly what the cop was referring to—the men he’d killed in the alley outside Troika. Ivan had later claimed it was a sanctioned hit, but that was not what had really happened.

  This was all a useless bluff on the cop’s part. They couldn’t possibly have any evidence, certainly not enough to waste a trial trying to get a conviction. He had no motive, and he’d sanitized the scene. Sure, the buildings on either side of the alley where he’d been ambushed by Ivan’s men had pockmarks now from the spray of bullets, but he’d disposed of the essentials.

  No bodies. No smoking gun. No conviction.

  Still, they could make his life hell with an investigation. His usefulness to Artur would be dubious at best if he had Homicide constantly breathing down his neck. Murder charges wouldn’t possibly stick, but Vlad had most definitely tampered with a potential crime scene—a very serious infraction with charges of its own if anyone found out.

  It had to be a bluff, he reassured himself yet again. The only way Vlad could be tied definitively to the deaths outside Troika was if Svetlana had suddenly had a turn of conscience.

  Fat chance. She hadn’t left her son for months on end to have their careful plans scorched because some of Ivan’s men had decided to take shots at him and paid the price. If they got yanked from this assignment now, when he was so close to proving himself… Such a failure didn’t bear contemplating.

  And he wasn’t ready to leave Inna. Not yet. Probably not ever. Mine. Only mine.

  “Did you take money from Ivan?”

  “No.”

  The detective’s slow-blinking eyes made Vlad tap his foot with impatience. Hurry up. Get this over with. Let me get back to Inna. But he knew Sharp would belabor the same points over and over, as if asking the same question would eventually get him a different answer, one he liked better, one that was a confession of guilt.

  Sharp could go to Hell. Vlad hadn’t committed a hit for his father, even if Artur had tossed a wad of cash at him and claimed it was compensation for the self-defense shootings outside Troika. He certainly wasn’t going to tell Sharp about any of it.

  The real question was, who had? Vlad and Artur had been alone in the shop this morning. Had someone been eavesdropping? Had they been bu
gged?

  Maybe Ivan’s man, Slim, had been onto something with his warning that there was an agent in the field. Maybe the cop who’d been undercover with the Georgians had a partner, someone with the DEA or a joint task force. Or maybe there was a confidential informant. Could there be someone planted in Ivan’s organization, someone who’d heard about Ivan’s plans?

  Vlad didn’t have enough information. He didn’t know how far Ivan reached from his prison cell, how many men he commanded, what kinds of resources he had at his disposal.

  All he really knew was that the once powerful vor and Artur kept in touch and still did business together, even if that business was no more than Artur’s disbursing funds to pay for Nadia’s apartment or for Ivan’s hits.

  “Did Ivan talk to you about killing someone?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Vlad lied. He knew Ivan had boasted after the fact about commissioning him to do a hit, but said commission had never been discussed while the bodies in question were warm. Rather, Ivan had sent his men after Vlad, likely with orders to kill, and then chosen to tell a different tale when Vlad had been the only one to emerge from the alleyway without his own body bag.

  “I also have this,” Detective Sharp said. He slid a piece of paper, the size of a cigarette wrapper, across the table. “Recognize this?”

  Vlad leaned down to inspect it. He recognized Ivan’s clumsy handwriting: $300,000 commission to Vladimr for Vasya and his brothers. “What the hell is it?”

  “A commission for you from Ivan.” Sharp smiled thinly. He looked like a turtle that had just snapped its beak over a tasty morsel.

  “Bullshit,” Vlad said. He had to wonder why his father would send him a secret message printed in English, unless the message wasn’t meant for him or to be secret. “How do you know it’s from Ivan? Or that it’s for me?”

  “I won’t reveal my sources,” Sharp said.

  “Fine.” Vlad sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. “I want to talk to Detective Hersh,” he said. When Detective Sharp looked like he might balk, Vlad added, “I’ll only talk to him.”