Chapter 1 #2
“Miss me already?” I ask with a dash of sass.
If we please the family, everything else will fall into place.
Those five conditions that Burt laid out for us?
I intend to ace them. First though, I need some alone time with my boys.
All of these distractions are starting to tick me off.
We’re basically on our honeymoon, aren’t we?
More sex, less intrigue would be nice. I squeeze Alexei’s hand and he squeezes mine back.
“I’m not going to extend many favors, Mrs. Borisov. The mayor is insulting the entire family with this behavior. Figure it out or I’ll figure it out for you. Now, sign.” Burt hangs up on me.
Alexei and I exchange a look. We sign the paperwork, our names scrawled side-by-side. We may as well have signed whatever this is in blood. A real deal with the devil.
“Spasibo.” Mr. Listisa collects the leather briefcase with a snap, sighing when he finds his daughter still standing outside the car. “Polina, seichas zhe!”
The young Miss Lisitsa moves languidly, unhurried and uncaring.
“Poka-poka,” she says snidely, yanking the door open on her dad’s half-dead car and slumping into the passenger seat.
Even though I don’t know exactly what that means, it’s said with the same tone that I’ve heard rich cunts use on the Prescott track after they lose a race and a shitload of money. Sounds like, “toodles.”
Shit. Fuck. I’m going to have to murder a teenage girl for the mob. Doesn’t sit right with me. Unfortunately, my instincts are pointing in her direction. Hiding in plain sight, too privileged to see the trap she’s walked into.
If I’m right, this is going to be the most emotionally taxing of the mob’s five conditions.
Exterminate the rat. Neutralize the mayor. Bury the realty tycoon. Find the money. Pay our tithes—plus an extra fee so the family will leave Ash alone.
I swipe a hand down my face, watching as the lawyer pulls his car out of the gravel dip at the side of the forested road and takes off. On the opposite side of the street is the McKenzie River, the place that nearly took me out. Mad respect for that, McKenzie. Most don’t have the balls.
I can hear the sound of the water from here. We both can. This is a shared experience between me and Alexei.
“Did you ever think about letting me go in that river?” I ask him with a sly half-smile, turning on my heel to find Bohnes sitting on the roof of the Stingray. I’d love to say he’s not human. Really, he’s just a seriously fucking exceptional one.
With that ghost-white hair and that hot little mouth? He’s a subterranean god. Something that lives in the dirt and likes it there. A monster that thrives underground.
He’s smirking back at me, the hood of his gray sweater pulled up, combat boots planted firmly on the shiny purple hood of Widow’s Vette.
He shifts, his sweatsuit tugging at the hard lines of his body.
It’s like watching an ad. Whatever brand that sweatshirt is or those joggers, consider me a loyal customer.
Bohnes lifts his hand to wave, a greeting that makes me feel like a teenager instead of a mobster.
He was hiding in the woods with a rifle that he seems to have left behind.
That’s good news. Nobody got shot today (technically, the police chief was eaten by a rat, so not even him).
Just one fatality, and it was the right one.
“That’s a ridiculous question.” Alexei is distracted, frowning at the front gate like he can scarcely believe the police had the audacity to want to search the property where their boss was killed.
Silly them. I’ve got to find Widow and Ash, let ‘em know what’s going on.
“Of course I knew it was an option. I simply found that I didn’t want to be a man who’d fuck a woman and then leave her to die.
My parents would disown me in the afterlife. ”
“So it wasn’t a declaration of undying love, good to know.” I’m teasing him. What he’s saying is that he’d have even risked his life to rescue a woman he didn’t love from the river. Alexei is like Widow: they have strict morals and they live or die by them. Kill by them, too.
“I assume that document was for us to take possession of the house?” Bohnes turns to look over his shoulder. It’s not possible to see the ornate mansion in the woods from down here. Just trees, trees, and more trees. A gravel driveway where the Stingray sits. Ebon-feathered crows.
Thought they’d taken off, those pesky black beasts. I grin as I imagine feeding them and offering up shinies for their nests. Could we be friends? I heard they remember nice gestures. They’re probably eating all the leftover meat from the police chief. Our own creepy cleanup crew.
“The house is ours.” Alexei turns his own face to look up the hill behind us, emotions playing across his princely features and turning him, ever so briefly, into a grieving boy.
It doesn’t last. But it’ll come back. I should clean Pavel’s office for him, just in case there’s any evidence of the murder.
That might break him, a bit of Papa’s blood spatter.
“The hell we waiting for then?” I ask, opening the driver’s side door to the Stingray.
I have the signed title in my back pocket, and it’s really getting me off, thinking how thoroughly I’ve commandeered my man’s car.
In Prescott, this is better than wedding rings or matching tattoos. “Let’s scope out our new crib.”
Alexei joins me in the vehicle while Bohnes disappears into the woods. He’ll probably get up to the house before we do, even with the car.
Rain begins to patter on the roof as I crank the engine, wiggle a little in delight at the sound of it, and then whip us around to head in the right direction.
“Utilizing the full three weeks to get everything done is a mistake. If Jonas and Chet are going to cause problems between us and the family, the sooner we deal with them, the better.” Alexei sighs, putting a gloved hand to his forehead.
Less than an hour ago, he was getting head from Ash in front of his mob boss uncle.
We have not had the chance to process a damn thing about our day.
“We’ll get ‘em in two weeks then,” I say breezily, and then, “uh and that lawyer dude’s daughter?”
“Yes, I know.” Alexei closes his eyes, reconciling himself with the difficult checklist we’ve been given.
When he opens them again, there’s no empathy there.
Just resolution. “We’ve stumbled quite fortuitously onto our rat.
If the little bitch had anything to do with Papa’s death, I’ll make her drink her own tears. ”
Whoa. Blood-curdling. I like it.
“Fortuitously?” I tease, trying to make light of the fact that I might have to murder an Oak Valley girl. This isn’t a job for my men—this is a job for my crew. “You sound like Widow, using all those big reader words.”
Alexei smiles, and it’s so fucking genuine that I feel an answering swoop in my stomach.
Gross.
Now I’m smiling, too, and even though we came this close to being tortured to death today, I’m in a good mood.
Or, I will be, once I’ve made sure Widow is feeling better. That Ash is okay. After I’ve called for Gram and brought her here.
Because guess what?
We’re moving in.
Today.
Now.
I stop the car near the front door and climb out to find Bohnes sitting on the edge of the fountain, smoking a cigarette.
He looks so casual and dangerous posed there.
A closer look reveals that he’s panting ever so slightly, proving to me that he ran his ass up here as fast as he could in order to put on a show.
“You might be a creepy-ass undertaker, but you’re also a ham, you know that?” I tease, folding my arms and giving him a sharp look when he grins back at me. “It’s safe to move in here, you think? I figure yeah, everyone knows where it is, but it’s also mob property, so…”
“We worked hard for this upgrade.” Bohnes flows to his feet like a specter, placing a huge white hand on the top of my head.
It’s his left hand, the one decorated with fresh wedding ink, ashes of the dead, and all the insane promises we’ve made to each other in recent days.
“If it were up to me, we’d be moving in.
” Long, critical pause. The unsaid implication is you wanted to be in charge, make the choice.
“We’re moving in,” I agree as Alexei pauses at the bottom of the front steps, looking queasy. He’ll agree with me and Bohnes, about moving in and all. Living in his papa’s murder house though? That’s tough. Having Ash blow him wasn’t a big deal. He didn’t like it, but eh. This is different.
“If you’re looking for your other fuckboys, I stored ‘em in the panic room.” Nisha appears in a random doorway, frowning at me because she knows a bunch of shit went on that I haven’t told her about yet.
I’m not looking forward to telling the rat story again.
I’m not particularly squeamish, but I actually felt really bad for the rat.
It probably suffered, too, and it didn’t deserve that.
“Thanks, bitch.” I pop up the steps and clamp a hand on her shoulder, leaning in to whisper. “You would not believe the day I’ve had.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.” Nisha is eying me with an extra dollop of respect today, like she knew I was going to survive the mob, but also…I survived the mob. That sort of thing. “Your man okay?” she asks as I turn, finding Alexei stuck in the doorway and lost in time.
We pause in the massive foyer so that he can process the moment.
Bohnes steps around him, leaving the blond mobster to his feelings.
Alexei is plucking nervously at his gloves, his attention on a portrait that hangs to the right of him.
There’s a woman in it that looks too much like him to be coincidental.
His mother. This mansion might be a big win for us, but it’s also haunted.
There were letters written in Russian on Alexei’s desk. I’m dying to know what those were.