The Bastard's Bargain Read online

  She smirked, even as her hazel eyes were concerned. “You’re being polite, which means you’re worried. I’ll be good and stay in my cage while you’re gone—this time.”

  It was the best he was going to get. “Thank you.”

  “Come back safely, Romanov. No one gets to torture you but me.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Keira lasted an hour. Sixty minutes before she went a little mad wondering what Dmitri had found. Or if it was a trap. If Keira were in Alethea’s situation, she would have guessed that Dmitri wouldn’t sit idly by. He might not be as superhuman as she used to believe, but he was still very, very good at what he did.

  She just hadn’t expected…loyalty.

  She flung herself down onto the couch in the library and picked up the book she’d left there a few days ago, before setting it down again. She wasn’t settled enough to read right now. She kept playing the look on Dmitri’s face when he spoke about Mikhail. They weren’t friends exactly—she got the impression that Dmitri didn’t have much in the way of friends—but it genuinely grieved him to think of his man at Mae’s mercy.

  The temptation rose to call him, but whatever he was doing, he didn’t need the distraction. So she called Charlie instead.

  She answered on the second ring. “Hey, stranger.”

  “Hey.” Now that she had her on the phone, she didn’t know what to say. They’d only had two weeks together after Aiden brought Charlie home, and it wasn’t like there was a ton of history to pull from. Maybe I should have called Carrigan. But she didn’t trust her sister’s anger at Dmitri. If Carrigan thought for a second that she’d get away with it, she wouldn’t hesitate to send Halloran men down here to snatch Keira and bring her home, and to hell with the consequences.

  “Keira?”

  She snapped back to the present. What was she doing? She didn’t normally mentally wander in spirals. “Hey.” Shit, she’d already said that.

  “Is everything okay?” Charlie took a deep breath and but seemed to reconsider before she offered an escape plan. Again.

  Get your head on straight. Everyone is freaking the fuck out and you’re not helping with this space case shit. “Yeah, things are fine. I’m just bored and I was wondering what you were up to.”

  “Ah. That, I know all too well.” Someone spoke in the background and Charlie must have moved away from them, because the sounds got quieter and then disappeared altogether. “Is he letting you keep going with Krav Maga?”

  “He doesn’t have a choice.” She rolled onto her side and stared at the doorway to the library as if she could will Dmitri back safely. “We’ve talked about it, and he said he’d found a gym, but shit keeps hitting the fan, and my actually going keeps getting pushed back.” And rightfully so. Her restlessness was less important than the safety of Dmitri’s people, but that didn’t mean she was handling it any better. “I guess there’s stuff I could be doing in the meantime, but I don’t even know where to start.”

  “That, I can help with. Hit me with your e-mail address, and I’ll send you over a few options for training plans to get your endurance and strength up. You’ll still feel like you were hit with a truck for the first couple weeks, but it’ll help.”

  “Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.” She rattled off her e-mail address.

  “I try.” There was a rustling in the background as if Charlie had settled into a couch. “I know I’m not supposed to ask, but how are you—really?”

  The genuine worry in her friend’s tone had something clenching in her chest. Keira knew she was loved. She had never really doubted it, even if she was often swept aside in favor of whatever crisis the family was dealing with at that given moment. It made it easier to leave with Dmitri, because at least this time, she could be helpful in averting said crisis.

  Call her crazy, but she hadn’t anticipated their reactions. She started to brush off Charlie’s concern, but stopped. Charlie had been there for her—had seen her—when the rest of her family was off in their own little world. She was Keira’s friend. If she couldn’t be at least a little bit honest with her friend, who could she be honest with? “I’m…okay. Going through withdrawal was fucking hell and I never want to go through that again.” If she concentrated, she could imagine the taste of vodka on her lips, and the craving never seemed to go away—especially after the near miss last night. Maybe it would fade in the coming days, weeks, months, but Dmitri’s earlier words kept her rooted in place. I don’t want to drink myself to death. I want to live.

  “I’ll admit to having mixed feelings about that. I’m glad you’re sober, but Romanov’s methods leave something to be desired.”

  She couldn’t argue that, but Keira knew without a shadow a doubt that if he hadn’t kick-started that process for her, she might never have taken the first step. Numbness was too tempting—too comforting. She hadn’t wanted to give it up. She still craved it more than she rightfully should.

  She flopped onto her back. “It’s weird being here. Not bad-weird, exactly, but the house is saturated with Dmitri’s presence. It’s like he’s imprinted on the entire thing, and there isn’t a room that’s exempt.”

  She closed her eyes and, for the first time in years, tried to picture how she’d put that feeling into paint. Black and white and every shade of gray I can manage. Bold slashes. A speckle of…blue? No, a deep royal purple. Because he’s not a king—he’s a motherfucking emperor. Keira grinned and opened her eyes, her fingers itching for something that wasn’t a bottle. “I think I want to start painting again.”

  Charlie was silent for a beat, another, a third. “Fuck, Keira, that’s wonderful. I won’t pretend I get what you see in him, but if you’re happy, that’s all that matters. It might take Aiden ten years to come around, but it will happen.”

  The words stilled some of her budding excitement for painting. Ten years with Dmitri Romanov. Ten years would mean there were children. Ten years…She tried to picture what that life would be like and couldn’t wrap her head around it.

  Things were too new, too unsettled. She and Dmitri might be trying to find common ground, but they hadn’t exactly managed it yet. Sex, they could do and do well—once she got out of her own way, at least. The rest of it? That remained to be seen. She couldn’t think about it too closely. She refused to. “Thanks.”

  “I can’t wait to see you—even if it’s at your reception.”

  Her fucking reception. She didn’t know what to think of Dmitri putting her in charge of it, but it was more complicated than she’d anticipated. There were so many moving parts. She had no idea how Carrigan did this shit on the regular. “Well, I’m the one organizing it and putting it together, so if there is a reception at this point, it’ll be a goddamn miracle.”

  “I can’t pretend I know a single thing about that.” Charlie laughed. “I am not the party person. It’s all politics and making sure the right people sit next to the other right people so you don’t start an incident. It’s too subtle for my skill set.”

  She could argue that Charlie was more than capable of being subtle when it suited her, but she and Keira got along so well because neither had that kind of personality. “You and me both.”

  “You could always call Carrigan.”

  She tried to picture how that conversation would go and sighed. “Only if I get desperate. I’m sure I can pull this thing out of my ass. It’s just a matter of getting it done.” She should be working on it right now, but after a meeting with the event planner where she snapped at the woman four separate times over things that shouldn’t have been a big deal, Keira rescheduled the rest of the meeting for another day. She couldn’t focus with worry over Dmitri nibbling away at the back of her mind.

  She lifted her phone off her ear and checked the time. He’d been gone for three hours. No matter what kind of traffic he’d hit, he should have been there by now. Hell, he should have been there and dealt with it and called her to…

  To report? Keira almost laughed, but not like anything w
as funny. Dmitri didn’t report to her. He didn’t have any obligation to check in with her like he was her husband. Even if that’s exactly what he was.

  She sat up. “Hey, Charlie, I’m going to call you later.”

  “Sounds good. Hang in there.” She didn’t offer to extract Keira, which she appreciated. The sooner her family made their peace with her choosing to be here, the better.

  She checked her phone again—nothing. Fuck this. She couldn’t just sit here and stew. She had to do something. Since she’d promised Dmitri she wouldn’t leave the house, she stalked to their bedroom and rifled through the closet until she came up with some workout clothes. A quick stop to check her e-mail and print out the first plan Charlie had sent her, and she was off to the small gym on the first floor. She just had to keep moving and stay focused on something besides the minutes ticking by without word from Dmitri.

  If he finds out I was worried about him, I’ll never hear the end of it.

  * * *

  Dmitri watched his men tear apart the little apartment they’d tracked down. It was grungy, and the appearance of a film over every surface wasn’t entirely imagined. The kitchen had mismatched plates stacked in the sink, and the living room held a single couch that should have been burned years ago. The TV on the absurdly tiny entertainment center was huge and was the only new thing in the whole place. One of the bedrooms held a scattering of both men’s and women’s clothing—the difference between them as staggering as that between the couch and the television.

  The bathroom was what turned his stomach. A bar had been mounted at the front of the tub, just above the faucet. From the way the metal was worn, there had been metal cuffs dragged over it again and again. It didn’t take much connecting of the dots to know the kind of torture they’d set up here for Mikhail.

  But the Eldridges were gone and Mikhail with them. From the look of the place, they’d left shortly after Alethea called him—possibly as recently as this morning. They had been there, though.

  “Nothing, boss.”

  Nothing except the piece of paper he held in his hand. A taunt Alethea hadn’t been able to resist.

  Have to be faster next time, Romanov.

  She thought this was a game she could win. He read the paper for the twelfth time. It didn’t make sense. Even if she had a mole in his household, he and Aiden had her backed into a corner. They had ensured her crazy daughter was arrested, even if Mae had posted bail. Alethea should be desperate and reckless right now in her attempts to find a way around Mae’s charges—she shouldn’t be taunting him as if she knew something he didn’t.

  Dmitri snapped his fingers. “Burner phone.”

  Alexei passed one over, and Dmitri wasted no time calling the one fed he believed to be beyond reproach. John Finch was incorruptible—and had been since he was a beat cop in New York back in the seventies. He’d eventually made the jump to the FBI’s organized crime division after his daughter was born, and he’d worked his way up the ranks. He had a sterling reputation—at least professionally.

  “John Finch.”

  It took precious seconds for him to get a hold of his temper. Like most people in his world, Dmitri loathed the man, but he’d always had a distant sort of respect for him. No longer. Not after seeing the unforgivable skew of his priorities. Family should matter more than a job. For John Finch, it didn’t.

  But he kept all that out of his voice when he spoke. “Someone’s been making questionable decisions.”

  “Dmitri Romanov.” Finch’s voice was flat. “To what do I owe the dubious pleasure of a direct call from you?”

  “You didn’t do your job. You had Mae gift wrapped for you—by your daughter, no less—and she’s slipped through your fingers. Explain that.”

  “I don’t have to explain shit to you.”

  He strove for patience. Surrounded by evidence of his man being tortured by those bitches, there was none to be had. “Wrong. You may think you’re on the side of good in this little spat, but you’re no different than I am. The only difference between us is that I don’t let my enemies escape.”

  “I had nothing to do with that choice.” Finally, some emotion bled into the man’s voice. Frustration. “The judge ultimately made that decision. There isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. It’s out of my hands.”

  “You don’t believe that any more than I do.” Even if Mae was technically beyond his jurisdiction, Alethea wasn’t. Nothing had happened to deter them from continuing to investigate her. “Surely you have surveillance at the very least.”

  “I’ve been ordered to stand down.” Finch’s voice was so low, Dmitri thought he’d misheard him. But then he continued, “You’re on your own, Romanov.” He hung up.

  Fuck.

  He’d consider the implications of that later. “We’re leaving. Now.” There was nothing to find here, and if Finch wasn’t authorized to keep tabs on the Eldridges, it meant they had leverage higher up the chain than he was. Which meant Dmitri and his men were likely under surveillance themselves—if they hadn’t been already. A mole and we’re being watched. Enemies on all sides.

  He’d left Keira mostly unattended at home.

  They didn’t run out of the apartment, but they moved at a good clip. Dmitri dialed as he slid into the backseat of the car they’d stashed close by.

  Keira answered, panting slightly. “You’re alive.”

  “And you as well.” He breathed a small sigh of relief. He hadn’t really thought someone would attack the house, but at this point he couldn’t take anything for granted. Alethea had outmaneuvered him multiple times in the last few weeks. He couldn’t let his mistakes create an opportunity for her to hurt Keira.

  She sucked in a breath. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “Are you okay?” Dmitri frowned. “You’re breathing awfully hard.”

  “Shut up, Russian. I’m pathetically out of shape and weaker than I want to be, but I will still kick your ass from here to Boston and back.”

  The pieces clicked together. “You’re working out.”

  “Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.” Another gasp. “God, I know this gets easier, but it sucks right now.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. Dmitri utilized the gym regularly because being in fighting shape was vital. One never knew when it’d make the difference between life and death—winning and losing. He couldn’t remember the last time he took more than a day or two off, so there was no getting back in shape.

  Something beeped in the background and Keira coughed. “Okay, you have my full attention. Did you find him?”

  “Nyet. They knew we were coming and cleared out.”

  “Fuck. I’m sorry, Dmitri. It was a good lead.”

  They’d moved on it as quickly as they feasibly could. Those extra fifteen minutes he’d taken to find and talk to Keira hadn’t made a difference…but he felt something akin to guilt all the same. “We’ll find him.” Somehow. If Alethea continued to dodge him, he’d have to dangle bait enticing enough to get her to come to him. “It’s just a matter of reexamining the problem and coming up with a new solution.” He realized he’d never told another person how his thought process worked. He was so used to functioning alone, but it felt like second nature to include Keira.

  “We won’t let the bitch win.” She sounded almost normal now, if furious. “Come home, Dmitri. We’ll figure this out.”

  Come home.

  For the first time, he felt like it was actually coming home—as if that house might be termed a home instead of a residence. Keira’s presence filled it with life, and she’d barely gotten started.

  He settled back against the seat, reluctant to end the call. “How did the reception planning go?”

  “Well, I’m in the gym for the first time in God knows how long—that brief stint with Charlie notwithstanding. That should tell you something. I rescheduled the rest of the meeting for tomorrow. She—shit, I forgot her name.”

  “Claudia.”

  “Claudia.�
�� Keira snorted. “That woman is scary. And I know scary women. Her smile gets all tight and freaky when I do something she thinks I shouldn’t be doing. I hope dental work is covered by her insurance, because she’s going to bust a tooth or two by the time we get to the party.”

  He chuckled, the sound loosening something in his chest that had been claustrophobically tight since he realized the apartment was empty. “I’ll see that she gets a bonus for her trouble.”

  “Do that. It can’t be easy holding my hand through this process, but she’s managed not to do anything totally fucking rude or patronizing yet, so she’s earned it.”

  He usually didn’t work closely with Claudia. She was a holdover from his father, and she’d planned enough events that he spent a single meeting going over what he needed and then trusted her to take care of the rest. “What time are you meeting her again tomorrow?”

  “Ten. Unless there’s something else you need me to do?”

  She sounded so hopeful, he laughed again. “I know it’s getting late, but perhaps we could still have our dinner.”

  “The fancy one?” He could almost see her perk up. “Wait, how long until you’re home?”

  There was that word again. Home. “An hour or so, depending on traffic.”

  “I can make that work. But I have to go right now. Bye.” She hung up on him.

  He chuckled for the third fucking time in five minutes. What the hell was this woman doing to him? Dmitri should be furious and scheming and tearing the city apart to find Mikhail, but here he was, looking forward to a late dinner with his wife.

  He closed his eyes for a long moment, and then opened them again. He had an hour to get the ball rolling on the search. His leads would need until tomorrow morning to begin to pan out, but at least he could start now. Stupid to think he was getting soft simply because Keira was in his life now, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d missed more steps in the last few months than he had in his entire life leading up to the point where he encountered her at that rave.