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“Did you let him fuck you up the ass?” he asked, his eyes gleaming with a predatory glint.
“No,” I answered. “I wanted to make an impression, so I…I told him that I wasn’t ready to trust anyone with that yet. I thought…I thought that if I made him feel like he had to earn it, then he’d call me again.”
“Did it work?” he asked, eyeing me carefully, much like Maksim had, trying to spot the lies.
“I don’t know,” I lied. “He did ask for my number, so I’m thinking that it might have. I mean, why else ask for my number? After all, Maksim Barychev hardly seems the type to bother with a woman’s phone number.”
Klive leaned back in his seat, mulling over my words. “No, he doesn’t,” he agreed. “So, if he asked for your number, then I’d say that it worked.”
“What is your endgame, Klive?” I finally asked. “I mean, this could take weeks, months. Hell, Maksim might never tell me anything at all.” I shook my head a bit. “What do you want me to find out specifically? Are you looking for his home address? His phone number? What?”
After a few seconds, he finally said, “The plan is to be able to execute Maksim Barychev and his brother, Akim, without it costing me my own life. So, in order for that to happen, I need to find a way in, and you’re my way in, Katja.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Maksim is going to eventually ask you to meet him somewhere, perhaps even give you the code to his home, office, or give you a hotel key room…something,” he explained. “When that happens, that is when I’ll strike.”
“You’re insane,” I told him. “Even if you are able to kill Maksim, getting your hands on both Maksim and his brother is impossible. Not to mention that you’ll be bringing down the wrath of Avgust Kotov down on your head.”
“Milaya devushka, I welcome it,” he replied evenly, proving that he really was crazy.
Chapter 13
Maksim~
After I had sent Katja on her way last Friday, I had immediately called Avgust to tell him what was going on, and I’d ended up going to his place to speak about the situation in person. Luckily for us, Samara and Mitre had already been asleep, and so there’d been no disturbing Avgust’s domesticated bliss. Granted, Samara was used to how her husband’s world worked, but I still didn’t relish disrupting their family time together if I didn’t have to.
At any rate, once I’d spoken to Avgust about everything, he had insisted on another meeting with Akim in attendance as well as Bogdan’s completed background check on Katja and her grandfather. Avgust had also suggested reaching out to Nero Sartori for Morocco’s Carrisi’s hacking skills, but since Katja had been a free fountain of information, I was still confident that a simple background check would suffice for what we were looking for. If things became more complicated later on, then we could look into using Morocco has a resource again.
So, with Bogdan’s background check completed, and Akim now in on what was going on, we were all at my place, ready to discuss what to do next.
“This motherfucker has some nerve,” Akim remarked, still trying to process what we’d just told him only moments ago. “I mean, seriously.”
“I do not understand why your cat hates me,” Avgust murmured pensively, eyeing Naslediye.
“She does not hate you,” I told him for the millionth time. “She just doesn’t like people invading her space.”
“This is your house,” Avgust retorted. “She should know that she is not in charge.”
“Don’t take it personally,” Akim chimed in. “She hates us all.”
“Can we get back to Nikel Ovchinnikov?” I drawled out, getting off the subject of my cat and her antisocial ways.
“Well, Bogdan’s background checks on her and the grandfather came back simple and boring,” Avgust announced, something that we both already knew and were just making Akim aware. “There is nothing sinister in her past, though the tragedy of losing her parents and grandmother is unfortunate.”
“Nonetheless, I do not like the idea of having to trust a perfect stranger,” I replied.
“True,” Akim agreed. “However, you have to give her points for coming clean, Maksim. I know that you don’t want to, but she could have said nothing.”
“We’re simply the lesser of two evils,” I pointed out.
“The evil that can guarantee her grandfather’s safety.” Avgust said. “In fact, it’s her grandfather that we need to concentrate on, not her.”
“How do you mean?” Akim asked.
“He means that with her grandfather in poor health, we can manipulate her loyalty by taking care of him more than threatening him,” I explained, mine and Avgust’s brains usually on the same wavelength. “If she sees him being protected and taken care of, that will mean more to her than any fear that she may feel over endangering his life. Remember, women are emotional creatures, and if you can make them feel something good, there’s almost nothing that they won’t do for you. Why do you think diamonds and flowers work so effectively after a man has beaten or cheated on his wife? It’s because they’d rather live in the moment of euphoria than live in the hard truth of hurt.”
“Well, that’s stupid,” Akim retorted.
