Chapter 57 Tristan
TRISTAN
We arrived at a nightclub in the warehouse district, the sort of place I’d never be able to afford the cover fee for, much less a drink.
Music pounded through the walls, bass so heavy, I felt it in my chest as I walked up.
A line of people in expensive outfits waited behind velvet ropes as I stood near the entrance, looking like a fucking idiot in sweat-soaked clothes, still smelling like the locker room.
Alek clapped his hand on my shoulder when he arrived then bypassed the line, clearly expecting me to follow. The bouncer, a massive man with a scar cutting through his upper lip, said something in Russian. Alek’s face turned stony, but the bouncer stepped aside.
Inside, lights strobed through a manufactured fog and bodies pressed together on the dance floor. I was a little disappointed to discover it wasn’t all that much fancier than the clubs I liked to dance at, except the clothes were a lot more expensive, and the people looked a bit more unreal.
Oh, and the men in suits with bulges in weird places that were fucking everywhere.
A woman in black materialized before us. “This way.”
She led us through the club, past a VIP section where old men were buying beautiful young women bottles that cost more than my rent at the hockey house. We stepped through a door marked PRIVATE, flanked by two more men in fitted suits with tattoos covering almost every inch of exposed skin.
The door opened into a concrete hallway. Slowly, the music faded until all we could hear was the echo of our escort’s heels against the floor as we made our way through a maze of flickering fluorescent lights and unidentifiable stains.
When the last door opened, it revealed a utilitarian office with a handful of men in suits. Christ, their dry cleaning bill had to be sky high.
A white man sat behind the desk, with bright blue eyes and a scar that bisected his face, cutting down his right eye.
An older man sat in front of the desk, ignoring us, flipping through a sheaf of papers that looked like accounting.
To his right was a blonde woman, also wearing a suit, her hair pulled back into a French braid.
Three more men lounged along the edges of the windowless room, leaning against the walls, their arms crossed.
The man behind the desk stood, his face lighting up before falling just as quickly into grim determination.
“Sasha,” he said, continuing rapid-fire in Russian.
Alek responded in the same language, looking at me.
I caught my name, but nothing else. The man looked nothing like Alek, but when he smiled, I could see the resemblance. This must have been Dmitri.
They clasped hands then pulled each other into a brief, fierce embrace. When they separated, both their expressions were darker.
“Tristan Baptiste,” the man said in English, looking at me. “Hell of a season you’re having. That assist in the second period tonight was beautiful.” He smiled without warmth. “I’m Dmitri Lebedev, Alek’s cousin.”
I shivered as I realized how much this man, the second-in-command of the Yorkfield bratva, knew about me. I’d realized he was going to be at the game tonight, that Alek would have to work with him, but I hadn’t internalized what that meant.
“And this,” Dmitri gestured at the older man, “is Nikolai Berezin.”
The Pakhan. Fuck. A lifetime of my family’s exhortations to keep my nose clean, to stay out of trouble, every fucking lesson about staying safe as a Black man, gone in a heartbeat. For a fucking girl. And a boy. And Alek.
Worth it, I told myself.
Berezin turned to examine me, his piercing blue eyes bright against tanned skin. He looked like money—old money, Jed Carter kind of money—except for the tattoos on his face.
“Aleksandr,” Berezin said, his accent thick. “Dmitri tells me your problem with Jedediah Carter has become more urgent.”
“Eva’s been taken,” Alek said, as if everyone in this room already knew who she was. “By Jedediah Carter. He has her father too. Cole is there now, trying to buy us time.”
Berezin said nothing, and I fought the urge to fidget. I was so out of my depth here, and every moment we spent explaining and negotiating was another moment Jed Carter had to hurt Eva.
“I need your help to get her back,” Alek said.
“When I said I’d help, I promised information. I told you then I wouldn’t give you men until you proved yourself, but like a child, you think asking again will change my answer.”
The woman sitting beside Berezin turned around. She had sharp eyes that softened when they fell on me. “Baba,” she murmured, setting delicate fingers on the older man’s forearm. “She doesn’t deserve this.”
Berezin looked at her and sighed. “Elena…”
Her chin lifted, and she raised her eyebrows in challenge.
He scowled at her, but the expression was tinged with affection. My eyes ping-ponged back and forth between them, and Alek and Dmitri, both of whom watched the exchange with carefully blank expressions.
Finally, Berezin nodded.
Elena smiled at Alek and me, but it was chilling rather than reassuring.
“You took an oath,” Elena said. “Not to my father, not to me, but to the bratva. That oath means we’ll stand with you tonight. But in return, you’ll deliver results. Jed Carter’s betting operations—the contacts, the infrastructure, the revenue streams, all of it.”
We didn’t have any of that. How the fuck did—
“Cole Carter will deliver it,” Alek said.
Dmitri’s jaw tightened. He looked away, toward the walls, or the men standing along them, his expression twisted with an emotion I couldn’t interpret. When he looked back, his eyes were bright.
He started to speak in Russian then stopped, shook his head, and switched to English. “I wish this weren’t how it had to be, brother.”
“I know.” Alek’s voice was rough. “I’d do anything for her, for them,” he said, and my chest ached with the agony in his voice.
“Then we better make sure she survives to be worth it.” Dmitri gripped Alek’s shoulder hard.
“We move in thirty minutes,” Elena said.
“She might not have that long,” I said then immediately regretted opening my mouth.
Everyone turned to look at me. I’d barely spoken since entering the room, and now, every dangerous gaze in it was focused on me.
Berezin’s eyes narrowed. Why had I spoken up like I knew a damn thing about how long it’d take to get ready to storm Cole’s father’s building, or how long Eva had, or anything else? Fucking idiot.
“You’re a college student, a hockey player, who loves her,” Elena said, her gentle tone a startling contrast to the hardness of her expression.
“Hoping to land a contract with the NHL—clean as a fucking whistle, good grades, and a brother working in New York finance. You’ve got a bright future.
” She cocked her head and looked at me with interest. “And you’re willing to throw all that away? ”
“For her? Yeah.”
“Brave,” Berezin said. He smiled at me without kindness. “Stupid. But brave.” He gestured to one of the younger men on the wall. “Maxim. Show Tristan how to hold a gun without shooting himself. If he’s coming, he needs to not be a liability.”
Maxim pushed off the wall. He was in his mid-twenties, white, with blond hair and brown eyes and covered in the same tattoos as everyone else. “Come,” he said with a strong accent.
“Twenty minutes,” Elena said, nodding to me. “And then we go get Alek’s girl back.”
I followed Maxim deeper into the building’s maze, to a room where racks of weapons lined the walls—handguns, rifles, things I didn’t even have a name for. Maxim moved through it like he was shopping, pulling down pieces with casual familiarity.
“Ever fired a gun?” he asked me.
“No.”
“Perfect. No bad habits to break.” He pulled down a handgun, checked it with movements too fast to follow, then handed it to me. “Safety is here. Trigger is here. Point, squeeze, don’t jerk or you’ll miss. Don’t put your finger on the trigger unless you’re ready to kill someone.”
Cautiously, I raised it, pointing it at the corner. He adjusted my grip.
“Good. When we go up, you stay behind me and Aleksandr. You stay behind any of us who know what we’re doing. You don’t play hero, understood?”
“I’m not leaving without them,” I protested. “Cole and Eva.”
Maxim studied me then nodded slowly and handed me a holster to wrap around my waist. I put the gun away, and he yanked a vest off a rack, eying it critically. “Put this on.”
The vest was heavier than I expected. Kevlar, I realized, because people were going to shoot at us—shoot at me.
My hands shook as I strapped it on.
Alek appeared beside me and accepted a weapon from Maxim, checking it with the same quick attention—muscle memory, like he’d done it a thousand times.
“Brother,” Maxim said, clapping Alek on the back. “It’s good to have you back.”
How much of his life had I never seen? What had he given up to return to them?
I swallowed hard, completely out of my depth, embarrassed I thought I’d be an asset here.
Alek’s breath ghosted over the nape of my neck, and he gently wrapped his arms around me from behind, chuckling at how he had to clasp them around the Kevlar.
“We’re going to get both of them out,” he said softly. “I promise.”
I nodded, swallowing the glass in my throat.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he continued. “You’re—” He stopped and laughed. “Christ, we’re about to storm the fucking citadel, and I’m talking about feelings.” He rubbed his cheek against the back of my head and repeated, “I’m glad you’re here.”
His phone buzzed. He picked it up, keeping one arm around me.
“Coach Novikov?” a voice said through the line. “It’s Conrad Jackson.”
Alek stiffened. “He’s got my daughter,” Conrad cried. “I—”
“Tell me,” Alek growled, his voice near my ear, as he swiped the phone to speaker.
“Jedediah Carter. He kidnapped me, Eva came, and then his men beat me up and dropped me outside.”
“Are you safe?” Alek asked.
“I’m with Declan Flannigan,” he rushed. “Carter’s office is on the twenty-sixth floor. He’s got men everywhere.”
As he described the building, at least a dozen men flooded into the room, grabbing guns, checking their gear, moving with efficiency that told me this wasn’t their first time.
Christ, they moved like fucking soldiers.
Dmitri appeared in tactical gear, looking nothing like the man in the expensive suit I’d met earlier. He caught Alek’s eye, said something short in Russian. Alek nodded and stepped away from me.
“We’ll get her back,” he promised Mr. Jackson.
We had to.
Dmitri clapped my shoulder. “Stay close. Do what Maxim tells you. And if someone’s pointing a gun at you, shoot them. Don’t think. Just do it."
Could I? Could I actually shoot someone?
I looked down at the gun in my hands—heavy, real, and loaded.
For Eva? For Cole?
Yeah. I could.