Chapter 3 - Yakov
It’s taken two days to take apart my father’s surveillance with enough care that nobody notices it’s been dismantled.
Different routes every time I leave the estate, using Maxim, who owes me several favors and has approximately my build, as a decoy, taking my usual circuits while I’ve been doing everything else.
Three contacts called in to pin down Yaroslav’s timeline because Yaroslav doesn’t share information voluntarily, and I needed to know exactly when he was moving.
The answer, it turns out, is this afternoon.
I found this out at eleven this morning, and it is closer than I would like.
I have to move faster than I planned to.
There is no time for the methodical pace I prefer; there is only the calculation of how far Yaroslav is from Clement Street against how far I am, and the answer to that is: I’m on that fucker.
I push it. I run two contacts simultaneously on the drive over, one hand on the wheel, one on the phone, keeping my voice level because Bogdan has a man on me that I haven’t fully shaken yet, and I cannot afford to look like I’m in a hurry.
Half a block before the Clement Street turn, I spot the van parked on the corner of the road, its hazard lights flashing, a man in a hi-vis vest waving off any drivers trying to turn in.
Gas leak. Road closed. It’s so amateur to anyone who knows exactly what they’re looking at, and I do.
Yaroslav’s men have sealed the street from both ends before the grab even started.
Classic Alek Mykros protocol. Control the environment first, make sure nobody wanders into the middle of it.
I drive two streets further on and park up, cutting through the alleys that run behind the shops.
I slide in the back of the bakery that’s next door to the book shop.
The owner won’t care; he owes me a favor for a fire two years ago that never made it into any report.
By the time I reach the front window, I can see her security detail is already on the floor.
Four of them are down, but there’s no blood, which means a dart, not a blade.
My father’s men don’t tend to make a mess in the daylight.
There’s about fifteen minutes before the sedative wears off, and four seriously pissed security men try to work out what the hell just happened right under their noses.
I don’t have long. Neither does Yaroslav.
I spot her, and no amount of hours watching her on a screen has prepared me for seeing her up close in the flesh.
She’s a fucking vision to behold, tall with long dark auburn hair and equally dark eyes; she is utterly captivating, and there is no fucking world in which Yaroslav is going to take her.
She is standing with three books under her arm, facing my brother, and she looks distinctly unimpressed.
Her chin is up, her eyes are blazing, and she has clearly just told my twin exactly where to go and is waiting to see if he has anything useful to say in response.
He doesn’t, because what the fuck do you say?
I break cover and put myself between them. “Walk away,” I say to Yaroslav.
“Yakov—”
“Walk. Away.”
Yaroslav’s entire posture goes rigid. The smug certainty on his face a few moments ago fractures, replaced by a look of pure shock before his poker face slams back down.
His eyes narrow, scanning to see if I brought anyone with me.
He knows full well that I am meant to be blind to this entire snatch, working a different sector on the eastern docks.
He has absolutely no idea that Bogdan crashed into my bedroom, hammered, slurring the old man’s plans, or that I spent the last twenty-four hours burning through every back-alley favor to trace his movements to this exact bookstore.
“What the fuck are you doing here? You don’t belong in this district.” He hisses at me.
“I belong wherever I choose to stand, brother.”
Yaroslav takes a half-step backward, his brow furrowing as he tries to solve the immediate riddle of my presence. “How did you find me, Yakov? The old man gave this directive to me directly. No one else was briefed.”
“Bogdan is a sloppy drunk who runs his mouth when he’s bitter,” I shrug.
He stares at me. The air between us feels pressurized, crackling with the silent understanding of what we were raised to be. He is evaluating whether I am here to compete for the prize, or if I have broken rank for the Volkov girl.
“If you know why I’m here, then you know you need to turn around and walk away,” Yaroslav states, his hand shifting subtly inside his coat pocket, the fabric tightening around the silencer of his weapon.
“The old man wants her in a cell before the end of the day. He wants her family brought to their knees. If you interfere with a direct assignment, Yakov, you know the penalty. A broken timeline looks a lot like treason to him.”
“I don’t give a shit how it looks to him,” I say, taking a step forward, deliberately crowding his space until we are barely a foot apart, our chests almost touching.
“The girl stays untouched. If you lay a single finger on her, I will dismantle your entire detail piece by piece. Starting with you.”
The silence stretches out between us, agonizingly thin.
Yaroslav looks at me, then glides his eyes past my shoulder to check Raya.
She hasn’t run. True to her blood, she is standing her ground right behind me, her hands undoubtedly curled into tight fists, ready to fight if the sidewalk turns into a slaughterhouse.
Then, Yaroslav lets out a short, dry chuckle that doesn’t reach his eyes.
“You always were the stubborn one, Yakov,” he says, his hand slowly relaxing inside his pocket, though the tension in his shoulders doesn’t leave.
He shifts his stance, his body angling slightly, enough to block the sightline between his own men at the corner of the block and Raya.
It is a move so subtle nobody else would notice it, but to me, it is a loud, ringing declaration.
“The old man said that if anyone interfered, I was supposed to remind them of the cellar rule.”
The cellar rule. Never leave a witness who can trace your steps. He’s repeating our father’s harsh dogmas verbatim, giving any potential listening devices exactly what they need to hear to keep his own cover safe.
“Of course I haven’t forgotten,” I reply.
“Good.” Yaroslav looks at me. I see his eyes flicker to Raya, and something passes over his face.
I stare back at Yaroslav, and the conversation we have in the next thirty seconds is silent, because we have been communicating this way since we were four years old.
He tells me I am making a mistake. I ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s playing at.
He tells me our father will hear about this.
I tell him that our father can go fuck himself.
He draws his gun and fires a warning shot into the ground beside me.
He shrugs, and his eyes tell me, “Well, what do you expect me to do?” I turn my back on him because I know my brother; I have always known my brother, and I know that this is as far as it goes.
I take Raya by the arm and start moving her toward the bakery and out the back toward my car.
“What are you doing? Let go of me.” She looks at me horrified, still clutching onto her books like her life depends on it.
“In a moment.”
“Now would be better.”
“I’m sure it would, malysh. Are you hurt?”
“Don’t you malysh me!” She looks livid, and it’s sexy as fuck, but I need to get her out of here, not gawp at her like a lovestruck teenager.
“No, I’m not hurt. What the hell is happening right now?
” I nod as we approach the car, and I open the door.
She understands the situation enough to climb in without making any further scene. Good girl.
We’ve barely pulled away from the sidewalk when she starts.
“You do know my brothers are going to kill you for this? Like actually kill you? I mean, what is it with you lot that you think it’s acceptable to kidnap innocent women and kids when the fancy takes you, hmm?
” She folds her arms and glares at me, actually waiting for me to answer her.
The temptation to reach out and touch her is so strong, but I don’t want to scare the shit out of her, thinking she’s stuck with a crazy man.
“I’m not kidnapping you,” I tell her, which is kind of true; it’s more of a rescue mission, but I can see how it looks that way.
“What a fascinating perspective,” she snorts, “from the man who strong-armed me into his car and is currently driving us, God knows where. I really must revisit my dictionary.”
“I’ll explain everything once we get there, okay?
” This is too long and too weird a conversation for the car journey.
She looks the sort that will jump, and that’s the last fucking thing I need; imagine having to hand back a gravely injured Raya to her family and explain I was trying to stop a war, not start one.
“Oh, wonderful! You’ll explain everything,” she snaps back. “I’ll add it to my ever-growing ‘What the fuck?’ list, shall I?”
“Raya, I’m not my father, and I’m not Yaroslav; for the minute, that’s all you need to know.”
She glares at me, and I can see she desperately wants to give me another mouthful, but to my surprise, she settles back in her chair.
“No,” she agrees, “I know how you helped Selene, and that she loves you.” She takes a moment to inspect her nails.
“My brothers are still going to kill you for kidnapping me, though.”
“Holy shit, Raya. I am not kidnapping you, okay?” I reach across and hold out my phone without looking away from the road.
She looks at it. She looks at me. “Call Selene,” I say.
“Tell her what’s happening before the guards report back.
That you’re not being kidnapped in the way any of them will be imagining.
Tell her to talk to Simon immediately, and to tell your brothers not to move yet, because I need them not to come after me before I’ve had a chance to explain myself.
If your family mobilizes right now, the shit is going to hit the fan spectacularly, making everything considerably more complicated. ”
“When you say ‘explain yourself’,” she says, not taking the phone yet, “do you have an explanation? A good one?”
“Would I be doing this for no good reason?”
“I don’t know; this seems to be a Mykros M.O.”
I roll my eyes at her cheek. “Call my sister.”
She takes the phone and calls Selene. I listen to half a conversation in which she says, among other things: ‘I am absolutely being kidnapped, but apparently not in the conventional sense. Apparently you need to talk to Simon before they send an army out searching for me, and he will explain himself. She sounds steady. Dry, even. I find that I’m smiling and stop immediately.
By the time she hangs up, she seems a degree calmer. Handing my phone back, our fingers touch for the briefest of moments; the soft warmth of her skin is everything I imagined it to be.
“Selene’s calling Simon now, and for what it’s worth,” she side-eyes me, “Selene says you’re not a complete monster.”
“High praise,” I say.
“I thought so, although I reserve the right to form my own opinion.” She looks out of the passenger window. “Simon may buy you a few hours, but Matvei’s a different story. What can I say? My big brothers love me, and they’re probably going to want to kill you. Slowly.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
“Oh my gosh!” She turns her whole body to face me. “My security detail is unconscious on a sidewalk; how are you going to hide that?”
“I’m not. It’s not my problem to fix. They’re your family’s men, not mine.
” I glance at her. “Look, if it makes you feel better, I called it in anonymously when I saw them through the bakery window. Ambulance, not police. They’ll wake up on a stretcher instead of a sidewalk; someone from your side will need to go collect them from wherever they get taken. That’s the best I can do.”
“That’s not hidden.”
“No,” I agree. “It isn’t. I’m not interested in hiding this, Raya. Your family’s about to know exactly what happened. I’d rather they hear it straight than piece it together and get it wrong.”
She is quiet for approximately forty-five seconds, which I suspect is a personal record. I keep my eyes firmly fixed on the road because if I look at her, I am going to do something counterproductive like stare, and we are currently on a freeway.
“Where are we going?” she asks.
“Somewhere safe.”
“That doesn’t tell me a lot.”
“I know.”
She gives an infuriated sigh. “Right. So I’m in a car with a man I’ve never met, going somewhere he won’t tell me, because my only alternative was the other Mykros brother, who is arguably worse, and I’m not actually being kidnapped. This is, apparently, your average Tuesday.”
“It’s Wednesday.” I risk a glance; she’s giving me her best ‘this is all bullshit’ stare. I saw it a few times on the surveillance feeds from the place my father kept her and the twins in last time. It was sexy as fuck then; up close, it’s another thing entirely.
“I don’t think that’s the relevant part of that sentence.”
She doesn’t say anything else for a while.
Neither do I. The city gradually falls away behind us, and I keep my eyes peeled for any evidence we’ve been tailed.
I don’t want to scare her while we’re still vulnerable out in the open.
When we’re somewhere safe, I’ll tell her everything.
She’s going to be seriously pissed, but she’ll see my reasoning.
If she doesn’t, well, fuck if I care. By nightfall, Raya Volkov is going to be my wife, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Her included.