Alliance, page 8
part #1 of Red Star Series
As was usually the case with such events, once the food had been dispensed with, the band struck up some louder, livelier numbers, and couples began to drift toward the dance floor. Once he had finished his coffee, Benito invited Alessia to dance. She accepted because it was expected of her and she could not refuse, although she would rather have stayed in her seat and taken the brief opportunity to exchange a few words with Irina. Nikolai had shown himself to be considerate, intelligent, and witty during the course of their meal, but she had not had an opportunity to probe deeper than his public façade. She wanted to know more about the man who had inherited his grandmother’s empire and yet was unbowed by its weight.
The tune that they were shuffling to had barely ended before Benito spotted someone more important and influential that he wished to speak to. Alessia tried to keep her head high as she walked back to their table as the new song began. She kept her gaze at an indeterminate point on the opposite wall of the room and stepped with purpose, her attitude and motion designed to discourage anyone from stopping her. At least she would have the chance to chat with Irina now.
“May I have this dance?”
The rough velvet of Nikolai’s voice brushed over her skin once more. It was distinctive, with its slightly hybrid accent, New York flavored with a touch of Russia around the edges. When she focused her vision, she found he was standing in front of her.
She could not say no. She didn’t want to say no. “Yes, of course.”
She let Nikolai take her hand and guide her back into the middle of the dance floor.
He slid one hand around her waist, a little low for a proper ballroom hold, but perfect for casual dancing. Except that there was no material covering that part of her body at all. She felt his momentary polite hesitation. Of course, he would hesitate, he was a stranger to her, as she was to him, he knew well that she was another man’s wife, and yet his hand slid sensuously over the curve of her back. His hands did not feel like Benito’s. Her husband’s hands were smooth from the weekly manicures that he indulged in. Nikolai’s hands were a little rough. They were not workman’s hands, but there were calluses that spoke of hard work and physical toil. She placed her own hand on his upper arm and discovered the swell of his bicep. The taut muscle belonged with the rough skin of his palms and fingers.
“If I may say so,” Nikolai murmured as they began to move, “You look beautiful tonight.”
Alessia dipped her head to hide her blush at the compliment. “Thank you.”
“My grandmother likes you.”
Alessia could raise her head for that topic. She found that Nikolai was smiling at her. He was tall, but her ridiculously high shoes put her almost at eye-level with him. He was leading their dance as if he knew what he was doing and was happy to be doing it. He was not one of those men who so often ventured onto the dance floor because they thought they should, or because it gave them an excuse to get their hands on her, and then did little more than step side to side once they were there. “I like her, too. She’s strong. I admire that.”
“She believes you have strength, also. I don’t think she’s wrong.”
“Perhaps.” Alessia wouldn’t refuse the half-compliment, but she could not wholeheartedly agree with it. She didn’t feel particularly strong, especially as she had played little more part in the night than the buxom redhead on Uncle Petie’s arm.
Her mind was scrabbling for conversation. She was used to making small talk, but she didn’t want to converse about the weather or the latest political event. She wanted to get to know Nikolai. She wanted to get to know Irina. She hadn’t dared hope that she would have this opportunity, so she hadn’t prepared herself at all.
As Alessia was still fumbling for words, a series of deafening bangs rang out.
She was whirling. The motion might have been Nikolai whirling her as part of their dance, except she landed on the floor with enough force to shove the air from her lungs. She tried to rise, but a heavy weight pressed her down. At the same time that she realized that the sounds she had heard had been gunshots, she realized that the weight over her was Nikolai. She wriggled and managed to get her head to one side. Nikolai was crouched over her, one palm pressed into the base of her spine. His knees straddled her legs. He had a gun in his hand. Alessia noted in an errant thought that he must have the most remarkable tailor, as she hadn’t seen a hint of the weapon during dinner or their dance.
There were two more heartbeats of silence before the screaming started.
Nikolai leant down and his voice rasped at her ear. “Stay down. I need to find Irina.”
Alessia edged to her knees. By the time she had her dress arranged so that she could stand, Nikolai had returned with his grandmother on his arm.
Since Irina did not drop to the floor, Alessia pushed to her feet. Adrenaline was surging through her body. Her heart felt like it was pumping through every inch of her skin. She was not blind, but her brain was not making full sense of the images from her eyes. “Where’s Papa? And Benito?”
“Come with me.” Nikolai had holstered his weapon. Alessia took that to mean that the threat had passed, but she still could not make sense of those frantic moments. With his grandmother tucked into his side, and with her own hand clasped firmly in his, Nikolai led Alessia through the tables.
“No!”
Alessia saw her papa at last. He was sprawled on the floor, lying on his back. His arms and legs had arranged themselves in chaos. Benito was kneeling by his head. Blood bloomed over the pristine white expanse of his dress shirt.
She sank to her knees and pulled her papa onto her lap. He grunted in pain when she did so, and the red flower on his chest bloomed a little brighter.
“Papa!” She looked up at the crowd surrounding them, the mass of still and silent onlookers. “Someone get help. Please, someone, call for help!”
It was Nikolai’s hand that landed on her shoulder. “Help is on the way.”
Assured that someone, anyone, was coming to her grandfather’s aid, Alessia devoted her attention back to the man she loved most. “Don’t leave me, Papa.”
Her grandfather groaned as he reached up to clumsily grasp her elbow. “I love you, Principessa. Be strong. You are strong… stronger than you know.”
“No!” Alessia barely realized that she was crying, but she saw crystal drops falling on her grandfather’s cheeks. “Don’t you say goodbye. Don’t you leave me! Papa, don’t go.”
But the light was already fading from her grandfather’s eyes. As they went blank, gazing into a beyond that no living person could see, Alessia threw her head back and howled her pain to the heavens.
CHAPTER SIX
Nikolai could slice a man across the stomach and watch his intestines spill onto a dusty concrete floor, he could do that while sipping a snifter of vodka, he had done so, many times. He could not stand by and witness Alessia’s abject sorrow without flinching. The loss of her grandfather mirrored too closely his nightmares. In the moment that the shots had blasted into the room, he had feared that Irina was their intended target. He had always been steady under fire, he had been tested and found true, but for one horrible moment, he had chewed on his own heart.
He was beyond relieved that his grandmother was safe, but when he looked up and caught her eyes, brimming with sorrow for her fallen friend and associate, he thought that perhaps they had not escaped completely unscathed. He knew that the danger had passed. The gunman lay in a crumpled heap by the door; his corpse now contained more lead than blood. More than one person had brought their bodyguards into the room, and it seemed as though several had fired on the threat together.
It had been a suicide mission to walk into a room such as this and open fire. That alone made no sense in Nikolai’s mind. There was no glory in killing an unarmed man and dying for it, there was only the death itself. The idea of so much death, the unending cycle and futility, tickled the base of Nikolai’s skull.
As Nikolai walked over to the corpse the two bodyguards that had followed Irina and him into the building detached from their stations at the wall by the door. The one that Nikolai didn’t recognize took a point position on the room. The one that Nikolai knew, Pasha, came to his side. As soon as the shooting had started, Pasha had found Irina and kept her safe. When Nikolai had determined that the danger had passed, he had relieved the man from his duty, but he made a mental note that the man, both men, deserved a bonus for their sterling work.
“What do we know?” Nikolai asked as he scanned the room.
“Not much,” Pasha answered. “He has no formal ID. He’s a white male. Smart dress, not expensive, not cheap. He could be anyone.”
Nikolai slid his eyes to his bodyguard. He knew Vadim’s men were better than this; they were neither blind nor deaf, nor stupid.
“How did he get in?” Nikolai asked
Pasha grunted. “He walked in. I saw him walk in. I assumed he was one of the guests. The door staff were lazy, but even if they had checked, he had a legit invitation in his jacket pocket.”
“So someone swung him a fake. Who?” Nikolai had muttered the thought to himself. He didn’t expect Pasha to answer, and Pasha didn’t attempt to guess.
Pasha leaned closer, not so that anyone would notice, but enough that he could lower his voice and still be heard. “He had ink on his ankle.”
“You looked at his ankles?”
Pasha shrugged. “No one else was checking for extra weapons. It was a logical place to look.” He shrugged again. “There was an ankle holster, that must be how he got the gun in. The ink was under the holster.”
“What was it?”
“Script. One word: ‘Forza’.”
Nikolai was not proficient in many languages, but he could get by in a few. He knew enough Italian to know the word for strength. “Spasibo. Call for the car. Irina and I will be leaving now.”
“It’s already outside. What about the police?”
“We’ll be gone before they arrive.”
Nikolai returned to the body. Alessia had stopped shouting and wailing. She still had her grandfather’s head cradled in her lap. She was folded over the body, broken by her grief. Nikolai could hear her quiet sobs. She was alone in the middle of a gawping crowd with the dead body of her grandfather. Anger surged through Nikolai’s blood like lava.
He grabbed Benito Dioli’s shoulder and gave him a rough shake. “Take care of your wife, man.” He hated the soft don now more than he had before. He had thought the man an idiot to begin with, in terms of their business; having seen how ignored his beautiful treasure of a wife, Nikolai was convinced that Benito Dioli was lacking mentally. He had to shake Benito again before his eyes appeared to clear, but by that point, Enzo and Petie had swallowed their own grief and shock and were beginning to push the crowd back. They were doing it all themselves. It appeared that Don Tosetti had thought himself so safe in his own territory that he did not need any security.
His grandmother was standing by Alessia and Santo, perhaps keeping watch, perhaps wishing she could express her own grief so freely. Nikolai took her elbow in a gentle grasp. “Babushka, come.”
For a moment he was worried that his grandmother hadn’t heard him, but then she bent and whispered some words at Alessia’s ear. Nikolai wasn’t sure that the grieving woman had heard anything. He wasn’t sure that she was aware of the throng of people around her. She certainly didn’t seem to be aware of the fact that she was crouched in a puddle of her grandfather’s blood. That beautiful silver dress glittered as if it were adorned with rubies as Santo’s blood shone on the threads.
“Babusya?”
His grandmother gave a curt nod to acknowledge him and straightened. When Nikolai extended his arm, his grandmother wrapped her fingers around his forearm. He all but dragged her out of the building. By the time they slid into the leather seats of their car, swiftly followed by Pasha, they could hear the wail of sirens approaching.
~o0o~
Nikolai escorted his grandmother to her apartment, into the marble entryway, up the staircase with its ornately scrolled ironwork balustrade, and all the way into her plush living room. She was wearing one of her pantsuits. She had a pantsuit for every occasion. They differed in color, material and embellishments, but they all followed the same basic style of loose-fitting trousers, a tunic top that hung past her hips, and a jacket – usually with bracelet-length sleeves – that matched the length of the tunic if it was for business, or fell to her ankles for evening wear. The pants and tunic of this outfit both appeared to be made from a soft, stretchy, plain fabric, so Nikolai did not worry about their comfort, but the jacket was one of the ankle-length ones, mostly made from chiffon or some other semi-transparent material, and heavily embellished with gold beading. It was impressive, but it was not comfortable.
He remembered having told her that she looked beautiful before they’d left the apartment for their night out. His grandmother still looked beautiful, she always would look beautiful to him, but now she also looked tired and sad.
His grandmother had not been wearing a coat or a wrap; there had been no need of any extra covering since they had been moving straight from the apartment building to the car, and from the car to the party. He helped his grandmother shrug out of her fancy jacket and slung it over the arm of one of the overstuffed sofas. Irina seemed to be staring into space as she sank limply into her favorite chair. Nikolai cast around looking for a throw, and couldn’t see one, so he went for the next best thing to warm her up and give her strength.
Nikolai headed to the kitchen. This was the only truly modern-looking space in the entire apartment. His grandmother favored warm colors, gilt, and lush luxury, but since she no longer bothered to cook and relied mostly on her staff to prepare meals, her kitchen had the utilitarian look of a professional space. He took the bottle of Stolichnaya from the stainless-steel fridge and grabbed two glasses from a cupboard with a plain white gloss door.
Before he returned to the living room, he pulled his phone from the inside pocket of his dinner jacket and called Luka.
His cousin answered before the first ring had ended. “What happened?”
“Is it on the news?”
“Yes, almost every station. Santo Tosetti, philanthropic businessman and rumored gangster shot dead at his own charity event.”
“Any exposure for us?”
“No. You’re on none of the videos, you or Irina. They’re mostly showing his granddaughter. Poor woman looks like she was the one that got shot.”
“Ublyudki,” Nikolai swore under his breath. The sensation-seeking vultures had no respect for grief or privacy. They cared little that Alessia Dioli was an innocent, only associated by her names; they only cared about their headlines, their front pages, and their scandalous photos. He returned to the conversation. “Speak to Pasha. We have reason to believe the shooter was Italian. The don was the only casualty. This was a surgical hit. It is likely this is an inside beef, but I want to know for certain.”
“As good as done,” Luka replied.”
“Blagoy. But still, I want you to contact Vadim. I want extra guards on everybody, especially Irina. This might be the dagos letting some bad blood between themselves, but without Tosetti, the alliance is likely in pieces. Assume the worst.”
“Da,” Luka agreed. “I’ve already spoken to Vadim about that. Extra men should be arriving in the building in moments.” Even as Luka spoke Nikolai could hear the sound of the front door being unlocked. He had noted that the guards in the lobby of the building and at Irina’s apartment had appeared alert and ready for action. He took his mobile into the hallway and saw them letting new guards into the entryway. The fresh men immediately exchanged their outdoor shoes for tapochki. It always looked strange to Nikolai that the bodyguards who protected his grandmother in her apartment - when such close protection was required - were dressed in tailored black suits and crisp white shirts, but wore felt slippers instead of polished leather dress shoes. By rights, he should be looking equally ridiculous at that very moment, but he had forgone the ritual in favor of getting his grandmother seated and comfortable.
