Russian Mafia Boss's Heir (21 page)

Then he lifted his gaze. It happened abruptly, almost as if he’d become aware that he was being watched. Alexandra froze. He was staring right at her. His eyes were the most incredible shade of blue. She was trapped and yet she felt an intoxicating sense of physical awareness.

Vitaly pointed. It took Alexandra a moment to realize that he was pointing at her. Her heartbeat went from merely fast to hammering against her ribs. She stumbled away from the railing, trying to slip back into the shadows and realizing that she had nowhere to hide. Turning away, she fled.

She retraced her steps, heading down the back stairs and through a warren of corridors that housed a few private party rooms and the standard bathrooms. The hallway was crowded. She stood on tiptoe for a moment, trying to see behind her.

Spotting Vitaly, she immediately ducked back into the crowd. She hardly dared to breathe. He was searching for her. She knew it. Someone stepped on her. Backing up, she bumped into another set of legs and earned a curse. Dodging the opposite direction, Alexandra found herself up against the wall.

“What are you doing?”

Glancing up, Alexandra realized she had caught the attention of a clubber. The girl with the blue hair, nose piercing, and short red minidress was staring at Alexandra as though she was just another oddity at the club.

“I’m avoiding him.” Alexandra pointed to Vitaly.

“Oh.” The girl nodded sympathetically. “Boyfriend issues. I totally get it.” Then to Alexandra’s horror, the twit started jumping up and down. “Hey! Hey you!”

Vitaly started plowing toward them, the crowd parting to let him pass.

“That’s right, she’s over here!” The girl waved again.

Alexandra squeezed one fishnet-covered leg. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“He’s busy staring at me. Now go!” The girl gave Alexandra a kick with her combat boot.

Alexandra didn’t need more prompting. She bolted toward the main dance floor. Weaving her way through the masses, she earned more than a few curses. She craned her neck around to see if Vitaly was following. He wasn’t. Relief made her weak in the knees.

The word EXIT was emblazoned over the door just a few feet away. Feeling almost desperate, Alexandra sprinted the last ten yards. With a few well-placed elbows to the remaining human barriers, she finally made it outside.

The alley was dark. It stank of oil and refuse. She breathed deeply and tried to regain her composure. What had happened in there? It was like she had been possessed or something. This wasn’t her first attempt at surveillance. She was an FBI agent with years of field experience, yet she’d acted like a lovestruck teenager.

“Fool,” she whispered, pressing her back to the brick wall of the club’s exterior. “I’m such a fool. A whole night wasted. No intel, no dirt, no leads, and nothing to show for this pathetic operation.”

She turned, pushing her arms into the brick and feeling the little pricks of pain as the sharp edges cut into her skin. What was wrong with her? She had to take Vitaly down. It didn’t matter how attractive she found him.

***

Vitaly Volkov looked down his nose at the girl with the blue hair, piercings, and the cheap red minidress. “You said you saw her. The woman in the black dress?” Vitaly prompted. “Which way did she go?”

“She slipped into the bathroom.” Blue Hair pointed to the ladies’ room.

Vitaly grunted. Even when one owned the club, it was not wise to stick one’s head into the ladies’ restroom. Still, he wanted another chance to speak to the woman in black. If she was truly hiding out in the bathroom, he wanted to know. And why was she running from him anyway? What did she have to hide?

His cock began to harden as he recalled the look of sheer sensual hunger in the woman’s eyes. He couldn’t catch their color, but he had easily been able to tell the need that stalked her soul. It had stirred something inside of him. As if two wild beasts had discovered their match.

“Mister?” Blue Hair was looking up at him as if she really wanted him to go away. “I don’t know what your problem is, but if the lady doesn’t want to talk to you, maybe you should just go away. All right?”

Vitaly threw his head back and laughed. “You think I’m pursuing her because I know her?”

“She said you were her abusive boyfriend and she needed to get away.” Blue Hair paused. “Well I think that’s pretty much what she said.”

Interesting. So the woman in black had managed to manipulate this Good Samaritan into helping her escape him. “So she’s not in the bathroom,” he guessed.

“No. She’s good and gone now.” Blue Hair shrugged. “So either way, mister. She didn’t want anything to do with you.”

“Thanks for the tip.” He turned and stalked off through his club.

The night had turned sour. He had come to blow off some steam—a lot of steam, actually. Things with his business were a mess. The feds were sniffing around places they shouldn’t be. He was starting to become mildly paranoid that he couldn’t trust anyone in the organization. And sometimes he just wanted a chance to forget for a moment.

Movement across the dance floor caught his eye. Standing at least a head taller than most of the other people between him and his goal, he could see that the door marked EXIT had just opened and closed. He could think of no reason why someone would be utilizing an emergency exit when there was no emergency and most people were waiting in a mile-long line to get inside.

Striding quickly in that direction, he shoved his way through the throng of people on the floor. He wore his arrogance and position like armor. When someone had the audacity to complain about his passing, he simply stared them into submission. That was how he functioned. That was what it meant to be Vitaly Volkov. Yet he could not manage to catch hold of one scrap of femininity in a black dress!

Finally he reached the exit and hit the bar to shove his way through the heavy metal door. He found himself in the alley out back. Only the dim yellow light fixed to the side of his building offered any illumination of the scene before him. Still, he felt as though he was not alone.

“Hello?” he called out. “I saw you leave. I know you’re out here. Why would you hide from me? I only wanted to ask your name.”

There was a rustle, but it could have been the breeze drifting through the alley and disturbing the trash gathered around the dumpster. The smell was strong. He caught whiffs of motor oil, rotting vegetables, and general city stink from the dirty asphalt. Yet overlaying all of that was a light feminine scent.

Vitaly inhaled deeply, drawing the bouquet into his nose. He identified vanilla, and perhaps a hint of cinnamon. If there wasn’t a woman out here now, she hadn’t been gone long. He jogged toward the alley mouth near the front of his building. Rounding the corner, he flagged down the doorman.

The burly man immediately ducked his head to Vitaly. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“There was a woman. She came charging out of the alley just a few minutes ago. Did you see her?” Vitaly demanded.

The doorman’s eyes went blank. “A woman in the alley?” He shrugged his meaty shoulders. “I don’t keep an eye on the alley, sir. If you want us to start watching the alley, you’ll have to put another guy on the door.”

Vitaly made a disgusted noise and cursed in Russian. “That isn’t what I was getting at, but thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.”

He turned away from the doorman and walked across the street. Throwing back his head, he stared at the night sky barely visible above the towering buildings. Then he heard it. A car door closing as though someone was trying to be quiet. He identified the direction the sound came from and went that way. He could not have said what it was that drew him so forcefully. Blue Hair had been right after all. If the woman was running away from him, he shouldn’t be interested in her. Yet there was something absolutely intriguing about the woman in black.

Vitaly crossed the street again, waiting for a space between cars and then sprinting to the opposite sidewalk. The shadows closed in. Suddenly an overhead floodlight flickered and went on with a low hum. The abrupt burst of light illuminated a woman getting into a car at the end of the alley.

The entire scene seemed to freeze. Vitaly was aware only of the outline of a woman. Long silky hair framed her face and flowed over her shoulders, the ends curling to gently cup her breasts. Her figure was exquisite and her legs were long and slender. There was something athletic and fit about her that appealed to him on a very basic level. If only he could make out her face!

“Wait!” He raised his hand. “Don’t go.”

She didn’t pause. She disappeared into the driver’s seat instead. Moments later the engine roared to life and the car backed quickly out of the alley. Vitaly watched it disappear, unmoving until he could no longer hear the whine of the engine. He felt strangely let down without understanding exactly why. He didn’t know her, yet he felt that he should.

Chapter Two

“I can’t believe you’re expecting me to believe that you have no more intel to offer me on Vitaly Volkov,” Alexandra Polzin griped to her best friend, Ivan Popov.

Ivan raised an eyebrow. “You know, most FBI agents would be appreciative of all the help they had received without a whole lot of compensation.”

“Whatever.” Alexandra glanced around and sighed. She and Ivan had been coming to this bistro together since high school. Now twilight was just falling and the sidewalk traffic was mostly couples or groups of friends heading out for the evening. The city never slept. “You know how much I love being an FBI agent.”

Ivan raised his eyebrow mockingly. “You might have mentioned that a few times.”

“And you know that growing up in this neighborhood and rubbing shoulders with all of you criminal types is as much of a hindrance to my career as it is a help,” she reminded him. Sometimes it grated on her that her fellow agents judged her for having grown up in a rough area. The Bureau had let her in because she’d been honest about her origins. That didn’t mean that some of the other agents didn’t look down on her.

Ivan snorted. “If you’re expecting me to feel sorry for you because of your choice of occupation, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“If having a bona fide Russian mobster for a high school buddy can’t help me catch some Russian mob thugs, what can?” she teased him.

Picking up his beer, Ivan raised it as though giving her a toast. “Yes, and can we remember for a minute that I’m not mafia connected? I run a chain of arcades. I might have some dirty money coming in and out to supplement my income, but I’m
not
part of the mob.”

“Okay, so maybe I’m pissed about that.” Alexandra picked up her own beer and clinked it against his in a sarcastic toast. “And you know I’m going to nail Vitaly Volkov to the wall one of these days.”

“Vitaly can handle himself.” Ivan gave a nonchalant shrug. “Besides, I’m
not
connected, remember? That’s no skin off my nose.”

“But you won’t help me!” she moaned.

“I don’t have anything else to offer. You’re just going to have to get your intel using the usual investigative techniques they teach at that fancy FBI academy,” Ivan pointed out.

“Okay, so that’s frustrating me. Because I’ll admit that it’s confusing to have nothing really damning on the guy after six months of surveillance.” Alexandra drummed her fingers on the table.

“Have you talked to Jacob?” Ivan asked slyly. “You know he’s far more connected than I am.”

“Yeah, and he’s far more careful than anyone else I know! Getting info out of him is like pulling teeth.” Alexandra started laughing. “The three of us were such a mess growing up, right? Jacob was the Jewish kid who didn’t want to learn Hebrew. My father was a florist who wished he could be in the mafia. And you were just trouble.”

“Complimenting me will get you nowhere.”

She gave an internal pout. Ivan had to know more than he was telling her. She needed leads, and fast if she was going to keep her place within her investigative team and with the Bureau. She put her face in her hands and wondered what to do next.

“Look,” Ivan said in a tone that suggested he was trying to placate her. “Vitaly likes to go clubbing. In fact, he owns Club 360. Why don’t you start looking there?”

“Like I haven’t dug into that already,” she griped.

“Have you gone out for a night on the town?” Ivan waggled his eyebrows.

Alexandra gazed at her friend in fascinated horror. “Whoa. Are you suggesting I try to seduce the info out of him?”

“The oldest trick in the book,” he pointed out. “And also the one that seems to work more frequently than not.”

Alexandra sat back in her seat and considered this notion. “Surely that wouldn’t work. He would know me right away.”

“Have you ever actually met him?” Ivan asked.

She thought it over. “No. I haven’t ever been face to face with him.” Though she had certainly seen photographs. The guy could sell underwear on a billboard. Tousled black shoulder-length hair, cobalt-blue eyes, and a smile that had more than a hint of the devil in it. Vitaly Volkov looked more like a playboy than a Russian mafia thug.

“All right. So why would he know who you are?”

“I’m the agent that took down his boss last year.” She said this with a hefty dose of pride. “He’s going to remember that. I took out Yuri Maximov and put him away for good.”

“Yes, although I have to remind you that your arrest actually put Vitaly in charge. You kind of did him a favor.” Ivan was chuckling. He took another swallow of his beer. “Still, as I recall, your name wasn’t published in conjunction with the arrest or trial. So why would he know you?”

“I guess he wouldn’t,” she mused. She twirled her empty beer bottle by the long neck. “They try to keep the identities of the agents on the organized crime unit under wraps.”

“So?” Ivan prompted.

“I don’t know. It still seems shady. That sort of operation takes authorization and I can’t imagine Johnson approving it. He only likes me when I deliver arrests. It’s been a while since he was happy with me.”

“Maybe this all comes down to how much you want it.” Ivan shrugged.