Russian Mobster's Princess (11 page)

“Nobody,” Kira said angrily. “You and Nicholas Domnin came up with this plan to hold the balance of power within the organization. Nobody ever explained what that meant or how it would work. The lot of you are liars and cheats.”

“The lot of us,” her father sneered. “How high and mighty you are in your belief that Viktor Domnin is a good man. Ask yourself who had the most to gain in this? Now that I am blamed and they are free, who was it who played a game with you?”

 Kira swallowed, but her mouth felt as though it were filled with cotton.

VIKTOR WAS NOT pleased to see his brother walking down the hallway toward him. Nicholas dodged the other dancers, sidestepping even as he looked at them with barely disguised interest. Viktor could not imagine what would bring his brother out to the ballet on a Saturday night. Surely Nicholas had more important things to attend to.

“Hello, brother,” Nicholas said with a smile.

It was as if their last confrontation had not happened. The effect was eerie.

“What do you want?” Viktor asked quietly.

“I came to clear the air, so to speak.” Nicholas looked almost contrite. “I have said things that I know upset you. But you must understand that the things I have done, I have done in service to our family.”

Viktor decided to let this go for the moment. “I know that you believe that.”

“You could have done so much better for yourself than that cold Berezin woman.” Nicholas slapped Viktor on the shoulder. “Elena was warm and filled with laughter. I have never seen you so happy as when you were with her. Many men were jealous the day you were wed.”

“Elena and I had loved each other since we were children,” Viktor admitted. “It is impossible to simply put that sort of history behind me.”

“You will always love her?” Nicholas wanted to know.

“Of course.” Viktor could not imagine why it was necessary to ask such a question. “She was and always will be my first love.”

“And I know that you have suffered through this second marriage against your will.” Nicholas’s voice was not pitched for a private conversation. Had Viktor not known better, he would have thought they were being recorded.

Viktor shrugged. “I might have been reticent about marrying Kira, but she is a good woman.”

“Using her as bait is how we found out about her father’s plans, you know.” Nicholas chuckled. “How did she feel about playing that sort of role in the investigation?”

Viktor whipped around to stare at Nicholas. “I wouldn’t tell her something like that. That is why I stayed with her this last week. I wanted to make certain she remained safe. Had she been attacked simply because we had decided to put her out there to entice a killer to strike again, I would have never forgiven myself. The woman may not be Elena, but she does not deserve that sort of treatment.”

He had hardly thought about how those words could be misconstrued when the dressing room door burst open. Kira stood in the doorway, her father just behind her. Her eyes were wide open and staring almost balefully at Viktor.

“You used me,” she whispered. “Here I was believing that you had decided you wanted to make an honest try of our relationship, and the whole time I was just bait.”

Nicholas was smirking. It occurred to Viktor that this was his punishment for defying his brother in front of the council.

He could not lose Kira like this. “Kira, wait. Please let me explain.”

“Why?” She swiped at her eyes. “I am not Elena. I will never
be
Elena. I am only in the way. Your way, my father’s way, your brother’s way, it does not particularly matter. Perhaps I should simply remove myself from the equation.”

She snatched up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. Without another word, she stalked off down the hallway and disappeared into a throng of dancers streaming toward the exits.

Viktor started to follow, but Berezin grabbed his arm. “Let her go. Haven’t you done enough?”

“Are you kidding me?” Viktor asked in astonishment. “Me? The two of you have been manipulating us both since this all began.” Viktor turned angrily on Nicholas. “And you! I’m not letting you get away with this little scam you have going on. The council needs to know the truth about their leader.”

“You wouldn’t
dare
!” Nicholas snarled.

Nicholas moved to grab Viktor, but Viktor ducked out of range. Leaving his brother and Berezin behind, Viktor made to follow Kira. He dodged his way around the mass of humanity that seemed to be exiting the theater all at once. He heard several people speak of a wrap party at a nearby pub. There were cast, crew, dancers, lighting technicians, and set engineers flooding the hallways. Viktor finally saw another exit sign and headed in that direction away from the masses.

His path spilled out into an alley beside the theater. It was dark. The only light came from a lonely orange bulb placed at the corner of the old building’s facade. He looked right and left, but saw no evidence of anyone else. Heading in the direction of the street that fronted the theater, he hoped to find Kira soon. Something about this entire situation felt wrong. It seemed staged.

“Kira?” he called out. “Please don’t run from me. Let’s talk!”

The unmistakable sound of someone else in the alley gave him pause. Viktor stopped moving and stood still. He listened to the breeze whipping through the metal bars of the fire escape overhead and rustling through discarded newspapers and playbills on the ground. There was a dumpster only a few yards away. The ripe scent of garbage overlay the smell of dirty asphalt and exhaust.

Finally, Viktor heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps.

“Kira?” he called out.

“No. Not Kira, I’m afraid.”

Viktor spun on his heel to face his brother. “Nicholas.”

“That’s right.”

“So it was you. This whole time you’ve been behind the attacks and the murders,” Viktor said with disgust. “And yet you consider yourself fit to lead the organization?”

“Those old fools on the council need to be replaced,” Nicholas spat. “Berezin was easy to bend to my will. His greed will be his downfall. I will soon replace others with men half their age who possess the drive to make this organization into something great once again. There will be no more worrying about offending a neighborhood business owner, or forgiveness of a debt due to hardship.” Nicholas’s face contorted into something truly ugly. “I am tired of being in the business of cultivating weakness! And the first place I will start is by thinning the ranks in my own family.”

“If you think I’m just going to stand here and die, you’d better think again,” Viktor snapped. “What have you done with Kira?”

“Oh, she’s in good company.”

“With her father’s men?” Viktor felt an overwhelming sense of urgency.

Nicholas smirked. “You thought those were Berezin’s men? How typical. Everyone belongs to me, remember? I just chose those three because it would put Berezin in such a nice, awkward spot.”

Viktor steeled himself, knowing that this was no time for any remaining brotherly attachments.

Chapter Thirteen

Kira had her head down and was walking quickly. She should have been paying more attention to where she was going, but none of that really mattered anymore. She just wanted to get home. It was a night to curl up in her bed—alone—and watch an old movie on her tiny television set. Maybe she could find a romantic comedy with
no
Russian mobsters who only pretended to care.

“Well, well, look what we have here?”

Kira froze. She looked up and felt a pit of dread open up in her belly. She should have never ventured down this alley. She should have stuck to the main roads and the hordes of people leaving the theater. Now she had come too close to the spider’s web.

Vasily was leaning against her father’s car with a smirk on his face. Taking a deep breath, she began walking a path that drifted off to the right. She needed to skirt the vicinity of her father’s car and get out of there. Now.

Then Ivan appeared in front of her, blocking her path. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Away from you,” she snapped. “Now get out of my way. My father told me what happened. He told me what you did. But all of that is over. You don’t have his protection anymore. Whatever you do now, you will pay the price.”

Vasily’s cold laugh stopped Kira in her tracks. She was bluffing, and they knew it. Ivan’s hand closed around her upper arm. His grip was painful.

She could not believe that it was all going to end like this.

Wrenching her arm away from Ivan, she turned on him and bared her teeth. “I am so
sick
of men thinking they can do whatever they want without consequences! Look at you! So smug after you
murdered
my friend Atalya! You knew her! How could you do such a thing?”

Vasily stopped laughing. His expression grew stormy. In the lights spilling down into the alley’s mouth from the main thoroughfare, he looked almost haunted. “You think I
murdered
Atalya?”

“I heard the three of you talking…” Kira tried to recall exactly what she had heard. “You harassed someone. I know that you did.”

Ivan’s voice came from just behind her shoulder. “We scared some women. Who cares? We were ordered to do so by—” He exchanged a significant look with Vasily. “—someone who outranks us all. We did not murder them.”

“Then who did?” Kira felt slack jawed with confusion. “Who would order such a thing?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Yakov appeared from the deep shadows to the left.

Both Vasily and Ivan looked surprised to see him. They exchanged a look, and then to Kira’s surprise, Ivan shoved her behind his back. Her father’s two favorite enforcers were defending her now? What sort of sense did this make?

VIKTOR RAMMED HIS shoulder into Nicholas’s midsection. His brother grunted in pain, and Viktor swore he heard a rib crack. Lifting Nicholas off the ground, Viktor hoisted his brother higher and then slammed him to the asphalt. Nicholas’s back hit so hard his breath whooshed out of his body.

“You bastard!” Nicholas wheezed. “You attacked me! Your leader!”

Viktor went to kick his brother in the ribs. “You’re not my leader anymore.”

Nicholas caught Viktor’s foot. Twisting his body, he used his momentum to pull Viktor off balance. Viktor crashed to the ground. Nicholas rolled atop of him and landed two punches to the jaw. Viktor felt as though his brain were rattling inside his skull. His vision blackened and curled in at the edges, but he refused to lose consciousness. Kira would die if he gave up.

“You were always selfish,” Viktor grunted.

Arching his back, he threw Nicholas off balance. Lifting his right leg, he hooked his calf around Viktor’s chest and reversed their positions with one clean move. He pinned Nicholas on the ground and punched him hard across the face. He wanted to knock his brother out. He didn’t want to have to go any farther.

Unfortunately, Nicholas was not of the same mind. He levered his body half off the ground, groping near the small of his back. Viktor tried to block the move and was too late. Nicholas grabbed the butt of his gun anyway. Pulling it out, he leveled the barrel at Viktor.

There was a split second to choose. Instead of backing away, Viktor tackled Nicholas again. He grabbed his brother’s gun arm. They rolled on the ground as they fought for control of the weapon.

The gun went off. The sound was deafening in the close space. A wrenching, sharp pain shot through Viktor’s arm. He knew his shoulder was hit, but he could not let go. Nicholas was still fighting to put the gun to Viktor’s head. They grappled again, and this time when the gun went off, Nicholas went limp on the ground.

“Nicholas!” Viktor’s agonized cry bounced off the unforgiving stone of the alley walls.

He got to his knees beside his brother. Nicholas was bleeding profusely from a wound in his chest. He was laughing, the sound choked as his lungs filled with blood from his injury.

“Leave me.” Nicholas weakly pushed at the hands Viktor was using to press against the bullet hole. “You have no idea what I’ve done.”

“You’re my brother.”

“I’ve hated you my whole life.” Nicholas coughed and sputtered. “Elena chose you.”

“What?”

“You took her from me,” Nicholas accused. “I wanted to punish you, but she wouldn’t leave with me.”

“You.” Viktor dropped his hands to his sides, horrified by what Nicholas was implying. “You killed her?”

“It was an accident.” Nicholas was fading fast. “I didn’t mean for her to die.”

KIRA PEEKED AROUND Ivan’s bulk, barely understanding what was happening in front of her. The only thing that was apparent was that her father was no longer calling the shots for his men. Then two gunshots shattered the air. She squeaked in shock, but her two surprising rescuers did not look relieved. If anything, the tension between the three men had just increased tenfold.

“Yakov, no.” Vasily held up his hand. “The boss told us. You know this. It is over.”

“The two of you are nothing but pawns,” Yakov sneered. “Do you know this? Do you know what just happened only a few hundred yards from right here?”

“That does not matter.” Vasily was creeping closer and closer to Yakov. Kira could see the gun tucked beneath his jacket at the small of his back. To reach for it, he would have to show his intention to Yakov.

In front of her, Ivan also had a gun. Was Vasily trying to cover for Ivan so he could reach his weapon? Were they actually going to shoot Yakov?

She felt almost lightheaded with the knowledge of what she had to do.

Yakov was laughing. “The little Domnin is dead now. Do you see? The idiot Berezin will take the blame. The council will look to us and agree that we have done nothing wrong. Were we not simply following orders?”

“That was before,” Ivan told him. “You have lost your mind. Nobody said to murder the women.”

“I didn’t kill them.” Yakov actually looked insulted. “Have you not figured it out yet? It was the Domnin that did it. He is our leader, the boss of the entire organization. He was the one to decide who lived and who died.”