Chapter 25
Oksana perches at the nightclub bar, nursing a luridly colored cocktail, when I arrive at Bolshoi. The after-work crowd is trickling in. A group of loud American guys in suits howls about Russian strippers and shots, and I worry they might be trouble.
I sidle up to Oksana, who narrows her blue eyes when she sees me. “He’s upstairs, waiting for you.”
Glancing around the room, I survey the exits out of habit and check the empty seats. “They won’t be a headache?” I jerk my chin toward the table of braying suits.
“Nothing I can’t handle, sweetheart. Get upstairs. The Governor has his storm-cloud face on.”
Nodding, I make my way to the back, to the small library the Night Governor keeps as an office in our Brighton Beach club. My feet feel like lead as I climb the stairs and think about Kesera sitting in the Governor’s office. I hope against hope he hasn’t figured out who she is to me.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I pull it out to see a coded text from Sasha.
Got you covered. Two birds in the hand.
Thank god. I let my forehead thunk against the door frame, my hand stilling on the handle as a sigh gusts out of me and my shoulders drop half an inch. Sasha has secured more than one safe house for us.
Pushing on the door handle, I step into the darkened room. The smell of books, leather, and the faint whiff of cigar smoke lingers in the air as Yevgeny Guelman watches me with gray eyes from behind the desk.
He waves to a chair, and I sit across from him, waiting for him to speak, but he doesn’t. He just watches me.
The deep lines in his forehead and his big, mournful eyes make him look like a man who carries the sadness of the world, not a monster who feeds off other people’s pain. I don’t say a word. I just lower myself to the seat and watch him, waiting for him to speak. I didn’t know the redhead was important when I picked her up, but his first words don’t surprise me.
Guelman lifts a Montblanc pen and waves it at me. “You do know ignorance is no defense in the eyes of the law.”
“Or the eyes of the Night Governor?” I sit back in the chair, spread my legs slightly, and fold my hands over my stomach, trying to look as relaxed as possible when my whole body is alert. He won’t kill me here, though. He likes to keep his office as a sanctuary, a refuge from the murder and chaos he creates. I’ll meet with an accident: my brakes will fail, or I’ll suffer an unexplained heart attack.
Guelman presses his lips together and then stabs the pen into the blotter in front of him, letting the dark ink bleed into the paper. “Your little stunt with the Spataro girl has caused a huge headache. Vincenzo Spataro is livid, and I am not best pleased either. So, where is my lovely bride?”
I blow out a breath, thanking every god known to man that he’s not asking about Kesera and my daughter. “I left her with Sasha. She looked like?—”
“I know exactly who she looked like, which is why I wanted her.” He draws a picture of a knife on the blotting paper and licks his lips.
Why the fuck does Guelman want a woman who looks exactly like the nine-year-old girl he rescued from an orphanage? I know he didn’t have fatherly feelings for us, but my skin crawls at the thought that he might have put his hands all over the first woman I ever loved and now he’s looking for a young, nubile replica.
“So, what would you like to do?” I lean forward with my hands on my knees like I’m hanging on his every word, but I’m silently vowing that Guelman will never get his hands on any other woman I care about. Even if I can’t let myself love Kesera or be any part of my daughter’s life, I’ll die before I let the Night Governor touch my family.
“You’d better get Alessandra Spataro back to her father within the next few days or there will be hell to pay. Tell Yaponchik that he’ll deliver the girl back to the don himself if he knows what’s good for him.”
I watch him with a poker face, not reacting to the fact he calls Sasha, who’s half-Chinese, Yaponchik. “You don’t want us to deliver the girl to you?”
He grins, and his gold tooth flashes next to elongated canines that look like they could rip the flesh from any woman stupid enough to get into his orbit. That girl must have sensed the threat and tried to run. “She’s a lovely little package, but this marriage is, first and foremost, an alliance with her father. Do him the courtesy of returning his daughter for him to punish first.”
The way he says the word punish makes me wonder what he has planned for the girl. Before I can say anything or rise to leave, he continues.
“Spataro controls all the cocaine that comes into New York, and I’ll be stronger than ever if I marry his daughter, but it’s his business that matters.” In a move that turns my stomach, Guelman reaches down to adjust himself in his pants. “The girl is just a nice bonus. A little gift for me to play with.”
Nodding with an expressionless mask on my face, I don’t show how his words make my skin crawl. The way he describes the woman he plans to marry is frankly creepy, but it’s also concerning that the bride he’s chosen looks like a child he brought up. The image of Polina’s dead body springs unbidden into my mind, but I push it away as I rise to my feet.
My shoes slide on the expensive Persian carpet as I put some distance between myself and the monster who controls the Russian Mafia. I thank god Guelman hasn’t mentioned Kesera yet. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You understand the consequences,” Guelman says in an oily voice as I open the door and listen to the music drifting up the stairs.
I turn and nod.
Sasha is my best hope now. He likes to pretend he doesn’t have a heart, but I’d be surprised if he plans to hand the girl back to her father so that she can be a toy for Guelman to break.
And if he protects the girl, we’re going to be in a world of trouble. Trouble I’ll need to shelter my family from.