Body Checked (Center Ice Book 1) (15 page)

“Watch it,” I mutter in English, but he acts as if he hasn’t even heard me. 

Once we reach the top of the stairs, another set of bodyguards let us through a door, and then lock it shut behind us. We head down a corridor, where a wall of two-way mirroring looks down on the Red Star’s dance floor. Blue and red lights swirl chaotically over the writhing figures below us. With only the distant hum of music, it’s an eerie sight, seeing them move to almost nothing at all. 

Then we reach another set of guards, another set of doors. One of our escorts is holding my purse; he hands it off to one of the guards. Shit. So much for recording this, letting the FBI know where I am. The guards proceed to pat down both Sergei and me, confiscating Sergei’s phone, wallet, and keys as well. 

Then the doors open, and we’re dragged inside. 

“Sergei. Brother. It’s been too long.” 

Vladimir Drakonov stands in the middle of the posh room—marble floors, fluted columns, a domed ceiling covered in what looks like an elaborate Soviet-style mosaic. In a word, gaudy. In two, hideous. Vladimir himself, though—I can’t quite rectify his appearance with the image I’d formed in my mind. He looks like Sergei, with the same strong jaw and cool blue eyes, but his hair is a much lighter shade of brown, and instead of the stubble Sergei favors, he’s pruned his facial hair into a goatee. Where Sergei is all brawn and bulk, Vladimir is lean. Lithe. Like a snake. 

Sergei charges for him, straining against the men holding him in check. He gets one arm loose and swings right for Vladimir’s jaw, but Vladimir easily sidesteps the attack. The goons are on Sergei in an instant, dragging him away. 

“Please. Is this any way to treat your brother after so long?” Vladimir asks. “Such a waste of strength. Of energy.” 

“You were a waste of our mother’s energy. All the times she tried to help you—bail you out of trouble—” 

Vladimir raises one hand, and Big & Tall silences Sergei with a sucker punch to the gut. Sergei doubles forward, but I can’t help but smirk when Big & Tall has to shake out his hand after the punch. I suspect it hurt him at least as much as it hurt Sergei. 

“Please.” Vladimir gestures to the side, to a seating arrangement in one wing of this bizarre cathedral of his. “Have a seat. I understand you were injured in tonight’s hockey game.” 

The guards drag us toward a pair of baroque red velvet chairs and shove me down into the seat. Sergei grimaces as he sits and stretches out his injured leg in front of him. Vladimir plucks a highball of bourbon from a side table and settles into an armchair, facing both of us. 

“That looks unpleasant.” He clucks his tongue, surveying, Sergei’s leg. “But I imagine it will heal quickly. This time. Are you feeling all right?” 

Sergei grimaces. “I’d be feeling a lot better if I didn’t have a rotten dogshit brother.” 

Vladimir turns to me with a scowl. “Now, Miss Pereira. Why do you tolerate such unpleasant language from him? I find it tasteless, myself.” I give him the same blank stare I gave his goons when they tried speaking Russian to me, but he sighs and swirls his glass. “Oh, please, don’t bother playing dumb. I know you’re perfectly fluent.” He takes a sip. The syrupy scent of bourbon fills the air. “I know all about you.” 

My heart is in my throat, but I have to stay calm. Surely he doesn’t know about the FBI. But if he does—oh, god. If he does, I’m as good as dead. 

“You killed her,” Sergei says—so quietly, at first I don’t catch it. My head whips toward him. “You killed our mother. She loved you so much, and she fought so hard for you, and you broke her heart.” 

“It was her choice to chase her regrets to the bottom of a vodka bottle. You can’t blame me for that.” Vladimir’s nostrils flare. “That’s always been your problem, Sergei. For all your talk of being a self-made man, you’re the same as everyone else. A slave to the prevailing winds. And the prevailing winds are to let others dictate your life to you. Mama was the same way.” 

“So now he’s supposed to let you dictate his life to him?” I ask. “That’s your solution?” 

“He could be more than just one of my grunts. Both of you could be.” Vladimir’s gaze turns on me, and I feel my soul shriveling up. His gaze is cold, so much colder than Sergei’s, even with the same eyes, even with the same hard lines to his face. As if someone has chiseled away everything that makes Sergei real. “I imagine you have
some
talents of your own, Miss Pereira, to put a leash on my brother’s infamous cock. At least for a little while.” 

“Fuck you,” I snarl. “I’m sure this is hard for you to understand, but people tend to be
more
loyal to you when you don’t need to leash them.” 

“Unfortunately for the both of you, that’s not a risk I’m willing to take.” He presses his glass to his temple and studies me, that gaze scraping over me like shards of ice. “I admit, though, I’m curious. Why you? You’re no supermodel. No gymnast champion. You’re hardly the usual type of arm candy I see dangling on my brother’s arm.” 

I clench my jaw. “Maybe that’s why. And maybe you don’t know him half as well as you think.” 

Vladimir smiles. “If only there were time. To see just what’s so special about you, Miss Pereira. My guards here, they’ve all purged themselves of familial and romantic ties, you see, and I’m sure they’d appreciate a show—” 

“Don’t you dare touch her,” Sergei says. 

“Oh, she’s safe. For as long as I have your cooperation.” Vladimir’s eyes narrow. “I’m afraid time is short for us. Sergei, you must decide now if you’re willing to cooperate.” Vladimir sets down his drink, and folds his hands over one knee. “Will you deliver my shipment, or not?” 

Sergei lurches forward, but the guards are all over him to hold him down in his chair. “I’m not helping you.” He seethes the words through his teeth. “You’ve gotten along just fine without me so far. All this . . . useless wealth, your little palace built of bones and blood. You don’t need me now, either.” 

Vladimir sighs and uncrosses his legs. “Ah, but I was hoping to expand my operations.” He shrugs. “Oh, well. Suit yourself.”  

Vladimir snaps his fingers, snagging the attention of the guards. I glance toward Sergei, his strained expression, the muscles jutting out of his neck as he strains against the guards’ grips. There has to be a way out of this. Surely the FBI is tailing us. Any minute, Frederica and Chief Ha are going to storm the Red Star with a SWAT team and get us out of here. 

“I tried to warn you, Sergei. Ravik was supposed to give you a hint of my reach, of what more I can do to you if you don’t agree to my demands. But it seems you don’t value your skating career as much as I thought.” 

A shadow falls over me as another guard approaches from behind. 

“So we’ll start with Miss Pereira instead.” Vladimir’s smile curves like a scythe. “Borya, if you would, please.” 

Borya—the biggest and tallest of Vladimir’s thugs—steps around my chair, patting the head of a wrench in his open palm. Bile singes the back of my throat. Whatever he means to do—I don’t like contemplating the possibilities—it’s going to hurt. I know that. I take a deep breath and close my eyes.  

Think, Jael
. As long as I’m still alive, Vladimir has leverage over Sergei. He won’t kill me outright—all my criminal justice studies tell me so. Then he’d lose his leverage. But Vladimir doesn’t exactly follow conventional criminal logic, either. And what if he’s wrong about Sergei? What if my pain isn’t enough to make him comply? 

I have to get out of here. Right now. Before Vladimir hurts me, before Sergei’s forced to agree to something terrible. But there’s eight of them and two of us. I tense my muscles, preparing to spring forward and slip the grasp of the guards holding me down. My kickboxing instincts are pounding in my pulse. But even if I break free, even if I make it past the wall of guards, how long would it take for one of them to pull out his firearm and drop me? 

Seconds. If that. And the door’s a good fifteen-second sprint away. And even if I made it to the door—there’s no telling Sergei would, too. 

I can’t get him killed just so I can be free. And I don’t think he’d do that to me, either. 

“Last chance,” Sergei,” Vladimir says.  

Borya seizes my face in his free hand and swings back with the wrench like a batter preparing to strike. Oh, god. My stomach falls out from under me.  

“Five,” Vladimir says. “Four. Three—” 

“I’ll do it.” The words rush out of Sergei all at once. “Let her go. Let us leave, now, and I promise I’ll make good on the deal.” 

Borya sighs, shoulders sagging. Then he grins, his rotted, decaying breath spilling over me, and swings the wrench back again. I yelp and squeeze my eyes shut, but nothing happens. Trembling, I peel my eyes open again. He’s swung it right up to my temple and stopped. His whole massive body shakes with laughter. 

“Stupid little bitch,” Borya says to himself, and walks away. 

Vladimir’s smile oozes on his face like pus. “How sweet. My little brother’s in love.” 

“Let us go now,” Sergei says. “Right now. If you want me to cooperate—” 

“Relax. You’re free to leave. Borya, Vanya, please see our guests home.” Vladimir unfolds from his armchair. The guards wrench us out of our seats and start dragging us toward the door to his office, but then Vladimir calls out, “Oh, Miss Pereira? One quick word.” 

This is it. I swallow hard, but my throat is closed up, like something’s caught in it. I glance toward Vladimir as he approaches me. 

His hand glides onto my shoulder; he tangles his fingers in my curls. I jerk my head away, trying to get away from his stench of cologne and cigar smoke. How could he look so much like Sergei, yet be so different? He’s like a monster wearing Sergei’s skin, everything hanging off of him just a little wrong. 

“Don’t bother telling your friends about this. Yes?” 

I flinch. He means the FBI. He has to mean them. 

“It won’t do you any good,” Vladimir continues, speaking softly, though every word is dipped in steel. “You’ll find I have friends everywhere.” 

Oh, god. I hadn’t even considered that—that he might have a mole in the Bureau. The very thought makes me want to hurl. But maybe it’s just a bluff; he’s just trying to scare me. All the same, I offer him a curt nod. 

“
Molodtsa
,” he tells me. Good girl—a mockery of Sergei’s pet name for me. 

The guards drag us out of the office, and into the cool early November night, the chill settling into my bones and refusing to leave. 

As soon as we’re back inside Sergei’s townhouse, he checks all the deadbolts, turns on the security system, and calls the private guard agency the team keeps on retainer to set watch on the house. Not that I think it’ll do us a damned bit of good. If Vladimir Drakonov wants into this house, he will bribe, blackmail, and kill whoever he has to in order to get to us. 

Sergei limps into the den and props his injured leg up on the sofa. His skin is sallow; his expression dark. When he casts his eyes toward me, it hurts. I move toward him, squeezing my hands together, unsure what to do or say. 

“Jael,” he whispers, like the very sound of my name pains him. “I’m so sorry. No. Sorry isn’t enough. I never meant for this . . . I never meant for you to get involved . . .” 

I silence him with a gentle kiss to the tip of his nose. Tears brim in the corners of my eyes; I try to hold them back, but one slips down my cheek. Sergei brushes it away with his thumb. 

“I never should have come to America, knowing he was here. I should have been happy to play in the Russian super league. That’s the trouble with greed. It only brings more suffering, in the end.” He groans and slumps back into the couch. “If I hadn’t been greedy for a better deal, a better team, then you never would have gotten hurt.” 

“I also never would have met you,” I point out. 

Sergei grimaces. “Maybe that would have been for the best. Then you wouldn’t have a lunatic trying to hurt you. Threatening—” He chokes up on his words. 

“Hey. No. Stop right now. Listen to me.” I crawl onto the couch beside him and gently turn his face toward mine. “I wouldn’t give up what we’ve shared for anything. Do you understand? Anything at all.” My fingertips run along the rough stubble of his cheeks. Like I’m scrubbing away the image of Vladimir’s face, so similar to Sergei’s. Trying to cling to everything that makes Sergei his own man and not a copy of his older brother. “We’ll find a way to survive this. We’ll find a way to stop him.” 

Sergei brushes my hair back from my face and stares into my eyes. His gaze is soft and molten; his eyes water as his expression loosens. “I love you, Jael.” 

His words fill me up, swelling with joy in my chest. But all too soon, our situation, my secrets, everything punctures that bubble. Still.
This is real.
I say it to myself, over and over again. What we have is real. Everything else, we can overcome. Some day, somehow. 

“I love you too, Sergei.” 

His lips ease into mine, soft as laying his head on a pillow. I kiss him like I’m washing away everything bad and scary in my life. Like I’m coming clean. His fingers tangle in my curls, and our kiss deepens, tongue and teeth and lips and lust, the magnet and fear and ache and hunger pulling us together.