Chapter 14
Tatyana
Aweek and a half after their papers were signed, Tatyana was sitting next to Oleg at a reception in Moscow, celebrating with the Muscovite soldiers of the Kievan Rus during a holiday to commemorate their sire’s birthday.
The hall was draped in red, and Truvor’s symbol—a hawk on a red field—hung from banners on either end of the room.
She leaned toward Oleg. “Do all your people celebrate this… holiday?”
“No, only Ivan’s clan.”
“Ah.”
“Truvor was a bastard, but his direct bloodline is concentrated in this area among the Muscovite vampires.”
“But you—the vampire who killed Truvor—are here.”
“Technically I did not kill him,” Oleg said. “I succeeded him.” He reached over and took her hand underneath the table. “I have my reasons.” There was a smile flirting around the corner of his lips.
“Do those reasons have to do with why Ivan seems so solemn tonight?”
“Is he?” Oleg played with her fingers where they sat on her lap. “That’s unlike my brother.”
That was a yes. Oleg had done something to kill Ivan’s mood for the gathering. She would have to ask him about it later because in public, she was still being the indifferent, political wife-to-be.
Tatyana, Rumi, Sándor and his people were staying in one wing of Oleg’s grand mansion in Moscow, which was in the Rublyovka neighborhood west of the city center.
There were grain fields around the sprawling estate that were covered in snow and bare-limbed trees bordering the property that gave it a stately, old-fashioned air.
Oleg had owned the property for over one hundred years, though the large, well-fortified house had been built in the 1990s.
She looked around the room, where Ivan’s sons and lieutenants were offering grand toasts to their sire and their boss, but none of the toasts were as obsequious as those to her husband.
“Dear God,” she muttered when one of the older men compared Oleg to Peter the Great, the first emperor of Russia. “Really?”
“Notably, Peter ruled jointly with his brother Ivan,” Oleg murmured. “Even though Peter was obviously the dominant ruler.” Oleg smiled. “Giant of a man. Nearly seven feet tall.” He glanced at Tatyana. “Married his second wife in secret.”
Tatyana blinked. “You knew him.”
Oleg shrugged. “Socially.”
There were times when Tatyana forgot just how old her husband was. This was not one of those times.
As the night dragged on, there was a little dancing and a lot of drinking. She noticed that Ivan’s men frequently left the room with serving women wearing red collars. Blood donors, Tatyana guessed.
“Do they pay them?”
“Yes, but not much.” Oleg glanced at her. “If you were not here, they would feed from the women in public.”
Tatyana fought a spike of anger, but she felt the water in the air draw to what little skin she had exposed.
“Calm.” Oleg reached for her hand again, stroking the back of it. “All powers rise and fall, wife.” Oleg smiled and waved when he heard his name mentioned in another speech.
“Do you promise?”
“Don’t wish for my end so publicly.” Oleg had a smirk plastered to his face. “Or you’ll remind them of another ruler.”
“Who?”
“Catherine the Great.”
Now it was Tatyana’s time to smirk. Catherine the Great, who had notably disposed of her husband to take the throne of Russia, had to be one of Tatyana’s favorite historical figures.
“Fortunately for you, my husband is not an idiot,” Tatyana quipped.
“Fortunate indeed.” Oleg’s gaze drifted to Ivan, who sat across the room from them on his own raised dais, only slightly lower than Oleg’s, while the men sat between them. “Such a sour face my brother has today.”
He was itching to tell her what he’d done. To gloat. Tatyana had to force herself not to roll her eyes.
“Sándor said there was some unexpected activity around Ivan’s mansion just after dusk tonight.”
“Sándor is well-informed.”
Tatyana saw Rumi moving in the background, passing a note to Sándor, who quietly handed it to Tatyana.
She opened the note and read: Someone hacked my phone.
Tatyana turned to Sándor. “Faraday bags. Now.”
Sándor nodded and retreated.
“What is going on?” Oleg asked.
“Do you have a mobile phone with you? Does Mika?”
“I have no need for one when you are with me. Mika has his, I’m sure.”
“Do you have signal-blocking bags? Like the cage on your plane, but for your devices?” she asked in a low, urgent voice. “If you don’t, Sándor keeps extra.”
“Yes, of course we have them, but why—”
“Someone hacked Rumi’s phone.” She leaned forward and looked to Mika on Oleg’s left side. “Mika, your phone.”
“Yes, I heard.” He pulled a device from his jacket and handed it to Tatyana. “I think you’ll find that there is a message for you.”
All around the room, there was beeping and murmurs of alarm as some vampires and all the humans around the room took devices from their pockets.
Ivan was scowling as someone handed a phone to him. He slammed an open palm on the table. “What is this bullshit? I thought these damned things were secure!”
Tatyana looked at Mika’s screen, which was completely blank save for a single line of text.
—hey there P1dg3n
Her eyes went wide when she saw the old hacking handle.
Oleg kept his voice soft. “I think you might find that the hacker—while demonstrating Ivan’s security failures in a somewhat dramatic fashion—is not the threat you might believe he is.”
Tatyana knew she was gaping as she stared at her mate. “He… I mean, it was years ago and—”
“And he has been worried.” Oleg angled his shoulders so that Tatyana could see the young human a few seats down on Mika’s left side.
She had assumed he was an aide, a secretary of some kind, one of many day people that followed Mika’s steps, just as Sándor and Rumi had their own entourage.
The sandy-haired man with soft green eyes and a boyish expression lifted one hand. “Hello, Pidge.”
“You are so much hotter than I imagined you would be.” Grimace glanced at Oleg. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have said that.”
“Our arrangement is a political one,” Oleg said. “Lady Tatyana keeps her own company.”
A blatant lie, but it let Tatyana know exactly how much trust they were putting in Grimace. For now.
“You are so much younger than I thought you would be.” Tatyana was staring. “How—”
“I kind of work for Gavin Wallace now, but not really.” Grimace lifted his hands. “See, he’s what you call an angel investor in Alyosha’s Shield. That’s my—”
“Oh my god, you’re the security firm.” She turned to Oleg. “I know him, and I know his company.” She muttered, “I should have known when I looked at that algorithm who it belonged to.”
Grimace wiggled his eyebrows. “Pretty good, huh?”
“It’s brilliant and you know it.”
Oleg was looking between the two of them, clearly amused. “I will leave you to reacquaint yourselves.” He spread his hands. “Konstantyn, I have found your friend, so I trust that you will be holding up your end of the contract.”
“Of course.” Grimace was staring at her.
“Contract?” Tatyana’s bullshit detector went wild. “What contract?”
“That is between Mr. Melnyk and myself. For now I must return to my brother’s banquet.”
Tatyana realized there was still applause in the background and people were still speaking. She turned to her mate. “Lord Oleg, should I—”
“You’re fine.” He glanced at Sándor. “I trust that you have this room secured?”
Sándor only nodded.
“Mika and I will return to the banquet and make your excuses.” Oleg waved a hand. “Return if you like, or return to the house if you prefer. You have more than fulfilled your duties for this event. Will I see you at our meeting about wedding preparations tomorrow evening?”
She’d see him far sooner than that. “Of course.”
Tatyana waited for Oleg and Mika to leave the room, then rushed over and embraced Grimace tightly. “What are you doing here? What did you sign? What are you talking about, contracts? The entire reason I never got in touch with you is because I didn’t want you involved in—”
“Pidge.” Grimace awkwardly patted her back. “It’s fine. I promise it’s fine.”
She shoved him back. “I thought you were working for the government! That’s a normal job. These people…” She looked down at herself. “Even me now—”
“Vampires.” He smiled a little bit. “Yes, I know.” He slipped into Ukrainian. “My mom worked for them too. For Wallace Hotels, back in the day.”
“So did you grow up knowing about all this?” Tatyana was gobsmacked.
“Oh no, but when the government took me—”
“What do you mean, took you?”
“I hacked the Defense Ministry’s secure website when I was fourteen,” Grimace admitted. “I was going to go to jail, but instead, they told me I could work for them.” He shrugged. “Easy choice really, but after the sixth year of work with no end in sight…”
“They didn’t give you an end date?”
“Does any government?” Grimace shrugged. “I basically worked for free until I turned eighteen, and then they paid me a little bit, but I was still under surveillance all the time. Except for gaming. They never caught on to that.” He grinned. “That was good thinking, Pidge.”
“Governments.” Tatyana shook her head, but she wasn’t surprised.
“Eventually my mom got in contact with Gavin Wallace, who worked his vampire contacts and got me out of there.”
“How many years ago?”
“Four years.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “I’ve been working for myself for four years now.”
Nearly as long as she and Oleg had been married. “I’m glad your parents went to Wallace.” She saw Sándor looking at them sideways, and Tatyana knew he was annoyed that he didn’t understand what Grimace was saying. “We should switch back to Russian unless you speak Poshani.”
“Oh sure.” He started speaking Russian again. “After working with Wallace for a while, I started to see the patterns, and I had a feeling that mysterious boss you talked about might have been a vampire, but I had no idea he was the vampire, you know?”
“Yes, well…” She shook her head. “Now he’s basically my husband. Ceremonially, of course.”