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Chapter 1 - Evelina
Sitting in the busy coffee shop in Brooklyn, I felt a prickle of awareness run down my spine. I took a sip of my frothy cappuccino, the best one I’d ever had, and casually glanced around. No one seemed out of the ordinary, and the other customers were completely absorbed in their drinks or devices. Or each other. Against my will, I smiled at a couple utterly wrapped up in themselves, clearly wildly in love. Lucky them.
I didn’t have time for fleeting envy and kept perusing the area for whatever might have tweaked my fight-or-flight response.
Outside the window, mostly covered in pastel paint advertising the café’s specials, no one was hanging around, peering in, or even pausing in their steady march along the sidewalk. I was most likely being paranoid, but it wasn’t without reason.
My father was the head of the most prominent crime family in Moscow, and my cousin Ivan was the head of the Miami branch of the Morozov empire. There were a lot of people who wanted to kill both of them on a regular basis and, by extension, anyone who was related to them. Being on my guard, even at low-risk places like coffee shops, kept me alive for twenty-four years. By now, it was just a habit to be aware of my surroundings and listen to my gut.
That instinct seemed to alert me to something, but I must have been imagining things this time. I settled back in with my coffee, enjoying the short break I was allowing myself from work.
About a month ago, I did a favor for my cousin Yuri, and he let my brother and I come to the US as thanks for our expertise. Miami Beach was fantastic, and living with Yuri and his new wife, Kira, who quickly became one of my best friends, was great. The perfect weather, the luxe mansion, the nightclubs, and the parties were experiences I savored, especially since it was so different from Moscow. But I quickly became bored.
I craved work even more than I wanted caffeine first thing in the morning. Maybe more since I usually checked my computer before hitting the Keurig machine button. Back home, I had a thriving private investigation company, along with whatever my father wanted me to do for the family business. I rarely would have had time for glittering parties or just lying out on the sand.
Sure, there were more serious things to do in Miami. Ivan and my other cousins were thrilled to have my brother’s prowess in coding and mine in surveillance, and I was more than happy to lend a hand. Family was always going to be the most important thing to me. I was proud of my father and my cousins and the power they had amassed. Still, no matter what I did, I couldn’t make them see I was ready to be a leader. That there were new territories ripe for the picking. Which was why I decided to strike out on my own. To prove my mettle, to myself and to them.
When my oldest and very best friend Kristina found out I was on this side of the pond and invited me to New York, I jumped at the chance, already researching the families here before I even ended the call with her.
We were always as thick as thieves, constantly making both our fathers tear their hair out. While her father had a thick, full head of it, my poor Papa ended up nearly bald because of our antics. We hadn’t seen each other in almost two years but had kept in constant contact anyway, and it was like no time had passed when she greeted me at the airport. In fact, she was already complaining about the huge delivery of boxes that had arrived the day before me, shaking her head that I was about to cram all my computer equipment into her tiny apartment.
Kristina had come to New York City to try her hand at acting after we both graduated college. She’d always been active in drama clubs and community theater. Still, I figured she’d give it up and go into the family business like I did. She could have had ample acting roles on Russian television on the side with her father’s influence, but she wanted to prove she had enough talent to make it on her own in the States. Two days after I landed, she got a role in a show filmed in New England somewhere, leaving me alone for the rest of the week.
The coffee shop door swung open with its tinkling bell, and I felt the odd prickle again but blew it off. No one involved with the Bratva knew where I was except for my twin, Leo, and that was only because he helped me with his genius hacking and coding skills. The update he sent me should have been fully installed by now, so it was time to get back to work.
I got back in line to buy a pastry and another of their god-tier cappuccinos, then headed back to Kristina’s apartment. It was small but luxurious compared to what many so-called starving artists had to live in around here. Even though her dad didn’t exactly approve of her choices, he still helped her out a lot and would have taken a bullet before letting her stay in a rat trap. Probably only her fierce independence kept her from accepting a penthouse in Manhattan.
The cozy place, decorated in sparse modern style and scattered with glossy headshots and scripts, was way more my speed than my cousins’ giant mansions. I settled in comfortably at the desk I’d commandeered with all my monitors and machines.
Now, I hated to call what I was doing spying, but it was essentially spying. The Novikoffs was an upstart family from Saint Petersburg who would never have crossed my radar if they hadn’t started encroaching on territory that we’d—well, my cousins—had taken over in Boston. They’d really dug in here in NYC, an area my cousins had started musing about branching into since Boston had proven to be so lucrative.
The more I learned about the Novikoffs, the more I was impressed by the power and riches they’d gained in a short amount of time, and the more I wanted to take them down. Not just because they were causing trouble for my family but because this was my chance to prove I could run an area on my own.
My father was firm but fair with both my brother and me, but there was always the unspoken assumption that it would be Leo who inherited the keys to our kingdom in Moscow, and I’d continue to assist. No matter that Leo was content with his nose stuck in his code. Yes, he was prepared to stand up and do what he needed to do, but he’d be more than happy to concede to me. Not just out of love and loyalty but because he could see I was the right choice.
I was always the one with the ambition and drive—hell, I’d had my investigation company up and running before my first year of college and managed to do both, along with whatever family business arose, with ease. If I’d been a man, Papa would have surely seen what Leo could, but our father was old-fashioned and set in his ways. In his mind, I’d eventually get married and give up all my “hobbies” to settle down and raise the next generation of Morozovs.
Like hell.
The software update was complete, and I logged onto all the cameras I’d been able to hack into since I got here. So far, I had control of cameras at six of the Novikoff’s businesses, but none seemed to be where they had their most important meetings. It didn’t matter. I was on it, and everything they owned would soon be in my control.
Before I got back to work in earnest, my eyes settled on the framed picture that had been pushed to the back of the desk. It was a photo of college graduation two years ago, and Kristina and I both glowed with happiness and pride in our black caps and gowns. I wasn’t looking at either of us but at the man who stood in the middle, towering over us with a big, proud smile of his own, pulling us into a hug. If I closed my eyes and drifted back in time, I could still feel that firm hand on my shoulder, burning through the flimsy synthetic graduation gown and my pristine white dress underneath.
Kristina was my dearest friend. We’d been drawn to each other in elementary school due to our similar rambunctious personalities and the fact that we’d both lost our mothers at a young age. Mine to a terrible disease, while hers had just up and left. We were as close as sisters, and that man in the photo had raised me almost as much as my own father.
But I’d never once thought of him like that. How could I, with all the other thoughts I had about him? Innocent enough when I was ten—he’d been a hero to me then. Not so innocent in my teen years, but I’d kept my wild crush well hidden. Kristina would have teased me mercilessly before beating me up, and I would have died of shame if she—or God forbid—he ever found out.
“Concentrate,” I growled, tipping the picture forward so I couldn’t be distracted by it.
Kristina had cleared everything off of the desk for me when we set up my equipment, but something made me put the picture back. The crush was long gone now that I was an adult, and I could handle the memories.
“Apparently not, though.” I laughed at myself, nearly lapsing into one of my many old fantasies. I didn’t have time for that, not if I wanted to prove to everyone that I could do far more than the surveillance jobs they gave me.
Work soon consumed me, the way I liked it, blocking everything out but my quest for information. My fingers flew over the keyboard as I took down notes, and my eyes were grainy and glazed over when the sound of my phone pulled me out of my trance. Swearing and rubbing my eyes, I saw it was Leo, which was odd since we mostly just texted unless it was an emergency.
“What?” I answered. My twin didn’t need any niceties from me. “Do you have something good for me? Because I’m—”
“Evelina shut up and listen,” he rumbled. Usually, his voice brought a smile to my face, but his tone just then sounded furious.
