Chapter Thirty-Seven
In which, impossibly, everything turns out the way it’s meant to.
Violet…
Two weeks later…
The entire top floor of the Morozov Group's office building has been transformed with twinkling lights and enormous floral arrangements - blood red and white flowers - which seems highly symbolic to me.
There's a vodka bar, and a caviar bar. The string quartet is quietly playing Russian folk music, this quartet includes a balalaika, a huge stringed instrument with a triangular shape.
The Russian tune they're playing is beautiful, long, mournful strains of music that make my heart hurt.
Roman bought me a purple silk dress to wear tonight, and it does not escape me that it matches the color of my diamond exactly. He loves little details like that, part of what he calls his interest in "all things Violet."
Ava's radiant in a glittering black gown, talking with Dmitri and his Uncle Yuri. Yuri is tall and rakishly good-looking like all the Morozov men, but he has a more calm and kinder edge than Maksim.
Maksim has been nothing but gracious to me since the rescue and the terrible battle at the restaurant, which of course has made my guilt almost crippling. I'd tried to apologize to him tonight for being left defenseless after sending most of his men to save me, and he cut me off.
"My dear," he said, "We are Bratva. That was just another Tuesday." My eyes might have been deceiving me, but I swear there was a twinkle in the polar depths of his gaze before he patted my shoulder gently and walked away.
Ella begged Maksim to pass the title of Pakhan on to Dmitri, and she is the only one on the planet who could get him to say yes. Dmitri seemed to stand even taller, shoulders wider as he accepted the mantle during the ceremony tonight.
As for the Sovietnik…
"Are you having fun?" Roman's arm wraps around me.
"How could I not?" I ask. "Did you see that caviar bar?
Also, that guy you introduced as the Obshchak has been face down in the Almas Caviar bowl.
I don't know if he's gorging or unconscious.
" He laughs, flashing those even, white (but not bleached) teeth.
I still take a moment every time I see him and marvel that one man could be this beautiful.
He's wearing a custom-made tux that fits smoothly over his wide shoulders. "But where have you been?"
He finishes his vodka. "Talking to Nikandr."
I eye him curiously for a minute, my hand absently smoothing down his jacket. "Do you regret passing the responsibility of Sovietnik to him?"
His gaze is open and clear as he vehemently shakes his head.
"Absolutely not. The structure of this Bratva is exactly as it should be." He holds up his hand, the tattoos on his knuckles are vivid. “I don’t have to be the Sovietnik. I don’t have to pretend to be anything other than what I am so that Dmitri’s hands stay clean. Mine are not.”
My husband looks peaceful, and I tuck the moment away in my memory because a peaceful Roman is a rare thing.
Yuri's wife Tania walks over, greeting me with a brisk kiss on the right cheek, then the left, and the right again in the traditional Russian way. She's very pretty, and even in her late 50's, she still has that mischievous twinkle in her warm brown eyes that spells trouble.
Which of course, makes me like her even more.
"Welcome to the family," she says warmly. "A secret marriage, how romantic!"
"It's only romantic if both people know they're married," I say dryly. Roman kisses me and laughs, tapping his glass to Tania's.
I look around the room. "Where is Alexsey?
" His recovery has not been smooth. There was only so much the hand surgeon could do for him, and his left arm has been locked in a brace since he left the Morozov clinic.
He came tonight, cold, stoic, and silent, greeting his parents and acknowledging Dmitri as Pakhan before retreating to a corner with an expression that made it clear that company would not be welcome.
Roman's grin faded. "He's already left."
"I'm sure he's exhausted," Tania says sadly. "He's got a lot of work ahead of him. But he'll heal, because we’re his family, we will all be there to support him."
It weighs heavily on me that Alexsey lost his gift as an artist because it still feels like my fault. He had to take part in rescuing us and then, the ambush at the restaurant.
"You're blaming yourself again aren't you?" Roman's lips are against my ear.
"What makes you think that?" I say.
"Because you get this look on your face," he imitates me. "Very scrunched up with concentration as if you're trying to solve the world's problems because surely, you're responsible for them all."
Nikandr and his brother Andrey join us, looking strikingly similar with their blond hair and towering size. I suspect they've pulled a trick or two on unsuspecting girls in the past.
"Violet, a pleasure to meet you at last." Andrey leans down to impersonally perform the three-kiss greeting, ignoring the growl rumbling from Roman's chest. Nikandr, on the other hand, is perfectly happy to enrage my husband, grinning at him as he gives me a more lingering greeting.
"It's a pleasure to see you both," I say.
"I understand that we'll be flying to St. Petersburg for your wedding celebration," Andrey says. His sharp brown eyes are already searching the room with a shark-like intensity that tells me he's about to pin someone down and terrify them.
"I'm excited to see such an important part of your lives," I say. "My sisters, Rose and Iris, are thrilled for the trip, too. Though, if there's tattooed men and a never-ending platter of blinis, they'd go anywhere."
After they wander off with Tania, there's a blissful moment of silence, just Roman and me. "Speaking of getting out of here quietly," he murmurs, "why don't we do the same thing?"
"Have we been here long enough?" I query anxiously. "I don't know the proper amount of time or some of the customs attached to this so –"
"Surprisingly, everything is perfect," Roman says, squeezing me lightly.
"We Russians don't believe in things going smoothly.
Ever. So, I'm sure some emergency will happen very soon, which is even more reason to get you alone while I can.
" His hands slide down to my ass and squeeze it lightly as I glare at him.
When he takes my hand, though, and leads me toward the elevator doors, I happily follow.
Roman…
Ten days ago…
I sat behind The Chad's desk. Colin, that miserable fuck, was currently bleeding out on the floor at Gordi's, but I wasn't willing to let him die.
Yet.
I'd asked Violet if she wanted to know what happened to Jack and her mother, or the woman she called the Cruise Director from Hell, and she shook her head violently. "Just tell me they can't hurt Rose and Iris ever again."
"You have my word," I said.
However, there was unfinished business and now that we've taken over Pinnacle Ventures, there's an employee I need to fire.
There was an anxious knock on the door and I cleared my throat, "Come in."
Larry's simple-minded, eager grin needed to be punched off his face, but as senior management, that was beneath me.
"Close the door."
M- Mr. Morozov I–" The look of horror when he realized it’s not Colin behind the desk was very entertaining. He obeyed me, letting out a sad little croak, his body swaying.
"Larry," I said, tapping my fingers against the mahogany desk. "Your performance here at Pinnacle Ventures has been substandard. Well, actually, your efforts as a friend and a human being have been substandard, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to terminate you."
Larry was so caught up in the moment that he didn't notice the plastic sheeting spread out over the floor, because there's a very nice Moroccan rug that I wanted to keep blood-free. I pulled out my Ruger, the silencer already screwed on. I aimed at his chest.
"Wait, wait, wait! Wait!" Larry's hands went up in a desperate, appeasing gesture. "Violet's so kind, she'll never forgive you if you –"
He dropped to the floor with a thud as I pulled the trigger, his blank eyes staring up at the ceiling. I clicked the intercom, "Ivan, would you have the cleaning crew come in here, please? Larry spilled something."
***
Obshchak – The bookkeeper for the Bratva