17. Demyan
Chapter Seventeen
DEMYAN
“Are you listening?”
I’m not. I shoot a glare in the general direction of Ilya as we sit in my living room on the second floor.
It’s an old library, one I converted the books in another room.
In here, things aren’t for display. I’ve no interest in keeping books, paintings, furniture, or statues that speak of wealth and famous artists and designers, and I definitely don’t give a fuck about rarities.
Things in here are mine. It’s my space.
One where I read or spend time with Ilya. I don’t bring women here. They go to my penthouse duplex in Chicago, overlooking the glitter of the city and the Willis Tower in all its neo-Gothic glory.
This room usually brings me peace.
Not tonight.
I shift on the sofa and sip the vodka he brought with him, thick and ice-cold from the small dedicated vodka freezer that’s attached to the wet bar.
The black bread is still sitting on the tray with all the various toppings Magda set out .
He gives me a flat-eyed stare back and moves from the window. “Because you seem like you’re not listening. Tvoja golova v oblakakh .”
“My head is not in the clouds, Ilya.”
He snorts and pulls out the vodka, topping his glass up. Really, it should be thrown back, not sipped, but I’m not in the mood to get drunk. I can’t afford it, not with a child here, and not with this issue.
“You told me your contact in the police force had information.”
His irritation is real. He knows I wasn’t paying attention.
But Erin is taking up space in my head, and for some reason her pain’s cutting into me.
The flea-bitten toy’s sitting on the sofa next to me and I know I have to give it to him.
He’s asked for his goat before and I’m not so cruel that I’ll make a tiny child suffer.
“I said, Demyan, that she told me the print from the finger was from a lower ranked member of the Fedorov Bratva.”
“Fuck.”
Revenge. Pure and simple. Those bastards ruined my sister’s life over fucking revenge. “Where is Niko?”
“You can’t get to him. He’s gone to ground right now. Observing is my guess. Official word is he’s out of the country.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Two years ago, I killed that dickwad, Denis. A greedy, duplicitous guy. Niko Federov’s younger brother. The capo doesn’t seem to understand it was within perimeters that Denis ignored warnings, crossed lines, and faced the consequences.
But Niko never understands anything. His thirst for revenge is legendary. I breathe out, then toss back the last mouthful.
“Ilya, set up a meeting with Sergio. ”
His eyebrows rise. “Boss?”
“Shove that boss shit up your ass,” I say to him in Russian. Then I add a few choice words about his mother.
“She would, but she doesn’t fancy you. Boss.” Then he sighs. “Are you sure about Sergio? The don’s got a host of wants. Augusto is accommodating when he chooses, but his favors are never cheap and often hold a nasty sting.”
I shrug. “I can handle Augusto.”
“It’s not about handling, Demyan; it’s about the man himself. He’s been useful so far in carefully controlled areas, but this is one where we can’t bluff as if we don’t care. We can’t be blasé, or the man will take advantage.”
“Perhaps, but he’s got no love for Fedorov. That works for us. He has connections.”
“Fuck,” Ilya mutters as he knocks back his vodka before setting the glass down and folding his arms. “He’s got connections, but he’s not exactly trustworthy. Didn’t he screw over Abram Popov last year?”
“In a bid to take over his assets, yes.” I meet Ilya’s gaze and hold out my glass. He fills it and I knock it back. He fills it again. “I can handle him.”
“He’s slippery.”
I hold up a hand. “Just set up the fucking meeting.”
“Demyan…”
“I can handle the fucker.” I drain the glass and stand. “I’m going to need his help in bringing down someone as callous as Fedorov, and you know it.”
“You’re powerful?—”
“I’m not talking about power in brute strength. I’m talking about the new ways. I need help with that attack. His funds, assets, his territories and allies. I want to destroy and take it all and for that, we need coalitions.”
“You think Sergio will be fair?”
“I just want Niko dead. Let Sergio think he’s stealing my share from me. It’s his. I just need his help in bringing the fucker down and reducing his empire to rubble before I kill him. To Sergio, the world, we want our share. But personally? His head is all I want.”
Ilya is about to say something, but the cries of Sasha fill the room from the little monitor I have.
“Maybe we should use baby monitors as the first line of defense. When an enemy approaches, we’ll know.”
“You think you’re funny, Ilya,” I say to him in Russian.
“Da, I am.”
Leaving Ilya to set up meetings, I head to Sasha’s room, the ratty plush toy in my hand.
Sasha’s sitting up in his bed, tear tracks on his face, the little night-light on, and he breaks my heart, huddled and small even if he’s on the verge of losing his shit.
“You don’t know how good you’ve got it, kid,” I mutter.
He cries louder, building to a wail, and I hold out the toy.
In moments flat, he’s quiet, his gaze zeroing in on the goat, and then he smiles and laughs. He screams. “Goat!”
I give it to him, and he hugs it tight. I try to shove away the guilt of ignoring Erin and the toy the first time she tried to give it to me. The kid loves the thing and now that he has it, he’s compliant, snuggling down, eyes wide as he struggles against heavy lids. “Story.”
There are books but some are in Russian and some in English, and I haven’t had a chance to look them over. I think Ilya just grabbed a bunch of books and didn’t think. Though, I’m not mad at him. Like me, he doesn’t have kids. He doesn’t know Sasha.
I stop.
I have a child.
I don’t fit that category anymore. I grab a book and start reading.
I don’t even take in what it’s about. The adventures of a naughty bird.
I show the pictures to him and he quickly goes from awake to asleep, a small little smile on his face, the goat tight and safe in his arms, his head against it.
My heart flips and swells. He’s mine, this kid. This perfect child is mine. And he let me read he smiled for me. He went to sleep for me.
We’re forming a bond and it’s the most thrilling thing. Not to mention frightening. That’s how he makes me feel, like I need to make this world safe for him, and to keep him safe within it.
A pain that should be dull from years of carrying starts to cut into me again. It’s now a reminder that my fucked-up, shit childhood is mine to carry, not mine to share. If I had to have that, then it’s knowing not what to do with Sasha.
My father hated me on bad days, tolerated me on good, and the rest of the time I didn’t exist.
He blamed me for my mother dying when I was a baby. He always said I killed her. Slowly, painfully, that after giving birth, she’d declined until she died. And that was my fault.
I was a few months old when she passed.
When I did get attention, it was to berate, and belittle me. Communication was frigid silence or yelling. There wasn’t anything soft.
But like it or not, I was his only son. So I had to be the heir, the prince who didn’t deserve the crown but got it anyway.
That was my father’s view of me.
And yet when he married again and Alina came along, he loved her, doted on her. She was his princess. The holy one, who by fate of her birth, couldn’t inherit his crown.
I got why he loved her. Alina was and is an angel, and she is my heart. I never thought anyone else could find space, but this little boy has.
I’ve known him for what… a day or two and I feel closer to him than I ever did with my father. It’s insane. It’s right .
How crazy that from this tragedy Erin’s back in my life and with her my son. I couldn’t have planned something like that.
I go still.
Planned?
If Niko had enough foresight to ruin my sister’s wedding, shoot it up, kill the groom and kidnap her, then he could have planted Erin. After all, maybe they weren’t trying to kidnap her with Alina, but take her with them since she was part of it all.
I’m being insane, crazy, I know this, but now that the thought is there, I can’t shake it.
Because what if he isn’t mine and I’m just seeing what I want to see. I get up, stumbling back, my heart twisting with love for the boy, and I instinctively know if anyone wanted to hurt me, you attack through the one vulnerability I have.
Love.
It’s very specific. Narrow. Until now it’s been Alina and look at what happened there.
Alina is innocent, not a killer. And the boy’s only two.
Both innocent. Make me think he’s mine and love him and someone could rip me apart by taking him away and letting me know he’s nothing to do with me. It’d be too late.
The love’s real.
Shit.
Plant Erin in my life with the boy and it might be easy to bring me down from the inside.
I’m not just being unreasonable. I’m being batshit insane, but I’ve locked on. If he isn’t mine and he’s taken, then I’m destroyed. It wouldn’t matter the parentage, I’d love him. And I couldn’t do a thing to have him if he wasn’t biologically mine.
Erin… she…
Maybe it’s the vodka coursing through my veins, but I ease out of Sasha’s room and take the stairs up to the third floor, where I dismiss the guards. They won’t go far, but I don’t want anyone to overhear my coming conversation.
I punch in the code and storm in. She’s sitting on the bed, so like how I found Sasha that I stumble, heart contracting, but her look is pain and defeat and I… I harden myself against it.
“Are you going to let me see him?” she asks, voice dull, “or just torture me some more?”
For a moment, I’m not sure what to say. Either she’s being honest and I’ve lost whatever is left of my mind or she’s in the running for a fucking Oscar.
“Why are you really here?”