Chapter 19 Sergei
SERGEI
My uncle requested another meeting with me, and I didn’t wait to head over to his office.
He didn’t waste time with any formalities or greetings. Standing at the window in this huge room, he propped one arm around his chest and set his elbow on it so he could rub his jaw.
“The Popovs are closing in on her. On both of them.”
I narrowed my eyes, tense already. I didn’t have to ask who. He only would’ve asked me to come here if it was about Natalie or Maisie.
“Have they tried to come onto the property?” I asked. I hadn’t been informed of anyone daring to come here, where we were so protected.
“No.” He faced me, giving the window his back. “I’ve put too much into upping security here, at all of our buildings, for anyone to get close again.”
I knew that he had. I had been there to assist him when men trespassed to get to Anya after she arrived. Then later, when someone broke in to get her again, he’d doubled down on security. Same as when Claire had been targeted. With Claire pregnant, he was almost obsessed about security.
“No one has come here, but it’s critical that you keep her here if you want her alive.” He looked me dead in the eye. “Word is that Niko Popov sees an angle to attack for how you killed his men over her.”
I shrugged. “He’s not getting a fucking apology.”
“What this means is that I need you to make up your mind.” He sighed, dropping into a leather chair. “If you are claiming her, if she is to be guarded and with the attachment that Claire has to me, I need the final clarification whether Natalie is just a fling or something serious.”
I frowned, hating that he’d be stressed about this. Telling him that I wanted to be patient and let her acclimate to being with me would be dumb.
“Because if this escalates, and it’s running the risk of war, I need your word that she’s in. Fully. And that she can be vetted and trusted, loyal to us no matter what.”
I sat in another chair, exhausted from the worry of pushing Natalie too far too soon. If I were to explain that I needed her allegiance and loyalty, for her to truly stand by my side, I could scare her off.
She was a package deal with Maisie in the same way I was a package deal with the entire Orlov organization.
“Because I can’t let us be stretched too thin. Niko’s always causing fucking trouble with us. Then there’s Giovanni.” He scowled and shook his head.
“What’s going on with them?”
“Roberto Giovanni is acting like a stupid motherfucker, trying to mess with our drug routes.” He rubbed his face, tired.
“I’ve had Andre on that part of the operations and trying to figure out if we’re dealing with a mole he’s planted.
My point is that I need to delegate proper force where it’s needed.
If Niko wants to send his idiots after Natalie, and she’s that important to you, I need to know. ”
“Has he been sending anyone out to find her?” I asked.
I knew better than to wonder why. It couldn’t be because they’d seen her on the street and just had to have her.
Those Popovs haunted and stalked and raped countless women.
The Popov interest in her was only because she was close to me.
They wanted to hit my family, to hit me, through her. That was all it was.
“A few.”
I had George and another recruit checking on her building, but as Mikhail told me about the specific Popov spies who’d been seen looking for Natalie at the Diamond Mirage, and also stalking the babysitter, Daria, I let my anger take over.
“I’ll fucking handle them,” I growled.
If Niko Popov wanted to cause us a headache and make us worry about Natalie or Maisie being taken or hurt, they had to welcome my wrath, too.
After checking in with Natalie and Maisie, I headed out with George to hunt down the three men Mikhail had mentioned.
They’d been most forward with their threats so far, and it didn’t take me long to locate them.
In fact, they made it easy for me, hanging out at the same strip club and acting like the world was in their hands and nothing could harm them.
Because we caught them by surprise, they didn’t have a chance to put up much of a fight. We dragged them out of there and brought them to a warehouse to question them and then eliminate them.
George drove them to the location while I rode with the recruit, checking in on how George was training him so far.
When we arrived, I looked forward to killing these assholes. It’d be a hell of a message for the entire Popov Family to receive, and after they realized I wasn’t joking around, maybe they’d find someone else to harass.
George pulled me aside before I could enter the warehouse. His grave expression worried me. “Now what?”
“Listen,” he said, holding up his phone so I could play back a video that he must have recorded on the drive.
At first, they talked shit, bluffing that they had more men with them and we’d regret taking them. Then they blustered that they were tougher, better, all that macho ego crap. But it was the last part that hit me hard.
“I bet Sergei doesn’t even know he killed that bitch’s husband,” one said.
“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. You know about that, ugly asshole? Huh?” another taunted the driver and probably George. “Did you know that Sergei found himself the fucking widow of some loser he killed?”
I paused it and narrowed my eyes at George. “What? What the—”
“Go on,” he said, urging me to let the recording roll.
“You shut the fuck up with those lies,” George warned, his voice coming in from the background on the recording.
“It ain’t lies,” one replied. “Sergei’s the one who killed that bitch’s husband. He arranged the hit down on that block and some civilians were too close for their own good. Like over a year ago now.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” George demanded.
“Sergei’s the dumb fucker who set up that sting. He’s the one who came into that warehouse where the Cartel was setting up to package drugs. And he’s the reason some civilians outside the building were killed. That woman’s husband, Fitz something, was one of them that got caught in the crossfire.”
Blood drained from my face. It sank, pooling in my stomach as I replayed the recording again and listened to the Popovs taunting about this fact I hadn’t been aware of.
I knew exactly what sting they were talking about. I had been in charge of setting it up. Mikhail wanted to send a message to the Cartel to quit messing with our drug business. It was always them, the Cartel wanting to oust us or the Giovannis trying to compete with us.
I had set up that sting near the Cartel’s location, and I recalled how a few civilians had been outside the building when the gunfire erupted.
Fitz?
That was the name of Natalie’s dead husband.
“How did you not know…” I shook my head at George, the one who was supposed to search for intel about her.
“It was there.” He cringed. “In the first reports I sent you, the name was there. It’s been so long since that incident happened that the surname didn’t ring a bell.”
The urge to punch something—or someone—filled me until I was practically vibrating with anger.
He was right. That deadly night was from a long time ago, long enough ago that the name wouldn’t have stood out to me.
“I didn’t realize. And I knew her spouse had been killed, but there was so little intel to find about him. It didn’t make me think back far enough that…” George shook his head.
I pressed my lips together and exhaled a hard breath through my nose. Ramifications of what this could mean rocked through me.
I had been in charge of the violence that killed Natalie’s husband.
It was my fault that those guns had been fired. I’d arranged that sting and I had been a participant, if not the perpetrator, of those innocent lives that were taken. My aim was the Cartel. My bullets were meant for my enemies, never the random strangers who shared this city with us.
Things happened. Violent skirmishes were how these things could ruin others.
Fitz was one of them.
I shook my head slowly and stared at my right-hand man. George didn’t react. He was too trained and hardened to wince in sympathy or ask me any stupid questions. He watched and waited, giving me the time and space to let this sink in.
I was responsible for the death of Natalie’s husband. Indirectly, I’d played a part in why she was an overwhelmed and scrappy bartender who feared men and couldn’t fully get her footing in the world as a widowed single mother.
Me.
No one else.
Only me.
I’m at fault.
“She can’t know,” I muttered, unsure whether I was telling myself or George.
As he stared me down with something like worry, I dreaded the day that this truth could come to the surface and scare Natalie away from ever wanting me in her life again.