Sins of the Father (18 page)

Mackie began to heave the body outside onto the step, leaving a trail of blood from the wound in the man’s head.

Townsend offered his hand to Kael. “That was remarkable. Thank God you were here.”

Kael looked at him and shrugged, but he took his hand. “It’s my job. You should go back inside the dining room while we clean up this mess.” He threw a negligent glance at the dark blood trail. “No one in there should be any the wiser.”

The man obeyed at once, ushering Romodanovsky away. At the dining room door, the Russian turned back, looking Kael in the eye. Ignoring him, Kael spoke into the PTT. “I want every one of you in the entrance hall except Thornton. You keep your eye on both men in the dining room. There’s been a breach, and I’m not best pleased.”

* * * *

“You saved my life, Kael Saunders.”

Sitting in an armchair in the corner of Romodanovsky’s bedroom, Kael watched the Russian removing his watch and jewelry before loosening his tie. The shock of the police commissioner’s mistaking him for Romodanovsky’s son still had Kael completely on edge.

“You could be my son.” Romodanovsky stretched out in a comfortable chair. “You are the image of me, according to the police commissioner.”

“We’re both tall. It means nothing,” Kael said.

The door to the adjoining bedroom opened, but Kael did not flinch. Dmitri was in there, and Thornton was outside his door, so all was well.

“What do you want?” Romodanovsky asked without looking at his son. There was no affection in his tone or choice of words.

Dmitri also spoke perfect English with only a very slight accent. “A closer look at the man who passes for your son better than I do.” He looked Kael up and down.

“He went to Cambridge like you. I’ll bet he got a first.” Romodanovsky looked at Kael. “Did you?”

“Of course I did,” Kael said.

“Dmitri will also get a first. He is very bright despite his other failings. He is possibly the brightest of my five sons, even if he does act like an idiot much of the time.”

Well-masked anger made the younger man’s jaw clench very slightly. Had Kael not been so good at reading body language, he would never have noticed. Dmitri Romodanovsky probably spent a good deal of time suppressing his anger at his father’s insults. “Five? Those are just the legitimate ones.” Approaching Kael, he asked, “Who are your parents?”

Kael had no intention of discussing his private life. When he did not respond, Romodanovsky looked at his son. “Get out.”

The young man, who was no more than twenty-one years old despite his thinning hair, turned to leave. It was obvious he was used to obeying his father without question. “You could pass as his bastard son more easily than I pass as his legitimate son,” he said over his shoulder as a parting shot.

On his feet quicker than Dmitri could take a step out of his way, Kael gripped the young man by his upper arm and dragged him across the room. The adjoining door had been left open, and Kael shoved him through and closed the door on him. Attempting to look calmer than he felt, he returned to his seat.

Romodanovsky laughed and rose to pour them both a whisky. “I would be proud of a son like you. When I am president of Russia, which I will be in the next few years, I would make you my deputy. The way you stepped in and killed that piece of shit who tried to assassinate me, you remind me of myself. Decisive. A man of action.”

Against his own protocol, Kael took the whisky and tossed it back. Often he had wondered who his father was, but he had never obsessed on it. His mum was so great, why would he worry about a dad? But he was getting angry. He wasn’t sure why the whole thing was affecting him so deeply.

“I’m nothing like you,” Kael said. “But I am highly trained. That man was looking at you while reaching inside his coat. I was ninety-nine percent certain that he had a weapon, and it’s my job to protect you.”

“You have instinct and intuition. All the specialized training in the world cannot give you that. And of course, ruthlessness. You are utterly ruthless. Just like me.”

That was true. He has always been ruthless.

The man never took his eyes off Kael, looking at him in a way that was sometimes sexual and other times merely curious. “If you were my son, I’d have named you Arkadiy, after me.”

“Why don’t you go to sleep,” Kael said.

“I won’t sleep for hours yet, but I have some work to do.”

An ornate antique desk stood in the window. Romodanovsky sat at the desk, switched on the lamp, and focused on his work the way Kael always focused on his. No matter what the distraction, nothing ever kept him from work, either when he was at school or training with SIS. The man’s life had been threatened. He could have died, and yet he was completely unperturbed as he focused calmly on his work for the next hour or so.

A light tap on the door brought Kael to his feet. Stepping out into the landing, he found Angel waiting for him, looking pale and drawn. Kael looked up and down to ascertain that no one but Thornton could see them. She was outside Dmitri’s door fifteen feet away. “You should have used your PTT,” Kael said, pulling him into a quick hug.

“Sorry, Sir. I keep forgetting I’m wearing it. I’m really wiped.” His voice sounded a bit whiny, the way it always did when Angel was overtired.

“I showed you where the room is. Get some sleep and keep your PTT on.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” Angel whispered and kissed him lightly on the lips before hurrying off.

A small
humph
behind him made Kael turn to see the door open a crack and Romodanovsky watching him. He closed the door when their gazes met.

Christ! That was stupid
. He had told Angel not to call him Daddy. Not to look at him with anything but professional interest, and then he was the one who had broken his own rule. He looked at Mattie, who rose to approach him. “Give Angel four hours, then wake him and swap places.”

“Yes, sir. What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“You know, that really was weird, sir,” Mattie said.

“What?” Kael looked down at her.

“What the Met commissioner said about you looking like Mr. Romodanovsky. Thinking you were his son and all that. You look more like him than Dmitri. You could be his son.”

Taking a sharp breath to control the inexplicable anger that surged within him, Kael said through gritted teeth, “No, I could not.”

God only knew how his face looked in that moment, because Mattie’s registered extreme uneasiness. Kael realized he had leaned down into her face when he said it. He backed off at once.

“Sir, I’m sorry.”

After that overreaction, he didn’t want to risk speaking again and went back into Romodanovsky’s bedroom to find the Russian sitting comfortably in a chair as if waiting for him. He held a glass of whisky in his hand and had placed another beside the chair where Kael had stationed himself in the corner of the room. Kael sat but ignored the whisky. He shouldn’t have had the first one.

“So that’s what you like. Sweet, innocent, pretty boys? Is that why you refused me? Too old?”

“I refused you because I never fuck on the job.” The knowing smile on the man’s face was making Kael hate him. “And you’re right. I don’t fancy you.”

“Do you live with that boy?”

“I don’t do anything with him. He’s a new trainee, and I’m looking out for him, that’s all.”

Romodanovsky laughed in a way that made Kael want to hit him. Like he knew it was all a lie. “Like a father? You hugged and kissed him?”

“Go to bed, old man.” If he showed any emotion, this man would see it as a weakness. Romodanovsky was getting to him in a way he never let anyone but Angel get to him. All the emotions and normal human responses that he had slowly suppressed over the years, starting after that summer with Shawn, had come back since Angel had been in his life. He was opening up, becoming human again. But allowing his emotions to surface so that he could love Angel the way the boy deserved to be loved had left him open to other emotions as well.

“You could be my son, Kael. I wish you were.”

Across the room, an ornate gold carriage clock sat under a glass dome. Kael focused on the second hand and went into the zone. Not a muscle moved, he barely blinked, and his breathing settled into a steady rhythm of deep, slow breaths. For a long time, Romodanovsky watched him. Kael was neither disturbed nor self-conscious. When he was in the zone, he was a shark, alert to everything but showing nothing.

At last the man got up and began to undress. Kael watched him in his peripheral vision as he stripped and got into bed naked, his lean, rangy body moving with ease and strength. When he switched out the lights, the darkness was comforting.

The Russian rolled onto his side, his voice disturbing the darkness. “Are you sure I cannot interest you in a little sex? No? I doubt it would work anyway. We would both want to be on top.”

Kael did not answer.

Chapter Ten

“Sir, I’m sorry I upset you last night.”

“It’s all right, Mattie. Forget it.”

Kael had taken twenty minutes away from Romodanovsky while the man was in a meeting with Townsend and the Met commissioner, with Dmitri acting as his father’s secretary. They were in the small study, and he had stationed Mackie outside the door, leaning in close as he said,
“You screwed up once. That’s why I know you’ll never do it again. If anyone enters that room, I’ll put a bullet through your brain stem and then I’ll decapitate you and send your head home to your wife in a box.” A sweat had broken out on the man’s face the closer Kael got to him.

“Yes, sir. I know you will,”
he had said.

Mattie went on, “It must have been more embarrassing for his gormless son than you. That bloke’s only twenty-one or so, and he looks thirty-five. It must be hard having a father like that to live up to.”

The way Romodanovsky had treated his son spoke volumes. Yes, the man would be a hell to have for a dad.

“Do you look like your dad?” Mattie sipped her coffee, looking up at him with the innocent curiosity with which Angel often looked at him.

“I don’t know. I’ve never met him. He didn’t stick around.”

Dismay plastered over her face, Mattie said, “Oh God, I’m sorry, sir. I just keep putting my foot in it.”

Feeling sorry for her, Kael smiled. “Don’t worry about it. I never have. I’ve got a lovely mother.” Changing the subject quickly, he said, “Have you been on a date with Hotchkiss yet?”

A frown creased her forehead. “We haven’t really had time, what with work and everything.”

“Let me know how it goes when you do.”

“I will, sir.”

“Come on. I don’t really trust Mackie as hard as I’m trying to. I want you following Dmitri around all day.” They made their way downstairs to the narrow hallway where Mackie stood to attention. “First I’m going to send Angel outside to do a perimeter walk. He gets fidgety when he’s inside too long.”

Kael pressed his PTT and gave his orders for the day to his team.

* * * *

Romodanovsky returned to his rooms to get ready for dinner, and though it was just a formality, Kael checked the bedroom and adjoining bathroom, going through Dmitri’s room as well before returning to Romodanovsky. “It’s all clear.”

“I don’t think there is much danger to me now,” Romodanovsky said.

“No, not after the bollocking the Met commissioner gave his security officers for letting that bloke through yesterday. They’ve tightened up the perimeter so much you could probably wander the gardens alone in perfect safety—but I won’t let you.”

Romodanovsky pulled off the casual wool sweater he wore over his shirt. “It is heartening to know that you care.”

“I don’t. You’re just a job to me.”

“You sent the pretty blonde girl outside to walk with my son. Dmitri would be far more interested in your little boy than the girl.”

“He’s not my boy. I don’t know what you thought you saw yesterday.”

The Russian laughed. “I know exactly what I saw. I am going to lie in the whirlpool bath for a while. My muscles are tight. Would you care to join me?”

“If I was your son, would you still ask me?” He wondered just how far outside the norm the man would go.

“But you are not my son.”

“Another time, perhaps.” Kael looked thoroughly bored, but the man’s constant innuendos were getting to him. Romodanovsky proceeded to remove his clothes before walking naked into the bathroom. Kael stood at the door long enough to watch him get into the bath and turn on the jets. For safety he left the door open before going quietly into Dmitri’s room. He didn’t even know what he was looking for.

The young man’s schoolbooks were out on the desk. In the wardrobe, an evening suit and a few casual clothes took up very little space. A leather-bound book beside the bed caught Kael’s eye.
He keeps a diary like me? What’s his reason?

Opening the book, Kael flipped through it. It was written in Russian. The Romodanovskys had returned to Russia full-time more than ten years ago, so Dmitri had largely grown up there. Going to the most recent entry, Kael read:

This bodyguard my father has been talking about constantly this last week looks more like him than I do. My father seems obsessed with the idea that this man is one of his many illegitimate offspring. The resemblance is remarkable, I must admit. From observing the man, I would say he is also like my father in his character.

Sitting on the side of the bed, Kael closed the book and tossed it back on the bedside table.

Talk about Angel getting fidgety! Kael felt like he needed to go for a ten-mile run just to get the agitation out of his muscles. He hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, and yet he had so much energy racing around his system he felt ready to explode. Pacing the room, he found nothing more of interest and was about to grab the diary again to see what else Dmitri had to say about him when an odd noise issued from the other side of the wall. Becoming utterly still, he listened. Was Romodanovsky muttering to himself, or had Kael screwed up as badly as Mackie?

In several long paces, he was in the bedroom. It was empty. But the bathroom door that he had left open was now closed. Silently Kael removed his gun from its holster and opened the door. On the black-and-white tiled floor, Romodanovsky lay on top of a struggling woman. The muscles in his buttocks and back worked furiously while he held one hand over the woman’s mouth to stifle her cries.