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“It says here they closed because of an ebola outbreak at the salad bar. Someone sneezed blood on the Caesar and then, boom, it’s The Walking Dead everywhere you look.”
I smack her arm. “That is not funny.”
She snorts and taps around on her phone some more. “It closed down because buffets are gross and they went bankrupt, but it looks like it’s being reopened as a club. The Rouge Lounge.”
She pulls up an article about the club, mumbling as she reads. I bounce on my toes behind her, trying to read over her shoulder.
“The restaurant was bought and renovated over the last year into a club. This article says it’s going to be ‘the hottest spot in L.A.,’ but they say that about every new club. Oh, the opening night is tonight, actually.”
“So Yakov and Nik are at a club opening?” I ask. “That doesn’t sound like them.”
“Clubbing also doesn’t require detailed maps.” Mariya shakes her head, reading more. Suddenly, she gasps. “Holy shit!”
Part of me expects it to be another prank, but she whips her phone towards me. She taps on the screen, zooming in on a picture of a husky man with ice blonde hair. He’s standing next to a red neon sign that reads ‘The Rouge Lounge.’ “That’s the new owner. Akim Gustev.”
“Do you know him?”
“He’s the son of the man who killed my father,” she grits out. “This article says he’ll be standing outside the front doors of his new club tonight to personally welcome guests.”
I may not have grown up in this world, but even I can put two and two together. The secrecy, the maps, the connection to Akim.
It’s an ambush.
“He wouldn’t,” I breathe.
“The only reason Yakov or Nik would go near Akim is to kill him. There’s no other reason they’d be there tonight.”
“But it’s going to be packed. There will be hundreds of people there!”
Mariya chews on the corner of her mouth. “If anyone can carry out a hit in the middle of a crowded club and get away with it, it’s my brothers. They know what they’re doing.”
Mariya’s confidence in them is sweet, but it does nothing to ease the dread churning in my stomach.
I’m worried about what it would mean for me and the baby if something happened to Yakov. But more than that… I’m worried about Yakov. I don’t want that night in the kitchen to be the last time I ever see him.
I’m trying to get a grip on the panic spiraling inside of me when an alarm beeps on the desk behind Mariya. She spins around to where Yakov’s computer is sitting open. It was locked when we tried it earlier, but now, the screen is filled with a grid of security footage. Shots of the gardens, the front porch, the driveway, and the security shack.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
Mariya bends over the computer. “The alarm is going off. That only happens if someone in the guard shack hits the button.”
“Is it a mistake?”
“It could be, but I’ve never seen it happen. But I don’t see anything on the—” She inhales sharply.
“What?”
Mariya doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.
I lean around her and see men moving on the screen. They’re walking across the lawn. It looks like Yakov’s guards on patrol.
Then a man in all black pulls a large gun out of his jacket and fires at the guard shack. Each blast of the gun glares bright in the camera’s grayscale night vision mode, but I can still make out the husky man with ice-blonde hair standing behind the shooter.
My legs buckle and I grip the edge of the desk for support. “Is that?—”
“I have to call Yakov.” Mariya pulls out her phone and slaps it to her ear. She bounces from one foot to the other, cursing under her breath. “Pick up, Yakov. Pick up, pick up, fucking pick up!”
“Why is he here?” I rasp. “His club is opening. He said in the article he’d be waiting at the doors. He said?—”
