Chapter 12
Chapter twelve
Matysh
“You know, I meant nothing by it,” Peter insists, looking up at me from where he’s bound to the chair in the middle of the vacant warehouse. “I meant nothing at all. I was just trying to be—”
“Do you ever stop fucking talking?” I explode, my fist landing right in the side of the temple.
Peter lets out a nasty grunt, but I only shake out my fist. Fuck.
“Boss,” Bogdin interrupts me. “You have a meeting with Boris Petrov in fifteen minutes. You might want to wrap this up…”
“Fuck!” I throw up my hands, having forgotten all about the meeting that I’m supposed to have with him. I pull out my phone, and double-check the security camera, seeing that Catarina is still safely in her room. “Still no leads?” I look up at Bogdin.
He shakes his head. “No.” He then pauses, eyeing Peter. “What do you want to do about… him?”
I purse my lips, give it a second of thought, and then pull out my Glock. I put one round in between Peter’s eyes and then look back at Bogdin. “Clean it up.”
He nods. “Yes, Sir.”
And with that, I head for the docks, arriving two minutes early. However, once again, Boris leaves me waiting for him in Red Hook.
Being late once is an accident, being late twice is a choice. I’m certain he’s trying to show me he’s still got the upper hand.
And it takes everything I have not to lose my goddamn mind. This is why I never wanted to do business with him—and I’m only here for my brother.
And maybe Catarina.
I shake my head at that. She’s still the bane of my existence. Though I have to admit, once she has the baby, I’ll be the one with the upper hand. The tables will turn.
But eventually, he shows up with his hands casually shoved in his pockets. I stand upright from where I’ve been leaning against the rail when I see him. I fold my arms in front of me, glaring at him.
“What news do you have? Obviously, not too important since you couldn’t be here on time.”
“I’ve got intel on the Vitales,” Boris says with a slick smile. He makes a point to look me in the eye the entire time.
“Mauricio? The mutt? You think he’s seriously behind it?” I think back to the interaction I had with him at the Plaza Hotel. “I don’t know about that… Have you had eyes on him?”
Boris pulls his hands out of his pockets, and takes a deep breath, shaking his head. “Mauricio is volatile. He's been raised by the old school gangsters, and if anybody stands in his way, he ends them. He’d be the type to pull off what happened to Mikhail.”
I raise my eyebrows for him to elaborate, but he’s silent, so I have to press. “Continue.”
He eyes me and then pulls out a cigar, lighting it up. “We need to keep tabs on him. We follow him and make sure we know his every move, from the moment he opens his eyes and takes his first piss in the morning to when he closes them shut at night. You have good surveillance teams, don't you?”
“The best,” I grunt. “But I don’t want to put them to use in places they don’t fucking belong.”
“Well, I know what I’m talking about. I know that Mauricio is going to be at the Met tomorrow. Have them wait there and follow him after,” Boris says, as if giving me a command.
Something feels off, but maybe it’s just the hatred for the Petrov family. And that’s all I think about as Boris continues to drone on and on about details. I make notes but do nothing more than that.
When it’s over, I let him walk away before I leave the pier and head to my bike. Before I turn on the engine and drive away, I make a quick call to Ivan, the head of my surveillance team.
“I need you to get eyes on Boris Petrov for a while,” I say, not giving him any explanation as to why. I don't even know if I have a good one. It's just my gut instinct. “I don’t fucking trust him.”
I feel there is something more going on, something that Boris knows but is not sharing with me.
And I have to figure out what that is.
I don’t like feeling two steps behind. It’s not where I belong.
***
It's late in the evening by the time I get home but Catarina’s light is still on in her room. I knock on the door twice before opening it to see her sitting in a chair, curled up under a blanket with a mug of tea beside her and a book in hand.
She looks peaceful, until she looks up and realizes that it’s me. Then her brows furrow, her pleasant look fades, and her lips purse. She hasn’t spoken a single fucking word to me since we left the Christmas market.
I rub the back of my neck, suddenly questioning why I’m even doing this. “Today was—”
“Do we really have to go over this again?” Catarina cuts me off with a sigh, setting her book down on the small table beside her. “We've had this argument since the beginning. I don’t think anything is going to be changing any time soon.”
I raise my brows at her. “What argument?”
“The one where you don't own me,” Catarina snaps, standing up and folding her arms in front of her.
I let out a defeated exhale. “I don't want to fight with you right now. Would you just come out to the living room with me?” I ask, standing in the doorway and holding out a hand for her. I don’t even know what the fuck I’m saying.
I just want her to stop shutting me out. It pisses me off… or something.
“It's late.” She shakes her head and takes a step toward the bed, but I don't budge.
“Five minutes. That's all I'm asking,” I say, urging her to comply.
Catarina glares at me, but then her shoulders drop.
“Fine.” She walks toward me, intentionally maneuvering away from my hand so I can't guide her to the living room.
Instead, she walks ahead of me with her arms still folded in front of her, but when she sees what I have waiting for her in the living room, she drops them to her side.
I drove to a Christmas tree farm nearby and picked out the biggest, most majestic tree I could possibly find on the way home. And thankfully, the estate has high ceilings. It's probably fourteen feet tall.
“How did you even get that in here?” Catarina squeaks, her voice barely audible as she turns to me.
“I know you don't want to talk about it, but I am sorry I ruined the Christmas market thing,” I grunt, stepping closer to her and placing a hand on her lower back. She doesn't back away from me this time. “So here’s a tree for you to decorate as you please.”
Catarina ponders what I've said for a moment and just nods her head, turning around and looking at the boxes and bags filled with Christmas decorations spread throughout the living room.
“Did you buy all of this, too?” she asks, pointing to everything I picked out.
“I didn't know what you would want.” I clear my throat, thinking I might have gone a little overboard with easily five thousand dollars' worth of bulbs and Christmas lights. But whatever. I also murdered my driver, too.
It is what it is.
Catarina seems to be fine with my answer suddenly, and starts going through the bags. She starts categorizing everything and looking at the tree, as if she’s coming up with some grand plan…
All for a tree.
“So…” I can’t help myself. “Did you guys have a big tree growing up?” I ask, reaching out to help her open a box of silver bulbs.
She purses her lips. “It was huge. That's one of the only traditions we really had. My dad would send someone out every year to scour Christmas tree farms looking for the biggest tree they could possibly find.” She pauses and stares at me with a slight smile on her lips, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“He would let me stay up all night decorating the tree.
But then again, that's because I was the only one doing it. It was the only thing he ever let me be hands on for.”
I nod, watching her. “So…your mom didn't help you?”
Catarina quiets, staring at a dangling snowflake ornament in her hand as she fidgets with it. “Um…” She pauses, getting lost in the snowflake. “She died during childbirth. I was my dad's first and only child. But you know that part.”
“Yeah, but I’m sorry,” I say, instinctively reaching a hand out to rest it on her knee. I squeeze it and Catarina rests a hand on top of mine for a moment before turning her attention back to the ornaments.
“What was Christmas like for you?” Catarina flips her hair over her shoulder. “I already know some stuff from what Mikhail said, but I imagine you had a much different experience. You were a lot older.”
I nod my head in agreement. “We didn't really celebrate much before Mikhail was born.
I'm almost ten years older than him, and the holiday was pretty dead for me.
The first Christmas tree I remember being put up was Mikhail's first Christmas tree.
My mom and dad did all of the cliche baby's first Christmas ornaments and they even tried to get him to open the presents himself.” I pause and laugh at the idea of it.
“He got a paper cut. But you know, I was the kid born too soon.”
“That’s… That’s sad.” Catarina frowns, tilting her head at me. “That might be worse than mine.”
I shrug. “When I left home, I stopped celebrating. I went back for Christmas dinners just because Mikhail wanted me to,” I continue, turning my attention to the giant tree in the corner of the room. “This is the first Christmas tree I've had since I left home when I was eighteen years old.”
Catarina stares at the tree, too, and nods her head. “At least it won't be the last.”
I look at her with my eyebrows raised and she smiles.
“I don't know if you can tell, but I love Christmas.
Our child is going to grow up believing in Santa Claus until they're eighteen years old. The baby”—she places her hand on her stomach—“will experience the Christmas I always wanted.” She looks back at me with tears in her eyes and a soft smile on her lips.
I realize this might be the most vulnerable I have ever seen Catarina…
And it does something to me.