Chapter 39 Vassili
VASSILI
“Tell me again what happened?” Spittle flew through my snarled teeth. My enforcer sat on his knees, wearing only his tighty-whities, in the warehouse area of my Beverly Hills furniture store. I forced a mental prayer because I needed to.
Sometimes it seemed God sat too high to hear us. When I found out about the Chelomeys, I waited for God.
A … few hours. Of course, Simeon and I had to put a plan together. But I … waited.
Now, at a quarter to six a.m., my daughter had been missing for over four hours. For most of those hours, I was in the dark. Zariah and her no-cellphone-on-movie-night policy.
Annoyed at how soft marriage made me, I seized the bottle of Resnov Water from Yuri and sipped the last drop, then raised the bottle.
The goon flinched.
The glass crashed to his left, scattering around him. A large fragment bounced against my tennis shoes. I placed my hands into my basketball shorts. “Scoot to the left, please.”
His gray eyes flicked to the glass. “Sir?”
I turned around and rubbed my brow. At my side, Yuri removed the Grach from beneath the back of his suit jacket. The safety clicked off.
“Okay, okay …” the man said.
Again, I faced him, greeted by the sound of rough breaths, whimpers, and groans.
“Get comfortable.” I gestured with a head tilt.
Sorrow rumpled over the man’s brow as he knelt all the way down, shins sinking into the sparkly jagged bottle pieces. A tear bubbled in his eye.
“Again, the story. Please.”
As he spoke, Yuri stepped toward a showroom table cluttered with floor vases and took a call.
“You’re telling me,” I said after he concluded, “the MacKenzies drank my wine and blue label …” At my every word came a vigorous nod. “And at some point the brother—”
“Da, the pretty one slipped Natasha a drug at the bar, away from the crowd.”
“She sat by herself?” I asked.
The bobblehead reminded me of one created for my brand years ago. I snarled, saying sarcastically, “Lachlan wasn’t there yet when the pretty one drugged her?”
“Nyet.”
“Where was Jamie?” I’d trusted him. The Marine.
“He and his wife didn’t attend.”
I scrubbed my thumbnail across my brow. “When Lachlan arrived, he accused Borya?” Borya and Baran. Yuri had gotten the best for Natasha. Said his brother, Baran, protected Simona since she was a baby. For many years, he’d said.
“Da. Da,” the guard replied. “That is what the MacKenzie did. Lies, Mr. Resnov. All―”
“Tut-tut-tut!” I snapped. “And somehow, Borya fell from the building, during a fight none of you could win by—” Since he offered no further elaboration, I whipped my Grach from the shoulder holster and poked the barrel against his eye. “You couldn’t finish this fight?”
“Ny-nyet, sir,” he murmured.
“Listen, I’ve fought jujitsu, Muay Thai, judo, tae kwon—” I slammed the gun’s handle against his ear—“do! Etcetera.”
“Simona,” he murmured, rubbing his shoulder against his bloody ear.
“Simona, what?”
“She came. I think she was expecting a party. She spoke with the father and the smart-looking one. Keith or something. They used hushed tones. Then she ordered us to allow their departure.”
Simona? My niece. I needed to speak with her. “You could’ve told me this minutes ago!”
As I turned toward the tinted windows of the building, the doors opened. In a suit, Simeon and his team strolled in.
He hugged me. “You all right, Vassili?”
“I will be. Soon. You have a superjet, but this is … quick. Thank you, brat.”
“I was in Wine Country. Anastasiya headed to the house—”
“What?” I groaned. I had less than twenty-four hours to brief my wife, per our unwritten contracts. Attorneys. My time, however, began … an hour ago and not last night. Da. I had twenty-three hours.
“Don’t worry. They’re discussing the usual, another vacation. Such planners, we won’t be bothered. After we separated, I flew to the MacKenzie house in Long Beach.”
My brow lifted. “You’ve been busy. I’d already sent men to the home.”
“Ah, your team? They left the door unlocked, spasibo.”
Rather than reply to his thanks, I barked, “What did you do?”
“Nothing.” Simeon shrugged.
“What did you do?”
“The structure has not fallen.”
“What. Did. You. Do, Simeon?”
“Enjoyed a few new guns. Twenty rounds per second. Extended magazines. That’s … how many bullets in the ten minutes it took me to riddle the home?”
He looked toward his team.
“Uh …” one said.
“Ten thousand bullets?” Another offered.
“Use your brains.” He turned away with a head shake, muttering the correct number. “Vassili, it was silent. Suppressors. The works. Like I explained, the structure remains.”
“I want answers. Remember what I told you, submission—”
“Is strength under control!” Simeon shouted. “How can I forget?”
“Don’t forget this. Three Scots left with my”—my lips narrowed to nonexistent—“my little girl! Guess who let the rest of them leave The Red Door?”
His brow lifted.
My index finger bumped his chest. “Tvoya doch’.”
“My daughter?” he echoed.