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After Katja had finally tapped out last night, I had texted Avgust, requesting a meeting with him first thing this morning. We needed a new plan because Katja simply wasn’t an option anymore. Now, while I knew that it was going to take some convincing, she didn’t really have any choice, and neither did her grandfather. I planned on speaking with him soon, but he was going to eventually learn that his granddaughter was going to marry into the Russian Bratva, and he was just going to have to deal with it.
“It is hardly an emergency,” I drawled out.
“You have summoned me at all hours of the morning, Maksim,” he said like an asshole. “How can it not be an emergency?”
I slid a coffee mug his way. “It is not my fault that becoming a father has turned you into an old man,” I retorted.
Avgust grinned as he took a seat at my kitchen table, grabbing the mug as he did so. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replied happily, and I believed him.
Getting to the reason why I had called him here, I said, “We need to come up with another plan to drawl Nikel out in the open.”
Avgust’s brows shot upward. “We do?”
“Katja’s asleep in my bed right now,” I informed him, telling him everything that he needed to know with that one sentence.
“Well, that escalated quickly,” he smirked before taking a sip of his plain coffee.
“I cannot have her unprotected anymore,” I told him, ignoring his quip.
“While I completely understand where you are coming from, as long as Nikel doesn’t know that she is double-crossing him, she should be safe, no?”
“Yes,” I agreed. “However, I no longer want her away from my bed.”
Avgust’s hazel eyes narrowed in thought. “Which would play exactly into Nikel’s plans, no?”
“While it would, I no longer appreciate the risk now that he’s made his intentions with Katja clear,” I replied evenly, doing my best to keep my emotions out of this conversation. Avgust was here as my Pakhan, not my friend.
“Everything that we know is still not good enough,” he remarked evenly.
As my Pakhan, Avgust knew everything that I did. He knew about her conversations with Klive, the showroom, and that her grandfather was now home. There wasn’t anything that Avgust didn’t know about this situation, though we were still trying our best to keep Akim out of this. My brother knew only what he had to know in order to keep his family safe.
“I’m willing to pay the Sartoris,” I finally told him.
His head jerked in surprise. “Pay them for what?”
“Morocco, of course,” I answered. “While Katja confirmed that Nikel is the same man in our pictures, he obviously has to be in disguise when he’s stalking me or Akim. He knew that I was at The Swan that first night, and he also knows too much about Katja’s movements. If we can get Morocco to pull security footage from the neighboring cameras from everywhere that Katja and I have been these past few weeks, then we can compare faces in the background. Hell, if he can just pull the feed from either Trevally’s or Birdsoup, we can see a more updated version of his face.”
Eyeing me, Avgust asked, “What are your intentions with her, Maksim?”
“I am going to marry her,” I answered honestly.
“And does she know this?” he asked, chuckling under his breath like an asshole.
“Not as of yet,” I told him. “However, after everything that I just did to her last night, she should have an idea.”
Not surprised by the choices that I made in life, Avgust said, “As much as I applaud you conquering your fears of commitment, she is believed to be for sale, Maksim. Are you certain that she’s willing to choose marriage to you over all the money that she could be making when this is all over?”
“She doesn’t know,” I admitted.
Avgust scowled. “What doesn’t she know?”
“She is unaware of why we had sex at Millie’s,” I clarified. “She’s under the impression that it was just another hotel room of sorts.”
“Lisus Khristos,” he swore as he ran a hand through his dark hair.
“It is something that cannot be undone, Avgust,” I pointed out.
“Maksim, you are going to lose her when she finds out what you’ve done,” he said, and I knew that he was speaking to me as my friend right now. “While it can’t be undone, something needs to be done to salvage this situation.”
