She slapped on a smile when Nika turned to her with dazzling but cautious green eyes and asked what she and Yana were cooking.
The next hour was tense and uncomfortable for Sacha. They ended up joining the men in the living room, and after what turned out to be an amiable reunion with Gabriel and Vincente, Sydney showed up with Micha. She appeared put out because her son and daughter had chosen to stay behind to go rabbit hunting with someone called Jak.
Casual talk flowed, though Sacha didn’t miss the looks she kept receiving, especially when she and Alekzander got within touching distance of one another. Her eyes were continually drawn to him when she remembered something he’d said or done the night before. Was the love she could feel radiating from her as blinding as it felt?
“Sacha?”
Her head snapped up to find him standing in front of her with Lekzi arching her back and reaching for her. Sacha placed the empty coffee cup she’d been staring into on the table next to her and jumped up to accept the baby. She’d been feeling naked and not very useful since everyone had wanted a turn holding Lekzi.
“I’m not sure if she’s hungry, tired, or just needed you.”
“Of course. I should have seen that she was getting fussy. I will feed her and put her down.” With an apologetic smile aimed at Nika, who’d been sitting next to her, generously allowing her to stare off into space, Sacha escaped.
♦ ♦ ♦
When Sacha left with her and Alek’s treasure—Vasily still couldn’t look at that baby and not fall in love all over again—she took the happiness in the air with her. Judging by the way the girls grew quiet, his nephew hadn’t been the only who’d noticed the silent conversations Vasily and the boys had been carrying on with barely perceptible head shakes, brief frowns, and quirking brows.
He was glad to see an irritated light in Alek’s eyes because it meant that I-don’t-need-to-know mentality he’d held onto for so long was indeed fading. Ever since Renee and Evan’s death, Alek had slowly been lowering his guard and allowing himself to accept who he was.
Alekzander had been born Bratva, and like his father and Vasily, and even Gabriel, if another example was needed, Alek had attempted to deny it. For his own reasons, he’d focused on his legitimate dealings with much more gusto than he’d ever brought to family issues. But, as expected, that was changing. Eventually, whether they were in their teens like Vasily and Evgeny had been, or in their thirties like Gabriel and Alek, they were pulled into this life because it was in the very blood that ran through their veins.
And ultimately coated their hands.
While it broke their hearts.
Bending, Vasily pressed what he hoped was a reassuring kiss to the crown of his daughter’s head. “We’ll be back.” He motioned the boys to follow him. When he entered the foyer, he waved the others lingering by the front door to come, too, and led the way to his second-floor office.
“What the fuck happened?” Alek demanded as the morose group filed into the large room lined with walnut bookcases and a matching desk that sat in front of the bullet-proof window.
Maks, Gabriel, Alek, and Vincente sat around the table in the center of the room while Micha, Anton, Dmitri, and Quan played sentry around the perimeter. Muscle rarely sat during meetings.
Vasily nodded to Maksim, who slid his phone over. It came to a stop at Alek’s elbow. Going behind him so he could watch over his nephew’s shoulder, Vasily saw a video loaded and ready. Alek hit play.
The area around what used to be the warehouse in Brighton Beach came up.
“Different days,” Maksim said to Alek. “Different streets, same time-frame each day, same vehicle parked at least two blocks from the warehouse.”
Then images of the warehouse itself appeared, with Sergei and Reynard nonchalantly wandering along, but stopping every so often to place something in the corner of a window, then at the top of a door frame, then along the base of the building.
“The footage from the regular security cameras show light activity from the same timeframe,” Maksim supplied. “At closer inspection, it’s clear the files were doctored. That footage was previously recorded. In one frame that was supposedly from this past Monday, it shows Rusef the Hook walking around. As you know, Hook was killed at the docks three months ago.”
Vasily once more smothered the rising tide of blackness that tried to crest every time he realized again what this had to mean.
Alek replayed it then turned and looked up, his head already going from side-to-side. “No,” he stated flatly. “You’re not telling me this.”
Vasily kept his mouth shut and squeezed his beloved, loyal, trustworthy nephew’s shoulder before going over to one of the file cabinets. He pulled open the bottom drawer and pushed back the hanging files so he could open the false bottom. He had to push aside stacks of different currencies and a variety of passports to get to the two folders he needed. Evidence he and Dmitri had compiled over the last year of phone calls, blown deals, near misses, and one photo of a burned out shell of a car that now took on a whole new meaning.