My Wild Horse King (The Russian Witch's Curse Book 4)

7. Gustav

Ihad almost forgotten how quickly the Liepas can drag someone down and drown them.

“I’ve been here more than ten years,” I mutter. “Ten years, and you show up now, when I’m two weeks away from the end zone.”

“You said you’ve been planning this for ten years?” Suddenly, for the second time today, someone pulls a gun.

This time, though, it’s pointed at me.

“Agent Price,” I say. “I haven’t planned anything like you’re thinking. I’m as much a victim here as you are. I have no idea how this horrible woman escaped your custody, and I’ve never met her in my entire life. The woman there—” I point. “Is my sister Kristiana Liepa. I changed my name when I emigrated here, legally, from Latvia more than a decade gone. My grandfather agreed to help me with school and support my business efforts, but he wanted me to look and sound as American as my mother. I agreed with his plan, and so my dual citizenship quickly became solely US citizenship.”

Agent Price isn’t having it. “So you have no idea how this particular woman, who gave me your name back at the airport office, escaped and wound up right here, somehow slipping past your doorman, and is now standing brazenly in your entryway?”

“I understand that it sounds strange, but?—”

Agent Price squints and looks past me at the ground. “What the—” He cuts off, leaning toward the ground behind Kristiana. “What is that?” He uses his free hand to wave us back and then he steps forward.

A very dark, very clearly shaped muddy hoofprint on my white carpet is what he’s staring at. I can’t help wincing. After all, there was a horse at the detention center, and now there’s a hoofprint here, in my apartment.

“Do you have a horse here in your apartment, Mr. Belmont?”

I laugh. “A what?”

Agent Price points.

I follow his hand to the hoofprint I already know’s there, but then I feign surprise. “Wow, that’s strange. You’re right, it does look like a hoofprint, but I have no idea how that could possibly be. You’re welcome to request footage from the lobby downstairs. There are several CCTVs there, and I’m sure you can verify that no horse has come up or down the elevator or stairwells to my room.”

“Don’t you think the more reasonable explanation for mud on the floor of a twenty-fourth floor penthouse is someone’s shoe?” Kristiana’s eyebrows are lifted. “When I was in vet school, the first thing they told us was that if we hear the sound of hoofbeats, we should assume horses, not zebras.”

“So you’re a vet?” Agent Price asks. “And what kind of animals do you treat?”

“If I say horses, are you going to arrest me for something that happened at the airport?” Kristiana looks like she’s about to burst out laughing.

Agent Price goes on like this, being baited by my Russian and Latvian guests, for a few moments before his reinforcements arrive. That’s when they cuff me and drag me downstairs, requesting the video footage, as I suggested. They take all my unwanted guests with them, to be safe, and of course, there’s no chance they’re going to release that Katerina lady. I still can’t believe that Kristiana’s husband and this girl can turn into horses.

I wouldn’t believe it, if I hadn’t seen Aleks do it with my own eyes.

Kris didn’t have time to tell me much before Agent Price arrived, other than the fact that somehow our family’s involved, and that the person who defeated Alexei Romanov in the election is a maniac, who is inexplicably interested in killing me.

All of it seems absolutely insane, but then again, the muddy hoofprint in my family room also makes no sense. But eventually, after Grandfather’s lawyers show up, after they’ve looked over the videos from my lobby, and after they’ve confirmed that Kris is, in fact, my sister, and that I really did change my name, and that this Katerina person really has no criminal record, that she really did just slip out of the detention center after realizing there was a lot of chaos, they let us go.

“They’re acting like a normal person would stick around while a horse is rampaging, loose, through a building,” Kristiana’s saying to the agent. It’s impressive, how solid she is in defending her husband’s friend. If I were her, and my husband had a hot friend who needed saving, I’m not sure I’d be leaping into the fray to do it.

Kristiana’s acting skills are much better than I expected, honestly. She knows that Katerina was the horse, and that her friend caused the very distraction that freed her, but Kris lies about it effortlessly. I suppose that since she’s known about the whole horse thing for a while, it’s not as strange to her.

It takes a stupidly long time, but right before two in the morning, they finally drive us in a big white van back to Manhattan and release us less than a block from my apartment, surrendering the seven of them into my unenthusiastic custody. I wish I could hustle them all over to the airport and shove them onto the first flight back to Russia. I did see one of them turn into a horse, and then when there was a knock on my door, he shifted just as easily right back into a human right down to the same clothing. There’s clearly something to their bizarre story. And I do believe Kris would not be here, wrecking my life, unless she felt this was important.

But I still want to get them gone as soon as possible.

“Now that they’re releasing us, can we stay with you?” Kris asks. “It’s really the only way we can guarantee your safety.”

I don’t even answer until we’re all outside my building, breathing the brisk fall air. The idea of them protecting me is ridiculous, so I say so. “You’re the only ones who have put me in danger so far.”

“But Leonid—” Kris starts again.

“No,” I say. “Stop with the Leonid stuff. There’s no way that someone in Russia—the country’s new leader, no less—cares about me or my tiny horse-race betting company. Until you showed up, my biggest concern was whether Grandfather was happy with the way I was handling the IPO.”

My phone starts to ring, and it’s him—his ears must have been burning. I wince as I answer, walking away from them and toward my apartment building’s entrance. “Grandfather.”

He may never have been a sailor in his life, but I’m pretty sure he was trained to swear by one. When, after several minutes, he finally stops ranting, he asks, “Have you lost your mind? The SEC just approved your company for the IPO, and you bail on the meeting with Black Rock that I arranged to kick this off, and then you were photographed being cuffed and dragged down to be interrogated by the Department of Homeland Security?”

It does sound bad when he puts it that way.

“Kristiana has run into some trouble.” Maybe someone else would feel guilty about throwing his sister under the bus, but I don’t. She doesn’t even care what our grandparents think. “She showed up—unannounced—and started shouting at me in the lobby. A friend of hers followed her here but didn’t get a visa, and she needed a US Citizen to vouch for her.”

“Please tell me you didn’t agree to do that. You don’t even know this friend.”

“I certainly do not,” I say. “But I do know my sister, and vouching for her Russian husband’s old family friend was easier than making an even bigger deal out of this to the media or a government agency.”

Grandfather grunts.

“Trust me—none of this was any part of a plan I made.”

“This is the problem with all Liepas. No matter what you intend to do, your family always drags you down.”

I grit my teeth. I can’t even argue, because he’s right.

“You, Daniel, must find a way to rise above this. It’s always been your anchor—the ties you have to that place. Those people.”

The one thing that has bothered me the most over the past decade is how rude and dismissive he is about Kristiana. She stayed with my father, sure, but he’s her father. She was born and raised in Latvia, on a farm our mother loved, in a place she chose. Grandfather could be a little more understanding of why Kristiana, his only granddaughter, might want to stay with her father in the only place she ever knew. It’s not like the sums of money he sent to help them at various times ever made any sort of dent in his personal fortune.

Though I suppose Mom’s trust fund was probably substantial, and she did manage to use all of that in a short span of years.

One thing Grandfather never brooks is any kind of personal criticism. Pointing out that Kristiana is his blood won’t help. Defending her is pointless. She came here and caused all this mess—she can deal with me hanging it around her neck. “I will get her to leave as soon as possible,” I say. “She brought quite a few friends, and they appear to have some kind of dispute with the current leader of Russia.”

“He did steal the country from one of her friends, according to my sources. The would-be Romanov heir is marrying her best friend’s sister.”

“Yes,” I say, lowering my voice a bit. As always, Grandfather is shockingly well-informed. “He’s here too.”

“Get rid of all of them. Associating with them will make investors very nervous. And if they get nervous, and they look into Daniel Belmont and his background. . .”

It’s bad for all of us, but most especially for business.

Russia hasn’t been in good standing for a while, but it’s only gotten worse lately.

And of course, politics aside, I’m well aware that Grandfather thinks any connection to my Latvian family would be the worst thing in the world. He’s essentially eliminated all ties between Dad and him. “Don’t worry,” I say. “I won’t let them drag me down, not when I’m so close to finally taking this company public. Not when I can finally show you that I’m competent and capable.”

“Someone who can’t manage their own family isn’t competent,” Grandfather says.

I’m aware he cut off his own daughter because he felt she couldn’t be reliably managed. How could I ever forget that? “Believe me. I know how serious it is to you,” I say.

He hangs up.

I’m standing in front of my apartment building, staring at Norm’s concerned face. He’s even come outside to make sure I’m alright. “Your friends are all back?” He looks nervous, and maybe he should. He must have been the one to let that Katerina lunatic up to my apartment earlier.

If she hadn’t shown up just then, that stupid Agent Price would have left, and I never would have been hauled down to be interrogated. Grandfather would not have lost it, and the only thing I would’ve botched was the Black Rock meeting. Even so, I shoo him back inside. “Give us a minute to talk out here.”

He bobs his head and heads back into the lobby.

It hits me then, how catastrophically bad this whole day really has been. Grandfather always overreacts to everything, so I’m used to him yelling at me, but I’m going to be on the news and in trending social media posts and articles, and not for anything good. No, the day that should have been a coup for me, the day my IPO was approved and the dissemination of information about Trifecta began, the day I had an early meeting with one of the biggest purchasers of publicly traded companies, I bailed on the meeting, and then got arrested.

“Gustav.” Kristiana’s hand on my shoulder is the last straw. She’s acting like I’m the problem, like it’s my fault things are falling apart, or like I have some kind of bizarre obligation to help her. I spin around, my jaw muscle twitching.

“Watch yourself.” Aleksandr’s suddenly there, looming over me, acting like he might. . .what? Pummel me for being threatening around my own sister?

“I don’t attack women.” I curl my lip with disgust. “And I would never harm Kris.”

“Yes.” Aleksandr nods. “You’d simply ignore all her calls, texts, and messages while she pleads for your help.” He’s scowling like I’m a villain.

“I have my own life,” I say. “Kris is a big girl. I knew she didn’t need me.”

“You know nothing about her,” Aleks says softly. “And if it were up to me, you’d continue to know nothing about her. You’re a waste of space.” He turns around and starts to walk away.

Kris barely whispers his name. “Aleksandr.”

He freezes, his shoulders drooping.

“Please.” Her voice is so soft, I wonder whether I’m imagining it.

But Aleksandr acts like he’s on a leash that’s been tugged. He turns around slowly, his head bowed. “We will stay with you, and we will keep your ungrateful, unworthy life safe.”

“Oh, how wonderful for me,” I say. “Won’t that just be a total delight?”

Aleks steps closer. “I love your sister.” He exhales slowly. “I love her more than an arthropod like you could possibly comprehend.” He smiles, now, but it spreads across his face slowly and painfully, like a spreading bruise, not a sign of his joy. “You will listen to her, and we will keep you safe, no matter how little you deserve our protection. But you will not disrespect her again, or I will bury you.”

The way he says it, he will bury me, it sounds like he means it. “I’ve had more than ten years of martial arts training.” I roll my shoulders. “I’m sure you’re a very scary Russian man, but I assure you. I’m not easy to bury.” I lean toward him, expecting him to give at least a little.

It’s like I’m threatening a brick wall. He just glowers.

“He literally means that he’ll bury you,” Kris says, her voice still small. “He’s a shifter, which you saw, but he also has earth powers. He can bury anything.” She tosses her head. “Your building. All those cars. You name it, and he can shove it underground.”

I have no idea whether she’s serious.

I’m afraid she might be.

But perhaps more concerning than the possibility that she might be telling the truth, is the people who’ve begun to gather around and watch us. One of them’s fiddling with his phone. He could easily be recording us. It’s almost two-thirty in the morning, but this is New York City. Someone’s always awake, and with the internet, someone’s always watching.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Kris says again. “Please?”

“I have two guest rooms,” I say. “And one office. I’m not sure where everyone will sleep.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Kris says. “And in the morning, we can explain the rest of what’s going on.”

Or I’ll leave before they do and make sure no one at the office allows them inside. I doubt Kris would really have her husband or his friends do anything truly crazy. If so, I would already have seen some kind of reports of magical horse humans on the news, right?

“Fine.” I let them follow me up. How bad can it be to let them stay for a day or two?

We barely all fit on the elevator at the same time, and it makes for an uncomfortable ride.

“Sorry.” The Katerina person hasn’t met my eye since she walked into my apartment earlier. In fact, the only person she’s even looked at is. . . I follow her gaze to Alexei.

Alexei’s engaged to Adriana, I think. Before I had any inkling it might be the Adriana I’d almost forgotten about, I heard people talking about how the future czar of Russia proposed to some trashy woman on television. I know Mom loved her dearly, but that entire family was always a mess.

I refuse to get involved, but if I were Adriana’s actual brother, it would annoy me that Katerina can’t seem to stop staring at her boyfriend.

“What?” Katerina asks, her light green eyes looking up at mine.

“Nothing.” I shrug.

“Just ask,” she presses. “You’re thinking something, and I’m sure we all want to know what it is.”

“I’m just tired.” I yawn.

Adriana, Kristiana, Aleks, the blocky man named Grigoriy, and Alexei all yawn too.

Katerina does not. She scowls. “But that’s not what you’re thinking. You’re thinking something about me.”

“I was,” I admit. “I want to know why you came on a flight after the others. How did you get caught by the Department of Homeland Security and cause this mess?”

Everyone’s entirely silent when the elevator dings and the doors roll open. I’m stuck at the back, so I can’t do much about it. But when the doors start to close again, I’ve had it.

I shove outward, my arms bumping Kris and Katerina and shoving them into the people beside them. No one exits, but it does trigger the motion sensors and the doors open again.

“Are we planning to get off?” I ask. “Or are we all going back down?”

There’s a flurry of murmurs and shifting as they finally climb off. Once I’m free of the elevator, I press. “What’s really going on with you? Why are you here, and who are you?”

“You’re not asking who they are.” Katerina narrows her eyes at me.

“Because Kris is my sister. Aleks is her husband. Mirdza is her best friend, who’s marrying Aleksandr’s friend Grigoriy. Adriana’s Mirdza’s twin sister, and while none of us liked her as much as Mirdza, she’s still extended family. That makes Alexei, her fiancé, sort of family as well. But you’re just the woman who stares at him too much. So I want to know why you’re here and what made you later than them.” I cross my arms. “Kris said you’d explain things, and that’s what I want to know, because they all had diplomatic visas, whereas you landed with nothing at all other than my name.”

“You’re absolutely right. I am late.” Katerina lifts her chin. “Instead of flying here with them, I took a detour.” Her eyes flash. “I went to see Leonid, the new ruler of Russia, to beg him to grant Alexei his powers again.” She winces, like saying all that was not intended.

“You did what?” Alexei asks.

She shakes her head. “I won’t apologize. He even told me he’d give them to you. On one condition.”

Adriana’s jaw dangles open.

It’s been a long time since I saw her, but I don’t recall anyone shocking her when she was younger. I’m guessing that hasn’t changed much in the past decade.

“Why would he?” Adriana asks. “What does Leonid want?”

“Whatever it is, he can’t have it,” Alexei says. “We won’t negotiate with him.”

“It would be nice to know what he wants, though,” Adriana says. “No one knows his next move, and we have no idea why he’s having these trials and executions.”

Politics I don’t care about and more magic I don’t understand. Fabulous. At least it sparked some internal debate, even if it makes no sense to me. “I’m going to get some extra pillows and blankets,” I say.

But before I can walk off, Katerina speaks. “He told me that if Alexei will renounce his relationship with Adriana and marry me instead, Leonid will return his powers to him.”

Wow. Weird stuff just keeps coming. “He wants you to marry Alexei, instead of Adriana?” I can’t help lifting my eyebrows. “The guy you’ve been eyeing like he’s a vat of Ben Jerry’s all night? That’s convenient.”

“A vat of. . . Huh?” Katerina looks like she would happily spear me. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“What’s Ben Jerry’s?” Mirdza asks.

“Never mind,” I say. “None of this is my problem.”

“Why would Leonid want Alexei to dump Adriana and marry you?” Kristiana’s eyeing Katerina strangely, like they’re not friends at all. I suppose when she has to choose between Adriana and someone else, there’s no contest. For a split second, I almost pity this Katerina person. No one seems to like her.

I’ve been there.

But then I remember that she wrecked my entire night, and she may have single-handedly ruined Trifecta’s IPO and I’m back to hating her again.

“Leonid has known me for a long time,” Katerina says. “I’m not a wild card.” She shrugs. “Anyway, that’s the deal. I told him you’d never take it, but that’s?—”

“You’re right.” Alexei wraps an arm around Adriana’s shoulder and drags her closer. “I would never, not in a million years, leave Adriana and marry you. Not if it eradicated the threat of Leonid and restored all his powers to me. Not if the entire world hung in the balance. Not even if it would bring my family back again.”

I have no idea what happened to his family, but that was a pretty savage burn. Nothing in the world would convince him to leave Adriana for Katerina. Nothing. I’m not sure whether it’s a strong declaration of love for Adriana (which I don’t really understand. She was always a high-strung mess.) or whether it’s a clear message about how much he dislikes Katerina.

Either way, it’s not great when your vat of ice cream denounces you entirely and completely. Katerina looks, predictably, wrecked.

“Hey, Katerina,” I say. “Why don’t you help me with the blankets and pillows?”

She follows me out of the family room and down the hall to the linen closet, but once we reach it, and I open a cabinet, she doubles over, her hands wrapping around her waist, and starts gulping in air in great, heaving breaths. Suddenly, she’s bawling. Tears rolling down her face, sobs wracking her body.

I called her over here thinking she might want to get away from the others, not so that she could completely break down and I would be stuck here comforting her. Without any idea what to do, I awkwardly pat her back. “There, there.”

My mom died when I was young. No one taught me what to do with women when they flip out. I start to try and back away slowly, but her hand shoots out and closes around my wrist like a vise. Around ragged breaths, she manages to snap, “You will stay here.”

I suppose I’m her cover for this complete mental breakdown. “I take it that didn’t go as planned.”

She straightens lightning quick, her eyes flashing. “None of that was planned.”

“Look, I know you like Alexei. I doubt there’s anyone who has seen us all in the same room today who hasn’t cracked that puzzle. But the thing is, Adriana’s?—”

“Don’t.” She shakes her head. “You don’t have to try and make me feel better.”

“Oh.” I snort. “I wasn’t. I was going to warn you. Adriana’s straight-up insane. I’d back away from anyone who likes her slowly, and I would never turn toward them again. She’s likely to carve your eyes out of your skull and eat them, and if they like that kind of energy, that’s not someone you want.”

Katerina laughs. The sound isn’t sad and desperate and painful. It’s actually kind of nice, like a firm handshake or a hug. I didn’t expect that kind of laugh from this woman who flies to new continents for men who are engaged to crazy women. “Thanks.”

“Uh, sure.” Then I remember we’re supposed to be getting extra pillows and blankets. Katerina gets herself together enough to help me, and we make it back to the kitchen when I realize that everyone’s huddled around some small screen, transfixed.

It’s someone’s phone.

The tinny sound’s coming from the speakers of the device. “—who until today had been the last official dictator in Europe, leading the country of Belarus for more than twenty-eight years.”

I freeze. “What is it?”

The six of them turn toward us slowly.

Aleksandr’s the one holding the phone, and he looks concerned. “Leonid’s not staying still.”

“What did he do?” Katerina asks.

“Well, rumors say he killed Putin. But it’s undeniable that he killed Europe’s last dictator—Putin’s favorite crony, the leader of Belarus.”

“But Lukashenko’s a pretty bad man,” I say. “Wasn’t he? Are people upset about that?”

“He invited the man to visit him in Russia, and then after Lukashenko accepted his invite, Leonid killed him,” Aleksandr says. “The execution has thrown Belarus into disarray, and in answer to that concern, Leonid announced that he’ll absorb Belarus into Russia once again.”

I don’t know enough about the region’s politics to really have any understanding about what all of that means or how it might have happened. They want me to be scared, or outraged, or upset, but it all feels very far removed from anything that might affect me here, in the United States. Surely the madman wouldn’t try to come here and start any fights. His armies would be half a world away, and we’re hardly Belarus.

“You need to pass this IPO to someone else,” Kris says.

And that’s it. That’s what she’s wanted since she walked into my life. She wants me to torch everything I’ve worked to build, weeks before the culmination of all my plans, because of something that won’t really affect me in any way. “I won’t do that.” I shake my head. “I have about three hours to sleep before I need to wake up and prepare for a long day of meetings tomorrow. It’s going to be hard to recover from today, but I think I can do it.”

Kris doesn’t argue, but she looks sick.

“You saw Aleksandr turn into a horse,” Mirdza says softly. “You still don’t believe us?”

I shrug. “I believe that you believe what you’re saying. It’s just that I’m not willing to burn my life to the ground over it. I don’t think you’re right about how this will affect me.”

“You’re right,” Katerina says.

I feel validated at first, thinking that someone in this mob of lunatics agrees with me. But then I realize she’s not talking to me.

“He’s too stubborn. It was a waste of time coming here.”

“You are also wasting your time,” Adriana says. “No matter what Leonid wants, no matter what you want, you’re not going to split me and Alexei up.”

The two women glare at each other, and I realize I’m not the only one with no one on my side. Katerina looks just as beleaguered as me, but hers is for a one-sided love, and mine is because I walked away from a toxic family situation.

“We need to figure out what Leonid’s plan is,” Aleksandr says. “And fighting among ourselves won’t help.”

“None of us are thinking clearly,” Kristiana says.

“We do need sleep,” I agree.

“But in the morning?” Grigoriy arches one eyebrow. “I plan to interrogate you.” He’s glaring at Katerina.

I don’t know her, and I definitely don’t like her, but I almost feel sorry for her. “Why?” I ask. “Is she a criminal after all?”

Grigoriy’s eyes when he turns to face me are dark. Shuttered. “Maybe. She’s the only one who really knows the maniac, and she hasn’t told us anything of value yet.” He grimaces. “But she’s going to.”