Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

O leg’s larger compound in Odesa was an expanse of modern construction northeast of the historic center, stretched over a coastal property that was walled off from the city and the tourists who flooded to the Black Sea for holidays.

He’d built it for two reasons: his younger brother who oversaw Odesa in his absence was mated to a water vampire who wanted to be near her element, and Oleg usually didn’t spend much time there.

He’d built four houses on the property, one for himself, another for his brother Klaus, one for Mika and any of the druzhina who happened to be in the area, and the last for his human staff who ran the compound. There was a private dock and a high wall around the entire compound; golf carts for the security staff; cameras, surveillance equipment, and many, many weapons.

Klaus’s house was gaudy and modern in the way that many vampires enjoyed with large windows that could be blocked off with metal shades during the day, large stretches of marble, and lavish modern luxuries.

Oleg’s was nearly empty. There were too many windows, too much concrete for his liking, and too many bare walls.

He was trying to remedy the last problem by working on a mosaic in his living room that overlooked the water. There was a modern fireplace that ran on natural gas and a massive balcony that wrapped around the seaside portion of the house. He’d decided to cover the fireplace wall with a mosaic that brought the marine sunset into the house.

Oleg was using a combination of angular and round tesserae on the project in oceanic colors like blue and green but adding in accents the color of his element. Blood-red, vibrant orange, and rich golden yellows all in transparent glass tiles.

When it was finished, it would flicker and come alive in the light of his fire. It was a moody project, one that he’d been working on for roughly five years.

That night Oleg stood shirtless in the living room, enjoying the cooling marine layer that washed in on the evening wind and working on an icy blue curl of waves hitting a grouping of rocks he’d created from stones his servants had gathered from the beach.

He was also trying not to think about how much the light blue glass he was using reminded him of Tatyana Vorona’s eyes.

Why did the damn woman have to be so perceptive?

He spread a thin layer of concrete on the wall and placed the pale blue tiles around the circular center of the wave. He picked up his tile nippers and adjusted the angle on one tile, then set the pieces to dry, heating his fingers to speed up the process.

He pulled his hand away and frowned at the wall. No, that wouldn’t do. Using fire to speed up drying always resulted in a weaker set.

Patience . The old human who had taught him how to create this art had admonished him for decades. Patience . Waiting had value. Suffering had value. The hawk that waited would end the night with a full belly.

Oleg pulled his warm hand away from the glass tiles and reached for the next grouping on his worktable.

The old human’s wisdom had served him well for centuries. Oleg had waited for the right time to surpass his sire. He had waited for the right moment to strike out at his enemies and take their territories. He had waited until others saw him as a banked fire before he chose to ignite. Now his immortal territory stretched from Saint Petersburg to Sochi and all the way across to North America.

Oleg believed in patience because patience had served him well. So what did patience teach him about the little wolf nipping at his mind?

Tatyana Vorona had folded in seconds when he flooded her mind with amnis. She would wake up for the second time in two days to hazy memories and confusion. If he wanted to keep her innocent about the vampire world, he needed to keep his distance.

Most humans interacted with immortals without suspecting a thing. Zara was far more inhuman than Oleg, and Tatyana had worked with Zara for two years.

Then again, perhaps Zara had wiped the woman’s mind as well. There could be a reason that she perceived something different about Oleg.

Tatyana’s mind could be fighting back against too much intrusion. Amnis could work to wipe human memory, but the mind was sharp and adaptable. Given too much vampire influence, it would learn to work around their usual tricks.

Which was probably what had happened with Tatyana and Zara.

Once again proving that the ways that his daughter could fuck him over were nearly endless.

She will have to die.

The sinister little voice whispered in the back of his mind, but he tried to ignore it.

She will have to die, and you will have to do it .

“No,” he whispered to himself. “Not another. Not again.”

“Are you still working on this thing?”

Oleg glanced over his shoulder when he heard Mika’s voice. “Of course I am. It’s not finished. What are you doing here? Does Klaus need something?”

“Not that I know of.” Mika approached but kept his distance. “I’m here trying to figure out why you sent your new bookkeeper to Sevastopol in the jet when I just put the word out what she’s in Odesa.” Mika sounded annoyed. “Oksana and Ludmila were already tracking a group of Albanians in the city. Is there something I need to know?”

Oleg spun, feeling the fire burst to life on his shoulders as he rounded on Mika. “She went where?”

“Back to Zara’s old territory,” Mika said. “And she took the plane, which means that either you, I, or Elene sent her. I’m guessing from your expression and all the smoke that it must have been Elene.”

Oleg’s fangs dropped, and he snarled at Mika. “Get my driver. We’re going into the office.”

“I cannot keep the girl captive, Oleg.” Elene looked over her reading glasses, just as annoyed as Oleg was. “She had a perfectly reasonable request to go home and sort out her family and living situation before she returned to work. I thought it would be more efficient to use the plane. She’ll be back next week.” She returned to her computer and started typing again. “She’s working while she’s there. I gave her copies of ZOL’s records for the past three years and she’s?—”

“I don’t give a damn about the work,” Oleg barked. “She’s part of a…” He glanced at Mika, who walked over and poked his head out of the office to ask Marta to get him a coffee from a café down the street.

Once the office was clear, Oleg sat in the chair across from Elene. “She’s part of a larger plan. Mika already put the word out that the woman was here.”

“There are Albanians,” Mika said. “They look promising.”

“If Zara has already sent people after the girl, they’re not going to pack up and return to Durr?s because she went home for the weekend. And they don’t have the connections you do, so they’re not likely to jump over to Sevastopol, are they?”

“They could.” Mika leaned against a wall and kept an eye on the outer office. “They’re primarily water vampires. Albanian vampires travel fast when they want to.”

“And Zara could still have people in the city.”

“So do we,” Elene said. “I told Kiril to keep an eye on her.”

Oleg only relaxed a little bit. Kiril was a competent human, but he would be no match for Zara. He looked at Oleg. “Our people in Istanbul, have they reported any movement from her?”

Mika shook his head. “Nothing. She’s sitting in Laskaris’s house and ruling it like a queen. If anything, she’s probably busier than you are juggling the shipping traffic.”

“She’ll have people watching all her old haunts though.”

Elene said, “I doubt she thinks Tatyana is a threat. Do you think she would have neglected to pay her if she thought the bookkeeper was a threat?”

“God only knows,” Oleg said. “It’s Zara. Sometimes she schemes for a decade, and sometimes she tosses mud at the devil just to see how he’ll react.”

Elene raised her eyebrows and Mika shrugged.

“You’re not wrong,” Elene said. “But it was the right thing to do. Tatyana has some issue with her mother, and she wouldn’t have been able to concentrate until she had her settled. I don’t want to deal with a distracted accountant when I’m trying to find thirty million dollars.”

“The money is hardly worth noting,” Oleg said. “It would be nice to recover, but?—”

“Do you know how much we’re paying in bribes now?” Elene raised her voice. “We’re dealing with three different hostile human governments on any given day and also paying Athens. Thirty million isn’t something to be ignored.”

Oleg saw Elene’s phone light up. “Someone is calling you.”

Elene picked up her phone and shot a look at Oleg and Mika. “It’s the bookkeeper.”

Oleg sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Answer it.” He’d had to put on a suit to come into the office, and the collar of the shirt raked against his skin.

Elene rolled her eyes, but she tapped a lit-up button on the phone console. “Hello, Miss Vorona. I trust the flight was?—”

“There is a problem.”

Oleg sat up and leaned forward. He’d heard Tatyana’s voice clearly, but he snapped his fingers and pointed at Elene’s phone. She tapped something on the screen so Tatyana’s voice was louder for Oleg and Mika.

“What problem?” Elene said. “I trust Kiril delivered you home safely.”

“Yes, but when I arrived, I went to my office to check on my backups.”

“Your backups?”

“I had a backup computer. An external hard drive. Some USB drives with scans of files that Zara had given to me. They were all gone.”

Mika gripped his hand and shook his head, baring his fangs at Elene, who shook her head and put a finger over her lips. The message was clear.

Quiet.

“Your backups were stolen from your office?” Elene asked. “Is there anything you don’t already have?”

“No. And I do have other backups, but these were stolen from the office in my home. In my mother’s home. It’s very possible that Zara knows I’m working on finding the money.”

Mika scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to Elene.

“Did your mother realize someone had broken in?” Elene read the note Mika handed her. “Have there been any workmen in the house? Anyone who might have been posing as someone they were not?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to ask her. Do you think Zara is watching me?” A tremor of fear in Tatyana’s voice. “What if she?—”

“Volchitsa, I’m flying to you.” Oleg spoke before he realized what he was doing.

Mika’s eyes went wide, and Elene’s eyebrows went up.

“Mr. Sokolov?”

A low rumbling in his chest, and his fangs grew long. “You called me Oleg last night.”

“I didn’t know you were on the call.” Tatyana’s voice had turned from frightened to suspicious. “How long have you been listening?”

“We were talking about a billing issue when you called,” Elene said. “I understand you’re frightened, but I can send Kiril back to the house if that would make you feel more secure.” Elene was staring at Oleg, silently shaking her head.

She mouthed, Do not go to Sevastopol.

He narrowed his eyes. “Mika and I can both go.”

Mika’s head swung around. “What?”

“We’ll make some inquiries and see if any of ZOL’s employees might still be in contact with Zara. If anyone is, they might offer some insight into the embezzlement. And to her location.”

Elene was silently cursing him, and Mika was furious.

“We’ll be there before dawn,” Oleg continued, ignoring his two closest associates.

Tatyana tried to protest. “That’s really not necess?—”

“I’ll see you tomorrow night.” He snapped his fingers at Elene. “Hang up. This is not a discussion.”

Elene tapped the phone and disconnected the call, then sat back and stared at Oleg. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Exactly what I want.” He stood and walked out the door. “Mika, tell Grigor to pack some clothes for me. We’ll leave as soon as my plane is ready.”

It always amused Oleg when Mika was annoyed. The man was normally as even-tempered as you could desire in a second-in-command, but when his temper was riled, he could be as pissy as a wet cat.

“—didn’t even consider that I might have commitments I didn’t want to cancel,” he was muttering.

Oleg paged through a fashion magazine Roman handed him and noticed that a model he’d had a brief affair with was doing a campaign for a new perfume. “Good for you, Sofia.” He showed Mika the ad. “Look at that. She looks beautiful. I should send her some flowers. She liked tulips.”

“Are you really bragging about one of your women right now?”

Oleg muttered, “I wouldn’t call it bragging.”

A cutting rain was pounding against the side of the plane as Mika cut his eyes across the cabin. “This plane may be fireproof, but there’s more than enough rain to bring it down.”

His empty threat made Oleg truly laugh for the first time in days. “You wouldn’t do that to Roman.”

Mika snarled. “Why are you in such a good mood?”

“Because you’re in a bad one. It’s about balance.” He glanced at Mika, then back to the magazine. “What was more important than making me happy by accompanying me to Sevastopol?”

“A screen call with Ivan and Alexey.”

Oleg grunted. “The two most criminal of my brothers. What do they want?”

“They want to buy out our interests in Serbia.”

“I’m assuming not the legitimate ones.”

“Of course not.”

Oleg had a smuggling hub outside Belgrade that had served him well for two centuries, but it was in need of massive investment to keep it updated, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to spend his money on smuggled cigarettes, liquor, and electronics when he had legitimate opportunities with his freight companies that required less graft.

“How much are my brothers offering?”

“For the hub?”

“And the networks.”

Mika’s eyebrow went up. “They were just offering for the hub, and it was ten million US.”

“See what they’ll offer for the network. Dollars, not local currency.” Oleg flipped through the magazine and saw another former lover. “Oh look, Ingrid is in here too.”

Oleg enjoyed the occasional human lover. Human women were amusing and easy to please. He had a feeling that Tatyana Vorona would have sharper teeth.

Oleg snapped the magazine closed and tossed it on the seat next to him.

“You want to sell the liquor network?” Mika asked. “Really?”

He waved a hand. “It all goes together. If they make a decent offer, give them a timeline. We’ll have people working there who won’t want to work with Ivan, so we’ll need to put them in other positions.”

“Fine.” Mika was still pissy. “Maybe you should have asked me what I had planned for tonight before you committed me to flying off to rescue your new girlfriend.”

“My girlfriend?” Amusing. “Your bait, you mean? I would think you’d want to keep her safe.”

“She’s still my bait even if she gets a bit damaged,” Mika said. “You’re obsessed with the woman because she looks like Luana.”

“I honestly don’t see the resemblance.” He was slightly preoccupied with the woman, but it wasn’t about her looks. He was far more curious why she continued to see him as anything more than a man. “Am I becoming less human?”

“Peko’s balls.” Mika rubbed a hand over his face. “Is this because you’re going to therapy now?”

“Fuck off.” He spoke to a friend who was a therapist. That didn’t mean he was in therapy. “She’s not my therapist. I’ve been trying to seduce her.”

“You’ve been trying to seduce her once a month for the past five years,” Mika said. “Her ass can’t be that alluring.”

The corner of his mouth curled up. “You’ve been trying to seduce Elene for twenty years.”

If looks could kill a vampire, Mika’s glare would have decapitated Oleg.

“I’m just saying.” Oleg shrugged. “We all have our distractions.”

“You called this bookkeeper yours .”

“Because she is.” He felt the plane start to descend. “Just like you’re mine. And Elene. And Grigor and Roman and Marta at the office.” He spread his arms. “My people, Mika. Mine .”

And those that were his were not to be harmed save by his own hand.

Especially Tatyana Vorona.