“Dollars signs blind them every time,” his partner said from where he sat at a desk in the empty classroom. The idiot was carving something into the surface as if he were a delinquent student.
Turning from the window, and the view of a three-story walk-up opposite the closed school they’d entered illegally, Sergei leaned on the teacher’s desk. He glanced at a test sheet. Fifth grade English. As memories of helping Evan with long division came, he felt molten steel skewer that small area of his heart that still functioned normally. The rest was black and charred from the fires that raged.
“If Alek does not leave within a few minutes, that can only mean they are working things out, and I will have to follow through with plan B.” Leaving the desk behind, he went and picked up a yardstick from the base of the chalkboard as he glanced out the window again. Anton had joined Grigori and Lucas, and the three were standing to the side of the doors, their watchful eyes posing one large but expected inconvenience.
When would Sacha tell Alek about their daughter? Maybe she was doing that right now. If so, Sergei’s chance to get her alone had just gone up in smoke. Because once Alek and Vasily became aware of her, the security detail assigned to that infant, and in effect, her mother, would be difficult to penetrate. Difficult, but not impossible.
“You hear anything about why your cousin was given his own guard?” Reynard asked.
“No. Nothing was said about it.” Anton being assigned to Alek could only mean one thing. An announcement was coming. His uncle would appoint his first Sovietnik; the most trusted individual to the Pakhan of an organization. With Alek being Vasily’s protégé, the choice made sense. But was insignificant in the long run because when Sergei was through with them, titles and appointments would mean nothing.
Reynard stood, and startled Sergei by clapping his hands. “You decided on a plan? Stakeouts bore the fuck out of me. You wanna run the piece of ass off or kill her? And what about the kid?”
Sergei’s teeth mashed together. Sacha Urusski was much more than a piece of ass to Alek, but he wasn’t about to argue that point with someone who could never understand that. “I would rather not harm them, but…”
Another glance out the window. Everyone was still in their place right down to the Hummer on the street. Damn it. The two were likely having sex. Which meant she was cheating on her current boyfriend? He was having a hard time accepting that. It didn’t fit with the Sacha he’d known. Maybe Alek was confused on that point, and the boyfriend didn’t exist.
“But we probably will?” A hopeful note rang out in Reynard’s voice.
Sergei leveled a fiercely disapproving look at the disgusting moron he was forced to work with. When the time came, he would happily pierce this man’s empty chest with a couple of bullets. “Probably,” he grudgingly admitted. “But at this point, two more casualties will not make that much of a difference.”
Reynard went and leaned a shoulder into the wall and stared out the window. “Betcha he’s fuckin’ her. Wonder what she’s like? Looks soft. Or maybe she’s on her knees. That mouth of hers looks like it could suck a mean dick. Think she’s a whore behind closed doors? The quiet ones usua—”
The crude ramblings cut off when the tip of Sergei’s blade found its way beneath the flapping jaw.
“Shut your disrespectful mouth, you piece of shit. She is a mother; an innocent girl who came to America to find a good life, and instead found Alek. She deserves your sympathy, not your disparaging assumptions about what she does with the man she is unfortunate enough to love.” He pushed until the skin broke and a bead of blood trailed down the glinting blade. He pictured giving it a good shove.
“Fuck, man. Calm your tits.” The moment the knife left Reynard’s skin, he was pushing Sergei’s arm away. “You touchy fuckers. What is it with you idiots and all this respect you offer these bitches who’re probably only in it for the cash? I met this one chick at Rapture the other night. Didn’t want fuck all to do with me until I told her I work for Maks. Then the bitch’s legs were spreading right there at the fucking booth. I swear…”
Tuning out the noise, Sergei went for the door and prayed Sacha was on birth control. If there was one thing the world didn’t need, it was another Tarasov.
♦ ♦ ♦
Wrecked. The pain that came through in Sacha’s voice as she spoke of what he’d done to her absolutely wrecked Alek.
“I didn’t do it,” he said hoarsely, relieved to admit the truth after all this time. “What you saw that night in my office was fabricated.”