Page 78 of Mistaken
“Yeah…” I tried to remember, “uh, Giovanni and Dario.”
“Hot as balls?” Tania interrupted, “Really tall and built? That olive skin and dark hair that Italians have that is just-” She made a chef’s kiss gesture.
I laughed, shaking my head. “They looked hot from a distance. We never met them, Maksim just pointed them out to me, saying it was a tragedy the oldest brother got none of the brains in the family.”
“Well,” she shrugged, “I’m pretty sure you scared him off.”
Looking out at the elaborate streetlights lining the avenues in Hudson Yard, I hoped she was right.
The next day…
After seeing my sisters-in-law off at the airport together, Maksim returned home with me and promptly closed himself off in his study with Yuri and a couple of his senior advisors. So, I made my way to the gym for a long session of bitter yoga.
While heading back, I noticed Alina hastily leaving the office with an empty drink tray and ice bucket. I still felt a surge of deeply satisfying spite that Maksim’s fancy-dancy booze was on a rush order from Moscow and that they’d had some issues getting the limited-edition Waterford crystal ice bucket and glasses he was so fond of. It almost made up for the fact that he was no longer sneezing from his covert exposure to cat dander. But the interesting thing? She left the door cracked. She was always so careful to close the study door firmly, blocking the sound from within.
Stepping closer, I leaned against a little alcove in the wainscoting that held a beautiful Fabergé egg on a stand. This kept me out of the line of sight of the men inside the study, but I could hear pretty well. “...the man was not quite himself by then, but his explanation was clear enough. This mysterious enemy uses an odorless gas, piped into the location and rendering those inside helpless long enough to take them down. The gas also has an effect similar to Rohypnol, affecting the victim’s memory and making identification of the enemy near impossible. Quite an elegant thing, actually.”
I didn’t recognize the voice, but he sounded quite impressed with this magical gas that was responsible for the deaths of so many of Maksim’s people.
Speak of the devil. “Thank you, Bogdan. A gas. Knowing you, Yuri, I’m certain you’ve already sent someone in to find a sample in the latest warehouse shooting?”
“Yes, Pakhan.”
I smiled in spite of myself. My dear brother-in-law always balanced that fine line of respect for his Bratva chief and totally laughing at his brother at the same time.
This time, he was definitely erring on the side of respect. “We found nothing. The chemist I hired speculated it was a quick-dissolving compound, but there was no residue he could find to test.”
My brow furrowed. Even with the scraps of information I’d parsed together, there was nothing about a gas used during the attacks before. I’m assuming the intel came from one of the poor souls they’d managed to capture.
“Anything else?” Maksim’s voice was sharp.
Another long sigh from someone likely flown in from the home country, based on the thick accent. “The Yilmas cartel has canceled their standing order with us. This is a loss of around sixty million dollars annually. There is concern that they have found a new supplier through Kazakhstan.”
“That would point back to the new Sokolov hellhound,” Yuri said.
Maksim made a rumbling noise in his chest that I recognized as his effort to keep from smashing the room to bits. “We have new reinforcements coming in tonight from the Turgenev Bratva. Patrick, make sure the Brigadiers are there to get them assigned to their units.”
“Yes, Pakhan.”
I grinned; I’d know that Irish brogue anywhere. Footsteps just about to turn the corner from the kitchen into the main hall jolted me out of my hidey-hole and into walking briskly down the hall, toweling the sweat off my forehead for extra effect. Ludmilla nearly ran into me with the drinks tray, scowling as we dodged each other.
“Good afternoon, Ludmilla.” I always greeted her, every day. More of that killing-with-kindness approach that still wasn’t working with Alina, most likely because I kept thinking about the killing part.
The housekeeper managed the barest of nods as I passed her.
Maksim…
With another exhausting, infuriating meeting done, I yanked off my tie, heading down to our bedroom to change and go beat a punching bag to death. Ella was sitting in the big wingback chair by the lit fireplace, her laptop open. She was completely focused on whatever she was reading and gave a little yelp when I closed the door.
“What are you reading?” I’m pulling off my dress shirt and enjoying the fact that her gaze keeps coming back to my bare chest every time she tried to drag it away.
“Uh…” My wife’s eyes are drifting down, following my hands as I unzip my pants and drop them. “I…”
With a grin, I hooked my thumb in the waistband of my boxer briefs and she shut the laptop abruptly.
“Just boring stuff,” she stammers, her gaze fixed on me. “What’s um… what’s your plan today?”
I lean down, my hands on the armrests of her chair and caging her in. “Well, I was planning to work out my aggression on my boxing equipment in the gym.”
