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  Vlad grinned, opening her front door and then offering her a little bow. “Oh I wouldn’t say that at all. I’ll be seeing you soon Mary Reilly.”

  Chapter Four

  Vlad arrived back at his father’s brownstone before the clock struck ten. After leaving Mary Reilly’s front door, he had circled the building and checked for signs of people prowling around. It didn’t make him feel good to have found evidence of someone looking into one of her windows. The freshly disturbed ground and broken twigs on the bushes suggested the unwelcome peeper had been there recently.

  His father’s wife, Tatiyana, appeared at the top of the staircase. “Where have you been?”

  “Out taking care of business,” he said evasively. “Where is Sokolov?”

  “In the basement.” She was wringing her hands. A sure sign that something was very amiss. “He has Ioann with him.”

  Vlad gave an inward groan. “Are they alone down there?”

  “No.”

  “Go back upstairs,” he told her. “I’ll go down and take care of it.”

  “Thank you,” Tatiyana said softly.

  Vlad heard her disappear into the upstairs hallway. He knew she would go back to her bedroom and wait. Perhaps that was a mother’s lot in life, to wait. But she shouldn’t have been waiting like this when Ioann was only seven years old.

  Putting his hand on the doorknob leading to the basement stairs, Vlad took a few deep breaths to steady his nerves. Moments like these had the power to drag him all the way back to his time as a boy.

  Taking the steps at an even, unhurried pace, Vlad descended into the coolness of the basement. There wasn’t a lot of space. The house was old and the basement was fabricated of damp sandstone. The ceilings were low and Vlad had to duck to walk through the doorways.

  He finally found his father and younger brother in a room at the end of the hallway. There were four other men present. Three of them were likely witnesses of some kind. The fourth was on his knees in the center of the room. His face was bloody and one of his eyes was swollen shut. His hands were tied behind his back with plastic strips that were cutting into his wrists. The entire room was filled with the coppery stench of blood and the acrid odor of fear.

  Vlad took a sideways glance at Ioann. His little face was pale and his blue eyes were huge. His blond hair was messy and there appeared to be blood spatter in it. Vlad’s gut tightened as he empathized on a bone deep level with his young half brother.

  “Ah, Vlad!” his father said heartily. “I’m glad you are here. Did you get everything squared away with the teacher?”

  “She’s home safe. Yes.” Vlad sent a pointed glance to his brother and his father nodded as if he understood that Vlad could not talk about this in front of Ioann.

  “Nikolas here was just explaining to us why he has decided it is within his rights to make the decision to cut our take of his business interests,” Sokolov said flippantly.

  Vlad had to stifle a groan. What idiot would take a chance like that? Putting his hand out to stop Yuri from resuming the beating, Vlad squatted before Nikolas and looked him in the eye.

  “I needed more money to feed my family,” Nikolas told Vlad through his ruined lips. “My expenses are too high.”

  “Your family will suffer a greater loss if you don’t come home tonight,” Vlad pointed out. “Are they provided for?”

  “If I die?” Nikolas’s breath rattled in his chest.

  “Yes.”

  The grimace on Nikolas’s face told Vlad what it cost the man to speak. There was a good chance Yuri had already broken the man’s ribs and punctured his lung. The blood on Nikolas’s lips suggested he was bleeding internally. If he didn’t get medical attention soon, he would die. Not that Vladimir Sokolov senior was ever going to let a man live after stealing.

  “He is being weak!” Yuri spat.

  Vlad snorted, speaking in Russian to get his point across. “You punctured his lung with your ham fisted beating, you dolt.”

  “Oh I am so sorry that I lack your finesse,” Yuri taunted.

  Vlad stood up, casually backhanding Yuri and sending him staggering across the room. Vlad had never liked the ingratiating man with his flexible moral code and lackluster sense of honor.

  Yuri rolled to his side before scrambling to his feet. “You can’t do that!”

  “Are you going to stop me?” Vlad raised an eyebrow.

  All this time Vlad was utterly aware that his younger brother was watching everything that happened. Vlad didn’t want Ioann to see such things. He remembered for himself how traumatic it was to be placed in these situations and told to act like a man.

  Sokolov was laughing heartily at the altercation between Yuri and Vlad. Then he squeezed Ioann’s shoulder. “See boy? Your brother knows how to come right in and establish his place. He’ll take over and show Nikolas the error of his ways.”

  There was no way Vlad was going to voluntarily beat Nikolas any more. The man was half-fdead already. Plus, there was no need to torture him any further. They all knew that Sokolov wouldn’t let him live. Yuri, however, was another story.

  “Here, boy, I want you to hold this gun on Nikolas.” Sokolov offered his seven-year-old son a handgun.

  Vlad had to swallow back the bile as he remembered this moment from his own childhood. He would do anything to save his brother from the same fate. Pulling his own weapon from the holster he kept at the small of his back. Putting the barrel right between Nikolas’s eyes, Vlad vowed to take care of the man’s family.

  ***

  “You shot Nikolas,” Ioann said softly. His tone was faintly accusatory, but Vlad could well understand that.

  Vlad settled himself more comfortably against his brother’s headboard. Ioann was snuggled down beneath the covers of his twin bed. His mother had just helped him to take a shower and get the blood out of his hair. Now it was time for the boy to go to sleep. Finally, because no seven-year-old should be up until nearly midnight simply because he’d been required to witness a brutal beating and murder.

  “I did kill Nikolas,” Vlad agreed. He tried to be calm and rational because almost nobody ever was. “I didn’t want to, but the man was very badly injured from Yuri’s beating.”

  “Why did Nikolas have to be beaten?” Ioann’s little voice was tight with worry. “He has a daughter named Bianka. She’s in my class at school.”

  Shit. Vlad shut his eyes and hated himself even more. Life was such a mess. “I’m sorry for Bianka that she won’t have her father with her anymore.”

  “I should tell her what happened,” Ioann decided.

  “No.” Vlad touched the boy’s lips. “We must never speak of the things that happen in this house. You know that.”

  “Why is Papa so mean?” Ioann was whispering now.

  “He doesn’t mean to be.” That wasn’t true, but Vlad knew how much Ioann needed to believe it was. “Papa is in charge of a lot of men. He has to make decisions about how we will all have enough money to live. Those business decisions are hard. The things that Nikolas did was hurting Papa’s ability to make money for us and for our men.”

  “The men depend on Papa to make the money, don’t they?” There was just a twinge of pride in Ioann’s tone.

  “Yes. They do.”

  “So when someone screws up, they have to pay the price?” Ioann seemed to be working it out in his head.

  “Ioann,” Vlad said softly. “That does not have to mean that someone dies. Papa chooses to do things that way. But it isn’t the only way.”

  His little brother seemed to relax. “So I won’t have to kill everyone that argues with me or steals because they’re hungry or thirsty?”

  “No. When you are a man you can make that choice for yourself.”

  “Do you have to make that choice?” Ioann wanted to know.

  “Yes. All the time.” Vlad wished he could make his brother understand how much better things worked without murder and mayhem.

  “I don’t like to beat people,
” Ioann confessed. “Papa made me hit Nikolas. It hurt my hand.”

  “That’s because Nikolas was a man grown and you are still a boy.” Vlad reached over and ruffled his brother’s soft hair. “I hope that when you are a man yourself, you will remember what it felt like to hit another man. I hope that you will only hit someone if there is no other answer.”

  “Like on the playground when they don’t give me what I want,” Ioann said darkly.

  “No. That’s actually not a reason to hit someone at all.” Vlad thought of Mary, and of the lessons she was trying to teach this boy. “We don’t hit others just because they don’t give us our way. Who’s to say that their way isn’t better?”

  Ioann looked amazed, as if he’d never before considered that possibility. “I don’t know. How would you be able to tell?”

  “You’re still learning, and so are your friends,” Vlad told him. “So until you know for sure, the best thing to do is to ask a teacher to help you sort it out. Before you hit one of your classmates and wind up back in the principal’s office.”

  “I hate the principal,” Ioann said grouchily. “He yells a lot and makes me stay in for recess for no reason.”

  “I bet it’s not for no reason,” Vlad argued. “If you break the rules, you get sent to the principal. That is the reason. So stop breaking the rules. I know you know what they are.”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “So?”

  Ioann heaved a giant sized sigh. “I suppose I should stop breaking the rules, huh?”

  “Your teacher would very much appreciate that.”

  “Did you meet Miss Reilly?” Ioann asked eagerly.

  “I did.”

  “What did you think of her?”

  “She’s very pretty.”

  Ioann screwed up his face. “Pretty? Eww. That’s silly. I just think she’s really nice.”

  “She is nice,” Vlad agreed. “And now it’s time for second grade boys to go to sleep so they can get up on time to go to school in the morning.”

  “I hate getting up,” Ioann moaned.

  “Which is why you really need your rest.” Vlad got off the bed and turned around. Leaning over, he gave Ioann a hug and tucked him in.

  “Vlad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too, kid.”

  Vlad very carefully closed Ioann’s door behind him. Tatiyana was waiting in the hallway. Her expression was tight. She’d once been a very beautiful woman, but now the stress of her marriage to Sokolov was taking its toll on her looks. Her face was more angular, and her blue eyes were huge in her pale face.

  “He’s fine,” Vlad assured her.

  “Did he…” Tatiyana couldn’t even ask.

  Vlad pursed his lips. “No. I took care of it.”

  “Thank you!”

  “I remember what it was like to be his age in this house,” Vlad said softly. “It’s a hard life. Remember that always. Just keep loving him. It’s the best thing you can do. He needs people to show him that there are good things in this world worth protecting and saving.”

  “I wish I believed that.” She hugged her arms around her midsection. “I left Moscow because I thought I was going to have a wonderful new life here in America. Now I only hope I can get through each day so I can raise my son to be a good man.”

  “You are,” Vlad assured her. “You really are.”

  Chapter Five

  Mary was still feeling jumpy the following morning when she arrived at the school building. It was just getting light outside and the fall air was brisk with the promise of rain. She parked in her usual spot, noting that at least there were half a dozen cars in the lot now instead of just hers.

  She had just made it to her classroom when the school’s principal knocked on the door. Mary set her tote bags down on the floor beside her desk and waved Mr. Johnston into the classroom.

  “What can I do for you?” Mary asked, trying to keep her tone pleasant despite the fact that she didn’t really like Johnston to begin with.

  “I needed to chat with you about one of your students.” Johnston looked grave.

  Mary’s gut tightened. The man usually only looked like this when he was complaining about Ioann Sokolov. And she really didn’t want to talk about any of the Sokolovs this morning. She forced herself to respond in a completely nonchalant tone. “Oh?”

  “Yes. It’s about Bianka Nikaelevich.”

  “Bianka?” Mary frowned. “She’s a wonderful girl. Is she in trouble somehow?”

  “Her mother called the school this morning to say that Bianka won’t be in. It seems her father was somehow killed in an accident on the job last night.”

  Mary froze. It was no secret around school which immigrant families had ties to the mafia. Bianka’s father had been part of the Sokolov organization. The little girl and Ioann Sokolov were good friends, presumably because their fathers “worked together” and the children were allowed to be friends.

  Johnston grimaced. “Yes. We all know exactly what happened to Bianka’s father even though nobody will ever say it out loud. I’m getting awfully sick of these people and their barbaric methods of dealing with each other.”

  “Perhaps they aren’t all what they seem,” Mary murmured.

  “What?” Johnston gaped at her. “I believe you’ve told me repeatedly that you’ve also grown a bit tired of the mafia influence on our area.”

  “I am tired of it,” Mary hastily amended. “I simply feel like we have to recognize that sometimes people have little choice about what sort of profession they wind up in.” She considered the point she was trying to make. “Look at Bianka’s father, for example. Do you think he really wanted to be a part of the mafia? He was a grocer. If we look at the historical perspective, we can probably figure that he couldn’t keep his store going without their help. He either needed a loan the bank wouldn’t give him, or he needed protection that the police couldn’t provide. Unfortunately the mafia fills in those gaps.”

  “I suppose.” Johnston set his jaw angrily. “I just wanted you to be aware that Bianka won’t be here today. Her mother is hoping to send her tomorrow.”

  “So soon?” Mary’s heart went out to the pixielike child with the winsome smile and the curly brown hair. “Shouldn’t she be staying at home with her mother and sisters?”

  “Her mother said that she wants the girls to have some bit of normal in their lives. The family was Russian Orthodox so I’m certain there will be a service of some kind soon.” Johnston was already headed out the door as if he couldn’t wait to be away from their awkward topic of conversation.

  “Keep me posted, if you wouldn’t mind?” Mary requested. “I would like to go to the service if I can, to show my support for the family.”

  “Certainly.” Johnston waved once and then he was gone.

  Mary stood at the window and stared outside. She found the place where Vlad had saved her from the thugs who had attempted to take her purse. He had played the knight in shining armor very well. But any woman would have to be a daft idiot to think that knights only saved damsels. They were also well known for decimating the populations of rival nations. Why would Vlad be any different?

  “Miss Reilly?”

  Mary whirled around, shocked to see Ioann Sokolov standing just behind her. “You’re so early this morning, Ioann.” She gently touched his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

  “Bianka’s father is dead,” Ioann said softly. The expression on his little face suggested he knew more about it than he should.

  “Yes.” Mary struggled to keep her composure. “Principal Johnston just came and told me. Bianka won’t be at school today, but her mother things she’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “I liked her father, Nikolas.” Ioann seemed to be speaking from a desire to process what had happened. His face was pale, his lips bloodless and his eyes vacant. “I didn’t want him to die.”

  “I’m sorry, Ioann.” Mary knelt before the little boy and
took him in her arms. Ioann’s shoulders shook as he cried. “My brother Vlad says that Nikolas was very hurt inside. But I still feel like this is all my fault.”

  “All your fault, sweetheart?” Mary drew back so that she could look him in the face. “Whatever would make it your fault?”

  “I was supposed to shoot him.” Ioann’s expression was one of horror. “Papa put the gun in my hand. Vlad stopped him and took it away.”

  Mary wanted to start screaming and never stop. When Vlad had been trying to explain this to her the night before, she had only barely understood the tip of the iceberg. How could a parent do this to his child? In this case, to both of his children. Because Mary would have to be a fool not to realize what Vlad had probably been forced to do in order to protect his young brother.

  “Vlad loves you,” Mary said firmly. She took several deep breaths to fortify her composure. “He would do anything to protect you. You know that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “This was not your fault.” Mary wanted so badly to make Ioann believe her because she knew it was true. “It would have happened no matter who did it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Vlad just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t you.” Mary pulled Ioann in close and gave him another hug. There was a part of her that never ever wanted to let go.

  ***

  Vlad glanced at his watch. Ioann and his class would be at lunch right now, which meant that it might be possible to catch Mary in her classroom alone. Usually when he came to school at lunchtime, he went directly to find Ioann. Today his brother wasn’t the goal.

  Vlad made his way directly to Mary’s classroom near the back of the school. He could hear other classes in session, the low tones of lectures taking place in the older grades, and the raucous laughter of children who refused to pay attention. Finally he saw Mary’s classroom door. There was a large cartoon frog taped onto the wood and her nameplate had gold stickers for decoration.