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Dimitri played loud, obnoxious videos about boxing matches from the backseat. The bloodier, the better. Alexei was quiet. Nicholas fought to keep his face impassive as ever, because in the backseat he knew Natasha was always quietly observant—more Papa Dimitri’s secret lethal weapon and right hand man even than his own son at times.
Natasha more than anyone else in the car might pick up on Nicholas’s tension. He wished he could turn on some fucking music, but Papa hated music while he was being chauffeured around the city.
Instead Nicholas consciously eased any tension in his shoulders and kept his breathing as even and slow as possible as they crawled past Queens down to Brighton Beach.
But finally, finally, the roads became the familiar ones Nicholas drove every day. His heartbeat was speeding up and his palms were sweating, but he could only pray his years of training truly counted now. He’d always been able to keep his cool, no matter what.
Except he’d never truly had anything he cared about on the line before. Yes, he’d lost his father and then his mother, but there’d been nothing he could do in those situations. No stakes he could claim, other than fighting to get where he was today.
Now…
Now he was approaching the club. And the bakery.
He slowed the car, slower, slower, until he finally pulled it to a stop and put it in park. He got out and opened Papa Dimitri’s door. Still engrossed in his phone, he barely looked up at Nicholas. Only enough to say, “After you park the car, get your wife and bring her up to my suite. I need to unwind after my trip.”
“Of course, sir,” Nicholas said without hesitation. “We’ll be up within the hour.”
Papa Dimitri looked up at him sharply now. “Make it within the half hour.”
Nicholas nodded without flinching. “Absolutely, sir.”
He was glad when Natasha got the suitcase, and Alexei took his father’s other bag. They walked in through the bakery.
Nicholas didn’t allow himself to linger parked there by the café storefront. He put the car in drive and pulled forward. And then he yanked his phone out of the cradle and dialed his wife, praying she wasn’t still in the bakery he’d just left behind.
Chapter 26
ALEXEI
Alexei was carrying his father’s bags through the bakery. Veronica was behind the counter and any other day he would stop to talk to her. At the moment, just getting his dad upstairs when he was in a mood like he was today seemed like the best idea.
Until his father stopped, looking towards Veronica. “The girl who usually works here, where is she?”
Veronica looked up, eyes wide. She’d never had Dimitri speak to her directly, and she knew enough about how this place worked to be wary of catching his attention. She was smart like that.
“She called me about an hour ago. Asked if I could cover for her, she said she had an emergency.”
Dimitri immediately stiffened. Then he ran back to the door and looked out the window, face red with fury. “That cock-sucker!” he yelled. He swung around, eyes ablaze with fury as they sought out Alexei.
Fuck, this was going to be a shit show. Alexei’s immediate response was to raise his hands in defense, but experience had taught him that would get him nothing but a bloody nose.
Instead, he approached his father and said under his breath, “They can’t have gotten far. Let’s go check the video feed, we can see which way she went. See how far we can follow her on CCTV.”
His father wasn’t assuaged by his cool-headed response, though. Dimitri grabbed the front of Alexei’s jacket and jerked him forwards, almost off his feet. “If I find out you had anything to do with this, I’ll—”
“What the fuck?” Alexei shoved his father back. “I was with you the whole goddamned time. What the fuck could I have done? But if we go to Bo now, we still have a chance of catching them. There’s GPS on the SUV. We can have men on the road in minutes heading after him as soon as we light it up.”
“Fuck,” Dimitri yelled. “Fine. Let’s go. Call him.”
Alexei nodded and yanked his cell phone out of his pocket. He didn’t spare a glance back beyond the periphery for the startled and bewildered-looking Veronica.
“Bo,” Alexei snapped into the phone as he and his father pushed through the front door, leaving Natasha to lug their bags behind them. “Need a GPS trace on Nicholas’s SUV. Now. Where the fuck is he?”
Alexei heard typing, then Bo was spouting street names at him. His father also had his phone at his ear. Alexei relayed the street names to him and Dimitri spat them down the line to his lackeys who would no doubt be immediately tearing after Nicholas.
They arrived in the club only moments later. Angie, one of the strippers, had the misfortune of standing in Dimitri’s way as he strode forward. He shoved her to the side, sending her stumbling in her skyscraper heels, almost to the floor. She caught herself at the last second on a chair.
