Three and a Half Weeks(138)

Natasha Yenin is rarely conflicted: once she makes up her mind to do something, she sees it through. The whole idea began with Ian’s grandfather, Edward Blackmon, the man who ruined her family by domino effect. He deported her grandfather back to Russia where the men he double-crossed waited to taste the sweet nectar of vengeance.

Two years before the Yenin clan emigrated to the States, a gang of ten criminals banded together, pooled their financial resources, and entrusted the money to her grandfather. He was the only one who was clean enough to obtain a visa to the States. Once there he was to broker deals for their cache of stolen Soviet-era weapons they had stockpiled in a warehouse outside of St. Petersburg. The money was to be used to grease palms and to acquire drugs to sell—diversification was always a smart move for any kind of criminal, be it a Wall Street type or a Russian mobster.

Instead, Gregori Greshenko pocketed all the money and made a life in the U.S. for his wife and children. They took his mother’s maiden name of Yenin and proceeded to prosper using the stolen cash as seed money to finance more lucrative operations stateside. He knew if he ever got sent back to Russia, he’d be in very deep shit.

Judge Blackmon knew a wormy apple when he saw one and Greshenko was the worst kind of bad. Not only did he allow the deportation, he also expedited it. The criminal element surging into the U.S. from the former Soviet union   was overwhelming the streets and the courts, dumping more heroin and guns on the streets of big cities than ever before.



Even though the U.S. would not allow a DNA database, Natasha knew the CIA covertly maintained one on foreign nationals; in fact, now U.S. citizens would enjoy the same right to violation since the Supreme Court just recently gave the police the right to take DNA sampling of arrested citizens. But back then it was only the foreigners who were infringed upon in this indelible manner. Natasha knew that if any of her family were caught doing anything against the law, their DNA would be captured through nefarious methods and added to the growing secret database. She could not risk being among that data for it would follow her forever, marking her as a criminal element and preventing her legal residency in the U.S.

Going after the judge was too risky although they ultimately tried it, hoping to make it appear to be an ordinary automobile accident. The old iron bastard survived with some serious but not life-threatening injuries. But the whole DNA thing Natasha feared so much gave her the idea about her uncles. They were her mother’s brothers, born in Lithuania, twins born a week apart. What Natasha found of particular interest was their dedication to one Lucien Phillips, of French and Danish extraction, but reared primarily in the United States and Paris, France. The record indicated his father was a French national, an exceedingly wealthy financier, and his mother was a member of the Danish royal family.

She knew her uncles were behind his kidnapping: they used the ransom money to help finance their sister’s life in the U.S. But why did they bear such lifelong devotion to a child of strangers? Natasha suspected she knew the answer and set out to prove it through DNA analysis.

Tests confirmed her suspicions: Leo was Lucien’s biological father but Natasha discovered that the brothers were both fucking Lucien’s mother and the two agreed to accept the boy as belonging to both, never getting tested. So Lucien, for all intents and purposes, was both men’s son—and such a beautiful one at that. The brothers were proud of their spawn. When they saw his face after Ian Blackmon got through with him, they were ready to wipe the streets with him. It was only through Natasha’s persuasion that they relented. She promised them she would take Blackmon down. Killing him could end up getting one of them life and the rest deported, permanently banned from U.S. soil.

Did Lucien know one of her uncles was his biological father? Natasha didn’t think so, since he frequently spoke of the French financier as his forebear. The mother never said anything, probably due to the fact that she was not a willing participant in the sex games the brothers forced upon her. Natasha guessed it was closer to rape than anything else. She did pass off her child on her husband for many different reasons, all of them practical.

So in the end, Natasha and her parents decided to make the judge pay for his sins through his son or grandson. After all, isn’t it true that the sins of the father are almost always visited upon the son?





Chapter 40




While Ian’s in the shower getting ready for his trip to New York, I snatch up his iPad to make a playlist for his flight. I begin with Seven Nation Army, a song that I could imagine Ian loving. Then I add songs to the mix that I doubt he’s ever heard. Finally, for whimsy’s sake, I throw in El Scorcho and for irony, Tainted Love. When I’m done, his new playlist has twelve songs.