Chapter 6 Father’s Will #2
Crawford seemed unable to look away from the barrel of the gun still trained on him for longer than a second. “I could call the police.”
Evelina did smile at that. “And tell them what? That a grieving daughter came into your office, outrageously demanding she actually be treated like the next-of-kin contact she’s listed as, and went a little crazy when you confessed to backstabbing her in favor of her cousin?
That you then ordered multiple big, muscle-bound rent-a-cops to put hands on that girl, who responded by …
standing still?” She indicated Otto. “You can check your exterior cameras, if they even work. I didn’t bring him with me.
So this is entirely on you, you scheming, disreputable, backstabbing bastard. ”
Crawford sucked in a hard breath, his nostrils flaring again and his shoulders rising. A different kind of nerves passed through his eyes.
“Bozhe moy,” Evelina breathed, incredulity joining the rush of feelings in her chest. “Your cameras really don’t work, do they?”
He finally looked away from both of them.
“Even in the lobby?”
Otto snorted.
Crawford clenched his fists. “It’s for client privacy!”
Evelina rolled her eyes. “Cheap-ass firm. No wonder you don’t have any loyalty.”
He sneered at her. “You b—”
“Watch it,” Otto warned. He didn’t so much as twitch, but Crawford clamped his mouth shut.
Evelina glanced around, then carefully picked her way to the nearest chair and perched on the edge.
“I’ll wait. After all, I’m supposed to be here later today, anyway, isn’t that right?
So, I could wait until then, even. If you make me.
” She still actually had no idea what time that was, but she meant what she said.
She would absolutely wait if he tried to make her.
She’d long since lost her uneasiness around dead bodies.
“Psychos, both of you,” Crawford muttered after a beat, turning toward the tall filing cabinet behind him. “Fine. I’ll give you the digital copy. It has everything except my signature, because I only signed the printed version, obviously. Is that sufficient?”
“It is.” She’d go over it herself, and probably she would eventually seek out an independent tech geek to analyze the file. It would be much easier to find another lawyer if she needed actual signatures to enforce a will. What mattered more to her was getting the damn thing.
Silence held, as did Otto’s gun, while Crawford opened a drawer and extracted a file folder.
He flipped it open and slipped out a flash drive barely the size of her thumb.
He put the rest away, then tucked the drive into a small manila folder and tossed it at her, obviously unwilling to step any closer.
Evelina snatched it easily out of the air and shook the drive into her palm.
The device was sleek and black, with a nearly invisible separation indicating which portion was meant to slide backward to reveal the USB plug.
Confident she could attach it to her laptop, she slid it closed again and dropped it back into the envelope, then that into her purse, before standing and looking once more at Crawford.
“I trust you understand that if this isn’t what you’ve promised, or if I find it’s been tampered with, we’ll have to have another conversation. ”
He glared at her, lips tightly shut.
She made her way back to Otto and patted his arm.
“And of course, should anything require us to have a secondary conversation, that time I will bring my bodyguard with me.” She smiled before turning away.
It was trickier making her way to the door without stepping in the still-expanding pools of blood, but fortunately for her, half of Crawford’s office was carpeted.
Over her shoulder, she offered one final parting warning in the guise of a faux-kind gesture.
“Oh, don’t worry, I know someone for this.
” She made a lazy gesture around the room.
“Just lock up for the afternoon, and if anyone asks, we talked things out, hm?”
Otto followed her out the door, not tucking his gun away until they were starting down the stairs.
Evelina expected to find a quiet lobby, and probably a petrified Wendy.
She was not prepared to also see two more men standing within and mostly consuming the space, guns drawn and bodies positioned to leave no potential path of travel past the lobby out of sight.
The younger male she couldn’t name, though she was sure she’d seen his face.
But the older one she knew, if not well, because she had met all of her father’s highest ranked men.
The older man, already turning to face her and lowering his weapon, was Artem Chaykovsky.
In his early forties, six-feet exactly, with a jagged scar that sliced into the side of his copper-toned hairline and always a hardened edge in his green eyes, Artem was an established brigadier within the Nikolaev clan.
He didn’t spend a lot of time at the main house, often choosing instead to work alongside his troops.
Evelina couldn’t remember if they’d ever once spoken, or even if Artem had met her eyes at either of her parents’ funerals.
What the hell is going on?
Even as she tensed up, worried they’d just managed to walk into a trap, Otto pressed his fingers against the small of her back.
“Are you hurt, Ms. Nikolaev?” Artem asked, barely glancing past her before settling his stare on hers.
Evelina held herself still, confusion rocking through her. “No,” she said after a moment.
Otto spared her from needing to add more. “You have cleaners you can trust?”
Artem nodded. “I’ll handle it.”
Wendy whimpered.
The other guy in the room swept his gun toward her.
“Wait,” Artem barked with barely a sideways glance. He returned his focus to Evelina. “What would you have us do with this one, ma’am?”
Wendy started to speak, stammering horribly.
Seriously, what the hell is going on? Otto did not seem surprised that the two of them were there. She was going to grill him about that as soon as they were alone again. That, and about a dozen other things. But she recognized what this moment was.
This was a test.
No one would believe she could handle the role of pakhan if she fucked this up.
Evelina cast one final look Wendy’s way, analyzing what she could see, before squaring her shoulders and holding Artem’s unreadable stare. “Obviously she’s useless in secretarial work—”
Wendy made a sound like she was offended.
Evelina ignored her. “But physically she has potential, and more importantly, she doesn’t know enough. Let’s find her a nice new job in a club.” She paused this time and pitched her voice rather than turning her head again. “You work full-time here, don’t you, Wendy?”
A tense silence fell over the room. Each of Wendy’s rattling breaths carrying like shrapnel through the air. Then, finally, the woman squeaked, “Yes.”
“Good. We need someone with an open schedule.”
Artem dipped his chin, then turned his whole head toward his soldier. “Call it in, and don’t let this one out of your sight ‘til they’re here.”
The familiar sound of keys caught Evelina’s attention a moment before Otto tossed his keys across the room, to the same man Artem had just snapped orders at. “Bring it home when you’re done.”
Evelina barely registered the nod over the sinking feeling swirling in her gut. It wasn’t like she usually drove herself around, but somehow, she hadn’t been prepared for him to do that. She opened her mouth on reflex to say something, but Artem faced her again.
“When you have a moment again, Ms. Nikolaev,” he said, “please give me a call.” He lowered his voice. “I would like to offer you my aid.”
Stunned, all Evelina could manage was a dip of her chin before Otto steered her toward the door.
He kept his hand at her back as he walked her through and guided them in the direction of her car. When they were alone on the sidewalk, he bent his head to her ear. “Keys.”
Oh, shit. He was pissed.
Otto could have shot up every soul who worked in that office and he wouldn’t be satisfied.
He had no idea what the fuck Lina had been thinking, rushing off unprotected when she knew damn well there were several men in the clan who would celebrate her death.
To say nothing of the enemies her father had made over the years.
He gripped the steering wheel harder as he drove, grinding his teeth until they screeched in his ears in an effort to keep from shouting his anger.
“You know I hate when you do that,” Lina said.
“It’s bad enough you put me here”—she gestured around herself, indicating her position in the back passenger seat—“in my own damn car. Obviously, you’re in raging bodyguard mode, I get it.
But please, enough with the whole ‘trying to grind my teeth to dust’ thing. I’m in pain for you.”
“You’re imagining things. I’m not in pain.”
She made a loud, exasperated sigh and dropped her head heavily against the seat. “Otto.”
“Lina.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Debatable.”
“Excuse me?”
Otto cut a glance at her through the rearview mirror, noting she’d sat upright again, before returning his gaze to the road. “Is that flash drive worth your life?”
“It’s my father’s Will.” She said it like that explained everything.
“So the lawyer says.” Otto flicked on his blinker.
Lina was speaking again by the time he eased into the next lane. “Well, if he gave me something else, obviously he dies. So it damn sure better be my father’s will.”
Otto grunted. “And the will of a dead man who treated you like shit, and may or may not have left you a single thing, is worth your life?” He paused, looking up in time to see her brow furrow. “Or should I ask, is it worth your death?”
Lina huffed. “You’re being dramatic again.”
“Pyotr has supporters, Lina. Grisha’s not the only asshole in his corner.”
She didn’t respond for several seconds. “I know that.”
Otto navigated them through a turn at a four-way intersection, immediately checking his mirrors as the car straightened on the new road, and flexed his grip again. “Not even Mikhail can will the title of pakhan to someone,” he said.
Lina slumped to the side. “It’s more than that, Otto.”
“We’re being followed.”