Chapter 26 - Rurik
“Not too shabby, tonight.”
I peered at Konstantin as the early-morning dawn light filtered through the trees and buildings.
He looked like shit, but was grinning happily.
Straightening up, I dragged my hand over my own face, not sure if I looked much better.
We had gone in hard as soon as we found where his enemies were hiding out, planning their own ambush against Kon.
We got there first, taking them completely by surprise, and it was over fast. Barely a scratch on me, or so I thought as I blearily raised my hands in front of my face to check for blood.
Kon had an apartment where we’d gone to clean up, then he somehow convinced me we needed to celebrate our victory and catch up.
It had been more than a year since I saw him, and I was riding high from the fight, so I tagged along to one of the bars near his place that was still open.
While I normally preferred a good book to a good fight, I could appreciate old-fashioned justice.
I was sick to death of what was going on in LA.
Sure, it was only a matter of time before whoever was fighting us this time would single me out and try to mess with Gavrik Imports. Or worse, Clem.
Something more dangerous than a fire in a warehouse, or the current issues we were having with trucks disappearing.
All of it was coming to a head. Hearing that they might be searching us out in far-off lands pissed me off to no end.
Kon swore he was here for a business deal and had been keeping to himself.
Did I fully believe him? No. But he was family. Blood. You didn’t mess with the Bratva, and you certainly didn’t mess with a Fokin, no matter where we were in the world. Now I was staggering back to the villa at dawn, invigorated by the victory, and yes, too much vodka.
Somehow, Kon always managed to get me to come out of my shell, and he was determined to meet Clem, whom I couldn’t shut up about once I was a few drinks in after the fight.
“Get lost,” I said. “She can’t meet you when you have blood on your neck.”
He had taken a hard hit in the ear, probably bursting his eardrum, and he looked rather gruesome as I perused him now. How we weren’t kicked out of the bar was beyond me. He rubbed at his neck and pointed to my own face. My lip and jaw were vaguely sore, numbed by copious toasts.
“She’s not going to like this,” I said. “And how am I supposed to explain it?”
I had filled Kon in a little bit on my situation with Clem. He found it hilarious, but looked at me seriously now. “Tell her the truth before she finds out herself.”
“When we’re back in LA,” I said. “When the time is right.”
“Then tell her we got mugged,” he suggested.
I scowled at him. No one in my family liked looking weak, but that was better than having to admit we’d been out kicking the asses of Tokyo’s crime elite, or that my uncle was most likely involved in something he wasn’t fully telling me about.
Just the fact that we were a target because of our last name wouldn’t have put her mind at ease in the slightest and only opened a can of worms I wasn’t ready to deal with.
My only objective was to make Clem happy and keep her safe. Running out on her last night was bad enough. She wasn’t going to—
“Oh my God,” she hissed, flinging open the front gate and stepping out onto the sidewalk beyond the wall of our little sanctuary.
Her eyes swept me, her brows shooting together when she noticed my lip. I licked it and tasted blood. Damn it. Should have done a better job cleaning up. Grabbing my hand, she started to tug me into the courtyard, then noticed Kon and scowled at him.
Not an ounce of fear, only concern as she wedged herself between us. He laughed, thrusting out his hand.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said. “Konstantin Fokin, this one’s uncle, though I’m barely older than his brother.”
“Old enough to know better then,” she said, as prim as a Victorian schoolmarm. Wrinkling up her nose, she accused us of smelling like we had taken a swim in alcohol.
Laughing, I pulled her into my arms. “I’m sorry,” I murmured against her sweet-smelling hair, sorry for infecting her with my stink. “We lost track of time after…”
“We got jumped on our way to my place,” Kon filled in smoothly. “Your husband here pretty much saved my life, and of course, I had to repay him with a drink.”
“Or ten,” she muttered, but she was beginning to soften under Konstantin’s patented charm. “It would have been nice to know where you were going at least.” She whirled around to glare at me. “I barely slept all night.”
“My fault again,” my uncle said. “Although not entirely. I didn’t know he was married until I dragged him off to help with my little problem.”
“It was a secret to everyone,” she said wryly. His exuberant congratulations caught her off guard, and she sighed. “Might as well come in.”
As she herded us through the gate, I gave Kon a warning glance, and he mimed zipping his lips shut. Not a word about what we were up to or why. We’d have to stick with the mugging story.
“I thought the streets were safe here,” she said, tutting as she made ice packs for both of us. “Did you cancel the credit cards before you started drinking?”
“Oh, Rurik put the fear of God into them long before they had our wallets,” Kon said.
She perused our faces and narrowed her eyes. “But not before they beat the tar out of you.”
“These little scratches?” I said before that Kon could get in too deep. “Really, Clem, it was over in a few seconds.”
“And if I knew the beautiful woman at his side was his wife, I would have insisted you join us,” Kon said, beaming at her as she slapped the ice pack into his hand. “Knowing this old dog, though, I just assumed you’d be better off without him and our boring errand.”
I glared hard at him. Now I had to come up with a boring errand. “Something to do with one of our Russian holdings. Needed another family member’s signature…”
“Hmm,” she said, yanking out a frying pan from the cupboard. “An emergency nighttime signature. Lucky you were here in Tokyo.”
“Well, international business never sleeps,” he said with a shrug. “And I haven’t seen him in so long… damn, Rurik, how did you snag such a gorgeous woman, and with brains, too. She doesn’t miss a beat.”
He was going to be the death of me, or the death of Clem’s shaky faith in me.
She was clearly still skeptical, but his compliment broke through enough to wring out a reluctant smile.
I hurried to her side and took the pan. “Sorry, he’s kind of the black sheep in my family. We take turns looking out for him.”
Not exactly a lie, and certainly not as obvious as what he was spouting. Clem was every bit as smart as his over-the-top compliments, and she wasn’t buying any of his nonsense.
“You wound me,” Kon said, overhearing my harried explanation.
“Not enough to make you leave,” I grumbled.
“You should at least give me breakfast after nearly getting me killed,” he said, winking at Clem.
“I thought he saved your life,” she countered, but her smile was growing. No one could resist Kon for long. “Might as well stay if Rurik’s cooking.”
“Of course he is,” Kon answered.
Of course I was. I wasn’t letting my wife make me eggs after I kept her up all night with worry. I squeezed her hand as she sat down beside him, and he instantly started asking her questions about how we met.
“He knows,” I assured her, so she didn’t have to launch into our cover story on top of tossing and turning all night.
As bad as I felt about being the cause of her lack of sleep, it still made my chest swell that she was concerned about me.
Enough to be angry, enough to stay awake.
And while I had told Kon about the origins of our relationship, I also told him it was very real.
Which was why irritation bubbled up in me when all she could talk about was the Koboyashi deal when he asked her about our marriage.
Not a word about her feelings, but what did I expect? She certainly wouldn’t open up to a near stranger, even if he was already regaling her with wild stories of our youth in Moscow.
“I bet you didn’t know your staid executive husband is a crack shot?” he asked, shoveling in the scrambled eggs I slid onto his plate.
“Do you mean with a gun?” she asked.
“Skeet shooting,” I said, glaring at Kon to no avail. “Clay targets.”
“No,” she said slowly, eyeing me with her fork halfway to her mouth. “He never brought it up.”
“He can hit just about anything. If you’re in his sights, you’re going down,” Kon said, laughing. “Just ask Gavril about that.”
“He went with me to practice once,” I said.
“You almost killed him, from what I heard,” Kon laughed.
“Well, he could say the same,” I told him. “We’re both pretty competitive.”
“I had no idea Mr. Boch—, I mean, Gavril liked shooting, too,” she said.
I quickly changed the subject to how Clem had found the Koboyashi Corp and how we were poised to make a fortune on our deal. “Couldn’t have done it without her,” I said, reaching to squeeze her hand.
She gave me a look I couldn’t quite read, and Konstantin jumped in, piling on more compliments and trying to poach her from me. “If you don’t want to stay in Tokyo, I’ve been tossing around the idea of staking a claim in LA. There’s no way Rurik’s paying you enough.”
He seemed to be joking, but was he actually trying to get my wife to leave me for him, whether for strictly business purposes or not? He was about to have a brand new bruise to add to his collection in about ten seconds if he didn’t shut the hell up.
And why was Clem laughing at his jokes like she’d never heard one before?
He was already walking the line, talking about guns, then talking about coming to LA, then he started in on some story about a hit on one of our enemies in Moscow, making it sound like some sort of fraternity prank instead of an execution.
“You actually put him in the trunk of your car?” she asked. “Where did you get the handcuffs?”
“Zip ties,” he corrected. “They’re available anywhere. I’ve got some in my car right now, just in case.”
“In case of what?” she yelped.
“He’s joking,” I bellowed. “And he’s leaving.” I pointed to the door. “Out. Now.”
“Is that any way to speak to your uncle?” he muttered, grinning as he swallowed down the last of his orange juice and got up. He took Clem’s hand and gave her a showy kiss on each cheek, finally ducking out as I aimed a kitchen knife at him.
“Holy cow, he really was a lot,” she sighed after he was gone.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, relieved when she let me take her in my arms. “For springing him on you, for worrying you. He can be like a hurricane, but what can I do when he’s family?”
“And needed an emergency signature,” she grumbled against my chest.
Hell. Time to throw good old Uncle Kon under the bus. “Sorry for that, too. He begged me not to tell anyone what was really going on. Apparently, he got tangled up with someone’s wife and…”
“I don’t want to know. But why did you need to sacrifice your face for his bad decisions?” She traced my swollen lip and frowned. “It should be okay by tonight if you don’t mess with it.”
I leaned down and brushed my lips against hers. “What if I want to mess with it? What if I can’t resist this?”
She rose on her toes as I kissed her, not feeling an ounce of pain.
I slid my hands down her sides to reach around, making her press harder against me with a soft sigh.
Last night had been necessary, and maybe even a little fun.
But this was where I wanted to be. Always with Clem.
Wherever she was, that was my home. And because of my wild uncle, I had missed out on a precious night of our honeymoon.
Her arms locked around my neck as she opened her mouth. My tongue swept past her lips, and my hands roamed up and down, needing to feel her warm skin. I gathered handfuls of her robe and tugged until my palms touched the smooth flesh of her back.
She arched backward, smiling up at me before tugging my head down again. “Your side of the bed isn’t rumpled at all,” she said.
“We need to fix that,” I told her, backing her down the hall, her slippered feet scuffing along the wood floor.
Her answer was a more frenzied kiss, completely forgetting I was supposed to be babying my swollen lip. Drawing herself up, her body brushed against mine, making me grip her tighter. My cock had sprung to life at the first touch of her lips and was rock hard and pulsing as she pushed closer.
“Don’t do that again,” she hissed, her fingers tightening in my hair. “I hated not knowing if you were okay or not.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, heart soaring again that she cared, while hating that she suffered at all because of me.
“Make it up to me now,” she said, her eyes searching mine as her fingers stilled in my hair. “Then I can finally get some sleep.”
A growl tore out of my throat as I lifted her and carried her the next few feet down the hallway to our room. I barely dropped her onto the big bed when her phone let off an alarm from the desk.
She blinked and tried to sit up, but I pinned her, kissing her until she was moaning in my arms. The alarm grew louder, and she dug her fingers into my shoulders.
“I’m supposed to go shopping again with Erina,” she said, gazing in the direction of her phone with a mournful look. “I should be heading out to meet her and her daughters right now.”
Hearing about her appointment reminded me of mine.
“Hell. I’m supposed to tour one of Koboyashi’s factories today.
” I glanced at my watch. “In an hour, in fact.” I kissed her quickly, rolling off to strip away my clothes, dotted with blood, I hoped Clem wouldn’t notice this close, and reeking of our night at the bar.
“Go and have fun with Erina while I do my part to seal this damn deal.”
“It’s hardly fun trying to keep up with her and stick to a budget,” she said, hurriedly pulling a dress from the closet. “If shopping was a sport, that woman would be in the Olympics.”
“Why are you sticking to a budget?” I demanded, trying not to get distracted as she shimmied out of her pajamas. “Just buy whatever you want.”
Oh hell, I was distracted. She was just too beautiful. Before she could whip the dress over her head and ruin the perfect view, I grabbed her and swept her into my arms for another kiss. “Tell her it’s my fault if you’re late.”