Tatiana

Tatiana
Nikolai’s wife is nothing like I imagined her to be. She’s quiet, but not timid, with an air of hesitance she tries-but fails-to conceal from me.
I’m not sure how I feel about her just yet. She seems innocent, almost unsure about a lot of things but I know better than to underestimate her.
She throws a look over my shoulder catching my eye as she moves. She looks like she wants to tell me something but she bites down on her bottom lip, stopping the words before they could let out. She’s hesitating again.
I want to know what’s going through her mind. Does she suspect the real reason why Nikolai brought her to Russia? The idea nags at me, but I push it aside. That seems very unlikely. From what Nikolai’s told me so far about her, she’s determined not to help him with his plot to murder her father. If she had even the faintest inkling of Nikolai’s true intentions, I have a feeling she wouldn’t be here.
She turns back around and continues to walk In Front of me shaking her head lightly. I purse my lips, kissing my teeth with my tongue. Interesting. Nikolai touches her elbow, grabbing her attention whilst simultaneously stopping her. She raises a brow at him, and I notice the way her body reacts when he steps closer, leaning towards her until his lips are against his ear.
He whispers something to her and pushes something into her hand. A key.
She nods agreeingly although I can tell she wants to say some. She glances in my direction giving me a curious look before stepping back away from him and towards me.
I force back my smile, the action splitting my lips and revealing my teeth.
“I have to go,” she says apologetically, and I nod, taking her empty hand in mine and squeezing it lightly, ensuring my smile never falters.
“It’s fine,” I tell her, not missing the slight twitch in Nikolai’s jaw as he watches my hand linger on her skin. I’ll send you the bridesmaid’s schedule and come pick you up tomorrow for the spa day. No excuses.” I add with a playful smile and she actually giggles.
I had asked Ava for her number shortly after we’d stepped into the lobby. Nikolai was quick to step in, of course, and insisted that I send him the schedule instead. Luckily for me, the new Mrs Volkov isn’t one to shy away from what she wants and gave me not just her number but her email address as well.
A single light flickers near the pathway leading to Nikolai’s and Ava’s guest house, casting a half-mast shadow across the neatly trimmed lawn.
The guesthouse was just a few steps away from where Nikolai and I stood behind her receding figure, and after I watched her enter the house, I turned to the scowling man a few feet away, placing a hand on my hip.
“What is it?” I ask feigning ignorance. I know exactly what’s troubling him.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to touch my wife?” he snarls, casting me a menacing look.
I raise a brow, refusing to be intimidated by him, “oh that,” I say with a dismissive flick of my wrist. “Why didn’t you tell me your wife was so…” I drag the word, watching as the scowl on his face morphs into a full-on glare “Pretty.” I finish my tone dripping with mockery.
Nikolai wasn’t the kind of person who easily got worked up over someone. The not-so-subtle glare he’d thrown my way as I’d embraced his wife at the airport was honestly unexpected and very unNikolai of him. It was honestly amusing how a smile his wife had given me was enough to tear at his crafted exterior.
Growing up I had convinced myself that the man was either made of steel, concrete or any other hard material littering the earth with how little I’d seen an emotion other than a scowl grace his face l.
“Don’t test me, Tatiana”, he warns, and I shrug casually, flashing a grin at the way the muscle in his jaw twitches.
Nikolai is the only person other than my grandmother who knows about my sexuality. Being a bisexual woman and the daughter of the third most influential man in the Russian mafia isn’t exactly an easy thing to navigate. With very few people in our world being able to fully grasp the concept that a woman like myself, who was strong and independent with a killer aim and superb hacking skills, could easily take on both genders on the battlefield and in bed, I was prepared to carry my secret to the grave.
But then Nikolai caught me with a girl I’d introduced to the family as my best friend.
Needless to say, having the man my father was desperate to set me up with walk in on me receiving head to my lover was not how I’d expected to celebrate my seventh birthday.
I expected him to out me to my father but he didn’t. He kept my secret, and for that, I’d always be grateful to him because if he had ‘, t, I’d probably be lying in a shallow grave somewhere.
“Easy tiger. I told you that I have no interest in your wife. I’m a one-dick girl now, remember?” I say placing a hand on my chest in mock pledge.
Nikolai eyes me sceptically but doesn’t respond with the retort I know he wants to.
“Right”, he responds dryly, and I narrow my eyes at him.
“Honest to God.” I say, kissing two fingers and raising them to the sky “Christian’s changed me.”
When I first met my soon-to-be husband, Christian, I didn’t know what to expect of him. He was my father’s bodyguard and I wanted to fuck him. Badly. I knew that there was no way he’d agree to sleep with me because, to him, I was just the daughter of the man he was protecting. So I did what any self-respecting girl in my shoes, desperate to have her pussy fucked by the man of her dreams, would do.
I begged him.
I almost laugh now at the distant memory of me on my knees after taking his cock in my mouth, begging him to fuck me in my father’s office seven months ago. He’d wasted no effort in tugging my dress up and bent me over my father’s desk before sinking his rock-hard length in my waiting heat.
We did it everywhere after that. And then before either of us realized it, what first started as a quick tumble in the sheets started to turn into something else. Something more.
We fell in love.
I had initially expected my father to oppose our engagement but he surprised me by doing something neither of us anticipated: he accepted it. No objections, no demands, no confrontations. He simply… allowed it. Allowed us.
Nikolai snaps a hand in my face and I blink, nearly jumping from my skin when I meet his gaze. Crap. He’d asked me something and I wasn’t listening.
“Your brain seems elsewhere tonight, Tati”, he says, his tone observant. My smile drops at the sound of the nickname he used to call me when we were children. A nickname he knows I’ve always despised.
“I’m sorry my attention span isn’t to your liking, Pakhan, (Boss).” I retort back at him, irritation sweeping my voice. He licks his bottom lip, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Nikolai has always been observant. Even as children he would notice things that most people didn’t. It was something I’ve always admired about him.
“Have you found anything yet?” he asks, his voice low but sharp with expectation. I shake my head, frustration bubbling in my chest. Marcus Blackwood is one tough fucker to find. I’ve tried everything, scored every database but it’s like he just vanished.
“I did look into his son, though, like you requested”, I say, and I notice the slight interest that creeps into his brows.
“And?”
“And nothing.” I shrug, sliding my hands into my pocket, “He wasn’t helping his father hide like you thought he was”, I say.
Aaron Blackwood is the only son of Marcus Blackwood and the complete opposite of his father. While his father preferred to lie, steal and cheat to get what he wanted, Aaron preferred to go the clean route. He’d started his weapons supply ring a couple of months back, and so far, no one’s had any complaints. Yet.
“I did find one thing strange”, I say, and Nikolai quirks a brow.
“What?”
“He’s been missing for about a month now. According to what I found out, he was supposed to drop off a shipment for a small gang in London, but he never showed up.”
I say, recalling the information I’d dug up earlier, “No one knows where he went and according to his girlfriend it isn’t like him to disappear without a trace”
“Girlfriend?”
I nod, “At least I thought she was. She wasn’t really forward with a label so now I’m thinking she’s more of a fuck buddy to him” I say,
He turns to me, his eyes sharp, “Can you find her father before the week runs out?” he asks, and I want to give him a definite answer, but I can’t. Ava being here was supposed to up our chances of luring him out but now I’m not so sure.
Marcus was doing an incredible job with the whole disappearing act and while I’m sure he loves his daughter, I don’t think he loves her enough to try to save her.
Marcus and my father weren’t exactly on good terms, so if word got back to him that his daughter was attending the wedding of the man’s daughter, he’d double-crossed all those years ago, like I hoped it would; chances are that he wouldn’t do anything now.
“He’s gone, Nikolai,” I tell Nikolai, “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to track him again.”
Nikolai doesn’t respond immediately so I know he’s weighing our options and probably formulating another plan in his mind. Killing Marcus Blackwood has been on Nikolai’s agenda since the moment his brother was laid to rest three years ago. I doubted that there was anywhere the fucker could run to that Nikolai wouldn’t tear apart.
“I’m supposed to meet up with one of my informants after my spa day Tomorrow.” I continue, “I’ll be sure to keep you posted on what I find,” I say.
If there was one person who could give me any useful information I could use to track Marcus and possibly Aaron, it was Carl. Carl was my second pair of eyes and ears, at least in Russia, and if it weren’t for the fact that my father didn’t trust people outside the Bratva I would have recruited him long ago. He’s that good at what he does.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” He says, and I hate how observant he is.
My lips press together, and I force out a harsh breath, “I wasn’t going to say anything until I was sure, but..” I pause and fish my cell phone from my pocket and open the image gallery before swiping to the image I’d spent the last two nights deciphering.
I hand my cell phone over to him and watch as a slight crease forms on his brows before he takes the device from my hand.
His eyes stare at the image, his gaze flicking back and forth until a slight crease in his brows tells me he recognises something
He glances back at me with a look that asks me if I’m sure about this, and I nod, tapping my fingers lightly.
“What is this?” He asks.
“That is Aaron’s house in London and the place he just so happens to have been when he was kidnapped.”
“You think Aaron was kidnapped?”
I nod, “I know he was. A man like Aaron doesn’t just up and leave without informing anybody. Up until three months ago, he kept regular contact with his father and his sister, but then he stopped calling home. Didn’t your wife find it strange that she hasn’t heard from her brother in the last month?”
“She has” he mutters so low I barely hear it.
I lift a brow, “What?”
“She’s heard from him. He texts her regularly.”
That can’t be right, I’m sure he’s missing.
“And she showed you this?” I ask not entirely convinced.
He shakes his head, “She mentioned it on the plane, she said she’ll text him when we land”
“Make sure she doesn’t because whoever has been replying to her isn’t her brother,” I say and nod towards the device in his hand.
“If you look at the spot just beside the chair there’s a bit of blood by the side. I barely noticed it at first” His eyes roam the picture and I know by the looks in his eyes he’s seen it too.
“Shamrock,” he mutters, the weight of the realisation sinking in.
A shamrock is one of the three symbols used by the Irish mob. It’s a symbol of ownership by the mob and a marking only reserved for those in their shit list. Which apparently Aaron Blackwood was part of.
“When Aaron went missing this was the only thing left behind.”
The Irish mob were very particular about what they did. They weren’t sloppy and their leader wasn’t the kind of person who would allow something like this to be left behind at the crime scene.
“Do You have any idea what this means?” He asks and I nod.
“It means that Aaron Blackwood fucked around and found out just how dangerous the Irish mob really is”