Russian Mafia Boss's Heir (7 page)

Mikhail felt a growing sense of discontent, but he squelched it for now. “As you wish, Boss.”

***

TORI WANDERED DOWNSTAIRS. She was starving. She had eaten almost nothing the day before, but with the wedding stress behind her, she found she was now famished. There were noises coming from the kitchen, and Tori was reminded that Mikhail had mentioned a housekeeper of some kind. Not that the idea gave her much comfort. Mrs. Tobolovsky had been so mean over the years that Tori was hesitant to ask anything of a household employee for fear of incurring the wrath of the household staff.

“Hello?” Tori said hesitantly, stepping into the kitchen. “Is there someone here?”

“Oh my!” A woman whirled around, putting her hand over her chest. “You gave me a fright! I’d forgotten I wasn’t all alone in here, bless you child.”

The woman wasn’t Russian. That fact alone made Tori completely uncertain of how to act. The lady appeared to be in her late fifties with a plump, matronly build and white hair pulled back into a messy knot at the back of her head. Her hands were covered in flour, and she was kneading some sort of bread dough. The yeasty smell of baking bread filled the kitchen, and there was flour all over the center island. The entire scene was so picturesque and inviting that Tori felt a pang of loss for the mother she’d never really known. Would she and her mother have sat around in the kitchen and gossiped together? Had her mother even liked to cook or bake? Tori knew absolutely nothing. Why had she never really thought of that before?

“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost too, my dear.” The woman gestured to one of the stools tucked beneath the island. “Why don’t you have a seat? I’ll get you some breakfast and we can get better acquainted now that you’re the lady of the house.”

Tori certainly had no answer to
that
. Did she even consider herself the lady of the house? Not really. She felt more like an unwanted interloper, but maybe that was mostly because she hadn’t come willingly. Deciding she had nothing to lose, Tori sat and put her elbows up on the smooth marble countertop.

“Are you hungry?” The housekeeper cocked her head to one side. “I have some fresh buns just out of the oven. They’re filled with nuts and fruit. Mr. Mikhail loves them. He’ll eat the whole batch if you don’t watch out for him.”

“He will?” Tori drank in this mundane bit of information about her new husband. Somehow it humanized him.

“Bless me, I didn’t even introduce myself!” The woman looked chagrined. “I’m Mrs. O’Connell.”

“I’m Tori.” Tori picked up the thick roll that Mrs. O’Connell set in front of her. It smelled incredible. The bread was soft and fluffy, and it was filled with dates, nuts, and raisins. She made a low noise of appreciation as she chewed the yummy treat. “This is the most amazing thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“Mr. Mikhail doesn’t actually like that traditional Russian food they serve in all the other Bratva houses,” Mrs. O’Connell said conspiratorially. “That’s why he hired me to do his cooking when he moved in here a good ten years ago.”

“You’ve worked for him for that long?” Tori was amazed. She knew that Tobolovsky had been with her father since before Tori and her mother had come to live with Stanislas, but that was unusual. Generally a housekeeper only stayed with a family as long as she was indebted to the boss. Then she moved on.

“Oh yes!” The woman smacked the bread dough down onto the counter. “Oh my, girl, the stories I could tell you!”

“I’ve love to hear them,” Tori said eagerly. This was going to be good. Very good.

***

MIKHAIL ENTERED HIS home with a sense of relief. Dealing with Stanislas on a normal day was tiring. Dealing with him today had somehow been much worse. The sense of obligation was profound. And Stanislas was feeling particularly disagreeable for some reason. Everything had taken longer than expected, and now Mikhail was obligated to go to a meeting with the Orlovs that evening, which would no doubt end badly.

There were feminine voices in the kitchen. Mikhail tried to make no noise in the hallway as he headed in that direction. He’d known that Mrs. O’Connell would take to Tori right away. She loved to mother people, and Tori certainly needed mothering. Yet Mikhail wasn’t prepared for how it would feel to see those two sitting at the counter with their heads together as Mrs. O’Connell told stories about Mikhail.

“So do you believe he’s a faithful sort of man?” Tori asked suddenly.

Mrs. O’Connell made a tsking noise. “Oh child, I absolutely believe that! He has such a good heart.”

“I hope so.” Tori gave a sigh. “This marriage wasn’t exactly what either of us wanted, at least I don’t think he wanted it, but we didn’t really have a choice with my father pulling all the strings.”

“Your father is a very strong and stubborn man,” the housekeeper agreed. “Now will you hand me that rolling pin? I think this dough is just about perfect for rolling.”

“And what are we making?” Tori asked, peering curiously at the lump of dough on the island.

Mikhail left before Mrs. O’Connell could answer. He went straight down the hallway to his study and let himself into the room. Sitting at his desk, he brooded for several moments over this new wife he didn’t quite know what to make of. She wasn’t what he’d expected. He wasn’t even sure she was what he wanted. He needed a smart but biddable woman who wouldn’t ask a bunch of questions. What he’d married was a hellcat with a stubborn streak a mile wide who had more issues than he did. What was he supposed to make of that? More importantly, what did Stanislas intend by saddling Mikhail with such an independent and difficult woman?

Chapter Nine

Two weeks, no, it had been three weeks since her marriage to Mikhail, and Tori was bored out of her mind. The man worked all the time. In fact, he was almost never home. And when he did come home, it was to eat, shower, and then go back to work. Occasionally he slept, but that was usually in his study on the couch.

Tori wandered through the upstairs hallway. There were only two suites on the fourth floor, the master bedroom and bath, and something that Tori suspected was intended to be a nursery. She meandered through the empty rooms. This house was horribly lonely. Had Mikhail been living here all by himself for ten years? He was either the most unsociable person on the planet, or he was just sad. She couldn’t decide which; after all, she barely knew the man.

She headed back into the master suite and stared at the bed. She’d been sleeping there pretty much alone since that first night. Thinking back to how strangely optimistic she’d felt when she woke up the morning after her wedding night, Tori felt stupid now.

What had happened to the man who wanted her so much that he ordered her out of her clothes? He had been powerful and sexy that night. She’d felt wanton and attractive and so damn aroused that she’d nearly come at the first press of his fingers against her pussy. Now she would be lucky if he even remembered she
had
a pussy. It was almost as if the entire night had been an act. It was the thing that all men were supposed to do on their wedding nights, but not something that Mikhail had particularly enjoyed.

Oh! What if he hadn’t even liked having sex with her? Until that moment Tori hadn’t even considered the possibility. He’d gotten off, right? In her limited experience, that was what men wanted. Mikhail wasn’t a regular sort of guy. He was more. The possibility existed that she had disappointed him and he had become bored before they’d even gotten started.

That thought made her angry.

She flounced back out of the suite and took the stairs two at a time on her way to the ground floor. She could hear Mrs. O’Connell vacuuming the living room. The housekeeper was a whole lot better than Mrs. Tobolovsky had ever been, but Tori could tell the poor woman was getting a bit frustrated with Mikhail. It wasn’t like she could tell her employer that he was acting like a crappy husband. That was sort of Tori’s department. Except she was pretty sure it wouldn’t do her a damn bit of good to
tell
Mikhail.

She was done hanging around waiting for him to notice her. With one quick text, she made plans to meet her friends for lunch. It was high time she stopped being a bridal doormat.

***

“HOW IS MARRIED life treating you, eh?” Stanislas slapped Mikhail on the shoulder in some bizarre imitation of camaraderie. Bizarre because there was nothing in Stanislas’s behavior in the last few weeks that had resembled any sort of comrade Mikhail would have wanted.

Mikhail knew he was required to provide an answer. He also knew that Stanislas wasn’t interested in honesty.

So Mikhail offered a pleasant smile. “I find married life very comfortable.”

“Good, good!” the old man said absently. “Now. What did you find out about the Orlovs?”

It was just the two of them in the study at Stanislas’s house. Mikhail was tempted to be honest regarding exactly what he had found out about the Orlovs, but that would have made Stanislas extremely angry, and Mikhail just wasn’t sure if he cared to deal with a tantrum at the moment.

Mikhail gestured to a sheaf of receipts on the table. “These are the most recent receipts from the casino. It would appear that the Orlovs are spending at least two nights a week inside. There is some gambling, some drinking, and probably more than a few meetings.” Mikhail had his own private opinions about why the Orlovs were frequenting a Vasiliev establishment, but he kept that to himself.

“Those bastards!” Stanislas snarled. “They are trying to strong arm their way into my business. No?”

No.
But Mikhail couldn’t actually voice that opinion, so he shrugged instead. “I’m not sure of their intentions, but we can certainly keep them under close surveillance.”

“I want you to find something concrete,” Stanislas demanded. He paced energetically back and forth in front of the table before turning and smashing his hand down on the stack of receipts. “I want something to take to the council. I want to ask permission to take them out. I want their boss, Vasily. I want him dead!”

“Isn’t Vasily Orlov Tori’s uncle?” Mikhail asked slowly. “Are you certain taking him out is fair to her?”

“What?” Stanislas snorted, waving his hand in the air in an expansive gesture that managed to convey nothing. “Tori is my child and a Vasiliev. Nothing else would matter to her! I can promise you that. Besides, she is a woman. She will do, say, and think as she is told.”

Mikhail didn’t give voice to the protest going on inside his brain that told him Tori would be anything but biddable when it came to the notion of her stepfather murdering her mother’s brother. In fact, he had a feeling Tori would be very vocal in opposition to that plan. However, it was equally obvious that her stepfather didn’t care one bit for anything Tori might feel or think.

“Do you know what happened to Tori’s mother?” Mikhail asked slowly. “Nobody ever talks about it.”

“Why would you bring that up now?” Stanislas whipped around, pegging Mikhail with a hard stare.

Mikhail recovered immediately. “I was only thinking that if you had proof the Orlovs had been behind her death, you could take that to the council and have your reason to take them out.”

“Ah,” Stanislas said slowly. “I suppose that would have been one way to go about it, but no. There is nothing about that situation that would help us.”

Mikhail said nothing more, but he couldn’t get the idea out of his mind that Stanislas knew a lot more about the death of Tori’s mother than he was saying.

***

“WAIT.” JAMIE PAUSED with a teaspoon hanging in midair over her drink. She’d been stirring sweetener into her tea, but seemed to have forgotten what she was doing altogether. “Are you telling me that you and your brand new husband, Mr. Virility Sex God himself, haven’t had sex since your wedding night?”

“He’s too busy for sex,” Tori said bitterly.

Mara stayed quiet. She sipped her iced coffee and stared at Jamie and Tori as if she were trying to come up with the perfect answer to this problem.

The café wasn’t busy. It was too late in the afternoon for that. The tiny bistro table where the friends sat was tucked beneath a tree at the back of the outdoor patio. It was cool and private, a perfect place for Tori to divulge all of her woes.

“Dimitri says that Mikhail is having a lot of issues with Stanislas,” Mara finally said.

Her words were enough to make Tori turn so quickly that she was sure she’d broken her neck. “What did you say?”

Mara took a breath to say it again, but Tori shook her head.

Then Jamie pointed her spoon at Mara. “You’ve been seeing Dimitri? You didn’t even tell me!”

“He asked me not to.” Mara sounded contrite, maybe even worried about the omission. “Apparently he’s not really supposed to be seeing anyone.”

“Enforcers need to be dedicated to their jobs,” Tori agreed. “Especially since Dimitri is Mikhail’s right hand man.”

“I was afraid if I said something to you, you would tell Mikhail,” Mara explained. “You know, pillow talk and all that.”

“Pretty sure there’s none of
that
happening,” Tori grumbled. “Unless he’s pillow talking with someone else. I suppose that’s probably a very real possibility.” Tori mulled that thought over in her head. The idea hurt a lot more than she was comfortable with. “He’s not getting it from me. A guy like that must be getting it from somewhere. Right?”

Jamie shrugged. “Maybe or maybe not. If what Mara says is true, maybe your stepfather is being a giant cock blocker.”

“Why would he do that?” The idea was ridiculous. Tori had thought her stepfather wanted them together and would very likely start bitching about the lack of an heir. “Surely my stepfather wants me to get pregnant. It wouldn’t shock me to have him show up at the front door with a pregnancy test in hand demanding that I pee on the stick.”

“Oh, come on,” Mara said with a laugh. “Now you’re just being silly.”

“Ask your boyfriend if he thinks I’m being silly or if he agrees that it’s a definite possibility.”

Mara stopped laughing, glancing from Jamie to Tori. “I think it’s time we come up with a plan to get your husband’s attention back where it belongs.