“Just a sweet gesture on your part?” I ask, eyeing him because he’s sure as shit not fooling me.
He gives me a wide-eyed look that I immediately see through.
“Yeah, I’m not buying it. You’re bringing waffles in the hopes of getting laid, my friend.”
He laughs but doesn’t deny it. “I would still get her the waffles, but if it does happen to make her incredibly grateful because I am such a thoughtful guy, well,” he says, giving a shrug, “who am I to deny such gratitude?”
“Lucky bastard,” I grumble, making him laugh.
“Stop being so stubborn and you could have someone to bring breakfast to.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I stand up and grab the ticket, ignoring Aleksei when he reaches for his wallet. “It’s on me. You remember that when you’re getting your quickie.” I laugh and walk away before he can respond.
I can already tell this day is going to feel like it lasts forever. I just hope it’s uneventful so I can cut out early and go to bed. My hopes are dashed when I get to the club and a sleek, black car pulls in next to me. The driver is dressed in a nice suit with dark sunglasses, and I have no idea who the fuck he is. When I get out, he does the same and shoots me a smile that immediately sets me on edge.
“You’re a hard man to get ahold of Nikolai Sokolov.”
The fluent Russian has alarm bells ringing in my ears, and I glance quickly at the car, trying to see if he’s alone or not.
“You’ve been ignoring my calls.”
“Why the hell are you calling me?” I ask, leaning against my car and studying him. The car, the suit, the attitude—I know the fucking Russian Bratva when I see it, and I steal a quick glance at the door to make sure Dima isn’t around.
The man catches my movement and gives me what I’m sure he thinks is a reassuring smile. “Relax, I’m not here to cause trouble, but you should get in so we can talk if you want to keep my presence from your friend.”
I know getting into his car isn’t the smartest thing in the world, but I also know I’d do anything to protect Dima from having to deal with these people ever again after what they did to his brother, so I do the only thing I can do. I open the door and get in. When we’re both inside, he starts the car and pulls out. I don’t even bother asking where he’s taking me. As long as it’s far away from the club, I don’t give a fuck.
“Do you know who I am?” he finally asks after we’ve been in the car for a few minutes.
“No. Bratva, but other than that, no.”
“My name is Mikhail Fedorov.”
I freeze at his words, and the silence in the car is so fucking loud it’s deafening. My body tenses as my heart starts to race. The weight of my phone in my pocket is comforting, although I doubt I’ll be able to get to it in time. I have no idea how many people are waiting for me, but I know I’m not going to make it easy on them. The last time I faced the Fedorov family I was barely eighteen years old. They may take me down, but I’m taking a bunch of them with me. I feel resigned with what’s about to happen. In a way, I always thought it might come to this. What I hadn’t expected is to be thinking about a gorgeous, Irish woman and wishing I’d been able to have more time with her.
“I see you remember my family,” Mikhail finally says, cutting into my thoughts when I refuse to break the silence. “Or at least you remember my Uncle Ilya.”
“He was a bastard, and he deserved what I did to him.”
Mikhail surprises me by laughing. It’s not a harsh laugh or anI’m about to slit your throat for killing my unclelaugh. It’s an honest-to-God relaxed laugh, like we’re two old friends out for a drive, laughing about old times. I look over at him, studying the hard lines of his face. He looks to be about my age, and I can tell he keeps himself fit, something too many Bratva bosses get lazy about. It sure made his uncle an easier target. I can still remember how his loose jowls felt against my hand when I’d sliced the knife across his throat. I swear sometimes I can still feel the way his skin had parted so easily beneath my blade and smell the coopery scent of his blood just like I could that night as it stunk up the air around us. The hitman who’d actually beaten Dima’s brother to death had been a lot harder to kill. I took advantage of the fact that he was a heavy drinker and caught him after a long night at the bar. It was the only reason I’d been successful. I may have been a tough-as-nails kid, but the man was a trained killer. I knew I needed to gain the upper hand, so I did what was necessary, but I’d made sure he was coherent enough to know why I was stabbing him to death.
Mikhail parks the car in an abonded lot and turns to me. He removes his sunglasses, eyeing me with a pair of hard eyes that can only be earned by a man who has seen far too much of the bad in life and very little of the good.
“I’m not here to bring up the past,” he says, and when I give a disbelieving laugh, he raises his hands in earnest. “I should kill you for what you did to my family, but I can’t help but find myself wanting to thank you instead. I hated my uncle. I wasn’t blind to the man he was, and I know that he ordered the hit on Dmitri’s brother. Pyotr was a good hitman, but he drank too much, and I never trust a man with addictions.”
The mention of Sergei and the memories of his battered face flash through my mind and the way it had nearly killed Dima, reminding me of exactly why I’d done what I’d done, and I know damn well I’d do it again in a second.
“The family never knew who killed Uncle Ilya and Pyotr, but I knew it was you. I knew of the three of you. I used to sneak out and watch your fights. I was happy you’d killed him. After all, it rid me of a horrible man who would’ve continued to make my life hell until he finally keeled over at an old age. With his murder, I stepped in to fill his shoes, and I’ve been running the family ever since.”
“What are you doing here then?” I scrub a hand over my face, trying to take all this in. “Dima doesn’t know anything about this, and I don’t want him to know, so what exactly are you doing here if you don’t want revenge? What do you want from me? Because I know it’s not just to say a friendly hello.”
He smiles, but it doesn’t even come close to meeting his eyes. “I need you to talk to Vadim for me.”
“Vadim? What for?”
Mikhail sighs, and I can tell the man walks around with a huge weight on his shoulders. It can’t be easy running the Fedorov Bratva.
“A man I owe a favor to has a daughter who’s going to need some help in the near future. I would like Vadim to help her. His reputation as a lawyer is damn good, and his knowledge of Russian is, of course, an added bonus.”