ELEVEN

Fifteen minutes after arriving at the hangar, Lukas paused, waiting for howls of pain to subside before continuing. When they did, he pressed the trigger to start the drill again.

His boys were near, so were Samuel and Maksim. Vasily, Gheorghe, and Sergei were standing a few feet away, watching the festivities with no expression on their faces. The bodyguards and anyone else involved in the night’s capture were hanging around the vehicles that had been swallowed up by the massive building upon arrival.

Two Bloodhounds, who Lukas had already thanked for their impeccable hunting skills, were off to the side smoking a joint. Samuel had taken care of the money transfer to pay their steep fee before Lukas had arrived.

When another fresh round of wails from one of their organization’s accountants tapered to a mere gurgle, Lukas let up and placed the tool on the steel-top workbench on his right.

“You screwed us,” he murmured, looking at his handy work. “Now I have screwed you.”

James Szabo was sitting on a heavy wooden chair that looked to be a dark cherry red but hadn’t always been. The unfinished wood had begun to turn color when Lukas had first started drilling. Now that he’d gotten the fourth screw in—two in James’s knees and two just beneath his shoulders to securely anchor him—the chair was saturated. The pattern left behind would be patchy and uneven as the blood might not seep all the way beneath the heavier parts of James’s body. Sometimes, the designs turned out to be something some might consider artistic.

He gave the outsides of James’s thighs two solid slaps which produced outright shrieks. The piercing sound forced Lukas back, and he moved to the end of the workbench to submerge his hands in a deep pot filled with hot, sudsy water that smelled of a potent antiseptic.

“Nicely done.” Maksim was resting his ass on the table, his arms and ankles crossed. He’d asked half a dozen times if Lukas wanted a hand, and had seemed put out whenever he’d been refused. “What did you use?”

Lukas looked at Yasha. “Lag screws?”

“Structural wood screws.” Yasha struggled with the proper name because, as he hadn’t been in the U.S. as long as the rest of them, when he became upset, his English suffered. He took the box out of his pocket, adding, “Unthreaded shank allow for painful movement.” When an r dared to show in his speech, the damn thing was sent rolling all over the fucking place.

Maksim nodded, looking intrigued. “I’ll have to remember this. What will you do now?”

“Provide way out,” Yasha answered, his voice chillingly flat, his emotionless gaze glued to James’s bobbing head. He, Milan, and Adam were front and center during the procedure as they had a vested interest in the reasons for last night’s shooting. Losing their uncle had been a blow they had yet to take the time to process. None of them had, for that matter. But they would.

As Yasha spoke to Maksim, he picked up a screwdriver. “If pussy withstand pain and frees self, Lukas promise to go out into city. We give small head start. Then we begin search.”

Milan revived their guest by waving a small vial of Nose Tork directly beneath James’s nostrils, leaving the older man wide-eyed and sucking in harsh breaths. His thin body was sweating profusely.

Lukas finished drying his hands with a towel he threw directly into the trash that would be burned before they left, and accepted the screwdriver that he carefully placed in the small space between James’s trembling legs.

“Depending on how determined you are, you might still get out of this alive,” he said as Maksim came to stand next to him. They both studied James.

“If they don’t free themselves, and depending on the circumstances, my father has been known to leave the chair for the survivors to find on their front lawn. A decorative memento, if you will, to remind them not to repeat their loved one’s mistakes.”

“Where do you get them?” Maksim nodded beyond their immediate surroundings to the two dozen chairs stacked against the far wall. They were similar to a lounger but had thick wooden slats that could be locked in a variety of positions, and, Lukas knew from experience, the design was sturdy enough to take a real beating.

He looked up to make sure Adam didn’t mind being called out. When he got an unconcerned shrug, he nodded to his loyal driver, who was often much more than that, where he’d gone to sit on the bumper of someone’s Navigator.

“Adam makes them in his spare time.”

Maksim sauntered over and Lukas heard him ask, “Mind if I put in an order?”

A smirk showed through Adam’s trimmed beard as he stood.

Leaving them to it, Lukas brought his attention back to the one responsible for altering his life. And James had. Right down to the way Lukas’s thought pattern had changed since his father had been shot.

No longer did he have tunnel vision that kept him focused solely on making money and keeping their position in this volatile world their organization had dominated since settling in Houston. Now, he was expanding his sights. Looking beyond, as his father must have done the day he’d backed out of a parking spot only to knock over and mangle a beautiful girl’s bicycle. Lukas’s parents had been married within two months of meeting, and he’d been born nine months later.

He wanted his and Dale’s story to mimic the one his mother had so loved to share near the end of her life. Only, theirs would have a tighter time frame of events.

“Lukas…please, show some mercy…” James moaned through a cough. His throat sounded raw, and he probably had a broken rib or two because Lukas had allowed his boys one strike each when they’d first arrived.

“You have disturbed my life, James,” he said, his tone almost casual. “In one sense, I feel almost grateful.” He should be laying next to Dale right now. Watching her sleep. Learning if she snored. Was she prone to nightmares? Did she enjoy sleeping in or was she an early riser? Did she wake feeling…needy?

But, instead of possibly benefiting from that if the answer was yes, he was spending his valuable time with this greedy cunt who’d shared a meal with him and his father not even a week ago.

Remembering the blind trust that had surrounded them at that table had Lukas’s fury spiking. He looked at James’s swollen hands that had once functioned well enough to enable him to create a computer program capable of funneling small amounts of money from select Zavrazin business accounts into another that had been hidden offshore. But not hidden well enough. Not when one had a man like Maksim Kirov combing through their files looking for discrepancies. The loss to the organization wasn’t great—a quarter of a million dollars in all—but the insult was.

The sad thing? James could have continued with the scam had he not panicked the other day during dinner. Apparently, Samuel had made an innocent comment about the Szabos’ home, and guilt had interpreted it to mean something entirely different to James. Thinking he’d been found out, his solution had been to distract them with the shooting in an effort to buy him enough time to better cover his tracks.

“I would have been unhappy had you just stolen our money.” Lukas bent at the waist and came down until his face was even with the thief’s. “After fucking us for…how long was it? Had to be more than a couple of years, going by how much you accumulated. Was the guilt getting to you? Were you ashamed? Is that why you misconstrued Samuel’s innocent comment about the size and beauty of your fucking home? Did you know you were going to attempt to murder your Pakhan when you left his table a few days ago?” He let a tight right hook go that sent James’s head snapping back. Milan eventually had to help put it to rights so Lukas could continue. “Were you looking at my father while wondering where to put your bullet?”

When James shook his head in denial, Lukas grabbed his neck and lifted him and the chair off the ground. He slammed the heavy weight into a wide support column before dropping the piece of shit to the ground and spitting on a man he was itching to kill.

He went to walk away but turned back. “You better pray you have the strength to take those screws out and can make it to the city before midnight tonight. Because when the clock strikes twelve, my boys will descend on two homes.” He looked to Milan and waited for him to recite the addresses James knew well because they belonged to his sons—his accomplices. “We will do to the occupants of those homes, exactly what you tried to do to my father. Only we’ll shoot them in the head with honor. We will show our faces, explain why we are there, and we might even allow them a few minutes to say goodbye to their loved ones.” He took James’s cell off the table and dropped it so he could crush the screen with the heel of his Ferragamo. He didn’t want to make this easy. “If you don’t make it out of here, it’s unfortunate you won’t be receiving one of those phone calls.”

As Lukas walked away from the blubbering man, he was grateful the small audience parted to let him through without him having to excuse himself.

All he could see at that point was his father’s ear hanging off the side of his head, his silver hair soaked and dripping with blood. What if, as Lukas and Samuel had sat on the floor of that warehouse, neither of them hiding their fear as they held their father tightly while reassuring him everything would be fine, Kostya Zavrazin’s eyes had gone vacant. What if he’d died in their arms and Lukas had forever lost the chance to do what he’d done tonight with Dale? Make happy the man who’d spent his life loving and caring for his family.

Yes, his father was a ruthlessly demanding leader. But he was also a playful, witty, patient and affectionate father who’d shaped his sons to be men of honor. Their character was a reflection of his, and Lukas now had a burning need to pass that on to the next generation.

James had almost stolen so much, and, now, Lukas was feeling the constraints of time. He wanted to present his son to his father. His gut clenched. Or his daughter. What if Dale gave him a baby girl? One who looked like her mother? Would Lukas one day stand there attempting not to laugh as his toddler tried to put one over on him, the way he’d found himself doing with her mother?

The longing that filled him had him wanting to return home so he could impregnate his woman tonight. He would fill her young, fertile body until it overflowed. And he would do so again and again in the coming weeks while he got to know her. Until the day he was able to stand before his family and proudly share their news.

Kostya Zavrazin wouldn’t be known as Papa in their home anymore. He’d be Dedushka.

“Your ability to gain control is impressive, Lukas. A few of my boys could learn a thing or two from you.”

He looked over his shoulder to see Vasily had followed him to the open hangar door. The Pakhan made his way over to stand at Lukas’s side, and they both looked out over the tarmac and field beyond, watching as it gradually brightened under the rising sun.

“I brought Dale to meet my father tonight,” he said without looking over when he saw Vasily’s head come his way. “He liked her.”

“And her?”

“She put her foot in it at one point, and I moved things beyond her comfort zone, but, other than that, she did beautifully. She charmed him the minute she opened her mouth.”

“As she did you.”

“Yes.”

They were quiet for a moment.

Then Lukas turned to a man whose opinion he respected almost as much as he respected his father’s. “I know you’ve never been married, but, do you have any advice to give a man about to propose to a skittish little dove who apparently doesn’t trust easily?”

Something dark passed over Vasily’s face, but Lukas couldn’t identify it without it being obvious that he was trying to.

“Be patient with her. She’s young, and she isn’t familiar with our world but for what she’s seen at Samuel’s club. Or so he said.” He went into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out two cigars. He offered one to Lukas. “I brought them from home in the hopes of sharing with your father.”

“He would have enjoyed that.” Lukas accepted one and took his turn lighting it from the Zippo Dmitri held out when the byki materialized from the shadows.

“I think you’re aware it will take Dale some time to come to terms with much of what we do.” Vasily puffed on his cigar. “Don’t shut her out. Don’t think you’re doing something good by keeping her in the dark. You won’t protect her that way. You’ll hurt her. And don’t let her shut you out. Women who try to be strong for us eventually end up harming themselves.” He paused, then went on. “Let her talk. Even if it’s just to hear the beauty of her voice, let her talk to you. Because one day you’ll find yourself willing to do almost anything if only to hear one more word.”

It was then Lukas realized Vasily wasn’t guessing on what might work, he was speaking from experience. The sorrow that rose into the warm morning air was almost as palpable as the cloud of blue smoke they were creating.

“Be honest with each other. At all costs. And when you have children, don’t ever take them for granted. Love and nurture them the way Kostya and Leane did with you and Samuel. Believe me, they will have you seeing the world through different eyes. Enjoy that, don’t fear it.”

Before Lukas could overstep and pry into Vasily’s personal life to ask who he was speaking about, they were joined by Gheorghe, Maksim, and Samuel, and business once again overthrew a topic that shouldn’t have been so easy to dismiss.