We found an area with tables and chairs and settled in to watch the people go by. I went into a restroom to wash all the greasy remnants of our food adventure off my fingers, and when I returned, I found Rurik scowling down at his phone, angrily tapping out a message.
He sensed I was returning and swept it back into his pocket before I slid beside him again. This time, I was resolved to get some answers. If something was bothering him, maybe I could help.
Before I could say a word, a big man with blond hair a few shades sandier than Rurik’s made a beeline through the crowd to our table. He spoke in rapid Russian as Rurik rose to greet him.
“I’m sorry,” he said hurriedly to me. “One second.”
They both moved far enough away that I couldn’t hear them, not that I could understand a word since they both spoke in Russian as they hurried off. Neither one’s body language told me anything good. They were both tense, and Rurik was clearly annoyed, but at the man or the situation, I had no idea.
He left the man, who had to be some kind of relative unless their Russian heritage alone accounted for their physical similarities. Leaning over the table, he pointed to a row of taxis. “Go back to the house. This won’t take long, I promise.”
He kissed me quickly, still in a rush, and was gone before I could stand up or ask a single question about what was going on.
As if he’d tell you,I thought, bitter that our fun night was cut short.
But he had promised not to take long, so I did as he asked and returned to the villa, trying not to let my fears and paranoia find me all the way in Japan. I had two choices when Rurik came back. Demand answers, or get things back on track.
This was supposed to be a honeymoon, after all, right? If this was only going to be a memory one day, why not make it the best one possible. Something to cling to during the upcoming lonely nights.
But time dragged on without Rurik’s speedy return, and after an hour, I gave up hanging around in the courtyard, jumping with excitement every time someone walked past the front gate. I went inside to take a bath, with only hurt feelings and fresh suspicion to keep me company.
Chapter 24 - Rurik
Fucking hell. How in the world did my problems follow me all the way to freaking Japan? I grunted with bitter laughter as I got into the car, pissed off at having to leave Clem behind when we’d been having such a fun time. A time that would have been a lot better if my damn uncle hadn’t been in Tokyo and gotten wind somehow that I had arrived.
He started messaging me earlier that day, and I was able to ignore him until the messages became increasingly unhinged. That was Konstantin, my father’s youngest brother, who should have been settled down in Moscow, helping to keep the family machine grinding along. Or keeping his wild sons, who were only a few years older than my cousin Masha, out of trouble. Or even arranging a marriage for his daughter, who’d just turned twenty-one and, last I heard, was threatening to come to America to get out of such a fate.
Instead, he somehow ended up in Tokyo, overseeing a lucrative company he bought on a whim and doing the opposite of keeping a low profile. It was all I could do to refrain from tossing my phone into the nearest vat of boiling oil as he continued to message me throughout the evening.
Word’s out that two high-profile Fokins are in town. Shit’s about to hit the fan. Whatever you’ve been dealing with in LA is going to seem like child’s play.
I’m on my honeymoon, don’t give a fuck, I answered my normally favorite uncle. He was close enough to my age that he could pass as an older brother, and he often treated me like a younger sibling as we grew up side by side.
Congrats. You want to go to my funeral next?
It seemed he wasn’t joking around, and after a few more texts that I tried my best to keep Clem from noticing, I learned that the group we were currently dealing with was somehow involved with the people Konstantin had been having trouble with. He was in deep, and the water was only rising since word of my arrival hit the underground.
So I was right to believe the street thugs giving us grief in LA were merely the puppets of someone else. That organization seemed to be joining forces with the powers in Tokyo since they believed we must be plotting something together now that I was here. When Konstantin tracked me down, there was no way I was going to spring him on my wife. Not in his amped up mood, ready to crack some heads.
It would have been just as fruitless trying to explain to her that I had no idea my uncle was in town and up to his neck in the same problems keeping me out at night as it would have been to explain to the Tokyo gangs that I was only there on vacation and not to offer backup.
I couldn’t have given a single shit what Kon was doing over here, but no, I didn’t want to have to go to his funeral, either.
So that was how I went from enjoying a stroll with my beautiful wife and stuffing my face with fried Japanese street food to hunting down the Yakuza who were after my uncle’s blood.
“You know this isn’t what I had planned for tonight, right?” I asked as he sped down the street. I craned my neck, watching Clem get safely into a taxi as we careened around a corner.
“I can’t imagine it was,” he said, playfully punching me on the shoulder, not a care in the world despite the death threatshanging over his head. Classic Kon. “Your wife is smoking hot, by the way. Can’t wait to properly meet her.”
I returned his punch, not so playfully. “Have some respect.”
He nodded, turning serious as he laid out what was going on and what I might expect when we got to the place he thought his enemies were hiding out. “You ready for this?”
Nope, not at all. I closed my eyes, hoping Clem wasn’t too pissed off at me, and would be waiting up for me in the new negligee she’d bought on her recent shopping trip. I was down for kicking asses that needed to be kicked as much as the next person in my family, but this was my damn honeymoon.
“Can’t wait,” I said, my sarcasm wringing a laugh out of him.
Twisting around in my seat, I perused the arsenal he had under a blanket in the back, planning ahead for anything, my mind clicking over into fight mode. Not what I wanted, not what I planned, but if my uncle needed me, I’d do whatever I could to help.