4. Thirty
Thirty
LUKA
B y the time all the guests had left, and I knew Babushka, Katya, and my mother had retired for the night I called a meeting with Viktor and Nikoli.
Viktor looked as if he had aged like a president in the five years I’d been gone. His hair was gone from the top, and there were heavy lines around his eyes. Deep crevices from stress. Lines that developed from the dark secrets he kept for my family. I knew the man had been working around the clock since my father died, but it was more than black circles under his eyes.
“We need to move quickly,” I stated. “Papa always wanted me to run the organization from here once I moved from Paris. Are there papers to sign? Just put them here.” I tapped the top of my father’s desk. I was impatient. I was unsteady from running into Amara at the funeral.
She was under my skin. In my head. Wrapping tentacles around my heart .
I reached for the crystal decanter on the corner of the desk. I poured a rich bourbon. I wouldn’t let it register that I was the man sitting behind the desk now.
Nikoli sat in a chair and offered him a drink. He had a lot to absorb in a short amount of time. We were both present to let my father’s legal advisor fill us in. I wanted Nikoli to be my eyes and ears in the city. I needed someone I could trust when everything had become so unfamiliar.
“Luka, we have a lot to discuss about your father’s estate.” I saw the weariness blanket Viktor.
“Is there a question about the will?” I asked. “A dispute? I thought that was rock solid.”
“No. Nothing like that. You are the sole heir with specific requests on behalf of your mother and Katya. There are notes to set up a trust to keep the Petrovs from receiving anything.”
“Of course,” I muttered. Family had boundaries.
“Is it the off-shore accounts?”
Viktor sighed. “I think I should start with these.” He shoved a file across the desk. I opened the top flap.
“What the hell is this?” I saw the ledgers. The numbers. The property listings. “This is the warehouse district. And the distillery.” I glared at Viktor.
“There are more.” He handed me a second file thicker than the first.
I flipped through the pages. “I don’t understand. There are second mortgages. Third mortgages. Losses. On every single fucking property.” I skimmed the notes. “What organization is this? Who does my dad owe this money to?” I gulped the bourbon, trying to decide what was fact or fiction. “Is this a real company?”
Viktor crossed his leg over his knee. “It’s very real.”
“Carpe Noctem, LLC?” I closed my eyes as the pain of a knife sliding between my ribs might feel. “It’s not possible. It can’t be.” I look toward the ceiling.
“It’s Amara Amato. You should know she has notes like this all over town. She owns New Orleans now.”
“Amara? That girl I dated.” She was a stranger to me now.
“She studied furiously under her father before his passing,” Viktor explained. “He taught her his techniques. They’ve worked for her.”
“What the actual fuck, Viktor?” I cast a warning glance at Nik. “Did you know?”
I heard whisperings at the funeral home last night. People commented. I saw how the families eyed her at the cathedral today. She revealed herself in the confessional. The rumors were true. I knew she had power. But this kind of power was unreal.
“She’s fair. Respected. But she’s not backing down or going away. She’s made a mark here. Most of the organizations like doing business with her,” Nik answered.
“Why?” I was fucking dumbfounded. “She was supposed to move back to Philadelphia after Lorenzo was taken out,” I groaned. “She shouldn’t be here.”
“My understanding is that her Uncle Gio wouldn’t let her return home. She had no choice but to stay in New Orleans and continue with the Amato plan. But that’s just a rumor. I can’t say for sure,” Viktor responded. He looked at Nikoli to confirm the information.
“Nik, you said she left the city. You told me she left.”
“She did,” he answered gruffly. “For a long time. Months. We lost track of her.”
I ran my fingers through my hair. The last report I had on her was five years ago and I didn’t want another one. As far as I was concerned, I had kept her safe. I had saved her life. My father, Maksim, and Nikoli agreed to leave her alone after I handled Lorenzo. Nothing made sense.
“Then how is she here?” I demanded.
Viktor shuffled papers around, fumbling with an answer. “I think your father was too embarrassed to tell you. I’m sure he told the brigadiers not to mention a word.”
Nik nodded. That was the problem with our line of power. My father’s directives usurped mine.
I paced around the room. “And he didn’t kill her?”
Nik shuffled in his seat. His large frame awkwardly positioned in the chair. “She moved back into the mansion after being gone for months. She didn’t do anything that was on our radar. There was no reason to kill her.”
Viktor shrugged. “A pretty face, but a lethal business mind. It has its draws. He was planning a merger with her. He thought she could be an ally. She was useful to him alive.”
I whipped around. “What do you mean?”
Viktor reluctantly withdrew a contract with my father’s seal on the letterhead. I ripped it from his hands and scanned the page. “ This is a fucking marriage contract. My marriage contract.” I balled it up and threw it across the room. “He never mentioned this to me.” My father hated the Italians. Was I to believe he was going to bring me back from Europe to marry Amara?
“He had me draw it up only days before he died. No one else had seen the document.”
“So she hasn’t seen it?” I asked. I looked at Nikoli and he seemed as surprised as I was about the suggestion I marry Amara.
Viktor shook his head. “And by the state the contract is in, I’m guessing you don’t want me to present it to her?”
“Fuck no,” I growled.
I poured another drink. I needed to think.
“What do I do? How do I get the properties back? I want the distillery.” I didn’t want to talk about a merger or marrying Amara. That was out of the question.
“You’d have to exceed your projected profits for the next three quarters. She already takes a hefty share of all the revenue. Her Capos are known for high interest rates.”
I ran my hands through my hair. “How did my father allow this to happen? He never mentioned one damn word to me about her. We’re run by the Capos now?”
Viktor expected the questions. He was the only one who knew the full extent of the damage. “He tried to expand in shipping to beat out Lorenzo once he lost the tunnels. He overspent. He didn’t know the market well enough in the northeast. When things floundered, Amara set up a meeting and offered to bail Dmitry out. She was an expert in that part of the country. ”
I blinked. “And he accepted her offer?”
“He did. And more than once. It’s been going on for three years. She became his bank. It’s all here in the files. She has a hold on almost everything in the Novikov Organization.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, refilling my glass for a third time.
Viktor cleared his throat. “But there is one corner of the business she doesn’t own.”
“What is it?”
“Well, Katya and Andrey came to your father a few months ago. One of Katya’s friends wanted a financial backer to start her company. Your father offered to fund it a hundred percent. He is the sole investor.”
“Oh shit. Tell me it’s not a bridal shop. Or a horse. All of Katya’s friends ride.”
“It’s not.” Viktor unclipped his leather binder and retrieved a file. “It’s a small tech company.”
I felt the pit in my stomach rise to my throat. What was my dad doing in tech? We dealt in weapons, laundering, and drugs. Not tech.
“This is what I have? A tech company?” I blurted.
“You still have all the other properties, but you no longer own a majority in any of them. Amara Amato does.”
“Stop saying her name.” I waved my hand in the air.
“Well, most people do call her queen of the Crescent City.”
I stared at him. “I didn’t need that.”
“Sorry. It’s been a long few days. ”
“Why don’t you go home? I’ll read these, and we’ll meet again tomorrow.” I needed to digest all of it.
“Yes, sir.” Viktor rose to his feet.
I was about to correct him. My father was the sir. But he was gone. I was the head of the Novikovs. Everyone answered to me. “Good night, Viktor. Thank you.”
Nikoli stood to face me. “I didn’t know about your father’s plans.”
I closed my eyes. “I believe you. But for you to be my Sovietnik you must tell me everything. Are we on the same page?”
He folded his hands in front of his waist. “Yes. I am honored to serve you. I won’t let you down, again.”
“Go home, Nik.”
He walked out of the office. I leaned into the chair, prepared for a moment alone when my mother walked into the study.
“You’re done with your meeting.”
I looked up from the statement on the tech company. “Yes.”
She looked happier. Lighter. She carried a glass of wine with her. “Your father would be pleased to see you sitting there.” It wasn’t sentimental the way she said it. Just a matter of observation.
“Maybe.” I kicked away from the desk and stood. “I thought you had gone to bed.”
“I changed my mind.” The glass dangled in her hand. I wondered how many she’d had. “It’s strange upstairs.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought about her sleeping in the room she shared with my father. “Why don’t you move across the hall? We could have that taken care of for you tomorrow.”
She shuddered. “What? You think I’m afraid of your father’s ghost or something?”
I eyed her. My mother, Anna Novikov, an anomaly to all mothers. Graceful and beautiful. But cold and unaffectionate where her children were concerned. Her moods were hard to read. Her thoughts even harder to decipher.
“I have no idea. It would be understandable.”
“We haven’t slept together in years.” She sank onto the small loveseat. “We haven’t shared a bed, much less a room. Your father’s ghost can try to haunt me all the fuck he wants.”
She was drunk. I had to listen closely for the way she began to slur the end of her words.
“Mother, why don’t I get one of the maids to help you to your room?” I realized I didn’t know where that was. I didn’t know shit about my family. My parents hadn’t shared a room in years? What the fuck? It was bombshell after bombshell tonight. I didn’t want to know more. I couldn’t.
Maybe the light in all of this was Katya. She and Andrey were expecting a baby. They had their own house now and were out from under the Petrovs’s roof. She was the only sane one left.
“Did Viktor tell you about her?” she carried on.
“About who?”
“You know who,” she hissed. “That whore you used to follow around with puppy dog eyes.”
I grimaced. “Amara. And I don’t think anyone would say that. ”
“Yes.” Her expression changed. Her smile curled like Maleficient’s would. “She’s the queen now. Taking things. Ruling them. Spitting in the faces of good families. Our families. Our people, Luka.”
“I heard.” I didn’t want to acknowledge much when my mother was like this.
“But she’s beautiful. That’s what they say. So gorgeous.” Her words ran together from the wine. “They just want to fuck her.”
The words were like a punch. As angry as I was at Amara, at my father, at Maksim—the idea that anyone in the city would violate or hurt Amara set every protective instinct I had on fire. I wound my fingers into a tight fist.
“Okay. I need to get you upstairs,” I cut her off. There was a button on the desk that would ring for one of the house managers. I pressed it, counting the seconds until someone carted her out of here.
“You still can’t have her.” Her finger extended in my direction. “You can never have her.”
“And why is that?” I took the bait. I wondered if my father had mentioned the new contract of marriage he was about to propose.
“She doesn’t think you’re good enough for her anymore.” My mother shrugged when one of the new servants entered. “Are you, Luka? Are you good enough for the queen? Do you ask yourself that? Is that what you’re wondering?”
“Mother, stop.”
She began to cackle. “And we all know you had her father murdered. I doubt she would let you touch her if she knew the monster you really are. Imagine that little confession.”
Ice ran along my spine. My muscles tightened. Fuck. My mother knew all the buttons to press.
“Good night. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
This was a damn nightmare. A family saga, torn from a Greek tragedy or a Russian one. My mother was a goddamn loose cannon.
“Good night.” She held onto the man’s arm, and I was glad when I couldn’t hear her voice any longer.
I took my glass and wandered the grounds of the compound. It was aimless, pointless walking. From outside, things seemed the same as my last visit home. That had been for Katya’s wedding. The lawn was manicured. The fountains churned. The hedges were in neat rows. It appeared as if nothing had changed. I climbed the stairs to the pool deck. I stared at my reflection in the pool.
I couldn’t admit it to anyone. I couldn’t utter the words. Or let them see the cracks. Fuck. I wanted to jump in the deep end. Stay under a little too long. Hide under the diving board. Let pain consume my body. Make my lungs burn. My muscles ache. Anything, but to feel what I felt. I didn’t want to swim or float. I couldn’t keep treading water like this.
I crouched next to the water, skimming the top with my palm.
My mother’s words had crept into my thoughts. Did I want Amara? Did it matter if she would forgive me? I had made her mine five years ago.
Was that the answer to all of this?