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“You thought what? That you would save her? With my money?” He sounded so disgusted that my ears burned. “You and Boris are both idealistic idiots. No wonder you’ve paired off like brothers.”
I heard the sobbing start up in the other room again, and this time I was sure of it. “Sir—”
“Don’t give me your ridiculous excuses. Now I have to put that stupid woman on the streets to earn back what you stole. Where she should have gone in the first place, really. Who told her to have babies if she couldn’t feed them?”
I felt my rage simmering inside me as I looked at the man who had taken me in and made me a thief. In just a few short years, he had gone from my hero to the man I despised most. Florescu was a petty sadist, cruel, greedy, without even the pretense that some thieves called honor.
“What about her children?”
“What about them? Plenty of kids grow up with whores for mothers. If they’re lucky, she even keeps them.” That was a dig at me, at all of us, we were all throwaway children.
I was just realizing how much I wanted to kill him when the door opened, and two of Florescu’s men came in dragging a struggling woman.
But the woman was Olivia. She had Michael in her arms—
I sat straight up in bed with a little shout and stared around the dim room. Nightmare. Nothing more. Florescu was long dead, Boris and I had long since come to America, and now both of us had power within a Bratva of our own. And Olivia, she had never been to Russia.
But the dream had still spoken of things that could happen.
Olivia didn’t avoid me because she didn’t want me to know about Michael, or didn’t like me, or didn’t want me in her life. She avoided me because she was afraid. I would never harm her or Michael, but she was right. Trouble follows a man in my position.
I got up, tugging my pajama pants up a little as I crossed my bedroom floor. I pushed aside my curtains and stared out the window at the rainy view beyond. I had put in an order for Uncle Mischka’s autopsy report, aiming to compare it with Ivan’s. I was having Boris followed. I was coming at this from every angle I could come up with, but I still felt like I was missing something.
My dream had me thinking of Olivia and her safety far too much. It wouldn’t be much of a drive to go check on her. But I shouldn’t. I might be followed. Also, it was the middle of the damned night and she had a small child.
I still found myself on the road in one of the motor pool’s anonymous black sedans within twenty minutes of having that internal debate. I would just keep an eye on her neighborhood for a while. Make sure that nothing troubling was going on.
I played instrumental jazz as I drove, but softly, keeping a wary eye on traffic, especially potential tails.
I started to relax as I drew closer to her apartment building. The neighborhood was solidly middle class, the building well kept, but the units looked small. I wondered if she was trying to save money. She had insisted that she was well off, but apparently her standards and mine were different.
I frowned slightly. I could at least set her up in one of the houses I owned. It was a small thing for me, but it could make a huge difference for her and my son. A yard to run around in. A dog—big, tough, and well-trained—to look after their safety.
Maybe even room for me.
I rolled my eyes as I caught myself in that idea. Plenty of Bratva men had wives and children eventually, but I was a fool to even think about that now. Not only was Olivia afraid of getting too close to me, but I was new in my leadership position, and it was currently being threatened.
I was just considering pulling out of my parking spot across the street when I saw something I hadn’t expected. There was a figure prowling the alleyway alongside her apartment building. A tall man, all in black, his face covered with a bandana under his hoodie.
A scowl deepened on my face as I watched him. He was fiddling with the bars on one of the apartment windows. Not Olivia’s—but that didn’t matter. There was no telling where the man would go once he broke into the building.
Could someone have found out about Olivia and me this quickly? I hadn’t even told Boris yet. The man could just be a random prowler.
But he had picked the wrong alleyway.
I got out of my car, locked it, and looked up. The man was standing still in the shadows, alerted by the sound of my car door opening and closing. I started crossing toward the apartment, not quite facing his direction. He didn’t move.
I drew my pistol from under my jacket as I saw a flash of metal in his hand, and bolted toward him as fast as I could.
I heard a yell as he dropped whatever was in his hand and it clattered on the ground. Then he ran for it. I picked up speed, racing after him, my black overcoat flapping at my heels. We cleared the alleyway just as someone flicked on the lights in the window he had been standing at.
I was faster than most men my size and age, so the prowler lost ground to me fast, especially when he had to scramble over a fence. I had only caught a flash of dark hair and frightened black eyes. I had no idea who the hell he was. But I was going to find out.
Our chase took us through the backyard of a large house and then over another fence. I was still gaining ground on him. But then he leaped the fence into the next yard over, and I heard a deep-voiced snarl from beyond, that sounded like it came from a bear. My quarry yelled suddenly and started scrambling to get back over to my side of the fence while a deep, booming bark echoed out over the neighborhood.
I gave him a hand by grabbing both his lapels as soon as his head and shoulders popped back up over the fence. I dragged him the rest of the way, hearing the cloth tear. He came over with the back of his raincoat ripped off. I heard the dog growling and shaking his head.
Lights were going on in some of the surrounding houses. I dragged the idiot into the darkest, most remote corner of the yard and slammed him up against the garage wall. He was a kid, maybe nineteen, and definitely not Puerto Rican, unless he’d been adopted. His freckles stood out on his ashen face like paint spatters.
