Chapter 31
Chapter
Thirty-One
Nine months ago…
Dimitri
“I made a friend!” Ian slides out of the Mastodon SUV and bounces into my arms.
Holy shit! There’s no level of parental relief quite like when your kid comes home and says he has a new friend. And since this kid’s been vetted by Alana, I’m sure he’s nice.
I take his backpack off his shoulder and drop it by the door. “And what’s his name?”
“Drew. He’s in my class. We’re eating lunch together.” Ian’s dusty blond hair falls flat on his face. He grins like a mischievous gnome. “He doesn’t know I speak English.”
“But you do.”
He raises his finger to his lips and says, “Shhhhh. Let’s see how long we can keep it going.”
“That’s gonna backfire on you.”
He rubs his hands together like an old-timey villain. “No, it’s going to be funny.”
When Uri comes in a few minutes later, Ian runs over to him and announces, “I made a friend!”
Uri throws his arms around Ian and says, “That’s great! I’m so proud of you.”
“And Lance says I need a new name. I’m Werewolf.”
“Very cool.” He pats Ian on the back and says, “Hey, I need to talk to Uncle Dimitri for a few minutes. Can you go to your room?”
Ian nods, grabs his Switch that Alana bought him for his birthday, and closes his door.
Uri turns to me and says, “I did something this weekend.” He blushes. “Or someone. But you can’t tell Waverly.”
“Why would I tell Waverly? Was it her boyfriend?”
Uri sneers. “It’s bad enough she’s dating Adam, that piece of shit, and the guy who broke her heart is still alive. Her luck with men is dubious at best. And if she found out who I was with, she’d be blinded with jealousy. We’d never be the same again.”
“Do I know this person?”
“Not directly.”
“Was he good to you? Kind, and treated you with respect?”
Uri blushes and nods. “Yes.”
“Are you going to see him again?”
“No.”
“Why not?” I feel like it’s a question I need to ask. Otherwise, what the hell am I doing here?
“He was very clear—one weekend.”
“Then tell me no more. I know all that matters about him.” I shrug. “Besides, I’m shit at keeping secrets.”
“It’s a good thing your girlfriend is a spy.”
“Point proven. If I was really good at it”—I move my hand in a slow arch—“you’d never know.”
“Can we get back to what’s really important? Me.” Uri walks toward the kitchen. “This guy I hooked up with said since I’m ‘new to this whole thing,’ before I hop into a serious relationship, I need training wheels.”
“Hmm, there’s a few guys at the club who might be able to help you, training wheels and such. Did Alana’s friend’s Gay for Beginners app ever get launched?”
“Not sure, and don’t care.” But Uri gets shy and turns away. “I need more time to think about it.”
That’s the thing about Uri—he’s quick to action for someone else, but he’s paralyzed by his own fear for himself.
“Oh, Joey sent this over for you.” He digs through his backpack and hands me a square envelope. Not the kind I would use for money, and it’s thick. It’s a wedding invitation for Tawny and Scott, the guy she went into the club with when I saw Katya. God that feels so long ago.
“Should I even go to this?”
Uri digs through the cabinet and grabs a bag of popcorn, tearing it open. “Why not? Free food. I can watch Ian.”
I frown. “You do that every night. It’s almost like you’re using him as an excuse so you don’t have to go out yourself.”
He frowns and points the bag at me. “Yeah, but the father of the bride owes the Italian family money, so if the Four Fathers don’t go, someone from the family might have to. You could be a proxy if need be.” Uri’s been working for the Irish family for a few months now and has been moving up in the ranks. He’s earning the trust and respect from the other fathers he wished he had from his own. “And I don’t want to go, so winner winner chicken dinner!” He throws up his hands.
In the past month, Ian has exploded with joy. He’s smiling and explaining all the crazy things he gets Drew to do with his hands. “I’m worried my teacher will tell him the truth, but she keeps laughing whenever Drew and I work together.” He frowns. “Oh, and there’s this guy who gave Shae a hard time”—his frown turns into a smirk—“once. And he’s never done it again.”
Uri and I exchange glances. “What did you do?”
Ian puts his hand to his chest. “Me? It was her.”
I don’t believe him, but I’m not going to push it. He squeezes my hand and my heart swells. Uri coughs a little to hide his tears. Things are going the way they should be.
“I’ve got to get ready,” I say and head to my room to change into a suit for the wedding reception I was invited to that Uri somehow cajoled me into attending as his “proxy.”
I check my Katya phone, but no calls or texts. I don’t think she’s undercover right now. But I know she hates her boss. I miss my girl. My bed is big and cold, and I feel better when she’s around.
The wedding is in a cute hotel, a little dated for American standards. I don’t understand why we’re drinking out of mason jars and there’s tiny flowers everywhere. It looks like a farm threw up in here. Not my thing, but who am I to judge? I’m at the “we don’t know what to do with you” table. A tad upsetting since I’m the reason these two got together in the first place. I should leave. Go home and sleep. Maybe I’ll stare at my Katya phone debating on the perfect wording for a text. Either way, here is not where I want to be.
I’m vaguely aware of the presence of someone behind me.
“What would you like to drink, sir?”
All the blood rushes away from my head. Her fingertips brush lightly on the base of my neck and I swallow.
“You,” I mumble under my breath. I twist in my chair to see her—white shirt, black skirt, hair in a bun, minimal makeup. “I’ll take a beer, whatever’s in a bottle.”
Katya smiles at me. “Yes, sir.”
And fuck, I’ve been working for a while now, and lots of the kink stuff doesn’t do it for me. But tonight, oh something’s happening.
She turns her attention to the other people at the table while taking their orders. I drop my napkin on the floor, and as I lean over for it, I graze my fingers across her calf. The soft touch is enough to make me crave more.
“I’ll be back with your drink orders.”
There’s an open bar, she doesn’t need to take our orders.
As I watch her walk off, a familiar face pops into view, plus a woman who reminds me of Donny. It all clicks, this is Donny’s sister. Shit. She’s Drew’s mom. And Lance can’t take his eyes off her. I shake his hand and we exchange pleasantries.
Katya returns with our drinks and I start talking, peeling the label off the beer in one long strip, only half paying attention to the conversation. The topic of how everyone knows the bride or groom comes up, and without thinking, I offer, “Yeah, I met them at the club.”
Fuck. I shouldn’t have outed them like that. I’m about to say I’m the reason they’re together, but Izzy is too fascinated about the club. And I’m not doing much to change the conversation.
Lance swirls his water around his glass. “I always imagine it like a gym…with a different type of spotter, and equipment that needs to be wiped down more.”
Leaning in, I whisper, “I’m sure you know someone you could ask.”
Lance gives a little shrug. “Alana likes to give me wildly inaccurate information just to make me squirm. When it comes to this stuff, I can’t ever tell what’s real and what’s a joke with her.”
Izzy’s jaw drops as her gears start spinning. “Wait, so, Alana, your boss who owns and operates a massive private security company, who also has Joey scared out of his mind, is a member of his sex club? That’s so complicated.” This little, not-so-quiet revelation causes the rest of the table to pause what they’re doing and stare at us.
Shit.
Lance pipes in for the save, “Sax club, it’s for jazz.” This seems to placate the others and they go back to their previous conversations.
I frown. “Only the letter A is wrong in that sentence.” I turn my attention toward the kitchen, where I saw Katya last. “Back home, I had a sense of humor.”
Izzy snorts and Lance devours her with his eyes as if she’s a queen. “Oh, you have a sense of humor here, too.”
It’s weird hearing compliments from someone other than Katya. It feels like I’m having an affair. I don’t like it.
My eyes drift toward Katya as Lance walks off to take a phone call. Izzy is easy to talk to, and I think I feel safe because Katya is nearby. I tell Izzy more than I should about Ian and how we got to America. She keeps circling the conversation back to Lance. She has only one interest tonight. Seems we have a lot in common. Both single parents, on the outskirts of the crime families, and both of us have someone else we’d rather be talking with.
I like Izzy, and I get why Lance feels so protective of her. My hackles go up on his behalf when this middle-aged creeper comes over to pay tribute to Izzy. She’s not sure what to do or say, but her face is in a tight scowl and the creeper isn’t taking the hint. He’s full of backhanded compliments, and I’ve had enough.
I roll up my sleeve, flashing the octopus tattoo. The creeper flinches and stammers, recognizing the symbol and putting two and two together, and he makes a quick exit.
I really like this tattoo. It’s effective, but it’s faded over the years. I should get it touched up. I scroll on my phone to make an appointment, but the closest date is six months from now. Shit. How different will our lives be in six months?
The bride and groom do their dance and, um, I knew it was going to be suggestive. After all, I heard Tawny and Scott are having a post-wedding after-party at the club. I’ve seen him tie her up and smack her ass all shades of red, but grinding in front of your grandmother seems like a lot.
Izzy and Lance don’t react at all. They are…distracted, by each other. Lance keeps reaching out to touch her. I can’t fault him, I did the same thing to Katya. But now she’s on the other side of the room, helping the greasy troll who chatted it up with Izzy, and my hands are getting restless.
Izzy and Lance get up and meet with the bride and groom. I finish making the tattoo appointment, paying the deposit and all that stuff, when I hear, “THERE’S NO CAKE!” Izzy is in the bride’s face. The crowd of people pause. Even Katya catches my eye.
The other people at the table start to talk. “What kind of wedding doesn’t have cake?”
Outrage spreads across the room. Lance hurries back to the table and grabs Izzy’s purse. “Good luck.” I’ve seen the same look in Lance’s eyes now every night at work—a man on his way to get laid.
It sparks something primal in me, a side I haven’t tapped since Russia. But until today I haven’t felt the confidence I had in my homeland.
My Katya phone has three text messages left, so I should use them wisely. I catch her eye, making a quick gesture with my wrist to ask her to come over. She looks around and points to herself. It’s the same shit she used to pull whenever I asked her for anything back home.
She comes over to the table and asks, “Is there anything I can help you with?”
The elderly couple asks for more water. The twenty-year-old addicted to her phone all night asks for another white wine. Katya walks around the table closer to me, stopping in the spot where Izzy and Lance were sitting. “Can I get you another beer to strip?” She motions to the label I’ve been peeling away all night.
I grin like a wolf staring down a fox. She’s not prey, but not the same as me either. “This won’t be the only thing I get naked tonight.”
The woman next to me pulls the phone away from her face and snaps her fingers. “Get it, Big Boy.”
Katya rolls her eyes dismissively, but not at the woman. She’s rolling her eyes at me.
A hazy plan forms in my head. All night I’ve listened to the language people speak. It’s been all English, a few smatterings of Italian, but nothing else. So in Russian I say, “Give me your panties.”
My spy girlfriend, who never gets frazzled in the field, blinks at me a few times. For a flicker of a second, her lips curl, and she returns to her confused expression. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”
I say slower in Russian, “I want your panties. Take them off.”
She scrunches up her nose. “I don’t think the bartender can do that.”
Rolling the bottle on its rim, I say in English, “Why don’t you check.” I didn’t say please or thank you. That’s going to drive her crazy.
Annoyance flashes in her eyes. She hates being bossed around, but tonight I want to see if she’s willing to play this game.
She tucks her hair behind her ear, or at least she does the motion—it’s purely habit. But it normally happens when she’s about to give in. “I’ll see what I can do,” Katya offers before vanishing into the crowd.
“You should get her phone number,” the woman next to me says.
I huff under my breath. “I’ll get more than that.”
She shifts her weight toward me, her breast like a heat seeking missile. “Do you want to start off with an appetizer?” Her fingers trace her neck line.
My smile has an icy overtone. “She’s more my type.”
The woman shrugs and smirks. “To each his own. I’m going to fuck the best man.”
“You have fun with that,” I say as I take out the burner phone and leave it on the table.
Katya returns, standing next to me with a tray in her hand. She leans over the table to hand the older couple their drinks and places the white wine in front of the other woman’s seat. Before she pulls my drink off the table, she slides something into my coat pocket. Her actions are smooth and fast, and if I wasn’t paying close attention I would have missed it. She places a creamy liquid in front of me. “White Russian is the best we can do, sir.”
I slip my hand into the jacket pocket. The fabric my fingertips graze is lacy, warm, and damp. I stifle my groan. “Thank you,” I say in English, but in Russian, I add, “Show me.”
She swallows. “I don’t understand.”
I repeat the statement, but this time I drum my fingers across the phone screen.
She swallows at me, her eyes a little glassy but annoyed, then someone calls her over. “I’ve got to work.”
She spends most of her night fluttering about the side of the room with known members of various crime families. After the declaration of no cake, several tables cleared out. But the parfait bar was actually a pretty good idea. I avoided the cookies after watching everyone make the same disappointed face.
My phone buzzes and I step outside on the balcony to watch Katya’s video. The video is shaky and grainy, but she stares directly into the camera and says, “You’re in a mood tonight.” She leans in closer to the camera and whispers, “I like it,” before pulling back. “And I like you.”
The camera goes all shaky and the side of the frame is filled with her legs. She puts the phone between her knees and hikes up her skirt, revealing her bare pussy. Her middle finger and ring finger dip inside and start rubbing. She moans and continues for another minute, then lifts the camera and asks, “Are you going to finish the job?”
Yes, my little otter. I am going to make sure you finish.