Chapter 10
Aleksandr
Mistaken Identity
Marcus, our driver and head of security, had located Anton’s computer and an external hard drive. The reports were in, and we were supposed to meet with Nik later at the club to discuss them.
I stayed home today. The migraine from last night’s killing had been brutal. They were getting worse each time. I was sitting in the drawing room, trying to find a way to avoid going tonight, when Nik and Ivan walked in.
“I need a shower. I’ll meet you at the club if you want to head out now. I’ll take my bike,”
Ivan offered.
“We’ll wait,” Nik said.
“What did you decide to do?”
Ivan asked Nik while simultaneously dialing one of his many girls. It was always a clubby—blond, tall, and vapid as hell. I had no idea how he did it.
“Bring a friend you like to play with,”
he instructed before hanging up. I rolled my eyes. Typical Ivan, a player, living life to the fullest.
“Fuck off, Blade. But before you do, we have to talk about the new client I had come in today. It’s important, so we’ll meet in the club office first,”
Nik said without looking up from his phone.
Knowing me as he did, he finally looked up. “Alek, you need to join us. If we agree to take it on, it’s huge.”
“Fuck, just tell us now,”
I grumbled under my breath, leaning against the desk.
“Nope. Plus, you need to get laid. You’re grouchy as hell, Brother. Might as well arrange Alisha for him, Ivan,”
Nik suggested. Ivan laughed, taking out his phone.
Like I needed these fuckers to arrange shit for me. I swear it was a good thing I loved them, or I would have shoved them off a cliff by now. Lately, I’d become very particular about where I stuck my dick. These days, I’d been limiting myself mainly to Alisha and to Jenna on rare occasions when Alisha wasn’t available or I needed something different.
But both women knew their place in my life. A quick play session or fuck now and again, and nothing more. I liked it that way. I imagined it was the same reason Nik preferred Jenna, although he wouldn’t say that outright. For tonight, I let it go.
The ride to the club was peaceful, and thankfully, my migraine had mostly dissipated. The three of us made our way through the crowd to the office. It was busy tonight; the music was pumping, the booze flowed, and I could feel all the eyes on us as we walked to the office. My brothers and I made quite a sight when we were all together. We were used to turning heads.
I listened half-heartedly as Nik caught us up on a few existing cases, and then, finally, the fucker told us about his afternoon appointment with Mr. Lenkov. It seemed the Russian hits kept coming, but I could see now why Nikolai was intrigued.
With Anton’s confession about being hired by someone Russian, Nik felt it was crucial for us to consider it. He passed four pictures to me that Mr. Lenkov had given him. The first was a young girl and her dance partner.
“Pavel Lenkov as a child,”
Nik provided when I raised my eyes and showed him the picture. I passed it to Ivan, who gave it a quick glance. The next picture was of a beautiful girl.
She seemed clueless that her picture was being taken. She looked peaceful, and there was an aura about her. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I moved to the next two pictures and froze.
What the hell?
Mikhail and Konstantin Romanov. What did they have to do with a possible mistaken identity case, especially here in America? Then it dawned on me.
“Yes, now I see you are catching on, Brother,”
Nik said with a grin. Ivan hit my arm and gestured for the recent picture of the girl. I ignored him. My eyes once again flicked to her picture. She radiated innocence and was quite beautiful, with unusual eyes.
“I wanna see,”
Ivan grumbled, grabbing the picture. “Damn, she’s pretty. And not even blond.”
I handed him the last two photos of the Romanovs. “Well, fuck,”
he mumbled.
“Lenkov thinks she’s Romanov’s granddaughter, and he’s adamant that Konstantin isn’t her father,”
Nik concluded, letting the news permeate the room.
“Nikolai, this is big if she ends up being who he thinks she is,”
I stated the obvious.
“Yeah, and it gets even stranger because this girl—on the surface, at least—is clean. She’s your picture-perfect all-American girl, born in Tampa Bay, Florida. Her father died before she was born, and her mother died of cancer when she was five. She was raised by her paternal grandfather,”
Nik said, summarizing some of the information he’d gathered in his background check.
I snatched the picture of the girl back from Ivan.
“Here’s where we have a bit of wiggle room. Her grandfather, Owen Taylor, was a decorated police officer in Florida. He quit the force, and he and Kinsley—that’s her name, by the way.”
Nik grinned at me before continuing. “They moved here to the Pacific Northwest area in 2016. They lived in Skagit County until his death two years ago. Our newest case moved to Woodinville, a quiet suburb outside of Seattle, shortly after and currently works her little ass off.”
“Our newest case?”
Ivan scoffed. “Just going to unilaterally make that decision, huh?”
“Yes, well, here’s where it gets interesting. How does a man making seventy-five thousand dollars a year afford to pay cash for a 4.1 million-dollar piece of land? And that is only one asset that he owned. Better yet, why hasn’t his granddaughter sold it so she doesn’t have to work so hard? If her bank statements are any indication, she’s living paycheck to paycheck.”
“Did you check to see if—”
Nik grinned, and with a shake of his head, he said, “If the estate is caught up in some type of litigation or being contested? Yeah, I did, and no, it isn’t. The man set her up financially. She’s a very wealthy young lady.”
Ivan’s gaze told me what he was thinking. Getting involved with the potential granddaughter of someone like Romanov was risky and could prove fatal for all of us. I rubbed my temples. The headache was returning.
“From my initial dive into Anton’s phone, it looked like he had a couple of things going on. I determined he was working on two separate projects. He had a list of names and photos of underage girls that included in-depth information on them, such as school attended, churches, hobbies, and things of that nature.”
“Was that a personal project, or was he scouting?” I asked.
“Personal, I believe. I haven’t been able to trace any outgoing shares of the information or photos.”
“Fucking asshole. I wish I could kill him all over again,”
Ivan sneered.
“The other was a list of names—”
Nik began.
“And her name was one of them?”
I interrupted, holding up the picture of the girl.
He nodded. “Along with two others. I’ve pulled the other two girls’ background checks as well. I say we divvy up the work. Each of us takes a girl, see what we can uncover,”
Nik suggested, typing on his phone. “I know it’s not our standard case, but if the Russians were scouting girls for sex trafficking, we need to know. And if they’re specifically looking for Mikhail’s granddaughter, we owe it to her to warn her in case she doesn’t want to be found.”
My phone vibrated, and I heard Ivan’s notification as well, indicating Nik sent us the information.
“Alek, how about you swing by her work tomorrow and ask her a few questions? Especially since you can’t seem to tear your eyes away from her picture.”
He smirked.
“Yeah, I’ll drop in. Where does she work?”
I stroked my beard, thinking about her.
“Tomorrow morning…she’s at the Woodinville Café.”
“Hey, do we know anything about the mother?”
I asked curiously, trying to fit the pieces together and explain this girl’s background check. I should have known better. Nik was always meticulous, and his ability to find information was uncanny.
“Let me guess, the mother has absolutely no connection to the Russian Mob?”
Ivan asked before I could.
“Bingo, Brother. The family members I found have zero current connections to anyone overseas. Which makes me wonder if she might be in hiding. Maybe WITSEC?”
“We tread carefully, then. Last I heard, the elder Romanov was still in prison. Has that changed, Nik?”
Ivan asked.
“Nope. Tucked away with no hope of ever seeing the outside again, thanks to that informant,”
Nik said, opening the office door and letting us know he was done. “You coming?”
he asked, and I reluctantly tore my gaze away from the girl’s captivating photo.
“Yeah, in a minute,”
I mumbled. Who was this girl? What secrets was she hiding? I couldn’t help but feel a magnetic pull.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got hot blond twins awaiting me,”
Ivan boasted.
Nik shook his head. “I’ll send Alisha back for you, Reaper,”
he said from the door. The vibrant pulsing of the club’s music dulled as it clicked closed behind them.
Several minutes flew by, and I was startled when a soft caress brushed against my arm. Alisha plucked the photo from my hand, turned it face down, and climbed onto my lap.