Crash into Me: A BWWM Russian Billionaire Romance (16 page)

“Alright,” he said slowly, keeping his face impassive. “So he was a bastard.”

“What?” the man looked shocked that his words hadn’t had more of an impact.

“That’s what you’re saying, yes? That my father was a bad man? That people were lining up to kill him? Fine. Accepted. Now tell me who did it and why they’re after me now.”

“I’m not naming names,” the man replied, leaning back as much as he could. “All I’m gonna say is that people don’t like history repeating itself. One family stays in power for too long and they tend to want to see that family fall, you get me? Here, Russia, it doesn’t matter. Same people are all involved. You can blame your father and his father before him for the way things are.”

The tension in the room was thick, and didn't seem like it was going to abate any time soon. Vera had yet to say a word, but Alexei could feel the way her body was stiff and knew she was biting her tongue and letting him handle this. He was grateful for that, although he now felt very much out of his depth. If what this man was saying was true, and there was very little doubt in his mind that it was, then there were so many years of this to undo. It was a daunting prospect, but he was an Alexandrov, and the last thing they ever did was give up.

"Fine," Alexei said, and he got to his feet. "You can consider me informed."

The man arched his eyebrows, clearly surprised. "That's it? You're not going to demand I tell you who's behind all this?"

Alexei shrugged. "What would be the point? If it's not you and whoever you're working for, it would just be someone else. Clearly I'm going to have to deal with this at the root of the problem. Thank you for your time."

He turned to head for the door, Vera following him with a bemused smile on her face. Just as he was reaching for the door handle, the man spoke again.

"There's more than one way to topple an empire, you know," he said casually. "Everybody thinks you have to go for the person on top, get him out of the way. But sometimes the easier way to do that is to snatch up something he cares about."

Alexei froze, but didn't turn around. "Excuse me?"

"I'm just saying. I wonder if that girl you hang around with knows just how dangerous being close to you is."

Rage and fury battled inside of him in that split second, and Alexei wanted to turn around and make it very clear what would happen if someone dared to hurt someone he was close to. But he wasn't going to allow this man to see him rattled. He grasped the door handle and pulled the door open, stepping out into the outer room.

Marlowe looked up, eyebrows raised. "No names?" he asked, looking disappointed.

"I don't need names," Alexei replied. "Everything that man said was true. If you want to catch the people responsible then follow me around for a bit. I'm sure they're just lying in wait."

“What happens now?” Vera asked as they made their way from the police station.

Alexei shrugged and sighed, slumping his shoulders and raking a hand down his face. “I have no idea, honestly,” he said. “As much as I hate to say it, I think we’re stuck waiting for them to make another move.”

Vera wrinkled her nose. “I do not like that idea at all.”

“I know. It’s not my favorite thing either, but we don’t know where they are or who’s involved, and sitting there trying to pump information out of that guy in there wasn’t going to get us anywhere,” he said, jerking his thumb back in the direction of the building they had just exited. “I’m going to call Emma and tell her to be on her guard, and then I think we should get some lunch.”

“Eat food. That’s your brilliant solution?”

Alexei laughed and slung an arm over his sister’s shoulders. “Not a solution, just a necessary pit stop. We’ll figure something out.”

Instead of driving back to his place, which Alexei honestly didn’t want to deal with, or going to some fancy restaurant, they went to the closest fast food establishment with a drive thru. Vera arched an eyebrow at him like he was crazy, but Alexei ordered her a double cheeseburger anyway.

He paid and accepted the food and pulled out of the drive thru to head back into traffic when suddenly the car jolted and the sound of metal on metal ripped through the air as another car smashed right into the back of his.

He had enough time to appreciate the irony of how many car accidents were coloring his life lately before he realized that this was probably no accident.

His eyes widened, and he pulled into traffic, swearing under his breath.

“What just happened?” Vera demanded.

“One guess.”

Chapter 11: Crashing and Falling

Vera swore explosively, and Alexei almost slammed on his brakes in surprise. He’d never heard his sister curse like that before, in English
or
Russian, but there wasn’t time for gawking and being impressed. A quick glance in the rearview mirror proved that they were still being pursued by the vehicle that had crashed into them, and unless something was seriously wrong, the car wasn’t the only one in pursuit. Two SUVs had melted out of the traffic and were flanking them on either side, one in each lane.

“Well, this is just dandy,” Alexei muttered. The last thing he wanted to do was get into some fight in cars in the middle of a busy highway, but he definitely wasn’t going to lead them back to his place or to Emma’s.

Thinking about Emma made him remember, and he swore again, using the voice command to have the car phone call her number. As he’d expected, it went to her voicemail since she was working, and he decided that leaving a quick message was just going to have to do.

“Hey, Emma, it’s Alexei,” he said. “Vera and I went to the police station today and we found out some things that I’ll fill you in on later. I’m mostly calling to let you know that you need to be careful. I don’t think anything’s going to happen, but they know that you’re with me, and if anything happens to you, I’m going to be very upset. Keep your eyes open and call me if you think anything suspicious is going on, alright? I’ll talk to you soon. Bye.”

When the call disconnected, Vera looked at him. “Not going to mention what just happened?”

Alexei swerved, taking the exit for what he hoped would be a less densely populated part of the city. “That we’re being chased by some weirdos who probably want to kill us?” he asked, glancing in his mirror again and putting on speed. “No need to worry her, right?”

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll thank you for sparing her the worry when they dig our remains out of the wreckage,” Vera muttered.

“Hey. We’re going to be fine,” Alexei insisted. “We will. We just need to get away from areas where other people could get hurt.”

“So noble.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

Vera visibly sulked. “
No
, but I’d like not to-” Whatever she was about to say was cut off by one of the SUVs ramming into her side of the car with a horrible scraping sound and the whole thing shuddering.

“Are you okay?” Alexei asked, and his fingers were white knuckled on the steering wheel. As much as he wanted to reassure his sister that they were going to get out of this, they were running out of options. There were three vehicles at least on them, and if they decided they wanted to run them off the road or smash the car to bits, they probably could.

Vera looked shaken up but alright, and she nodded, eyes wide. “Alexei-” she started, but he cut her off with a curt nod.

“I know. Vera, in the glove compartment is a gun. I want you to get it.”

“What?” She asked, eyes even wider if that was possible. “I can’t-”

“You have to. I’m not going to let them kill us today. Take the gun and call the police.”

“Wh-what are you going to do? What’s happening?”

They were far away enough from the main part of the city that the medians were grass instead of concrete and along the side of the road were stretches of wildflowers and gentle hills. He was willing to bet that if he let Vera out there, none of the people following them would chase her, but if they did, she’d have the gun and an advantage.

He’d have to slow down enough for her not to hurt herself, but when he relayed the plan to her, determination filled her eyes, and she nodded. “Be careful,” she said, and when the car slowed enough that she wasn’t going to break her neck, she opened the door and leapt out onto the grass and clover, rolling for a bit before she got to her feet and took off running.

As soon as he saw that she was alright, Alexei gunned the engine and put his foot on the gas, speeding up and letting the momentum slam Vera’s door closed.

“Okay,” he said. “Now what do I do?”

Getting his sister out of the car had been his first priority and now that he knew she was more or less alright, he needed to figure out how to either outrun these people or get them to stop chasing him.

Well. One way to get them to stop chasing was to stop running, and though the idea was absolutely insane, he didn’t really have any other plans. “I hope I live long enough to regret this,” he muttered and brought his car to a screeching halt on a dead end road.

There were no other cars around, and nothing to see but hills and grass and the highway up above. Alexei hoped that Vera had called the cops because otherwise he was screwed. He got out of the car and went to stand in the grass, getting his bearings for a second.

It didn’t take long for his assailants to catch up, one right after the other. Luckily, from what he could tell there, were only two people in the SUVs and one person in the car, though that still had him outnumbered five to one.

The car that had hit his came to a stop in front of his car, and then, in what was clearly a move powered by pure vindictiveness, it rolled forward just enough to hit his car again.

Alexei glared.

As it turned out, the car was being driven by a woman, and she got out after a moment, dressed in all black with blonde hair pulled over one shoulder. She didn’t seem any worse for the wear from the collision, and Alexei could feel his neck twinging with pain from where it had snapped forward when she’d rammed her car into his.

She was tall and pale, and definitely Russian, and Alexei had no doubt that whatever this was, it was something personal between her and his father. She looked like she was around his mother’s age, definitely old enough to have been hurt by his father before Alexei was born or when he was a child and still ignorant to all of this.

“Ah, Mr. Alexandrov,” she said, voice heavily accented. “So we finally meet.”

“Mr. Alexandrov was my father,” Alexei couldn’t help pointing out. “But, then I’m sure you already knew that judging from all this.”

Her lovely face twisted into a mask of anger, and Alexei made a mental note to find out what exactly it was his father had done to her.

“Oskar Alexandrov deserves to burn in hell,” she spat, accent so thick with her anger that Alexei almost couldn’t understand her. “He was a liar and a murderer, and nothing he did deserved to be celebrated. You think you knew your father, boy? You know
nothing
of your father.”

“I’m beginning to see that,” Alexei said softly. “Look, whatever your issue was with him, you got your revenge, or someone did. He’s dead now. Don’t you think you could let all of this go?” He wasn’t counting on a positive response to that, but it was worth a shot, right? If nothing else, keeping her ranting and spewing venom at him would hopefully kill time until the police got there. “What did he do to you?”

“My father was a scientist,” she answered, surprising Alexei immensely. He hadn’t expected her to respond. “He worked hard for everything he had, and your father was young and reckless when he took over the part of your family’s business that dealt with technology and science. The part that has always been responsible for making things to go into space or to be used in crafts. Your father found out that my father knew too much about how business was run. About the bribes and dirty money. And he had him killed.”

Alexei winced. “I’m sorry.”

“S
orry?
You are
sorry
?” she asked, sounding incredulous. “Sorry will not bring my father back. Sorry will not make it so my mother didn’t have to cry all night and then sell every nice thing we owned to keep us with food. Your sorry means nothing to me.” She spat on the ground and took a step closer to him, anger simmering in her eyes. “Your father deserved to die, and you deserve to die right alongside him.”

Suddenly, she was reaching into her pocket and there was a very real gun pointed at his head.

For the first time since all of this had started, real fear curled in his belly. Alexei had always been aware of how dangerous this all was, especially when they’d started shooting at his apartment, but he hadn’t really realized that he was in a lot of danger. Somehow the thought that they might
actually
want to kill him had seemed farfetched, but staring down the barrel of a gun definitely put things in perspective.

She could kill him in less than a second if she wanted to. She could pull that trigger and splatter his brains across the pavement and have the revenge she wanted. And then maybe she’d go after Vera and his mother, as well.

All Alexei knew was that he didn’t want to die there. He didn’t want to die in the middle of a dead end road before he’d even had a chance to do anything with himself, to make anything of himself.