4. Alexei #2
Maybe for the same reason I get the feeling that I don’t fucking want to be here.
Despite the heaviness of entering the basement with my father, with every minute that’s passed since Renata’s warning, I’ve felt a weight start to lift.
There’s something about being fundamentally powerless to control the outcome that is freeing, in a way I haven’t felt since the day I overthrew the Orlovs and took back my family legacy.
Since long before that, if I’m honest.
The truth is that from the day the Orlovs took my family compound when I was thirteen years old, my entire life has revolved around first overthrowing my captors and later, after that was done, rebuilding what they stole from us.
Not for a single day have I stopped working relentlessly to first build, then expand, my organization and power.
But now, for the first time, I have no idea when, or even if, I’ll be free to come back here.
I’m leaving behind an organization that is more than able to stand on its own, particularly under Dima’s leadership. And God knows I have enough money to run for the rest of my life, if I wanted to. My shares in Andersson Technologies alone are enough to keep me in the utmost luxury and then some.
Only a few hours ago, I was dumping a body in the Everglades and reminding myself that the swamp is the life I chose. That any ambition of living a different life is nothing more than a pipe dream.
Yet here I am, heading to the airport with a lone bag and a one-way ticket to a country I’ve never even visited before.
And for some strange reason, I suddenly can’t fucking wait to get there.
Oh, some reason, huh?
Ofelia Borovsky’s face passes in front of my eyes, swiftly followed by the crippling sense of shame I feel whenever I allow myself to remember the last time we met.
The recollection of her tears, the way she crumpled in on herself as I brutally rejected her, has sent me to the vodka bottle on countless occasions.
It’s the coward’s path, I know. I deserve to make myself remember every moment of Ofelia’s humiliation in stark detail, not shy away from it.
But oddly, although I can force myself to face the memory of my knife on her flesh, her tears are another thing entirely.
Those I can’t bear to remember for even a second.
But now you’re flying halfway around the world to be in the same country as her. And in less than a few days, you’ll be face-to-face with her again.
I’d be lying if that didn’t make my entire body suddenly burn with an excitement no amount of power or money can ever come close to rivaling.
“So am I right?” Dima asks, looking curiously at me across the rear seat of the limo. “Are you planning to stay away for a while?”
“I guess we’ll find out.” But even I can hear the unaccustomed lightness in my voice. “Lars is in Finland, doing that deal with the cyber betting company. I’ll call him from France, have him send the Quantum Drift over to pick me up.”
I fitted out a superyacht last year, registering it under one of the shell companies so it couldn’t be tracked back to me. We use it as a corporate perk for employees, but I also fitted it with a secure comms room, the same as the one Lars and I both have on our private yachts.
Maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind, I always knew it might come to this.
“I’ll have a temporary identity set up too, just to be safe,” I tell Dima. “From there, I’ll see where things are at. If I know anything about the FBI, none of this will happen quickly, so yes, it could be a while, I guess.”
He nods slowly, still watching me. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing,” he says soberly.
I raise my eyebrows. “You looking to get rid of me for good, asshole?”
Dima, for once, doesn’t laugh. “Maybe it’s you who needs to get rid of us, Lex.”
I frown at him as the limo takes the airport exit. “What the fuck does that mean?”
He shrugs. “You’re better than all this bullshit, Alexei. You always were. Maybe this is your chance to find another way.”
I stare at him, taken aback. “You sound like a fucking New Age therapist.”
“Say that again, and I’ll open every one of your chakras, motherfucker.”
We’re still laughing when the limo pulls up in the drop-off lane.
“Stay safe, brother.” Dima hugs me briefly. “I’ve got your back.”
“I know you do.” I return his hard embrace. “We’ll talk when I land.”
I walk away without turning back.
I’m seated in the first-class lounge, savoring a glass of Scotch before my flight, when a stranger pulls out the chair on the other side of the low table and sits without being asked.
His suit has the banal gray look of bureaucracy but is expensive enough that he’s likely a lobbyist rather than on the public purse.
Either way, I’m not fucking interested. “Seat’s taken.”
“I won’t take more than a minute of your time.”
“You won’t take that much, if you’re smart.”
“Marty Hunter Jr. won’t be going to jail.”
“Good for Marty Hunter Jr. Whoever the fuck he is.”
The man places a card on the table that I don’t bother looking at. “You don’t need to get on that flight, Mr. Petrovsky.”
“Maybe not.” I look at the man directly for the first time. “But you need to get the fuck out of that chair.”
His smile, as bland as his nondescript features and his carefully gelled brown hair, doesn’t reach his eyes, which are narrow, with the very white eyeballs of the non-drinker and non-reader.
“We stand at a pivotal point in history, Mr. Petrovsky. The future of Florida—of the entire nation, for that matter—is about to change. The people I represent would like you to be a part of that change.”
I have to hand it to this fucker. Most people would have run for the door by now.
“I’d like to drink my Scotch. In peace.”
“I can make the federal interest in you disappear. It will be business as usual—only better. The current political environment won’t stand for the cartels taking power in Miami.
You can take over their business. Add it to your own.
” His smile reminds me of how gators look when they glide through the water, right before they open their jaws to take a corpse.
“Our people will guarantee supply, as well as suppress any opposition.”
I check the board. There are two hours before my flight leaves, with nothing to fill them other than Scotch and extremely unhelpful fantasies about Ofelia Borovsky.
There’s no harm in torturing the man a little, if it helps pass the time.
“Either you like the idea of being carved into sushi or there’s something you want, Mr.”—I glance at the card on the table—“Owens.”
There’s no company on the card, just a global logo with crisscrossed lines that looks like it could belong to any corporation.
“You have some very interesting tech in development at Andersson Technologies.” The fucker is still smiling. “We’d like to be your partner in bringing those projects to fruition.”
“Then you should probably talk to the head of Andersson Technologies, instead of sitting in an airport bar with me.”
“We’d also like you to give your backing to Mr. Hunter and persuade your friends, such as the Luccheses, to do the same.”
“Have you looked at the front pages of the tabloids lately?” I sip my Scotch. “You might want to pick a better candidate.”
“By the time we’re through,” the man says, flashing his extremely whitened teeth again, “Marty Hunter Jr. will be washed as clean as a Miami beach after the November tides.”
By the time November rolls around, I think idly, those tides will be just in time to carry Marty Hunter’s body out to sea.
And this conversation is officially boring me.
“Your five minutes are up, Mr. Owens. I have a plane to catch.”
He stands up.
And pauses.
Just when I thought you’d be smart enough to fuck off.
“I suggest you call the number on that card, Mr. Petrovsky.” His smile has taken on a certain fixed quality.