Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
~CARMINE~
I slept like the dead. I don’t remember the last time I slept that hard.
I roll over and look at my watch.
9:30 a.m.
I sit up and scowl.
Nine-thirty? What in the actual fuck?
Nadia’s already up. I don’t know why she didn’t wake me. It’s completely uncharacteristic of me to sleep past seven.
I drag my hand down my face, then reach for my shorts. Jesus, jet lag is a motherfucker.
I pad into the kitchen and narrow my eyes. The whole house is still.
Where’s Nadia?
Just as my phone rings in my hand, I notice the note on the counter.
C-
Ran out for donuts and coffee. You’re so sleepy! Be back soon.
XO,
N
“Yeah?” I say without looking at the name on the display.
“You need to come up to Victor.”
“Shane? What the fuck, Shane? I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Why don’t you ever answer your goddamn phone?”
“I have a life, brother. But never mind that now. I need you to come up to my place to look at some stuff. Rocco’s on his way to get you. Should be there any minute. I’ve been calling you for a few hours.”
“I overslept.” I sigh and scratch my scalp. “Christ, I haven’t even had any coffee yet.”
“I have plenty. Get your ass ready to go when Rocco gets there. Oh, and, Carmine, come without the girl.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t bring her. This is as confidential as it gets.”
He ends the call, and I hurry back to the bedroom to get dressed and pull myself together. I usually trim the scruff on my face in the mornings, but there’s no time for that today. I clean up a bit, comb my hair, and walk back out to the kitchen.
I look up to see Nadia coming through the door, juggling a box of her favorite donuts and a tray of coffees.
I rush over to help her, gratefully lift a coffee from the tray, and take a long sip.
“God bless you.”
“Are you okay? You have sleep marks all over your face.”
“I slept hard.”
“Yeah, you did.” Nadia lifts the lid of the box and sniffs the treats inside. “I bought too many, but I couldn’t help myself.”
“Thanks for going out to get this.” I take her shoulders in my hands and kiss her. “I have to go.”
“Huh? Where are we going?”
I kiss her forehead so I can stall and figure out a lie to use. I haven’t had to lie to Nadia in months, and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
“I have to meet with my brothers. Some business that isn’t tied to what we’ve been working on.”
She nods and takes a bite out of a maple bar. “Okay. Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you? We could go straight to Annika’s from there.”
There’s a knock on the door.
“That’s my brother. You know what? You take the car. I’ll meet you there.”
“Okay.” She frowns, watching me. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“As far as I know, everything’s fine.”
Rocco walks into the house and grins. “Mornin’.”
“Hi, Rafe,” Nadia says. “I didn’t get enough coffee for you, but you’re welcome to take a donut or two. Actually, here. You might have just saved my life. I’ll take two, and you guys take the rest. Now I won’t eat them all myself.”
“Nice. Thanks.”
I take the box and kiss her again. “Thanks. I’ll see you later.”
“See you later,” she says cheerfully as I close the door behind me and follow Rocco to his car.
“What the fuck is going on?” I demand when I climb into the rental.
“No idea,” he says and stuffs half the donut into his mouth. After he swallows, he continues. “Got a call from Shane. Thirty minutes later, I was in the chopper headed here.”
“Where’s it parked?”
“Not far. We’ll be at Shane’s in an hour.”
I feel sick after lying to Nadia.
We arrive at an airstrip where the chopper is waiting for us. Rocco and I climb in, buckle up, and he checks gauges and flips switches. When we have our headsets on, we take off.
The air over the high Rockies is choppy, so the ride is rough, but it doesn’t take long before we land about a hundred yards from Shane’s house on his property near Victor, Colorado.
As an old mining town in the mountains, Victor used to host more than a hundred thousand people. But now that most of the gold is gone, aside from the last few plots that large corporations own, the town has shrunk to just a couple of hundred people.
Just the way Shane likes it.
How he can live at ten thousand feet, in the middle of nowhere, I have no idea. The air is thin as hell, and it always takes me a day or two to get used to being up this high.
Rocco cuts the engine, and we get out of the helicopter and jog to the house where Shane’s standing just outside his door, arms folded across his chest.
“Saved you a donut,” Rocco says as he passes the box to Shane. “Your favorite.”
“ One ?”
“Better than none,” Rocco replies and shrugs as we follow our brother into the big farmhouse.
Shane’s property is a fortress. Sitting on a few hundred acres, it’s surrounded by state-of-the-art security with cameras and alarms. He has all kinds of toys, weapons, and other equipment that I probably don’t want to know about, in addition to the helipad.
He leads us through a honey oak kitchen and the dining and living spaces, which all look completely normal. Fancy, but normal.
Then, he passes through a doorway and procedes down a long flight of stairs. When he flips on the lights, we’re no longer in a simple farmhouse.
We’re in a headquarters.
Machines beep and computers cover several desks. There are phones, screens, maps.
It’s all very James Bond.
Or, Shane Martinelli.
“I got home a couple of days ago and was finally able to start digging into that slimeball, Richard,” he begins with a donut in his mouth. “It was right there, in front of our faces the whole goddamn time.”
“What was?” I demand.
“Let me start at the beginning.” He flips on a screen, and it fills with a photo of Richard. “This asshole isn’t Richard Donaldson at all. It’s a cover. One that was well crafted, by the way. But it was thin. They didn’t add layers, so I didn’t have to dig far to discover that he’s a phony. If Alex Tarenkov had done his job, it would have been harder to find. But, more on that in a minute.”
He clicks a button, and data starts scrolling across the screen.
“Dimitri Lebedev.” I turn to Shane in shock. “He’s Russian?”
“Oh, he definitely is. But he was born in New York City in 1987. His parents were KGB spies in the seventies and early eighties and came to the US for asylum. The fucking government gave it to them in exchange for some information. You know, we were dealing with the Cold War at that time, and I’m sure they had plenty of secrets to share.
“So, our boy Dimitri was raised here in the US. Went to college at NYU. Smart kid, majored in PoliSci. Guess who his roommate was?”
Rocco and I stare at him. “Who?”
“Alexander Tarenkov.”
Shane clicks some keys and some photos of the two men show up on the screen.
“Motherfucker,” I mutter.
“So, these two were buddies in college. How Annika didn’t know that, I have no idea. Because from what I’ve heard, Annika and Alex always got along well. Maybe Alex wasn’t the type to bring his bestie from college home for the holidays. Maybe he knew if he brought Dimitri around his father, there would be trouble given that Dimitri’s parents were KGB agents and all. But that’s all speculation.”
“We’ll have to ask him,” Rocco says.
“Wait a minute. If these are his parents”—I point to the couple on the screen—“who were the people at the wedding who claimed to be Rich’s family?”
We all look at each other, and then Shane shrugs. “They were hired to act the part. This whole thing was a cover. But not for Dimitri.”
“For Alex,” Rocco finishes.
“Bingo. Whatever this jerk’s into, it goes deep, and it’s been going on for a long time. He had one arrest in college for dealing, but it was just some weed. Those records were buried. I assume thanks to his father.”
“But the Tarenkovs don’t deal,” I say, shaking my head. “Nadia told me herself that drugs aren’t their game.”
“And I buy that,” Shane says, continuing. “Igor has always been adamant that their family isn’t into the drug game. But that doesn’t mean that Alex isn’t.”
“I need to ask Nadia?—”
“Look, I know you’re in love with her. Jesus, it’s all over your face. But you need to tread carefully here,” Shane interrupts, turning to me. “Because I have reason to believe that she’s in on it with him.”
No. Absolutely not. Everything in me wants to rail at him in anger, punch him in the fucking face for even suggesting that the woman I love is connected to this.
But I don’t.
I wait.
Shane clicks more keys, and the photos on the monitor shift to ones of Nadia and Alex.
“These were taken just six months ago in Atlanta,” Shane says.
The two of them are walking down the street together, laughing.
“The Tarenkovs are based in Atlanta,” I remind him, but my gut is still in knots. Nadia hates her brother.
So why then is she in all of these photos with him, looking as close as two siblings can be?
“The point is, we don’t know , Carmine. She could be playing you. She could be double-crossing you.”
I remember what the goon in Cannes said: “ She’ll just double-cross you, man. That’s what she does.”
Fuck, has Nadia been playing me this whole time? I’ve been falling in love with her, and she’s been playing me?
“Take me back.” I march toward the steps, my heart pounding. I need to get to Nadia. I need to look her in the eyes when I confront her about this. “Right now, Rocco.”
“We’re all going,” Shane says, shutting down the equipment in a rush and then running after us. “Goddamn it, slow down. I have to lock up.”
“This place is a fucking fortress. No one even knows it’s here.”
“I know,” he mutters before we all jog out to the waiting helicopter.
“I’m going in alone.” Rocco doesn’t even pull into the driveway, he just pulls up to the curb. “I’ll come to the office after I’m done confronting her.”
“Are you sure she’s here?” Shane asks.
“The car’s still in the drive,” I say with a nod. “She’s here. I’ll see you in a bit. Go see if you can find out where Alex is.”
Rocco drives away as I walk up to the house. Jesus, am I completely blind when it comes to Nadia? I didn’t go into this with the intention of falling in love with her. My guard was up, I was careful. Watchful.
I reach for the handle, but movement through the window in the door catches my eye, and I stop.
“Fuck me,” I whisper. Nadia is sitting on the couch, her back to me. And Alex, that son of a bitch, is pacing the living room, talking and gesturing with his hands.
Shane was right. The evidence is right here in front of me. Nadia didn’t expect me back for hours, so Alex came over, and they’re having a meeting in the house I’m paying for.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and call Shane.
“Yeah?”
“You need to come back here. Alex and Nadia are both here. I haven’t gone in yet. I want backup. I know how badass she can be.”
“On our way.”
I shove my phone back into my pocket and decide to walk around the house to get a better view. We’ll have to surprise them. Alex is weak and small, but Nadia is excellent at both hand-to-hand combat and with her weapon.
I ease my way around the opposite side of the room and peek my head around the window. Alex is standing in front of Nadia, his arms still flailing about.
And when he steps away, my blood turns to ice.
Nadia’s hands are tied in front of her. Both eyes are blackened. Her shirt is ripped, probably from a struggle, and there’s a gash in her shoulder with blood running down her chest.
The son of a bitch hurt her.
Nadia’s eyes roam away from her brother and meet mine. They widen in surprise for a moment, and then she recovers. She watches Alex, who’s still on a tirade, and then gives me a shake of the head.
It’s barely noticeable, in case Alex sees her, but it’s there.
She doesn’t want me to come in.
Well, she’s going to be very disappointed.
I hurry back around the house just in time to see my brothers hurrying up the driveway.
“He beat her up,” I say quickly and bring them both up to speed. “She’s not in on it, and he’s going to kill her.”
“No.” Rocco takes out his sidearm and disengages the safety. “He isn’t. How do you want to do this?”
“There are two entrances, aside from the garage.” I point to the front door and then gesture to the side of the house. “Both are within his line of sight, so when we go in, we go in firing. But you have to be careful. Nadia’s tied up on the couch.”
“Rocco and I are going in on the side,” Shane says, cool as a cucumber as he thinks it through. “Carmine, you go in through the front door as if you’re just coming home and don’t know what’s going on. Play stupid with him for a bit. We need to catch him off guard.”
“And if he just draws a weapon and shoots me?”
Shane smiles. “Duck.”
“That’s not helpful.” I tap my piece at my ankle and the one at my back. “He’s yelling. I’d say he’s telling her everything he’s done.”
“Alex would brag,” Rocco says. “He’ll want to tell her everything before he kills her.”
“I’m using that to my advantage,” I say and walk to the door. “Get in position. I’m going in.”
Without another word, I open the door.
“Hey, babe, I’m home! I hope there are still some donuts left. I’m starving. The gym was pretty empty today, so?—”
I come up short when Alex points a gun in my face.
“Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on? Nadia?”
“Hello, darling ,” Alex says with a sneer. “Go sit with her. This works out well. I can kill you both at the same time.”