Mine (Ties that Bind Book 1)

by A. Zavarelli

  “We’ll figure that out. We have more important things to discuss.”

  Yes, I know we do. If Lev found me, and his friend or whoever erased my hard drive from wherever he is found me, who else knows I’m here? Knows that I had that information?

  “Who emptied my computer files and how?”

  “My cousin. He’s a computer genius, I guess you could say. He told me some other things about you too.”

  I try to keep my face void of emotion. “Like what?”

  “Like that your mother died when you were three in a single car accident and that you were found a few days later. That you grew up in foster care, and that your last address was the juvenile detention center in Blackwood, New Jersey.”

  My heart rate picks up and blood drums against my ears.

  “How did he…?”

  “We’ll talk about all that later, but I want to know something else first.”

  “What?”

  “Joshua Blake. I assume he’s the Josh you named my son after. The one you called out for when we were together last.”

  I feel the blood drain from my face.

  He shifts his attention to the vodka, refreshes his glass, then pushes it toward me.

  “You look like you may need this, Kat.”

  “It’s Katie,” I say absently. “I’m Katie now.”

  He shakes his head. “Not for much longer, sweetheart. Drink that.”

  I look down at the clear liquid, set my mug aside, and drink the contents of his glass. He’s right. I need it.

  “Your cousin…does he know where we are?”

  “He’s not a danger to you.”

  “But we are in danger? Josh and me?”

  It’s his turn to swallow the freshly poured vodka in his glass. “I won’t let anything happen to either of you. Now tell me why my son is named after another man.”

  I tilt my head to the side because is he for real? “Did you really think I’d name him after you? After what I saw?” I feel my eyebrows creep up my forehead.

  “Not so much that, although it would have been nice, but specifically that you named him after another boyfriend.”

  “Joshua wasn’t a boyfriend. He was my foster brother and my friend. I told you that already a long time ago. Lev, you ki—” I stop, lower my voice, and glance toward the doorway. Josh sometimes comes out for a glass of water. It’s usually when he’s scared. “After what happened, do you think I wanted to have anything to do with you?”

  “I told you, I didn’t hurt Nina. She wasn’t supposed to die.”

  “Whether you did or didn’t, back then, I know what I saw.”

  “I want to know about Joshua Blake.”

  “We were in the same foster home together at one point. Joshua, Cassie, and me. That’s all.”

  “Who’s Cassie?”

  “Joshua’s younger sister. She was thirteen, I was fifteen, and Joshua was sixteen.” I push my chair back and stand. “And I don’t want to talk about this.”

  He catches my wrist. “Sit.”

  “I mean it, Lev. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He squeezes my wrist, and I’m reminded again how much bigger than me he is. How much stronger. “I said sit.”

  I do.

  “How did Joshua die?”

  I shift my gaze away.

  “How did you end up in juvie?”

  I wrap my hands around my lukewarm mug of tea.

  “Why were your records sealed?”

  I turn to him. “Why don’t you ask your cousin?” I say, standing and slipping out of reach before he can grab me again. “I’m going to bed.”

  18

  Lev

  I’m half tempted to crawl into bed and bury myself inside Kat again, but unfortunately, I have more pressing matters to deal with. Vasily has been blowing my goddamn phone up all day, and I can’t put him off any longer.

  Once I hear the springs creak in Kat’s mattress, I step outside into the dark of night and wander just far enough out of earshot. I wouldn’t put it past Kat to sneak around and listen to my conversations at this point, dissecting every word for any excuse she might need to run again. I’m not prepared to let that happen, and I know we still have a lot of shit to figure out. But Vasily’s patience is running out, and so is my time here.

  “Levka.” Vasily growls into the phone on the second ring. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “I’ve been chasing a lead.” My breath billows into the brisk Colorado air. “I told you that.”

  “You’ve ignored my texts. My phone calls.” His rage is palpable through the phone. I don’t have to see him to know the vein in his forehead is pulsating. “I want my fucking answers, and I want them now!”

  Something shatters in the background, and I cringe as his voice pierces through my eardrum. Vasily is losing his fucking mind over this. It doesn’t matter what I say to assure him that Kat isn’t a threat, he’s been dead set that he won’t rest until she’s gone.

  “Where the fuck is she?” he snarls at me. “I want a location, Lev. And I want her goddamn head on a platter. Do you understand?”

  My blood heats, and I grind down my jaw to keep myself from saying something stupid. I owe my uncle a great deal. He raised me. Fed me. Taught me everything he knows. He is blood, but Kat and Josh are my family. I realize it when I glance at the cabin and think of them sleeping soundly inside. Depending on me to protect them.

  “I’m putting Andrei on a plane tomorrow,” Vasily barks. “I want a fucking address. Tell me where you are.”

  “That isn’t necessary.” I pinch the bridge of my nose to stem the headache starting to take root. “I’m on my way back. I’ll explain everything when I get there. Three days. Just give me three days, Uncle.”

  There is a pause on the other line, and I don’t know if he’s going to accept my assurances anymore. He’s grown suspicious of me, and I don’t blame him. I’ve been lying to him all week, and he doesn’t trust me the way he used to.

  “Seventy-two hours,” Vasily seethes. “Not a fucking minute more. Don’t disappoint me, Lev.”

  With that impassioned speech, he ends the call abruptly, and I glare down at the screen. Right now, the whole fucking world is pissed off at me, and I have three goddamn days to fix it.

  I walk back to the cabin and collapse into the chair on the front porch. For fourteen years, I’ve been doing this shit. Running jobs for Vasily. Taking every order he shoves down my throat. And what the fuck do I have to show for it? Not a goddamn thing.

  I’ve been lying to myself, dreaming that I could ever get out. I could do things differently. But that window only grows smaller every day. And now, it’s suffocating me to death.

  I consider Kat and Josh. What’s best for them? It sure as fuck isn’t going back to Philly so she can hide out in my house while I go out and take care of business. I don’t want that life for them. I don’t want that life for any of us. And it occurs to me with such fucking clarity at that moment, we could do things differently. This phone in my hand—this fucking tether to Vasily—could be dropped in the nearest lake. I could pack up my family and leave here tomorrow. We could go any-fucking-where.

  But even as I tell myself that, I know it’s not that easy. Vasily would hunt me like a dog until he takes his last breath. Nobody betrays him, and nobody leaves this business alive.

  With a sigh, I retrieve the files on my phone and thumb through them again. Alexei has sent me everything he has on Kat. Names and addresses of anyone she might be associated with, including the foster kids she knew. But chunks of her past are still missing. Chunks she is resistant to divulge. I know Mr. George died from knife wounds, and it was determined that Joshua was the assailant, but I suspect there is much more to it than that. She feels indebted to Joshua, and her affinity for knives as a source of protection are only further proof of my suspicions. But I need to hear it from Kat. She doesn’t get that I’m not asking her to hurt her. It’s the only way I can fully protect her.


  As I’m considering all the ways my life is currently imploding, my phone rings, and I’m surprised to see it’s Alexei calling. Particularly because it’s much later in Massachusetts. He wouldn’t be calling at this hour if it wasn’t urgent.

  “Lyoshenka.” I pull up the screen and meet his gaze. “Is everything alright?”

  “Yes.” He nods. “Everything is fine here. But I have some more information I thought you might want.”

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Our mutual friend called me this evening. Misha tells me that Vasily has been sniffing around, asking several Vory members to assist him with some research. The name he delivered was, of course, Katerina Blake.”

  “Christ.” My stomach churns with this new revelation. I knew Vasily was growing suspicious, but I didn’t know he was going behind my back to do his own queries into the matter.

  “Do you know if he’s managed to find anything?” I ask.

  “No.” Alexei shrugs. “Unfortunately, I don’t. However, Misha also told me that there were some whispers Vasily is not certain he can trust you anymore. For this reason, I thought it wise to advise you to be very careful, Levka. What you do from here on out could very well determine your fate.”

  “I’m aware.” I lean back into the chair and consider the alternate plan that’s been brewing in my mind for some time now. It was always going to be my last resort. A plan not just for a rainy day, but a fucking hurricane. Betraying my uncle is something I wouldn’t have even considered two months ago, but everything changed the day I saw Kat with my son.

  “Do you still have the contents of the drive?” I ask Alexei.

  He nods. “For now, yes.”

  “Don’t dispose of it just yet,” I inform him. “I need that for insurance. And it’s something I may require your help with.”

  Alexei frowns. “You know I am loyal to my Vory brothers. You are my cousin, and you have my trust, but I must know the reasons, Levka. You cannot expect me to betray our traditions—”

  “I have a son,” I cut him off, and my words produce an immediate understanding reflected back at me in Alexei’s eyes. He may be a Vor, but first and foremost, he is a father and a husband. If there is anyone who understands the values of family, it is him.

  “You have a son?” he repeats.

  “With Kat,” I tell him. “I didn’t know, but now I do. He’s three years old, and he’s ours.”

  Alexei nods gravely and does not need further consideration than that. “Then I will do what I can to help you.”

  “Thank you, Lyoshenka.”

  I’m prepared to end the call, but before I do, he holds up his hand. “There is something else. I considered waiting until you were home to inform you, but given the information you just provided, I feel it best to inform you now.”

  “What is it?”

  He pauses, his eyes pinching with uncharacteristic emotion. Alexei rarely shows his emotions in such a way, and it gives me pause.

  “Lyoshenka?”

  “One of the names on your hard drive,” he says solemnly. “Roger Benson. He was a neighbor in your mother’s apartment building. Did you realize that?”

  “No.” I rub at my temples. “I didn’t.”

  “I thought it seemed out of place myself,” Alexei adds. “He was not a cop or a politician or anyone of importance, yet he was on the list. Oddly enough, he was killed exactly one week after your mother’s death.”

  Ice fills my lungs as I consider the implication. “Did he see something?”

  “Officially, no,” Alexei answers. “But unofficially, he filed a police report with an Officer Stanton, who, in case you hadn’t noticed, was another name on that drive. Stanton was also killed within the week, and whatever the report may have contained, it disappeared.”

  He doesn’t have to say anything else. The implications of his statement weigh heavy on my soul. That hard drive was stolen from Vasily. A drive he’s been more insistent about than anything else he’s ever asked of me because it could ruin him. Words straight from his own mouth. It doesn’t take a logician to connect the dots, but I don’t want to accept what I have always suspected deep down.

  “I’m still digging,” Alexei tells me.

  “I need something concrete…” I choke out. “I need to see the proof with my own eyes.”

  He nods as if to say he understands, but his words contradict that. “I will do my best. But sometimes, I think you know, the truth is best found in our guts.”

  19

  Kat

  It takes me a full minute to register that the sun is creeping brightly around the curtains of my bedroom, and I’m still in bed. I blink my eyes several times, rolling to my side and away from the sunlight that woke me. I hug the pillow as my mind works, as I register the distinctly masculine scent on the bed.

  I bolt upright the moment I remember.

  Lev.

  He crept into my bed late. I woke up for all of a second when he did, but I remember him gathering me into his arms and then nothing else. I slept. I slept better than I have in a long time.

  The bedroom door is closed, but I hear the sound of the TV. One of Josh’s cartoons is on. I throw the blankets off and hurry out of bed, panic gripping me as that thought is back.

  What if he takes Josh? What if he leaves with Josh?

  My heart is racing as I reach the door, but when I open it, I hear them. Lev is saying something, and I think he’s trying to keep his voice quiet, but it’s so deep it’s almost a rumble when he whispers.

  Josh giggles. Tells him the marshmallows are the best part.

  “Hey, you’re taking them all,” Lev says.

  “Shh. Don’t tell Mommy.”

  I walk into the kitchen. “Don’t tell Mommy what?” I ask as I see Josh standing on his chair arm deep inside the box of cereal, his bowl already stacked with marshmallows and a few pieces of cereal, which probably got there accidentally.

  “Busted,” Lev says, and I notice he, too, has a pile of marshmallows in his bowl.

  “Mommy!” Josh wraps his arms around my neck when I get to him. I lift him out of his seat. He’s already dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweater.

  “You’re up early,” I tell him, brushing his hair back with my fingers.

  “Lev helped me,” he says.

  When I release him, he sits back down and attempts to pick up the carton of milk.

  “Let me get that,” Lev says, taking it from Josh’s hands and pouring milk over the bowl of little colorful marshmallows.

  Josh picks up his spoon, and we both watch him for a minute as he spoons the cereal and brings it to his mouth, holding his other hand underneath to catch the dripping milk.

  I look at Lev’s face, and he’s smiling like he’s in awe. Like he’s the proudest father in the world.

  He shifts his gaze up to mine, and I school my features, hardening my expression as I turn to pour myself a cup of the coffee he’s already made.

  I become aware then that I’m still in my nightie. I don’t have a clue what my hair looks like, and I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. I know I shouldn’t care, hell, I should be happy if I repel him, but he comes over to me and lays a possessive hand on my hip.

  “Morning,” he says, looking me over, brushing hair back from my face. He leans toward me and kisses my cheek. That brushing of his lips and the tickle of the scruff against my face send a tremor through me, and I remember what happened yesterday, what we did on my bedroom floor.

  As if he, too, is remembering, he slides his hand down to cup my ass and squeezes.

  I wince, remembering that too, and shove his arm away.

  He grins, eyes gleaming. I can almost see the dirty thoughts going through his head as he grabs my ass again. “Still hurt?” he asks. Then he leans in and says more quietly, “I’ll have a look in a minute. Rub the tender spots.”

  I push him away again and give him a glare. I walk to my son and put my hands on his shoulders. “Why didn’t you wake me up this morn
ing?” Josh usually wakes me up at the crack of dawn on the weekends. I swear that kid can sleep in every weekday when he has to get up for school, but come the weekend, he’s up before the sun.

  He shrugs a shoulder. “Lev said you were tired.”

  “Did he?” I glance up at Lev to find his expression serious as he types something into his phone.

  “We’re going on a plane, Mommy!” Josh cries out before shoving another spoonful of what is essentially sugar into his mouth.

  “What are you talking about, silly?”

  Lev’s dark eyes flash toward me, but a ding from his phone snares his attention again.

  “Lev’s taking us on a trip.”

  Lev puts his phone to his ear and walks into the other room. Again, he’s trying to keep his voice down, but I can’t understand what he’s saying anyway. He’s speaking in Russian.

  “Done!” Josh announces and bounds off the chair as the opening song of one of his favorite cartoons comes on.

  Leaving my coffee where it is, I follow Lev’s voice, which is coming from my bedroom. When I get there, I find him standing over my open purse, holding what I think is my driver’s license. My wallet lies on the bed beside the purse.

  I see the flash of the camera, and a moment later, he tucks his phone into his back pocket.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, taking my license from his hand and putting it back into my wallet.

  “I needed your photo.”

  “For what?”

  “A new ID.” He checks the time on the clock beside the bed. “We should get going. Pack some things, just essentials.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m not going anywhere, and neither is Josh, and you can’t tell him you’re taking him on a plane.”

  He tilts his head to the side to study me, and I decide I hate that look. It’s the one that says you’ll do as you’re told without using any words at all.

  Lev walks around me, closes and locks the door, then returns to take my arms. He gives the tiniest squeeze. I don’t miss its meaning.