Chapter Twenty-Six
In which we Meet the Parents. And the ATF.
Nikandr…
For most of the night, I sit back and watch my family fall in love with Carolne.
It's not difficult. She seems to like everyone but me. She's warm, open and friendly. She has Mother howling over stories about weird and demanding hotel clients.
My little sister Dasha is in her sophomore year of college, and she's regaling Caroline with a very long, complicated story regarding the two boys that she's crazy about. My father's next to me and he breathes in deep. It sounds more like a growl coming from his chest
"I take it you don't approve?" I say quietly.
"Oh, they're both acceptable," he says. "However, want to date my daughter, so they should probably die."
"That seems reasonable," I say, tapping my glass to his.
She stops for a minute to catch her breath, and Caroline says, "You're tight with Violet's sisters, the twins, aren't you?"
Dasha's face brightens, "Yes! They've given me so many dating tips."
"Yeah, that's what I thought," Carolyn nods, leaning in as Dasha talks about one of the guys entering "his villain era."
Mother is sitting on the other side of me, talking to Andrey.
He has excused himself three times to take phone calls; from another attorney, then a judge, the third call came from a client who had just been picked up from a BDSM dungeon in downtown Manhattan.
He finally returns to the table, irritably silencing his phone, putting it in his pocket.
"Do you need to go take care of something?" I ask, amused. It takes a lot to get Andrey to show any emotion.
He shrugs elegantly. "The client will be fine in lock up for a couple of hours. This is the third time I've gotten this kind of call about him and I'm losing patience."
"I didn't know you had any," Mother says, patting his arm.
Andrey and I may look alike, but he is impossible to understand.
I'm told that we both have that same cold, haughty expression, but I believe I'm still human.
I feel passion. I feel ambition. I feel love for my family.
I'm not sure what my brother feels. He's my twin.
When we were younger, we'd been close enough to feel like we shared the same thoughts once or twice.
Now, though, there doesn't seem to be anything in him but a singular, driving ambition to take over the world.
Not in the entertaining, dark and dangerous way that we do through the Bratva, but through power in the legal world.
There is a quiet campaign for him to accept a federal judgeship and I know he wants it.
He watches Caroline for a moment, analytically, like he's dissecting elements of her and putting them into tidy rows for examination.
I've seen him do this before, deconstructing everything about someone in seconds.
It's part of his uncanny skills as an attorney.
"Gregarious, outgoing," he says dispassionately.
"That would be good for her career in the hospitality industry.
Patient. She hasn't tried to smother Dasha yet. "
Dad and I both chuckle into our drinks.
"She would be considered attractive by current standards," Andrey continues.
If he was anyone else, I would kick his fucking teeth in for addressing my wife's attractiveness or lack thereof, but we know that my brother doesn't mean it any other way than clinically.
"Athletic," he continues. "I'm certain she's strong.
" His brows draw together he watches her for another minute.
Father and I are watching him, fascinated.
Any conversation with Andrey is rare. "She's a good keeper of secrets," he says.
This sets off my old, nagging suspicion I used to feel toward her. Always part of my skeptical mindset as Sovietnik. "What do you mean by that?" I ask.
"Her industry requires a great deal of discretion," he says absently. "The demands and depravity of her hotel clientele are far more benign, of course, than the kind of information we collect with our sex clubs."
"Knowledge is power," I agree. That's why we have four private and - very expensive sex clubs - here in New York, another two in London and our most popular one, which is in St. Petersburg.
"She would be very good at running one of those –"
"Fuck no," I say instantly. "My bride is not running a goddamn sex club."
Father's laughing at both of us.
Andrey shrugs again. "In addition, she's already very close with all the women in the family. Intimate, really, after such a short amount of time. The women in organized crime families are the information merchants. In some of the more barbaric organizations-"
"Like the Sicilians," Father and I say it together.
"It can be a matter of survival in their syndicate. Some women can hold the secrets, some can't. Your wife does." Andrey finishes his examination of Caroline and turns back to us.
"I'm not sure if you're saying this is a good or bad trait," Father notes.
"Neither," Andrey says. "Or both. It is who she is. She's very bright, that's fortunate. You wouldn't survive a week with a stupid woman."
I think of all our verbal sparring, grinning reluctantly as I rub the back of my neck. "Oh, that she is."
Father raises his glass. "To Nikandr's excellent choice," he toasts.
He turns to help answer a question that Caroline had asked Mother, and Andrey watches the warm little moment between the three of them.
I know he feels something for us, maybe not love.
I'm not sure he understands it fully. But he's clearly protective and devoted to our family.
And that may have to be enough.
"You know, of course, that you didn't have to marry her to appease the Moscow Six, don't you." He doesn't say it as a question. It's a statement.
"At the time, it seemed like the most fortuitous –"
"Don't play coy with me." Andrey gives me a side glance. "We know each other better than anyone. You've been fascinated by her since she moved here. I could see the outcome the moment she beat your ass in the poker tournament."
"She had a lucky hand," I grumble.
"I think she's a good fit for you," he says, still deep in his analytical mode. "You need to be challenged. However, when she does find out that you manipulated this marriage and that it is indeed for life, you know the explosion will rock the Northern Continent."
"Caroline is from a crime family," I say, a bit defensively. "I'm sure Liria has told her there is no such thing as divorce in a Bratva family."
"Hiding behind Alexsey's wife to deliver the unpleasant news is beneath you," he says.
I can hear the insistent vibration of his phone from his jacket pocket even though he silenced it. After three calls, he sighs, taking it out.
"This better be good." He stops, listening for a moment as his mouth firms into a grim line.
It's the most emotion I've seen him show in some time.
"What judge signed the warrant? We'll be right there," he says before ending the call and looking at me.
"The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms just raided two of our main warehouses.
They've shut down the operations and arrested forty-seven workers.
They had to have had something good to get a judge to sign off on a raid on Morozov properties. "
Everyone rises at once. I nod at Caroline and she nods back with a small smile.
"Let me know if you need anything from us," Mother says. She kisses Father goodbye with more enthusiasm than I feel that this moment merits, but my parents have never been shy about the intensity of their affection for each other.
Unfortunately.
Once we're in the back of the car and on the way to the warehouses, I start my phone calls. Dmitri is always first. It's a short call, sixteen sentences at most. We communicate well.
Next is a conference call with Roman and Alexsey.
"Motherfuckers," Roman snarls. "We got shut down by the ATF? That's embarrassing. I'll handle warehouse thirty-seven. We have a fleet of trucks delivering machine guns and ammunition tonight. I have to stop them before they cross the Canadian border."
"I guess that leaves me with warehouse forty-two," Alexsey says.
"We just got a huge shipment of illegal pharmaceuticals.
Goddamnit, they couldn't have pulled this bullshit one day earlier?
We wouldn't have just lost eleven million dollars’ worth of product.
What's Andrey doing to handle the follow up? "
My brother has two phones going at once. One is for his legitimate dealings; the other is reserved for his most dark and foul activities. If he's using both, he's about to set the East Coast on fire.
"He's on it," I say.
***
When we arrive at the maze of warehouses, it's easy to see which ones are ours. They're both lit up, brighter than noon by a cluster of police cars and flashing cameras.
"They didn't waste any time calling in the media, did they?
" I say grimly, watching the officers hauling our employees out.
The grounds are swarming with people in black ATF windbreakers, half look giddily excited to be in on a huge bust. The other, more experienced group of officers look grim.
They know they've stepped in some deep shit by going after the Morozov Bratva.
"I sent my team of defense attorneys to bail out the workers," Andrey says. He's already laser-focused on the acting head of the investigation, a smug fuck named Nathan Lombard.
"Mr. Morozov!" Agent Lombard calls out cheerfully. Loudly, to make sure every camera turns in our direction. "Excellent, this saves me the time of having the next round of warrants delivered to you."