“You’ll call me when you have her?”
“How you decide to lie and say you caught her is up to you, Stephen, although, I do hope you make it an interesting story. I don’t care for boring tales.”
He nodded once. “My younger self would roll in his grave if he knew I was making a deal with a mobster.”
“Don’t think of it as a deal then, Stephen. Think of it as a gift. I give you a gift, and one day, you’ll return the favor.”
Kavinsky looked out the window at the Vory that were guarding the car. “Quite the gift.”
“I always exceled at Christmas.”
“You give me Tatiana and one day I return the favor.”
“Indeed.”
Kavinsky, the smart man, held out his hand.
I shook it, confirming the bargain.
“I look forward to working with you in the future, Stephen,” I said, as he opened the door to leave. “You and I will be great friends.”
The agent had enough common sense to pale at my words. He had been working with organized crime long enough to know the rumors that mobsters were good friends to have simply wasn’t true.
SSA Stephen Kavinsky belonged to me now.
And he knew that.
“Roman, give that man some bagel money,” I instructed out the window. “We owe him one.”
Roman laughed cruelly, slapping the old agent on the back and passing him a bill. The FBI agent barely reacted, clutching the cash in his hand and then disappearing into the crowd of bodies.
My phone rang on the way back to the estate.
“Konstantin Tarkhanov,” I answered.
“It’s done, Uncle Kostya.”
Natasha.
There was only one thing she was referring to.
“All hail to the new Queen of Russia.”
Her laughter was high and piercing, girlish and horrifying. I could picture the destiny she had in front of her, imagining the empire she would carve from the bones of her father. Natasha would be a Pakhan like the world had never seen, and the legacy she would leave behind would forever alter the world of the mafia and criminals.
“Give Kolya my love,” she said. “I’ll be waiting for him.”
She hung up.
~~~
“Is Mama back?”
I looked from my desk, spotting my son standing in the door. He was dressed in his pajamas, hair sticking out at odd places. By his feet, Babushka stood–she had been especially attached to him lately, like she knew he was missing his mother.
My heart ached but I told him the truth. “No, my boy. Not yet.”
Niko’s face fell.
If not for my son, I would’ve succumbed to worry long ago.
Nikolai kept me grounded on Earth and stopped me from worrying about his mother too much. After all, if his teeth got rotten because I didn’t make him brush or he didn’t eat all his vegetables and got scurvy, Elena would have my head. Taking care of my son was the only way I felt like I was also taking care of my wife, even if she was in enemy territory.
“Can’t you sleep?”
He shook his head.
“Do you want to sit with me?”
Niko scrambled over, climbing into my lap. He was flushed and sweaty from being rolled up in his blankets. I held him to my chest, kissing his forehead.
My boy, I thought, pride clutching my chest. My son.
Babushka leaped onto my desk, making herself comfortable over my keyboard.
“I miss Mama,” he grumbled.
“Me too, buddy.”
“When she come back?”
I let his incorrect grammar slide. “She will be home before you know it. I promise.”
Niko sighed deeply, nestling further into my arms. I rubbed his back.
“Do you want me to put you to bed?”
He shook his head, mumbling, “Stay here.”
“Okay, you can stay as long as you want.”
My son fell asleep in my arms, snoring softly in time with the rising and falling of my chest. It was these moments I made sure to remember, to treasure. I may not have nursed him to sleep when he was an infant, but I had these blips in time, where the thrum of my heartbeat was the lullaby that soothed him to sleep.
I gave up on doing work, choosing to sit quietly with my son.
An article was up on my screen.
RUSSIAN MOBSTERS DIE IN MASS HOMICIDE.
It had been vicious and bloody, a ritual worthy of blessing a queen. From the details released from the crime scene, the victims had been locked in together. My brothers had died from spider bites but Natasha’s father...his skin had been peeled from his flesh by an expert hand. He had died from the pain and blood loss.
A fitting end, I had thought when I had first read the details. My scars that he had given me burned from my childhood memories.
Natasha’s act made me wish I had dragged out my father’s death a little longer. He’d deserved worse than he had gotten.
But it was no matter to me now. I was Pakhan, king, and I had a wife and son who loved me. My own parents were slowly disappearing into the blur of nostalgia. Why waste precious thoughts on them when I had much better things to think about?
I clicked off the article, careful not to disturb Nikolai.
One day, he would commit horrific acts that led to articles and ‘wanted’ lists and pain. But right now, he was a child, defenseless and asleep. He was a child missing his mother.
I would protect these years of innocence. No matter what I had to do.
32
Elena Tarkhanov
I stared up at the roof. There were 1972 dots, 11 stains and 3.5 cracks. Instead of sleeping, I counted the marks on the ceiling over and over until my fast-paced mind numbed enough that I could feel some semblance of relaxation.
I hated this place. I hated the concrete walls and hard mattresses and strange sounds. I longed for windows and books and my husband’s arms wrapped around me.
Tatiana and her organization had found some forgotten Cold War bunkers to hide out in. They already had beds and canned foods, making them the perfect place for a large group of people to hide out in; although the government probably hadn’t known they would house a vicious criminal instead of civilians fearing a nuclear strike.
My plan had hit a few snags. Tatiana and her people didn’t trust me in the slightest just yet. They stopped their conversations when I walked into the room and hid information from me with code words. I pretended not to notice, instead going about the work Tatiana had provided me with: research.
All things considered, I enjoyed being surrounded by information and categorizing it. I liked learning new things and having something to do.
Even if my research was, technically, helping Tatiana cause trouble.
It was a good distraction from thinking about my son. Since the day his heart had begun to beat, Nikolai and I had never been separated; there hadn’t been a single day where we hadn’t spoken or cuddled. Walking without him on my hip or by my ankles was strange, like I had lost an arm or leg. If I thought about it too much, I would crumble.
I had to remind myself. This is for him.
I even wrote those four words over my hip bone, so every time I looked in the mirror or down at my stomach, I was forced to face the truth: this is for him, this is for him.
The clock hit 6 am and I started my day.
Breakfast was held in a small cafeteria and eaten with plastics knives and forks. I sat alone, content to be ignored by Tatiana’s people. I was watching them, studying them like bugs under a microscope.