Page 56 of Exacting Vengeance

“On a Saturday night?” She glanced at the digital clock on her bedside table. It was nearly five p.m.

He landed a quick kiss on her lips. “Criminals don’t always take the weekend off.”

Criminals. Fear skittered in her stomach like a swarm of wasps. Whatever or whomever was dragging him back to the city had to be important. She watched him speed-dress in less than a minute.

“Lock the door,” he said, dropping another kiss on her mouth. “I’ll call you.”

Moments later, he was gone, leaving her alone in her bed with the smell of his body and hers imprinted on the sheets and pillows.

She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, sighing as she relived every moment of their lovemaking, committing it to memory, yet anticipating when they might do it again. And again. And again.

Soft, gentle bells tinkled in her head, then grew louder, into an all-out, three-alarm warning.

She bolted upright.

What they’d just done together was amazing, but was she being stupid?

This was dangerous. The complications were unthinkable, and she didn’t know how to uncomplicate them. Just when she’d thought happiness was on her doorstep, it wasn’t.

What had she done?

Sweet thoughts of Father Sergei and the children she read to every weekend squeezed her heart. As did Kyle.

He trusted her. He believed in her. He’d been nothing but kind and supportive. If he knew the truth, he would hate her.

She fisted her hand around the sheets, searching for a way out and fearing there wasn’t one.

No matter how this ended, it was a lose-lose situation.

That elusive happiness she’d been wishing for could never be hers.

Chapter Twenty-Three

It had taken a week, but eventually Yuri discovered where Vika lived.

Bribing someone in the DMV had been easy. At first, the little weasel had resisted. Then Yuri got in the guy’s face and threatened to set fire to his house when he and his family were asleep. That, and a few hundred bucks had sealed the deal. Vika was worth the risk. So much so that he’d changed his plans.

A florist delivery van pulled up in front of the building and parked behind a blue Explorer. From his car parked at the corner, Yuri watched a woman get out, open the back door of the van, and pull out a vase with red flowers. She climbed the stairs and went inside the vestibule. Through the glass doors, he saw the woman push the intercom button. A minute later, she opened the inner door and disappeared.

To find out where Alyona Kolbayev was hiding, he’d bugged her mother’s house. The idiots he’d recruited to take the bitch out before she’d even arrived at the courthouse had failed. The bomb scare had been the backup plan, forcing the Feds to vacate the building and get Alyona outside before she testified. He’d had the entire building and several surrounding blocks covered. There was no way they could have escaped. But when he’d seen Vika in the courtroom, a brilliant idea came to him, brighter than a flash of lightning on the Russian tundra.

He could have it all. His beautiful wife and his rightful place in the Brooklyn Bratva.

He'd never liked Boris Kolbayev. The little prick was Nikki’s top brigadier, a position that could be his. If Boris went to jail, Nikki would be pissed, but he—Yuri Petrov—could take his place at Nikki’s side. Besides, who knew? Perhaps Nikki’s days as head of the New York Bratva were numbered. And Vika was here, in New York City. Once he got her back, he would buy her another house, bigger and better than their house in Chicago.

So he’d waited for Alyona to testify against her husband and then called in the bomb scare.

After Boris had been dragged back to jail, Nikki had thrown a fit over the phone for a full five minutes. “It’s not my fault,” he’d lied to Nikki. The Feds were slow to react to his anonymous call, and by the time they cleared the courthouse, Alyona had already testified against Boris. Or so he’d explained.

So sad. Yuri chuckled. Though it had been fun to watch everyone scurrying from the courthouse like rats off a sinking ship.

A dark SUV he’d noticed earlier made another loop around the building. From what he could tell, some kind of private security. The guy was a minor impediment, nothing he couldn’t handle. No one would get in his way. Not even Kyle Gates.

He tightened his fingers around the wheel. Seeing that lying sonofabitch in the same courtroom as Vika had made his blood boil. He’d wanted to wrap his hands around Gates’s throat and watch his eyes pop out of his head as he squeezed the life from him.

Not even the DMV guy would give him Gates’s address. Something about tight confidentiality rules and the possibility the DMV didn’t even have the address. His time would come. First, he’d get his wife back. Then, he’d give Gates what he deserved.

It was time to set his plan in action.