Chapter 34 - Mikhail
At the exact moment that Laurel’s smile was starting to return, I got a call from my brother.
My cousin got a tip-off that something big was about to pop off at one of Ivan’s businesses downtown, so I had to cut and run.
So much for a relaxing evening at home to cheer up my wife. Now I was heading for a fight.
At least this time we had a heads-up, or so we thought. I sat in the car about a half a block away, and Luk showed up a few minutes after and slipped into the passenger seat. He hung up the phone and shook his head at me.
“Nothing yet,” he said, clearly raring to get started. “I’m so sick of these assholes. This was supposed to be a fun vacation for me.”
“You can always go back to Moscow,” I said, as grumpy as Laurel accused me of being. I, too, wanted to be elsewhere.
“Hell, no,” Luk said. “I think I’m going to figure out something of my own to do out here. Maybe split my time, though. I miss a good shashlik. How come Americans don’t appreciate lamb?”
“They don’t seem to like to eat anything that’s cute,” I answered, keeping my eyes on the building down the street where our enemies were supposed to show up.
“You really think you won’t go back any time soon?” he asked. “Don’t you get homesick?”
Laurel was my home now. I shook my head at the same time both our phones buzzed.
“Shit,” Luk said, jumping out of my car and racing toward his own.
It was a good analysis of the situation, and I uttered the same word as I tore in the direction of the actual attack. We’d been set up, which meant there was a mole in our operation. I had no doubt Aleks would flush that person out and mete out proper punishment, but what a pain in the ass.
By the time I arrived at the actual place that was under attack, a fight was in full swing.
I wasn’t ten steps out of my car, racking my gun, when a board swung out of some shrubs, smashing me in the face and sending me flat on my back.
I hated ambushes and raised my gun as the man wielding the two-by-four hauled it back to bring it down on me again.
The top of his head disappeared, and he flew backward, the board clattering onto the pavement next to him. Someone screamed, and there were the sounds of sirens in the distance. These fuckers were getting brazen, attacking a place so close to a residential area.
Smoke rose up from the roof of the freestanding pawn shop one of my cousins owned. It wasn’t just a good old-fashioned way to make easy money, but a way to keep an eye on what was going on in the area and gather information from the low-level thugs who brought in their stolen goods.
Now it was ablaze, and Ivan ran past me, cursing. So part of the information was correct. It was Ivan’s business, just not the one we’d been sent to originally. I followed him and helped to put out the small blazes, managing to knock someone out as he was trying to flee out the back door.
He was basically unhurt, so I fixed that by punching him hard in the face, still pissed off that my own had taken the full brunt of a board.
His eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped to the ground.
Luk tossed me a handful of zip ties, and I trussed him up, ready for transportation to one of the sheds at the back of Aleks’s property.
It was close to midnight by the time everything was over, but even if Laurel was most likely going to be asleep, I didn’t dare go home until I got myself cleaned up.
A glance at my reflection in the plate-glass shop window that hadn’t been busted out showed dried blood caked down half my face like a macabre goatee.
The last few days, Laurel had been withdrawn and anxious, and I suspected she still blamed herself for me putting the grand opening on indefinite hold.
The few times I was able to see her, she tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, but her facade had finally broken down, and before I gave her the assignment that was supposed to distract her, she looked like she was living with a ghost.
I wasn’t about to add to that by showing up at home looking like this, because if I knew Laurel at all, she might still be up, eagerly researching new vineyard locations.
As much as I would have loved to wave a magic wand and put a stop to this particular family problem, there was no power on earth that would keep us from having a new one eventually. Everyone wanted to fuck with the Fokins.
Instead of going home, I followed Aleks to his place to get a shower and change into blood-free clothes, and fix my face as best I could when it felt like my nose would be the size of a cantaloupe in a few hours.
When I arrived, Katie was waiting with ice packs and pain relievers for both of us, not at all ruffled.
Would Laurel ever be able to live this way, accepting busted noses and broken bones and so much damn blood for my sake? She sure hadn’t looked too happy with me when I left without any explanation once again.
As soon as Aleks was alerted that his new prisoner had come around and was pleading for his life, he turned to me.
“You want to help out? You caught him.”
“Yeah, why not,” I said. It looked like I’d be spending the night, and possibly most of tomorrow, away from home, in order to look less like I’d been hit by a board the next time I faced Laurel.
“Don’t have too much fun,” Katie joked, waving as we headed out as if we were going to the farmer’s market to get her some fresh tomatoes and not to her husband’s torture shed.
How could I ask Laurel to live a life like this?
Aleks’s property was huge, tucked far back into the hills, and we walked in silence most of the way, until I finally broke it with a question I hoped wouldn’t get me smashed in the face again.
“Do you ever feel bad about it?”
He looked down the path toward the soundproofed toolshed he used for interrogations, furrowing his brow in confusion. “Why should I?”
“No, I meant Katie. She didn’t grow up like us, right? How did she adapt?”
He chuckled. “Sometimes I think she’s more bloodthirsty than any of us. She knows I don’t start things. She’s fine with me finishing them, though.”
“Laurel still doesn’t know what we do,” I admitted. “She probably thinks I have a problem with strip clubs since I’m out all night with no explanation.”
“Then tell her the truth already,” he said, as if it were so easy. “She’s your wife.”
Yes, she was, and she would stay that way. Was it so wrong for me not to want her to hate me, though?
We arrived at the shed, where a guard was standing near the door. After a nod from Aleks, he unlocked it, and we both went in. I had only punched the guy once, but it was clear someone else had taken a few liberties since he arrived there.
One of his eyes was swollen shut when he looked up at the sound of the door, squinting painfully when Aleks snapped on the overhead light. As soon as he recognized the head of our family, as well as the guy who captured him, he started thrashing against the ropes tying him to the folding chair.
He almost tipped himself over, and Aleks’s foot jutted out to kick him back into place. A single barked command to knock it off did the trick, and he went still.
“Please,” he said, spitting out a mouthful of blood. Idiot bit his own tongue in his panic. He must have been new at this. “I already said I’d tell you everything I know. I don’t give a shit about the Collective or whatever the fuck they call themselves now. I just want to get out of here alive.”
“So you recognize the name Yuri Drugov?” Aleks asked, staring at him coldly in the clinical overhead light.
He nodded vigorously, then groaned at the pain that caused. “Yes, he’s in charge. He hired me, but I’m not from here, and I don’t give a shit about what he wants. I just want to go home.”
“Where’s home?” Aleks asked.
The man sniveled for a moment before answering, clearly afraid for his family. “Calistoga,” he finally said. “It’s up north.”
“Napa Valley?” I asked, stepping forward.
The man nodded, then really looked at me. “I know who you are.”
“I’m the guy who’ll end you if you don’t keep talking,” I said. “Do you also know someone named Rand Eckvald?”
I could sense Aleks looking at me, wondering why I was taking over when I was only supposed to be background intimidation, but he waited in silence for the man’s answer.
“He’s the asshole who got me into this,” he said, bursting into tears.
Aleks sighed impatiently and kicked the leg of his chair. “What does he have to do with Drugov? Or us?”
“I don’t know that, and that’s the truth,” he said, still crying and now ducking his head like he expected a blow. “But he sent me down here and set me up with some guys who work with Drugov to help shake down some restaurant.”
“That’s my restaurant,” I growled, my fists clenching. “You threw those bottle bombs?”
“Yeah, it had to be those bottles. I brought them down with me. It’s fucking stupid, and I wish I never started working for him, but…”
“He paid you a shitload of money, and you got greedy.” Aleks filled in the rest as he nodded miserably, tears mingling with the blood on his face.
“I didn’t think anyone would get hurt.”
“What about the shooting?” I demanded, thinking he must have been either the driver or the one who ran away. “You could have killed someone.”
“I don’t know about any shooting, I swear. I just made the firebombs and met up with Drugov’s guys who had the truck and…” he stopped. “Swear you’ll let me go and I’ll tell you the last thing I know.”
“How about you tell us before I start peeling your fingernails off,” Aleks snapped.
He blubbered for a few more minutes but eventually calmed down, realizing he had no choice. “The last thing I was supposed to arrange was to let those guys know there’s a bounty on some woman’s head.”
My blood went cold, and I could feel Aleks’s eyes on me, but I could only glare down at the prisoner, wanting to wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze. Until his damn head came off.
“What woman?” My tone made him flinch. “Tell me now before I rip your tongue out and you’ll never say another word again.”
“Her name’s Laurel Harris. She works at that restaurant, but we weren’t supposed to kill her. It’s part of the deal to get the money for her. She’s got to be delivered alive and unharmed.”
The bright light over the prisoner’s head started slowly fading, taken over by my growing black rage. Rand wanted her unharmed so he could inflict it all himself. And he was so far gone in his egomaniacal need to control her that he was willing to mix himself up with the mob.
He didn’t expect the mob to be on Laurel’s side, though.
No time to explain to Aleks why, I turned and took off out of the shed, not giving a shit what his decision for the prisoner would be.
Fear and fury drove me on. There were no thoughts except to get back home and make sure Laurel was all right, even if it meant she saw my bashed-in face and the blood on my hands.
The secrets I was keeping were going to get her killed. It was time to tell her everything and deal with the fallout. I didn’t know how I made it home, didn’t have a single recollection of any traffic lights or when I turned left or right. I just needed to get to her and keep her safe.
No matter what it cost, she had to know the truth, even if it meant she’d hate me forever.