30. Irina
30
IRINA
“ I wasn’t promised to them,” I told them. Volleying my gaze from the phone to Viktor, I tried to stop the panic from eating away at me. My stomach was a knotted mess, and I grew lightheaded again as my pulse pounded so fast.
“But they think you were,” Lev said again.
“It doesn’t matter what they think. It matters what they did,” Vik said, taking charge. He hurried me out of the office, looking around as we left. Keeping his arm around my shoulders, he guided me to hustle out of there.
Where I was seemed insignificant. I could freak out here just as well as I could at his apartment again. I wouldn’t feel right anywhere . My brother had been my responsibility for so long, and my failure to keep him safe would follow me everywhere. It was a stain on my soul, a crack on my heart that couldn’t be repaired.
“This is all my fault.” I tried to take comfort from Vik’s presence. I tried to remind myself that it wasn’t just me looking out for Max now. I heard all the Baranov men starting an operation to get him out from under my father’s reach.
“If I’d just done what he asked. If I just listened and?—”
“No,” Vik said firmly. “No. You will not be trapped and be Igor’s slave anymore.”
“But if?—”
“We will find him, Irina,” Lev added. “Oleg is aware of the situation and he’s not going to abandon you to Igor. Not after you helped to save my life.”
I swallowed hard, touched that he could care.
“ I won’t give up on your brother either, Irina. I owe it to you for helping Eva.”
I opened and closed my mouth, unable to reply.
“You are not alone anymore, sweetheart,” Viktor told me once we stepped out into another damn snowy night. I was so sick of this weather, but even my loathing for the snow couldn’t stop me from feeling so distraught.
“Go to the house,” Lev said. “Take her to be with Eva. Oleg wants to speak to her anyway,” Lev said.
Anger solidified in my heart. These men could try to coax me into trusting them, then turn around in the next instant and suggest that I surrender first? They hadn’t delivered on getting Max to safety yet, but they expected me to spill all I knew to their Boss?
“I’m not?—”
Viktor plowed past whatever I could’ve said through the anger. “We’re heading there now.”
He hung up, and I glared up at him. “Vik, I’m not talking before I know Maxim is all right.”
“I heard you. Loud and clear. But I think Oleg wants information about him, whether there is another way he can figure out a solution to getting Maxim out of anyone else’s control.”
I furrowed my brow, disliking how much it seemed like he was placating me. Yet, that sort of made sense. No one knew about Maxim. Not even the Baranov Boss. I didn’t understand what other details could help, but I wouldn’t be shy to provide anything that would get my brother to safety.
When I arrived at the Baranov headquarters, the mansion that the crime family called a “house”, I felt nauseous and weak from the stress of the last twenty-four hours. Viktor was perceptive as ever, holding my hand and offering me support by keeping close. I never had the opportunity to lean on someone. It was always just me. Only me. But the option of having someone else still felt so surreal.
Oleg stood in front of a large fireplace in what looked like a study. The scent of cigars wafted in the air, but it wasn’t cloying and gross like all the cigarettes the Petrov men smoked. Eva got out of a chair upon my arrival, frowning with worry.
“We’ll get your brother back,” she said.
“We will do all we can to try to get her brother back without starting a war,” Oleg corrected.
I tore my gaze from her to frown at him. That didn’t sound like a refusal to help, but it also didn’t sound like a firm vote of confidence that he would get things done, regardless. Keeping my mouth shut, I stared down the rival boss. The one I didn’t have to appease like I had with Igor. One I had yet to really meet to form my own independent feelings about him.
He looked fit compared to the wreckage my father had done to his body, but he bore enough similarities that there was no way I’d mistake who he was. He was a boss. A leader. The stern glint of command in his old eyes was unmistakable, but I had yet to fully accept whether he would be my boss.
“Nice of you to join us, Irena.” His welcome was probably sincere, but I heard the test in his words.
“Nice of you to negotiate with me,” I replied.
He almost smiled, but it might have been a sneer, too. “How is it that I never knew Igor had a son?”
“Were you supposed to know?” I asked.
“Was there a reason he had to hide him?” he challenged.
I heaved out a deep sigh. “He’s never loved him. Never cared for him.”
“It doesn’t sound like he’s ever cared for you, either,” Viktor said.
“Yet he never hid her away,” Oleg pointed out. “I want to know why Igor hid his son.”
“He saw him as worthless. Useless. An embarrassment because he’s deaf and weak.”
Another man stood in the background, shaking his head and nearly stumbling in his steps. “No.” He slashed his arm through the air, but I couldn’t tell if he did it to steady himself from falling in this drunken stupor or if he was adamantly telling us to think otherwise about what we said.
“Boris,” Oleg warned. “Not now.”
Eva winced, as did Lev.
I could smell the reek of alcohol while Boris Baranov stumbled a yard away. He was drunk, obviously, but determined to insert himself into this conversation.
“Just sit down,” Eva said, almost blocking him from reaching Oleg.
“No. No!” Boris flung his other arm out, sending the amber liquid in his glass sloshing over the rim. “He died.”
“What?” Oleg scowled at him.
“The boy died.” He shook his head, grimacing as he tried to reach his older brother.
“What boy?”
“The boy. He died with her.”
I gaped at him. “The boy? My brother?”
Boris squinted, looking at me like he couldn’t stomach the sight of me. “You look just like her. You look…”
“Oh, God.” I felt all the blood drain from my face. I went numb with realization and dreaded that this old, fumbling drunk could be saying what I suspected he was trying to get out.
My father hated how much I looked like my mother, especially once I lost my girlish looks and matured into a woman.
Oleg sharpened his gaze, looking from me to his brother.
“What am I missing?” he asked.
“The boy died, Oleg.” Boris hung his head and rubbed his temple, oblivious that his drink had spilled out. “The boy died with his mother.”
“What boy? Maxim?” Oleg faced me.
“He’s alive.” I shook my head, unable to believe what I was hearing from this drunk. “Maxim is alive. He was deaf and left with several issues from a traumatic birth. A birth my mother didn’t survive.”
“Oh, shit,” Viktor whispered, catching on.
Eva had paled too.
“I was told that he died,” Boris said, louder but not clearer. His slurred speech was consistent, but he was determined to speak. “I was told Anna died. She bled out, but the boy didn’t make it either.”
Oleg glowered at him. “How would you know?” he ordered.
“Because he was my boy.” Boris stared at his sibling with sad eyes.
“Oh, God,” I repeated.
“You slept with Anna Petrov?” Oleg roared.
Boris flinched, lifting his glass to his lips for a comforting drink, but he realized it was empty. “I… I did. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, but she was so miserable and we were talking, and… I did. Anna was carrying my son, but she told Igor that it was his.”
I covered my mouth, stunned beyond belief. “But he’s alive.”
“Who told you the boy died?” Oleg said.
“Igor,” Boris said. “He told me that Anna passed away and the baby did too.”
I shook my head. “Maxim is very much alive.”
“That’s why he hid him,” Eva guessed. “He hid him because he was a bastard.”
“Maxim is a son of Baranov blood?” Oleg asked, frowning at his brother.
Boris nodded. “I never wanted to tell you. You would be so furious that I’d complicated family politics.”
“Of course you fucking have!” Oleg roared.
Once again, Boris flinched. “I never thought it would be an issue. I never thought anyone would know. She didn’t make it and I thought he didn’t either.”
“Igor must have done a paternity test,” Eva said.
Oleg nodded. “And when he saw he had a son of our family, he kept him all this time.”
Viktor narrowed his eyes. “Probably to use against you when the time is right.”
Oleg growled. “Yes. Most likely, that devious fucker.”
“I thought…” I staggered to sit. “I thought that he just hated him because he was deaf and weak, not a strong soldier.”
“Maybe that too,” Oleg said, “but more so, to use him as a pawn. To hold him over the Baranov name.”
“Anna was so miserable with him,” Boris said. “With how much Amelia nagged me about drinking too much and not being a leader at all, I wanted to feel like a hero to someone. So, I caved. We had an affair and agreed to hide the boy as Igor’s.”
“Is that why my mother left?” Eva demanded hotly.
Oleg sighed. “Eva, we don’t know if Amelia left or if she was taken.”
“But if she needed a reason to run away,” Eva said, hands on her hips, “that would’ve been it!”
Boris shrugged, again lifting his glass to his lips, forgetting again that it was empty. “I think it was the last straw. It very well might have been a reason for Amelia to want to leave. To leave me for cheating, to leave this family.”
“You fucking imbecile.” Oleg turned from his brother to Viktor. “Handle this. Call Lev and update him.” The Boss looked at me, eyeing me seriously. “Igor will just have to deal with both of his children being Baranovs now.”
I gaped at him as he turned to leave.
That sounded a lot like a rough acceptance, even a coerced introduction, to his family.
I’d only be a Baranov if I married into the family, but I couldn’t think about that.
I had to smile at what else he’d said.
Maxim was a Baranov. By blood.
“Bring that boy here,” Oleg said over his shoulder, shaking his head as he walked out. “Tonight. Or I will wage war against him for taking one of our own.”