Loving Leo (The Romanovsky Brothers Book 3) (26 page)

Not until Victor King was under arrest.

Tonight, she’d kill herself making sure she put him there.

***

Val followed Reggie out of the ballroom, past the valet, and down into the grassy area outside. A cool breeze wafted off the calm waters of the Hudson River, blowing the flaps of both their jackets back as they moved deep into the grass, out of earshot.

Val wondered if Reggie was going to lead him all the way to the pier that stretched into the river.  He hoped he wouldn’t.  It would take everything Val had not to throw him in the water.

Reggie stopped a few feet away from the pier and turned to Val, pushing his hands in his pockets.

Val slowed to a stop.

They watched one another.

“What do you want, Reggie?”

Silence.

Val lifted his shoulders with a cringe, shaking his head.  He was with his family—this gala was bullshit, he’d handed King a sizable check to ensure their protection, and he was ready to get the hell out of there.

“What do you want?”
Val demanded again.

“What have I ever wanted?  What have I always wanted?” Reggie’s eyes searched his, and he let a few more quiet seconds pass before he spoke again.  “I want Novsky.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“All I want is Novsky, Val.  That’s it.  And I’d really,
really
hate for things to get any more difficult than they have to be.”

“How many times do I have to say it, Reggie?  Over my dead fucking body.  That is when you’ll have Novsky, and not a goddamn minute sooner.”

Reggie breathed in deep, and then sighed just as heavily.  He looked off into the distance for a while before letting his eyes travel back to Val.  “Sell Novsky to me, or I will tell Zoey everything.”

The color drained from Val’s face.  His muscles churned to a tight stop on every inch of his body.  For a long moment, he had no response at all.

Finally, Val smiled.  It spread across his face and lit it up, even as his eyes shot fire.  “Oh, you’re gonna tell Zoey everything?” he mocked, voice low, running his hand down his face.  When it passed his lips, his smile had vanished.  He leaned down and stepped closer, holding Reggie’s gaze.  “You’re gonna tell Zoey everything, Reggie?”

Reggie lifted his head high.   “Sell Novsky to me, or I will tell Zoey everything.”

“You gonna tell Zoey that you were in the car that night, too?  Huh?” Val seethed, the smile returning to his face even as his heart pounded.  It hit his ribcage so hard, nearly barreling right through his skin, that it was a miracle he was able to remain standing.  Assisting his violent heart, his bones shook out of control, making him feel like a baby lamb learning to walk.  “You gonna tell her whose father made it all go away?”  Val licked his parched lips, clenching his fists where they were shoved deep in his pockets.  “You gonna tell her everything, you son of a bitch?  The fuck you are.  You’re full of shit.”

Reggie’s eyes searched his.  “Sell Novsky to me.”  He paused.  “Or I will tell Zoey everything.”

Val stepped away, taking his fisted hands out of his pockets, his breath slowing as fury took over.  He reared back, but the wetness clouding his gaze stopped him from going forward.

“Sell Novsky to me.” Reggie’s voice lowered.  “Or I will tell her everything.”

“You wouldn’t.”  Val bared his teeth.  They chattered.  “He owns you, the same way he owns us.   You wouldn’t tell a soul.  You would never risk throwing his life away.”

“Sell Novsky to me, or I will tell her everything.”

Val stumbled back, chest heaving.

Reggie lowered his head, holding Val’s gaze, seeing it grow more alarmed with each second, until he was looking at him from under his eyelids.  “I will tell Zoey everything, Val.”

“Tell Zoey everything about what?”

So entrenched in their conversation, Val and Reggie both jolted at the sound of a voice. 

Their eyes flew to the voice, and they found Zoey standing at the edge of the hill with her arms cradled around her body, watching them with questioning eyes.  The red evening gown she wore wafted in the cool breeze.

“Zoey.” Reggie smiled.

Zoey’s eyes were riveted to Val.

Val could feel the heat on his cheeks, the tremble in his body, and the rapid pounding of his heart, which had, by some miracle, remained planted under his weakening ribs.

“Val and I were just talking about you,” Reggie said.

“Tell Zoey everything about what?” Zoey asked, eyes going to Reggie.

Reggie backed away while unbuttoning his jacket, eyes moving to Val.  “I’ll see you at Novsky, Val?  What do you say, first thing Monday morning?  After the wedding?” He didn’t wait for an answer, turning away from both of them and strolling back up the hill with his hands in his pockets.

Neither Zoey nor Val watched him go.

“Val?” Zoey raised her eyebrows.

The last thing Val saw was her mouth dropping open before he turned his back on her and stumbled toward the pier, loosening his tie as he went.

He couldn’t look at her.

He couldn’t breathe.

As far as he was concerned, he was as good as dead.

***

“I just got past security and saw King go into a private room.  I’m following him in.  If I die tonight, it was him.”

“Jess, there are other ways.  Please turn around, go back to the table, and rethink this,” Chet said over the line.

Jessica’s eyes dashed around the quiet hallway she’d snuck into.  A large security guard was right around the corner, and had put himself there to guard Victor and his goon the moment they’d entered that hallway.  Jessica had managed to get by him when a guest had blessedly stolen his attention to ask where the bathrooms were.

She whispered into her phone as she moved toward the private room she’d seem Victor go into.  “I’m closing this case, Chet.  Damn it, I’m closing it tonight.”

“Please be safe.”

Jessica disconnected the call and knelt as she came to the door, peeking around the corner.

Victor King and the white man who almost matched him in sheer size and stature—which was no easy feat—stood facing each other in an empty ballroom scattered with folding tables.  Dining chairs sat in high stacks all over the room, and Jessica hiked up her dress before going to her hands and knees, crawling behind the stack closest to the door.

Her logical side told her to stay crouched behind that wall, that trying to get any closer was too risky.  She couldn’t be sure, but from the grim expressions on their faces, she had an inkling that if she was caught listening in on this conversation, she had no chance of living to tell the tale.

Still, her pounding heart, maddening curiosity, and dire need to protect Leo and his family overrode her logic, and before she knew it she was scampering across the floor as quietly as she could go, trying to get closer.  She stopped behind a dining chair encased in a long white cover, putting her ear to the air.  She could hear them more clearly, but not clearly enough.

This time, however, she was not willing to risk moving again, because the next words that left Victor’s mouth didn’t just freeze her limbs, but her heart.

“I told you to shut her up, Mitch,” Victor said.  “It’s been a month.”

“That blond kid is all over her, all hours of the day, Vic.  They’re holed up in a billion-dollar high rise in Brooklyn.  Max security.  We can’t get close enough.  The blond only leaves for food and water, and Colt doesn’t leave at all.”

Victor was unmoved.  “It’s only a matter of time before we get to the rest of them.  Might as well start with Roman.”

Jessica slammed her eyes shut as she realized what she was listening to.  Victor was growing impatient, frustrated, and he was getting sloppy.

Usually, her main suspect getting sloppy was a cause for celebration.  Not this time.  This time, King’s sloppiness meant spilling the blood of the Romanovskys, and that was not something Jessica was going to allow.

As quietly as she could, she popped her purse open, pausing to make sure they hadn’t heard.

They continued talking, and her heartbeat picked up as she fingered her cellphone out of her bag, pulling up the camera.   The camera rolled, and she angled the lens around the chair as best she could, only able to get Mitch in the shot with a sliver of King’s shoulder.

Victor had just finished raising his voice, but Mitch remained calm.

“I’m not dragging my feet, I’m looking out for
you
,” Mitch said in a hushed voice.  “I just don’t want you to find yourself in over your head in your attempt to muzzle too many people at once.  We can’t pluck too many feathers at the same time.”

“I want them gone.  I want every last one of them gone.”

“They will be.” Mitch nodded.  “But in time.  Let me handle Angie first… and then we’ll move on to the Romanovskys.”

“Governor?”

Victor, Mitch,
and
Jessica all jolted at the sound of a voice coming from the door.

With wide eyes, Jessica’s gaze flew to the door, catching sight of one of the young female interns working King’s campaign in the doorway.  Jessica froze, realizing she was in full view of the brunette intern.

The intern, however, was riveted to Victor, eyes wide.  “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but Donald Trump is on his way out and insists on speaking to you before he goes.   He says it’s a conversation you don’t want to miss.”

Smelling big money, Victor straightened his jacket and zoomed to the door.  Mitch followed slowly behind, and it wasn’t until she was alone again that Jessica allowed herself to take a deep breath.

It shook, and her lungs closed.

She knew she wouldn’t breathe again until Victor King was stopped.

The more Zoey called his name, the faster Val moved, jacket catching the wind and floating behind his body.  She saw him crane his neck and rip off his tie, dropping it to the pier without slowing his stride. She swept it up as she moved after him.

“Val!” she demanded, sucking in an alarmed breath when he didn’t turn to her.

She tumbled after him onto Pier 87, heels disagreeing with the wood slats instantly.  The pier stretched deep into the Hudson River, one thousand feet offshore.  Way too deep for her liking.  Zoey had always been afraid of piers like this, but that fear was nothing compared to the terror her fiancé had sent flashing through her body.

When her heels got stuck in the wood slats one too many times, she toed them off, still calling after him, watching as he clawed his fingers through his hair and moved toward the full moon.

Holding her shoes and her red floor-length gown in a bunch at her side, Zoey sighed when he came to a stop at the edge of the pier.

Strings of white lights had been wrapped around the pier’s railing, winding through the weathered wood, giving it an ethereal feel, only out-shone by the remnants of the setting sun, leaving a deep orange glow lingering in the night sky.

The lights wobbled when Val took hold of the railing and curled over the edge of it, trying to empty his stomach.

It didn’t work.  His desperate heaves jumped out into the night sky and floated across the calm air. 

The sound took Zoey around the neck.

When she was close enough, she wrapped her arms around him from behind.  He was breathing so hard it made both of them wobble.  His stomach tightened under her hold as he tried to throw up, but he couldn’t find the release.

“I trust you with my life,” she said, once he gave up the fight to empty his guts, feeling his breathing calm down.  “I trust you more than myself.  Please, baby.  Please, give me the same trust in return.”  She fought tears, knowing that wet cheeks wouldn’t get her anywhere.  “Val…”

He stepped away, out of her arms, and glided deeper onto the pier.  He watched the moon for a long while and then turned to her, hands going back to the top of his head.

Zoey was stunned to see tears filling his red eyes, and her arms collapsed at her sides.  “Look at yourself, Val.  Whatever you’re at battle with is about to finish you off.  You’re on your last leg, on your knees, bruised and bloodied
,
and you still won’t talk to me.  Don’t you
understand
that I would throw my body into the crossfire for you, if only I knew where the bullets were coming from?”

A tear escaped his eye.  “Come to Paris with me.”

Zoey’s mouth dropped, and she held her arms out at her sides.   “Val, what in the world are you talking about?  What are you
talking
about?” she screamed.

Val continued clawing his hands through his hair.  “Paris, Rome, Venice… we could go anywhere.  Wherever you wanted, baby.”

“I want to be here.  I want to be in New York, with my family.”

Family.
Instead of that word getting through to him, it only seemed to upset him further.  His voice trembled.  “We could buy a beautiful house on the water, we could raise our baby in a beautiful place.  We could be together.”

“Val, we are together
now
.”

“Please, let’s just leave this place and never look back.  I’ll take care of you for the rest of my life.  I will love you and our baby with everything I got… I will cherish you both for the rest of our lives.  Please come with me.”

“Where is this coming from?” she begged.  “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you.  I don’t even know what to say right now.”

“Say yes.”  Another tear joined the first, and then another.  “Just say yes.”

Zoey’s chest rocketed up and down.  “No.”

Val’s face collapsed.  “I can’t live without you.  I can’t breathe…  I need you so… so bad.  I’ll protect you.”

“Protect me from what?” Zoey cried.  “If you don’t tell me what is going on right fucking now, I’m not just refusing to leave the country with you, I’m refusing to be with you, period.  I’m refusing to be your wife.”

Everything that had been present on his face, the fear, the hope, the tears, the anguish, all vanished the moment she said those words.

“You’re talking about leaving the country? Leaving the place you’ve built an entire life?  Leaving your family who loves you?  Leaving Novsky?  And you’re talking about taking me with you, but you won’t tell me what it is you’re running from.  What it is that’s tearing you to shreds.  You have tears in your eyes, Val, and you won’t tell me why!”  Her voice grew weak.  The shoes she’d been clutching tumbled from her hands.  She could feel her mascara-laced tears staining her dress as they trickled down her chest, soaking into the fabric.  “Tell me the truth.”

Shoulders collapsed, he jammed his tired eyes closed.  “All I ever wanted… was you.  But we were always doomed, Zo,” he whispered, meeting her eyes.  “Even knowing that, it wasn’t enough.  It wasn’t enough to keep me away.  And I’m so sorry.  I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong enough.”

She zeroed in on him and cupped his jaw, searching his eyes.  “You are my strength.  I wasn’t alive, I wasn’t thriving, I wasn’t
real
until the moment we made love for the first time.  Kissed for the first time.  When you asked me to marry you, I said yes because what I felt in that moment was real.  Don’t ever apologize for our love.”

His eyes narrowed, looking away, glazed.

It reminded Zoey of the old days.  Days when he would do anything not to look at her.  When she’d walk into a room and he wouldn’t acknowledge her presence.  Days when she’d been convinced that he hated her, because he’d done everything he could to show her just that.

“This is my fault,” he said.

She shook him from where she held his cheeks.  “What is your fault, Val?  Damn it, what? 
What?”

He continued looking off into the river, his voice joining the water lapping below in its eerie calmness.  “None of this would have ever happened…”

When he kept his eyes off her for a moment too long, Zoey stepped back.

His eyes went to her when she did.  He even moved to reach for her, but something stopped him.

“You wouldn’t even stop me if I walked away right now,” she said.  “Would you?”

He swallowed, eyes narrowing again.

Zoey’s tears flooded over, even as she laughed.  “I am so stupid.”

Val’s eyes fluttered closed.

“I am so
fucking
stupid!” she screamed, motioning to him with her clutch.  “This is you.  Right here.”  She motioned to his vacant eyes as he opened them, voice rising when he looked away from her once more.   “This is who you’ve always been, from the moment I met you.  Why the hell haven’t I believed it until now?  All you’ve ever known how to do is hurt me.  I was so stupid to think it could be different. 
Nothing
is different.”

His eyes flew to hers.

“You know… my biggest dream, since the moment I moved in with this family…”  She covered her mouth with her hand and wondered if she should continue.  “My biggest dream was to be Zoey Romanovsky.”

Val’s lips curled in.

Zoey’s voice shook.  “When you proposed, it was the happiest I’d ever been.  Not just because I was getting a real place in the family, but because it was going to be with the one man I’d always secretly loved, wanted… dreamed about. I convinced myself I could help you.  Change you.  Fix you.  I convinced myself that I
had. 
But I didn’t.  You’re exactly the same.  You’re the exact same man that you’ve always been.  Closed off, vacant, as good as dead, because you can’t let go of whatever is eating you up.  Well I won’t let it eat me up, too, Val.  I won’t let it eat this baby up.”

She waited for him to say something.  Anything.

He didn’t.

With trembling fingers, Zoey worked off her engagement ring.  It took effort.  The pregnancy weight she’d gained had made the platinum band an extension of her finger.  When she managed to yank it off, she breathed in relief.

Val’s eyes fell to her hands. “Don’t do that, Zo.”  His face caved in with grief as she approached.  She took his hand and pressed the ring into his palm.  It vibrated under her fingers.  He shook his head, refusing to accept it.  “Zo,” he croaked, his chin trembling and giving his words a gentle vibrato.

Zoey finished the job for him, closing his fingers around the ring.

“Please don’t do that, baby,” he begged.

Holding his eyes, Zoey stepped back, seeing him close his tear-filled eyes just before she turned away from him.

She moved slowly, feet tapping against the pier, but then her pace picked up, more and more, until she was running.

Hands disappearing into his hair again, Val broke into a sob and turned his back to the sight.

She was right to run.

But he couldn’t watch her do it.

***

“B, what did I say about this
Harriet the Spy
bullshit?  How many times are you going to bring me audio and video that I cannot use?  Their faces are cut off by the table you were crouched under, the audio is jumbled, and the picture is shit.”

“Yet you understood every word without me giving you context.  A court of law will, too.” 

“Sometimes I wonder if you actually believe your own bullshit sometimes.”

Jessica pointed to the cellphone in Harper’s hand, the phone that had just played the video she’d taken at the gala that night.  After Val and Zoey left the gala without saying good-bye, Jessica had gone home with Leo.  She’d loved him hard and fast, putting him into a deep sleep so she could sneak out of his apartment and meet Harper at her office.

“This is video of this man
confirming
that he’s out to kill this entire family.”  She seethed.  “An innocent family.”

“I
can’t
use it.”

“God, Harp, don’t you see?” She leapt from the chair behind her desk, circling it while holding his eyes. “The Romanovskys are just a normal family. Seven normal people who happened to get tangled up in King’s fucked-up world when they were all just a bunch of kids.  They’re not criminals.  They’re victims.  They believed keeping their mouths shut would save their skin, but it is only a matter of time.”

Harper crossed his arms in the middle of the room, still holding her phone, but didn’t respond, hitting her with hard eyes.

“It’s only a matter of time before he kills them too.” Her voice broke.  “He already got Knox. Angie’s next, and nothing will stop him from moving on to the Romanovskys once he’s done with her. He has no regard for human life, and he has proven that he will do everything he can to stop anyone who is a threat to him.  The Romanovskys
know
the part King played covering the death of the Blacks.  Don’t even get me started on the damage Tony could do after working with him for decades at 5th.  All it would take is one of them to crack, one of them to step forward, and everything King has worked for will be gone in the snap of a finger. He knows that, and he’s not going to
allow
them to live to tell his tale.”

Harper took a deep breath.  “B… we’ve already discussed this, and you assured me you could handle it.”

“He’s going to kill them all, Harp.  Why aren’t you
hearing
me?”

“Show me an arrest warrant.”

“You really don’t give a shit, do you?  You won’t lose a wink of sleep while he continues on in this fucked up killing spree, taking out every poor bastard who ever crossed his path in life, until we’re granted a fucking warrant?  We know
how much blood is on his hands, and the bloodshed will not stop until
we
step in and stop it.  How many people have to die before we do something about this?”

“You’re off the case.”

Jessica’s heart skipped a beat.  “What?”

“I knew it from the moment you left town with that kid for two days.  I should have taken you off then.  You’ve completely lost sight of your goal.  You’re blinded by your love for this family—a family who thinks you’re an Ethiopian transplant named Ashley Williams.  I can’t trust you.  Your emotions are going to blow this for us.”

Her chest heaved, eyes manic.

“Your style is to break the suspect down mentally, but you never realize when it’s breaking you down, too.”  Harper looked out the window while holding her phone out to her, unable to meet her eyes.  “I’m putting you on surveillance and sending in Lopez.”

Jessica stared at the phone he offered, and bared her teeth.  “Putting Lopez on the Romanovskys is the biggest mistake you’ll ever make. Val found the cam I planted in his kitchen and the RF pen.  He knows
he’s being watched.  He will never let another outsider anywhere near his family.  I am your only hope.”

“It’s no longer a risk I’m willing to take.  You’re off the case.”

Jessica searched Harper’s face, but he wouldn’t look at her.  After a deep, trembling breath, she pushed away from the desk and charged past him, snatching her phone from his hand on her way by.  “No, I’m not off the case, Harp, because I fucking quit.”