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“On their way,” my sister answered.
Only a few seconds later, the pictures arrived, surprisingly clear despite being taken with a long lens camera all the way across a busy street. I honed in through the other diners to find Karine and Feliks sitting at a small corner table, deep in conversation, but my eyes didn’t settle on them. Sure enough, that little shit with the big crush on Karine was hovering nearby, laser-focused on my wife.
I had no idea why I was hit with such instant and total fury. It was surely nothing more than a simple lunch with her father, and Demian was a trusted bodyguard. There was nothing more to it, was there? Hadn’t she shown who she really wanted to be with? There was no way this was jealousy. I gritted out my thanks to Evelina and called Oleg next. Anything to get my mind off the nearly uncontrollable urge to find that twerp and break his neck.
Had they talked? Did he try to touch her? Worse, had she tried to touch him? Next, I began to wonder if it had been her who suggested lunch as a way to get to see him.
“Hello, son,” Oleg said in Russian.
The sound of his voice and hearing him call me helped me calm down somewhat. Not totally, but I was able to remember what I was doing all this for and process the update he gave me.
So far, there hadn’t been any sign of the Drygas moving people from their stronghold in St. Petersburg to Miami but that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening or that the shipment of weapons was canceled.
“I haven’t heard anything new,” I told him. “Laying low like you suggested.”
I didn’t want to tell him it was because I’d spent the last week either in bed with Karine or out doing fun things with her to win her heart. All so I could break it, of course.
“Good work, Roman. Stay alert to anything out of the ordinary, and try to schedule some time with Feliks to get any new intel. If they change the date or the location, it’s important we know ahead of time.”
“Got it.”
After that, I called Sergei. I still had to keep my mind from swirling with thoughts of Karine and that mangy kid.
“You come to your senses, finally?” he asked. From the background sounds, I could tell he was in our offices in LA.
“Have you?” I asked in return.
He ignored that, launching into his regularly scheduled diatribe. “You know we could probably have a relationship with Oleg without becoming crime bosses,” he said.
It took me half a beat to realize he’d included himself in that, and I considered it a small step in the right direction. “Yeah, sure. You totally could,” I encouraged. “Maybe reach out. See what happens. Maybe we can both head to Moscow after this shipment we’re waiting on arrives.”
“I don’t want to hear anything about it,” he said angrily. “This isn’t going to end with a shipment, or whatever comes after that. Have you ever thought about how you’re going to extricate yourself from this bullshit situation you’re in? Have you ever stopped to consider you might not win? This isn’t losing money on a bad stock, Roman. You’re heading into a real fight. Real danger.”
“Stop worrying,” I said when he ran out of air.
“How can I not worry?” he shouted. “You’re the only family I have left. And if you say I have a father and a sister and another brother and a whole slew of cousins, I’ll fly into Miami just to kick your ass. Cut your losses with this sham, and come home. If Oleg doesn’t like it, then he’s not anyone we want in our lives, anyway.”
I tried to calm him down for the next several minutes, but he was good and pissed off at me. By the time I ended the call, nothing was resolved, and my mood was worse than ever. By the time I got home, I fully expected Karine to tell me all about her lunch, but then she went and tried to keep it a secret.
Or it was so uneventful that she “forgot.” All I kept thinking about were those pictures with Demian hovering in the background, waiting to take my place. And I blew my stack. I should have walked away and checked with Evelina to see if she had anything on Karine after she left the restaurant. If she and Demian were alone together at any time. Then I wondered why I cared so much and kept getting pissier until I became such an asshole I wanted to break my own neck.
I stormed past her, trying to ignore the tears in her eyes. The tears I’d put there with my damn temper. And for what? Why? I wasn’t fucking jealous.
Was I?
I slammed into the kitchen to make a sandwich I realized I wasn’t hungry for, then stormed outside to sit by the pool to think. I had to get my focus back on what was important.
I just wasn’t sure what that was at the moment.
Chapter 14 - Karine
I huddled in an armchair in the guest room, not just upset, but hungry. I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch because I was waiting for Roman to get home so we could have dinner together. And then he’d gone and treated me like crap for no reason.
I didn’t really think he was spying on me, which meant he must have talked to my father, who mentioned our lunch. When I forgot to say anything about it, maybe Roman thought I was lying, which set him off.
It pissed me off that he didn’t trust me, but then again, he didn’t know me that well, either. It wasn’t like we’d had months to get to know each other and fall in love like normal couples. And to think that just that morning, I was close to admitting to myself that I was falling for him.
So, I could understand why he’d been upset, but there was no excuse for the horrible things he said. I burned with shame and indignance remembering them, and the vitriol in his voice. Maybe he was hungry, too, and that was one of his quirks? To act like an ass when his blood sugar was too low? Still, I couldn’t stand for that kind of behavior.
