An Obsession with Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 3) Read online

  Maks knew they weren’t talking about Alek. It would be Vasily’s other nephew who was falling short. Sergei had lost his wife and son last year to a rival family. No one was surprised the guy wasn’t functioning properly. “Of course. I’m on my way.”

  He pocketed the phone after hearing “Thanks, son” and then dead air. “I have to go.” He risked his balls and stepped to his little Aussie so he could press his lips to her temple. He pulled back before she had the chance to connect any flying limbs. The dark forest scent that was hers alone stunned him for a second, and he swallowed the groan that tried to escape. “I’ll be in touch,” he said gruffly. And, man, would he touch. Everywhere.

  But not now. About the only thing that could make him turn and leave her standing outside her club, alone in a dark alley, was a request from Vasily Tarasov. Not only Maksim’s boss, Vasily was the man who’d saved Maks’s life eighteen years ago, in more ways than one.

  When he’d woken from the sedative administered by that old-school dart, Maksim had found himself looking out beyond rusted iron bars that were embedded in cracked and uneven cement floors. No windows. No signs of life. Just a dank, rotten smell and muted sounds. Coming from both sides, he’d heard bodies shifting, and one quiet whimper that had sounded female. The more he’d listened, even without a visual, he’d soon realized he was in a row of open-faced cells.

  Boris always was an asshole.

  He’d been put there by his father and had remained in that cold basement in an old building next to the tracks in Reutov, a small town east of Russia’s capital, for nearly three months. Which was when Vasily had learned of the kidnapping operation and had come in to dismantle it.

  My loyalty is yours until the end of my life.

  Maks had offered that pledge the day the Russian leader had released him. And he’d meant it, had stood by it, and would until the day he died. Vasily had taken him in and given him a purpose, something to strive for—even if that something was simply to attempt to make proud the man who put up with him.

  His lip curving, Maks crawled from the past and glanced over as he got behind the wheel of his Hummer. “Get inside, Australia,” he called before shutting himself into the SUV. As he turned the key and backed out, he was pleased to see her follow his simple instruction and slip around the heavy steel door. Very nice.

  “You better rock my fucking world when the time comes, lover,” he murmured as he drove away.

  He could help me.

  Sydney rubbed the tips of her fingers over her tingling temple as the thought came to her again. She leaned against the door and stared unseeingly at the flight of steps leading up to the loft. She wasn’t seriously considering asking a Russian mobster for help.

  Was she?

  She shook her head. “I don’t even know what I’m dealing with yet,” she murmured aloud. But once she did, if Luiz Morales threatened her son, would she possibly risk worse and go to a man like Maksim Kirov for help?

  A click sounded, and she glanced to the top of the stairs to see Andrew exit the loft with Daniel and Heyden trailing behind him. Her son smiled when he saw her.

  “Hey, Mom. What are you doing?”

  Yes, she decided right then. If things got to where she couldn’t handle them—wasn’t she already there?—if Luiz Morales came after them, she would take that chance and request the aid of a man who would probably want payment for protection in the form of sex.

  She blinked.

  Really, Sydney? she asked herself as a heated awareness shimmered down her body, rather than the horror that should have presented itself at the thought.

  Disgusted with herself, she focused and answered her son, who’d descended and was almost on top of her. “I was just coming up to change my boots,” she lied, moving aside so the trio could pass.

  Good-byes were said, and she and Andrew waited until the pair got into Daniel’s dad’s car at the end of the alley before waving them off and walking back upstairs together.

  “Don’t stay up too late, okay?” Reaching into the four-shelf cabinet in the large entrance, she grabbed a pair of Manolos and sat on the leather bench so she could quickly swap footwear. She hung up her jacket, as well, since she wouldn’t be going outside again until daybreak, and then paused at the top of the second set of stairs that branched off on the other side of the landing. These would bring her down to her office.

  “I’m going to bed now,” Andrew surprised her by saying. “We’re meeting up early tomorrow so we can go over our history presentation.”

  She frowned, noticing she was now a little taller than him, which made her feel more like the adult again. “You were together for the last couple of hours. Why didn’t you go over it tonight?”

  “’Cause we were playing online with a couple of guys from France. They were hilarious.”

  As if that explained it all. She shook her head. “You’re lucky your grades are what they are—otherwise the games would be gone.”

  He grinned. “I know.”

  She smiled back and walked him to his room, making him suffer through a tight hug and smacking kiss to his forehead before she left him to get ready for bed. She’d learned the hard way that he didn’t appreciate her hovering any longer. If he needed her, all he had to do was text. Or come down one flight, which would bring him into her office through a secure entrance.

  Using it now, Sydney re-engaged the system and swept her gaze around her barren work space that held nothing but a basic desk with a chair, two filing cabinets, and a beige leather sofa along the far wall. Between the cabinets were a dozen hidden monitors showcasing all areas of the club. There were no plants scattered around, no photos of Andrew. The only thing that had any decorative value—and it wasn’t much—was the print that hung over her safe, given to her by one of her suppliers. On it, beneath an elaborate crown, were the words Keep Calm and Sip Patrón.

  Moving to the sofa, she pressed a button anchored on its back, which made two panels pop out of the wall and slide open to reveal her screens. Every nook and cranny of her club was immediately before her, and she studied them all. The building had originally been a large movie theater, so it was long and narrow. Every inch of the walls were covered with misshapen mirrors to reflect warped and distorted images that somehow looked exotic rather than strange. Thirty-foot ceilings were also mirrored to throw the blue-and-green-hued light around in seductive flashes. The floor had a gradual decline and was filled with horseshoe-shaped booths along the walls, with tall tables scattered throughout. At the base of the slope was the always-packed dance floor.

  Her newest additions, positioned in baseless increments throughout the massive space, were five huge steel birdcages. By midnight, each of them would hold a male or female exotic dancer; in one of them, both. It was just after ten, so bodies were only now trickling in. But it seemed in the blink of an eye, the club would fill up, and that’s when the fun would begin. Soon her bouncers would be trolling the floor, walking couples to the front doors, the girls struggling to pull their skirts down, the guys zipping up—because everyone was having sex but her. Her boys would also break up fights, ward off drunk fangirls, and keep the overall peace. The bartenders would pour and her servers would deliver, and by the end of the night she’d have successfully pleased a few hundred patrons, most of whom would be back tomorrow or in the following days.

  Life should have been ideal.

  Her stomach twisted, her anxiety returning when she remembered the black duffel bag in her car trunk. She had to make a trip out to New Jersey after Andrew left in the morning. After her first buy last year, she’d driven around for days, her trunk full, until she’d found a deserted place not far from a group of smokestacks belonging to a nearby factory. And that’s where she returned to light her monthly fire.

  “Please,” she begged quietly as she thought about the boy getting ready for bed upstairs. “Let it be my last fire.”r />
  After dealing with a delivery of arms and ammunition that had come off a Russian cargo ship docked in Newark Bay, Maks refrained from returning to Pant to finish his and Sydney’s conversation and instead drove to Rapture through the cold November rain—as he should have done after leaving home earlier. The woman was screwing with his routine. And he was letting her.

  He entered his upscale club, which boasted lush furnishings, expensive liquor, smoky mirrors, and lots of perfumed silky skin; his right hand was waiting for him when he walked into his office.

  “I seem to recall Vasily warning us not to go off on our own.”

  Maks hung his coat on the tree stand and went around his solid ebony desk to claim his throne. “I wasn’t on a job,” he told his babysitter.

  Micha Zaretsky had matured into a tight, dangerous, and solemn ex-soldier. He’d held no official rank once he’d reached his goal of being in the Russian military. Instead he’d been the ghost the higher-ups had called in to do their dirty work when the need arose, putting to use the things he and Maksim had learned at the underground training facility where they’d met as boys. Micha had added medical training to his list of selling points. Maks found it to be an odd twist that someone who took lives had also gone to the trouble of learning how to save them.

  After separating that final day in front of the Academy, Maks had gone on to survive being kidnapped and subsequently rescued by Vasily. Micha, aside from ghosting for the government, was too closed-lipped to share what his adventures had entailed. Maks had enough respect for the guy not to dig too deeply. Almost ten years ago he’d come out of a back-alley card game, wiping down a newly improved Angelina, and had found his old friend leaning on the hood of his Explorer. You said you’d keep in touch was all Micha had said with a trace of a smirk on his face.

  They’d been together ever since.

  “I know,” Micha offered with a note in his voice that revealed his enjoyment of Maks’s predicament a little too much. The jack-off. “And the fact that you’re back leads me to believe you’ve been refused again.”

  “Does it?”

  Micha chuckled, the sound rough from lack of use. “If you ever get the green light with this one, my guess is you’ll be MIA for days.”

  “Good guess. She’s weakening, so expect it sooner rather than later.” An image on one of his many monitors caught his eye, and Maks got up to watch the club’s new dancer’s set. She was good. Moved like a dream. Sexy but not dirty, which was what his regular customers appreciated when they came in to drop big bucks. Even the straight chin-length wig she insisted on wearing—which he usually forbid—worked on her. The platinum blonde made her seem mysterious rather than as if she was hiding. She’d fit in here just fine, he thought, his interest waning.

  “You know it’s unhealthy to drop one obsession for another, don’t you?”

  He turned his head to glare at Micha. Fucking guy was too astute for his own good. “At least I have one. What are your interests, brother? Besides short-range missiles and sniper rifles.”

  “Those are respectable interests,” his friend defended himself under his breath. “I’m an expert in my field. In fact, my vast knowledge has made me rich.”

  Expert in his field? Okay. He’d give him that. Sounded a little less braggy than if Micha had touted himself as being the most sought-after hitman in New York these days, Maks supposed.

  “Are you what rich looks like?” he joked, sensing an exposed nerve. “You live in a goddamn motel room, man. Not even a hotel, but a motel. You’re lucky you have a nice ride, or the boys and I would think you were destitute.”

  “I don’t need to live in a place like yours to prove to people who don’t matter that I’ve done well.”

  Maks raised a brow. “Is that how you see me?” he asked, nothing but curious. He found it interesting how people’s perceptions could be so far from reality. “You think I’m out to prove something?”

  Micha pushed to his feet and crossed to the door. “Not to strangers, no.”

  “To who then?”

  “Yourself?”

  Astute motherfucker. “And what would I have to prove to myself, Micha?”

  “That you’re worthy.”

  “Of what?”

  Micha didn’t answer that, maybe because the question had been barked out in a sound similar to one a dog would make when a stranger entered its yard. He opened the door to allow the thick beat of something sultry and erotic to filter in from the club. “Listen, the Australian is a pretty distraction, but don’t you think you should deal with the redhead first? Get past it?”

  After moving behind his desk, Maks dropped down into his chair. There was an underlying concern in his friend’s voice that annoyed him even as he appreciated it. The guy was concerned. He needn’t be. “I have gotten past it. For the most part.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Micha, fuck off. If you could help, I’d ask.”

  “She still on your mind?”

  “Nika?”

  Micha’s pale-green eyes went skyward. He nodded once.

  Of course she was. Nika Paynne. Vincente’s lover. Maks had shot her in the chest not that long ago. She’d been used as a human shield, and when the target—Nika’s violently abusive husband—had shifted at the last minute, Maksim’s bullet had entered the redhead’s body two inches from her heart. He’d been trying to rescue her and damn near took her life. And the goddamn nightmares would not quit.

  “Can’t get her out of there. Every night I have to watch Vincente lose her all over again.” His temples pulsed. He’d almost taken something from V that the guy could not afford to lose. His brows came down as he remembered his latest dream. “Last night was different.”

  Micha closed the door, silencing the room again, and leaned on it. “How so?”

  “When I got down from the shipping crate to see if she was dead, it wasn’t Nika in Vincente’s arms.”

  “Who was it?”

  “My Aussie.”

  His Aussie. Sydney would be pissed if she heard him call her that. Didn’t stop him from doing it.

  Micha nodded slowly and casually buttoned up his black suit jacket. “You fear losing her. Maybe this one means more than the many who’ve come before her.” He offered a lazy salute and left Maks alone to silently laugh off the absurd idea.

  If he was being honest, the challenge Sydney presented was nothing but a welcome distraction. He and Micha threw the word obsession around, but he wasn’t there with her. Doubted he ever would be. With anyone. Concentrating on Sydney and a past she was obviously trying to hide stopped him from dwelling on what he’d almost done to his friends. His family. His true family, not the one he’d been born into. That one had died long ago, right alongside his mother.

  Her death had devastated their small unit, leaving both him and his father floundering. Afterward, where he strived to please, doing anything to connect with his remaining parent, Boris Kirov had done the opposite. He’d gone on that bender and then pulled away, drawing farther and farther into himself. Soon Maksim had been convinced he didn’t exist to the man anymore. For four years he struggled to be noticed, desperate to reach the one who could no longer be reached, always wondering what it was he’d done wrong.

  That had ended the day Boris told him to pack a bag and wait in the car. Twelve years old by then, he’d done as he was told and had been sitting in the passenger seat when a white Lada had pulled in behind their Citroën. He’d watched an obviously pregnant woman get out, take two large suitcases from the backseat, and, without seeing him, lug them up the front walk of the house. Stomach churning, Maksim had watched the door open before she got there. His father had come out, expression stern as he said something that made her bow her head. He took one of the cases and went back to hold the door open for her. After closing her into the house, he’d gotten in the car with Maksim and driv
en him away.

  Who was that? Maks remembered asking an hour into the skin-crawling silence of the ride that had taken them so far from home.

  My wife.

  The answer had been like a punch in the stomach. The pain of it had stolen his breath. His father had met and married a woman—and hadn’t told him? How could that be? That woman was having a child that would be Maksim’s half brother or sister, and they hadn’t wanted to share that with him? Why?

  He hadn’t said another word for the rest of the drive, which had lasted three more hours. Three hours of silence that had eaten away at the love he’d felt for the man sitting so cold and emotionless next to him. One thought had repeatedly pounded through his head. So badly he’d wanted to ask, Papa, what did I do to you to make you hate me? But he didn’t. And he didn’t ask one question about the place he was dropped in front of, nor did he say good-bye after his father signed the clipboard held by a mean-looking sonofabitch wearing a dark-gray military-type uniform. We’ll toughen him up, the man had said. You do that, his father had replied. He’s going to need it.

  All Maksim had done was stare at Boris Kirov’s silver eyes the entire time, willing him to look at him, acknowledge him. See him.

  But he hadn’t. He’d done nothing more than turn his back, get into his car, and drive away, leaving his son to survive a two-year stint at the Academy.

  Walking back through those gates on graduation day and seeing no one waiting for him hadn’t been a surprise. It had barely hurt. Same when he’d learned of his father’s involvement in his abduction. It hadn’t been pain he’d felt; it had been rage. A blinding, helpless rage against a fucking coward who’d forsaken his child, making him suffer over and over again for reasons that would never be known. Vasily’s men had killed Boris before Maksim had gotten a chance to find answers.