Chapter 26
Tatyana
“Do you know why he wants to meet with us?” Kezia asked. “He didn’t tell you?”
Tatyana shook her head. Sándor had left a note for her only an hour after dusk, asking her to contact Kezia and meet him in her personal office at midnight.
“It must be something to do with the boys in Moscow,” Kezia murmured. “That’s all I can think of.”
“Agreed,” Tatyana said. “But it’s only been three or four nights, hasn’t it?”
“I don’t know. Knowing Sándor, he already had men in place, waiting for the approval from us.”
“True.” Her chief Hazar didn’t like wasting time, and frankly, with so many in Muscovite leadership in Saint Petersburg for the wedding, this was the ideal time to infiltrate Ivan’s organization.
Three nights remained before the wedding, and Tatyana was more than ready for all this to be over.
She’d spent the nights since the chaugan match juggling a logistics problem in the Poshani electronics factory in Silesia while also approving the flowers that Oleg picked and being fitted for a new chaugan riding habit for the postwedding match.
“Are you playing in the reception match?” she asked Kezia.
“I’m considering it. It certainly looks like bloody fun. The problem is, Rudov is the one who chooses teams, and I’m not sure I trust him not to screw me over.”
Tatyana frowned. “Why? He seems fair-minded enough.”
Kezia raised her eyebrows. “Does he? I would watch that one. Pavel, I trust more. Lazlo couldn’t lie if his life depended on it, and he clearly is personally loyal to Oleg, so he would lay down his life for you. But Rudov?” She shook her head. “Watch him.”
Tatyana hadn’t ever considered Rudov to be a threat. “Why would he try to undermine Oleg?”
“Ambition? It’s his own daughter who runs the heart of Oleg’s empire in Kyiv.
Maybe he thinks Juliya should be the knyaginya of the empire.
Then Rudov could be the power behind the throne.
Between father and daughter, they control a substantial part of the Kievan Rus, and their two provinces are probably the most profitable. ”
Tatyana pursed her lips. Rudov and Juliya were incredibly wealthy. And often, those with wealth assumed that they would be good rulers by default.
Which was not the case in her experience. Being massively wealthy usually meant you were lucky, born into it, or were very, very old like her husband.
“I think Oleg trusts him,” Tatyana said. “But it’s not as if we have spoken about it.”
“What do you speak about?” Kezia narrowed her eyes. “Or do you just spend your time with him having sex?” She glanced at Tatyana with a smirk. “Did you fuck him after that chaugan match? I would have.”
“I did not.” In truth, she had wanted nothing more than a night alone with her husband after his whispered confession as he took a lock of her hair.
They love you nearly as much as I do.
It wasn’t that she didn’t know Oleg loved her—his actions spoke of it—but it was the closest he had come to verbally admitting it, and her blood had already been running high from the chaugan match.
Given the chance, she would have spent all night making love to him.
Sadly, both of them had been surrounded by their respective clans. Oleg was quickly dragged off for a celebration dinner with his brothers, and Radu had planned another party for her since he was finally in town.
“You were at the party at Radu’s camp,” Tatyana said. “You think I was able to sneak away from that?”
Radu, as host for the bride’s family and clan, had pitched a grand Poshani camp on the far side of Rudov’s country estate, complete with a massive heated tent, Poshani cooking wagons, dancers and musicians.
Tatyana’s entire household from Warsaw was in attendance, as were representatives from each of the Poshani clans.
It was basically a winter kamvasa in Saint Petersburg. The wedding banquet would be hosted by the Poshani with a celebratory chaugan game hosted by Oleg’s brothers after the ceremony at the church.
And there would be a ceremony at a church. Oleg was insistent on that.
“Is your mother coming to the banquet?” Kezia asked. “No one would see her if she stayed with the Poshani from Warsaw.”
“I offered; she said no.” Tatyana shrugged. “She knows Oleg from when I was working for him, and she knows the circumstances. She’s fine with it; this is political theater.”
“That makes sense.” Kezia looked at the clock on the mantel. “Where is Sándor? I have a meeting with Juliya’s people in an hour.”
“A business meeting?”
“No reason not to take full advantage of your marriage,” Kezia said. “She’s looking to move cargo from her eastern factories to some Slovenian ports to avoid all the” —Kezia waved her hands— “human drama in the Black Sea.”
“Good.” Tatyana opened her computer, put on her gloves, and opened a profit-and-loss report from one of her divisions. “I’m glad the sacrifice of my independence is going to produce some tangible results so quickly.”
“I cannot tell if you’re being sarcastic or pragmatic.”
Tatyana smiled. “Pragmatic. That was the point of all this theater, wasn’t it? To solidify political and business ties?”
The actual point was her husband getting his way, but Kezia didn’t need to know that.
“Yes. As long as Oleg stays the head of the Kievan Rus, this marriage should pay dividends quite quickly.”
“And we’re going to take out the main obstacle to his retaining power, are we not?” Tatyana looked up when she heard Sándor approaching. “He’s here.”
She shut her laptop and turned to the door to see her Hazar slipping in with a grim expression on his face.
“What is it?” Kezia asked. “What has happened?”
“They’re dead.” Sándor’s voice was barely a murmur. “They knew. Somehow Ivan’s people knew. All three of them were dead almost the moment that they walked into Ivan’s office in Moscow.”
Sándor’s first move was to silently sweep Tatyana’s office for bugs, a step they had taken before she moved in but one they had not repeated since, foolishly lulled by the massive amounts of security Oleg provided for Tatyana that doubled her already numerous Poshani guard.
“Flowers nearly every day.”
Tatyana had overlooked the large bouquet of roses that Diana had brought into her office the week before, not realizing that the vase was one of “Pavel’s” extravagant gifts.
The flowers had been changed, but the vase had not. And hidden in the base was a tiny microphone sending audio recordings to an IP address that was already a dead end.
“Damn it.” Tatyana paced in her office, dread thick in her stomach.
Ivan’s seduction had worked perfectly, though he’d never laid a hand on Diana.
Not only had he killed three of Tatyana’s own men, Ivan could also reveal Tatyana’s plans to Oleg if he wanted. And God knew how Oleg would react to her going behind his back.
“Were there others?” Tatyana asked the crying woman. “Were there any others you brought into my office?”
“Not your office,” Diana choked out. “There were a few that I brought to your dressing room and others that I spread around the house. The staff in the kitchen. The housekeeping department. They were just being so kind to us, and it’s…
it’s so much extra work.” She sniffed. “I told Pav—whoever it was on the phone—that flowers every day were too much, so he said I should share them and brighten someone’s day the way…
” She shuddered out a breath. “The way that I brightened his nights when we spoke.”
Tatyana knew she should feel some kind of empathy for Diana’s heartbreak, but it was too painful and infuriating to realize how deeply Ivan’s people had infiltrated Oleg’s household.
Her office. Her dressing room—though she never spoke about private business there. The housekeeping staff. The kitchen. God knew what kind of secrets the staff had inadvertently revealed that could be used against Oleg.
Sándor walked in from the dressing room.
“We must tell Oleg’s security staff without delay.
I will coordinate with Mika to sweep the rest of the house.
” He handed Diana a yellow notepad. “Write down every place you can remember bringing flowers. Even if you’re not sure. Every place you even considered it.”
Diana took the notebook and nodded. “The roses in the office here were the last arrangement I received. The last gift. I promise. He… they stopped sending the flowers the day after Terrin Tatyana confronted me.”
Because Tatyana had confronted Diana in her office, and Ivan and his people had been listening. Just as they’d been listening the night that she and Kezia had been planning with Sándor.
Which meant that Ivan knew not only that she and Oleg were married but that they were blood mates as well.
“I need to meet with Oleg.” She looked at Diana. “After you make your list for Sándor, you need to leave. The Hazar will take you to the Poshani camp, and you will be under Radu’s supervision.”
Diana’s face grew pale. “Are you going to kill me? Is Lord Oleg?”
“No.” There was no way that Tatyana was going to kill Diana for being an unconscious betrayer, but there was also no way she could trust the woman’s judgment going forward.
“But I do not know how Lord Oleg is going to react, and I do not want you in this house. Radu will make sure you get back to Bucharest as soon as possible, and we will deal with you after all this calms down.”
The woman was still pale, but she nodded and started making a list.
Sándor jerked his head at Tatyana, and she followed him out of the room.
“There was no video in any of the bugs,” he said, “but the audio is enough. I would suggest you tell Oleg everything, including about the three men who were killed in Moscow.”
Tatyana had already planned on telling him, and she had no idea how her husband was going to react. “This wedding may not go forward after all,” she said. “All this pageantry and expense may have been for nothing.”
“Courage, surati.”
Her true marriage to Oleg might be over as well.
She was sick when she reached the library where her husband usually worked. The Hazar remained stationed outside the door, and Sándor bid her goodbye as soon as he heard Oleg answer her knock.
“Enter.”
She exchanged one last look with Sándor before he nodded and continued toward Mika’s office.
Oleg’s expression was grim even before she closed the door. “I can feel your blood. What has happened?”
She waited until she was near him, keeping her voice low. “I have been betrayed by one of my own staff.” She raised a hand when he opened his mouth. “Unknowingly betrayed, but it has put your household at risk. Sándor is coordinating with Mika as we speak.”
Oleg glanced at the door, then jerked his head to the side and walked to the wall in the corner of the library.
He pushed on a hidden panel, and moments later a door swung open, revealing a hallway behind the wall and a narrow corridor with thick walls that probably dampened sound, even from the Hazar near the door.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the passageway. It led between two rooms, and Oleg was about to take her up a hidden stairwell when she pulled on his hand. “If we go too far, the Hazar will not feel my presence and they will follow.”
He released her hand. “Is the betrayal so great that your guards doubt your safety with me?”
She twisted her fingers together, closing her eyes and trying to gather the courage to tell her husband the truth.
Tell him everything.
He kept his voice soft and even. “Milaya?”
“There can be no more secrets,” she whispered. “Sándor, Kezia, and I have been plotting without your knowledge. We have been planning to kill Ivan, and Ivan discovered our scheme.”