Dimitri (9 page)

"No, but Dimitri wasn't very happy."

"Boy, those UpStreet guys aren't very smart.
There's a giant Russian ex-soldier living upstairs and they think
it's a good idea to send around one of their goons to strong-arm
you?"

"They may not be very smart but
they're ruthless. I'm one of the few businesses standing in their
way. Carl, the goon," I clarified, "said that the
generous
offer they made
would expire on Monday."

"Dickheads," she muttered.

I smiled sadly in agreement. "He basically
threatened to go behind my back and buy Johnny's share of the
business to force my hand."

"Assholes!" She nervously teethed her lower
lip. "Do you think Johnny would sell out to them?"

"Lately, all he talks about is making money." I
ran my finger over the edge of the table. "He wants that flashy
lifestyle of the drug runners in his gang, you know? Cars, nice
clothes, jewelry, hot girls—but that stuff costs money. God knows
he's not about to lift a finger to find a real job."

"After the crap I've watched you and Erin go
through with siblings, I am so glad I'm an only child." She reached
out and touched my hand. "What are you going to do? Have you talked
to Johnny?"

I shook my head. "I tried calling him this
morning but he didn’t answer. He's been hanging out with this girl
and I'm pretty sure he spent the night with her."

"Uh-oh." With a wicked smile, she asked, "Does
she have Sharpie eyebrows and wear lip liner this
thick?"

I laughed as she drew a wide line around her
mouth in the way so many of those girls preferred. "No on the lip
liner but yes on the eyebrows."

"I knew it!" She giggled gleefully.
"Can you believe there was a time when I thought those tough
cholas
were so cool? I
wanted to be one of them."

"When did you wise up?"

Her smile vanished. "My friend,
Mireya, thought that the only way she could get respect was to join
one of the gangs in our old neighborhood. They beat the shit out of
her as part of the jump-in ceremony but that wasn't enough. Later,
they made her
pull the
train
. We were in eighth grade,
Benny."

Lena's anguished expression tore at me and I
squeezed her hand. Pulling the train was street slang for having
sex with multiple guys in a gang. I'd heard some of the girls had
to throw dice for their number. It was horrific and awful and so
degrading.

Inhaling a long breath, she said, "After that,
I wised up and realized the only way I was getting out of there was
to work hard and go to college. I was going to stand on my own two
feet and make my own way."

"And you have," I said, releasing her hand.
"You're amazing, Lena. Look at you! Twenty-four years old and
you've got a great job. You have friends who love you. You're going
places."

"Alone," she replied softly. "I guess the
trade-off to being strong and independent is that it scares off a
lot of men."

"The wrong men," I countered. "The right guy?
He's going to see how totally wonderful you are and snatch you
right up."

"Like Dimitri finally snatched you?"

I sighed as the troubling uncertainties
returned. "I don’t know. I'm not sure what he wants with me. Like
was last night the start of a real relationship or is this just a
sex thing?"

"So ask him. He's a straight shooter. He'll
tell you one way or the other and then you'll know."

I hesitated before telling her about the offer
he'd made. "He wants to buy Johnny's share of the
business."

"Whoa!" She sat fully back in her chair. "What
did you say?"

"I asked him not to do it. I don't want money
between us. That's weird, right? I mean, nothing good can come from
that."

Lena didn't answer immediately. Finally, she
said, "Benny, it depends on the couple. Look at Ivan and Erin. She
lives with him now. He supports her while she's in school but he
makes it perfectly clear that she's not in any way indebted to him.
He helps her out because he loves her and he wants her to follow
her dreams. From the outside, it looks unbalanced but on the
inside?" She shook her head. "They're on equal footing. They're
partners."

"Dimitri said he wanted to be my partner before
we got interrupted by Adam."

"Okay, I have to hear this. Interrupted where?
How?"

I rolled my eyes. "It's not what you're
thinking. We were hugging in the kitchen." I reluctantly added, "He
wasn't wearing a shirt so it looked sort of—"

"Hot?" she interrupted with a smile. "Sexy?
Delicious?"

I laughed. "You're not going to let this go,
are you?"

"Oh, honey, you have no idea. I need something
to distract me from the crap storm in my own life. This is just too
yummy to pass up!"

Concerned, I asked, "What's wrong? Can I
help?"

Lena hesitated before exhaling roughly, the
whoosh of pent-up air carrying her frustrations. "So you know how
I've been at the firm for a while now, right? I mean, I was an
intern during my senior year of college and then they hired me on
full-time before I'd even graduated. I took 716 from launch to
Houston's best nightspot by working my ass off and giving
everything I had to make it a success, but did my jerk-face manager
ever give me any recognition?"

"No?" It wasn't a hard guess to
make.

"Hell no!" She tapped her richly
manicured nails on the tabletop. "I'm constantly out there working
my contacts, surveying the readers of my blog and listening to the
feedback I get on social media. I
listen
to what the people who go to
clubs say. I try to innovate and come up with new ideas using that
research. I knew that once Yuri Novakovsky opened his new place
that 716 was really going to have to up its game to keep traffic
flowing through the front door. Guess what the jackass Harry
did?"

I winced. "Stole your ideas?"

"Yep." Anger laced her voice. "And
he didn't just steal them and present them as his own. No, no, no.
He
gave
them to
the team at that Russian's new club so he could get a job. So now
my club is getting spanked and I'm getting threatened with losing
my job if I don't turn things around like this fast." She snapped
her fingers. "And on a shoestring budget, of course. How they
expect me to compete with that Russian and his endless pockets I
will never understand!"

I felt awful for her. It seemed like an
untenable situation. "What are you going to do?"

"I don’t know." She sounded so conflicted. "On
one hand, I really enjoy the firm. I feel like I've learned so much
there and I had a great mentor until she moved to Atlanta. Lately,
I feel like I'm floundering though. I'm not growing. I
feel…stagnant."

"So make a change," I counseled. "Why not
strike out on your own? Or maybe do something on a smaller scale.
You have a huge advantage with your social media presence and your
contacts and your network."

"It's something I've been thinking about," she
admitted. "There are a handful of us at the firm and a rival place
that are on the same wavelength. We're young. We're tech savvy.
We're comfortable taking some risks. The idea of forming our own
group has been floated but it's a big, complicated step, you
know?"

"Oh, I know."

With a snort of derision, she said, "Can you
believe that Russian jerk tried to headhunt me after he fucked me
over like that?"

"Who? Yuri?"

Lena nodded. "Hell yeah. He had one of his
drivers waiting for me when I came out of work on Monday. I'd never
ridden in a car like that so I thought screw it. I met him at his
skyscraper downtown. He offered me a nice salary and benefits
package but the contract had some clauses in it that didn't sit
well with me. I'm not that naïve!"

"I can't believe he would offer you a job after
stealing your ideas."

"Right?" Her lips settled into a tight line.
"Fool me once, you know?"

"So you told him no?"

"Hell yes! And then you know what he did? He
came onto me and asked me out to his yacht for the weekend. Who
does that? I mean, did he want to hire me because he respects my
work or because he thinks I have a hot ass? How you can work for
someone like that?" She shook her head. "It felt so grimy. I told
him off and got out of there. I'm not stupid enough to be the next
PR girl who ends up flat on her ass without a job after Yuri has
had me flat on my back."

"Wow! Lena, this is like the plot to a soap
opera!"

"Between you, me, Erin and Vivi, we could write
one hell of a screenplay!" She checked her watch and frowned. "I
have a meeting in twenty minutes. I should hit the road." She
tapped the folders she'd brought me. "Remember about the delivery
coming later, okay? There's a map of the fairgrounds in here. It
should be easy to find your spot in the morning."

"I'll be there, bright-eyed and bushy
tailed."

Lena slid her purse onto one shoulder and
grasped the handle of her satchel. She eyed me critically. "Wear
something a bit flirty, okay? No jeans." With a teasing smirk, she
suggested, "Let Dimitri pick something out for you. I'm sure he
knows what looks smoking hot on you."

I groaned and denied my desire to flip her off
for teasing me so badly. Laughing, I said, "Get out!"

She snickered and headed for the door. "Eight
o'clock, remember? We'll be waiting for you!"

I waved and watched her disappear around the
corner of the building. I didn't immediately get up and return to
the kitchen. No, I sat there and watched the lunch time hustle and
bustle.

The bakery and the small café in the front room
were a meeting point for so many people in the neighborhood. The
bus stop a block down drew in workers who relied on public
transportation. They stopped in for an affordable hot breakfast or
a quick lunch. Many of them worked long hours on their feet and
seemed to enjoy a quiet rest while reading the paper and enjoying
their meal.

Everything Lena said about preserving history
and the integrity of the neighborhood really hit home with me. My
heart ached at the idea of losing all this. I just didn't know if
the business could be saved. This location, this neighborhood, was
in its death throes. Even if I managed to hold off Jonah Krause for
a few months, he'd find a way to push me out of the building. He'd
used his contacts at city hall to bury other businesses. I would be
one in a long line to fall to that ruthless, money-grubbing
man.

Dimitri's offer to buy Johnny's share had been
a nice gesture but it wouldn't stop the inevitable. Shooting down
his offer probably wasn't the kindest thing but the idea of putting
money between us made me nervous.

His mention of us being partners still
intrigued me. I just hoped he didn't mean only in the business
sense.

* * *

There weren't many waiting rooms Dimitri
enjoyed but the one outside Yuri's downtown Houston office was one
of them. His old friend had recently moved his headquarters to
Texas and now owned the city's most beautiful skyscraper. His
international holdings only occupied the top ten floors. The rest
he rented out as office space to law firms, accounting firms and
the like.

As he waited for his old friend, Dimitri
chatted briefly with Jake, one of the bodyguards he'd trained for
Yuri. The former Marine had been a bouncer on his roster when he'd
plucked him out of that line of work and groomed him to protect
Yuri. Jake seemed to like the work, especially the traveling, and
the money was damn good.

Alone with his thoughts after Jake stepped
away, Dimitri glanced around the waiting room. Like everything Yuri
touched, he'd made sure to have the place redone with such
opulence. Everything was sleek and modern with walls of glass and
water features. Most of the art hanging on the grey walls confused
Dimitri but the two pieces he recognized as Vivian's work drew his
gaze. He stood in front of them as he waited for Yuri, just looking
at the bold strokes of color and the faint human shapes in
them.

"Thought provoking, yes?" Yuri strode over to
join him. He tilted his head and stared at the canvases. "I'm still
not sure what they are but I can't stop looking at them. Has she
asked you to sit for that new project of hers?"

Dimitri nodded. "I went to her studio three
weeks ago. Are you going to let her take a look at your
tattoos?"

"Sure." He shrugged. "It's a fascinating
concept. I'm interested to see the final collection. Everything she
creates is so hauntingly beautiful."

"She's talented." Slipping into his mother
tongue felt so easy and nice. It lent an air of privacy to their
conversation.

Yuri hummed with agreement. "And completely
oblivious to how much Nikolai cares for her."

Dimitri shot him a warning look. "You and I
both know there's a reason he wants it that way."

Yuri shrugged. "It was a long time ago,
Dimitri. I think it's time he forgave himself for that little
accident."