"No. The other two boys—Jake Tran and Minh Jackson—don't have any family. No one will poke around for answers. If they do, we'll take care of it." Mr. Lu grimaced and rubbed at his throat.
"Are you all right? Should I get a doctor or a nurse?"
"I'm fine. It's this damn reflux." His shaky hand brought the bottle of water he was carrying to his mouth, and he took a long drink. While his trembling fingers fumbled with the lid, he asked, "What do I owe you?"
"Nothing." Nikolai couldn't stomach the thought of extracting money over this fiasco, not when Mr. Lu was in such bad shape. Whatever their disagreements, he wouldn't disrespect another boss like that. "It's been handled."
"And the repercussions?"
"Your family paid that debt with blood. We're good."
"What about the cartel?"
"I'll fucking bury Lorenzo Guzman myself if he even tries to come after you in retaliation. He's lost control of his own men. If he want to start making cuts, he should make them on his own arms first."
"Do you think he's going to fall?" Concern darkened the old man's face. "Because it feels the way it did before the coup that took out his father. Now that Romero is out of prison and hiding out in Mexico, he's a threat to Lorenzo. He has the loyalty and respect of the hard men in the cartel. He could break them away from Lorenzo and then what? Who fills that vacuum?"
"I don't know," Nikolai admitted. "That's what keeps me awake at night."
Mr. Lu nodded in agreement. "Things change, Russian. We have to change with them, or we get it in the neck." He inhaled noisily. "I'm not going to beat this. I can feel it in my bones. My change is coming soon." Lu turned to face him. "I need assurances from you that when I'm gone you'll support An. She's smart. She's strong. She has ideas and plans for my people."
Nikolai found the idea of a female boss in the city refreshing. "I'll work with her."
"She won't disappoint you." Mr. Lu grimaced again and coughed. "I should go back to my room now. I'm tired."
Nikolai reached out to help the older man to his feet and walked beside him back to the elevator and down to his room where his daughter waited for him. Thin with an angular face that was emphasized by her sharp short haircut, An sat in a chair by the window and read a magazine. She didn't smile at him when he entered the room at her father's side. She sized him up and didn't seem the least bit impressed.
He liked her instantly.
Leaving Mr. Lu in the care of his daughter, Nikolai headed out of the hospital and used the sky bridge to reach the garage where Kostya waited for him. He used the stairs rather than waiting for an elevator and checked his watch. He was cutting it close, but he still had time to make it.
He crossed the parking garage toward the black SUV Kostya had driven that morning and jerked open the front passenger door. "We need to hurry if we're going to make it."
"You're not going to make it, boss."
"What?" Nikolai spun toward his right-hand man and caught the flash of movement in the backseat. He started to reach for the sheathed knife he wore everyday but recognized the harsh face staring back at him at the last second.
Romero Valero laughed, the raspy, rattling sound filling the Escalade's interior. "You can let go of the knife. We're family, remember?"
"Don't remind me," Nikolai grumbled. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Hector Salas. Bobby Pham. My daughter and grandbaby nearly getting shot. Why the hell else would I be here?"
Nikolai glanced at Kostya who exited the SUV without having to be asked. When they were alone, he said, "Vivian is fine. She wasn't hurt."
"Why the fuck was she there in the first place? I thought you had guards on her? You're damned lucky it wasn't Julio who got his hands on her."
Not in the mood for a recounting of his failures, he snapped, "Julio wouldn't be gunning for my family if you had given him Mando."
"I've made mistakes, but you married my daughter. You swore to fucking keep her safe. Last night you failed."
"I was there, Romero. I don't need the play-by-play." Irritated, he growled, "I don’t have time for this. I've got to get to the airport. Vivian is waiting for me."
"Your rich friend's plane isn't the only one that goes to London, you know. There's a big, fucking airport that has planes that fly all night. Vivian will just have to wait." Romero leaned forward. "From what I've heard, a little distance between the two of you might be a good thing."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that if you ever go to a hotel with that blonde whore or any other woman again, I'll cut your worthless dick off and let you bleed to death in a Mexican desert."
Nikolai twisted in his seat to tell Romero to go to hell, but Romero's ink black eyes stopped him. They were so dark and flashed with such violent anger that Nikolai briefly entertained the thought that Vivian's father might actually be a demon. "Are you having me followed?"
"You think you're the only one with eyes and ears all over this city?" Romero snorted. "Every housekeeper, busboy, dishwasher and janitor in this city knows they can come to me with information, and I'll pay good money for it."
"You should ask for a refund because you got bad information."
"Bullshit. You were at that hotel with that blonde tramp we all thought you had killed for stepping out on you."
"We had lunch. Yes, we spoke privately in her suite, but I didn't fuck Tatiana. I haven't been with another woman in nearly two years. Whatever my mistakes—and Christ knows I'm piling them up this week—I've never betrayed Vivian. I fucking love her. She's my wife. I made a vow to her and only her."
"Then start acting like it!" Romero punctuated every word with a stab of his finger. "That girl of mine has been hurt enough. Her mother hurt her. I hurt her. Now you're hurting her. If you don't stop, I'm going to hurt you."
Nikolai would have scoffed and laughed in any other man's face at that threat, but Romero meant it. Feeling uncomfortably exposed but knowing he deserved every bit of her father's anger, Nikolai looked his father-in-law in the eyes and promised, "I'm going to make it right."
"You fucking better. I've taken out a boss before, Nikolai. I have no problem doing it again."
"Understood."
"Good." He sat back and stretched out his legs. "Why is the judge still alive? Why didn't you slit that junkie's throat?"
"Leaving the daughter alive wasn't my first choice," Nikolai admitted. "She's a liability, but she can be managed. The judge is more valuable to me alive. He owes me a debt."
"A big fucking debt," Romero grumbled. "Get your spy back in here. We need to drive and talk."
"About?"
"Moving up my timetable," Romero said matter-of-factly.
"Your timetable for what?"
Romero betrayed his nervousness by glancing out the rear window. "We've been sitting here too long. Get on the road, and I'll tell you exactly why Hector Salas was working with Bobby Pham."
Hector had been so doped up after his surgery that Nikolai hadn't been able to interrogate him at all. If he wanted to know what was coming, and if he was going to have time to make plans to keep his family safe, he had to stay and hear what Romero had to say.
He gestured for Kostya to rejoin them and pulled his phone out of his pocket. Not wanting their first discussion since that terrible fight to be yet another disappointment, Nikolai chose not to call Vivian but settled on Yuri instead. As he waited for Yuri to pick up, Nikolai wiped a hand down his face. It was going to be another long night.
* * *
"You've got your passport? Your ID?" Kostya asked as they followed the winding route to the airport curbside drop-off spot for the airline he was flying.
"Yes." He still patted his pockets to double check. "My luggage is already on its way with Vee."
"It's late so the lines at the security checkpoints should be short. I got you a first class seat so you should fly right through them."
"I hate going through security," he admitted. "I swear to
God I have flashbacks of Krasnoyarsk."
Kostya laughed darkly and merged into the far right lane where a line of cars queued up. He slowed to a stop, and Nikolai reached for the door handle. Kostya's hand settled on his arm. "Boss, wait."
"What is it?"
Kostya put the SUV in park and turned in his seat so they were looking eye-to-eye. "Ilya called to give me a report on the judge and the cocaine princess while you were talking with Romero and Hector at the safe house."
"And?"
"Ilya says that the judge told him that he lied to Vivian to get her to come with him. He told Ilya that he was coming over to the house to talk with Vivian, to see if he could get her to intervene, but then he heard the fighting between Ten and Eric. He saw her outside, and she looked upset so he decided it was the perfect opening. He told her about losing his dog and then asked her if she'd like to have dinner with him. He told her that he was taking her to a barbecue joint that all the cops around town like so she would feel safe."
Kostya paused, and Nikolai had a feeling he wasn't going to like whatever was said next. "He told her he wanted to pick his daughter up to join them. When they got to the door, he pulled his gun, and he forced Vivian in to the house. He made her frisk the guy who had answered and then basically held them both at gunpoint. He used her as a shield because he knew that Bobby Pham would never allow anything bad to happen with your wife there."
Nikolai turned his head and closed his eyes. He remembered every cruel word that had come out his hateful mouth. He remembered the cold way he had treated her after the shooting, the way he had punished her with his silence and sent her away with Ten rather than comforting her. At the time, he hadn't wanted to reward her reckless behavior.
But she had been a victim.
And he had treated her terribly.
"There's something else," Kostya reluctantly added.
"Just fucking tell me."
"Ten and I had a chance to speak while you were in the hospital with Mr. Lu. He came to the parking garage to find me because he didn't want to do it over the phone."
"What did he want?"
Kostya tapped his fingertips on the steering wheel. "Vivian knows about Tatiana."
"I know. I told her. A reporter was poking around and asking questions about Tatiana's new identity. I told Vivian what she needed to know."
Kostya shook his head. "That's not what I meant. Vivian saw you."
"Saw me? Where?"
"At the Four Seasons," Kostya finally said. "She and Erin went to Quattro for lunch. You hadn't told Ten that you were meeting with Tatiana there so he didn't stop them. Somehow she wandered back to the cellar—and she saw you with Tatiana."
Nikolai's heart fucking stopped. He tried to breathe, but his lungs refused to work. Memories of the last week flashed before his eyes. Vivian had been sick on Thursday. She had seemed so sad and fragile when he had returned home that evening.
And no fucking wonder! He replayed the conversation he had shared with Tatiana. It had been tense at first, but once they were down in the restaurant, they had warmed to one another and had remembered their fondness for teasing. The flirtatious remarks between them were harmless.
But Vivian didn't know that. If she had overheard them, she would have gotten the wrong idea. It would have been painful and confusing for her. He could only imagine the heartache she had suffered because of him. His own chest hurt so badly now he could hardly breathe.
"I can't get it right anymore," he muttered. "Everything I do is wrong. Everything I touch turns to shit. Everyone I have ever cared about gets hurt because of me."
"Nikolai." Kostya rarely spoke his name so it drew him out of his self-pitying wallow quickly. "Look at me."
He did. "What?"
"Don't come back next week."
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that I'll take care of Houston. I've got Artyom and Ilya. Ten is back, and if shit goes bad, he'll step up and help."
"No, Ten is on parole."
"Ten is a grown man. He can make his own decisions." Kostya gripped his shoulder and squeezed. "We can hold the city, but we can't help you save your marriage. You have to do that hard work yourself." Kostya's grip tightened. "You love her. You've risked everything for her. Fight for her."
A pent-up breath that he hadn't realized he had been carrying rushed out of Nikolai's lungs. He felt the stress and tension roll out of his shoulders and back. Kostya was right. He had that uncanny knack for always knowing the right thing to say. "I will."
"Good."
Old habits were hard to break so he quickly gave his last orders before climbing out of the SUV and entering the airport. He made his way to the ticket counter for his airline and waited patiently behind a family of seven who were taking the late-night Houston to London flight. The parents seemed to be in their mid-to-late thirties, and their children ranged from nine or ten to less than a year.
Nikolai's gaze settled on the chubby baby chewing on her fist and drooling all over her father's shoulder. He hadn't been around babies much. Holding Dimitri's daughter had been a strangely eye-opening experience for him. She was the tiniest little thing with big, beautiful eyes and the sweetest smell. He had been struck by the realization that in a few short months he would be holding his own child like that every single day.
But mixed in with the happiness and the excitement was dread. He feared the sins of his past would come back to haunt his family. The sins of his father and Vivian's had fucked with their lives more than once. He didn’t want that for his child. He wanted his son or daughter to have a good life.
More and more, he thought of Romero's statement that day in Corpus Christi about cutting their leashes. Was that the answer? Was it time to break away from Maksim? The complications and repercussions would be heavy, maybe too heavy, for him to bear.
Armed with their tickets and relieved of their checked baggage, the family left the counter and headed for the nearby security line. Nikolai stepped forward and smiled at the woman behind the computer terminal. "Hello." He pushed his driver's license and passport across the counter. "I'm checking in for my flight to London."
She picked up his license and glanced at his information before tapping at her keyboard. "How are you tonight, Mr. Kalasnikov?"
"Fine. How is your night shaping up?"
"Busy." She flashed him a smile and then concentrated on her screen. A flicker of a frown crossed her face. "You've flown with our airline before, sir?"
"Yes." He tried to think back to the last time he had gone overseas. "Four years ago, I think."
"Hmmm," she hummed aloud. "Did you have any trouble boarding your flight?"
"No." He didn't like the tone of that question at all. "Why?"
"Well, Mr. Kalasnikov, it seems that you’ve been put on the No-Fly List."
He blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Your name is on the list. It means we can't allow you to board our flight. In fact, it means you can't board any flight in the United States."
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. "That's a list for terrorists."
"Yes." She eyed him warily now and pushed his driver's license and passport back toward him with one finger. Her gaze flicked to the left, just behind him, and he glanced back to see a pair of TSA agents and a police officer coming closer. "Sir, I'm sorry, but you'll have to go with these men."
It took every ounce of his self-control not to blow up with anger. The last fucking thing he needed was to spend the night sweating in some interrogation room. "Sure," he ground out between clenched teeth. "I'll go with them."
He jammed his driver's license back into his wallet and his passport back into his jacket pocket and allowed the TSA agents to surround him. Without saying a word, he followed the police officer to the nearest station. On edge and feeling his fight-or-flight response kicking in, Nikolai clenched his fingers at his side. He dropped down in the empty seat offered to him and glanced around the cold, stark room.
Could t
his night get any fucking worse?
Chapter Sixteen
The night got worse.
In fact, it went downhill quickly, and Nikolai resorted to waking up his lawyer and dragging his overpaid ass out of his mansion in The Woodlands to the airport holding cell where he had been corralled. The sun was rising, turning the Houston skyline a hazy pink, when David finally popped him from the TSA's custody.
"This is a mistake," David assured him as they drove away from the airport in a private car with darkly tinted windows. "You have no criminal convictions or arrests in this country. On paper, you've been a model citizen here."
"Here, yes," Nikolai agreed, "but back home?" He shook his head. "I was in deep, dirty shit, and it was all out in the open. You saw the printouts they were waving in front of my face. Those records were supposed to have been destroyed when I came over here."
When he had agreed to come to Houston to help Maksim expand the family's control, the old man had used his government connections to destroy their criminal records and convictions. They came halfway across the world on clean papers and with clean passports. So how the hell had the TSA gotten their hands on records that weren't supposed to exist anymore?
"Obviously some of those records exist." David stated the obvious. "If you want to be able to board a flight or re-enter the US anytime in the near future, I would highly suggest you get one of your friends with useful contacts to take care of that. I'll do what I can from here, but you need to be realistic, Nikolai. Publicly, you've kept your nose clean. You've stayed out trouble."
"Yes, but the government knows everything about me." It was his turn to state the obvious. An alphabet soup of government agencies kept a close eye on him—DEA, ATF, FBI, CIA. There was a reason his home, cars, Samovar and his favorite meeting spots were swept by Kostya every week. He tried to keep his cell and landline use to a minimum and gave orders of a sensitive nature directly to the two or three men he trusted most.
But he was going to have to be more careful now. It was clear that he was on the government's radar.