TAKING OVER TROFIM (Dominion of Brothers series Book 4) (38 page)

CHAPTER FORTY

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NYPD PRECINCT

Shay sat at the table twirling the cup of coffee in his hand. Across from him two of the detectives investigating Trofim’s attack: Detectives Holt and Singer. Another introduced as Detective Marshal, along with Harper Lancing, came in with Trenton. To Shay’s right sat Lars Mickels, his now appointed attorney, compliments of Trenton.

He wouldn’t have come, leaving Trofim’s side had not come easy for him. Too many things to think about and one unbearable fear. Except Shay wanted his father and his goons caught, and locked away for what they’d done. He had half a mind to drive up to the house and burn it down himself, but it would mean leaving Trofim’s side for far longer than he was willing to do. So he sat here hoping to have his vengeance and have his father arrested. An act that so far had not taken place.

“Is this going to take long? I really need to get back to the hospital.” Shay asked.

“We’ll try to make this a quick as possible, but it’s important we talk to you.”

Shay nodded, then took a sip from his coffee. And so began the questions. Mostly from Detective Holt, but the others chimed in from time to time and Shay lost track of who asked what as he tried to answer them the best he could.

“Shay after we talked last, we did some snooping around. The allegation you gave us were pretty hard to swallow, but clearly your father seems to like using you for a punching bag. Not to mention, Mr. Lancing here was able to shed some light on enough evidence that we were able to get a warrant to search your father’s home.”

“Shay, can you confirm if Angelina Wilks was your biological mother?”

Again Shay nodded. “She died after my freshman year in college.”

“Did you know your grandparents from your mother’s side?”

Shay shook his head and shrugged, “They died when I was just a little kid. I never met them. Why?”

“Did your mother ever tell you about them?”

“No, not that I recall. What’s this about? You’re supposed to be finding out who attacked my partner.”

“Hear them out, Shay.” Harper, who sat on the edge of a table in the corner, nodded to him, reassuring him this was somehow important.

“Shay, your mother left you with a sizable insurance policy. One that should have covered your medical school and kept you comfortable for a while. But we have court records dated back four years ago that state your father, Mr. Benjamin Wilks had you declared incompetent, and was awarded custody of you and your finances.”

“I just got written clearance to take my final exam ahead of schedule. Does that sound like I’m incompetent?”

“Well, that’s just it, we were wondering how does someone who is declared incompetent remain working as a medical surgeon at a hospital?”

“Shay?” Harper butted in, “Were you aware that your father, with the help of the judge who signed off on your court case, were also planning to blackmail you with trumped up drug charges?”

Shay dropped his head and stared back at his cup. It took some effort but he finally nodded.

Det. Marshal stepped up, dropped a folder down on the table and pushed it in front of Shay then opened it up, “Did you also know they had pending charges for the murder of Sarah Londonaire on you?”

Shay’s mental shell shattered and he choked back a breath. He grabbed up the file and traced over the words until he found the ones that had just been spoken to him.
Without even a murder or a trial he’d already been found guilty and sentenced to life in prison for the first degree murder of his wife, Sarah Londonaire-Wilks.
Shay gulped for air and finally clapped his hand over his mouth to stop any sobs that might escape him.

“Please tell me she’s alive.” He gasped.

“Rest easy, she’s still alive and we have her in protective custody for now.” Marshal assured him.

“Had you ever appeared before Judge Leverette or Judge Sooter?” Holt continued with his questions.

Shay pinched the flesh between his eyes a second to gather his thoughts back to him, “Uhm, I saw Leverette once. When I was declared incompetent.”

“And no other time?” Singer asked.

“No.”

“And when did you become aware of the pending drug charges?”

“Right after I was introduced to Sarah. My father said if I didn’t go along with the arrangement, he’d have the judge sign them. And I would be going to jail for a long time.”

The men exchanged some words amongst themselves. Shay’s head was reeling.
He knew his father had pull with the judges but why go that far? And what of Sarah? Would someone have actually killed her?

Holt turned back to Shay and scooted in closer to the table. “This is serious blackmail we’re looking at, but there wasn’t any clear motive behind it. So we started looking into your father’s background a bit. Which is what led us to ask if you knew who your mother’s parents were.”

“And again, I never knew them. She never talked about them.” Shay spoke, trying to make sense of all the information being dumped on him.

“You may be surprised then. Ever hear of the Rothschilds?”

Shay shrugged, “Banks and conspiracy theories.”

“Your mother is part of the Rothschild family.”

“If that were true, my father wouldn’t have needed to take my money.”

“That’s where the conspiracy starts, son.” Marshal chimed in, “Apparently your grandfather Wilbert Samual Rothschild didn’t approve of Angelina’s marriage to Benjamin Wilks. Wilbert then disowned her when she refused to have it annulled. After that, she never received one red cent from the family again. But years later without another heir, Wilbert deeded everything to his only grandson— you.”

Shay wasn’t sure he could stomach any of this.
Money had been a bitter thing for him. Four million had been left to set him free, only to become his prison. Now someone was telling him he was heir to even more? He wasn’t sure he wanted to take it
. “So where is this inheritance?”

“Still locked up tight in a trust, awaiting your 30th birthday.”

“That’s next year.”

“Your birthday is when?”

“Next month. I’ll be twenty-nine.”

Detective Holt’s mouth twisted and he took in a long breath echoing his deep thoughts. “We think this is why your father has gone through so much trouble to keep you under lock and key.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your father knows about the inheritance.”

“No. No, that’s not possible. He would have mentioned it to me.” Shay shook his head, but he could already see it in Det. Marshals’ eyes, his father’s tyranny had no bounds. “What are you not telling me?”

“He knew. He had the registered letter from the Rothschild’s estate attorney in his safe.” Harper added in.

“Your father of course wasn’t going to be able to touch it, unless of course you remained under court ruling that you were incompetent. Once the inheritance was released, it would go directly to him as your ward.”

“Wait, that wouldn’t have worked either. My dad planned for me to be married before then. To Sarah Londonaire. So the money would have gone to my rightful spou—” Shay fell silent as the reality struck him hard. His breath began to heave until he was near hyperventilating. “He was going to have her killed then frame me for it. With her dead, the original ruling that placed him in charge of my money would mean the fund would revert to his possession.”

The room drew quiet and Shay could have sworn he saw a dark shadow descend over them, “And what about her family? Are they in on this too?”

“We’re still investigating.” Detective Marshal blurted out, obviously covering up anything else that might have been said.

“The Londonaire family line has been marrying into the Rothschilds for generations, so it possible they at least knew about the money.” Marshals added.

“Are you going to arrest my father?”

“So far, as bastardly and low life as he has been, we haven’t caught him doing anything other than to conspire to commit fraud. That won’t hold him for very long. Not with his connections.” Holt scratched his head a moment, “If your father is behind Trofim’s attack, he most likely sent someone else to do his dirty work. Even if we find the men who did this, chances are good Benjamin Wilks will just hire new thugs, and you and Trofim still won’t be safe.”

“So you’re saying you can’t do anything until after he kills Trofim and has me locked up so he can get that money?”

“We’re going to do everything we can to protect you and Mr. Laszkovi.”

“And his goons? What about them?”

“They’ve been arrested and they both came up as a match for the DNA found, both at the scene and in the rape kit.”

Shay sucked in a deep breath. It was a detail of Trofim’s attack he struggled against. That something so horrid had happened to the man he loved.

“They’re not getting back out, Shay.”

Shay nodded, shakily, still struggling to swallow the reality. He finally resolved himself to put the thoughts away and change the subject, “So this grandfather I never knew, was he a banker or something?”

One of the detectives chuckled lightly, “A vintner.”

“Good.” Shay dropped his eyes to the table, his thoughts going somewhere beyond its surface as his fingers picked at the coffee cup, “Trofim loves wine.”

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CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

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QUEENS MEDICAL HOSPITAL

Pyotr had withdrawn into the far corner of the waiting room next to the window. Two hours had already gone by since they took Trofim in for surgery and it had begun to feel claustrophobic out here for him. Cliff was pressed against him with arms wrapped possessively around his waist. He tore his eyes away from the bustling street below to make a quick survey of his family. Jovan was stretched out on one of the sofas. With Anj and Ver curled in with him, all three sound asleep. Behind them Darko paced, while Maxum sat in a chair governing his business via a tablet, while he held a hand, propped up on a knee, out to connect with Darko on every pass.

Artyom, Stanislav, and Rury had chairs and benches pulled in around a table and were playing cards along with a woman waiting out her husband’s triple bypass surgery.

Sasha was reading, while he kept Isaac and Isaiah preoccupied with music being pumped through headphones.

He bowed and kissed the top of Cliff’s head then pulled him to stand before him, positioning his partner just right so Pyotr could rest his cheek on the crown of haphazard blonde hair. He surrendered some part of him to be cuddled while he guarded over Cliff’s tender memory of his own loss.

Outside, the sun beamed down bright from a clear blue sky. On the street below, cars sped by and honked at pedestrians. And somewhere on the other side of Queens, there were four sculling boats hard pressed to make up for the week without practice and were likely making their way back down river towards the boathouse by now. There should have been five boats out there, but the guys from the four-man team were sitting in for the missing Laszkovi brothers in the two eight-man teams and then Darko was their only solo.

Everything out there, was, as it should be, for the most part. In here it was not. They were all waiting for their two brothers. One who went in with only a fifty percent chance of surviving and the other that will come out bearing the news.

Pyotr sent his thoughts to Pavle.
Sending him every ounce of strength inside him to his brother and the task he had to perform. And to the man who was standing right beside him who would bear more tears then the rest of them if Trofim didn’t pull through
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Shay held the videoendoscope with a steady hand as he and Pavle acutely watched the monitor screen. He moved the video wand around the left ventricle, scanning over the area looking for bruised and or bleeding tissue. They’d found the shadow, just some bruising but it wasn’t anything that would cause Trofim’s blood pressure to begin to deteriorate or the swelling in his neck. They’d had Trofim’s chest cracked open for nearly an hour already and still they had not found what they expected to find.

“Move up towards the left pulmonary artery, behind the heart.” Pavle instructed him and Shay pulled the scope then reinserted it alongside of Trofim’s heart. Nothing. And then he moved behind the artery itself, moving down behind the heart. Shay nearly let out a sigh of relief when he spotted the bubbled tissue of a small aorta aneurysm. “There it is.”

“I see it.” The operating room remained quiet while Pavle’s instructions now went to both Shay and the two surgical nurses assisting him. “Clamps.” Pavle was instantly calling out the tools he needed as he calmly went in and clamped off the damaged artery both above and well below the blister. Details went into preparing. Shay stepped aside to get a section of graft, a small tube of fabric ready for when Pavle called for it.

Time ticked on as Pavle worked at a steady pace until finally the scalpel was passed to his hand, he made the incision length-wise along the artery rather than excise the bulging section out. “Suction.” Pavle called and one of the nurses stepped in with a suction tube to suck out the small amount of blood from the blister then stepped back and out of Pavle’s way.

Shay brought over the small dish of sterilized saline and within it the section of graft that would be inserted inside the arterial vessel to act as a lining.  Shay watched intently, mentally talking himself through every step of the procedure, while noting any finesse that Pavle’s years of experience had awarded him.

The entire process took nearly an hour, adding to the hour they’d already had Trofim’s chest open.

Shay watched as Pavle finish up. He should have considered himself lucky to be in there. However that was one fear that never even crossed Shay’s mind, he just couldn’t see Pavle barring him from the operation. While it was unethical and against hospital policy for either of them to be performing the surgery, neither was willing to stand down. It would not have happened. In here, Shay was calm, he was in charge of himself and his patient. He was saving his Trofim. And that his suspicions had been right and they’d found the problem gave him some relief.