Maybe he went out singing.
“Do you believe what he said about Grigor?” Mat said.
“I don’t know. But I need to find out.”
He looked somewhat sympathetic as he walked with me to the front door. He had only recently come to the US, so he knew Grigor and, like me, thought he could be trusted. He knew what a blow this was. How seriously I was taking it.
Aleks was nowhere in sight. The days of hanging out over a bottle of vodka to discuss our most recent fights were long gone, now that he had a wife and kid. He probably had to drive Alina to school in the morning, since both he and Katie were completely hands-on.
Hell, I used to do the same thing, so I couldn’t blame him. And I had things of my own I needed to get back to.
I thanked Mat for the help and promised a dinner when things were calmer, making both of us laugh. Things were never calm in the Bratva.
As I drove through the hills toward the apartment in the city, I mulled over what the prisoner had said.
Was Grigor the reason I was on the Yakuza hit list? Did the missing messages on Tati’s phone mean she was in on it from the beginning? I meant to get to the bottom of that, but was surprised at the trepidation that was keeping me from not actually wanting to know.
I should have been a lot more angry with her, so why wasn’t I? It was obvious she was hiding something, but what?
With a sigh, I turned up the radio to loud rock music, hoping to drown out my circling thoughts. Trying to ignore the pain of betrayal that I had once vowed would never happen to me again.
There was a time I would have believed my oldest friend through anything, and up until now, I still held a shred of hope that Grigor wasn’t involved. But after that crazed maniac looked me straight in the eye and told me Grigor was the reason I was a dead man, there wasn’t much room for doubt anymore.
Fuck. It was one thing to steal, but now I didn’t have much choice but to believe that Grigor was responsible for getting me on the wrong side of the Japanese mafia in the first place. I always thought it was odd that the brief affair with the official’s mistress, which was already over, came to light the way it did. It certainly wasn’t from her, but Grigor wasn’t the only one who knew about it.
He definitely would have prospered from having me out of the way. All the easier to take over the business we started there?
“Enough,” I said, shutting off the racket from the radio. My head was beginning to pound from the noise and not having any concrete answers.
Yet. It was only a matter of time. If I didn’t want to wait for CJ to dive into Tati’s phone, perhaps I could get answers from Tati herself. I turned down the back lane that led to the apartment parking garage. It was still dark out, but the warm edges of dawn were already glowing between the breaks in the closely clustered buildings.
I should storm into the apartment and tear her out of bed to demand answers. I was sick of waiting and wondering.No more nice Kon, the man whom she should have been able to trust. That was a two-way street.
It was only the memory of how afraid she’d been after waking up from her nightmare that had me discarding that plan. She could sleep in, but I’d be waiting with coffee and questions. Hell, I was so tired it was going to be hard staying awake in the elevator on my way up. Let her wait until lunchtime, then, so I could get some sleep as well.
She was mine now, not going anywhere. There was plenty of time to get answers.
Tati consumed my thoughts as I warred with being too soft with her and never wanting to see that look of abject terror on her face again, all because of me. Hell, I could wait for whatever CJ found and leave Tati alone. Better for my equilibrium not to get distracted by how damn cute she looked in her homey clothes.
What was happening to me? It didn’t matter fuck all what Tati wore.
As I paused at the security gate at the garage to punch in my code, I let my eyes close for a moment as the door slid slowly open. When I opened them, the guard I had stationed on the inside raised his hand to wave me in.
Before my foot could move to the gas pedal, a shot rang out, and he dropped, but not before I saw a spray of blood and brain go flying out behind him. Wide awake and alert now, I jumped out of the car with my gun drawn, swiveling in the direction of the shooter as two more of my guys came running.
Another shot rang out, and searing pain ripped through my shoulder. I hit the asphalt as bullets flew in every direction.
Chapter 14 - Tatiana
Shouts woke me up, and I sprang out of bed, slamming into the door before I was even fully conscious. This was no drill, because I wasn’t at home, and my father wouldn’t be at the bottom of the stairs, timing how fast it took me to get to the safe room.
If there was a safe room here, I didn’t know where it was. Nor did I have any way to defend myself. Still, I found myself tearing open the door, relieved I wasn’t locked in while unknown mayhem was taking place outside. Kon must not have come home last night, or he’d have forgotten to lock in his prisoner.
I stopped dead in the mouth of the hallway leading into the living area, gaping as I quickly assessed what was going on. One of the guards was dragging Kon into the wide, open area, both of them covered in blood and leaving a trail all down the shiny parquet floor.
Instead of trying to jump out of my throat, my heart seemed to stutter to a halt. Everything seemed very slow, but hectic and frenzied at the same time. I skidded the rest of the distance to where the guard had stopped, now on his knees and pressing frantically at Kon’s shoulder with his palms.
So it was Kon who was injured. My mind went blank because I couldn’t process that. Running back down the hall, I grabbed every towel I could carry out of my bathroom and hurried back to where Kon lay, his eyes closed, his face sickly pale. And so much blood.