Chapter 10 Declaration of Intent #2
The man inclined his head, his graying, mouse-brown combover seeming to bob with him. “You must be Evelina. Sorry about your old man.”
“Just my father?”
“Beg your pardon?”
She bit her lips for a moment and shook her head. “Never mind. I hear you wanted to talk?”
His gaze shifted to Otto for a lingering moment. “I’d hoped we could speak in private.”
Evelina gestured briefly around the room. “This is as private as you’re going to get with me.” She motioned to Otto. “My bodyguard goes where I go. He barely trusts my friends, so you can imagine how he feels about strangers.”
Detective Benson sighed and rubbed at his forehead. “All right. If that’s true, he was probably there, anyway.”
The confusion within her mounted. “Excuse me? What’s this about?”
Benson lowered his arm and locked his stare onto hers. “I uncovered a bit of concerning information regarding that shootout you were in the other day, Miss Nikolaev.”
Her heart rate tripled. The shootout. Fuck. That was supposed to have been handled, but she supposed she didn’t fully comprehend what that entailed. It wasn’t like she’d ever had to do the work herself. Am I about to be arrested?
Benson motioned to the low-profile chairs positioned at an angle to face each other that sat in front of the electric fireplace. “You may want to sit.”
Trying to keep her anxieties hidden, Evelina moved to claim a seat.
Otto followed, standing at her shoulder.
Benson lowered into the opposite chair, sitting forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
“I won’t beat around the bush. I had a good thing worked out with your father, and I’m personally hoping you and I can be friends.
But right now, you don’t know me, and all I know is that your family’s in the middle of a power struggle.
” He pulled a visibly damaged phone from his pocket and held it out so she could see.
“This was on one of the Morozovs in that SUV. You can see for yourself, the phone’s pretty busted.
But our IT guy was able to pull some data off it. ”
Evelina watched with mounting confusion as Benson set the damaged phone onto the small coffee table between them, then pulled another device from his coat.
“One of the things we got off it was a recent voicemail,” Benson said. “The call itself came from a burner. We’ve got nothing more on that. The caller used a filter to disguise their voice, too, so that’s a bust. But what they said … well, that’s why I’m here.”
Her chest tightened. She could guess just from what Benson had said what kind of message he was talking about. But guessing would be stupid. “Play it.”
Benson nodded and depressed his thumb. A small LED light blinked at the corner as sound crackled through the nearly indistinguishable slits for the speakers.
Then, a voice, distorted and artificially male—almost exactly like every disguised voice used in movies—rose up from the flat black box in Benson’s hand.
“The princess is on her way to Anwar Crawford’s office.
Don’t confront her there, let her leave.
She’ll be alone with her mongrel in the car.
Once they’re on the road … take your shot. Ne proyavlyat miloserdiya.”
Show no mercy.
Evelina sucked in a hard breath as the heavily filtered words replayed in her mind. The cold execution order chilled her to the core, but even that wasn’t what truly had her reeling.
Mongrel.
It was Pyotr’s favorite insult for Otto. Evelina had never heard anyone else use the word that way. And considering the objective of the hit … she couldn’t ignore the signs.
Benson lowered the device to his lap. “I can get you a copy of this message if you want. I just didn’t know where to send it.”
Evelina licked her lips. “Why?” she asked. She met the detective’s steady gaze. “Why just come to me with this like we’re already in some kind of allegiance?”
He was quiet for several seconds. “Like I said, I don’t know you.
” His brow furrowed. “In my line of work, that’s a compliment.
” He paused again, as if to let the words hang.
“On the other hand, I know your cousin well. Too well. Well enough to know that I would never be able to stomach maintaining this relationship if he takes charge of your clan. And I know enough about the bratva to know that would mean I had to run, really damn far and really damn fast. None of which holds a lot of appeal.” He tapped the top of the device still on his thigh.
“So, this is my token of trust to you, Miss Nikolaev. Normally Mikhail and I worked on a trading system—I gave, he gave, you get the idea. It kept us even. In this case, this is a gift.”
Too many emotions were colliding inside her for Evelina to know how to respond.
She wanted to scream and rage, to cry and curl away, to jump up in a victory dance.
She wanted to run. But absolutely none of those things would benefit her in the moment, so she bottled them.
“And if I manage to solidify myself as the new pakhan, you would like to keep the status quo you had in place with my father?”
Benson nodded.
Evelina chewed her lip and eyed the device which contained that terrible message.
The fact was, she needed the recording. It was her strongest evidence of Pyotr’s—or anyone’s—betrayal, not just of the Nikolaevs, but to the Morozovs.
It was like sinking two separate knives into the same trusting spine.
“A mutually beneficial arrangement with an established detective inside the Chicago PD sounds like a solid achievement,” she finally said.
She let herself smile. “You have a deal, Detective Benson. And I would love that recording.”
As soon as she could establish at least reasonable doubt among the brigadiers, she was going to fillet Pyotr for what he’d done.
Otto could practically see her seething after they left the unplanned meeting with Benson. Of course, he understood why. He’d heard the same thing she had. Someone who talked an awful lot like Pyotr had arranged a hit on her—and they’d used the fucking Morozovs to do it.
He had half a mind to empty every bullet he could carry into Pyotr and any idiot dumb enough to try to stop him.
But Lina wouldn’t approve, if only because the timing and method was wrong, and probably she’d get hurt in the chaos of his own rage.
That, more than anything, enabled him to hold himself in check.
Lina, in the meantime, was building steam.
She power-walked down the hall and damn near stomped into the main gathering room.
She moved with such self-generated momentum that her half-braided hair actually trailed behind her.
The glow of reflected light from multiple chandeliers made her light brown hair look almost golden.
For a second, she had a damn crown. It was fucking poetic.
The usual ebb-and-flow of low conversation and the undercurrent of cold, sporadic laughter all screeched to a halt as Lina cut through the space.
She quite literally used one of her father’s former guards as a stepping stone to climb atop the table, planting one booted foot on the guy’s thigh, bracing a palm on the table, and propelling herself up as if the move had been rehearsed.
The dumbstruck guard made a sound of exclamation, arms half raised. But Lina was already fully on the table and rising to her full, normally petite height.
Otto felt his heart lurch as the table threatened to tip, but before he could do more than take another step, she walked down toward the center and rebalanced it herself. He breathed out in a modicum of relief and cast his eyes around the room, watching for the slightest sign of danger.
He caught Artem’s gaze across the room and the other man raised a brow in an obvious question.
“Listen!” Lina shouted, her voice cutting through the air and overtaking the renewed murmurs. She turned in a tight circle, sweeping her stare everywhere she could. “I don’t have a microphone, so you all need to shut up for a minute.”
Someone promptly grumbled and Otto’s hand twitched. But the man, at the table on the far side of Lina, stayed in his seat.
She raised a hand and pressed her fingers into her chest. “You all know who I am. I know most of you. And there’s no need to pussyfoot around it, everyone in this room already knows that I have laid claim to my birthright—just as many of you surely can’t stomach the thought.
Tough shit. You wanna back Pyotr? Be my guest. Yeah, he’s Nikolaev, too.
But his daddy was never pakhan, and if he wants what my father had, he’s going to have to take it the hard way. ”
Movement at the perimeter, near the entrance between Otto’s and Artem’s positions, caught Otto’s eye. With most of the men seated or stationary, it was easy to recognize the slimeball himself sliding into the room. Otto curled his fists.
Lina continued. “That was what I was going to say, but I just found out someone with remarkable similarities to my dear cousin has already tried. So, make whatever choice of loyalty you have to, but ask yourselves first, can you stomach aligning with a snake who’d put a hit not just on his own blood”—she adjusted to face Pyotr’s approach as she spoke—“but who’d hire the Morozovs to do it? ”
Angry exclamations rent the air and Pyotr’s confident steps faltered.
Lina raised her chin. “Because I sure as hell couldn’t.” She planted her hands on her hips. “In fact, I won’t.”
Ill-timed pride surged through Otto’s chest. He’d watched her let the men in this room talk over her and demean her for as long as he’d known her.
This fire she’d found, despite where and how she’d acquired it, was beautiful to see.
For a moronic moment, he had to fight to keep the smile from his face.
Pyotr finally unfroze, jarring Otto back to the present as the men’s surrounding voices subdued again. Most seemed too captivated by the scene unfolding in front of them to properly process what had just been said.
“You lying, manipulative whore,” Pyotr seethed.
His entire face had gone red, even up to his ears.
“I was going to be nice and do this quietly, out of respect, but that’s out the fucking window now.
There’s a new deal, Evie.” He whipped a folded paper from his breast pocket.
“Get off my table and get the fuck out of my house, you trespassing, hybrid cunt!”
The feeling in Otto’s chest mutated into an anger that better matched the look on Pyotr’s face, and he took a large step forward. That shit was over.
His fingers had only brushed the handle of his gun when another clicked at his ear. “So sorry, Otto,” Grisha said. “You know how it is.”
Son of a bitch.
Lina folded her arms over her chest, her eyes flicking in Otto’s direction before narrowing again on Pyotr.
“Awfully big talk for a coward who had to flip Pakhan Mikhail’s lawyer just to try and screw me out of my rightful inheritance, and then still wasn’t brave enough to own his identity when he called in the hit on my life. ”
Pyotr’s hand tightened on the paper, crinkling it until it looked more like an old fan. “You shouldn’t be talking at all! Get—”
A smirk tipped Otto’s lips as Artem lowered a gun beside Pyotr’s temple and the air rushed out of the room.
In another heartbeat, several men leapt from their seats, only for Artem’s men to match them with drawn weapons of their own.
A subtle shift behind him told Otto even Grisha had become uncomfortable.
“What,” Pyotr finally breathed, “what the fuck is this? I’m pakhan now!”
“No,” Artem said, “you’re not. And I for one will never recognize you.”
“Pyotr,” Lina said, still mercifully without a single gun actually aimed her way, “the title of pakhan isn’t as easily decided as who owns this house.
And if it were, well, obviously Otets wanted to complicate that for all of us.
” When Pyotr’s brow twitched, she lifted her phone from her jeans pocket.
“Oh, and if we’re deciding who owns the house based on one-sided printouts of questionably acquired wills, then you still lose.
You should really have checked in before running your mouth, cousin.
I got my signature on file.” She tucked her phone away. “Yesterday.”
Pyotr shifted. “Impo—”
Artem clicked his tongue. “If you think I won’t shoot, go ahead and take a step. But remember, Grisha’s a little preoccupied.”
“I could still pull my trigger,” Grisha said. Whatever discomfort Otto had heard, it didn’t carry into his voice.
Lina raised hers. “I will become pakhan. I will rip out however many cowards in here are dipping their toes into the Morozov pool, or any other. I will crush any closed-minded, sexist asshole who refuses me for no reason other than that I have a vagina.” She turned her head to glance around the room.
“Newsflash, boys—guess where you came from? That person who had the strength to bring you into this world, who carried you inside her for months and gave you life? She had a goddamn vagina, too. We’re not weak.
” She snapped the full force of her glare onto Grisha.
“And I will prove that to every fucking one of you who gets in my way.”