55. Ares
Ares
It’s been ten days since Kirill Volkov killed my guards. If I’ve made any significant impression in the mafia word, he’s expecting me to level Winterhall or just gun him down on the damn street.
No. I’d rather have him wait for my attack. Day after day. Night after night.
Waiting is the hardest part.
After he blew me off that night a couple of months ago, our meetings broke down. I’ve not been in the same room with him since.
For a week, Daria tracked his movements, so we were able to stay one step ahead of him.
When she appears at my office door with a smirk on her usually serious face, I drop what I’m doing and take notice.
“Volkov is registered for a private auction at Bedell. This afternoon.” She hands me a hacked confirmation ticket at the exclusive auction house. “I booked you a seat.”
“Auction?”
“An estate sale.” She shrugs. “Mostly artwork.”
“Who would have thought Kirill cared about art?” I push away from my desk and slip a knife into my suit jacket.
“Can I make one suggestion before this meeting?” Daria says, her expression neutral but with a calculating look that makes me brace for impact.
This is not our relationship. I ask for strategies and solutions. Rarely do I get unsolicited advice. But she piqued my curiosity. And I trust this woman with my life.
“Speak.”
“We can use the sister,” she says cautiously. “Ask for control of Winterhall. I looked at their books. The profits they rake in are—”
“No,” I interrupt, the word absolute and unyielding.
“I’ve analyzed that video more,” Daria persists. “Whoever Sandrine was before the accident, she loved him. She can learn to love him again.”
“That’s her. And he may have been a different person five years ago, too. Now he’s a cruel, lethal monster. I won’t subject that delicate young woman to a life with Kirill.”
That statement makes me think about myself. Am I different from the man who fought the Irish? Am I tame enough to be a good husband to Lourdes? That’s not a question I care to examine right now.
“Sandrine stays where she is.” I check my watch and come around the desk to stand before Daria. “I don’t care what she and Kirill had before her accident. She is disabled and not in a position to be a pakhan’s wife.”
“Ares, I’ve gone through her father’s journals. They were not accounting ledgers for Yuri.” She sent one of her assistants to the penthouse while Lourdes and I were out to make photos of everything.
“What the hell were they?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know, I couldn’t figure it out. It was…gibberish.”
Or coded.
“Fuck, I was hoping to have something tangible to trade instead of Sandrine if Kirill makes this a war.”
“I can put it through more thorough decoders.”
“Let me talk to Volkov first.” I walk past Daria, checking my watch again. “Are sharpshooters in place?”
“They are,” she says. “Good luck, Ares.”
She walks out without another word, her shoulders pitched back, head held high.
The tone of her voice and the lilt of disappointment over my refusal to hand over Sandrine stay with me in the elevator, as well as the lobby, and in my car as my driver navigates the frozen January streets of Manhattan.
At Bedell Auction House, Kirill Volkov wears an impeccable three-piece suit, sitting in a chair on a raised dais, paddle in one hand, vodka in a frosted glass in the other.
After paying an exorbitant service fee for the late entry, I step onto the dais as well with a deliberate sweep of my long legs.
When I’m no longer a shadow, Kirill lifts his head, and we make eye contact. His face rearranges into something on the border of amused and impressed. Impressed that I didn’t hit back in the cover of night. He struck me hard and thinks I’m here to make him pay for that.
The auction starts, and I don’t hear the auctioneer’s opening bid. But Kirill raises his paddle.
Staring ahead, he says, “It took you long enough to face me.”
“I had to get new guards.” I sit next to him. “You didn’t need to kill all of mine to get your message across.”
When a higher bid is presented, I raise my paddle to keep Kirill’s attention on me.
“My demand remains the same,” he says and raises his paddle to beat my bid. “Give her to me.”
“Sandrine is not yours,” I say, voice low, but unwavering. “It’s been five years. Whoever you were dating, whatever you believed she felt for you, no longer exists. I’m here with a compassionate offer of closure, Kirill. Give up this quest.”
I look up and see the new bid amount.
Shaking my head, I wave the paddle and keep talking. “I had no hand in what occurred five years ago, but I’ve reviewed Thomas De la Vega’s journals. I saw nothing that would suggest missing money or blackmail material on your father. There is nothing left for you to claim as a debt.”
After I up my bid again, Kirill leans closer and presses the cold and metal barrel of a gun into my groin beneath the table.
“You misunderstand,” he says in a lower register. “This was never about money. Or a debt. Don’t make me take your wife as leverage. I know where she is.”
“You tried that once. And you failed,” I say, and raise my paddle.
“Stop fucking bidding,” he says through clenched teeth. “I won’t fail next time. This is your city. I respect that, Ares. But Sandrine belongs in Chicago with me. I need her by my side when I take my place as pakhan. Seven million!”
Saying he needs her gives me pause. But I follow through with the bidding to keep him pissed off. “Eight million!”
After gasps from the gallery, I look down at the less distinguished bidders on the lower level. They’ve all turned their attention to Kirill and me on the dais.
“If you even think about touching Lourdes, I will kill you, Kirill. Don’t make me do that.
I broke my back to end a war with the fucking Irish.
I don’t want one with the Bratva,” I say evenly, letting the gun stay pressed into my dick.
“I respect your position as heir to the brotherhood. You have a city to run. Go home, Kirill. Find someone else. You will never see Sandrine again.”
He withdraws the gun and curses under his breath. His expression is calm out of nowhere despite the turmoil that must be raging beneath his skin. “Do you love that wife of yours?”
I still. Any flicker of emotion would betray misplaced feelings. I won’t place a bigger target on my wife’s back.
“No,” I say firmly, though my hesitation possibly gave me away.
“Ten fucking million!” he barks, aiming a savage grin at me.
“Sold!” A gavel falls, and applause breaks out from the seats below the dais.
“Congratulations, Kirill.” I place the paddle on the table.
He knows he can’t win against me. Not this time. Even killing all of my guards didn’t weaken me.
“Thanks for upping the fucking bid.” He shakes his head and then speaks into his phone.
My gaze lingers on him. “If you take either Lourdes or Sandrine, it will cost you much more.”
“We’ll see.” Kirill drains his glass, stands up, and looks at me with pity in his cold eyes. “It’s a shame you don’t know how to love, Ares. It’s a good balance when you’re impossibly cruel.”
Without another word, he goes to the admin corridor to complete his transaction. I stare after him. His words about love balancing out the cruelty we must inflict hit deep in my chest. I’m a mess of adrenaline, coiled tightly by the emotions I keep denying. A love I won’t allow myself to feel.
My gaze drifts briefly toward the canvas on the stage being moved off an easel. Something about the composition and the layers of color feel oddly familiar, though I can’t immediately place why.
I leave the dais and then the auction house without a backward glance. In my Bentley, I instruct the driver to go straight to the penthouse, then I call Daria.
“How did it go?” she asks, her voice measured.
I lean back, fingers tightening around the phone.
“I think Volkov got the message,” I say, letting the words drop deliberately. “My showing up to face him signaled my investment in keeping Sandrine out of his grasp. It’s been five years. He’ll move on.”
Would I move on if I felt that way about a woman? Am I miscalculating a dangerous man?
“Does he know she has memory loss?” Daria asks.
It makes me look at the phone. “I don’t know. He didn’t ask me how she was. Or hinted he knew that she’d been hurt and in an institution all this time.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?”
“It’s none of his business. Good night, Daria.” I hang up and wonder to myself if Sandrine’s disability will make him want her less…or more.