Page 6 of Surrogate for the Bratva
So rather than wasting time, I sat up and grabbed my laptop and spent the rest of the night researching additional ways to make money. Including the last thing I wanted to think about.
Selling the duplex.
Chapter Four
Igor
One year. Three hundred and sixty-five days. Fifty-two weeks. That’s how much time has passed since I lost the last of my family, and today was the anniversary of their deaths. It had been a wretched fucking day, and rather than inflict my bad mood on my men, I decided to take a moment for myself. This melancholy mood was one I could only indulge in complete solitude. I couldn’t let my men see me like this. I had to project strength unless they got the idea that they could take what was mine. My legacy.
My blood right.
So I made my way to my favorite spot in Georgia. It was an old dilapidated antebellum house on the outskirts of Atlanta. It used to belong to some southern gentleman who made and lost millions nearly a century ago. The place wasn’t falling apart but it needed a lot of work from a paint job on the house to a professional landscaper on the entire grounds.
The property itself though, was gorgeous. The overgrown grass reached my knees, and I trod through it on my way to the manmade lake that sat behind the old mansion. It was large and so serene, peaceful. The perfect place to think and strategize without outside interference. Of course my men realized that my brother’s death hit me hard, but they didn’t need to see the evidence of it.
Tonight I wasn’t here to think or strategize, oh no, tonight I was here to remember. Boris and his wife Nikita were staples in my life. They were my closest friends as well as my family.I enjoyed dinners at their home a few times a week and I was my brother’s closest confidant. I tolerated Nikita’s attempts to set me up with so-called good girls. I missed them fiercely, including the nephew I would never get to meet.
Now, thanks to that fucker Voronov, Boris was gone and everything he’d been taught, been groomed for, now rested on my shoulders. It was a burden I happily bore even if I resented the reasons behind it, because as Boris used to tell me, I was well suited to the role as a leader.
Control. Power. Brutality. It’s what I did best. Back when my brother was alive it was always my job to make sure that the world knew and understood that Boris was the boss, that his word was to be followed to the letter. That he was to be obeyed.
Or else.
Dmitry Voronov was my biggest enemy as well as my largest competitor in the underground trade. He was also the man responsible for the death of my family. I would make him pay. I had thought about little else for the past three hundred and sixty-five days, and when the time came to exact my revenge, I fully planned to enjoy it.
But first, I needed to secure the Romanov bloodline with an heir. At least one heir. Two would be ideal but right now the goal was one.
Shots rang out in the distance, pulling me from my thoughts of revenge and succession and Boris. Instinct was, well instinct for a very good fucking reason. My right hand went to my side and pulled my gun from the holster under my jacket before my mind had consciously assessed the situation as I rushed toward the shots. Anger and disbelief pulsed through me as I raced forward, determined to take out my anger and mysadness on whoever it was that had the balls to attack me out here. This place wasmine, dammit.
More shots sounded and I realized it was coming from the other side of the lake, and I raced forward, ready to rain hell down on whoever I found.
Chapter Five
April
Ishould’ve felt better after I left the hospital. The visit with Jacob had gone well, his cough had settled, and he had more color in his face. The doctors had started him on a new antibiotic, and it looked as if it was working. It was good news, and it did lift the load. Slightly. As I sat in my car and figured out what to do next, I could admit to myself that my spirits were not lifted by the visit. My stomach churned with acid as the gears in my head also churned thinking about what I was going to do if he needed a transplant. Nearly five hundred thousand dollars for a new set of lungs.
It was the worst-case scenario. But I’d read all the literature about CF and knew for some patients it was the only option. We had to be prepared for that.
I’ve never seen that much money at once and the way my life was going, I never would. I started my car and headed home, ignoring a call from Kelsie because I couldn’t talk about anything. Not now. Even the idea of going home where it was quiet and where I would only think and overthink this current problem until I was an even bigger bundle of anxiety and sadness than I already was.
Inside the house it was too quiet, and I knew I needed to be outdoors, to let the sun and the air kiss my skin and work to lift my spirits even if it was just by an inch. I headed around the back to the small storage shed that was still filled with things our father left behind when he abandoned us—along with most of his worldly possessions—in the wake of our mom’s death. Inside I found what he used to call a therapy kit, which consistedof a fifteen gallon cooler filled with empty cans and jars full of colored liquid. I knew there were two boxes of bullets in there somewhere too, so I grabbed his revolver and loaded it all into the trunk and headed to the one spot in this state where it didn’t hurt to think about my daddy.
The old Rutherford Mansion was still gorgeous even though it was rundown. The story was that some rich dude bought the place in the nineties, made some bad investments, and lost everything.Fucking idiot.It was always the people with money who squandered it so easily, rarely the ones in need. That was a depressing thought as I entered from the south side of the property, I smiled as the sun began to sink below the horizon. It lit the lake and the house beyond it in a golden glow that made it look like a moment frozen in time.
I stopped about ten feet before the lake and looked around. This was the same spot where my daddy used to take me whenever I had a bad day or got a C on a test. He would take me here and encourage me to shoot my troubles away with his lazy smile and slow southern drawl. “But you’re not here anymore, are you daddy?”
He wasn’t and as I set up the cans first, and stomped back to my spot where I loaded the revolver he named Michelle Pfeiffer because the barrel was long and lean and had killer eyes, I let my anger rise to the surface. I aimed and took my first shot, only clipping the first can.
“Dammit!” I took aim and sent the can flying over the tall wooden shelf. I lined up shot after shot, shooting at the fucked up healthcare system that would let my brother die for not being rich. I shot at the genetic mutation that skipped me and made my big brother chronically ill. I shot away the anger and betrayal I felt over our father’s abandonment, over him making Jacobmy sole responsibility. My boss for threatening me every fucking time I had to leave early or take a day off for Jacob’s tests and treatments. I shot at the unfairness of it all. I reloaded and kept shooting and shooting, waiting for that elusivebetterfeeling to sink into my skin and let me relax. Let me experience a moment of peace.
Tears blurred my vision, but I kept shooting until all the cans and jars were nothing more than a shattered mess at the edge of the lake. “Fuck!” I stopped and wiped my eyes with the back of my hands. “This did not help,” I growled to myself and gasped when I caught sight of a flash of movement off to one side. I used the inside of my t-shirt to clear my tears completely and raised my gun. “Stay back,” I shouted. “I’m armed and I’m not afraid to shoot!” My shaky hand called me a liar but the figure that I now saw was a man didn’t need to know that.
“You shot at me,” the deeply masculine, slightly accented voice called back. “Lower your weapon.”
“I don’t know you.” And I was done making bad decisions.
He laughed and the sound was far too appealing. “And I don’t know you, yet I didn’t shoot you immediately even though you are on my property discharging your weapon recklessly.” He kept his gun trained on me as well. “It’s not too late to make that happen.” His hand, I noticed, didn’t tremble at all.
