Chapter 14Ivan

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Ivan

T he familiar restaurant was dimly lit, the dark-red booths each with their own small candle. It had been Sergei's idea to hold the gathering here, but Ivan supposed it was appropriate. It had been their father's favorite place to do business, besides the warehouse. The owner was always willing to look the other way for regular patronage and a little extra cash.

Now it was the spot for his father's wake. A sea of men in black, with enough food to feed ten armies, some of it from the restaurant itself, the rest courtesy of the wives.

Ivan held his chilled glass of vodka, his thumb swiping back and forth across the condensation. For now, he was only holding it. Every man there was eager to refill it as soon as he took a sip, and he needed a clear head. Or as clear as he could make it. He barely remembered the service as it was.

His father wasn't supposed to die. Not so soon. Not like this.

An aneurysm. A fucking ruptured aneurysm—that was what the autopsy had said .

All Ivan knew was that one moment, his father had been talking about business, and then he'd winced, said, "My head's fucking killing me," and slumped in his seat. Sergei had called 911—probably the first time in his life he could say he'd done so—and Ivan had tried to resuscitate his father.

He'd failed at that, clearly.

"You're not drinking enough," Alexei chastised, sliding into the booth next to him. His dirty-blond hair was swept back into its usual bun, his broad form stuffed into a black suit. He looked…tired, his hazel eyes red-rimmed and heavy-lidded.

"Someone has to be sober," Ivan told him, another round of raucous laughter from the men punctuating his point.

"And it should be our new revered leader, hm?"

"And is there a problem with that?" It may not have been meant to happen for another decade, but Ivan had been raised to lead, Alexei meant to stay one step to the side.

One step behind.

And fuck, did Alexei seem to hate that. Ivan had never been able to figure out why, exactly—it wasn't like Alexei wanted to lead himself. He could hardly care less about the entire business.

"Our father is dead," Alexei said bluntly instead of answering Ivan's question.

Ivan contained his eye roll, if only barely. "Yes. I'm incredibly aware."

Alexei lowered his voice and lifted his drink, his lips now hidden behind his glass. "If there was ever a time to leave all this behind, it would be now."

It was a fucking dangerous thing to be said out loud, even as quietly as that.

Ivan gestured to the gruff men surrounding them, the scars and tattoos, guns hiding within suit jackets. No loose women, not with the wives around, but that would happen later, as the night went on and the wives went home. More than half the rabble were watching Ivan and Alexei from the corners of their eyes, even those laughing among themselves. "Does this look like something that gets left behind?"

Alexei leaned closer. "If we did it now—"

"We'd be as dead as our dear father. You know this. You know this," Ivan repeated, his frustration hard to contain. "Why do you make me say it?"

Alexei's jaw tightened, the only sign of how pissed off he might be at Ivan's refusal. "We might be dead either way."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"You think you can keep all these people on the same tight leash our father did?"

Ivan narrowed his eyes. "You doubt it?"

"He was a mean son of a bitch."

"And I'm not?"

They stared each other down for a long moment. Too long, considering how many people were watching them. Then Alexei sighed, rubbing a hand across his forehead. "No, you're right, Vanya. You're fucking perfect for the job."

It should have been a victory, however minute, but somehow it didn't feel like Ivan had won. "Where's Sascha?" he asked, instead of investigating why that might be.

"Getting completely shit-faced."

Of course. Their baby brother was maybe one of the few people truly sorry their father was gone. He had a right to mourn. But still, there were dangers in Sascha losing control on a night like this.

"Watch him," Ivan ordered.

Alexei raised his glass in a mock salute. "I always do."

He rose from the booth and shuffled away, brushing off the men who tried to drag him into their booths for a toast.

Alexei wasn't completely off course with his misgivings. Their father had fought his way up the ranks through cruelty and violence, and now the men who had served him so faithfully would be waiting to see if Ivan could measure up. Looking for any sign of weakness .

Ivan eyed the room over his glass. These men had been part of his family for almost as long as he could remember. But now they were competition, of sorts.

Succession of a business like this was never a sure thing, was it?

A shadow fell over the table. Sergei, swaying slightly as he loomed over Ivan. It wasn't surprising he was letting loose—Sergei had been with Ivan's father from the beginning, and he wasn't afraid of a little vodka making him lose esteem among the men.

"Where are your brothers?" Sergei asked, his words surprisingly clear considering how much alcohol he must have had in his system.

"Alexei went to corral Sascha."

"Good," Sergei said shortly. He'd never approved of Sascha's coddling; Ivan knew that much. He'd heard Sergei argue against it with his father more than once. One of the very few things the two hadn't agreed on.

Sergei shoved his way into the booth with significantly less grace than Alexei had. "When something—or some one becomes a liability—" he said, not at all subtle. "You cut it loose. Even family."

Ivan nodded, not ready to get into the age-old argument over Sascha. "I'll keep that in mind."

Sergei sat there, sipping his vodka for a few minutes, then spoke again, "Your father. He loved your mother. It almost cost him his sons." He sneered, his eyes unfocused over his glass. "He was right to do what he did."

Images ran through Ivan's mind, swift and horrible. A pale corpse. Bloodstains on a faded yellow sheet. "Of course he was," he said evenly.

He couldn't feel his face for some reason, but he was skilled enough now at controlling it that he was almost certain it was giving nothing away.

Sergei stared at him, steely-eyed, for a long moment, then it was as if a flip switched, and he was all smiles. He clapped Ivan on the shoulder, grinning broadly. "You'll be a good leader, hm? With Sergei here to help."

"I want to modernize," Ivan told him, almost before he could think. There wasn't much he could reform—not without making himself a target—but he could do away with the dank warehouse his father had used as his meeting room, forgo the scent of mold and old blood.

"Of course, of course," Sergei told him, magnanimous. "You're in charge now." He swayed toward Ivan across the table. "Just not too many changes, hm? Makes the men restless."

Ivan looked out at those men again. It was suddenly harder to focus on individual faces—they were just one cohesive mass, all staring, their eye sockets bottomless pits. Alexei and Sascha were nowhere to be found, or maybe they'd become part of that staring mass.

Maybe Ivan had downed too much vodka after all.

He wasn't used to drinking during the day like this, and it was sure to go on all night. There wouldn't be a moment alone, not until well after dawn. It wasn't as if Ivan could leave either. Not when it was his father they were celebrating.

He was trapped.

Sergei stood, raising his voice to be heard over the din. "Dimitri's last words were to our Ivan here!" he bellowed, and the men silenced immediately. "His Vanya. How proud he was of him. He'd been preparing for Ivan to take over for a long time now, hm? It happened a little sooner than expected, but—" He shrugged a shoulder. "—such is life." He raised his glass. "To Dimitri Kozlov and his son Ivan."

"Dimitri," everyone repeated. "And Ivan."

Sergei shot Ivan a wink, and Ivan nodded in return, complicit in the lie.

His father's last words had been nothing of the sort, of course. He hadn't had a chance to say anything profound—he'd died too quickly. And never once had he said he was proud of Ivan. He'd probably rather have bitten off his own tongue than let such praise leave his lips.

Still, Sergei had given him an endorsement, no matter how false.

Ivan tried to think of his last conversation with his father that hadn't been about business logistics.

It had been a week or so before his death, he was pretty sure. His father had just executed someone he'd suspected of sharing information with another family. He'd been cleaning his gun, Ivan standing at the ready next to him, waiting for the cleanup crew.

"Vanya," his father had said. "You know how I knew it was him?"

Ivan could have hazarded a guess, but it was always better with his father to admit ignorance than pretend knowledge. "No, I don't."

"His wife. She was sick. Very sick. Medical bills, you know?" his father had explained, tucking his weapon away. "He's always been loyal to her. He needed the money, and it made him stupid." He had stepped closer, catching Ivan's eye. "What's to be learned from him?"

Ivan had glanced at the body at his feet, then back to his father. "You never betray the real family. Our family."

"No, Vanya." His father's hand had whipped out, gripping Ivan's chin hard enough to hurt. "It's that love makes you stupid. Makes you weak. And then someone smarter and stronger puts a bullet in your brain."

Ivan had nodded as best he could within the tight grip. His father had grinned suddenly and dropped his painful hold. "But he doesn't have to worry about his wife anymore, hm?"

"Because he's dead," Ivan had said dully.

"Because Sergei is on his way to their house." His father's grin had sharpened. "No more medical bills."

A beautiful lesson from father to son.

Now Ivan took a swig of his vodka after all. He supposed he could have made that sage advice into a toast, but it didn't seem like it would have had the same effect as Sergei's lies, did it?

And what did it matter anyway? His father was dead.

His words could die with him.

Ivan hung up the phone, cursing.

Jace had lost Sergei. Or at least, the useless fool thought he had. It was possible Sergei was holed up in his apartment, but if that was the case, he'd been in there since before the assassination attempt on Ivan.

It was unlikely, to say the least.

Jace hadn't heard any word on whether Sergei was attempting to make deals with any other family, and Ivan couldn't get a hold of Cooper to find out if he'd been able to track anything pertinent electronically.

The silence from Cooper was…concerning.

"Problem?" Nix asked from his spot on the porch's Adirondack chair, his legs slung carelessly over the side.

Sascha had informed them he had a "no Mafia business in the house" rule, one that was obviously made up solely to piss Ivan off, but Kai had seemed only too willing to enforce it, so Ivan and Nix had removed themselves to the front porch for Ivan's call.

Nix was wearing what he must have considered some sort of vacation wear. His propensity for sheer or silken shirts had been replaced by some knit thing. It was too thin for the weather, but then Sascha had been right—demons ran hot. It also had a loose enough collar that it kept slipping over Nix's shoulders, leaving the skin bare.

It was no doubt meant to entice.

It was working.

"The usual incompetence," Ivan muttered, jerking his gaze away from Nix's silken skin. He was feeling irritable again, although he had no one to blame but himself. He'd slept off the drunkenness from that morning with an extended nap, one full of half-remembered dreams and distorted memories, and it had been dark when he'd woken up. A fact that made him pissy in and of itself—there was an entire day wasted. That compounded with the persistent headache he had from his overindulgence, and he was just about ready to snap.

Maybe Nix was right and Ivan needed to cut off drinking entirely, at least until this mess was sorted and he was feeling less…jagged. There was something too tempting about liquor these days, about the way it made him just a touch looser. The way it made it easier to let go.

He'd said foolish things that morning, admitted to hurts he was always better off ignoring, but he couldn't even regret it fully.

Nix would keep his secrets close. Even Ivan—mistrustful as he was by nature—knew that much.

The way he felt when drinking was similar to the way he felt around Nix in any state, tempted by the notion that it was okay to lower his defenses just a smidge. That Ivan could be soft for a moment and not regret it later.

But was that feeling truth or a trick? There was Kai's warning to consider.

Desperate desires lead to desperate acts.

But between the two of them, Ivan and Nix…which of them was the desperate one? It was impossible to answer. Maybe it was both of them.

"Is the incompetence the only thing that has you scowling?" Nix asked, his chin propped on one hand.

"I'm not scowling," Ivan told him. He wasn't either. His looseness from the morning was nowhere to be found, and he had a firm rein back on his facial expressions. So Nix was just being a little shit.

"You're scowling on the inside." Now Ivan did glare, which Nix met with a grin. "And now your outside matches your insides. Isn't that lovely?"

Ivan stalked over to him across the porch. "I'm more than a little irritable and annoyed at the moment, incubus. And you're not nearly as charming as you think."

"Is that so?" Nix swung his legs off from the side of the chair and widened them invitingly. "Because a little birdie told me you like to fuck when you're annoyed. "

"Mm." Ivan leaned over the ridiculous chair, resting his hands on its arms, inhaling Nix's smoky scent. "Give me your mouth, then."

"With pleasure," Nix murmured, closing the distance between them.

His mouth was hot, and his tongue was eager, and Ivan groaned, pressing a knee onto the chair's seat for stability and fisting a hand in Nix's hair.

He could give up liquor easily, if this was always available to him.

His demon drug.

Nix pulled away to mouth at Ivan's jaw. "Wanna see how far we can get before the neighbors call the cops?"

Ivan tugged him back, cocking a brow. "I generally try to steer clear of law enforcement."

Nix smirked. "What a pity."

Ivan hesitated, his hand in Nix's hair, studying his incubus. There was no point in saying anything, was there? Whatever came out of Nix's mouth could be a lie anyway, so why bring it up? Still, he found himself asking, "Are you like this with all your contracts?"

"Like what?" Nix quipped. "Horny?"

When Ivan didn't respond, Nix's smile dropped slowly. He sighed. "Did Kai happen to say something to you?"

Ivan stiffened, his stomach dropping. That was as good as an admission, wasn't it? That Kai had something to say. He dropped his hand out of Nix's hair. "And what would Kai have said to me?"

"Listen, Ivan—"

Nix stopped midsentence, his gaze darting out over Ivan's shoulder. There was a black car pulling up, a quietly expensive model. Not one Ivan recognized. He reached for his gun as the car pulled in to the drive, only to remember Sascha had made him leave it in his room .

Why the fuck had Ivan listened?

Nix was in front of him before he knew it, somehow out of the chair and blocking Ivan in the blink of an eye. "Inside," he barked, like Ivan was supposed to follow his orders.

"Not until we know who it is."

But Ivan didn't recognize the man who exited the driver's side of the vehicle. He had light-brown hair and sharp cheekbones and was dressed in a patterned suit like some sort of eccentric professor.

Ignoring Ivan and Nix on the porch, the stranger opened the door to the passenger seat, drawing out a conventionally attractive blond man around Ivan's age who was dressed much more casually, like he'd just come from a backwoods hike.

The two strangers faced them, the professor type standing in front of the blond, much in the same way Nix stood in front of Ivan.

But it was the blond who spoke. "Sascha?" he asked hesitantly. "Or…" He cocked his head. "Ivan?"

"Not that we don't love surprise visitors," Nix drawled. "But who the fuck's asking?"

"I'm Eric," the blond said, not looking too put out by the rudeness. He pointed to his companion. "This is Wolfe. Alexei sent us?" He made it sound like a question rather than a statement.

The one identified as Wolfe made a vaguely disgruntled noise. "We were not sent ," he corrected. "We were already in the area. And we found something of yours." He steered his partner to the back of the car, popping open the trunk.

It would be stupid to walk over, yet Ivan found himself too curious to resist. But before he could step off the porch, Nix froze in front of him, halting his progress.

"What is it?"

Nix sniffed the air like some sort of bloodhound. "Vampires," he accused, loud enough for Eric and Wolfe to hear .

"Yes," Wolfe said coolly, arching a brow. "Was that not clear? We've already stated we're…friends of Alexei's. What else would we be?"

There was a time—merely a few weeks ago, in fact—when Ivan would have assumed the worst from that statement. Would have thought Alexei had sent these two to do his dirty work—to hit Ivan when he was already down. He would have rushed back into the house with Nix at his heels. Or, more likely, fled the state entirely, convinced Sascha had done his part to set him up.

But now, for whatever reason, he found himself urging Nix forward, approaching close enough to peer into the trunk.

For a moment, he was at a loss for words, even as Nix cackled at his side.

Eric cleared his throat. "Did we do it right? I've never really abducted someone before."

There was a first time for everything, apparently.

Because there in the trunk, bound and gagged and clearly unconscious, was Sergei.