Chapter 62
ALEKSANDR
“This is not like riding a bike,” I growled at Dmitri, frustrated at how difficult it was to get a clean bead on the target after all these years.
He lifted his protective ear coverings, giving me a long-suffering look as he pushed the button to bring the target in. “It’s been twenty years. Give yourself a break.”
Giving myself a break wasn’t how I won a Stanley Cup at twenty-one, it wasn’t how I lead the Marauders to championship after championship, and it sure as fuck wasn’t how I was going to keep Eva safe from the fallout of killing Jed Carter.
“Again,” I growled.
Dmitri rolled his eyes as he hung a new target. “You know Firebug charges by the hour, not by the round.”
I glanced down the range where the old MC member sat on a stool near the entrance, with his shaved head, grey-streaked beard, and tattoo-covered skin, a bodice ripper paperback in his hand.
Firebug’s range was one of the few truly neutral venues left in Yorkfield, maybe the only one, other than the bar he ran with his husbands.
Everyone came here—us, the Irish, the Nigerians, even the Italians.
Everyone knew the fucking rules—no business, no beef, and sure as fuck no bodies.
You checked your grudges at the door, or he’d put a bullet in you before banning you and your entire organization, as he had the Albanians a few years before.
“Nikolai doesn’t want you breaking kneecaps anyway,” Dmitri said as he hung the fresh target. “He wants you in Boston, helping him extend his network there.”
I turned, my attention fixed on my cousin. “What the fuck do you mean, he wants me in Boston?”
Dmitri raised an eyebrow. “Do you realize how much money you handed to Nikolai?” he asked, switching to Russian.
“A whole fucking lot,” I growled back in the same language.
“There are dozens of Russian players in the NHL, even more Russian-American players, but very few coaches with bratva ties.”
I froze, wondering if all of this had been for nothing—if all my efforts to escape Jed Carter’s corruption had just landed me deeper in debt to an organization that wanted me to throw the same games I’d resisted throwing my entire fucking career.
Dmitri laughed when he saw my expression, bold and amused. “No, it’s not like that.”
When I set the gun down, thumbing the safety on, I turned to face him. “What is it like?”
“Nikolai wants to expand to Boston.”
“And?”
“He needs someone there who can start building relationships.” Dmitri’s expression turned serious. “Players who want to invest their earnings with people who speak their language, introductions to the right people. He’s sure you’ll be head coach or GM one day. That’s fucking gold to him.”
“I don’t want—”
“He knows. He’s not going to ask you to throw games. He wants someone in place who’s loyal, who can connect the dirty side of his business to people who are—”
“Less dirty,” I finished for him with a rueful smile. “Which is great, but my people are here, and I don’t have a job in Boston.”
Dmitri pulled out his phone and showed me a screenshot of a news article.
Boston Anarchists Announce Coaching Search After Playoff Exit
“Yes, you do,” he said.
“Isn’t the traditional method of moving in on a city to knock off a container of drugs or guns, then set up shop and dare anyone to come after you?” I asked dryly.
Dmitri’s lips tilted up in a smile. “That’ll happen too.
And when it does, Nikolai would like to be introduced to the mayor and the police commissioner and the Irish by one of the coaches of Boston’s championship hockey team.
He’s already called the owner. You’re on the shortlist with championship experience and as someone who can develop young talent.
” He grinned. “Someone who’s taken teams from nothing to nationals. ”
Boston was three hundred miles from Yorkfield—from Eva and Cole and Tristan.
From everything I’d lost.
From everything I’d destroyed.
“It’s a good opportunity, Sasha,” Dmitri said. “Maybe the best you’ll get.”
Before I could respond, movement caught my eye. A woman strode past our booth toward Firebug, long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, tattoos covering her bare arms.
“Firebug!” she called out.
“Yes, sweetheart?” He didn’t look up from his paperback.
“I need—” She stopped when she saw us. No, she stopped when she saw Dmitri.
Her lips curled into a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Coach Novikov.”
“Sage.” I recognized her now as one of Eva’s friends, the criminology student Tristan liked to tease about being a serial killer. “It’s good to see you.”
“Is it?” Her eyes flicked to Dmitri, unreadable. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“My cousin, Dmitri Lebedev. Dmitri, this is Sage Buchanan. What are you doing here?”
“Firebug’s one of my dads,” she said, her tone light. “I help out sometimes when things get busy.”
Besides us, there were only two other shooters—an older Italian-American I didn’t recognize and one of Declan’s enforcers.
Dmitri still hadn’t said a fucking word.
“Okay, well, see you later,” she said, that fake cheer making me wonder what the fuck was going on between her and my cousin.
The moment she left, he handed me my protective gear, flipped off the safety, and emptied the rest of the clip into a target at the far end of the range.
Without saying a word, he hit the switch that would bring it back to us. He’d blown out the entire head and chest.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Three of my men have gone missing over the past two months. They’re all fucking scumbags—men I’d never have allowed to take the oath.”
“And what does that have to do with the daughter of a motorcycle gang member?”
“Members,” he corrected. “They’re an all-male polycule that runs a bar on the outside of town too.” His eyes flicked to mine, lit with amusement. “There must be something in the water in this town—all this polyamory.”
“You disapprove?”
Dmitri laughed and clapped me on the back, his earlier tension apparently forgotten. “Not at all, brother. Whatever makes you happy makes me happy.”
“And you think I’ll be happy in Boston.”
“Coaching an NHL team? Yes. I do. Think about it—a fresh start.”
“Alone.”
“Maybe.” Dmitri’s expression sobered. “Or maybe you figure out your shit and don’t go by yourself.”
He drove off and left me standing in the parking lot of Firebug’s range, wondering if I even deserved to try to figure out my shit.
I didn’t want a clean slate if it didn’t include her, if it didn’t include them.
I just had to figure out a way to make that happen.