He thought again about the baby girl about to be discovered. An innocent infant was going to bring joy to two men who didn’t deserve it.
Unless Sergei could stop it. His thoughts grew darker the higher up the stairs he went. If Sacha didn’t heed the warning he would try to get to her—if he could get to her at all because knowing Alek, the girl was likely cloaked with security by now—Sergei might be forced to kill her and the baby. He would make their deaths quick and painless because they didn’t deserve anything worse. Well, the baby didn’t. Sacha, on the other hand, had been unfaithful. If she was with another man, her death would hurt.
When he opened the door to the main floor and took that last step up, his image appeared in the long mirror on the wall opposite him. He stared into his pale-green eyes and considered something. Alek’s pain. How brutal would it be to find your love, learn you have a daughter together, then lose them both only days later?
“You ready?”
He looked at the man standing by the front door at the end of the hallway and nodded. Yes, he was ready. Ready to end this. But for now, he would content himself with getting to Rapture before Maksim showed and asked why they were late.
SEVEN
It was almost noon by the time Maks showed at the apartment. He came sauntering into Alek’s office just off the foyer, looking all casual, as if it were any other day.
Alek got up and came around his desk. He’d gone to TarMor at five a.m. and brought home some work to occupy his mind. It had been working. Sporadically. He caught a bag that was lobbed over as he smoothed down his silver and navy striped tie. He placed the bag—smelled like Hvorost—on the corner of his desk. Did up his jacket. Ran his tongue across the front of his teeth.
“You seriously going to wait for me to ask, you asshat?”
Maks grinned and tipped his head, making the diamond studs in his ears twinkle. “Those Edward Greens? Split toes are my favorite. Good choice for today because I have a feeling you’ll be doing a lot of pacing. Got any coffee? The Hvorost at my bakery is kickass; the coffee is swill.”
It was only because Maks’s playful mood indicated good news was coming that Alek was able to pass by on his way out and not deliver a hard punch. He owed him one, after all. When they made it to the kitchen, he nodded a good morning to Micha, who now had half of Anton’s Moscow Times in his face where they sat at the dining table.
“So when were you going to tell us you lost your touch?” he said conversationally. He opened the cupboard, and ignoring the pods for the Keurig, grabbed the unopened bag of beans and the grinder.
“I haven’t. Syd needing a soak in the hot tub after I was through with her this morning will attest to that.”
Alek poured the beans and the whir of them grinding filled the apartment. He glared at his friend. What a dick.
“You shouldn’t talk that way about your future wife,” he said when he shut the machine down and transferred the grounds to a filter.
“Why? You should hear the shit I’ve caught our three ladies talking about during random security checks. You’d never catch me giving you pointers and demonstrating on garden vegetables. Mind you; I did find an empty bottle of wine in the kitchen when I got home that night. But Gabriel’s smutty little woman is pregnant, which means she was sober, so she has no excuse for the tips she was offering her friends.”
Alek had to laugh as he poured a decanter of water into the belly of the coffee maker and turned it on. “My question referred to your hacking abilities. Are we going to have to go elsewhere when we need info? Or just wait days for you to get your decrepit ass in gear.”
Maks shook his head and shrugged out of his three-quarter-length wool coat to reveal black slacks and a wine-colored button-down. “Oh, Alek, Alek. Now I get to gloat, and you get to feel stupid as you thank me.”
As long as an address came with that stupid, he was fine with it. “Thank you for what?”
“Having Lucian treat Vex like a puppet by getting him to send his little stepbro to my party with a present for you.”
Alek’s brows came together. He shook his head and made a carry-on motion as he opened a drawer to take out some spoons.
Vex was the president of the Manhattan chapter of the Obsidian Devils MC. Both the Tarasov organization and the Moretti family had a good relationship with the motorcycle club, since the VP, Caleb Paynne, was a part of Vincente’s family. Nika’s brother was handy to have in their back pocket.
“I found her five days ago.”
He did a cartoon double-take and winced when he slammed the drawer on his thumb. “You what?”