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“Good.” Viktor stood, signaling the end of the meeting. Yakov followed suit. “And Yakov?”
“Yes, boss?” Yakov sounded pained, and Lyon prepared himself for an afternoon of vodka, cocaine, and rage-filled rants about the unfairness of it all.
“Do not harm the woman or the child without permission. Do you understand?” Viktor asked.
“I understand,” Yakov said.
He turned toward the door.
Viktor followed, and Lyon wondered if he had been able to read the fury on Yakov's face, then decided he undoubtedly had. Viktor Baranov was a smart man, a good leader, as old-school leaders went.
Yakov waited for Boris to open the door to step out of the library and into the hallway. Lyon turned to follow his boss through the doors and was surprised to feel Viktor’s hand come down on his shoulder.
“Lyonya,” he said softly. His eyes were warm with affection, and Lyon was suddenly ten years old again, Viktor ruffling his hair and handing him an Alenka bar as he came to sit with Lyon’s father on the back patio. “The lion.”
Lyon nodded and waited for him to remove his hand, then stepped into the hall.
The weight of Viktor’s fingers lingered as Lyon followed a seething Yakov out of the Baranov house. Lyon kept his posture straight, his pace brisk. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by the past. Couldn’t afford to remember fondly the friendship between Viktor and his father.
The way his father had died in prison to keep the bratva’s secrets.
Lyon had to stay focused on the future. Yakov was losing control of the situation. It was only a matter of time before he forced Viktor’s hand. When he did, Lyon would be waiting, ready to take advantage of the ensuing chaos and Viktor Baranov’s lack of a male heir.
He hoped it would be soon — he was eager to execute his plan — but sometimes it seemed he’d been waiting his whole life.
He could wait awhile more.
7
Logan spent the morning rereading the dossier, Lake Michigan gleaming below the wall of windows in the penthouse apartment Imperium kept in Chicago. He’d decided to let Ford sleep. After today, they’d be on the job, and sleep would be in short supply for them both.
Besides, Logan didn’t want company when he went to Ella’s office, and he didn’t want to explain it to Ford.
They’d gotten in late the night before and were picked up at the charter terminal by a car and driver set up by Kaitlyn, Imperium’s administrative assistant. After getting settled in the apartment, they’d walked the streets until they found an open pub that served food and had devoured a couple of beers and cheeseburgers before heading back to the apartment to crash.
It had almost been a surprise to wake up to the sweeping view of the lake. Imperium had done a number of jobs in the Windy City, and the penthouse was one of many the company maintained in big cities around the country, kept at the ready in case one of their jobs required an extended stay.
Logan liked Chicago, enjoyed the melding of blue collar practicality with white collar sophistication, but he hadn’t been to the city in over six years, ever since that last dinner with Ella when she’d told him she was having a baby and getting married.
He’d looked the guy up of course, but it hadn’t really mattered that Nathan Fitzgerald was a legal hotshot or that he came from the kind of old money that guaranteed good manners and an Ivy League education.
Ella was the only thing Fitzgerald had that Logan wanted.
He’d avoided Chicago after that. He rarely worked in the field anymore anyway. It had been a simple matter to assign Imperium resources to jobs that came up there.
Now he was sorry he’d stayed away. The penthouse was luxurious, with expansive views of Lake Michigan that mirrored the ones Logan had of the Pacific at home. It was a relief to know the apartment would be an available refuge in case the situation with Ella became too difficult.
But it wouldn’t be difficult, he told himself. It would be simple. He would go to her office this afternoon, set the expectation that theirs was a business relationship, that the past would have no impact on the job he and Imperium did for her.
He would go to her home, meet her son as if he were any client’s son, and assess the situation more closely while Ford addressed any shortcoming in the home’s security system. Afterward, Logan would call in at least a couple of the men on Mauz’s team to act as personal guards for Ella and the boy.
Logan would have a buffer, a cadre of other men who would come and go when he was dealing with Ella, making it impossible to dwell on the past or all the ways she’d broken his heart.
The thought made him feel better, and he closed his iPad and headed for the shower.
What he and Ella had was ancient history. He didn’t even know her anymore. He probably wouldn’t even feel anything when he saw her again.
* * *
