ILYA’S IN THE HOUSE!
FORTY-SIX
ILYA’S IN THE HOUSE!
A knock sounds at her door.
No one can get to her front door without going through guards, so I’m already on red alert. Then my cell phone buzzes.
Victoria pushes her forehead against mine but proves how perfect she is because, interruptions and distractions aside, she whispers, “Ne lezhit dusha."
The world fades to nothing.
Because she understands.
My soul has lain down for her as hers has for mine.
I cup her cheek and inhale air scented of her. My lips brush hers just as the knocking on the door turns to pounding.
Releasing a soft snicker, she presses a final kiss to my mouth. “Typical.”
“Sorry, korovka.” Vowing to kill whoever disturbed us at the most pivotal moment of my life, I collect my phone and answer it. “What?”
Her gaze flicks over me when I put the call on speaker.
“Someone at the door, shukher.”
“No fucking shit. Who is it? Are they on the approved guest list?”
“Not exactly.” Vlad clears his throat. “Levin.”
My eyes bug. “Ilya Levin?”
“Yes, sir. He… Well, you know, there’s no mistaking him.”
“Ilya Levin?” Victoria mutters. “The guy who runs the Bratva’s secret task force in Moscow?” Her voice grows louder. “What the hell are you doing allowing someone in the Bratva to knock on our door?! They’re our enemies!”
Before desire has a chance to burn into arousal at that one statement—our enemies—Vlad offers, “Sencis is with him, shukher.”
“Who?” Victoria demands.
“My… some would call him brother. Some might call him… father.”
But that’s a more recent development.
I blame Misha.
“Your father,” she splutters. “You told me he was dead!”
“He is. I mean… Nikolai is like my father. But he’s the head of the Forgotten Boys in the US.” I don’t tell her that we named Nikolai’s position in Latgalian.
Her brow furrows. “Nikolai Veles?”
I nod.
“Nikolai Veles is outside my house?”
“Da,” Nikolai rumbles along the line.
Ilya chimes in, “I’d appreciate it if you let us in and didn’t leave us standing out here like a box of unwanted takeout.”
It’s been a long time since I spoke to Ilya, but even if I didn’t recognize Nikolai’s chalk-on-a-blackboard voice, I’d know his.
“One second, Victoria.” I carefully deposit the spitting kitten on her couch then stride over to the front door.
I brace myself for impact but it still isn’t enough.
Nikolai’s scarred face, expression ever dour, is what I see first. Throat tight, grateful that we sign thanks to his nonverbal nature, I greet, “Sencis.”
He rolls his eyes. “Let me in.”
I retreat a step. “What the fuck are you doing here, Ilya?”
He smiles at me. “Democrazy.”
I frown but Victoria gasps. “You!”
Whipping around to stare at her, I demand, “Who?” In fact… “What?”
“That’s the officer who helped me at the station!” She stacks her hands on her hips. “And who judged me for hiring Rachel Laker as my attorney!”
“He can’t be! I’ve seen Officer Niven’s file.”
“About that…” Ilya, who I swear would have been in glee club if we were raised in the US, presents her with a formal bow.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Victoria. Officially.” His eyes beam rainbows as he graces her with a smile that always snatched him all the pussy.
Except, he never wants it. “I was disappointed you didn’t contact someone Russian. ”
“Why the fuck were you borrowing a cop’s identity and hanging out in a police precinct in Buttfuck, New York anyway?” I snarl, pissed that this is all news to me and that he’s making moon eyes at my wife.
He taps his nose. “That’s above your paygrade.”
“Stop teasing him,” Nikolai signs.
“Is Nikolai deaf?” Victoria inquires.
“Nonverbal,” I correct.
“When he chooses to be. That little wife of his has reaped a miracle. He still sounds like he chews on glass for fun, but at least he’ll talk.” Ilya elbows Nikolai—one of the few men on this planet who’d get away with that without losing the limb.
I’m not entirely sure what their relationship entails.
I never have been.
I do know that, once upon a time, I used to be jealous of it.
Annoyed by the memory, I shut the door behind the two men.
Victoria takes the cue. “Would anyone like some refreshment?”
I’m so used to her being a little shit around me that the sudden leap into hostessing takes me aback.
Nikolai grates out, well, it sounds like he grates out, but he’s being polite: “Water will be fine. Thank you.”
“Do you have vodka?”
Her lips twitch when Ilya bats his lashes. “Of course I do.”
When I punch him in the arm, he smirks. Victoria doesn’t notice though. As she moves toward the kitchen, she jumps when Nikolai steps into her path.
“Meita.” He stuns me with the word as he gently grasps her hand in his. “It is a pleasure to meet you at long last.”
Eyes cast down, she greets, “It’s a pleasure to meet you too, sencis.”
“You can call me Niko. That’s what family does.”
“I don’t call you Niko,” Ilya complains.
“Take the hint.”
I snort as Ilya pounds his chest with his fist twice. “That hurts, Niko.”
Pink-cheeked, Victoria darts away, rushing into the kitchen with a quick look sent to me.
“Leave her the fuck alone, Ilya, or I’ll cut out your tongue.”
“Is that a promise? Sounds like a promise to me.”
I promise a slow, painful death via a glower. To Niko, I demand, “Is everything okay? I didn’t realize you were coming to the city.”
There, that’s a polite way of asking what the fuck he’s doing here without warning me.
Unless Misha knew.
That little fucker.
“Were you ever going to tell me you married?”
When I grimace, Ilya cackles. “I was starting to think she was a figment of your imagination, Maxim.”
“Ilya,” Niko grumbles.
The pest takes my earlier position on the couch. “Not everything has to be so serious.”
“Where the Veronians are concerned, it does.”
I glance between them. “Is there a problem?”
“Not a problem, per se,” Ilya answers. “Just… something to be wary of.” His attention turns to Victoria, who brings in a tray, one that’s hammered brass and not her style at all.
That Camille or Inessa must have given this to her is rather sweet.
“Wonderful. It’s been a long day and I need a shot or ten. ”
After using an ornate jug to fill intricate metal-worked glasses, Victoria passes Nikolai his water first. Her fingers mark the frozen bottle of vodka as she pours Ilya a shot.
“Maxim?”
Seeing that she brought enough glasses for all of us to drink either beverage, I murmur, “Water, please, kotik.”
Ilya snorts at the endearment, but Nikolai looks surprisingly pleased. Until Victoria sits down.
Before either man can say another word, she remarks, “If it’s to do with the Veronians, then it’s my business. Not Maxim’s.”
Ilya shoots back his shot. “She has a point.”
“Maxim?”
I nod. “She’ll only hound me for intel later.”
Practically purring with delight at “winning,” Victoria tucks her feet beneath her and rests against me. “What the hell is going on?”
“I see why you call her ‘kitten.’”
I hiss at Ilya, “Shut up.”
He just reaches for the bottle and pours himself another shot. “Nikolai contacted me after Misha informed him that Victoria had gone missing.”
My eyes widen. “Sencis! I had it under control.”
“Not according to Misha. He said you were losing your shit.” Nikolai rubs his chin. “And I was… worried for you. I know what she means to you. I didn’t want anything to happen to her, and I knew Ilya has been sniffing around the East Coast for a while now.”
“You have?” I pin a look on the most irritating man on the planet. “Why is this the first I’m hearing about it?”
“I don’t need to ask you to take a shit, Maxim.”
“No, but if you’re in New York, then it’s my business.”
“I talk to the daddy,” Ilya mocks, clapping Nikolai on the back.
He just pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Why aren’t you in Moscow?” I jab the air, wishing it were my knife and his gut. “Where you belong.”
“Ever heard of multitasking?”
“I have and it’s a purely female skill,” Victoria taunts.
“Perhaps ‘delegation’ is a more fitting descriptor.”
“The Krestniy Otets doesn’t seem like the type of guy who’d permit much delegation.”
Nikolai studies her. “How would you know enough about him to make an educated guess?”
“Eavesdropping.”
Ilya barks out a laugh. “On whom?”
“My father, of course. The asshole.” Her smile shifts. There’s sorrow at the base of it, but she overlays it with cockiness. “I used to play in his office. He rarely saw me.”
“The man’s instincts, or lack of them, explain why he died young,” Nikolai ruminates.
Victoria, after a quick look at me, studies her knees.
Nikolai being Nikolai notices but doesn’t comment on it.
“Did you know him?” she asks instead.
“Barely. I hate New York and I hate Moscow even more—”
“Father loved it.”
“Then he should have lived there.”
Ilya raises his full shot glass. “Hear, hear.”
“None of us are fans of the city,” I say dryly. “You live long enough on its streets and you do everything you can to put it in your past.”
“I wasn’t born on the streets,” Ilya inserts, “but they certainly bred me. Unfortunately, I don’t have as much rope to hang myself as Nikolai did.”
“Why not?”
“I’m the Krestniy Otets’s nephew.”
Her eyes widen. “Why are you here, then?”
“Because I loathe him as much as you loathed your father, I imagine.”
“Should you be talking to us?”
“Am I not among friends?”
Nikolai grunts. “On the days you don’t irritate the hell out of me, I suppose, da.”
“Is today one such day?”
Nikolai’s face cracks as he graces him with the faintest of smiles.
“It’s called sheep dipping.”
“What?”
Ilya clarifies, “You eradicate someone’s purpose by placing them in a legitimate organization. I have several such identities. Admittedly, Niven was a newer one.
“The moment I entered the interrogation room was mere minutes before I had confirmation that I’d located you.
“Victoria was my top priority, Maxim. Especially after what I saw that asshole doing through the two-way mirror.”
Inwardly, I seethe. “How did you find her?”