Found (17 page)

"I'm serious, Kaerta. It'll be war."

That didn't worry Grandfather. "Threats have never worked on me, Igroek. You know that."

"What are you saying? You approve of this?" Igroek's forehead wrinkled. The brat was right. He did look a bit like Yoda. "My heir marrying yours?"

Grandfather tapped his cigar against the ashtray. "It is not what I hoped for." That had to be a lie. Grandfather had planned all this. "But what can we do?" He shrugged. "History repeats itself."

History did not. He was not his grandfather. Tatyana was not his grandmother.

"It won't." Igroek was as certain. "They will not marry."

"We will." That Nik knew.

"You never learn, do you, Igroek?" Grandfather laughed. "Fine. If you are so certain they won't marry, then there is no harm if we add a side wager, is there?"

Grandfather would bet on his happiness? Nik scowled.

"What do you propose?" Igroek leaned forward, clearly intrigued.

"If they don't marry, you get Phoenix. If they do, I get Philadelphia."

Grandfather would never risk Phoenix. Never. He would marry Tatyana. Nik wanted to smile. He kept his face a careful blank.

"Why would you give up Phoenix?" Igroek must have thought the same thing.

"I'm hedging my bets. Nikolay is more valuable than Phoenix. This way, I don't lose, regardless of what happens." Cold hard logic from a cold hard man.

Igroek licked his lips. "You won't back them?"

"I will back you. But." Grandfather held up a ringed finger. "I don't want either of them harmed." He paused. "And your brother dies."

"If he did not take the flight." Igroek sounded less certain about that than before.

"Agreed." Grandfather reached out his hand.

"Agreed." Igroek took it. They shook, two old men deciding people's lives.

"Nikolay." This wouldn't be good. Nik braced himself. "Tell Tatyana the wedding is off."

What the hell? "No."

"Nikolay."

"No." He wouldn't move on this. Tatyana was his.

"You'll do as I say." Grandfather thumped the table, the ashtrays jumping.

"Normally, I do." One hundred percent obedience, like a damn dog. "But not in this case."

"Nikolay."

"No." He crossed his arms.

"Then leave us." He was dismissed.

Because he didn't toe the line. "I'm marrying Tatyana, Grandfather."

"I said leave us." Grandfather's tone didn't entertain refusal.

Nik left because he had nothing more to say and he needed to see Tatyana, not because Grandfather commanded him to.

Nik found Tatyana inside the Russian Orthodox Church, waving her thick wedding planning file at Stepan. "It is none of your damn business." Her language wasn't curbed by being in a house of worship. "If I find you trying to pry information out of my bodyguard again..."

Boris stared up at the ceiling. "... I will beat you into tomorrow, you hear?"

"A sermon on wrath is long overdue," the elderly priest standing beside Nik murmured. He was family. Nik was sure he'd heard worse.

"Why would DNA tests be sent to Grandfather? Why would Igroek be here?" Stepan pelted Tatyana with questions.

"Maybe he's hoping your father's not his. How the hell would I know?" Was Tatyana's smart ass reply.

"Adultery, profanity." The corners of the priest's eyes crinkled up. Father Kaerta had his work cut out for him if he planned to redeem Tatyana's soul.

"You go too far, little cousin." Stepan stepped ominously closer to Tatyana.

He dared to threaten her? "Tatyana." Nik moved to her side, putting a protective arm around his fiancee. "Stepan. You helping with the wedding?"

"No, he's not." The brat was not known for subtly.

"I hear congratulations are in order, Nikolay." Stepan smirked. "The Igroek heir. No wonder you had to fight Chan for the prize."

"Envy." The priest summed up Stepan's issue with him in one word.

"Chan knew, too?" Tatyana's eyes widened.

"No, Brat." If Chan had known, Nik would have never gotten her back. "And I didn't, either until recently, remember?"

"Right." That drew a disbelieving laugh from his cousin.

"Why are you still here?" Tatyana skewered his cousin with her mud green eyes.

Stepan opened his mouth.

To cause more trouble. "Why are you still here, Stepan?" Nik stopped him.

His cousin glared. Nik arched an eyebrow. What would he do? Nothing. At least not to his face. Stepan turned around and left. No doubt to talk to Chan and the great-uncle.

Backstabbing bastard.

Father Kaerta approached them, his wrinkled face animated. "Miss Tatyana." He took her hands. "Cousin Sergei must adore you. So like his dear departed wife." Uncontrollable. A menace to society in high heels.

The brat beamed as though she'd been given the highest compliment. "People tell me that all the time."

"I appreciate you accommodating us like this, Father Kaerta," Nik changed the subject before the priest added vanity to the list of sins to talk on.

"It is an honor, Nikolay." Another tolerant smile. "At least with your wedding, I have a day's notice. I recall attending my cousin's midnight nuptials."

"I am not my grandfather." Why did everyone think he was?

"No, no, of course not." The elderly priest assured him. "Though I suppose, as with that wedding, we should make the ceremony as short as possible?"

Tatyana laughed. "That may be prudent."

Was inviting a wife killer to a wedding prudent? Tatyana hadn't had time to argue with Nikky. When he announced they'd hand deliver Chan's invitation, she hastily addressed the envelope, wondering what other guests she'd forgotten.

"Miss Tatyana." Chan kissed her cheeks. "You are looking very much like a bride."

"Thank you." She smiled, pleased that her point had been made. The red silk mandarin-style dress had been carefully chosen to communicate to Chan she was unavailable. "Nikky and I are hoping you can attend tomorrow."

Nikky, having forced this meeting, was suspiciously quiet. He looked like he wanted to shoot the man.

"I can attend. I suspect it could be bad for my health." Chan wheezed out a cough as they walked to the backyard. "But I wouldn't dare miss it. It may well be the wedding of the decade."

Tatyana maintained her bland expression, ignoring that foreboding statement. "I don't think it will be the wedding of the decade. It'll be very simple." She hoped, having lost control of the tasks delegated to Nikky's mother and aunts.

"We're only inviting family and a few close friends." Chan wasn't family. Did that make him a close friend?

"Now an even larger family than previously thought, I'm told, Miss Tatyana." He was told?

By whom? That sneaky bastard, Stepan? "I hope you won't hold my past actions against me." He reached out a hand as though to touch her.

"Chan," Nikky cautioned.

"Miss Tatyana." Chan indicated a lounge chair instead, all politeness.

Not Chan, too. She sat, hiding her disgust at his deferential treatment. She hated the sucking up as Nikky's fiancee. Now being related to the crazy gnome, it was a thousand times worse. "As though you would have done anything differently." And as though the results would have changed. She would have still fallen in love with Nikky.

Chan claimed the chair beside her, leaving only the chair on the far side of him free, so Nikky sat with Tatyana, sliding his body underneath hers. Settled, he flashed Chan a triumphant smile.

Tatyana rolled her eyes. They were both such arrogant asses.

"If I had known, I may have changed a couple of my decisions," Chan addressed Nikky. "Or I may not have. It is impossible to get a flight from New York to Las Vegas today."

The crazy gnome was from New York. Had he told his family? Her family? Did they want to meet her? No. No, they wouldn't. Igroek didn't like her. They would mirror his feelings. The only other reason to come was to stop the wedding. She wrapped Nikky's arm tighter around her. They wouldn't be successful. She was marrying Nikky.

"This may be a good week to go someplace else," Nikky commented casually. "If you were a cautious man." Chan flicked a piece of lint off his sweater. "But cautious men never achieve true greatness. There is opportunity in risk."

She was not an opportunity. She was not a means to achieve greatness. "I'm not interested in New York," she declared. A beautiful Asian woman handed her a cup of tea. Tatyana smiled her thanks. Where was Wei?

"That's too bad, Miss Tatyana." Chan laughed as he accepted his cup. "New York is interested in you."

Tatyana waited until the woman left before asking "How is Wei?"

Chan's brown eyes cooled. "She didn't work out." He sipped his tea.

Didn't work out? Was she dead? "But...?" Tatyana looked at Nik. He shook his head. She shut her mouth. She didn't want to know, she told herself. It was better not knowing.

"My fiancee is working on seating arrangements, Chan." She was? Tatyana checked her mental list. No. One of the aunties had that job. "She asked me which family you wished to sit with. I didn't know."

"You didn't?" Chan's smile was unfriendly. "That should be obvious. I'm sitting on the groom's side."

"With the Kaerta's, then." Tatyana wanted no confusion over who her husband would be.

"Will you be bringing a guest?" If he wasn't, she'd seat the wife killer far away from any attractive females.

"No guest. I'm saving all my dances for the bride."

"The bride will be my wife."

Chan didn't comment, sipping his tea.

Igroek opposed their marriage. He might have sent for reinforcements. Chan wanted her connections for himself and had the manpower to do something about it. Stepan hated Nikky and held no great love for her. The forces of evil were aligning against them. She wouldn't allow them to be triumphant. "Let's get married tonight, Nikky." They'd launch a preemptive strike.

"Patience, Brat." Nikky smiled slowly, his eyes half closed. "Less than a day and I'm all yours."

"I can't wait. Ass." Why she was marrying him, she didn't know. "I'm serious, Nikky." Her elbow in the stomach for emphasis caused him to gasp. "Let's get married tonight."

"And tomorrow?" He secured her arms. "When all those guests you invited arrive expecting a wedding?"

"We'll get married again. No one would have to know."

"Someone would know, Brat. Someone always knows. Word will get back to our families."

He was right. Everyone in Vegas knew Nikky. Someone would rat them out. "Who the hell cares if it does? This is about you and me, us."

"Language, Brat." Nik was tempted, very tempted. Chan was right. Flights were full of men loyal to Igroek and those in service to the great uncle. It was shaping up to be a war, all over the tiny woman in his lap. "Marrying tonight won't stop anything and could hurt us. It'll piss them off, eroding what little support we have. They can force an annulment, Tatyana."

That would be a disaster. "No, Grandfather is right. We do this properly."

"I guess." Her disappointment magnified his feelings of failure. "Then stay with me tonight, Nikky." She clutched his thighs. "Spend the night."

Another temptation he had to resist. "If my grandfather doesn't shoot me, yours will. Dead men make poor husbands."

"Chicken shits make poor husbands, also. Risk it, Nikky," she pleaded. "Defy the family for me. I need you. I don't want to be alone."

He didn't, either. "I need the family's support to keep you safe, Brat. That's why they're important. You know that, don't you?"

"I know." Nik watched her face, waiting. She wouldn't give up that easily, not his Tatyana.

He didn't have to wait long. "We could do," she whispered into his ear, "page fifty-eight."

"Ahhh...." He grinned. How he loved her. "One of my favorite numbers."

"Mine, too." She wiggled.

He unzipped the back of that dress she poured her body into. "Then why wait for tonight?

We can do that here."

Every family had their own wedding traditions. The Kaerta's traditions involved the tying up of loose ends.

So on the morning of his nuptials, Nik raised his gun, his finger on the trigger, his back pressed flat against the wall and informed his men, "The old man's mine." Killing the great-uncle himself was the respectful thing to do. He'd ensure the death was clean and dignified, suiting an elder.

On his signal, Pavel kicked in the door. Gunshots rang out. Three shooters. There. Pavel downed the front man. And there. Nik dropped him. And, he pivoted on his heel, there.

Another clean shot by Pavel. The following silence was wrong. There hadn't been enough protection. Where the hell was the old man?

Nik's men fanned out around him, searching the apartment. "Clear, Boss."

"Shit." Not here. Nik sniffed. Cigar smoke. Fresh. The great-uncle had been in the room minutes, maybe even seconds before. "Someone tipped him off." Damn it. He had known they were coming.

"He'll make contact again, Boss," Pavel assured him.

When he did, they'd find him. They had men on Stepan. That was how they found the apartment; his cousin had unknowingly led them there. He'd lead them to the great-uncle again.

"I wanted it over with this morning," Nik grumbled, irritated. He couldn't completely relax with the great-uncle out there. He was a threat to the brat.

"A wedding present, Boss?" The men chuckled, nudging each other, wide grins on their foolish faces.

"Something like that." A wedding present. Hours from now, he'd be a married man. They'd be starting their own empire, him and Tatyana.

"Your bride's something, Boss."

"Yeah," Nik beamed proudly. "She's something." His comment prompted more laughter.

"But this fuck up means everyone is working today." He made that clear. "The bastard will expect us to be distracted and sloppy." He would come after them, after Tatyana. That's what Nik would do. "Then, he's in for a surprise, Boss," Pavel confirmed.

Thirteen

"Exits are more important than entrances."ȄSergei Kaerta
Hours later, the great-uncle was the least of Nik's worries.

"How many of your men will support us?" Nik leaned against a pillar, eyeing the bruisers to the left and to the right. Huge, armed, and, by the looks of it, well trained, they all belonged to Igroek.