NIKOLAI (Her Russian Protector #4) (37 page)

When the detectives were finished questioning
me, I couldn't get them out of our house fast enough. David was a
little harder to get out the front door but he left finally. When
the outsiders were gone, I searched out Kostya and found him in the
office barking orders into his phone. He caught sight of me and
frowned.

Holding up a hand, he finished his call and
pocketed his phone. "I don't know where he went."

Panic gripped me. Had he gone after Grisha
alone? My brain raced to compute the options. "His car has
GPS."

Kostya shook his head. "He disabled it months
ago. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"

"He's probably trying to find
Grisha."

Kostya's eyes widened. "Grisha? From
Moscow?"

I nodded. "Nikolai suspects he's the one
masterminding all this." I frowned with confusion. "Didn't he tell
you?"

"No." Kostya's clipped answer showed such
displeasure.

"Oh God."

"Calm down." Kostya touched my shoulder. "As
they say around here—this isn't his first rodeo. He wouldn’t have
left you without saying goodbye if he didn't intend to
return."

He meant it to be comforting but it only scared
me that much more. "Kostya—"

"I'll find him. Sergei was only a short
distance behind the boss. It will be all right. He'll be home
soon."

Sensing Kostya wanted to get rid of me so he
could get back to finding Nikolai or Grisha, I spun on my heel. On
the verge of hyperventilating, I left the office in a daze and
eventually wandered into the library. Shutting the door behind me,
I sank to the floor and started to cry. First Eric was missing and
now Nikolai. I had no doubt that Grisha had lured him away from the
house.

The clove-scented monster of my nightmares
wasn't going to agree to a simple exchange for Eric. He would want
blood—my Nikolai's blood. I couldn't let my husband die. Not now.
Not after everything we'd managed to survive all these
years.

But what do I do?

Surrounded by the piles and stacks of wedding
gifts, I tried to think of something, anything, that might help me
figure out where Nikolai had gone. I'd never felt more out of my
depth in my life. It occurred to me that if I'd stayed on the path
my father had intended for me, I would have been in a much better
position to help my husband now. The irony of that didn't escape
me.

My father…

His parting words that night at the gallery hit
me again. He'd made a remark about my wedding registry and giving
me a gift.

Suddenly, I was taken back to my ninth
birthday. He'd been on parole at the time and forbidden from seeing
me by my grandparents. That hadn't stopped him. I'd gone upstairs
one evening to find a birthday gift sitting on my bed. Inside I'd
discovered a simple cell phone with one phone number programmed
into it.

I clambered to my feet and started knocking
over the boxes in search of a gift tag with my father's
handwriting. I believed with every fiber of my being that I would
find one. My old man was nothing if not sentimental.

Just as I began to despair and doubt myself, I
found it. The silver box wrapped with white sparkling tulle looked
nondescript and generic enough. The oval tag had one letter
scribbled on it—R.

I ripped into the box, shredding the
tulle and paper like a cat, and dumped the contents onto the rug. A
brand new burner phone and charger tumbled out with a
thunk
. I snatched up the
phone and pressed the power button. It had a full battery and one
text message waiting for me.

If you need me…

I'd never needed my father more. Whether or not
he would come through for me was anybody's guess.

But I had to try. For Nikolai's sake, I'd try
anything—even if it meant making a deal with my personal
devil.

Fingers trembling, I tapped at the screen and
dialed the number he'd sent with his message. The phone rang twice
before he answered. There was no excited greeting.

"If you want to save your husband and your
cousin, put on your coat and meet me outside right now."

"Now?" I walked to the bay window and glanced
out at the street. I didn't see anything.

"We've been waiting for your call. I was about
to resort to Plan B."

I doubted I would have liked Plan B very much.
"Who is we?"

"You'll see soon enough. We're coming down the
street. There won't be much time."

Though my stomach pitched violently and my
heart raced so fast I was sure I would have a heart attack, I
turned away from the window and ran across the library to the door.
As I rushed to the front door, I snatched my coat from the hanger
in the entryway. The heavy stained glass door made a yawning noise
as I pushed it open.

The squealing alerted Danny and Kostya who came
running onto the porch after me. I ignored their shouts and
sprinted down the picturesque sidewalk to the sleek black car
hurrying down the road.

Before it came to a full stop, the back door
opened. I didn't think twice. I practically dove inside. The door
slammed shut and the car raced away from Nikolai's house and the
men he'd entrusted to care for me. I was either doing the bravest
thing ever—or the stupidest.

"Put that on that seatbelt. I'd had for the
mother of my future grandchildren to end up dead in a car
accident."

The gravelly voice addressing me in Russian
momentarily stunned me. My eyes finally acclimated to the dimness
of the car with heavily tinted windows. I realized I wasn’t sitting
next to my father. No, I wasn't sitting next to
Nikolai's.

Maksim Prokhorov arched a bushy white eyebrow.
Unwilling to question him, I grabbed my seatbelt and jammed it into
place. My father turned around in the front passenger seat. "We
don't have much time. You have to make a choice."

"A choice?" I squeaked nervously. "What
choice?"

Maksim leveled an icy glare my way. "You
decide, right now and right here. Do you want to be a mob wife or a
mob widow?"

"What?" I clutched my coat tightly to my chest.
"I don't understand."

"I know where Grisha is holding your cousin and
my son—but my driver isn't going to take us there until you decide
what you want with my Nikolai."

"Are you blackmailing me?"

"I prefer persuading."

"So what? You want me to promise I won't try to
get Nikolai to leave your family? Is that it?"

"Basically," Maksim agreed. "He loves you more
than he'll ever love us but I can't let him go."

There was no time to consider the options or
possibilities. "I love him. I want him alive. Even if that means
we're stuck in this life forever."

A cold smile curved Maksim's mouth. "I knew I'd
like you."

The driver took a hard left and punched the
gas. Avoiding my father-in-law's chilly stare, I asked, "Where are
we going?"

"Where it all began," Maksim said
roughly.

My father produced that horrifying machete of
his and began to wipe the gleaming blade. "And where it all
ends."

* * *

Though he hadn't driven through this middle
class neighborhood since that terrible April night when he'd nearly
killed Vivian, Nikolai didn't have any problem finding the house in
question. He parked in an alley a few blocks over and walked to the
rear fence of the house.

During the housing boom, this area had been
prime for real estate flipping. He and his crew had made a killing
in neighborhoods like these. They'd bought cheap, done some
cosmetic upgrades and sold at sky-high prices.

With the fall of the housing market, the
neighborhood was suffering like many others. He spotted a shocking
number of foreclosure and for sale signs. If he'd been worried
about being seen or reported, he wasn’t now. The neighborhood was
mostly vacant.

His thoughts naturally turned to the day he'd
only barely managed to save Yuri and Lena from Katya and Jake.
Lena's old neighborhood looked a fucking war zone but it had been
easy to get in and out without being seen. Knowing that Grisha had
been behind Katya made the similarities between that day and this
one so very eerie.

He slipped into the backyard through a side
gate and made his way to the door leading into the kitchen. Even
before he stepped inside, the thudding beat of music met his ears.
If Grisha was hurting Eric, he'd want that noise to cover his
sins.

The vomit-inducing odor of decomposition
punched Nikolai right in the face when he entered the house. He
prayed that it wasn't Eric's dead body he smelled. Vivian would
never forgive herself if she lost him to murder.

He walked across the kitchen as quietly as
possible. It looked exactly as it had the last time he'd been here.
The tile, the countertops and the faded paint colors were exactly
the same.

But the two blonde corpses propped up at the
dining table were new.

Hadn't Ivan said Eric had left with two
blondes? No doubt these were the unfortunate women Grisha had paid
or manipulated into luring Santos away from the reception. He'd
obviously taken them home with him—and then what? Had they attacked
him? Had Grisha been lying in wait?

In that moment, Nikolai realized that Grisha
had gone off the fucking deep end. His ghoulish fascination with
posing the dead was pure insanity. This might have started as a
stupid territorial tiff and simple jealousy back in Russia but it
had gone to crazy places Nikolai probably couldn't even comprehend.
Grisha was mad and extremely dangerous.

Suddenly the gun tucked into his waistband
didn't feel like enough protection. He questioned his decision to
leave without informing Kostya. A little backup would have been
nice right about now.

Thumping upstairs got his attention. Was it the
detective? Was he still alive? Injured? Bleeding to
death?

Nikolai gathered his courage and climbed the
stairs. The bitter metallic stink of fresh blood grew stronger as
he cautiously ascended to the second floor. Knowing Grisha's love
of twisted sentimentality, he smartly guessed that Santos was in
the master bedroom where Nikolai had shot Vivian.

With his heart beating in this throat, Nikolai
pushed open the door. He hesitated before stepping inside the
strangely padded room. Grisha had covered the windows and walls
with sound-dampening paneling. He'd taken a page of out Kostya's
playbook and tacked plastic over the floor. The amount of
preparation revealed Grisha had been here for some time, waiting
for his chance to strike.

Suspended by his ankles from a reinforced box
mounted to the ceiling, Eric struggled to free himself. His hands
were tied behind his back and he'd been gagged. His naked body
sported so many bruises and tiny nicks. The razor thin cuts
covering his belly and back and chest were similar to the ones
Nikolai had seen on those bodies dumped at Samovar. Blood and sweat
pooled on the plastic beneath him.

"Jesus Christ." Nikolai's harsh whisper sounded
incredibly loud in the room. Eric's panicked gaze skipped to his
face. He twisted to see better but had to keep blinking because of
the blood rushing down his face.

Nikolai glanced around the room but didn't see
Grisha hiding anywhere. No doubt he was lurking in some other part
of the house. Rather than seeking him out, Nikolai rushed to
Santos' aid. The man was wounded but he could still be useful. Two
were much better odds than one-on-one.

Wordlessly, Nikolai jerked the blade out of the
boot sheath he wore everywhere. He tugged the gag out of the
detective's mouth before sawing at the ropes binding the other
man's ankles.

"Hurry," Eric hissed. "He's in the bathroom
down the hall. I think he keeps his crack pipe there."

"Crack?" Nikolai managed to get one of Eric's
legs free. The added weight jerking on the detective's still-bound
ankle made him grunt. Nikolai tried to hold him up as he sawed at
the second set of thick knots.

"This guy is high as a fucking kite and out of
his mind. He's smoking crack and snorting meth. He's a total
psychopath." He shuddered violently. "I think he was making it with
those dead girls. The sounds from down there—"

"Enough." Nikolai cut him off with a hiss. He
didn't want to hear all those disgusting details. He wanted to get
Eric free, kill Grisha and get the hell out of here.

"Ah-ah-ah." Appearing in the doorway, Grisha
menacingly wagged a sawed-off shotgun at them. "Are you trying to
steal my toy?"

Nikolai couldn't believe the change in the man
he'd once considered a friend. Thin and drawn, Grisha looked as if
he'd been on a week-long meth bender. He absentmindedly scratched
at one of the weeping sores on his neck. "You always were a greedy
fucker, Nikolai."

Hoping to shield Santos, Nikolai slowly edged
around the poor man who still dangled from one leg. "I seem to
remember you were always the one skimming more than your fair share
and dipping into the product."