Russian Mafia Boss's Heir (18 page)

“Yes.” Stanislas bobbed his head. His eyes were glazed over. He looked mentally unbalanced in a very frightening way. “I went to her room, and I read over her shoulder. I know she knew that I was there. Don’t you think it made it worse than she would write such things when I could see them?”

“It must have hurt you very much.” Tori squirmed out of Mikhail’s arms. He set her gently on her feet but kept his arms circled around her. She was glad. She wasn’t certain she could have stood on her own anyway. Taking a deep breath, Tori waded into what was probably going to be a very difficult confession. “What did you do, Papa? When you saw what my mother wrote, what did you do?”

“I grabbed her neck.” Stanislas blinked. His hands were clenched, one of them still holding the gun. “I squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. She made horrible choking noises, but I didn’t let go. She scratched me!” He actually sounded puzzled by this fact. “It hurt, but I kept on.”

Tori felt the tears streaming down her cheeks. A few yards away, she could see Alexei crying as well. For his part, Antonin simply looked ill. It probably wasn’t every day that even a hardened Russian
mafiya
man heard the story of how his aunt was murdered in cold blood.

“Then what happened, Papa?” Tori pressed. She had a feeling that she knew, but she had to hear it firsthand. “What did you do?”

“She was dead.” Stanislas gave a shrug. His face was so vacant and his voice detached. “I didn’t mean to kill her. It just happened.”

“What did you do?” Tori needed more. She needed to hear the rest.

“I knew that I couldn’t tell anyone what had happened.” A dark frown crossed Stanislas’s face. “So I made it look like a suicide. I wrapped her neck in rope and hung her from the ceiling. It was simple. I took her down and told her family she’d killed herself. We buried her without a police autopsy. Sometimes the
mafiya
way is the best way, you know?”

Alexei made a strangled sound of horror. “You murdered her! You bastard! You killed her, and then you made it look like she took her own life and deserted her children! What kind of man does that? What kind? I want to know!” Alexei sank to his knees on the floor. He put his hands over his face though he still clutched his own weapon.

Antonin raised his weapon. The muzzle was shaking.

All four of his men carefully approached their boss, obviously searching for direction.

“What’s happening?” Blini Boy demanded softly. “What do you wish us to do?”

Antonin seemed incapable of answering.

Blini Boy looked even more worried. “Boss?”

“Just go. All of you. Go home. Tell my father what you heard here tonight. Tell him also that I will handle this.” Antonin swallowed, watching his men retreat. Once the door was closed, he spoke again. “My father is old. He would not survive a night like this one. He still insists on handling the day-to-day business, but not this. I will spare him this horror.”

“Horror?” Stanislas lifted his head, glaring at Orlov. “You turned my wife against me. Then you took my daughter.”

“Old man, you are babbling and rambling like a lunatic,” Antonin said. He sounded tired. “I want to kill you right now, but I’m not sure that would even make my point.”

“What
is
your point?” Tori asked her cousin. “You tied me up, chained me like an animal. Why? What did I ever do?”

Antonin’s face stretched into a grotesque smile. “According to your stepbrother, you were conspiring with Stanislas to murder me.”

“What?” Tori gasped. Her gaze swung to Alexei, who was still weeping quietly while he knelt in the middle of the floor. “I never.” Tori patted Mikhail’s arm to include him as well. “
We
never once conspired against you, Antonin. I only ever wanted to know the truth about my mother. Stanislas swore to me that the Orlovs had her murdered.” She gestured to her stepfather. “And we’ve seen how truthful that version of events was.”

“We have,” Antonin said quietly. “So where do we go from here?”

Mikhail stirred behind her. “We will see to Stanislas. My men and I have been preparing for this moment. He is a danger to himself and to others. Even the council will not disagree now that his actions have dragged you and your men into our family squabbles.”

“And the son?” Antonin made a gesture to include Alexei. “What will happen to him?”

“He is also our responsibility,” Tori murmured. “He is my brother. He has been separate from our family for a very long time. If he wishes to remain so, I won’t begrudge him that.”

“As long as he’s not a threat,” Mikhail growled. Tori could tell that her husband was not going to forget this incident anytime soon, if ever.

There was a pounding at the door. “Boss! Are you in there? Mikhail?”

“Come inside,” Mikhail shouted. “Bring the others with you.”

Dimitri and a dozen other Vasiliev men tumbled into the room. Dimitri immediately ran to Mikhail and gave him a one armed hug. “You’re safe! I was worried I would not find you in time.”

Tori glanced up at her enigmatic husband. “You knew? You knew this would happen, and you were all prepared for it?”

“It was Stanislas,” Mikhail reminded her. “There was absolutely no telling how the whole thing would end.” He gestured to the shackles still chafing Tori’s wrists, and then he pointed to Antonin. “Can you please remove these?”

“You planned this whole thing?” She was still thunderstruck by the notion.

Mikhail sighed and glared at Antonin. “We didn’t plan all of it. I had no idea Orlov had been brought into it.”

“We were just protecting our interests when presented with the opportunity to do so,” Antonin said with a shrug. Then he gestured to Alexei. “If I were you, I would hobble that little bastard. He’s a slippery one.”

No sooner had Antonin said it than Alexei leaped wildly to his feet and launched himself at his father. The force sent them both to the floor.

“You kill everyone I love!” He closed his hands about Stanislas’s neck and began slamming his father’s head into the ground.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Mikhail could only watch in frozen horror as Alexei beat his father. It took far too long for everyone else in the room to react. They too seemed transfixed by the sight of the son with his almost Goth-like appearance wrapping his hands around his father’s throat and trying like hell to squeeze the breath from his body.

Stanislas wasn’t about to go down without a fight, though. The old man rolled, trying to get Alexei onto his back. They grappled like schoolyard bullies, slapping, punching, and pulling hair. Stanislas grabbed fistfuls of Alexei’s hair and yanked his head back to expose his throat. Alexei seemed to gain new fervor as he fought for the upper hand.

“What do we do?” Tori whimpered. “They’re going to kill each other.”

Mikhail glanced over at Antonin and knew the other man was waiting on the outcome as well. At this point, the best possible thing that could happen would be for the two of them to wipe each other off the planet.

“Mikhail, stop them!” Tori was tugging on his arm.

“No.” This came from Antonin. “They need to get this out in the opening.”

“You killed my mother!” Alexei shouted. “And then you murdered Aloysha! I loved him, Papa!” Alexei was sobbing now. “I loved him!”

Mikhail had forgotten that one detail. Alexei had that one additional motive to see Stanislas dead. Behind him, he felt his men’s restlessness. Then Alexei lunged for the gun that he’d lost. His fingers closed around the butt of the weapon and he lifted it.

Time seemed to slow down. Alexei pointed the gun, taking aim at his father. Yet when the shot rang out through the warehouse it was Alexei who gasped and grabbed his middle. A red spot appeared on the front of Alexei’s shirt. It spread rapidly, blooming like a weed gone out of control.

Alexei fell back, his head slamming into the concrete floor of the warehouse as he stared up at the ceiling with eyes that immediately dimmed. Someone was screaming. It took Mikhail a moment to realize that it was Tori. She was clawing at Mikhail’s arms, trying to get free. He tightened his hold. He wasn’t letting his wife get anywhere near Stanislas. Not now.

“My son!” The old man shrieked. “My son is dead!”

“Holy shit.” Antonin muttered a stream of curses in Russian.

Mikhail had no sooner decided to remove the weapon from Stanislas’s possession than the old man lifted it to his own head.

“No!” Mikhail held up a hand, begging his boss not to do this irrevocable thing. “Don’t! It isn’t necessary!”

“My son is dead,” Stanislas whispered hoarsely.

It was like a movie that could not be stopped, slowed or altered in any way. Stanislas stared bleakly across the warehouse. Tori lunged at him. Mikhail’s arms were all that stopped her from flinging herself at her stepfather.

The sound of the gun was deafening. So many shots that evening, some wild, some not. And yet this one ended it all. Stanislas crumpled to the ground and was completely still.

Tori stopped screaming and began crying softly in gut wrenching sobs that shook her whole body. She slipped from Mikhail’s grasp and sank to the floor. She crawled to her stepbrother and stepfather’s bodies and laid a hand on each one. She was kneeling in a pool of their combined blood and didn’t seem to notice.

“Gone,” she sobbed. “It’s all gone. Why?”

Mikhail caught a whiff of the coppery stench of blood. It brought back memories of his mother and sister. He recalled that hopeless, helpless feeling that had so paralyzed him just after their murders. He did not want that for Tori.

“Dimitri.” Mikhail gestured his friend forward. “Have the men take care of this. We’ll have a private ceremony for both of them. No cops. Natural deaths. Make it happen.”

Dimitri put his hand on Mikhail’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze to show his solidarity. “Yes, Boss.”

Mikhail went to Tori. He scooped her up in his arms, not caring about the bloody mess on her legs. He cradled her against his chest and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She was still crying. Her eyes were closed, and her cheeks were flushed. She was exhausted and heartbroken, and he understood every bit of what she was feeling in this moment.

“Let’s go home, my love,” Mikhail whispered to her. “You will be safe there. You can take a bath and go to bed and be safe. I swear it.”

“They are gone,” she whispered.

There was nothing he could say to change the facts or do away with the pain she was going to have to process in her own way and in her own time. But he could offer comfort the best he could. “I love you, Tori,” he told her. “And we will get through this somehow. That is all I can promise you.” Then, because he wondered if she needed a reminder, he tossed in one more thing. “You have a tiny life inside of you to think about. Be strong for that baby, and I’ll be by your side the whole way. I swear on my honor.”

***

TORI HEARD HIS vow. She heard the words that preceded it, and she had the inane thought that it was so unfair that he should say such a beautiful thing
now
of all times. Her family was dead. Sort of. At least the people she had spent her life thinking of as family were dead and gone.

She was still reeling after Alexei’s seeming betrayal. There were so many things she didn’t understand. Why had Alexei gone behind her back and done something like this? Her wrists were still burning from the shackles. In fact, she still hadn’t even begun to process what had happened. She had been bound and hung by her hands like some common
mafiya
thug.

Mikhail carried her out of the warehouse and toward his SUV. The cool air helped to clear her head. It was so odd. The breeze was cool, and yet it seemed a good twenty degrees warmer out here than it had been in that horrible warehouse.

“I’m going to put you in the truck,” Mikhail murmured. “I’m not leaving you. I’m staying right here.”

“I know.” And she did.

Tori well understood his purpose in narrating his actions and letting her know in explicit terms what was happening. He was treating her like a victim, and maybe she was, although she certainly resented the label.

Mikhail slid into the driver’s seat and took a deep breath. Tori looked over at him, and then she reached out and touched his arm. “I’m going to be fine.”

“I want to take you to a doctor. Right now.”

“That wouldn’t help anything.” She really didn’t like that idea. “Can’t you have him come to the house or something? I just want to go home.”

Mikhail fumbled with his phone. “Yes. I could do that. Couldn’t I?”

She had never seen him so uncertain. “Mikhail. What’s wrong?”

“I failed.” He slammed the steering wheel with both hands. “I utterly failed you!”

“What do you mean?” Although Tori was fairly certain she knew exactly what he was referring to.

“I couldn’t protect my sister or my mother.” He rested his forehead on the steering wheel. “I was weak and I was cowardly. But now?” His body was shuddering as though he were struggling for each and every breath that entered his lungs. “I tried to plan for everything and still couldn’t protect you! They took you right from our home, Tori! They took you and they hurt you, and I was helpless to stop it.”

“Is that really how you see things?” Tori spoke softly. She understood that he was raw and hurting, and maybe not seeing things very clearly. But it was so important that she make him see things from her perspective.

“Yes! I
failed
!” He sat straight up and turned to stare at her.

Mikhail’s dark eyes were like shards of glass. The burning intensity of his regard was focused on her in such a way that she realized, in that moment, she was the entire focus of his life.

How had that happened? She had never expected more than cold duty between them. But that wasn’t how things had turned out. She loved this man. She regarded him with the sort of respect she had never given to anybody in her life. And he loved her, cherished her above all else even when there was absolutely
nothing
to gain from it.

“You didn’t fail.” Tori turned in her seat and cupped his scruffy cheeks in her hands. The bristles of his shadow beard tickled her palms. She adored the sensation. “You’ve given me confidence in myself and a place to be strong. You’ve made me able to do for myself. And you
did
rescue me. You came in and saved the day. That was what you couldn’t do for your mother and sister because you were just a little boy. Now you’re a man, and you defended and rescued your family. Nobody could ever argue with that, Mikhail.”