Chapter 5 Vassili
VASSILI
I roughed a hand over my face, uttering every cussword under the sun.
“Feel better?” Zariah asked, settling beside me on the couch.
“No.” I sighed. “I’m becoming my father.”
“Boy, please. You are not turning into Anatoly Resnov.”
“I am.”
“Okay, let’s make a list.”
“Don’t need one.” I shifted in my seat.
“How about his relationship with you and your cousin/half brother, Simeon?”
Proklyatiya! My wife. She was a heavy hitter in the courtroom before we agreed that she’d step down for safety reasons. Now, she spoke of the darkest stain on my family history. “We don’t mention that, Zariah.”
“I know.” She climbed into my lap, fingers soft over my jaw. “You’re worried.”
“The Shadow—”
“Please find out his name.”
Nyet. If Cutie Pie’s Shadow didn’t uncover the Italian’s name, his name would become obsolete. I’d dig her bodyguard’s grave myself. “He said the other person grabbed Natasha’s wrists in the elevator. Possessively.”
“I’ll ask her about it, okay?”
“Khorosho.” I nodded. Should’ve been me asking my daughter.
Natasha’s words rang in my skull. A hammer against steel.
Nasty Russian. How quickly children forgot the blood in their veins.
Her words erased the first year she understood her birthright.
We’d stood at the edge of a parade on Victory Day in Moscow.
Her happy and giggling in my arms, while I shared some part of our history that made her hazel eyes shine brighter than a supernova.
Now my own daughter, half of me, glared at that half. Saw filth.
“Talk to me, Vassili,” Zariah murmured, her hand stopping a fraction away from my jaw. I placed her palm there, then gave her a look. Appreciation and a request to leave my presence. She beamed softly before strutting away.
Nasty Russian …
It burned. Not because Natasha’s anger wasn’t justified. After those Chelomeys? Chyort, I handed her over on a silver platter! Asked them to protect her. She had every right to hate. But my love for her had not been Russian enough to shield her from it.
“Well, it’s been years since you took an L, King Karo,” I muttered my UFC name.
I leaned back on the couch and pressed my hands on top of my head, grounding myself.
Secrets had never divided us. Not until she’d experienced bullying in her senior year of high school.
Never understood why she’d kept it to herself.
My son, Vassilievich, who was three years younger than her, had just started high school. He broke the news to us.
And I had made a mistake. Bol’shie oshibki—a big mistake.
I thought I’d protected her by transferring her to a private school in Tarzana.
How clever of me! I sat across from Aleksandr Chelomey—the ublyudka father—at dinner and requested his protection in his district.
I thought business could protect what love could not.
I gave him respect, my word that the Resnov Bratva wouldn’t step foot in their crappy little territory north of Los Angeles.
Then what did he do? Adrian roofied my daughter after the prom. Tried to touch her!
All evening, I sat in my study, a bottle of Resnov Water in my clutch. No shot glass. I drank the vodka straight, thinking about how my daughter viewed her own ethnicity. This hurts. Beyond any UFC blow.
My cellphone lit up on the glass desk.
I pressed the speaker button on the first ring. “Took you long enough.”
“Sorry, ‘k?zn,” Yuri said.
“You look into the elevator camera?”
“Da.”
“Okay! Give me something. A name. It took you half a day to—”
“We got problems, Vassili.”
Gripping the neck of the bottle, I took another swig. “Give me the truth.”
“Our hacker says the cameras aren’t working for the elevator all day. The only footage of Natasha is from the cancer unit corridors. She meets with Dr. Gan … Gangham.”
“Ghannam.” I corrected. The blood doctor, due to his advancements in leukemia treatment, held my respect. And he was Middle Eastern. “Not our guy. What about the parking structure cameras?”
“Dead. Our hacker believes they might be on the same surveillance system. Perhaps a malfunction.”
“Too convenient.” I climbed out of the chair. “Tell her guard no more slipups!”
“Da, understood.”
“If he cannot do his job? Ubey yego.” I ordered his death, then tore the rest of my command through tensed lips.
“Reassign my daughter to a better bodyguard. Someone … not Russian.” It tore me up inside to say this.
But it served two purposes. My daughter was afraid of her own blood—for now.
I’d need to find her a new therapist if Dr. Vashone didn’t help her with these Chelomey triggers.
That settled things. I was turning into the version of Anatoly Resnov that was relentless. And possibly paranoid if elevator guy made a move on a gorgeous girl.
The wrong gorgeous girl.