Chapter 35
35
Chrysanthemum was as ostentatious as its name. Tucked in an alleyway, the private club colonized a two-story red-brick heritage building. The exterior was unremarkable—no signage indicating that anything worthwhile lurked inside. Despite the windowless steel-reinforced door that looked like it could withstand a siege, a rhino-sized bouncer with an earpiece stood stationed outside the venue.
“I’m here for Sergei,” Kai said as he stopped in front of the big man. He was uninterested in dressing for an upscale joint with his combat boots and black cargo pants, but he was ready for a brawl.
The bouncer gave Kai a once-over, squinting vigorously at his worn leather jacket. “Arms up,” he ordered.
Kai did as he was told, tolerating the man’s bear paws gliding over his sides.
“You’re good.” He tapped his earpiece. “Someone here for Sergei. Looks like your fighter.”
Kai’s brow arched over a bored expression. He knew he looked like rabble, but it wasn’t like he walked around in boxing gloves.
After a brief exchange, the bouncer smacked his palm on the door with two hollow thuds. As it squealed open, muffled house music bled from the dim hallway, hot air rushing out like a tender sigh.
“Take the stairs on the right to get to the VIP lounge. Pyotr and Sergei are there.”
Without a word, Kai slipped his hands into his jacket pockets and stepped into the club. White vapors illuminated by sultry lights wafted past, and heavy bass thundered through Kai’s bones like an assault. The smell of pheromones, alcohol, cocaine, and molly invaded him, scrambling his senses until he adjusted. He rounded the corner by coat check and climbed a flight of stairs manned by a pair of bouncers. They stepped aside to let him pass, their hands clasped over their dicks as they tracked him with cautious stares.
A narrow corridor with several rooms awaited on the second floor—probably an office, a restroom, and the VIP lounge the meathead outside had mentioned. Kai didn’t have to scope out each one to know where he was headed; the glassy black double-doors at the end of the hall were as loud as the music. He heard no murmurs or chatter filtering through from the other side, which meant the lounge was soundproof. A perfect kill room.
The door opened with a heavy click, and another non-descript bodyguard greeted him with a furrowed brow. He was dressed nicer than the rest, his suit tailored to show off the sharp vee of his torso. His black silk shirt and tie were as impeccable as his ridiculously coiffed hair, though his cauliflower ears suggested his face had endured a less than perfect childhood.
Kai hadn’t knocked, though he figured they’d spotted him on the security monitors. As the door swung open, a stocked bar on the far wall came into view, and the bartender—a young woman who looked uncomfortable in her too-tight, too-short dress—shook a cocktail for one of the lounge guests. Decadent leather seating and what appeared to be a hand-carved table populated the dark marble floor, and a pair of chic, velvety curtains framed a large one-way window that overlooked the club.
Definitely a kill room.
Sergei sat on one of the leather sofas, his elbows planted on his thighs as he looked up to see Kai enter. Beside him, another man with thinning brown hair stood before the window, surveying his domain. His broad shoulders were proudly pulled back, his posture at ease as he continued his evaluation of the club in complete stillness, unconcerned with the predator at his back.
“Welcome, Mr. Donovan.”
His voice was deep and gruff, like someone had raked his words over coals. The formality plucked at Kai’s nerves, set his teeth on edge, but he knew better than to expect otherwise from a man who fancied himself an underworld lord.
“Kai.” The word came out low and forceful, like he had to shape it into something familiar before it left him as a threatening growl.
Pyotr unbuttoned the front of his navy pin-striped jacket, then turned to face Kai. He looked to be in his fifties, with graying stubble and thick brows. Deep-set lines bracketed his mouth, intensifying the severity of his expression, though he appeared lithe and nimble under his perfectly tailored suit. “Is there something wrong with your family name?”
The question felt pointed, like he knew about Kai’s past—courtesy of Sergei, no doubt.
“I hate formalities,” Kai said without elaboration.
“Ah, an insolent one.” Pyotr gave a crooked smile as he straightened a cuff. “Customs are important, Mr. Donovan. Whether you like it or not, tradition is the foundation upon which order is built. Identity, too. We are not scraps of wood afloat in a sea, but communities bound by a common set of rules.”
Kai swallowed the snort that rose from his chest. He tilted his head, his mouth bent into something mocking. “Do the rules apply to you?”
That seemed to shut him up. Pyotr’s gaze narrowed a fraction. “Men of your stature shouldn’t get too clever.”
“Why?” Kai shrugged. “Does it ruin the order of things?” He meant the question sincerely, though it dripped with scorn. “I knew someone like you once. Obsessed with tradition, order, discipline.”
Amusement quirked Pyotr’s eyebrow—a momentary intrigue. “Oh? What happened?”
Kai’s lips skinned back from his teeth. “I killed him.”
Pyotr’s head flew back as he burst into a hoarse laugh. “You didn’t tell me he was funny, Sergei.”
Sergei looked anything but entertained. He grunted in response, but Kai could smell the fear on him. Sweat beaded his temple, his hands clasped between his knees as he observed the exchange.
“You’d make a good jester,” Pyotr said with a wave of his hand. “Though unfortunately, you’re in a rather serious predicament. You’ve lost something important to me.”
Kai exhaled slowly, steadying his nerves. Caelan.
The bartender shuffled from her post to hand Pyotr his cocktail. He thanked her with a leering grin, then took a tentative sip. “I’ll make you an offer. You find the forgery, bring it to me, and I’ll forget your blunder.”
Only Kai knew the extent of Sergei’s anxiety in that moment. The persnickety bastard was on the precipice of shitting his pants. No amount of humidity could explain away the perspiration on his collar; he was a drop of cortisol from a hypertensive crisis.
“I’ll need to know what the forgery is and why you want it so bad,” Kai bargained. “Can’t find what I don’t know I’m looking for.” He wasn’t normally a liar, but he also wasn’t in the business of sending children to a butcher.
Pyotr’s hands slipped into his pockets as he regarded Kai with the caution of a predator gunning for oversized prey. “The forgery is a person who must be killed.”
“I’m not your personal assassin.” This fucking coward , Kai thought. “You want someone taken out, do it yourself.”
Pyotr waggled a finger at him. “In my faction, we have a policy. My men are not allowed to take wives.”
“I’m not your man, and I’m not married,” said Kai, derailed by the digression. “Never will be.”
Pyotr sneered. “It’s a metaphor, you simpleton. Between that buffoon at the Confessional, your dyke friend , and that pretty thing you’re rutting, there’s a lot for me to work with.”
Sweltering heat raveled up Kai’s spine, fury gripping the back of his skull. With Pyotr threatening his friends and insulting them in a single breath, he felt the tenuous bridle on his anger slip. “I’ll fucking kill you,” he snarled, rage shaking the wolf from slumber.
He would’ve torn Pyotr’s head from his shoulders and whipped it at the window when the door behind him cracked open, and a nauseatingly familiar scent wafted through the lounge.
“You could try,” said Pyotr, “but what will it cost?”
Kai didn’t have to turn to know who stood behind him.
“Good of you to join us, Vanya.”
Ivan Zverev glided past to join Pyotr across the way, and Kai’s every violent fantasy guttered out like a flame.
“I thought you might be resistant, so I hired Ivan to…assist. I hope he inspires some healthy competition to get the job done quickly.”
Kai wasn’t listening. He bore into the man with his genetic likeness—a beast trapped in human flesh. Ivan Zverev, for his part, seemed disinterested in sussing out his rival. Maybe he was overconfident, or maybe he was privy to information Kai lacked, but the fact remained that Kai had been forced on his back foot yet again.
“Find me the forgery before he does, and all will be forgiven. Let him win”—Pyotr gestured to Zverev—“and your debt will be far steeper than it already is.”
Sergei rose to his feet, stupefied. His mouth opened, but nothing came out.
With a slow inhale, Kai pushed the tension from his body as best he could. He took a menacing stride toward Pyotr, and for a split second, he saw the man’s eyes widen before Zverev stepped in to block Kai’s path. The loss that’d thrust him into this shitshow descended on him like his nightmares, his body revolting as though he were back on the floor at the Confessional. Even now, he wasn’t sure he’d win.
“I forgot to mention…” Pyotr gave Zverev a hearty slap on the back. “Since Vanya here is a free agent, I’ve taken the liberty of hiring him as my bodyguard. He’s awfully good at it.”
Kai’s stomach roiled. For the first time since arriving, he felt something other than anger and contempt. He felt sick. His loss to Zverev was the reason Pyotr believed he was owed anything. Now, Pyotr was shacking up with the man responsible, forcing Kai to play fetch with him. It wasn’t merely salt in the wound; it was sadism.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Kai ground out.
“I’m afraid not.” Pyotr almost sounded regretful.
Ivan Zverev and Kai Donovan locked eyes—wolves among men who wanted to corral them into obedience. Hackles raised, teeth bared, neither dared so much as flinch. There was nowhere to go in this neon cage, the urge to tear through Zverev curdling in the marrow of Kai’s bones.
And yet he couldn’t move. He was welded to the floor, frozen like a hare in a thicket.
Ivan Zverev was no trifle, and he wasn’t just a steel edifice walling Kai from his target. He was a hunter, and soon, Caelan would be his prey.