Chapter Twenty
Dmitri
Alina’s was busy today, but she still found time to bring lunch into the private room where I sat with some of my most loyal men and tried to figure out a solution to our shipping problem.
Aside from my potential conviction, Henry Moss’s death was a real pain in my ass.
I was depending on using his debt to me to compel him to transport my weapons from Detroit to New York City.
The weapons were ready to be moved, and it wouldn’t be long before our suppliers grew impatient and started looking for someone else to sell to.
We had an arrangement that was dependent on my ability to get the weapons to the city and give them a percentage of the profit from selling them.
I would have preferred to wait to deal with this business after I figured out who the traitor was among my people, but I didn’t have the luxury of that kind of time.
So, I was limiting information about my activities to only my closest men.
My spies and brigadiers. And, of course, my treasurer and close advisor, Ivan.
At my table, I sat between Maxim and Lev.
Ivan was at the table beside us with a brigadier named Abram.
Abram headed my most efficient brigade. His crew was in charge of protection racketeering for several businesses in Brooklyn, and they were damn good at collecting money for services we never truly had to provide, considering that we already had control of the neighborhood.
That was part of the reason I tolerated his sister being here.
Gina was probably hanging around in hopes of seeing Nikolay.
I knew they’d broken up once again, which typical for them, but I also knew my best friend was likely to fall back into bed with her.
She was like an addiction he just couldn’t quit.
Frankly, I didn’t see the appeal. Everything about Gina was fake, from the pout on her lips to her overinflated tits. She was bossy and entitled in a way that only a woman who had been spoiled her whole life could be.
I was sure she only wanted Nikolay because of his position in the Bratva. Women like her didn’t care about the men they were with. They cared about how they could benefit from the man they latched onto.
She’d even tried to get into my bed once, but I didn’t respond to her flirtation. She wasn’t my type at all. I preferred my women to have integrity and a more natural beauty.
Like Sarah.
At the thought of her, I glanced at the clock hanging on the wall next to the door.
Nikolay called me thirty minutes ago to tell me about what happened at the gym, and I immediately ordered him to bring Alexis and Sarah here.
I also had him arrange for the man who attempted to kidnap Alexis to be taken to a safehouse.
I wanted to have a conversation with the bastard later and find out who he was working for.
For now, I was anxious for Sarah and Alexis to walk through that door. Nikolay assured me they were safe and uninjured, but I needed to see them both with my own two eyes before I could relax.
“The problem is we need someone to ship the weapons that we can control,” Maxim said, and I tried to force myself to focus on the conversation. “We can’t allow anyone to have leverage over us, but I can’t see how we avoid it when working with someone providing transportation of illegal goods.”
I nodded. He was right. That was the reason Henry would have been perfect. We had the leverage in that situation because of his debt to the Bratva. Now, we had nothing but problems to solve.
“I’ve looked into acquiring trucks of our own,” Maxim continued, “but we need the legitimacy of an established shipping company to move product over state lines without attracting unwanted attention from authorities.”
All eyes at the table turned to me as my men waited for me to pull a solution out of my ass. I didn’t have one, but I would have kept the conversation going if the door didn’t open right at that moment.
The attention shifted from me to the three people who walked into the room. Nikolay led the way with Sarah and Alexis right behind him.
Alexis was in her mother’s arms, clinging to her neck as she took in her surroundings. The tip of her nose was red, and her eyes were red, as if she’d been recently crying.
Rage erupted inside me at the sight. I shifted my attention to Sarah. She didn’t look like she’d been reduced to tears, but there was something almost fragile about her. She was shaken by what happened at the gym.
Of course, she was. They both were.
I shared a quick look with Nikolay, and his curt nod told me that the man who caused all the trouble was secured at the safe house.
Good. I’d deal with him later.
This afternoon, Sarah and Alexis had my attention. In fact, I’d just walked away from a table of my top men discussing a serious problem without a second thought. I could feel them still watching me, probably shocked.
I always put business first. It was what my old man taught me, and despite my loathing of the man, some lessons stuck with me.
I couldn’t blame my men for being surprised as I led Sarah and Alexis away from everyone else. There was an entrance to the kitchen in this private room, and I pushed through the swinging door, my hand on the small of Sarah’s back to guide her along.
She stuck with me without questioning it, and something inside me settled. She was putting trust in me.
Alina was in the kitchen, along with two cooks. One stood at a grill, and the other was in front of three deep fryers. Alina was taking a sheet of cinnamon buns out of the oven. She looked over at us with a raised eyebrow.
“The kitchen is no place for a child,” she said, but she smiled when her eyes shifted to Alexis.
“That’s not what you said when I was a boy,” I reminded her.
She laughed. “You used to follow me around, begging for sweets.”
“You have any sweets you can share with this little one?” I asked. “I want to have a private word with her mother.”
Sarah tensed up as she looked at me, but I placed a hand on her shoulder and rubbed my thumb along her neck, relaxing her.
“It’s okay,” I said in a soothing tone. “Alina will watch out for her. She’s perfectly safe here.”
“I thought she was safe at the gym.” Sarah’s voice was hardly more than a whisper. “I can’t believe what almost happened. If Nikolay hadn’t been there—”
“He’s here too, right through that swinging door. And I’m here. You guys are safe. But I don’t want to talk about what happened in front of her.”
Sarah reluctantly nodded and put Alexis down. She crouched in front of the little girl and took her hands.
“Do you want a sweet treat?” she asked.
Alexis looked at Alina, who gave her a warm, motherly smile. “These cinnamon buns were always my son’s favorite when he was your age. Would you like to try one?”
Alexis didn’t say anything, which I already knew was unlike her.
The girl loved to chatter. But she pulled away from Sarah and went to Alina, looking up at her curiously.
Her show of trust with my aunt made my chest feel tight.
It was a sign that what she just went through at the gym hadn’t completely traumatized her.
In fact, Sarah and I were probably far more freaked out than she was. When I thought about what could have happened to Alexis if Nikolay wasn’t there, bile climbed up my throat.
I gritted my teeth and swallowed it down as I took Sarah by the arm and led her through the kitchen and into the manager’s office.
It was Alina’s space to complete paperwork, a windowless room that was hardly bigger than a closet with a little desk shoved against the wall and a single chair.
I closed and locked the door behind us and gestured for Sarah to take a seat.
The space was tight, and as I leaned against the desk in front of her, our legs were nearly touching. I took a moment to study her.
She was wearing a pink tank top with the straps of a sports bra peeking out at her shoulders and a pair of black leggings. It was all so tight that I could see every luscious dip and curve of her body.
But I couldn’t focus on that when Sarah’s face crumpled. A wretched sob tore from her chest, and she covered her face with her hands as she started to cry.
Holy shit.
I’d never been the one to comfort a crying woman before. People didn’t tend to think of me as the comforting type. So, I felt awkward as hell, as I moved closer to her, intent on doing something.
Her shoulders were shaking, and she was gasping with each breath, her face still hidden behind her hands. Since she was still sitting in the chair, I crouched in front of her, putting my hands on her knees.
“It’s okay. You’re safe,” I said, even though I knew she wasn’t crying because she was worried about being attacked here. This was the release of pent-up horror from the attempted kidnapping. Maybe some lingering fear from the night in the grocery store parking lot too.
“What the hell am I involved in, Dmitri?” she asked after a moment when she got her crying under control. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and looked at me with tormented, puffy eyes. “I don’t understand how this happened. I’m just a normal woman. I… I don’t run around with criminals.”
I flinched at that, and regret flickered across her face, but she didn’t take the statement back. She couldn’t. It was true, after all. I hadn’t directly confirmed that I was involved with the Bratva, but she knew it.
“I don’t know how I got here,” she said, her hands shaking violently as she sniffled.
I took her hands in mine, running my thumbs over the back of them. I didn’t know if I was doing enough to soothe her, but I also didn’t want to overwhelm her even more. My instinct was to pull her into my arms, enveloping her in my strength and warmth until she knew I was going to protect her.
But I was one of those criminals she spoke of. What if she didn’t feel secure in my arms?