5. Evgeny #3
We spend the next couple of hours visiting, and the longer I stay in the comfort of my sister’s house, surrounded by our crazy family, the more I feel myself relax.
By the time I follow the other Bratva members into Val’s office, I’m convinced if I laid down, I might actually immediately fall asleep.
A bottle of vodka gets passed around while we all squeeze into the room, and once the door is closed, Luka looks at me and says, “How’s it looking with DeMarco?”
“I made a few calls,” I tell them. “Donavan’s a good lawyer, but the evidence seems strong. I don’t know.”
“Could you get him off?” Damien asks.
“Yeah, I could get him off,” I say.
Our Uncle Vitaly starts laughing from the back corner.
“Are you laughing because we’re talking about getting him off?” I ask.
The grin on his face is the same one he probably had when he was twelve and laughing at the same kind of phrasing. “I am,” he admits. “I’m glad you could get him off, though. If anyone can, it’s you, Ev. You don’t stop until the job is done.”
“Jesus,” Uncle Lev says. “You never take anything seriously.”
“I’m trying to,” Uncle Vitaly says. “They’re the ones talking about getting a guy off. It’s kind of their fault.”
“So if he does get off,” Sasha says, eyeing Uncle Vitaly and daring him to laugh. When all he does is smirk, Sasha continues, “Then we’ll take care of it ourselves.”
“Agreed,” my dad says. “He’s going down no matter what. Once he’s out of the way, we can take down the rest of them. I’m sick of them being so close.”
“They’ve never once crossed into our territory,” Max reminds him. “I agree it needs to be done,” he says before my dad can argue, “but we need to be careful. There’s a lot of attention on him right now.”
“He’s right,” I say, looking over at Sasha. “So you can’t just stab him as soon as he walks out the door a free man, if that’s what ends up happening.”
Sasha grins. He may have softened a bit over the years with his family, but I still see the cold-blooded psycho that lives behind his eyes. “I would never do anything that could get me caught.”
“I know,” I tell him. “I just feel the need to say it out loud every once in a while.” He’s right, though. Sasha is nothing if not careful. He’s a meticulous killer, the kind that’s nearly impossible to catch and even harder to convict.
He’s a prosecuting attorney’s wet dream and worst fear all rolled up in one.
“So fill me in on everything,” I say, and then sit back while they tell me all the news I’ve missed.
They used to try and keep me out of things, but after I convinced them I can do a far better job of protecting them if I know all the crimes they’ve committed, they finally agreed I was right.
I feel like their priest sometimes, listening to everyone’s confession and then locking it away so I can make sure it never sees the light of day.
“Bullshit,” Uncle Vitaly yells when Sasha says he only killed three people last month.
Everyone laughs while I ask, “Is there anyone else? I heard about a hit on one of the Murphy guys.”
They all perk up at the mention of the Irish gang that’s slowly starting to build into an actual threat.
They’ve been growing for years, learning the trade and pushing boundaries every chance they get.
So far they’ve had enough sense to stay out of our territory, but we all know it’s only a matter of time.
“Wasn’t me,” Sasha says.
“Yeah, it wasn’t him,” Mia agrees. “That was an Alessi hit. The guy crossed the invisible line,” she says with a shrug. “He won’t make that mistake again.”
“See?” Sasha says, looking over at our Uncle Vitaly. “Wasn’t me.”
Uncle Vitaly grins. “We all know it could’ve been, though. That’s why I have to ask. Your kill count is hard to keep up with.”
“That guy was shot, right?” Sasha asks.
When I nod, he says, “Not my style.”
“True enough,” I say, because we all know he prefers to use a knife.
We finish airing all our dirty laundry and then start to go back out to join the others. Niki stops me at the door. Holding his phone out to me, I look at the photo and immediately recognize the Toyota Corolla that’s parked outside my office building.
“Pavel said she’s been waiting there for an hour,” he says. “She knows you well enough to know it’s not unusual for you to work a Sunday.”
“I’m guessing most people could figure that out,” I say. “She hasn’t been tailing me home. I would’ve spotted her.”
“She’s still curious,” he warns.
“It’s fine,” I tell him. “She’s not going to be a problem, Niki.”
“Don’t you think maybe she already is?”
I hold the stare he’s giving me and lie my ass off. “No, I don’t. I’ve been around enough reporters to know she’s going to grow bored when it leads to nothing. She thinks she smells a story. When she realizes it’s not one, she’ll get bored and move on.”
“I’m keeping Pavel on her,” he says. “Just in case.”
“Of course, but I’m guessing it won’t last much longer. She’s covering DeMarco right now. That’s bound to be more exciting than watching my building from a hatchback.”
Niki watches me in silence, and when I finally ask, “What?”
He says, “Just be careful, Ev. I’ll let you know if it gets worse or if she decides to back off. I think you should see this too, though.”
I take the phone he offers me and swipe through a set of photos showing Harper at a small cafe.
She’s sitting across from a cop, smiling and laughing at whatever he’s said to her.
I immediately hate the guy, but I ignore that ridiculous thought and scan the photos for details.
They seem relaxed with each other, friendly even, but if they’re dating, it’s a new thing.
He doesn’t kiss her goodbye, and I’m grateful for that because it’s the last thing I want to see.
“Cop’s name is Devin Keegan. They dated several years ago for a little bit. Guy’s married now and has a six-month-old daughter.”
I try not to dwell on the fact that the guy I’m staring at has been inside the woman who’s becoming a real pain in the ass because she’s not leaving my head like she’s supposed to.
Instead, she’s parked herself in a corner and made it cozy like she plans on staying a while.
It’s annoying to not be able to evict her like I can with anyone else.
“Are they having an affair?” I ask, because I’m pretty sure that would kick her right out of my head if I knew she was capable of that.
“No,” Niki says, watching me again. “Just friends, and really more like distant friends at this point. They meet for coffee every once in a while, probably when she needs information from him.”
“Do I want to know how you know all this?” I ask.