Nicky Read online

  Nicky began to pack their things up and Kirill said, “Your father said to bring only you back.”

  Nicky turned to look at the other man with a glare. “She’s coming with me or I’m not going and you can tell Nikoli about why I’m not with you.”

  Kirill studied the other man for a moment then nodded. “We will bring her along.” He stepped over to Nicky and held out his hand. “Keys, please. Dima will drive your car back.”

  Nicky stared at him for a moment then handed him the keys to his car. Grabbing their bags in one hand, he grabbed Serenity’s hand and they walked out of the motel room together.

  Kirill followed them and opened the back door of the SUV. Nicky was surprised when Kirill got into the passenger seat of the front seat but didn’t say anything.

  The seven hour drive back to the city was silent for the most part. Serenity held tight to Nicky’s hand as with each mile she could feel the hostility growing toward her. They stopped for breakfast at a drive through somewhere near Syracuse, and only then because Nicky insisted.

  Serenity was so nervous that she could barley take two bites of her food. By the time they reached the outskirts of the city, what she had eaten sat like a lump of lead in her belly.

  When they got close to the hotel Nicky could feel her begin to tremble and he looked over at her in alarm.

  She was sweating and she looked terrified, her silver eyes were glazed over and her whole body was shaking.

  He stared at her in alarm, “Moy Svet, its gonna be ok, I promise.” He pulled her close to him.

  Serenity snuggled deep within his arms and took several deep breaths. His scent seemed to calm the fear inside her a little bit and she could breathe again. Drawing his scent into her lungs, she felt him surround her like an invisible net. She knew as long as she was in his net, she would be ok.

  When the vehicle stopped in the underground parking garage, she felt his arms tighten around her briefly then she raised her head and gazed around. The midday light shining from the entrance still held shadows and the lighting in the garage lit the area mostly but the corners were still filled with dark places.

  Ever silent, Kirill opened the back door.

  Nicky glared at him as he got out of the vehicle. Serenity followed him and held on to his hand tightly as they made there way to the elevator. When they reached the penthouse floor, they were escorted to his father’s apartments.

  Kirill knocked on the Nikoli’s door and it was wrenched open. Nikoli stood there glaring at them.

  Nicky stepped into the apartment. When he pulled Serenity in behind him, he felt her pulled away from him. Looking back, he saw Kirill with his hand around her upper arm pulling her away from him. Nicky turned fully and snarled at the other man, “Take you hands off my wife.”

  Kirill let her go immediately.

  Serenity stumbled into Nicky’s arms and he held her close to him.

  “What the hell did you say?” His father growled from behind him.

  Nicky slowly turned his head to glare at the man. “I think you heard me correctly Nikoli. Serenity and I are married and the marriage is legal and consummated.”

  Nikoli’s lips tightened and his eyes blazed with fury. “You little fool.” He snarled under his breath. “She’s the enemy and you marry her? What the fuck were you thinking?”

  “She’s not your enemy Nikoli.” Nicky argued.

  “She’s a thief and a liar.” Nikoli’s words were hard.

  “No, I’m not.” Serenity spoke for the first time in hours. “I gave you the account numbers to retrieve your money and your information.”

  Nikoli turned his head to glare at her. “My men couldn’t get into those accounts.”

  Serenity stared at the man. “You never gave me the chance to give you the pin numbers to those accounts did you? You were too busy having your little bitch fit to listen to anything else I had to tell you.”

  “Don’t play games with me little girl, you won’t like it when I strike back,” he warned.

  “Enough.” A voice of authority called out from behind Nikoli.

  Nicky looked beyond his father to see Sergi, Misha and Raven standing there. Yuri stood off to one side of the group as did Kosta.

  Nicky looked over at his sister and asked, “You didn’t tell them?”

  Raven shook her head with tears in her eyes. “I thought you should be the one to do that.”

  Nicky turned to Nikoli. “Well, now you all know. You and your men will keep your hands off my wife!”

  Serenity laid her hand on his chest and Nicky relaxed. He turned to her and stated, “I will protect her.” Turning back to his father he said, “I offered her my protection and I am hoping yours as well. If you can’t accept her, then you can’t accept me either.”

  “Can you guys stop this pissing contest so we can deal with the real threat here?” Raven asked.

  Sergi and Misha turned to glare at her briefly before Sergi nodded slightly. “Although my granddaughter forgets her place in this matter, she is correct.” He stepped up to Nicky and Serenity as he held out his hand to her. “I am Sergi Constantine and I am the leader of the Bratva in Russia. I am also the overall leader of the men here as well.” He turned to Misha and introduced him.

  Then Raven stepped up and embraced her. “I’m Raven, Nicky is my little brother and a little trouble maker.” She turned to Yuri, “And he’s my better half, Yuri Anatoly. We live in New Orleans.”

  Serenity nodded at them all then turned to Nicky. Burying her face into his chest she wrapped her arms around his waist and held on tight.

  “I am sorry to have to question you so soon after your long trip but we need to know more about this man you call Z,” Sergi informed her. He motioned toward the sofa. “Perhaps we can sit down and talk?”

  Nicky moved them over to the sofa and sat down. She sat so close to him she was almost sitting on top of him.

  Sergi and Yuri sat across from her in the chairs opposite the sofa. Raven sat on the other side of Nicky but she reached out and held his hand.

  “Can you tell us how you came to meet this man Z?” Sergi asked.

  Serenity looked up at Nicky and he nodded at her. “Tell them everything from the beginning.” He encouraged her.

  She took a deep breath and began her tale. At some point in her telling, Yuri handed her a glass of water. She took a sip and didn’t stop talking. When she finished, no one said a word for a long time. Serenity sat there leaning against Nicky. Tears ran down her face and she didn’t even bother brushing them away.

  Nicky felt his heart breaking all over again when she spoke of her life, her struggle to just get by. Her struggle with living in fear of being discovered. Her biggest fear of being discovered as a witness to the vile act Zhora committed seven years ago in Norwich. Plus, the fact that her own father wanted her dead to keep her secret existence from the whole world.

  Raven’s hand was still tightly encased in his when she finished her story. She was gripping him so tightly his fingers were going numb.

  “Did Zhora ever give you a reason why he wanted to destroy Nikoli?” Sergi finally broke the silence with his question.

  Serenity nodded. “He would look down at his hand as rant and rave about losing his fingers. He would tell me that because of Nikoli, he spent his lifetime in a prison he didn’t deserve to be in. A prison where he was beaten and abused for close to two decades. That man has an unhealthy hate inside him. He told me he wanted Nikoli to feel the pain he lived with every day.”

  “What else did the man have to say?” Misha asked. “Tell us everything. I know you’re holding something back and we need to know it all.”

  Serenity hung her head for a moment then raised tear filled eyes to Sergi. She couldn’t look at anyone else but she stared at him. “He told me he wanted Nikoli to feel the pain of being raped as he had. To have everything ripped away from him and to die a little more every day he was living in hell. He wouldn’t give him as long to suffer as he did. He sa
id he couldn’t make the man suffer the same fate he had suffered for the same 6,200 days but that he could make him suffer one day for every year he was in that prison. He was going to make Nikoli his prison bitch by taking everything he’d gained away from him one item at a time. He said he would leave Nikoli broken and bloody then simply walk away with the golden boy’s life.”

  No one said a word as they thought about the threat Zhora posed.

  Nikoli walked over to his bar and poured himself a drink. He slammed it back his throat and poured another.

  “I want to know how this man got out of the prison we put him in.” Yuri growled.

  Misha snorted. “He started a war inside the walls of the prison then set it off and in the melee, he went over the wall. The guards were so busy trying to stop the riot they didn’t see him escape. It took them three days to stop the carnage and another two days to count the dead and figure out he was even missing.”

  “I will deal with the Warden when we get back,” Sergi promised. “The Bratva should have been notified when he escaped.”

  “What are you going to do to find him here?” Yuri asked. “He isn’t going to be easy to find. I mean its not like he’s going to be out in the open.”

  There was a moment of silence as they contemplated the enormous task ahead of them to find a man that didn’t want to be found.

  “I know where he is.” Serenity’s words rang out breaking the silence.

  Chapter Seven

  Sergi looked over at the pale skinned girl sitting next to Nicky. “You know where this man is? How?”

  “When he held me prisoner, he never thought I would ever try to escape so he didn’t try to hide his location. He thought I feared him too much to attempt anything. He’d threatened my life if I even thought to betray him,” she explained quietly. “He assumed wrong and it wasn’t his only mistake. He also assumed I was helpless against his brutal strength.”

  Sergi studied the young woman Nicky had claimed as his own. Her strange looks distracted most people when they first saw her but he had to admit she had a strength deep inside her that not many young people had in today’s society. Just by the way she carried herself, he could tell her life had been anything but easy.

  She might look a little different, with her white skin and hair, even her pale colored eyes were off putting, but he didn’t doubt her resolve or her spirit.

  “I did what he asked but I put everything in an account that looked like any other but you needed a four digit codes to get the money. He never asked and I never told him. Even if he tries, he can’t break that code. Nikoli’s money and personal information has been safe the whole time.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me that right off the bat?” Nikoli wanted to know.

  “You never gave me a chance to tell you,” she told him quietly without looking at him. “Even if he tries to get in the accounts, there’s a safety net in place. After three tries with the wrong number, the account locks automatically for ten days.” She looked up into Nicky’s eyes. “I figured that would allow your people to find it before Z could get his hands on it.”

  “How did you figure that?” Misha asked.

  “I knew the Bratva wouldn’t allow this to happen to one of their own. The accounts weren’t that well hidden. Nicky found them days ago. He even found the code except he never knew he had it. I knew I had to disguise it so Z couldn’t figure it out but someone with Nicky’s savvy could. If Z couldn’t get into them, he couldn’t get to the goods inside. Nikoli would have a chance to discover them. He was the only one who could get into the accounts if he went to the bank I set the accounts up in. I used the fingerprint from his driver’s license as the second safety net. He would have been the only one who could get into those accounts.”

  “Where would you be while this was taking place?” Sergi asked almost knowing ahead of time what her answer would be.

  “I figured I would be dead already. When Z found he couldn’t get into the accounts, he would keep his promise and kill me for defying him.”

  Raven gasped and no other sound was heard.

  Tension filled the room as Nicky’s arms tightened around her.

  Yuri began shaking his head and finally to break the silence he threw back his head and laughed out loud. This sound broke the silence and the tension in the room. “You’ve got guts I will admit that,” he finally said.

  Nikoli glared at his son. “Did you figure out the code? Did you know what it was all this time?”

  Nicky frowned and thought about what she’d told them. Had there been a code in her correspondences? He hadn’t thought about it much. The more he thought about it the more he realized what she’d been doing. He looked down at the top of her head and smiled. “I didn’t realize it before. But yeah I think I did, like she said I didn’t see it, but now I think I do.”

  “I hid it in plain sight, you just had to know what to look for.” She nodded.

  “Where can we find this bastard?” Nikoli demanded.

  Serenity turned her head to stare at him for a moment before she replied, “He’s closer than you think and one of his men even works here. By now, he’ll know exactly where I am and that you brought me back. He probably knows these gentlemen are here too and why. He may not be there anymore.”

  “Who is his informant?” Nikoli snarled. “I will question him myself.”

  Serenity shuddered thinking about how Nikoli asked his questions and got his answers. Pushing through her own fears and remembered pain, she gave them a name.

  Kirill and Kosta left the room immediately.

  “And where is it he held you while you invaded Nikoli’s accounts?” Sergi asked.

  Serenity gave them an address but before Sergi’s own security could leave the room, she gave them a second address.

  When the men took off for the security room Sergi asked, “Why the second address?”

  “I escaped him once and when he tracked me down again, he took me to the second address. He held me there for ten days. I got away from him a little over a week ago.” She looked up at Nicky. “When you found me, I’d been gone about five days. When you came in that night, I’d just reacted I didn’t know who you were but I wasn’t taking any chance you might have been Z.” She looked away for a moment. “Or your father’s men.” She shrugged, “If I was going to go down, I wasn’t going to be the only one going down.”

  “What happened the night you two met?” Misha wanted to know.

  “We found her in an unoccupied apartment not far from here and let’s just say Kirill will forever remember the headache she left him with, not to mention the black eye he still has.” Nicky chuckled.

  “She’s the one who gave him the black eyes?” Nikoli glared at her again. “The doctor has only just today released him back to work. She gave him a fucking concussion.”

  Nicky nodded. “I wondered why Joseph was driving us back. Usually, only Kirill trusts himself behind the wheel.”

  “He didn’t have a choice. The doctor wouldn’t clear him for anything but paperwork until today,” Nikoli sated still looking angry.

  “What did she do to Kirill?” Raven asked.

  “He sort of ran into my Louisville slugger,” Serenity admitted.

  Raven giggled while the men sat there with stunned looks on there faces.

  “You took down Kirill with a baseball bat?” Yuri finally asked her with disbelief.

  She shrugged. “It was all I had. I found it in the park and brought it along for good luck. I figured I could keep the winos and the pimps away with it, at the very least.”

  “Well, that I wouldn’t have minded seeing.” Yuri chuckled. “He’s a pretty big guy and there isn’t much to you is there?”

  She shrugged.

  Then Raven spoke up, “Well as you know darlin’, good things came in small packages.”

  Yuri’s smile widened. “Da my love, they sure do.”

  “May I ask what you meant when you mentioned the attacker could have been your f
ather’s men?” Sergi questioned.

  “I’m not sure I want to get into that right now,” Serenity told him.

  “If there is another threat to the Bratva out there, we should know about it don’t you think?” he reasoned.

  “I doubt my father, or his men would be a threat to you or your men. Only to me and only under the cover of darkness. He wouldn’t want to bring this out to the public’s eye. If he did that, then he would have to admit to my existence and that’s the last thing he wants,” Serenity assured him.

  “Tell us about him anyway.” Sergi gazed at her with intent in his eyes.

  “I’ve never met my father in person but I did get to see him once, from a distance, but I do know his head of security. His name is Owen Vandross. He’s been looking for me on and off for about the last fifteen years or so.”

  “How old are you, child?” Misha asked.

  “I think I’m twenty one?” she frowned.

  “You think?” Sergi demanded. “You mean you aren’t sure how old you are?”

  “How can a person not know how old they are?” Yuri asked.

  “Well, when I left the orphanage, I grabbed my file but there wasn’t a birth record inside. I got it offline yesterday to marry...Nicky.”

  “You were raised in an orphanage?” Nikoli asked.

  “It was attached to a nunnery actually.” She shrugged.

  “What happened to your mother?” Yuri asked.

  Serenity rolled her eyes. “She took one look at the baby she had just pushed out of her body and she freaked the fuck out. I was told I was born around midnight and by dawn, the woman who gave me birth was gone. All she left behind was me, and I haven’t seen her again.”

  “What does any of this have to do with your father?” Nikoli asked.

  “You see she was only 16 when I was born. I was supposed to be her ticket to the big time. Her ace in the whole, so to speak. This is what the nuns had said anyways. Only when she saw me she knew she’d never get what she wanted because she knew my father would never claim me. I was a freak, a black stain on his family name. I don’t know what changed but one day when I was seven. I was outside reading one of the books I needed for class when Mother Superior came outside with two older men. I didn’t know who they were or what they wanted but they stared at me for the longest time. Then they both turned and left. Mother Superior came over to me and looked down at me. She didn’t say a word but she gave me her sniff of disapproval then turned and went back inside. A week later, I was walking in the woods around the nunnery when something or someone knocked me out. When I woke up it was dark out and I didn’t know where I was. I was still in the woods but I didn’t recognize anything around me. It took me all night to find my way home.” She paused and couldn’t say anything for a moment. Her eyes glazed over as she remembered the terror of that night so long ago.