9. Inessa
NINE
INESSA
Dmitri comes the next day. The fact that he didn’t come straight away says a lot. I know of Dimitri and he’s planning, and calculating his first move.
I'm in Forge's room at the clubhouse when my phone rings.
I answer without thinking. "Papa."
"Inessa." His voice is different. Cold. The calculated cold of a man who has already decided what comes next. "Petrov found the discrepancies."
My blood goes ice.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I say. Performing. One last time.
"$340,000, Inessa. You think I wouldn't find it?" A pause. "Dmitri left Houston yesterday. He’s on his way to come and get you, he has people with him, so don’t try and fight this.”
"Papa—"
"You will return what you stole and you will come home. If you don't, Dmitri has instructions." Another pause. "You are my daughter. I would prefer not to make an example of you. But I will Inessa, trust me, I won’t hesitate to do what I need to do.”
He hangs up.
I sit on the bed. My hands are steady. My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears. Dmitri is definitely on his way.
The feds needed forty-eight and it’s been twenty-four.
I walk out of the room and find Forge in the main bar, talking to Knox and Razor. He sees my face and stops mid-sentence.
"Dmitri," I say. “My father called, he’s on his way and he has people with him.”
The room moves. Forge goes from conversational to operational in the space of a heartbeat, it's like watching a machine engage. He turns to Knox. "Lock it down. Full defensive. I want every brother armed and back in position."
"On it." Knox is already moving.
"Razor." Forge turns to the VP. "Call Reeves. Tell her the timeline just moved. She either gets that warrant today or we handle this ourselves."
Razor pulls his phone and walks away.
Forge turns to me. His face is carved from stone, no warmth, no softness, nothing but the man who runs a club under siege.
"You stay in this building. You don't leave for any reason. You?—"
"I know."
He takes my arms. Holds me by the shoulders. His grip is tight, not painful, but immovable.
"He's not going to touch you," he says. "That's not a promise, it's a fact. Dmitri Volkov isn’t going to touch you."
I believe him. That's the terrifying part, I believe him completely, and that belief means that if Dmitri shows up, Forge will put his body between us. And Dmitri will go through him.
"Forge," I say. “I meant it, don’t die for me."
"Nobody's dying today."
He kisses me. Hard, fast, in front of Knox and Razor and whoever else is watching. Not the careful restraint of the man at my kitchen table. The full force of who he is, president, fighter, the man who named himself after the thing that takes raw metal and makes it unbreakable.
Then he lets me go. Turns to his club and that’s the moment the Wild Savages go to war.
The taste of him stays on my mouth as the clubhouse door closes behind us. My lips still feel his kiss. My whole body feels it, actually, like the kiss rearranged me at some molecular level and now I don't quite fit back together right.
Forge's hand stays on the small of my back as he walks me down the hall toward his room.
His thumb moves in one slow circle against my spine, and then he's gone, pulling away, already barking orders into his phone.
I watch him disappear around the corner.
The absence of his hand is its own kind of wound.
My heart won't slow down. The adrenaline from that kiss has nowhere to go now, so it just sits in my bloodstream, buzzing, making my hands shake and my thoughts race.
Outside, I can hear the compound locking down. Deadbolts thrown. The heavy scrape of something being dragged across a door. Voices, low and urgent, carrying through the walls like the building itself is whispering.
I sit on the edge of Forge's bed and press my palms flat against my thighs.
The mattress is firm. Military corners on the sheets.
There's a paperback on the nightstand, a receipt marking his place about two-thirds through.
I tilt my head to read the title. A history of the Reconstruction era.
Not what I expected. Then again, nothing about this man is what I expected.
A knock on the door. Three quick raps, a pause, then two more.
"It's Ghost."
I open it. Ghost stands in the hallway holding a mug of coffee, his pale eyes unreadable. He's earned the road name. The man moves like smoke.
"Figured you could use this." He hands me a mug. Black coffee, no question asked, no apology. “
"Thank you."
He leans against the doorframe, not coming in, not leaving either.
"You know," he says, “I've been prospecting for this club two years. Showed up dumb as a bag of hammers, running from a statutory charge that turned out to be bullshit but still wrecked my life." He pauses. "Two years, and I never once saw that man kiss anybody where other people could see it. He isn’t like that, he hasn’t let anyone into his life for a long time.”
I don't know what to say to that, so I just hold the mug with both hands and let the heat seep into my palms.
Ghost's eyes flick to mine. "What I'm saying is, whatever happens tonight, you should know what that meant. To him. To all of us." He pushes off the doorframe. "Lock the door behind me.”
Then he's gone and I’m alone again.
I lock the door. I drink the coffee. It's terrible, burnt and bitter, but right now, it's exactly what I need.
My mind won't stop working. It never does. My father trained that into me before I was old enough to understand what he was building. Always be three moves ahead. Always calculating.
So I calculate.
I could walk out there right now. Cross the compound, slip past the perimeter, find Dmitri's men. I could offer myself up. End this before anyone gets hurt. The thought sits in my chest, heavy and logical, and for about ten seconds I let myself hold it.
Then I set it down.
Because it wouldn't end anything. Dmitri doesn't want me.
Dmitri wants what my return would signal to my father, he wants the leverage and wants the power play.
Handing myself over just gives him a stronger position and leaves Forge exposed anyway.
I've watched men like Dmitri my whole life.
You don't negotiate with them by giving them what they want.
You negotiate by making them afraid of what you'll do if they don't back off.
I run the scenarios. If Dmitri breaches the south fence, the clubhouse becomes a choke point.
If he brings more men than my father authorized, that's its own kind of information, because it means he's acting outside orders and my father doesn't know.
If he's smart, he'll wait until dawn. If he's arrogant, he'll come now.
But he's arrogant. They always are.
I set the coffee down and move to the window.
Through the gap in the blinds I can see figures moving in the yard, quiet and purposeful.
Fifteen men I didn't know two weeks ago.
Fifteen men who are checking ammunition, covering sight lines, doing all of this because their president told them to, and their president told them to because he loves me.
That word keeps detonating in my chest.
I came here to use these people on my fathers orders. Instead, I asked these bikers to protect me in exchange for information. Forge had a reputation for being impossible to buy, but my father wanted me to seduce him, to use him to get what he wanted. Instead, this man is going to war for me.
I didn't plan on any of this. I planned on getting protection for long enough to get this club’s help to disappear with the money I took. I never planned to stay.
Now fifteen men are standing between me and the dark, and every single one of them chose to be there, and every single one of them will protect me on their presidents orders.
The guilt of it and the gratitude of it twist together until I can't tell them apart.
The next three hours are the longest of my life.
I sit in Forge's room and I listen to the clubhouse continue to transform around me.
Footsteps, heavy, booted, purposeful. Voices low, clipped, the communications of men who've done this before.
The metallic sounds of weapons being checked and loaded, the click of magazines, the rack of slides, sounds I grew up hearing in my father's house and never expected to hear from the other side.
The growl of motorcycles coming and going, the Wild Savages assembling.
Through the wall, I hear Wreck's voice, deep, calm, the voice of a man who processes threat through his body.
He's talking to Knox about perimeter positions.
Razor's voice, precise and clipped, coordinating with someone else.
Ghost passes my door twice, I hear his light footsteps, checking on me without knocking, not wanting to intrude but unwilling to leave me unmonitored.
My mind wanders to my father, Viktor Volkov, sixty-two years old, 260 pounds, the man who held my mother's hand while she died and sold me to strangers before her body was cold.
I'm about to destroy him. The man who gave me life and spent twenty-eight years reminding me that my life was his to give and take.
My hands don't shake. They probably should, but I've had three years to get steady.
At 6 PM, Knox's brPD contact calls. A black Cadillac Escalade and a silver BMW entered Baton Rouge from I-10 West twenty minutes ago. Two vehicles, which means Dmitri brought muscle, at least four men, probably six or seven.
He'll go to the house first. He knows the address, my father would have gotten it from Yuri, who I sent home to Houston two days ago.
He will have tailed me after I sent him away, I know he would have done that without doubt.
When Dimitri finds the house empty, he'll come here.
It's the obvious place. The Wild Savages' clubhouse, River Road, the fortress I've been sheltering in.
I call Reeves. She answers on the first ring.