Chapter 162 162
Chapter 162 162
“Who’s coming to visit?” Bogdan asks out loud. “Do we know if he has a mistress?”
“No serious mistresses,” Vlad says immediately. “I’ve been doing a deep dive into his contacts, both social and otherwise. There’s a blonde whore in the West Valley he’s particularly fond of. He visits her a couple of times a month, but not lately.”
For some reason, it offends me that he picked a blonde woman at all. I wonder if he imagines Camila when he fucks her.
“Other than that,” Vlad adds, “there’s no steady woman in his life.”
“Apart from his mother, you mean.”
All three of us look up to see Nikita standing at the threshold of my office room. She walks in without an invitation and takes one of the armchairs in front of my desk.
“If anyone is entering his compound at this stage of affairs, it’s going to be her.”
I look at Bogdan. “Do we have eyes on Svetlana?”
“No.”
“That’s a mistake,” Mama says instantly. “The woman should be watched.”
“She’s not a player,” Bogdan argues.
“Bogdan, don’t be one of those men who constantly underestimates someone because she happens to be a woman,” Mama scolds.
It’s a surprise only because she’s never sharp with Bogdan. She usually reserves that tone for me, not that I usually give a fuck.
“I’m not,” Bogdan says defensively. “But come on, Mama, Svetlana has never had skin in the game.”
She raises her eyebrows and looks at him with a piercing gaze that I don’t really recognize. Not from her. She never wears her emotions on her sleeve like this.
“Svetlana has always had skin in the game. You don’t think she wants her only son to be the leader of the Vorobev? She has always been ambitious, and I’m willing to bet that’s only gotten worse with age.”
“Okay, even assuming you’re right about that, what does it matter? What can she do?” Bogdan asks.
“Maxim doesn’t have a head for politics,” Mama asserts. “He’s not strategic or cunning. But Svetlana is all of those things and more. You can bet that, if there are plans being made, Svetlana is the one controlling their trajectory.”
“Okay, so we kill the old bitch first,” Bogdan says with a shrug. “Then we take down Maxim.”
I pay close attention to Mama. Her face is etched with worry and her lips are pursed in a way that tells me she wants to say something that she’s probably not going to say in the end.
“Mama?”
“Hm?” she says, meeting my eyes.
She’s distracted, lost in thought. She’s been doing a lot of that lately: turning inwards to wrestle with ghosts only she can see.
It’s a sign I should’ve recognized a long time ago.
“Is there something you’re not telling us?”
Bogdan and Vlad turn to her immediately. She handles the weight of their scrutiny with calm. “Nothing that would change things now,” she says wearily.
I frown. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that anything I have to add wouldn’t help you in this fight.”
“Is that your way of telling me you are hiding something from me?”
She gets to her feet, tall and poised like the Bratva queen she has always been. “It’s irrelevant now, Isaak.”
She strides for the door. I’m tempted to go full don on her and order her locked in here until she spills what she knows.
Instead, I let her leave. I exhale with frustration the moment she’s gone.
“What the hell was that about?” Bogdan asks.
“I don’t actually give a shit,” I say, grinding my teeth together. “We can deal with our mother’s cryptic riddles once we’ve handled Maxim.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Bogdan agrees.
“We’re not making a move today, but make sure the men are ready anyway,” I tell Vlad. “When things start to happen, they will happen fast.
“Got it, boss.”
He leaves soon after. Bogdan and I head out of my office towards the gardens where I know I’ll find Jo and Camila.
“Things have been going well between you two, huh?” Bogdan asks, wagging his eyebrows at me.
“Can you stop being a child for one fucking second?”
“Eh, nah. Maturity is for the birds.”
I give him a grudging smile. “Have one of the men bring one of the Audis around. I’ve planned something special for Jo today.”
“The carnival thing?”
“Yeah.”
“Sweet.”
“You’re coming with us.”
“Ooh, lucky me.” He actually sounds excited.
I roll my eyes. “Just to be clear, you’re my muscle.”
That dampens his cheer. “Seriously, you’re making me the bodyguard?”
“Suck it up.”
“Will you buy me a corndog at least?”
“There’s that maturity again.”
Bogdan only laughs as we enter the garden. Cami and Jo are sprawled out on a lawn blanket surrounded by stacks of books. They’re both wearing nearly identical sundresses and it’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
And that’s saying something considering I’ve never used the word “cute” for anything in my life before now. But what else am I supposed to call it?
Jo jumps to her feet and comes flying towards both of us. For a moment, I think she’s going to attack Bogdan first. But at the last second, she veers right for me. A little too accurately, in fact—her elbow smashes me in the groin and I have to bite back a groan of pain.
“Hey, kid,” I grimace, patting her head while Bogdan cackles.
“You promised me we’d go out somewhere today!” Jo reminds me, keeping her arms firmly around my waist.
“Did I? Doesn’t sound like something I’d say.”
Her jaw drops. “Yes, you did! You did, you did, you did!”
“Hm. If you say so. Guess I have no choice then.”
She throws her fist up in the air. “Yay! Can Bogie and Babushka come too?”
“Bogie’s coming with us,” I say, earning a dirty look from Bogdan. “But Babushka might be tired.”
“She’s never too tired to spend time with me.”
“Oh yeah? How did you figure that one out?”
Jo shrugs. “She told me.”
Somehow, that tiny, innocuous little comment is enough to blunt my current annoyance towards my mother. Say what you want about the woman; there is no question that she loves Jo.
“Okay. You can ask Babushka to join us,” I sigh.
“Yayyy!” Jo screams again before running off to corral her grandmother.
Who she still doesn’t know is her grandmother.
I’ve been wondering about that lately. As far as Jo knows, I’m just a friend of her mother’s, and Nikita is just Babushka, a funny name that means nothing.