“We found out who’s been waylaying our trucks,” he told me.
This affected me, too, since Gavrik Imports used the same trucking company that was owned by one of our cousins. A few of my shipments had gone missing completely, and others had been delayed.
“Who?” I asked.
I could almost picture him shrugging. “Seems like just a gang of thugs.”
“Pretty organized if they’re getting the best of Dima’s drivers,” I said. “What’s the plan?”
“We’ve got a location for at least a few of them. Since we have no clear idea of who’s running their show, we’re just going to start picking off whoever we can find. Arkadi and Gavril are meeting us.
“Oh, good,” I said absently, turning my car to head toward the address he sent me. “I need to fill Gavril in on some things.”
“Two birds with one stone,” my brother said somewhat sarcastically. “How’s the legal side of life treating you?”
“It’d be a lot better if my shipments made it to their final destinations,” I said, getting worked up for the fight ahead. Then, remembering Clem’s face if I got another black eye, and the millions that were at stake with the Koboyashi deal, in thatorder. “Thing is, though, I need to just be backup on this one. I, uh, can’t get any visible bruises in the next forty-eight hours.”
As I expected, he snorted a laugh. “You entering a beauty pageant?”
“Shut up. Now, what’s going on with the baby?”
That was a sure-fire way to get the subject off of me, and he eagerly spoke about how excited he was about his impending fatherhood. To hell with my face, he had a lot more to lose than I did.
Thankfully, once we arrived and stormed the broken-down trap house the thugs were hanging out in, they were too surprised, and probably high out of their minds, to put up too much of a fight. A couple scattered like rats out the back, but Arkadi was happy with the outcome since he had a few to interrogate for more information.
Some of our guns that we’d been bringing in from Moscow were showily leaning up against the wall in a corner, so there was no way they could keep claiming they were innocent.
“You messed up, big time,” Dan said to the one he was currently zip-tying. Not that he’d be able to put in too much of an escape effort in the shape he was in. “You say you don’t know the Fokins? Well, now you know the Fokins.”
While he and Arkadi loaded their prisoners into the trunks of their cars, I took Gavril aside to tell him everything was on track for the Koboyashi meeting. I examined my knuckles for any new scrapes, and he grinned down at my new wedding band.
“Going the extra mile, I see.”
Arkadi and Dan sidled up, and Dan noticed the new addition right away. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s just for a deal the import company’s working on,” Gavril supplied for me.
“For now,” I said, making all of their jaws drop.
“What’s that supposed to mean, for now?” Dan asked.
I refused to say anything else, no matter how they cajoled me. Everyone was always in a good mood after a successful fight, and they tried to get me to meet them at Aleks’s nightclub after they dropped off their prisoners in some scary shed or another, giving them time to stew before the real fun began. Fun for my side, anyway.
“Can’t,” I said. “Too much to do tomorrow. You should try running real businesses and see how much work it is. And not just as a silent partner,” I told Gavril pointedly.
“He’s just bitter about having to put that ring on his finger,” Gavril told them, filling them in on the arrangement as I left them to deal with the aftermath of the raid on our newest enemies.
Let them think it was fake. They’d get the memo soon enough.
Chapter 10 - Clem
The only thing keeping me from obsessing about that kiss, or acting embarrassed around Rurik, was the fact that I hardly saw him in the whirlwind of the next two days. He didn’t bring it up at all, acting like it never happened, which stupidly hurt my feelings.
Of course, I didn’t want to talk about it, and I certainly didn’t want it to happen again, so this was the perfect way for him to handle it. The memory of the kiss kept popping up at inconvenient times, making heat rise up my cheeks, but it had to stay a memory.
There was a new guy staking out my apartment, and no amount of telling myself it was only my paranoia could convince me he wasn’t there to watch me. But why? It couldn’t be…
No, it couldn’t. That was over. There was no way he made it out to LA and found me. No possible way.