9. Nikolai
NINE
Nikolai
“So, in summary,” I say, “Petrov wants us to contact Andronov to get into the human trafficking side of things, there’s probably some trouble brewing in Russia, and Sierra thinks Silvano Cresci killed her father?”
Konstantin nods. “Sierra knows Silvano Cresci killed her father.”
Yuri stretches his feet out onto the coffee table, and somehow he’s taking up half the couch even though he’s lanky. “Lucky for us, huh?”
I glare at him. “How do you figure?”
“If she hadn’t found out that he’d killed her father on that day, she wouldn’t have come back for us. Kotya would be dead for sure, poisoned, you’d have been shot in that room with Angelo Guerra, and I… probably would have been killed after I found out what happened to you two.” Yuri laughs. “How nice of Silvano to inform her on that exact day.”
“Yeah,” I say, and it is a good thing. At the same time, though, I’m not sure I like how much Sierra has to be struggling with this information. I’m not “acting weird,” as they like to tell me I am, but it does feel strange to constantly be confronted with aspects of our new reality with her. “Doubt he came out and told her, though. I wonder how she figured it out.”
A strange expression crosses Konstantin’s face. “It doesn’t matter at this point. We need to worry more about the rest of it. Don Marino’s assets are up in the air now, and we need to find them before the Crescis or Victor Corvi and his bitch do.”
Yuri finally sits up properly and leans forward. I’m still getting used to seeing him with the new haircut, but it suits him. It does also mean his neck is visible, and I don’t think I’d realized how slender it was until now.
“Is that enough to appease your father?” Yuri asks. “Petrov is in jail, but he’s still…”
Konstantin’s face turns red. “He isn’t in charge! I am!” he yells in Russian. “You, of all people?—”
Yuri flinches, but he doesn’t back down. “Me, of all people! I’m looking out for you, Kotya! No matter what we do, it’s going to get back to your father! Even Nikolai’s old man knows something is up!”
I don’t want to agree with Yuri in this, but my old man had been too fucking squirrely to ignore completely. Someone is reporting back to Konstantin’s father in Russia.
No, not someone .
Several someones.
I’ve been aware that Konstantin’s hold in New Bristol isn’t the steadiest, but I hadn’t realized how shaky that ground is until recently. Maybe if I’d realized it before, I could’ve helped, but Konstantin has been keeping this little secret to himself.
Fuck.
Dwelling on it isn’t going to change anything, though, so there’s no point in saying it. With the way Konstantin is acting, it would make things worse right now.
Konstantin gets up and paces around the office. “I am successful! I am running guns, drugs. We have Lev working on stealing credit cards and identities! And half the Russian oligarchs owe their New Bristol lives to us! You think Zima would be enjoying his wonderful New Bristol condo right near the Grand Park if we hadn’t pulled strings to open that spot up? That was me! I’ve been keeping an ear out for opportunities. Not Petrov. Me !”
Yuri crosses his arms and scowls. “How the fuck am I supposed to know what you’ve been doing while I was in jail?”
This conversation has the potential to go even more south, so I interrupt, “You’ve been doing all the right things, Kotya, but the fact is that it’s not going to be enough because it’s not what he wants you to do. So the question is, do we do it and get yourself off his radar, or do we try to do better in other areas so he doesn’t keep pushing?”
I don’t think that’s even possible, though. Konstantin isn’t wrong. He’s done so much, and no one will give him the credit for it.
No wonder he’s fucking frustrated, but he doesn’t need to lash out at us like a child.
The irony that it’s me thinking that way isn’t lost on me.
“So you think we should do what he wants? We will trick women into becoming sex slaves?” Konstantin demands.
“I didn’t say that!” Yuri yells back. “I only meant?—”
Konstantin snarls. “You meant nonsense!”
Yuri and Konstantin stare each other down. I debate getting out of the couch so I’m not close to Yuri when he inevitably lashes back, but he suddenly deflates.
“Sierra would hate human trafficking,” Yuri says quietly.
I grimace. She would, and she wouldn’t hesitate to let us know, either. “So we figure something else out. Find those weapons shipments, grab Don Marino’s money, whatever. Because I think Sierra would rather cut our dicks off than let us near her if we made deals with Andronov.” Not that I’d blame her. Human trafficking is grim stuff, even for me. “But…” I look at Konstantin, wary. “But what happens if we don’t?”
Konstantin makes a frustrated noise. “He kills me, and everybody I hold dear.” He shakes his head. “I will not risk that.”
“He can’t really believe you care about the Winters’ daughter,” I say. “She should be safe, as long as he sees her as your whore.”
It’s not lost on me that many of the men in our line of work prefer their mistresses to their own wives, but what am I supposed to do? Suggest that they get married? My stomach clenches at the thought.
Konstantin’s eyes widen and his lip thins. “Unless he finds out she’s pregnant.”
“You think that would make her a target,” I say flatly.
“Of course it would,” Yuri says with a sneer. “Papa Voronkov doesn’t think Kotya should have heirs at all. Wouldn’t want to muddle the inheritance issue, or give Roman any competition.”
“We haven’t told anyone,” I say. “No one should know she’s pregnant. So we have… time.”
Not much time. As soon as she starts showing, it’ll get right back to Konstantin’s father.
“A few months at most,” Konstantin says. He paces to the other side of the room and slams his hand against the desk. “Fuck!”
“We’ll cower and be obedient little pets,” Yuri says darkly. “You will fall in line, like you always do?—”
“You just said I must worry about him!” Konstantin’s palpable rage makes me tense up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this angry before.
“So we can figure a way around him, not to play by his impossible rules!” Yuri counters. He looks ready to fight, too.
“Hey, let’s all calm down—” I begin to say, but I’m interrupted by a knock on the door.
I hear the rumble of a man’s voice, then a woman’s lower voice.
Sierra.
I wonder if someone told her there was yelling or if Kotya had been loud enough for her to hear it.
Konstantin turns around to look at us. I shrug, but Yuri nods.
“Come in!” Konstantin barks.
The door swings open to Sierra scowling at Stepan at the door, who’s scowling right back at her.
She sidesteps him, making her way into the room and shutting the door right in his face. As she turns to face us, taking in our grim looks, her own expression gets wary. “Well, this doesn’t look good,” she remarks.
Konstantin chuckles and shakes his head. “That is… an understatement. But you came for a reason, Sierrochka?”
“I came because I could hear yelling,” she says. “And I wanted to let you know that if I could hear it, your Russian-speaking staff could probably hear it, too.”
“You were only looking out for us,” I say with amusement. I pat the spot between me and Yuri, and Yuri scoots away to make space for her.
She settles into the spot between us, but her eyes are on Konstantin even as I put an arm around her shoulder. “I was!” she insists. “But anyway, a few people scurried away as I was coming down the hall.”
Konstantin strokes his beard. “Which of them stayed?”
“What?” Sierra asks, confused.
“Which of the men stayed to eavesdrop?” he demands.
Yuri lets out an annoyed sigh. “Either they stayed to eavesdrop, or they stayed because they know it’s their job to be on watch and they don’t want to face the consequences of deserting. You can’t know which it is.”
“I wish my old man wasn’t up your dad’s ass,” I tell Konstantin. “It’d be nice to find out which is which.”
“I wish I was a femme fatale who could invade their beds and—” Sierra begins.
“No,” I interrupt sharply, not wanting to think about her trying to seduce her way into the beds of the Russian organized crime groups.
She gives me an irritated look. “I said I wish , not that I was going to try.”
“There will be no sleeping around,” Konstantin says firmly. “By anyone.” He gives me a pointed look, and I bristle.
“I haven’t fucking touched anyone,” I bite out. “I didn’t even go to a club. I went to my dear papa’s. Does that sound like I was trying to sleep around?”
All right, maybe I’d gone to kill the restlessness inside of me in a way I’d known would be effective, but even so. I hadn’t done anything.
Sierra scowls at me. “You thought about it, remember?” she points out tartly.
“I never should’ve said anything about that,” I mutter.
“Hmm, but you did. Guilty conscience?” Yuri says with a grin. “Maybe you need a whipping too.”
“For having normal thoughts?” I demand, not sharing his amusement. “Am I the only one who hasn’t thought about fucking someone else? I haven’t been monogamous since…”
Since high school, when I’d thought it was the way it had to be. I’d never really committed to anyone since?—
Fuck, this isn’t the time to think about high school and bittersweet memories.
“Since?” Sierra prompts, suddenly sounding interested.
Yuri pulls Sierra against him, away from me. “Yeah, Nikolai. When was the last time you were only sharing one single lady with two other men?”
Lady.
I nearly laugh at his choice of words, but I have a feeling I’d get smacked if I did.
“Before Sierra,” I say sullenly. “You know that. You know what it was like before her.” I glare at him. “What about you, huh?”
Yuri’s good humor suddenly drops. “It was definitely before I spent two years in jail.”
I grimace. “It’s not my fault?—”
“Enough!” Konstantin interrupts. “It is hardly monogamous if there are four of us, in any case. The rest doesn’t matter. We are here for Sierra.”
“Yeah, and with each other when she decides she wants that,” I retort, my cheeks flushing as I remember what it had felt to fuck Yuri. I guess we’ve been far from monogamy, but they expect us to stay in this… what? What is this even called?
Arrangement ?
“Again, I didn’t force you,” Sierra says, her voice testy. “I’m the one who didn’t get a say in what happened to their body, so I’d fucking appreciate it if you’d stop acting like we made you do it.”
I grit my teeth, trying not to snap at her. “ Anyway ,” I say, stressing the word, “the point is that I haven’t been with anyone else since before Sierra. Why are we even talking about this?”
“Because you three don’t want to tell me what’s been going on, so you derailed with all this talk of cheating and monogamy,” Sierra says.
Konstantin chuckles and finally goes to sit in his armchair again. “True. You do not need to worry about what we were talking about. We will sort that issue. But you can tell us about your classes, and what you actually wanted to talk about when you came our way.”
Sierra pouts, but she nods. “Fine. I thought you’d want to know that I figured out how many weapons my dad squirreled away. As long as nobody else got to them first… we’re looking at at least a hundred guns.”
I inhale sharply. “How the fuck did he keep that many hidden from the FBI?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. The hiding place has to be good. I was thinking, Kotya, about what you said when I mentioned the apartment building?—”
She keeps talking, but I stop paying attention.
I have to help somehow. This one shipment of arms will help to stall Igor Voronkov, but it won’t delay him forever. We have to figure out something else, and it shouldn’t all be on Konstantin’s shoulders.
I just have to figure out how I can help.