Leverage (38 page)

“You got your way, Sidorov,” Lebedev said. “Now if you would be so kind as to tell me what the hell is going on, we might be able to salvage this mindless clusterfuck.”

“I doubt that’s possible at this point,” Maks said. “This is the end for you, I’m afraid.”

“It’s about time,” Greg added as he and his man skirted their way toward Maks. “But such a flair for drama, Maksim. My goodness, I had no idea.”

For a second, I allowed my weapon to track Greg, until Maks growled a warning, “Careful, Karras.”

I swept the rifle back onto Lebedev. “What the fuck, Maks? Whose side are you on?”

“He’s on my side, Mr. Karras,” purred a voice from my past.

My heart lodged in my throat, and my eyes snapped to the side for the briefest moment, but it was enough to confirm what I feared most to be true.

Dmitri Chernov was alive! How was that possible?

Even more unbelievable, Greg appeared just as shocked as I. He stopped dead in his tracks, his face white as a sheet, and his mouth sagged open in wonder as he locked eyes with his father. All Greg could manage was a soft shake of his head. At first, his eyes misted up and a slow smile spread across his face, but as he came to realize what his father’s return really meant, the grin faded, and the joy at being reunited with a long-dead father turned to hurt. It was the same soul-crushing pain I’d witnesses the day before when Greg shook my hand.

Duplicity. Treason. Betrayal.

As each treacherous knife ripped deeper into what remained of Greg’s bitter soul, I detected the protective shield he kept over his heart growing thicker, stronger.

Impenetrable.

And in that moment, I knew I had witnessed the birth of an even greater monster.

Greg took a tentative step. “Papa?” he called out, his voice high and unsure.

“Stay where you are, Grigory,” Dmitri ordered.

But Greg didn’t seem to hear him. He put his hand out as he took another step. “I don’t understand, Papa. You’re alive?” He shook his head. “Where’ve you been? Why wasn’t I told? Why did you keep this from me?”

“I’m sorry, Grigory. I couldn’t risk anything happening to you. If you’d been a part of this, you would’ve been at risk. That’s why I sent you away. It was the safest thing to do.”

Greg finally halted. “But…you trusted Maksim. Why not me, Papa? You saw I could take care of myself, in and out of the pit. Why couldn’t you trust me? Why Maks?”

“Maks was imperative to the operation from the very beginning. He set up everything, faked my death, snuck me out of the country, kept an eye on you. And now that I am ready to reclaim control, he will be at my right hand. Only he can keep the FBI from meddling in our affairs. You will learn a great deal from him, Grigory. Embrace this opportunity.”

Greg’s face twisted, though whether in anger or bitterness, I couldn’t be sure. He clamped his hands into fists at his side. “I set this whole thing up, Papa. Maks only worked in the background, to keep control over Maguire and Karras.”

“And he will see to it that they are taken care of, that your plan comes to fruition, and you remain safe from prosecution. His family is important to ours, my son. I have to honor our alliance. This has been a long time coming.”

Greg shook his head, his brow crumpled in confusion, pretty much like the rest of us. We all stood stock still and stared at the two men as they hashed out their family secrets. Lebedev’s lips were mashed into a severe line as he was forced to listen to his predecessors’ squabbling, while his men itched to wrestle back control. Maks stood in bored amusement, just waiting it out, as Hannah trembled at the end of his perilous leash. Even Meier stopped moaning to listen in. But I was growing more worried as the seconds ticked by, unwilling to be
“taken care of”
as Dmitri had so ineloquently put it. What the fuck did that mean anyway?

Conner was equally concerned. He kept glancing over at me nervously. He caught my eye and, with his own, directed me to his good hand stuffed into his jacket pocket. Positioning his body so no one else could see, he opened his pocket and allowed me a glimpse at the small silver handgun inside. My eyes bugged out for a half-second before I focused back on Lebedev, but as soon as I could, I looked back over and gave Conner a small shake of my head. I feared he’d act out foolishly and put his and Hannah’s life in even greater jeopardy.

My attention was drawn back to Greg when he stomped his foot like a child.

He narrowed his eyes. “Maks has been well paid, Papa, just as you specified in your will. He doesn’t require any other compensation. He’s a means to an end, and I will not have him usurp what is rightfully mine, what I’ve worked for nearly five years to regain.”

“It is his, too, Grigory. If not for his family, your cousins could’ve assumed authority. They saw that Mikhail was dealt with, so that any claim his children might have had died with him. They are why we rose to head the Vory. They neutralized any risk Mikhail’s mutts posed to our sovereignty, as his only living heirs. And most importantly, Maks protected us when the federal government got too close. It was Maksim who took care of the meddlesome Agent Moody. He’d uncovered everything and was about to bring us all down, including you. Maksim kept your hands clean of that. He allowed you to manipulate strings, to control your puppets, and because of him, no scrutiny will be leveled on your shoulders.”

My blood turned to ice at Dmitri’s words, at learning it was Maks who so brutally murdered Aaron, and knowing exactly whose shoulders scrutiny would be leveled on. Mine. My nerves pinged with anxiety, and my weapon began to slip from Lebedev’s head.

“Uh-uh, Ty,” Maks scolded. “Keep your weapon up. You’re the only thing keeping his men from striking, and if they strike, so do I, and Hannah will suffer for it. Is that what you want, for your innocent wife to suffer yet again for what
you’ve
done, for who
you
are?”

“For who
he
is?” Greg fumed at Maks then laughed dementedly. “At least
he
is a Chernov, while
you
are nothing but a duplicitous snake. I might not have stuck to our plan, Maks, but at least I didn’t work both sides against the middle. Was that your plan all along, to reinstall my father as
Pakhan
and become his
Sovietnik
? Was I to remain your
Obshchak
forever, Papa?” Greg resumed his slow march forward.

“Stay where you are, Dmitriev,” Maks warned, shuffling his feet to face Greg head-on.

Hannah yelped as the wire dug deep into her neck and she was pulled a quarter turn. Maks took a step back as Greg got closer. My heart faltered, my eye pinned to Maks and his finger wired to the trigger. If he stumbled, even just a hair, that would be it for Hannah. I couldn’t let that happen.

“Greg!” I barked and swung my weapon at him. “You move another inch and I’ll show you just how good a shot you’ve forced me to become.”

“I’m not the one threatening your wife, you fool,” he said and dared another step, forcing Maks back one, as well.

“Actually, you are,” I countered and pulled the trigger.

The nearly silent shot slammed high into Greg’s right shoulder, his dominant side and exactly where I’d intended. He squealed as he spun into the wall of flowers and fell to the ground. He turned over and tried to crawl away through the sea of plants. With his injured arm, he reached into the mess of blossoms and pulled out a nine millimeter pistol, though he could hardly grip it let alone hold it up to fire. He sat up and, clutching his wounded shoulder, cradled the gun in his lap. He chuckled and raised his face, his eyes clenched in pain.

He blew out a long breath. “So much for Ty being my puppet, eh Papa? He’s Maksim’s now, just one more thing he’s stolen from me. And why the hell not? Everyone else steals from me. What’s one more?”

“Put the gun down, Grigory,” Dmitri urged, worried, yet impatient.

Greg shook his head and peered at his father, one eye open, the other closed. “I don’t think so, Papa.”

“Karras,” Maks seethed, “finish what you’ve started.”

Dmitri held his hand out. “No!” he directed at me then turned to Greg. “Don’t do this, Grigory. We can work it out.”

Greg waved the gun precariously and everyone ducked. “I don’t think so, Papa.”

“Greg, put the gun down,” I warned with little effect.

I didn’t want to kill Greg, even after all he’d done. I felt sorry for the poor bastard. He was his father’s son, after all, betrayed once more by his creator. The pain of that infidelity was now magnified tenfold, and, with so little left to lose, he was capable of anything.

Greg transferred the gun to his left hand and studied it.

“Grigory!” Dmitri begged.

“Karras!” Maks bellowed and shuffled Hannah yet again.

None of it did any good, and, as Greg raised the gun at his father and pulled the trigger, I loosed yet another round into his body. He simply tipped to the side and fell over, still as a stone, his rapid breaths shallow and wet. I lowered the rifle and stared, as did everyone else—except for Maks, who stepped back farther, and Hannah, who whimpered in terror as Maks moved unexpectedly. Dmitri was convulsing at their feet, a bullet through his head.

It was chaos. Total, utter chaos.

Dmitri and Greg, both dead.

With all the pandemonium, no one was paying attention to Conner. No one saw him skirt around and flank Sidorov from the side. No one saw him pull the small silver handgun from his pocket. No one saw anything—until it was too late. His eyes were wild as he leveled the weapon at Maks. My heart exploded into a mad sprint. I instinctively pulled my weapon to my side, but I couldn’t raise it at the boy. He was terrified, in shock, and not thinking straight. The slightest thing could set him off.

“Conner, please…put the gun down,” I urged. “You’re only putting your mother at risk. Please. Put it down.”

“Yes, Conner, listen to your old man,” Maks taunted. “Better yet, why don’t you point it at him?”

Without moving the gun, Conner turned his head and looked at me. Tears pooled in his stunned eyes.

“He’s the one who got you involved in this mess…” Maks added.

“No, Conner,” his mother cried. “Please…don’t listen to him.”

“He targeted your mother, hunted her down, invaded her home…”

Conner slowly swung the gun in my direction, yet I refused to move against him. While it terrified me to think he might shoot, I was relieved Hannah was that much safer.

She reached out to her son. “Conner, sweetheart, please, listen to me,” she begged.

But Maks was relentless. “He beat her bloody, Conner, nearly raped her…”

Conner nodded lethargically. “You did that,” he muttered at me. “You hurt my mother.”

I nodded, as well. “Yes, I did, and I’m…I’m sorry, Conner.”

“He separated her from everything and everyone she ever knew, Conner, her family, her husband, you…”

“Conner, please!” his mother implored. “Ty’s made up for everything, for all that happened.”

Maks pointed at me. “He delivered your mother to a madman, son, a rapist who tortured and defiled her, then displayed her like a whore. He did that…”

With tears streaking down his face, Conner nodded again as he pulled the gun’s hammer back.

“I’m sorry, Conner,” I said once more.

“Conner, no!” Hannah screamed, leaning forward. “Please! I love him!”

My weapon in one hand, I raised the other. “Hannah, don’t move!”

Maks held the shotgun firm. “Do it, Conner, shoot the bastard who ruined your life!”

“No, honey!”

“Hannah, stop!”

“Shoot him!”

With all of us screaming at once, none of us noticed the one man who’d not been disarmed, who seemed to pose no threat whatsoever. Eduard Meier. From the corner of my eye, I saw him pull a twenty-five millimeter semi-automatic pistol from a holster at his ankle.

Then, as if in slow motion, everything happened at once.

I rushed forward as Meier leveled his weapon at Sidorov. I swept Conner aside with the butt of my rifle, sending him and the silver pistol spinning to the grass. Meier pulled the trigger, and the strand of wire connecting Hannah’s neck to the shotgun snapped. She fell forward to the ground near her son. I fired one round at Maks’ head as his shotgun sailed high and discharged. We both flew back in opposite directions.

After that, all I saw was grey sky. All I heard was muffled screaming. All I felt was a cold numbness overtake my body. The taste of metal filled my mouth, and I couldn’t draw a full breath. Faces appeared above me—Hannah, Conner, Lebedev. I turned my head slightly and saw a half dozen men flurry about, dragging bloodied bodies by the hands and feet.

Blazing hands on my cheeks pulled my attention back to the faces above me. Hannah was crying and talking to me, but I couldn’t hear her words. Conner wept, as well, his eyes, frightened. I raised my hand to his battered cheek and smiled.

“It’s okay. You’re okay,” I whispered as he claimed my hand in his. “Take care of your mum and sister.” When Hannah shook her head and pushed Conner out of the way, I reached for her hand and pulled it to my lips. “I will always love you. You’re strong. You can do this. Lean on Conner. And tell Nicole about me and Nick. Make sure she knows I love her.” I smiled and squeezed her hand.

There was a sharp tugging at my arm as she screamed for help. I couldn’t hear her, but I could tell what she was saying. She was frightened, and I was so sad to be the cause yet again. I wanted to hold on. I tried so hard. I blinked to keep her clear, but darkness was creeping in from all sides. Soon, all I could see was a tiny pinpoint of light. I felt Hannah’s lips meet mine.

Then the light quickly faded, and I floated away.

People often asked me if I thought Ty could hear me. I didn’t know the answer to that, but I hoped so. Why else would I drive seventy miles, round trip, everyday to see him? I would’ve moved in with him if I could, but it wasn’t practical, not with an infant, nor was it permitted. The Green River Rehabilitation Center in Auburn had rules for their patients. As Ty’s spouse, I could visit anytime I wanted, but I couldn’t sleep with him, though I will admit, when the staff was busy with other things, I’d slip into bed beside him and curl his arm around me while I rested my head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.

I was sad it had turned out this way, but I was happy I could actually still hear his heart beat. It hadn’t started out that way. When Ty first took that round of buckshot from Maks’ gun, it didn’t appear life-threatening. But when he raised his hand to Conner’s cheek, his blood gushed from a ragged gash under his arm. It soaked his clothing in an instant and pooled up beneath him, the earth below too saturated to sop up anymore. The tourniquet helped, but I feared Ty might bleed out before the paramedics arrived from Lake Oswego only three miles away. Another three miles to the trauma center at Oregon Health and Science University and Ty was all but dead. Yet somehow, he’d managed to survive, though he never woke up again. But I would never give up on him. Ever. He’d sacrificed so much for me, for Nicole, for Conner. He deserved so much more, but life doesn’t always turn out like you pray it will, even when you pray every spare minute of every day.

In the six months since Ty’s injury, so much had changed. Nicole was teething and barely granted me an undisturbed hour’s sleep, but she was growing fast, flourishing, learning something new everyday, and providing funny stories to share with her daddy during my visits. Conner had gone back to school and was only nine months from graduating. He’d bought himself a secondhand guitar from a pawn shop near campus. Then he got himself a job playing three nights a week at a pub near his new apartment in Wallingford, not far from the U-Dub. He made the trek to see Ty the other four days a week. Whatever issues Conner had once had with Ty were now buried, and he prayed often for his stepfather’s recovery.

Everyday, I’d chatter to Ty non-stop about my children. On the days I played video of Nicole, Ty’s heart monitor would tick up. That’s how I knew he was still in there, that he hadn’t let go of us. But he wasn’t quite ready to come back just yet, though I never missed an opportunity to prod him along.

I shared with him the details of all the machinations that had unknowingly occurred around us, at least what the FBI knew for sure. After her murder, Greg had seen to it that Katy’s body was returned to her father, but because she had drowned inexplicably, an autopsy had been performed before she’d been interned, and a sample of her baby’s DNA revealed that Conner was indeed its father. And though she wasn’t far enough along to determine the baby’s gender, Conner always referred to it as she. Had Katy lived, she’d be full term and ready to give birth any day. That sat hard on Conner’s shoulders, and I often saw him wipe tears from his eyes.

Roman was nowhere to be found, and Nova and Janek, the two associates of Greg Conner felt most threatened by, had also disappeared without a trace. Rush Hour had subsequently been shut down by the FBI. They assigned a new liaison, Special Agent Barbara Corvell, to keep us informed of the investigation. She had very little to share about Maksim Sidorov except to say that he’d been recruited straight out of law school at NYU and exhaustively vetted since, as a fluent speaker of Russian, he would be working on the Russian Organized Crime Task Force. They didn’t know, or weren’t telling us, at least, how his family got involved with the Chernov’s, but they did acknowledge he had close relatives living in Tottenham, London.

Though nothing could be verified, it was looking like Greg’s story about Ty and Nick’s parentage was true. When Nick’s medical records from when he’d been hospitalized as a toddler were examined, it was revealed he’d had an illness caused by a genetic anomaly not consistent with his father, an anomaly Dmitri and Greg’s autopsies revealed they shared, and, most likely, Mikhail, though it could never be confirmed so many years after his murder. So, if Ty ever woke up, he’d have to face the truth that he was, most likely, a Chernov, not that it meant anything, but it would be difficult to come to terms in regards to Erik, the man he’d always considered his father. DNA material was available to confirm his relation to Greg and Dmitri, but it wasn’t my place to take that step and test for it. When the time came, should Ty feel it important enough for himself or our daughter, he’d do what was best.

With Conner’s help, the FBI discovered the location of Greg’s warehouse facility. They called the site “document-rich,” and said they were learning a great deal, but again, it wasn’t something they could share with us. They did, however, confirm that both agents Ford and O’Day were fully recovered and doing well, though they were each assigned new partners. Also shut down by the federal government was the bookshop Aaron had reported and Tyler had visited. The old man was nowhere to be found, nor was the heavily tattooed character Ty had reported to Aaron and Moody had written up in his files. Those files were, undoubtedly, providing a great wealth of information to the FBI. Even still, there were a lot of loose ends as far as the Russians were concerned, and that left me and Conner a bit on edge, but at this point, there wasn’t anything we could do about that. It was up to the feds.

The one part of the case the FBI did fully investigate and close was Leo Vasin’s death. From information they’d discovered at Greg’s Woodinville estate and corroborated with evidence taken from Maksim Sidorov’s residence, they determined that, while Greg was present after the fact, it was actually Maks who had pushed Leo to his death. That would explain why Katy had insisted it wasn’t Greg, whom she worked for, yet had not fingered Maks, whom the FBI determined she’d never met. Greg had apparently kept his eggs in separate baskets.

All in all, everything had either been neatly recorded, closed, and shelved, or the FBI was still investigating and refused to divulge, no matter the risk it might still pose. It didn’t really matter to me anymore. Only one thing did, besides my children, and that was my husband’s recovery. His only real injury was to his brain, a lack of oxygen due to blood loss. His prognosis in the first few days had been poor, and his medical team told me to prepare for the worst, but Tyler had proved his doctors wrong, and he not only stabilized, he improved. As the weeks ground on, his reaction to stimuli also improved. Though he was comatose, he was not even remotely vegetative and scored high on the Glasgow Scale. Both his CAT scans and MRIs showed normal function, which gave me hope that Ty’s brain had not been permanently damaged. Frankly, the doctors didn’t know why Tyler would not wake up.

I brainstormed for things that might spark something, anything that would give him reason to come back to me, but nothing I tried seemed to work or have much effect. The only thing that did was Nicole. When I played recordings of her babbling or laughing that silly way babies laugh, Tyler’s flesh pinked up and his eyes raced behind his lids.

I’d been telling Ty’s doctor for weeks that he needed to see his daughter in person, to feel her crawl over his chest and patty-cake his cheeks, to pull his hair and tug at his lips, to hear her cry and scream and wail when she didn’t get her way. God knows, she was impossible to ignore when she let loose and howled. But the doctors insisted it was too risky to bring an infant who’d not yet been fully immunized into a rehabilitation facility. Patients were highly susceptible to illness, especially pneumonia, easily the most prolific killer on the ward.

After wrangling back and forth for several weeks, I threatened to remove Ty from their care. They countered with a plan that, at first, gave me hope, but then was dashed when they presented a time table. At twelve months, they proposed, Nicole would be sufficiently vaccinated for her to be exposed to the ward. I strenuously objected, arguing that another nine months could mean the difference between life and death for Ty. So, after another week of mediation, it was agreed that, after her six-month pediatric exam, once all her age-appropriate immunizations had been met and Nicole remained free of illness, even the slightest runny nose, she would be allowed to visit her father.

Nicole had turned six months only eight days ago, and she’d successfully received her vaccines without any resulting fever or illness. She’d been cleared by her pediatrician just hours earlier, and today was the big reveal, the day Ty and Nicole would finally meet. I was told not to expect anything as far as Tyler’s reaction. It was unlikely to have an immediate, if any, effect on my husband, but we were all hopeful that, over time, he would respond to the sound of his only child’s voice and touch and finally come around. Even a limited reaction would be better than nothing at all.

The drive down seemed inordinately long, and Nicole fussed the entire way. I was relieved Conner had time to accompany me, not that he could do anything to placate his baby sister, but he did help calm my nerves. Once I parked the car, she wailed even harder. I feared this might not be such a good idea after all. I didn’t want their first meeting to be stressful. I wanted it calm and quiet and playful. Unfortunately, Nicole would have none of that.

We received a few dirty looks from staff members when I introduced her to the on-duty nurses and aides, but for the most part, they cooed over her. A couple even insisted on picking her up, certain they knew just what it took to calm a crying baby. But nope, nothing worked, not even Conner’s beautiful singing, which, nine times out of ten, did the trick.

Tears began to sting the backs of my eyes at the thought of turning around and going home. I looked toward Ty’s room just two doors down the hall. We were so close, but it just wasn’t going to work out. I sighed. It was only one day. I’d just bring her back and try again tomorrow.

But then…something inexplicable happened.

One of the temporary aides, assigned when someone called in sick, ran screaming-mad out of Tyler’s room. The profanities were flying in rapid succession, even though, since she spoke only Spanish, I could barely understand a word of, something about being grabbed. One of the Spanish-speaking nurses questioned her as Nicole wailed against my shoulder. Between the two of them, everyone was growing more and more agitated.

I patted Nicole as I watched the nurse interrogate the flustered aide. The nurse kept saying “
Que? Que?
” until her hands flew up to her mouth. She turned astonished eyes in my direction. I locked onto her gaze, silently begging for an explanation, when a smile took hold and stretched wide across her face.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

The nurse stepped toward Ty’s room and motioned me to follow. Conner wrapped his arm around my shoulders, and together, with Nicole still wailing, we joined the nurse. She directed me forward into the open doorway. I peeled my eyes from Conner’s and peered into the gloom of Ty’s darkened room.

Nothing appeared any different. Ty still lay immobilized in his bed, his face turned away toward the covered window. Nicole’s bawling morphed into hiccupping sobs as the dimness of the room enveloped us. I felt Conner place his hand on my shoulder near his sister’s head. The nurse scampered past and tugged on the cord, opening the vertical blinds and allowing soft gray light to brighten the space. Nicole protested. She obviously preferred the darkness.

“Sh, sh, shhh,” I whispered as I patted her back. “You’re going to scare your daddy.”

“Too late,” croaked a rough version of the voice I’d been praying to hear for over six months.

My heart fairly leapt from my chest, startling it into a pace my lungs couldn’t seem to keep up with. I stumbled to a halt, Conner at my elbow to keep me from falling, though he was shaking equally as hard as I was—for staring up at us, his sky-blue eyes all crinkly at the corners as his cracked lips pulled into a smile, was Tyler, awake and alert.

A feeling like I’d never experienced before washed over me, like warm water from a South Pacific tide. It enveloped me, cradled me, nourished me, and pinged my entire being back to glorious life. I felt like I’d been holding my breath for six long months, and now, I was finally able to inhale, a weight lifting from my chest, making me feel like I was about to float to the ceiling.

Conner nudged me toward Ty’s bedside. Ty raised a hand and placed it along the arm I had holding Nicole up to my chest. He squeezed, and tears rolled from his eyes into those enticing little creases that shot nearly to his temples. I shifted a now-hushed Nicole forward in my arms and placed her facedown onto Tyler’s stomach and chest. She lifted her big head and stared into her daddy’s eyes, a perfect match to her own. As he grinned down at her, she lifted her pudgy finger to her daddy’s mouth and slipped it in between his lips then let out a loud, “Bah bah!” before she clonked her noggin back down and inserted her thumb into her own mouth. Her lids grew heavy and fluttered closed, and Nicole fell sound asleep listening to her daddy’s heart beat beneath her tiny ear.

Ty gazed at me, then at Conner, who dipped down and placed a sweet kiss against my cheek. I took both Ty and Conner’s hands in mine, and we just stood there, watching Nicole gently snore in Tyler’s embrace.

There were no words adequate enough to be spoken at a moment like this. It was the purest of love, wrapping its arms around all four of us—Ty, me, Conner, and Nicole—drawing us together, finally making us whole.

We were a family, finally and completely, and, by God, nothing would ever tear us apart again.