Nikolai 2 (Her Russian Protector #6) (13 page)

Ten's shoulders dropped and the insulted look on his face faded. He asked the most obvious question. "Are we going to war?"

Now it was Ivan who tensed. Apprehension darkened his face.

"Not yet," Nikolai answered. "Not if I can help it."

"Then why me?" Ten seemed honestly confused by the request. "I was your best enforcer. I was the man you called to do the jobs no one else could. I trained Sergei for you and made sure there was someone to keep this city in line while I was away. To ask me to babysit your wife?" He touched his chest. "I'm sorry, boss, but it seems like a waste of my skills."

"Vivian is absolutely precious to me. She's my one weakness—and my enemies know it." Nikolai didn't like admitting that aloud but Ten deserved to know the truth. "She was already a target because of her father, but now that she's my wife, she's the biggest target in the city. Something is coming." He rubbed his thumb along the spot where his pulse beat on the underside of his wrist. "I can feel it."

"The cartel?" Ivan asked the question everyone plugged into the underworld wondered.

"Lorenzo Guzman is losing control. Romero will make a play, but he's not the only one. It could get messy." He held Ten's gaze. "I need to know Vivian is safe, especially now."

"Especially now?" Ten repeated.

"Now that she's pregnant." Nikolai dropped that bombshell without warning. "It won't be easy to hide much longer." He was talking to Ten man to man now and not as his boss. "Will you watch over them for me? I need to know they're safe."

"Yes." He answered without hesitation. "Of course."

Nikolai glanced at Ivan who drew a finger across his lips. He wouldn't breathe a word about the pregnancy, not even to Erin.

Leaning back in his chair, Nikolai said, "Sergei has agreed to talk to you about guarding her. He was with her the longest so he knows her the best. They bonded like brother and sister." He hesitated as he considered the hard, violent man in front of him. "I don't expect that sort of friendship between the two of you, but I need to know that you'll treat her…gently."

Ten shot him a look of consternation. "Boss, I'm not going to sit here and defend my reputation. I'll treat your wife with the same respect I give you—but I don't need a friend or a sister."

Nikolai lifted both hands. "Fine. That's fine."

"When do I start?"

"Tomorrow." Nikolai gestured toward Ten's messy beard. "You can keep that but clean it up." He eyed the other man's jeans and polo shirt. "We need to get you some new clothes."

Ivan took the lead on that one. "I'll take care of it. We can go see my guy in the morning after we visit his P.O. and the DPS office for his license. Then I'll drop him off at your house?"

Nikolai nodded. "We have a new kid at the house who can do all the driving until you have everything arranged. He's young and has a clean record."

"Boychenko?" Ivan grabbed his glass of water and finished it. "He's a scrappy little bastard. Sergei might actually be able to turn him into a fighter. He'll always be a featherweight but he's got potential."

"Wait." Ten seemed confused. "Roman?" He held up his hand to measure five feet or so from the floor. "The kid who bags groceries at his grandmother's little market?"

"The market is gone," Nikolai said, "and Roman is nineteen. He's working for Artyom now." Recognizing that lost look in Ten's eyes, he shrugged. "A lot happens in six years."

Ten nodded slowly. "Yeah."

Fully aware that the shock of being released from prison made it easy for a man to slide into depression, Nikolai decided it was time to send Ten on his way. A celebration would be good for him. It would remind him of all the friends who cared about and had missed him. He needed to feel surrounded and supported. He needed to be made whole again.

He walked them out the side entrance while they waited for one of the valets to bring Ivan's Escalade. He shared a look with Ivan as the other man slid behind the wheel of his vehicle. Like brothers, they could communicate without saying a word.
Keep him out of trouble.

"They'll be fine."

Nikolai searched the nearby shadows for Kostya. He hated the way the former covert operative skulked in the darkness. There weren’t many men who could get the drop on him, but Kostya was one of them. Thankfully they were on the same side.

"Ivan will take care of him. He won't let Ten fuck up his parole." Kostya finally emerged from the shadows. "You want me to drive you home?"

Nikolai shook his head. "No. Are you heading to the party?"

Kostya shot him a look that said
of course
. "I'm catching a ride with some of your line cooks. If you need me—"

"I know how to find you," Nikolai replied.

Kostya took exactly four steps down the street before turning suddenly. "Shit." He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and retrieved a cell phone. "I forgot I had this."

Nikolai accepted it from him and tucked it into his own pocket without a glance. Vivian wasn't in the habit of texting or calling him unless it was important. If it had been something that needed his immediate attention, Artyom would have found a way to get a message to him through Kostya or Danny.

He spent more than an hour in his office going over paperwork. Samovar and the legitimate and very successful businesses he owned wholly or partly around the city were the major sources of his personal income. Early on, he had recognized that building a legitimate portfolio was the only way to stay out of prison. So he had kept his eyes open for business opportunities and had availed himself of Yuri's head for finance.

His first forays into legitimate earning hadn't been smooth or above-board exactly. Truthfully, the first few car washes and bars that he had acquired had been on defaulted loans he had extended. The construction company that he intended Sergei to run in the near future had been purchased when the previous owner needed fast cash. Any time a man left the family—men like Ivan or Alexei—he made sure to fund their startups. Twenty or twenty-five percent ownership here or there added up quickly.

While his crew earned tidy sums off of their illegal activities, he made sure they were receiving the bulk of their income through the side businesses. That way they weren't tempted to get stupid and surrender to the temptation of easy but dangerous money. Their hands were dirty, but they weren't
that
dirty. He stayed on their asses about paying taxes and keeping out of trouble.

Thoughts of avoiding the trouble brewing around the city plagued him as he drove home. There were so many pieces to this puzzle, and he could no longer tell where each one fit. He finally had the one thing he had wanted most—a family with Vivian. His stomach in knots, Nikolai accepted that one wrong move could cost him everything.

As he drove by Judge Walker's house, he thought of his promise to help the man extricate his daughter from a bad situation. The morning after giving the order, Boychenko had given him the address and a quick rundown of the situation after a few hours of watching the house where the woman was living. It wasn't going to be easy to get her out of there, not if her habit was as bad as Boychenko's investigation had uncovered. She was hooked on that sweet Colombian candy
and
her dealer.

After he parked in the garage, Nikolai ambled toward the side gate that granted him access to the alley. He walked the shadows like a man used to living in them, completely at ease and not the least bit afraid of what might lurk in them. Frankly, the types of people who hid in the shadows were probably more likely to be afraid of him. Well—all of them who weren't Kostya.

The judge left his back gate unlocked. Nikolai frowned at that. Anyone could get in here. Bad people even.
Like me
. He entered the backyard and used the flagstone walkway. He had traveled twenty feet before he heard the unmistakable
click
of a revolver cylinder slamming into place. With a quirk of his mouth, Nikolai stood perfectly still and lifted his hands. The porch light suddenly illuminated the backyard and blinded him from seeing anything on the screened-in porch.

Playing along with the judge's game, he slowly lifted his jacket and turned in a circle. Seemingly satisfied that he was unarmed and had no ill intentions, the judge flipped the light off. The
thunk
of the gun landing on a table echoed in the night.

"Awfully late for a social call, Nikolai."

"I work odd hours." Hands on his hips, he waited for the judge to invite him onto the porch or send him away. Realizing he hadn’t heard a peep from the judge's dog, he glanced around the backyard. "Your gate is unlocked. Did Roscoe escape?"

"He's at the vet. Someone poisoned him. With cocaine," the judge growled. "Those bastards took my daughter, and now they're trying to kill my dog."

"So the gate is unlocked and you're sitting in the dark with a revolver—"

"And a shotgun."

"And a shotgun," Nikolai repeated, "because you think they'll come back and you're hoping to unleash some of that Texas justice?"

"My castle. My guns."

Nikolai didn't doubt the judge would blow a hole in the first unfriendly face that peeked over the hedge. "When did the poisoning happen?"

"This morning," the judge answered. "I let him loose to do his morning business but he didn't come back to the house. I found him out near the garden shed. He had eaten half a pound of bologna laced with drugs."

Nikolai scratched his fingers through his hair. He wasn't sure what pissed him off more. Was it the fact that some lowlife thug had gotten
this
close to his own home, to his wife? Or was it the fact that some dumbass drug dealer thought it would be a good idea to threaten a federal fucking judge in a boss's backyard?

This was bad. There would be cops crawling all over this poisoning and digging into it. Though he didn't want to get dragged any deeper into this argument between the judge and Bobby Pham, he nevertheless extended his help to the man. "I've located your daughter, but it won't be easy to get her out of there."

The judge finally emerged from the darkness of his screened-in porch to the door he had propped open with a heavy planter holding a wildly overgrown aloe plant. "Is this where you shake me down for money?"

"No. This is where I tell you that these types of things tend to be noisy if they're rushed. It's easier on everyone if we do this quietly."

"What does quietly mean?"

"It means we do it my way. It means that it takes some time."

"Time?" The judge raised his voice, clearly exasperated. "I don't have time. She's been there too long. If I don't get her out soon—"

"You asked for my help, and I'm telling you this is the best way. If you don't want my help, by all means, do it yourself. But I warn you it won't go well for either of you."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's free advice. I suggest you take it." Biting back his frustration, he sighed. "I want to help you, Judge, but you have to work with me. You rattled their cages. Poisoning your dog was a warning. I suggest you heed that warning. Leave this ugly business to men like me."

Not wanting to argue with an armed man who was probably teetering on the edge of a breakdown, Nikolai pivoted on his heel and left the judge's backyard without another word. He stepped onto his property and instantly spotted the silhouette of a man leaning against a corner of the pergola. The flare of a lighter illuminated Ilya's face—and the flowers smashed between his arm and the wood.

"Get off the roses," Nikolai scolded. Vivian loved sitting under the pergola in the morning. She often sketched the beautiful blooms. He had one of the delicately shaded drawings in his office at Samovar.

"Sorry, boss." Ilya spoke around the cigarette clamped between his lips and straightened. "It won't happen again."

"See that it doesn't." He glanced around the yard. "Where is Boychenko?"

"The kitchen."

"Arty?"

"Inside." Ilya took a long drag and held the smoke in his lungs before slowly, almost decadently, exhaling it in a curling plume. "There was some trouble four houses down, boss."

"I heard."

"When I saw the cops in the alley, I called a guy I've got in my pocket, up at the police station. He told me his girlfriend who works in a vet's office had seen the judge's dog. He was poisoned."

Not for the first time, Nikolai was impressed by Ilya's network of gossips and informants. "Do we know who did it?"

"You're not going to like this answer." Ilya blew out another lungful of smoke.

Subtly shifting away from the breeze that carried the smoke, Nikolai tried not to inhale the familiar scent of it. With the stress piling up on his shoulders, he had a raging craving for a Marlboro red. "Just tell me."

"It was the judge's daughter."

Nikolai narrowed his eyes. "You're sure."

"I took one of the baskets you keep on the porch, picked some peaches and tomatoes and visited your neighbors. I told them you were going out of town and your wife wanted to share the extra produce out of the garden before you left. Your peaches will open any door on this street." Ilya chuckled darkly at his off-color remark. "The old lady who lives next to the judge? In the brick house?"