Chapter 13 #2
“You disappoint me, Ava. I’ll let Leonid know the wedding’s off.” And he downs a big swallow of the vodka.
“Leonid?” I murmur to her. “You do get around.”
“Fuck you,” she whispers back.
“Later,” I say. Then I raise my voice. “To what do we owe this visit?”
“We’re getting to that, Seamus,” Cal mutters. “Go on, Iosif.”
“As I said, there have been threats aimed at us, at my son. And my… ward.” At that, his gaze moves sharply to Ava. “We’d like some help.”
“We’re finished with that. It was a one-time deal,” Cal says.
I don’t ask where Torin is because he’s probably manning computers or has a gun trained on Romanov’s men, who would be outside.
The moment’s odd, a little tense, a heaviness in the air that probably comes from the fact Ava wears my ring. But as I shift into professional mode, I don’t think he’s lying. And the moment between them is real.
As is whatever threat he’s hinting at.
“What happened?” I ask, cutting my eyes to Cal for a moment. “Sell me a reason for us to help.”
“Someone shot at my son, tried to run him off the road as he drove in from JFK. My men caught someone trying to break into our grounds, and the shooter had the same tattoo as the guy they caught.”
“So seek out the leader of the Lev group,” Cal says. “You wanted a neutral third party to offer protection for you and your guests that night. We did that. We’re done.”
Now Romanov looks at me. “But you’re not, are you? A neutral third party. Seamus here married Ava.”
“What’s that to you?” I ask.
Romanov stares at her a long time. “I was close to her father and stepmother.”
“Close doesn’t make anyone family. We don’t want to be enemies or allies. We don’t play in your pool and you don’t play in ours.” Cal takes another drag of his cigarette.
“I get that, I do. But I was hoping…” He pauses. “We seized a haul of… well, it doesn’t really matter what we were after, but it was heading to someone named Hank, a name that rang a bell. But the place for the delivery was empty, unlived in.”
“Like a front,” I say, unease filling me. Like what some people use when they worry about trouble breathing the same air as them. Like some of the Irish, the Serbs, the Poles. “Why go there?”
“The name tipped us off. And there was Semtex in the haul we took. So, since the house was in an Irish part of Queens…”
“Not our problem.”
“It might end up being.” Romanov finishes his vodka and stands, cigar clamped beneath his teeth. “Considering Ava here.”
Something violent moves through me, but it’s only the merest flicker of Cal’s gaze that steadies me.
“We’ll keep an eye out. If we hear of trouble,” Callahan says, “we’ll let you know.”
“Thank you.”
When he’s gone, Cal just looks at me. “My office.”
“I think I’ll take Arnold and Clawzilla for a walk to see Harry and Luce.” Dec eyes up Ava, as though he’s unsure what to make of her. But he just shakes his head. “Tor might join you in the office. Ava, you can carry the cat.”
“No.” While it’d get her out of my hair, I’m not letting her have that kind of freedom.
Declan’s a lot more dangerous than he seems under his boyish charm and boundless energy and dubious gift of gab, but I don’t know if he’s ready to deal with someone as duplicitous as her.
She’s nothing like Harry or Lucie.
“No,” I say again, “my bride’s staying here. We can’t stand being apart.”
“Right, and I’m Lil Bo Peep.” Dec chuckles.
I point at the dog and cat who are suddenly standing near the stairs, like they heard the word “walk” from wherever they were.
Those fucking animals.
I catch the slight curl of Ava’s lip, like she can’t stand pets. Another mark against her name, another reason for me to mistrust and despise her.
“Upstairs,” I say to her. It’s not until we’re on the second floor of the brownstone and her eyes flicker to Cal’s open office door that I clarify my intent. “Our room.”
“There’s no our.”
But I just grit my teeth, push her inside, pull the door shut, and lock it. Ignoring her curses and death threats, I run down the stairs to Callahan’s office alone.
I’m still holding the bag from the jeweler, so I give it to him.
He takes it, places it on his desk, and rubs his eyes. “Drink?”
I nod and he pours.
“How’s paradise?”
“A lot like hell,” I say. Then I pause. “Semtex? Irish enclave?”
“Fuck if I know,” he mutters. “And I think it should stay that way. The Russians like to take.”
“The ones we knew definitely did.” I hesitate. “We’ve got to do business with them properly, though. At some point soon. You know that.”
“Some, yes, but…” He shrugs, then takes a swallow as he leans against his desk. “It’ll be of our choosing, Seamus. Not theirs.”
My brother’s right, but… “What if he’s interested in her bratva?”
“You interested in her?”
A blithe comment dances on my tongue, but I ignore it. “No. I don’t like her, but the question’s valid.”
He pulls a cigarette out of his packet, looks at it, and shoves it behind his ear. “Trying to give these up.”
“Good job.”
“Fuck off, you eejit.” Then he sighs. “Of course he’s interested. Why else would he be trying to marry her off to his son?”
“True love?” I take a sip. “I think we should see what this is about. If someone’s after Romanov and…” I shake my head. “Considering the wiring of the bomb was something out of the old-school Irish playbook, we should find out who this Hank is… carefully, of course.”
“Okay,” he says slowly. “Because this is the second time Romanov has come to us. Which means he might not have been honest at the beginning. Or given all the details.”
“Like a call or warning something might happen if the event went on.” And maybe my new wife might know more. “If that bomb went off, it could have brought a lot of trouble down. Authorities getting involved kind of trouble.”
“But it didn’t. And if we get ourselves tangled in this, then we’re in, Seamus, like it or not, with the Romanovs and the Assisis.”
“Maybe, maybe not. And there’s one way to find out.”
“Do it, but make it low-key.”
I smile. “I’ll start right now.”
With my wife.
When I get upstairs to my room, I unlock the door and go in, narrowly missing the knife that flies through the air and embeds itself into the wall with a thunk.
I stalk over to her, push her down on the mattress, and pin her with my knee against her rib cage.
“Why the fuck did you plant those bombs?” I bite out, pressing my knee deeper into her chest as her eyes fly wide open. “And you’d better think very carefully about your answer, Ava.”