29. Viktor
29
VIKTOR
L ev reported in to me throughout the night, but nothing he said counted as good news.
“He’s not there.”
I sat on the edge of my bed and buried my face in my hands. “He’s not at the apartment near the docks?”
“No,” Lev answered on the video call, furrowing his brow. Tall buildings loomed in his background, but he wasn’t hands-on with this ops. Because of his recent capture and injuries, and the rise of his power as Oleg seemed to appoint him as his right-hand man, he had to play it safe and not allow himself to be in as vulnerable of a position in the field right now. He was near the apartment building where Maxim Petrov was supposed to have been moved to according to Irina.
Other soldiers had barged in, ready to fight and retrieve the young teen.
“But it looks as though he was there recently. They found clothes, food wrappers, ashes.”
I jerked my face up, alarmed. “Ashes?”
“Cigarettes. From the guard. We’re checking surveillance in the area. We’re not stopping yet.” He frowned. “Did you talk to Oleg?”
“Yes.” I cringed. “He’s hesitant to remove the boy from wherever he’s being held.” I had yet to tell Irina. I didn’t want to. It would sound as though Oleg wasn’t committing to rescuing Maxim. He sounded open to it all, but he’d compromised. His order was to locate Maxim, stand by, and intervene if clear and present danger faced the teenager. But not to remove him until further notice. He was taking this development one step at a time, but that probably wouldn’t satisfy Irina. If I were in her shoes, I would feel the same.
Lev nodded. “Correct.” He’d received the same information.
“Just please, keep looking.” I couldn’t handle it if something happened to him. I’d never met the kid, but I already knew how much he meant to the woman I loved.
He agreed that he would.
As soon as I lowered my phone, Rurik checked in via text.
Rurik: You didn’t put in a notice to quit, did you?
“What the hell?” I whispered.
Viktor: At the school? No. Not yet.
That was the least of my worries. I didn’t give a shit about my cover. I’d only taken that role to get close to Irina, and now that I had, that cover could just disintegrate now.
Rurik: Because it seems that people are preparing to go through it.
Viktor: People?
Rurik: Someone from the dean’s office? I couldn’t tell. I was following one of the Ilyin dealers and overheard some office staff talking about your office.
I pounded my fist on my knee. “Dammit.” I bet it had something to do with Jessica. That woman didn’t know when to stop meddling. If I was in trouble for canceling the class this morning, oh, well. But that seemed too fast.
Maybe it’s something else.
Maybe someone on campus knew who I was all along.
Viktor: I’ll check it out.
I exited my room, finding Irina alone again. Eva had come by and kept her company for a while, and I was mildly curious whether she had gotten any information out of her. I doubted it. Irina seemed ready to stay quiet and keep her secrets to herself until we could bring Maxim to her. That was… a work in progress, but I didn’t see any reason to worry her yet. I didn’t want to tell her that Oleg was kind of working with us but being cautious. As soon as someone on Lev’s team located Maxim, I’d tell her. Then she could swap information with Oleg.
“I need to check something on campus, at my office.”
She smirked. “ Your office?” She stood, coming to stand with me. “Are you even qualified to teach?”
I shrugged. “More or less.”
She huffed a weak laugh.
“I don’t want to let you out of my sight,” I added. “So, let’s go and get this over with.”
“I don’t think you have to hover and worry that I’m going to run now.”
I pulled her close before she could walk past me to get her coat. Pushing her against the wall, I shoved my body against hers and kissed her deeply. “The only hovering I intend to do with you is in bed, when I’m on top of you and ready to fuck you hard.”
Her breath hitched as she stared at me. I saw that spark of excitement in her eyes again, and I knew she was still there, the sassy woman I had gotten to know and love beneath the stress and fear that had been taking over her all day.
“I don’t want you out of my sight in case some Ilyin fucker still thinks that you’re marrying into their family.” I kissed her again, excited when she lifted her hand to grip the back of my head.
“I don’t want you out of my sight because I worry one of your father’s soldiers could try to get you away from me.”
She kissed me this time, frowning at how quickly I pulled back.
“And I don’t want you out of my sight when I get word about your brother, so I can update you immediately.”
A soft exhale left her lips. “No word yet?”
I gave in to share what I could. “Lev’s team found evidence of his being at that dock apartment you told us about, but he’s not there now. We’ve got men checking the nearby surveillance and scoping the area for them.”
She sighed, slumping her shoulders.
“As soon as I get word, we will act.”
“Did Oleg confirm it, though? That he’ll see to Maxim’s safety in exchange for all my secrets?”
Dammit. She had to ask like that. “He will.”
She furrowed her brow, but before she could argue anymore, I urged her to get moving and leave with me. “The faster we take care of this, the faster we can resume the other stuff.”
On the ride to the campus, she asked me more about what I did know so far. That didn’t seem so risky. I filled her in on what I knew, which was limited to the second-hand information that I’d gotten from Lev and Eva, Rurik as well. I added more background, too, like how I wasn’t recognized because of my time in the whorehouses for so long.
“That’s how word got out and spread,” I told her. “Rurik alerted me to ‘everyone’ knowing you and I had hooked up.”
“That’s all it is to you? I’m just a hook-up?” she asked.
“You know that’s not true. But it was my fault. I took you with me to pick up that package at that place, then when we exited through the lobby?—”
“Holding hands and walking through that crowded space,” she added for me.
“Yes. Someone in there had to have noticed. A Baranov, Ilyin, or Petrov. Hell, even just someone who’s bought something from one of us.”
“Drugs?” she asked.
I shrugged. “They have been a common thread with whatever is going on at the school.”
“I will explain all that I know, Vik, but Igor’s never let me in too much. It’s just what he’s asked me to watch.”
I nodded. “We will appreciate all that you can share.” And I wouldn’t push her to do so until we’d come through on our end of the bargain. She was taking another huge risk for the Baranov family. She helped save Eva and Lev before. And if she wanted to join us officially, through a relationship with me, she had to be able to put her trust in us that we wouldn’t be using her for intel like Igor had been.
We got to the school and I parked close to the building I’d taught at for just a month. Not many students or staff were around in the building. No one was at my office, either.
“I wonder what Rurik was talking about,” I muttered, hands on my hips as I scanned the office. Nothing seemed disturbed, and the lock was intact.
“Shh.” Irina slanted her head to the side, watching the door closely. The front one was open, and no sounds came from the hallway. Instead, she was tuning in to what sounded like a conversation in the closet.
I watched her press her finger to her lips as she beckoned me to approach the door.
I opened it, proving it was just a closet.
But she shook her head, pointing to the top. Light shone through from the adjacent room.
“You really are good at this snooping business.”
She shot me a dirty look. “No, I’m really good at moving past my childhood when my father would shove me in a closet when he got sick of hearing my voice.”
That asshole.
She entered, walking further into the closet and moving things around. “It looks like this used to be a hallway.”
I nodded. “And it was closed off at one point.” Finding a loose piece of particle board stapled at the back, I pried it off soundlessly.
We snuck along the hallway, sticking to the wall, and I wondered who was talking. In a twisted maze, we were lured down another hallway.
“It’s probably just a couple of teachers talking,” I whispered.
“No. We should listen in.”
“Are you ever going to be able to stop the instinct to be his spy?”
She shot me a dirty look. “Yes. I’m not being his spy right now. I’m being an independent agent to understand who the real bad guy is around here.”
“Easy. Your father is.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because every time there is a complicated drug trade and turf war, only one person is trying to get ahead.”
That’s true. Even though a slight worry entered my mind at the thought she could be loyal to Igor before she could ever consider herself loyal to me, I had to respect her tenacity to find the truth.
“It almost sounded like someone said Ilyin ,” I whispered.
“And I think I recognize that voice,” she replied, almost mouthing only and not whispering.
I didn’t, but the time to ask her about it was gone. We’d come upon the door to another office, likely boarded off as a former hallway route. This room hadn’t formed the small entrance into an office closet but the back of a bookcase. Through a slit, we saw the occupants inside.
“I don’t care how many more drugs you bring in,” a young man said, smiling charmingly despite his sinister tone, “but you have to tone down the women being raped.”
Irina picked the pen out of my breast pocket—I was still in my suit with a button up and tie on—then flipped her hand over.
Writing on her hand, she inked out Marcus James . She pointed, indicating the man inside.
I shrugged and mouthed no clue .
She wrote again. He’s a politician.
I nodded as they argued about drugs and women being raped. It seemed there was a difference in opinions of what was a tolerable amount to get away with.
“I don’t care, man. Like, I’m just doing what I’m told,” a younger man said from the opposite side of the room. “Y’all can figure out who gets what cut and shit. I just know what cut I want, and ’til that happens, I’m staying out of all this administrative red tape.”
“There’s no red tape,” Jessica argued. “Don’t be a dumbass, Jerome.”
Irina looked at me after writing on her hand again. Who’s he?
I shrugged, unsure. We couldn’t get a good view of him either, cut to seeing only from his chest down, not his face. He seemed young, both in his slang and way of speaking, but that was guesswork at best.
“Look, we’ll talk about this later.” Marcus smiled at Jessica before sliding his hand over her ass and pulling her close for a kiss. “You talk to your people, and I’ll talk to mine.”
But whose people were whose?
They left together, and Irina and I turned back to go the way we’d come.
“Who—” We’d said it in unison, stopping at the same time.
“I don’t know,” I answered, regardless of what she would ask. Confused and clueless, I tried to understand what we’d heard.
“This isn’t just about Mafia families competing for turf rights around the campus,” Irina whispered.
I had a strong hunch it wasn’t. Even before Irina would give us an expose on what Igor planned, it was obvious that politics were getting involved.
“Things are never as simple as they seem,” she muttered.
We reached my office just as my phone rang. I grabbed it, excited and nervous when I saw the caller ID. “It’s Lev.”
Irina took my free hand and squeezed it between both of hers. She’d been waiting with bated breath, stuck in suspense for a word on finding her brother. I’d spare her the wait for me to relay what my friend could tell us.
“Lev,” I greeted on speaker.
“He was taken. The Ilyins came and took him from the last place we followed him to.”
“Fuck!”
Irina squeezed my hand tighter as she stared at my phone.
“They got word that Igor reneged on this arranged marriage of Irina marrying one of theirs?—”
“He never actually arranged it. It was all a rumor,” she rushed to say, frantic. “There was no agreement. He was just messing with them and playing a game, conning them to think an alliance could form when he never intended to see one through.”
Lev huffed. “That’s not the way they see it. They’re pissed, and they’ve taken your brother.”