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I grabbed a water bottle from the cooler the guard had with him outside and poured it on them, then gave each a kick for good measure. They groggily came around, and we got them into sitting positions against the wall. The first thing I did was offer each of them a sip of the water with a benign look on my face. Only two accepted, and the third told me to fuck myself.
“Okay,” I said, clapping my hands together. “You’re the one I’ll question first. Why were you sent here?”
He glared at me and probably would have spit if he’d been able to. Should have taken the drink when I offered. “Why do you think?”
His comrade snickered, and I hauled back and punched him hard enough to daze him. “What was your exact objective here?” I asked.
His angry gaze never wavered. “To kill you, kill your bitch, kill anyone who happened to be here.”
I stood up, infuriated at his words, even though I knew full well that was what they were sent to do. I paced a step back, then rounded on him, kicking him in the side of the head. Then I crouched down to see that he wasn’t looking so sure of himself anymore.
“I’m going to step out and let my associate take over for a bit,” I said. At the door, I turned and looked at each one. “I’m the nice one, by the way.”
I waited outside, listening to the intermittent questions and cracks of fists against faces. After learning nothing of consequence and determining they were mere lackeys, I called off the guard and locked them back up. Pissed off that they wouldn’t be helpful as leverage to call a truce, I stormed back toward the house to try to figure out the next step.
There was nothing to do but fight back, or they’d just keep running over us until the New York territory was completely taken. I didn’t do failure well, and Evelina and I had worked hard to win that area, so I didn’t want her to be disappointed either. And the city had grown on me. I liked the big old mansion I’d bought in Long Island. As much as I loved Miami’s eternal sunshine, I preferred the changing seasons and a real winter. I wanted to raise the baby up there.
Heading back toward the house, I felt myself wavering in my decision to not be around Samantha but made it to the office without veering off track to check the pool or going all the way down by the beach. Once I got to work on my computer setup, which had been rudely interrupted by the attack yesterday, my mind would get lost in that. Maybe at dinner time, I’d feel up to seeing her without acting like a jerk.
I wanted to avoid getting hurt but also avoid hurting her as well.
After about an hour, I was ready to settle down with my own equipment and get to coding in earnest when Gregory stuck his head in the door.
“Your cousin Ivan is driving up,” he said.
“Yep, of course, he is. Thank you, Gregory.”
Well, there was no hiding the busted gate, so I expected him to be in a bad mood when he pulled up. I went outside and waved as his sleek convertible rolled into the driveway, surprised he’d brought his wife Reina with him for this dressing down. Despite wishing neither one of them felt the need to be there, I liked her very much and was glad that Samantha would have a woman to talk to since she’d been surrounded by men for weeks.
She got out and hugged me warmly, looking me over for cuts or bruises. Or bullet holes. Ivan was already tutting about the ones on the side of the house.
“Where’s Anya?” I asked about their little daughter.
“We left her with Aleksei,” she said. “If we had to come, we thought it might be nice to have a little break at the same time.”
That made me breathe a bit easier because they never left her for long, which meant this would hopefully be a short visit. “You didn’t have to come,” I said louder and aimed in Ivan’s direction.
He laughed and came over to clap me on the shoulder. He seemed in a good enough mood now, but I was resigned to getting an earful at some point, which meant a less-than-peaceful evening.
“Where’s Samantha? I want to meet her,” Reina said.
“Probably by the pool,” I said, trying to keep them from going around by way of the porch.
Ivan walked down the length of the house, shaking his head and grumbling with every new bullet hole he noticed. “And the pillar is cracked?” he growled, looking up when he saw all the jasmine tangled in a clump on the ground. “I’m going to need a few minutes with these guys.”
“That can be arranged,” I told him, explaining where they were and what little useful information I’d already gotten out of them as we headed around back.
Sure enough, Samantha was lying out by the pool with Burya resting nearby in the shade of one of the palm trees. I called out that we had company so she wouldn’t be taken by surprise. Her head popped up, and she pulled a coverup over Reina’s borrowed swimsuit, then hurried over to meet us.
Samantha seemed initially flustered by Reina’s warm welcome and a bit intimidated by Ivan, which was expected since he tended to put forward a more gruff exterior that took a bit of getting used to. We all gathered around the table in the shady part of the grotto, and within a few minutes, she and Reina were chatting away like old friends. While Ivan was much older than me, Reina was closer to my age, so I was pleased to see she and Sam were getting along so well. Just for Sam’s sake, not that it mattered either way in the long run if she became friends with anyone in my family.
Ivan went to have his chat with the hostages, and I offered to get us some food and drinks. “Will you girls be all right without me for a few minutes?” I asked, unsure if Samantha felt comfortable enough to be alone with Reina and certain Reina would ply her with questions when I wasn’t around to be a buffer.
They both rolled their eyes at me. “Don’t be silly, Leo,” Reina said. “We’ll be fine.”
“Yes, totally fine,” Samantha said, much too quickly.
Now I wondered why they were so eager to get rid of me. “Anything special you feel like eating?” I asked Sam. Maybe she was still upset with me for dismissing her this morning.
