Vengeance Aside (Wanted Men 0.5)
Nancy Haviland
ONE
“You must find…a wife, son. Do not make me leave you alone. Your mother would…never forgive me.”
Lukas Zavrazin, current Sovietnik of the Zavrazin organization and Pakhan in-training, wiped at his wet eyes and nodded. His mind didn’t bring forth any nonsensical images of the last grains of sand falling through an hourglass. He was too pragmatic for such shit. All he saw was the gauze and bandages covering his beloved father’s salt-and-pepper hair.
Kostya Zavrazin, the Pakhan of their Bratva, had been shot in the head last night. He’d gone into surgery within a few hours, had come out hours later, and had woken just a short time ago. Why the hell had his first thoughts revolved around his eldest son’s single status?
As Lukas attempted to breathe through the love and terror choking him, all he could think now was that he’d never made an effort to do two simple things his parents had asked of him. Get married and have a couple of babies. He’d told them he would, had even promised, but he’d never searched the faces of the many women who’d passed through his life to see if perhaps he should keep one for longer than a night or two.
What if he’d missed her? What if she’d sat across from him at dinner, spent the night in his bed, and then he’d shown her to the door the following morning, already distracted by the busy day ahead?
“You cannot wait any longer, Lukas.” Normally strong and commanding, his father’s voice was weak and reedy. “This incident has proven now is the time.”
As guilt joined his fear, Lukas once again geared up to make his promises.
But his father had heard them all before and was no longer willing to be appeased by the bullshit. “Do not waste any more time,” he stressed before Lukas could speak. “If I am not lucky enough to get through this…” He made a pained sound, and then ground his teeth as if he were angry at himself for allowing his sons to hear his suffering. “If I do not make it, I must know you will be taken care of.”
“Tell him.”
Lukas glanced across the bed to where his younger brother stood. Samuel’s eyes were full of tears, his shirt rusty with dried blood, and his dark hair was all over the fucking place because he’d been yanking at it all night. He would eventually take over as Sovietnik when Lukas moved into his father’s position, but that wouldn’t be for many years yet.
“What?”
“Tell him about her,” Samuel repeated. “I know you weren’t expecting to fall for a simple girl like her, but she’s the one for you. So tell him.”
Lukas wanted to slap the well-meaning idiot up side the head. What the fuck was he talking about?
“Fine. If you won’t open your stubborn mouth, I will.” Samuel was careful not to disturb the IV as he took their father’s hand.
“Louder, son. I can’t hear…” Their father tried to turn his head but Samuel put a hand on his shoulder to stop him, and raised his voice.
“Papa, Lukas has met someone. She works at the club. Farah and I know her, and we think she’s perfect. But Lukas is worried because, if he introduces her to you, he’ll have to admit he loves her, and we all know how difficult that will be for him.”
The same pale eyes his father had passed down to his sons were shadowed with pain and unfocused by drugs, but they still made Lukas want to shift when they came back his way. “Lukas? This is…true?” The hope in the stilted question could be felt in the air.
“Yes, Papa,” he found himself saying. What choice did he have? “Forgive me for keeping her to myself.” As if he would have had she been real. “I should have brought her to meet you. I just…wasn’t sure,” he finished lamely rather than admitting she didn’t fucking exist. He ground his teeth and died a thousand deaths because his mother now knew he’d just shamed himself by lying. She’d passed away seven years ago, and not a day went by that Lukas didn’t talk to her as if she were still with them. He silently begged her forgiveness as the sound of the respirator mimicked Darth Vader in his left ear.
“What is her name?”
Lukas’s brain went silent.
“Dale,” Samuel smoothly answered, making Lukas wonder if the fabrication was, in fact, a real girl from their nightclub. “Her name is Dale. She’s a curvy little thing who makes Lukas laugh. Yeah. You heard that right. I’ve seen it myself. She’s entertaining as hell.”
So what the fuck would I be doing with her? Lukas wanted to roar as his brother described a chubby little comedian who needed to crack jokes to make her miserable life bearable.
Instead, he said, “Yes. She is…amusing. You’ll enjoy meeting her.”
“Bring her to me now.”
Again, he had the urge to climb over the bed and cuff his brother’s ear.
“I’m sorry, Kostya. No visitors for at least the next twenty-four hours. Apart from your sons and Vasily, of course.”
Lukas glanced up to see his father’s surgeon looking at them all with a bemused expression on his face. Dr. Yuri Davidenko, a Russian physician, surgeon, and medical researcher, had been called in from New York to perform the surgery. He belonged to the Tarasov Bratva, one of the most powerful in the world, and had been accompanied, via private jet, by the Pakhan himself, since Vasily Tarasov and Kostya were close friends as well as associates.