NIKOLAI (Her Russian Protector #4) (38 page)

"Eh, a man's got to eat." Grisha's eyes
narrowed to slits. "We aren't all lucky enough to be born as Maksim
Prokhorov's son."

Nikolai tried to decide if he could grab his
pistol fast enough. The spray from that shotgun would blast them
both even if he managed to get off a round. "How long have you
known?"

"About your daddy? Not long," Grisha admitted.
"I'd always wondered why he sent you here when the rumors
started."

"Rumors you started," he
interjected.

"Of course," Grisha confirmed with an acid
laugh. "Drop the gun that's behind your back. Slowly," he added.
"I'd hate to have to kill before I've had my fun."

Nikolai kept his knife hidden behind his back
but grasped the pistol from his waistband and tossed it over as he
ordered. He decided to keep Grisha talking. "Why did you start
those rumors?"

"I saw the way you were coming up behind me."
Grista kicked aside the weapon. "You were so hungry to prove
yourself. You and that fucking gorilla Ivan. I knew it was only a
matter of time before you two replaced me." Grisha's face contorted
with anger. "Maksim would have killed anyone else over those rumors
but not you. No, he gave you this place."

"And that just pissed you off even more,"
Nikolai rightly guessed.

"This should have been mine. This
whole new world of earning—and what have you done with it? Huh?"
Grisha practically spat the word. "You've pulled your men out of
dirty money—easy money,
big
money—for this clean shit. It's a
disgrace."

"It's a different world here. Big and flashy
gets a man sent to prison."

"What do you care? As many times as you've been
behind bars, prison must feel like coming home. Besides, I'm sure
you find plenty to keep you busy on the inside. A pretty boy like
you probably enjoys all that attention. You've been taking it in
the ass since you were…what? Eight?"

Grisha's mocking laugh enraged Nikolai. He
refused to be goaded by the crazy bastard and tried to remain calm.
Boxed into the room with Santos who remained bound and helpless,
Nikolai's options were few. The knife he had hidden behind his back
might buy him a precious few seconds—but only a few.

"I can't believe you married that little bitch
who tried to kill you," Grisha continued to rant. "I should have
known better than to trust that fucking loan shark to contract out
that hit."

Loan shark? Afrim Barisha had been the
go-between for Grisha and Romero? Now his murder made more sense to
Nikolai. That had been the first loose end Grisha had wrapped up
when Romero was popped from prison. He'd probably worried that
Afrim would finally confess to Besian who would have run to Nikolai
with that news.

"What's so special about her, huh?" Grisha
tilted his head as if truly perplexed. "Maybe I should have tested
her out when I had her in that dog cage. She had perkiest little
tits I've ever seen." He started to laugh. "You should have heard
the sounds she made when we hit her with that cattle prod. Squealed
like a baby pig!"

His description of Vivian's torment sickened
Nikolai. When Grisha pushed his finger to his nose and started to
make squealing sounds, Nikolai welcomed the advantage. He jerked
his hand back and threw the knife right at Grisha. The sharp blade
slammed into Grisha's chest and stabbed deep into his
target.

Choking with shock, Grisha yanked the blade
from his chest. Blood spurted from the wound. Shrieking with fury,
he raised his shotgun but Nikolai rushed him before he could
fire.

With the shotgun between them, they punched and
slapped at each other. This was a fight to the death—and Nikolai
had to be the one who walked out alive. For Vivian, he had to win
this.

Grisha got the upper hand just long enough to
slam the butt of the gun into Nikolai's jaw. The burst of impact
rattled his still healing brain. Dazed by the blow, he lost his
balance for a few seconds. It was long enough for Grisha to knock
him to the ground.

Refusing to go down alone, Nikolai grasped the
front of Grisha's shirt and dragged him to the floor. Grisha ended
up on top of him and pushed the barrel of the weapon against
Nikolai's throat. He seemed intent on strangling him. Nikolai
fought back, shoving the gun away from his neck, but Grisha had the
better position and forced it back down with his full body
weight.

Nikolai gouged at Grisha's eyes, clawing at the
soft tissues of his once-friend's face. Grisha screamed as blood
trickled down his cheeks but he only pushed harder on the gun. Out
of the corner of his eye, Nikolai could see Eric fighting to get
loose. He rocked his body weight hard enough to dislocate his ankle
in a desperate attempt to free himself.

Doubtful Eric would succeed in getting loose,
Nikolai focused all his strength on getting that gun off his
throat. His vision began to go spotty as his oxygen-starved lungs
began to fail him and his brain shunted oxygen to more important
areas of his body.

He wasn't going to die like this. He refused to
leave Vivian a widow.

"Hurry!" Eric's desperate plea tore through the
grunting and growling sounds coming out of Nikolai and Grisha's
mouths.

Hurry? Who the hell is he talking
to
?

And then, like the goddamned Angel of Death,
Romero Valero appeared just over Grisha's shoulder. He raised his
arm, bringing that gleaming blade of his machete high in the air
before swinging it down toward Grisha's neck.

Nikolai closed his eyes at the last
second. Grisha made a stunned noise as the blade
thwacked
into neck. Hot
blood sprayed Nikolai's face. The weight of Grisha's body dropped
onto him. Another gush of warm liquid poured over him as the
machete finished its chopping motion. A moment later, the body was
shifted off him and onto the floor.

Nikolai rolled to his side and pushed onto his
knees. He wiped the blood from his face and eyes with the hem of
his shirt. On his guard, he stared at Romero who stood over
Grisha's quickly exsanguinating body while cleaning his machete
blade with a rag he'd produced from a pocket.

"You're welcome," Romero said finally, his
raspy voice tinged with amusement. "I bought Vivian a nice a set of
crystal but you can consider this my wedding gift to
you."

Nikolai didn't find that the even the slightest
bit funny. "What are you doing here?"

Romero advanced toward Eric but Nikolai stepped
between them. His father-in-law looked rather entertained by the
sight of a mob boss protecting a detective. "My daughter needed me.
I decided that maybe it was time for me to finally come through for
her."

"Where is Vivian?" He didn't even want to think
about what she'd promised her father in exchange for his
help.

"She's having a nice chat with
her
suegro
."

Shock ripped through him.
Suegro
? Her
father-in-law. "Maksim is here."

"Yep." Romero skirted around him and gestured
to the rope knots suspending Eric. Nikolai stepped back just enough
to let him cut the detective free. "He and I have a little
understanding. You and Vivian get Houston. I get the Russian gun
trade in Mexico."

Nikolai narrowed his eyes. "But
Lorenzo—"

"Lorenzo got what he wanted. I took care of two
problems for him. The Calaveras won't step out of line again and
get into anything nasty like running underage girls from third
world hellholes, and he doesn't have to worry about having any of
his political connections north of the border exposed. In other
words, business as usual."

Romero whacked the knotted ropes and Eric fell
to the floor so hard Nikolai winced. Nikolai crouched down to help
him roll onto his back. "Be still. You're too dizzy to
move."

Santos didn't fight him. He groaned and
clenched his eyes shut as if in pain. He probably had a headache
from hell.

"That was a nice move you made. Getting the
Hermanos and Albanians to make peace," he clarified. "Framing those
skinheads was a nice touch. God knows they were due for their turn
in front of a judge."

For a man who had been on the inside for more
than a decade, Romero seemed to have kept all his
contacts.

"By the way, I'll let that deal you have
between the Irishman and Lorenzo stand but don't try to push into
my territory again." He waved the machete side to side. "Business
and family—they don't mix."

"That goes both ways." Nikolai helped Santos
into a sitting position. "Where are your clothes?"

"I don't know, man. He drugged me. I don’t
remember a lot of it."

"The car is out front. You two should hurry.
You don't want to be here when I call in my cleaners."

Nikolai glanced around and finally spotted the
pile of clothing in the corner. He grabbed the pants and shirt but
left everything else. There wasn't time to get Eric fully
dressed.

With Santos decent but wobbling on his feet,
Nikolai walked him toward the door. He stooped down to grab his
pistol and the bloody knife Grisha had plucked from his chest. As
he helped Eric hobble downstairs on his one good leg—the other
ankle was terribly swollen and likely broken or dislocated—the
detective asked with some disbelief, "Are we really going to let
him live?"

Nikolai glanced over his shoulder to find his
father-in-law watching them. It wouldn't have been difficult to
finish off the older man. He only had that machete to protect him
and Nikolai had a fully loaded gun—but something stopped Nikolai.
Loyalty? Gratitude? He didn't know what to call it.

"For today," Nikolai said finally. He didn't
doubt that someday soon he would regret letting Romero live, but
right now, he was more worried about getting Santos medical
attention and finding Vivian. They'd been given a second chance—and
he was taking it in both hands and never letting go.

Chapter
Twenty-Four

Later that evening, under the cover of darkness,
Nikolai and I parked one the SUVs from his fleet high atop a
parking garage his organization owned. Using binoculars, we watched
the Houston police department and the Feds raid an old factory the
skinheads and Grisha had been using to hold all those women they'd
trafficked.

After dropping Eric on a street corner and
calling 9-1-1 to report a drugged, lost man, we'd waited nearby
until EMS and the police had arrived to help him. I sensed he was
still furious about my father walking away alive but he didn't seem
to want to hurt Nikolai.

The truth wasn't much different than the story
Eric had offered to tell. He'd left out only the details concerning
Nikolai. As far as the police were concerned, Grisha and my father
had been working together all along to stir up a turf war in the
city.

With Eric safe, we'd returned to the
house. I'd followed Nikolai upstairs to help him shower because I
didn't believe he wasn't hurt. There had been
so
much blood. I didn't think we'd
ever get it out of his hair. I hadn't wanted to hear the gruesome
details of Grisha's end, but I'd been able to piece together what
had happened once my father entered that house with his
machete.

Entertaining Maksim had been a strange
experience. The older man was kind toward me but rather aloof and
cold. Nikolai had been furious that Maksim had blackmailed me into
making that decision to save his life but it was done. There was no
going back.

As quickly and unexpectedly as Maksim had come
into our lives that morning, he'd exited that afternoon. Before
he'd left, he'd handed me a simple envelope containing all the
evidence the police needed to track down and free these women.
Though I still had an entire room filled with gifts to open, I had
no doubt that envelope would be the one I cherished
most.

I had walked the information into the police
department myself and given it to Katrina, that detective friend of
Eric's who worked vice and had been tirelessly looking for these
poor girls. She'd been understandably wary but she'd thanked me for
my help and promised to do everything possible to save
them.

And now here we were.

"It's a beautiful thing," Nikolai murmured as
dozens of young women were led out of the building and into waiting
ambulances. Those disgusting men who had been trafficking them were
lined up and cuffed outside the building. I doubted they would get
all the men responsible or find all the women who needed help—but
it was a start.

"Yes, it is."

Nikolai handed me the binoculars for another
look. As I continued to watch the raid, he grasped my hand between
both of his and interlaced our fingers. "I wish I could promise you
these will be the last girls who ever get held in cages and sold
like livestock but I can't."

I lowered the binoculars and studied his
handsome face in the low moonlight streaming through the
windshield. "I'm not naïve enough to think it stops here—but at
least we managed to help these ones."

"It feels nice to finally do something
good."