Vengeance Aside (Wanted Men 0.5)(3)
Vasily’s byki, Dmitri Zolin, was another matter altogether. The solemn, steadfast guard was well-liked and respected. Because he’d been with Vasily for so long, he was a literal shadow who was never more than a couple of feet away from his Pakhan. He was currently moving from the main door to the window to the door of the hospital room. A reserved but attentive surveillance that never rested.
As Dmitri quietly communicated with one of the others who’d come down from New York, using a mic hidden in his sleeve, Lukas moved a few chairs over and sat. His back was aching, his Armani was destroyed, and he badly wanted a shower. It was still early enough that he didn’t have to rush, but he couldn’t linger because he needed to make it to Scorch before it opened.
Their nightclub in downtown Houston was noisy, hot, and usually too fucking busy for Lukas to show his face unless he had to. Its only saving grace was its exclusivity. The bottle service that started at fifteen hundred and ran past five grand was steep enough to keep out the wanna-be gangsters.
Which left them wide open to the real ones, but since they all but ruled that demographic, it wasn’t a cause for concern.
“Tell me about Dale,” he said to his brother as he scrubbed a hand down his face. “She’s, what, a chubby little comedian?”
Samuel’s normally contagious laugh didn’t encourage participation tonight. It didn’t last long enough. “Man, you’re such an idiot. Sometimes I don’t know how you survive.”
Lukas glared across the gleaming tile floor not found in public hospitals. The private places knew their clientele, and it showed. “Yeah? Tell me about Dale,” he tried again.
“Have you ever seen a chubby comedian on the floor at Scorch?”
“No.” It wasn’t Samuel who oversaw the hiring of waitstaff at the club but Samuel’s wife. And, Lukas had to hand it to her, Farah had a great eye.
“You boys should head out,” Vasily interrupted, looking at the Breitling on his wrist. “Talk about this on the way. Your cars have been brought to the front doors.” His concerned gaze went into the room that carried a symphony of sounds from a multitude of machines. “I’m going to speak to your father then I’ll meet you at the club.”
Knowing better than to argue—if their father learned of it, his boys would get a verbal ass-kicking no one would enjoy—Lukas rose at the same time as Samuel. They embraced the Pakhan, took in the expected encouragement that surprisingly made Lukas feel a little better, then left.
As they started down the quiet corridor, four men fell in behind them. Nobody spoke as they traveled. Lukas was too busy fighting the need to camp out until his father was able to leave this place by his side.
He shoved his hands into his pockets to check for his balls. Goddammit. He had to do better than this. He was thirty-four years old but thinking like an insecure fucking pussy.
Their group passed by a few wide-eyed nurses as they headed down a set of stairs to the main floor. A number of plain-clothed security personnel were walking the halls. He’d spotted a half-dozen mingling with more than a dozen of their own because the Zavrazin’s had also spread their people out.
They walked through the revolving front doors into a wall of humid heat when Samuel spoke.
“I feel like shit walking out of here, Lu.”
He gripped his little brother’s nape and gave it a squeeze. “Same, but we have to do what Papa asks. Especially now. We’ll start with you introducing me to this girl before the meeting. Does she know who we are?”
“I don’t know. But, listen, just because I mentioned her name, doesn’t mean you have to use her. Pick someone else.”
Samuel’s Bugatti was directly in front of Lukas’s black Land Rover at the curb. They stopped next to the vehicles as their byki surrounded them in a loose but protective circle.
“You chose her to serve the meeting tonight. Why? Because she’s nosy and obnoxious? Because she doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut?”
Samuel pulled a face. “Fuck, no. Dale is one of our best. Doesn’t matter what’s happening in her life; the minute she hits the floor, she turns on the charm like she has a built-in system. She’s honest, efficient, and is next to impossible to rattle. Farah loves her.”
All the reasons her name had surfaced in the first place. Samuel would never have considered putting Lukas in the position of having to introduce an air-head whore to their father.
“Then you can introduce her to me before the meeting,” he grumbled as he left his brother and the one byki Samuel traveled with and started walking again. “And email me her file. I want to go through it before I see her.”
Both he and Samuel kept excruciatingly detailed files on most of the people they formed any lasting relationships with. Some, because it paid to know the dirty details of a person’s life, and others, because it paid to know the dirty details of a person’s life.
“Where are you going now?” Samuel called as Lukas shrugged out of his jacket and neared the Land Rover with his personal guard of three.
Milan and Yasha Demidov were brothers, and Adam Demidov, Lukas’s driver, was their cousin. Milan and Adam had been with Lukas almost a decade, but Yasha had come over from Russia just a few years ago. The Demidovs’ uncle had been one of Lukas’s father’s best men for over twenty years. He’d been killed earlier tonight, along with two others in their organization.