From Russia With Fangs Read online

  Fuck him. She would turn this office into a craft room, with lots of pretty pink ribbons.

  Irina plopped down in the plush leather office chair and dialed Papa’s number. Within a few rings, her father’s resonant, accented voice filled her ear.

  “Irina, my bobochka, how are you this morning?”

  She sighed, “Confused, Papa.”

  “That is natural, darling. You are in mourning, yes? Confusion is one of the five places of grieving.”

  Irina knew it would do no good to correct her father on the stages of grief. He would dig in his heels and get stuck in the denial stage. So instead, she adjusted her voice to a guileless, girlish tone and said, “No, Papa, I’m confused because your man, Vincent—”

  “Viktor,” he corrected her, his voice a strange mix of stern and indulgent.

  “Of course, Viktor, just came to my house and told me that he will be leading a security team, living at my house, until further notice.”

  Outside the office, she could hear the whistle of the tea kettle. She didn’t bother fetching it. She hoped the brittle squeal felt like nails being driven into Viktor’s ears. The beautiful, dismissive asshole.

  “Irina, you are a smart girl. You know why you need those men at your house.”

  “No, sir, I don’t. Yes, Sergei’s death was tragic and unexpected, but Sergei was the target, not me.”

  “We don’t know that, Irina.”

  “But I’m heading into my seclusion. I’m in mourning. I won’t be able to concentrate on my duties with a pack of wolves tromping around my house. Please, Papa, I don’t want them here.”

  A pad of paper near the phone caught Irina’s eye. She could make out the relief impression of Sergei’s lazy, block-ish scrawl, but not the actual words. Frankly, it was a little strange that he’d written any notes at his desk. He didn’t do any actual work in his office, or anywhere, really. Frowning, she grabbed a pencil from his black enamel desk set and turned the lead flat across the paper, shading carefully over the impression.

  Irina lifted an eyebrow. Sergei had never been one for water sports. What could he need to go to the docks for? She continued to scribble over the page.

  “No, Irina, I will not change my mind. You need someone there with you.”

  “Papa,” she sighed, though she grinned at Papa’s use of someone, meaning Papa was already mentally downgrading the number of people she would have to deal with. She wasn’t surprised when this disappointed princess act stoked her father’s frustration.

  “No, Irina,” he barked, raising his voice. “I will not yield. You will have protection!”

  Irina let a pause hang between them, as if she was fighting off tears and didn’t want to let him hear her voice shake. She wasn’t particularly proud of her deception, but this was the way her family worked. She was a human working within a system shaped by supernatural culture. She had to use the strengths at her disposal.

  Another shape at the bottom of the paper began to emerge as she moved the pencil. B…

  “Irina, are you listening to me?”

  She winced, watching a U emerge from the graphite shading. “Of course, Papa.”

  “I don’t want to upset you, darling, but until we know who shot Sergei, you must be kept safe. Please, humor your papa, who loves you.”

  One L emerged on the pad of paper, and then another L.

  Irina let loose another long-suffering sigh. “Well, does it have to be a whole pack here with me? I’m only one person, Papa, in one little house. You can see my whole yard from the kitchen. I don’t need a full detail. Maybe just one person, staying here full time, instead of a whole group, switching places all of the time?”

  “I suppose you don’t,” Papa relented. “How do you feel about Viktor?”

  Another letter took shape on the paper. E…

  “He’s agreeable enough, I suppose,” Irina said, trying to sound as bored and disinterested as possible.

  “He’s a good boy,” Papa informed her. “I trust him completely. He will not trouble you, Irina. He knows his place.”

  “If you say so, Papa,” she grumbled as the man himself stepped into the office, with a tea kettle in his hand and an indignant expression on his face. She startled, dropped her pencil and sent it skittering across the desk. She waved Viktor away, out of the office, but he ignored her, leaning against the doorframe and watching her. She rolled her eyes and turned the office chair so she didn’t have to look at him while he listened in on this conversation.

  “All right, if you promise not to give Viktor any trouble, to be a good girl, I will scale back your detail to just Viktor,” Papa said.

  “I suppose.”

  Behind her, she heard Viktor snort softly. Without looking back, she raised her hand and stuck her middle finger toward the ceiling. He chuckled.

  “Promise me, Irina,” Papa chided.

  “I promise, Papa.”

  “Promise your papa what?” he prompted, though his tone was teasing. She could practically hear his smile through the phone.

  “I promise I’ll be a good girl.”

  When Viktor laughed out loud, she turned her chair and whipped a crystal paperweight at him. He caught it in his free hand just before it hit him in the face and tossed it toward the sofa. She made a furious face and raised her finger to her lips. Viktor shrugged his shoulders and crept out of the office, tea kettle in hand.

  “I promise, Papa.”

  “Good girl,” he said. “Now, I will be by to visit you in a few days. And I will have Magda send food to your home every day.”

  “Oh, that’s not necessary, Papa. My neighbors are flooding the house with tuna noodle casseroles and lasagnas. And besides, cooking is one of the few things I’m allowed to do over the next month.”

  “It makes Magda feel better, knowing she’s feeding you,” Papa said. “And what do your neighbors know about good cooking, eh? Tuna noodles and lasagnas? Bah! Let Magda take care of you, eh?”

  Her sigh was real this time. “Yes, Papa.”

  “Now, have you begun writing the thank you notes for the funeral arrangements?” Papa asked. “You received many lovely gestures from important families. You wouldn’t want anyone to feel that their generosity was not appreciated.”

  Irina tamped down a snort. Mama Anya had raided the funeral cards like they were winning lottery tickets. Fortunately, Galina, in her infinite sneakiness, had foreseen this and asked the employees at Kandinsky’s to record the arrangements and the senders’ information before they were displayed in the funeral parlor.

  “Of course, Papa, I started them yesterday.”

  “Good, good,” he chuffed. “Glad to hear it. Be sure to thank Mr. Lupesco especially; he sent a big, beautiful bouquet. Very nice. He was very concerned that you became too overwhelmed to continue at the service. But I explained it away.”

  “What do you mean, ‘explained it away’?”

  “I simply told him that you were a very sweet girl, very sensitive, and of course, you were in deep mourning over your husband. To be left alone at your tender age, it is a tragedy.”

  Irina frowned. Papa was making her out to sound like a waif from a Dickens story. What the hell was he playing at? Was he trying to “match-make” her like some little old starushka? Her husband had only been dead for a week. Even if she hadn’t been the model of widowhood, there were certain public standards she had to maintain.

  “Papa, you don’t have to make excuses for me.”

  “What excuses? I am simply telling the truth. Everyone knows what a good, sweet daughter I have. I will see you soon. Get some rest.”

  Irina laughed quietly and shook her head. Her father would forever see her as the chubby five-year-old he took in, all penny bright hair and fat cheeks, never grown up, never having more complicated needs than a full belly and a roof over her head. It was as endearing as it was irritating. “Love you, Papa.”

  “I love you, too, my girl.”

  Irina hung up. She turned the
chair around and, though she’d gotten what she wanted out of the call, thunked her head against the desk, nearly smacking her head against a piping hot cup of chamomile tea.

  Damn it, Viktor must have snuck back into the office while her back was turned, meaning he’d overheard her papa’s declarations over what a good, obedient girl he had. Stupid, sneaky werewolf footsteps.

  Irina sighed and sipped the hot tea. Viktor was a considerable upgrade from the usual Beta her father kept on the payroll, but how awkward was it going to be having him around the house for the next month? He’d seen her at her weakest. He’d seen her O face. And now he was her roommate.

  Irina sat up and shoved her thick fall of hair out of her face. This was nothing. She’d been through so much worse; awkward moments over morning coffee would be the least of her worries. She would get through her mourning period, get back to work and start living her damn life. She could do this.

  She glanced down at the shaded-over paper on Sergei’s desk. The bottom of the page contained an incomplete message.

  She grabbed another pencil and etched over the last letter, “T.”

  Sergei had scheduled a pick-up or drop-off at the docks for Silver Bullet. But Papa wouldn’t let Sergei near a shipment of Bullet. Sergei was too undisciplined and the substance was too tempting. Irina suspected that the only reason Sergei hadn’t indulged in the six months that the drug had been circulating local streets was that the chemicals altered a werewolf’s natural scent ever so slightly, and Mama Anya would have been able to smell it on him. Irina supposed she should have been grateful to Mama Anya for raising such a mama’s boy, but she certainly wasn’t going to be sending her mother-in-law any thank you notes any time soon.

  So, if this message wasn’t related to Sergei’s work for Papa, what was it about? Could the Bullet note be connected to Sergei being shot? Had Sergei crossed a Bullet dealer and paid the price? If so, Papa might be willing to lift the security measures on Irina entirely. After all, a drug dealer might be willing to take out Ilya Sudenko’s son-in-law, but it was another thing entirely to put a hit on his daughter. If Irina could find some connection between Sergei’s no-doubt underhanded activities, it would give Irina some control over her life—or at least her household.

  Galina. While Irina was completely shut out of this end of the business, Galina had much more access to this sort of information. Galina could be trusted to interpret the message without losing her mind or upping the security restrictions Irina had just manipulated.

  Irina picked up her cell and speed-dialed her sister, who picked up on the first ring. “Let me guess: you’ve already gone crazy on your first day of seclusion and you’re trying to arrange a rescue mission. Franny and I have a range of plans in place for this sort of thing. My only questions are: will body disposal be necessary, and do you need a land, sea or air retrieval?”

  Irina’s lips twitched into a tremulous smile, despite the exceedingly shitty situation. “Surprise me.”

  Galina sighed. “All right, but just so you know, hovercrafts are expensive to rent.”

  Normally, Irina would have made a joke about a two-year hovercraft lease, but she didn’t have the time or patience. “Can you come over for dinner? I have something to show you.”

  “It doesn’t involve sorting through Sergei’s collection of men’s magazines, does it? Because I say send the lot to Mama Anya and let her take care of it.”

  “No, I’m serious, Galya. I need to see you.”

  Galina snapped out of her playful mood at Irina’s tone. “All right, I’ll be there. Six o’clock, Okay?”

  “Six o’clock.” Irina sat back in her dead husband’s chair, surveying his pathetic “domain.” This silly, over-the-top office where he never did any actual work. Did he think that having an impressive room would make him a more serious operator within the family? Or was this just a place where he hid from the world?

  Irina picked up the scratched over piece of paper and read the message again. “What the hell were you up to, Sergei?”

  5

  Riding the Spin Cycle

  IT TOOK SOME CONVINCING to get Viktor out of the house to “check the perimeter.” But eventually, Galina started talking about her “horrible cramps” and “bloating like you wouldn’t believe” and Viktor practically ran for the door like his tail was on fire. Over a pieced together meal of pierogi, lasagna, a “cheese of the world” platter, and salad, Irina showed her the message.

  “It doesn’t make any fucking sense, Rina,” Galya muttered around a mouthful of noodles. “Papa would never trust that idiot with so much as a gram of Bullet. I know, because I actually overheard him tell Petyr once, ‘I wouldn’t trust that idiot with so much as a gram of Bullet.’ Why would Sergei be making any sort of transaction at the docks?”

  “I have no clue,” Irina said. “That’s why I called you. Do you think Sergei tried something stupid? Do you think that’s why he was shot?”

  “I can guarantee you that Sergei tried something stupid, but I have no idea if that’s why he was shot.” Galya snorted. “But there is a pretty sizable shipment of Bullet missing from Andrey Lupesco’s inventory and he is more than a little displeased about this. I overheard a conversation on the night Sergei was shot. It’s likely that Sergei was involved.”

  Irina sighed. “I really wish I were more surprised by that.”

  Galina’s eyes had narrowed thoughtfully as Irina dished another helping of lasagna onto her sister’s plate. Sometimes, Irina envied werewolf metabolism and Galina’s ability to eat and eat and never gain a pound. But at times like this, when the very idea of food made Irina’s stomach turn, she decided she could live without it.

  Could Andrey Lupesco have shot her husband? Yes, she reasoned, very easily. Could that be the reason behind the attentiveness at the funeral? Or the huge flower arrangement? She felt a flush of guilt for misreading the situation and assuming her father was matchmaking. But at the same time, she felt a strange rush of gratitude toward Andrey. Even if he hadn’t meant to help her, he’d set her free from a miserable marriage…and then she felt even guiltier for thinking of it that way.

  For her own part, Galina was also deep in thought. She chewed quietly, to the point where it made Irina almost uncomfortable to watch the cogs turning in her sister’s brain. Irina picked at her own pierogi. Though they were just as delicious as she remembered, the paper-thin dough stuffed to bursting with cheese and potatoes, her stomach rebelled at the thought of putting it in her mouth.

  She knew she wasn’t grieving. Hell, she wasn’t even sad that Sergei was gone. But the uncertainty, having no clue what to expect from the next few weeks, much less the next year, was driving her crazy. Having something concrete to focus on, like figuring out what got her idiot husband killed, might just help her feel some measure of control.

  Irina cleared her throat, setting aside her fork and pouring Galina another iced tea. “You’ve got that look in your eyes, Galya. What’s going on in your head?”

  Galya shrugged. “Just an idea, something I’ve been thinking about lately. But I don’t want to talk to Papa about it yet. Not until I’m sure about some other things that have been going on.”

  Irina’s golden-red eyebrows creased. “Is this about getting a seat at the table?”

  Galina’s emerald eyes lit up, but her expression remained cool as the Siberian snows. “Not yet. Not right away, anyway. You know the deal. ‘Women do not sit at the table. Women serve the table and stay in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant with pups,’” she said in a deep, exaggerated Russian accent.

  “That’s a terrible impersonation of Papa, by the way,” Irina muttered.

  Irina understood her sister’s need for validation from her father’s circle. Galina was a natural-born leader, an Alpha of Alphas. She had the savvy and skill necessary to launch the family into post-millennial prosperity. Why should she be routed from that role just because she’d born a woman?

  As a human, Irina had even less of a cha
nce at the table than Sergei, but she’d never been that interested in digging deeper into that area of the family business. She was happy—in a general sense—working at the family’s jewelry shop. She spent at least eight hours a day classifying and hiding stolen diamonds in perfectly respectable engagement rings, which were then shipped off to other jewelry shops in her father’s network for sale. It wasn’t exactly the type of work she dreamed of and the materials were stolen out from under legitimate dealers, who were probably awfully nice people. Irina did draw the line at using conflict diamonds, a “quirk” her father indulged to honor his “sweet, soft-hearted” daughter.

  But that was where Irina’s influence over Red Crown stopped. She’d approached Papa with dozens of suggestions on how to modernize the business, specialize in high-profile custom designs, and reduce their liability with legally obtained stones. Papa simply patted her on the head and told her not to worry with details. So Irina tried to content herself with designing the occasional, spectacular custom piece from the few legitimate customers that trusted her.

  Galina, on the other hand, had always desired more. She wanted to prove herself equal, if not superior, to their brothers—which was why she’d so often clashed with Alexei and his prehistoric views on “women in the workplace.”

  Irina hoped Galina succeeded in what would no doubt be a multi-tiered scheme that combined the plotting skills of Machiavelli and Danny Ocean. Deep down, Irina knew that Galina wouldn’t just be striking a victory for women’s rights in organized crime, she would be saving the Sudenko family fortunes. Nik, as capable as he was, had no interest in or talent for leadership. And Alexei’s mission statement for expanding the business boiled down to “shoot the competition, and if you wing them, shoot them again. Keep shooting until they don’t get back up.” Subtitled: “Also, we need more drugs and hookers.”

  With Alexei in charge, the family would be bankrupt, imprisoned, or dead within a generation.

  “I have to approach it delicately, that’s all,” Galina said. “And if Sergei’s fuckery adds up in the way I suspect, it may help me lay some groundwork to prove that I’m more than just awesome tits and a solid bloodline.”