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“What do you mean fake…?” Sasha’s voice trembled behind him. “What’s going on?”
Baranov smirked. His smile turned back to Ven. Good, keep the attention away from Sasha. “You didn’t tell her? She didn’t know this was a setup to get me here.”
“It wasn’t fake… He was, we were… but then …”
“But then he decided to keep you for himself. Play a little while before his wife arrives from Ardestan.”
“You’re married?” Sasha stepped back. Moving out of his safety shield.
“No, no. Of course not…” He whirled on Baranov. “What do you fucking want? How much?”
“I want you to get your brother down here. Bring him to me. I want him to look in my face and see the man who bested him. The great Rurik Ismailov. That’s what I want.” He shrugged. “And while I wait. Maybe she and I can find ways to occupy our time. Many ways.”
“That will never happen. I would die first.”
“You’re going to die, anyway. But first, get your fucking brother up here.”
Footsteps sounded from down the hall. Rand?
Rurik rounded the corner and stepped out. Baranov whirled, his gun swinging wildly as he shifted between Rurik and Venedikt. “I’m here.” His brow winged up in challenge. “Now what, old man? What were you saying about outsmarting me?” Rurik laughed and shook his head. “Oh no, Baranov, I leave nothing to chance. I don’t play games of chance with my family. With my wife.” He snarled the last as if he were the beast of death. “I put her happiness above everything and her safety even more. I figured you would never come to Vegas. Not when Ven and his lady friend would be here alone. I knew you could not resist such an easy prize.”
“Then you are the fool to come alone to confront me. Do you think your marriage to my daughter will save you?”
“Did you imagine it would save you? No, you put her in danger. Fucking tried to sell her into slavery. Steal her from my home. No, you are the one who gambled on your safety and lost.” He nodded to the window. “And who said I came alone?”
Baranov whirled to the front door, raising his gun towards the person charging through it. Rand! But before he could get a shot, a single bullet pushed through the air. Slicing his hand like a cleave. He dropped the gun as Ven charged and dropped Baranov in one swoop.
Sanyet held his smoking gun as he entered the foyer. Laughing with Rurik. “Ah, brother, you should see your face.”
“I told you he knows nothing about hunting.” Rurik shook his head while Baranov’s body, with his bloody stump, writhed and convulsed on the floor. Even unconscious, he suffered, the sight macabre, even more so with the smiles that punctuated the air. Like a group of hunters standing proudly over a dead animal.
“Sanyet, call your men to clean this mess.” Rurik nodded to a frozen Sasha. “Don’t worry, we’ll take care of everything so you can get back to your weekend.”
* * *
“Just put my things in the car. Please.” Sasha directed his brothers. He could kill those motherfuckers with his bare hands.
“Sasha, don’t do this. Stay.”
“No.” She leveled her shoulders and stared at him. “Do you have a wife on the way?”
Her eyes glinted, but it looked as if something shiny was dying behind them. Her lovely innocence stripped away not by their endless lovemaking but by his betrayal. “Let me guess, she arrives on Wednesday. The day our agreement ends.”
“Our agreement isn’t ending.” He stormed.
“It already ended. You were using me as bait. Using me to get your last freak on before your wife came.”
“It was not like that. What we had was real. Have is real.”
“So real, you hid the truth from me.”
“I did not. I may not have given it all to you, but I…”
“Don’t make excuses. And don’t give me lies. Not anymore.”
“If you would just let me fucking explain.”
“No.”
