"Grandfather."
"Three men." Photos were thrown down, black and white's of dead men. "That is a declaration of war. You do not declare war!"
Although Nik knew that, the restriction irritated him. A damn obedient dog. "It was not my call."
Grandfather narrowed his eyes. "Don't bullshit me,
Nikolay. They were asking about your Tatyana."
Nik sat down one seat away. "I'm not displeased they're dead." Joey Chan had been a pain in his ass for half a decade. "But I can't take the credit." He picked up the photos.
"You're being given the credit." Two rapid puffs on the cigar. "The other families deny involvement."
An unknown entity. Tatyana. A death curse. "And we will do the same." Three clean executions.
"He won't believe us."
He wouldn't. "I'll convince him." Nik would wait until Pavel gathered all the information he could, planting a seed of doubt in Chan's paranoid brain, then he'd pay a visit to ask his own questions. If this was a possible threat to the brat, he wanted to be prepared.
"Carefully," Grandfather warned him. "Chan has always been a hothead and since the incident with his wife..." A shrug. The man was unstable. "We don't want a war, Nikolay.
There are no winners in a war."
A big man slid into the booth next to hers. That was the third person to not-so-casually drop by to talk to her bodyguard.
Something was going on.
She came to that realization with this morning's phone call, with the way an exhausted Nikky threw on yesterday's clothes without showering, the way he stormed out the door.
He knew. Boris knew. No one would tell her. Arrogant asses.
That was why she chose to eat breakfast here, in the coffee shop, instead of in her room.
She wanted to be as prepared as they were.
"Your paper, miss." The waitress set it on her table.
"Thank you, Lucy."
Tatyana dabbed sour cream on her blini, a breakfast she hadn't had since her mother died, and unfolded the newspaper. Out of habit, she turned to the obituaries. She munched on the mini pancakes, reading. No familiar names. That, at least, was reassuring.
She flipped through, noticing that yet another huge man joined Boris in his booth. If only she could hear what they were saying. But, the coffee shop was noisy and they were talking so quietly, she couldn't.
Tatyana focused on the news. The President was in hot water again, the media gunning for him, a train derailed in Oregon, nowhere she'd been recently, protesters at the Global Summit causing a ruckus. Oh, damn. The paper trembled in her hands. There on page three, under the headline 'Nurse Brutally Murdered' was a picture of the admittance nurse, the one who did the paperwork for the pregnant woman.
Tatyana dropped her fork, her appetite gone. She knew what she had to do, her father having drilled the routine into her. She had to leave. To stay here would mean more death, would mean...Nikky's handsome face filled her mind. No, she had to go.
Now. Two dark suited men stood at Boris' booth, blocking his view. She got to her feet and walked slowly and steadily, with no eye-catching rapid movements, out the coffee shop door. She joined a group of noisy tourists as they moved to the bus entrance, her lack of height camouflaging her. The security guard at the door didn't give them a second glance.
A yellow taxi rolled past. She flagged it down, ran to catch up to it, and...
Her mouth was covered, her waist grabbed. As she struggled, she was tossed into a vehicle, face down onto a leather seat. She straightened. An Asian man around Nikky's age, dressed in a dark suit, wearing sunglasses in the darkened limo, his face severely pockmarked, sat across from her.
"You must be Kaerta's Tatyana." Boredom flattened his voice.
She didn't know him. How did he know her? Unless... "You must be Joey Chan," she guessed.
He nodded. Joey Chan, the man Maggy feared would kill her. Had death chosen her at last?
They stared at each other in awkward silence until finally he spoke. "No begging for mercy?"
From a man who killed his own wife? "Would that help?"
He laughed. "No." She didn't think so. Chan stared at her, tapping his fingers on the side of the car door, intrigue sharpening his face. "You're not as beautiful as I thought you'd be."
What the hell? "Sorry to disappoint you." Ass. Tatyana dismissed him and his insults, turning to look out the window. The doors were locked, quenching her temptation to do a secret agent roll right onto the pavement.
"I didn't say I was disappointed. More like...surprised. I thought..." He must have decided against sharing whatever it was he was going to say, as he stopped talking. The irritating tapping continued. "The baby?"
She swung her head back, meeting his gaze. "Dead." It was likely, by now. Weariness spread over her. Death had found the nurse; the baby would have been next, a life so short, she wouldn't make the news. "Didn't stand a chance."
A flicker of something in his cold eyes. "Boy or girl?"
"A sweet little baby girl."
His shoulders eased down. "That's something, at least." He was relieved, relieved because a precious boy hadn't died. Male chauvinistic ass. "How did you know her?"
"I didn't, or I wouldn't have admitted her under my name." Was that true? She didn't know.
It didn't matter, that decision in the past. "Nikky knew who she was, though." Nikky would also know who took her, as there were cameras positioned around the exterior of the casino. He'd be pissed and take action, putting himself at risk, getting his damn self killed.
It would be all her fault.
The man shifted, tugging down on his pant legs. "Is that why he stepped up security?"
"No. That was something else." Because she told him death was coming and even though he clearly didn't believe her, he didn't take chances.
Chan's chin rose. "Another threat?"
"Yes." Should she be sharing this? Joey Chan was the enemy, wasn't
