Chapter 23
KATYA
The icy blonde playing gatekeeper at Silk looks down her nose at me. “Are you a member?”
I don’t blame her for looking at me as if I’m a feral squirrel who ran out of Central Park and just dropped dead at her feet.
I’m breathless after my mad dash from the subway, and I’m wild-eyed and desperate.
Even worse, I’m dressed in yoga pants and a loose-fitting tee to avoid arousing Antonio’s suspicion for our shopping trip.
The elegant beauty wearing a chic designer dress looks like she’s either had the best doctors that money can afford honing her face into a masterpiece, or she has runway models for parents.
“I’m not a member, but I need to see my brother, Dmitri Sidorov,” I explain, all too aware of the sweat running down my forehead and back.
“Mr. Sidorov is your brother?” The blonde frowns at me, eyes narrowing.
“Yes, he is, and I need to speak with him. It’s an emergency.”
I’m trying to hold on to my thin grasp on my patience, but it’s fraying more by the second. What do I have to do? Show this woman my birth certificate? Give her a vial of my blood? I know Silk is exclusive, but this is borderline ridiculous.
“One moment, please,” the woman says, before pulling out a cell phone and tapping the screen.
She’s making a call, and it better be to Dmitri rather than to the head of security.
“Mr. Sidorov, there is a woman here to see you,” she announces in a breathy voice that’s far more pleasant than the tone she reserved for me. “She claims to be your sister.”
I hope Dmitri isn’t hopping into bed with this awful woman.
“Of course,” she says sweetly. “Yes, Mr. Sidorov.”
Then she hangs up and looks at me, her smile dying. “You can go. Igor will escort you.”
As if magically summoned, Igor appears from behind a sleek black door that opens for his massive frame. He’s as unsmiling as his feminine counterpart.
“Thanks,” I tell her dryly, and then I turn to my escort.
“This way,” he instructs me, nodding in the direction of the club’s dark interior.
I follow him in, and I instantly take note of the pleasant scent being piped in, along with the row of lockers and mirrors lining the hall.
Everything is black, from the floors to the walls, with the exception of the mirrors.
There are benches and chairs, and the lighting is dim.
We make our way past a room of hot tubs, then on to a large shower area.
The club is empty at this time of day, which is a relief to me.
Finally, Igor leads me to an elevator that’s cleverly hidden in the wall among the artwork and black wall paint. He types in an access code, and the doors open.
Then he gestures for me to go inside. “Through here. Mr. Sidorov is expecting you.”
I thank him and step inside, feeling odd to be on this side of my brothers’ world.
I don’t have much time to gather my thoughts before the elevator doors open directly into a massive office. Dmitri is sitting at a desk, but he stands when he sees me.
“So it is you.”
“Who else would it be?” I step inside.
“Anyone. You’d be surprised what excuses people come up with to gain entrance to the club.” He strides toward me with arms open.
It’s not the greeting I expected. I’ve always been far closer to Dmitri than I ever was to Misha, but our relationship hasn’t exactly been warm and fuzzy. It’s been pretty distant ever since I left with Svetlana.
But I accept his hug anyway, because I feel like I could use one right about now.
We embrace, and he kisses both my cheeks. “You look upset. Is something wrong?”
I wonder how much he knows, if anything. There’s a real possibility that Dmitri is part of Misha’s plots and plans. But I have to take a risk and find out, for Svetlana’s sake.
“Something’s very wrong,” I tell him. “Misha has taken Svetlana.”
Dmitri frowns down at me. I’m tall, but he’s far taller.
“What do you mean, taken her?”
“He wants me to poison Enzo,” I explain quickly, “and he’s taken Svetlana and is holding her somewhere. He said if I don’t do what he wants me to do, he’ll kill her.”
My brother’s face falls. I don’t think his reaction is a facade. Dmitri is many things, but he’s not an actor.
“What are you talking about?”
I relay everything that happened during my conversation with Misha the day before. When I’m finished, Dmitri is pale.
“He’s gone too far,” Dmitri says. “Even for Misha. Svetlana took good care of us, and she looked out for you when no one else would.”
Tears prick my eyes. I’ve been holding them back, but I’m thinking about Svetlana always being there for me, pushing me to be my best, the smiling face in the audience ready to cheer all my successes. She saved me from becoming like my brothers. And now it’s up to me to save her from Misha.
“Do you have any idea where he could be keeping Svetlana?” I ask, getting more desperate by the minute.
By now, Enzo will have learned I’ve gone rogue. He’ll come looking for me. I need to find my stepmother before it’s too late.
“I might have an idea,” Dmitri says.
I notice the hesitation in his voice, but I don’t care. He’s probably afraid of Misha, just like I’ve been. But the time for that is over.
“Then let’s go,” I tell my brother. “We have to find her before it’s too late.”
“It’s not going to be that easy, and you know it,” my brother counters.
“Misha doesn’t listen to anyone out of the goodness of his heart.
If he wants Andriani dead, he’s not going to back down on his own.
We can’t just approach him with our demands.
I’m going to have to find out where Svetlana is first.”
He’s right, and I know it. But it’s not what I wanted to hear. Disappointment laces through me, mixing with the helplessness that’s been drowning me alive ever since yesterday.
“What do you think we should do?” I ask. “How are we going to find her? She could be anywhere.”
“Calm down and let me think. She’s not just anywhere. There are only certain places Misha could take her, only a few people he would trust. Since he’s become Pakhan, he’s paranoid about everything. He’s convinced someone is trying to kill him.”
“Considering how he came into power, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. I’m sure Misha has plenty of enemies.”
Dmitri gives me a look. “Your husband among them.”
His phone goes off, and he instantly kills the ringer, not bothering to answer.
“Enzo’s not trying to kill him,” I deny quickly, even though I don’t know if that’s true.
My brother shakes his head. “You forget how well I know Scorpion. You wouldn’t know it if he were.”
I don’t like Dmitri’s inference that he knows Enzo better than I do. He may have known him longer, but I know my husband intimately. I know what he looks like when he sleeps. I know every inch of his body.
That has to count for something.
“I would know,” I insist, and I’m not sure why.
Dmitri’s look turns pitying as his phone starts to ring again. “Then why did you come to me instead of him, if you trust him so much?”
He dumps the call to voice mail, ignoring it.
“I didn’t want to drag him into my problems. I wanted to do this on my own.” After a pause, I admit the rest. “I also wasn’t sure what he’d do.”
“He being good to you?”
Warmth creeps up my throat as I think about how good Enzo’s been. “Very.”
Dmitri studies me harder, then nods like he’s found the answer he’s looking for. “I’ll kill him if he’s not a good husband to you.”
My brother is deadly serious.
“I don’t want that.”
“You sure?” He works his jaw. “I didn’t like that Misha wanted to marry you off to the fucking Andrianis.”
“I’m sure,” I say, adamant. “I…I like Enzo, Dmitri.”
It’s all I can bring myself to say. The truth is that I’ve fallen in love with Enzo. I don’t know when or how it happened. Somewhere between him handcuffing me to a bed in the middle of nowhere and giving me an orgasm marathon in one night, I fell hard for Lorenzo “Scorpion” Andriani.
The realization is terrifying, and I don’t know what to do with it. What it means for me. I don’t even know how he feels. And I especially don’t know how he’ll feel after he realizes I ran from Antonio straight to Dmitri.
My brother nods again. “Let’s get to work on finding Svetlana.”
His phone rings a third time, and he looks at the screen before frowning. “Fuck. I need to take this, Katya.”
I move away, giving him privacy.
He taps the screen, looking annoyed before he holds it to his ear. “This had better be good.”
His expression suddenly shifts. “What the fuck?”
Scorpion
On the other side of the bridge, I’m waiting for a car to pick me up, pacing on the sidewalk as horns honk around me and the world keeps spinning like a life-and-death emergency isn’t currently unfolding.
I’m stranded in the wrong part of the city, with no way to reach Katya, and I’ve never felt more helpless in my life.
I ran across the bridge, dodging through stopped traffic, frantically dialing Dmitri Sidorov as I went.
The fucker kept dumping my calls. I left him desperate voice mails telling him to find Katya and get her as far away from Silk as possible.
And still, nothing. I’m in a race against time, and I’m fucking losing.
Now I spear my phone with my finger and dial him again.
This time, he actually answers.
“This had better be good,” says a sneering Russian voice, and I’ve never been so happy to hear it.
“Sidorov, listen to me,” I grit out, “there’s a package that’s been delivered to your club, and it’s going to go off in less than ten minutes.”
“What the fuck?” he growls.
I couldn’t give two shits about the fury in his voice. I have one goal, and it’s to get my wife to safety. I pace down the sidewalk, away from a group of chattering tourists.
“Listen to me. Are you anywhere near Silk, or can you reach anyone who is? The tracker I’ve got on Katya says she’s there, but I have no way to reach her. She turned off her phone.”
There’s a pause on his end of the line.