Vengeance Aside (Wanted Men 0.5)(38)
“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.