Russian Mobster’s Revenge (8 page)

“I can see why they would be.” She smiled at him. “And they’re also good locations for dealers.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m not going to give you my standard speech about the horrible effects of pushing drugs to kids. I think you probably already know.” Not that it made her feel any better. It was one reason why she wished Sergei
would
just drop the drug trade and go legit.

“If I didn’t do it, someone else would,” Ivan reasoned. “The ones who want it are going to get it somewhere. Why can’t I make a buck off of their stupidity?”

“I don’t know,” Emily said wearily. “Because as a society, we have a responsibility to try and lessen stupidity?”

He smiled suddenly, his expression almost soft. “You always were an idealist.”

“What does
that
mean?” She sat back in the chair, staring up at him and wondering why he would say that. “I tend to think of myself as a realist, not an idealist.”

“You always believe the best of people, Emily.” He folded his arms over his chest, giving her the idea that he considered that a flaw of sorts.

“Meaning that I should try to believe the worst of everyone?” She was getting tired of all the double-talk. “Like I should believe that my brother is a classist prick. And I should believe that you’re just sleeping with me because you know it will
really
piss him off. Is that what you’re referring to?”

He muttered quite a list of Russian curse words beneath his breath before he seemed to regain control of himself. “Look. You told me just to shut up and take a compliment a minute ago. So now I’ll ask you to do the same.”

With those words, he turned on his heel and started to leave the room. Emily felt a moment’s panic. “Where are you going?”

“Out. I have a meeting and then I need to check with my supplier about the next shipment and a few other things as well.” His gaze got a little shifty, but maybe that was to be expected when his work was—by nature—shady.

“Um, okay.” She glanced back at the computer. “I guess I’ll just…see you around then.”

Ivan didn’t even speak another word. He just left.

Chapter Ten

Ivan met Samantha for lunch at their usual spot on the sidewalk of a corner deli. Considering the fact that the two of them had been coming to this place since middle school, they figured they were safe enough from prying eyes.

“I’m a little surprised that you texted me for lunch.” Samantha sat forward in her seat and braced her forearms on the table. “We just had breakfast a few hours ago.”

“You know what I said about Yuri?”

“About being loyal to him?” Samantha obviously wanted clarification. “You said you weren’t interested in my people helping you take his job.”

“Yeah? Well I was wrong.” The words came out sharper than he had intended, and they were accompanied by a sick feeling. Ivan didn’t like the idea of supplanting Yuri. “Look,” Ivan said, searching for an explanation, “I owe Yuri a lot. He took a chance on me when a lot of other men wouldn’t have.”

“And now?” Samantha picked up a paper napkin and began folding it into an accordion shape. She only did that when she was anxious.

Ivan studied her face for a moment, wondering what had her feeling so jumpy. “What’s wrong?”

“The agent in charge of the organized crime division has given the green light on a plan to take Yuri down,” Samantha admitted. It was several moments before she would lift her gaze to meet his. “Obviously your help is vital. But they were going to do it with or without your cooperation.”

“Is that right?” Ivan mused. “You realize that’s just playing into my hands, right?”

Samantha straightened. “How so? You’d wind up as collateral damage.”

“No. I would know what was happening and could easily step clear.” Ivan snorted. “Do you really think I couldn’t leave the country in ten minutes if I wanted to?”

“I suppose I hadn’t considered it like that.” She gave him a thoughtful look. “I’ve never considered you a flight risk.”

“I’m not.”

She chuckled. “Until you are.”

“Exactly.”

The waiter set Samantha’s chicken salad sandwich on the table and then placed Ivan’s burger in front of him. Ivan picked up his food, discovering that he really didn’t have an appetite. It still felt wrong to be plotting Yuri’s demise. Sergei was one thing. Even using Emily…well using Emily was just a way to get back at Sergei. It wasn’t like Ivan was going to hurt her.

“You’re going to break her heart, you know.” Samantha told him quietly. “That Emily woman really cares about you.”

“What do you know about it?” he grunted around a mouth full of food. “You only saw her this morning.”

“That was plenty.” Samantha used a fork to poke at her chicken. “Call it women’s intuition.”

“That is such bullshit,” he muttered.

She kicked him under the table. “And yet it’s always right.”

***

From across the street, Emily stared at Ivan and the woman sharing their lunch so amicably at the small table outside the trendy deli. It was a safe bet that Emily had never seen Ivan so comfortable with another person before in her life. Who
was
this woman? She’d been at the apartment and Ivan had alluded to her being some sort of business associate. Now they were having lunch too?

The pressure of tears caught Emily by surprise. She swiped angrily at her cheeks. What did she expect? She was messing around with a gangster who swore he was only trying to get in her pants so that it would make her brother angry. She should have expected this to happen. Still, she didn’t feel any better about it.

Emily straightened her spine and walked right across the street. She deliberately ignored the deli and turned into the office supply store. She had discovered Ivan’s office to be woefully understocked with some of her favorite supplies, not to mention that he didn’t seem to own a labeler.

“Emily!” Mr. Krakowski waved from behind the counter. He was an older man with a good deal of bushy white hair on his head, his face, and even in his ears. “It’s so good to see you! And how is Sergei?”

“Oh he’s doing well, thank you,” Emily said lamely. “I’ve picked up some extra work, though. So I’ll be needing a few of my favorite items for my new office.”

“New office?” Mr. Krakowski’s bushy eyebrows nearly shot off the top of his forehead. He leaned over the counter. “When on earth do you have time for such things? You are such a busy woman!”

“Oh you know how it is,” Emily said with forced nonchalance as she wandered down her favorite aisle to look at colored pens. “Volkov Real Estate practically runs itself these days!” Inside, she was cringing at the horror she was going to return to if Sergei got himself involved in the books while she was gone. The man was a brilliant business strategist, but he could barely tell a debit from a credit.

Unfortunately for Emily, Mr. Krakowski knew that. His shop and the apartment above it were located in a building owned by Volkov Real Estate. That meant that Krakowski paid protection money to Sergei. He was a part of the organization’s world.

“What happened, Emily?” Krakowski asked in a low, serious tone. “And don’t try to play off that bullshit to me.”

“I’m working for Ivan Dedov for a while. The hope is that it will pay off a sort of…debt that Sergei owes him.” Emily shouldn’t have been saying any of this. She would wind up getting herself and the Krakowskis in trouble.

“Ivan Dedov?” The old man sucked in so much oxygen that Emily was surprised he didn’t pass out. His face turned beet red. “That man is a monster!”

“Actually, he’s really not.” Her immediate defense of Ivan seemed to surprise the old man. Emily sighed. “Believe me, he can be a jerk. But I’ve known Ivan a long time and he’s really a good man. He’s just rough around the edges.”

“Like a bear or a boa constrictor,” Krakowski retorted. “Please be careful, my Emily!”

“I will,” Emily assured him. Although that ship had pretty much sailed, crashed, and burned before sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

***

Across the table from Ivan, Samantha’s face took on an unusual expression. “Don’t look now, but your
not
girlfriend is headed this way.”

“What?” Ivan swung around in surprise. Why would Emily be in this area? Was she following him?

“I told you not to turn around!” Samantha moaned. “My God, you’d be a shitty cop. You know that?”

“That’s high praise,” he retorted. “And I don’t know why Emily would be over here. It’s ridiculous. This area is miles from my apartment.”

“And yet you’re here,” Samantha pointed out.

Emily was headed in their direction, a determined look on her face and a definite spring in her step. Ivan groaned. “She’s going to give me hell, isn’t she?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Can you help me out here?” Ivan pleaded.

Samantha was already standing. “Nope. You’re on your own.” She smiled cordially at Emily. “I’ll leave the two of you to chat.”

“Thank you,” Emily said with a polite nod. Then she sat in Samantha’s chair. She had a tiny bag stamped with the logo of a stationary store that she set on the ground with her handbag.

“You drove twenty miles for some pens?” Ivan said with a rude grunt.

She shrugged. “Twenty miles for you, but you forget that this is my neighborhood. Volkov Real Estate owns that building. Mr. Krakowski is one of our customers. So yes. I took the train over here to patronize his shop the same way I would have if I were still working back in my own office.”

“I did forget,” he murmured. “Samantha thinks you’re jealous.” The words just sort of fell out of his mouth without any real thought.

“Should I be jealous?” She cocked her head, a loose strand of blond hair falling over one shoulder. That was when he noticed that she had left her hair down.

“You didn’t put your hair in a bun,” he said gruffly. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you. But that isn’t going to distract me from my original question. Should I be jealous of this Samantha person?”

“We’ve been friends since middle school,” he explained. “Now she’s an associate.”

Emily fiddled with Samantha’s discarded knife, spinning it slowly in circles on the tabletop. “I don’t think she looked like that in middle school.”

“Huh?” Ivan had never really spent any time thinking about the way Samantha looked. “No. She was short in middle school. Really short, actually. And she had braces. Her teeth were a mess. I think she wore those things until we were in high school.”

“Wow.” Emily was laughing now and he couldn’t really figure out why. “Samantha is wrong. I’m not jealous.”

“You’re not?” He was completely confused. “But you’re mad at me for having lunch with her?”

“Not anymore.”

***

Emily watched Ivan try to work it all out in his head. Men were fascinating creatures. Perhaps nothing could have convinced her of his indifference to Samantha other than the fact that he didn’t seem to realize how beautiful she was. No, Ivan was just going to talk about how awkward Samantha had been growing up. Emily was certain the woman would be thrilled to hear that.

“Women make no sense,” Ivan growled. “Are you angry or are you hurt? No man can tell. And then when a guy expects a woman to get irritated because he’s actually done something that might be construed as illegal, she just gets over it and says
no big deal
. How are we supposed to understand that?”

“I could try to explain it, but I’d be using girl logic,” she told him with a solemn expression. “And there is no man alive who can fully comprehend girl logic.”

Emily laughed at the look of pure consternation on his face. Then his expression cleared and he smiled at her. “I love it when you laugh, Em. You have a really beautiful laugh.”

“Ivan, that’s the nicest thing you’ve said all day.” She reached across the table and touched his hand. To her surprise, it felt like grasping a live wire. The immediate jolt of electricity was pleasurable and even a little arousing.

His expression suggested that he’d felt it too. Then he took her hand in his and lifted it. He flipped her hand palm up and began tracing tiny circles on the sensitive skin.

“What are you doing?” she managed to whisper. Everything below her waist was starting to melt.

He gave her a devilish smile. “I was just enjoying the reaction.”

“Mine or yours?” she said with a shiver.

“Both, I think.”

“You’ve always been able to get a reaction out of me,” she admitted.

Emily couldn’t stop staring at him. The handsomeness of his face was so much more than just the basic symmetry of his features. Ivan had a rugged appeal that made him look dangerous in the way an antihero is dangerous. He might not make you think he was going to save the day, yet he always would, and usually because it was just more convenient to do so. It gave him an edge that other men lacked. He didn’t need to try to be sexy or commanding. Those things were just intrinsic to him as a man.

“You’re going to make me blush,” he told her with a wink. “You used to stare at me like this eight years ago.”

“And I’m doing it for the same reasons now,” she assured him. “You’re beautiful to look at. In fact, if I thought your manliness could handle it, I’d call you pretty.”

“Oh I can handle it,” he teased. “Although I still don’t want to be pretty.”

“Well you are,” Emily told him softly. “So just take the stupid compliment. All right?”

Chapter Eleven

“Yo, where’s Ivan?”

Emily glanced up from her computer screen to see a squat man with stringy thinning brown hair standing in front of the desk. His appearance was almost comical with a jowly face and watery eyes. He looked a little like a bulldog. She almost expected him to sit on the floor and cock his head at her to express his confusion.

“Ivan isn’t in,” Emily said politely. “Can I help you?”

He thrust his lower lip up so hard that it squashed the rest of his features and wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know, lady. I don’t trust you.”

“That makes sense.” Emily folded her hands on the desk. “Are you Jacob? Ivan said you would be bringing the money in for me to get the deposits ready for the bank.” She could see that the man had a heavy pack thrown over one shoulder.