His Queen of Clubs (Vegas Underground 6)

“Da. Vlad called Junior, told him to come.”

I sink back, relief pouring through me. I’m going home.

But things with Vlad are too unresolved. I need to see him. I have this sense of being torn in half, ripped right down my center without him by my side.

“Where is Vlad? I need him.”

Mika’s jaw tenses. “He can’t come now. He’s with doctors.”

I reach out and touch his sleeve. “Is he really here, though, Mika? Or are you lying to me?”

Mika’s alarm seems real. “Nyet.” He looks over his shoulder. “I will see if the doctors are through with him.”

My relief is short-lived, because I suddenly don’t want to be left alone in a hospital where I don’t speak the language and don’t know another soul. “No, wait—” I call as he heads to the door. “Don’t leave me here alone. Please.”

He comes back. “Vlad is here,” he says firmly, like he’s afraid I still don’t believe him. “He is getting you a kidney.”

“Okay. We’ll wait for him, then. What should we do?” I look up at the television on the wall.

Mika turns it on and flips through the channels, but all the shows are in Russian. “I know,” he says, retrieving his tablet from the chair in the corner. He stands beside me and boots it up. “You like Friends?”

I give a watery laugh. I thought I’d seen him watching it back when we were in Las Vegas. He settles the tablet on my lap and we watch together as the time passes interminably slowly.

Vlad

When I wake after the operation, my vision swims from the drugs. Even with pain-killers, I feel the incision, the loss of my organ. As my eyes struggle to focus, I hone in on the dark, well-dressed figure looming over me.

He presses the hard muzzle of a pistol against my temple. “Give me one good reason not to shoot you.”

Junior. And behind him stand the two Tacone brothers from the Chicago outfit, Gio and Paolo.

I blink up, unafraid. If they want to kill me, they can. I deserve it. I suppose I expected to die by one of their hands the moment I decided to take Alessia.

I wronged their sister and now she lies recovering in a hospital bed because I couldn’t even keep her safe.

So no, there isn’t a good reason not to shoot me. Not really.

In the corner of the room I catch movement. It’s not another brother. It’s Mika—pale and scared, eyes as big as his face.

My chest tightens. The kid’s been through a lot. First his mother runs out on him. Then the entire Chicago bratva is wiped out by the man in front of me. Then I bring him back to Russia and teach him to trust me, only to wind up with a gun at my head and the kid about to witness my demise. Well.

Maybe there is one reason, then.

“She wouldn’t want you to,” I grate out, my voice rough from intubation.

That much is true. I know her well enough.

“And why is that?” Gio snarls from behind Junior.

My eyes shift to Mika, and I lift my chin in his direction. “She wouldn’t want you to orphan him a second time.”

Junior shoots a glance at Mika. He’s a hard, violent man. He single-handedly gunned down the entire bratva cell. He won’t hesitate to kill me if he wants to.

But the moment he sees Mika I know he shares his sister’s softness for children. Something changes in his eyes. He considers the boy. “What’s your name?”

Mika swallows. “Mikhael.”

Junior tips his head in my direction. “You want this guy to live?”

Mikhael nods, a small, rapid movement that doesn’t stop.

“All right. Fair enough. I guess I owe you that.” Junior pulls the gun away from my head. It disappears into a holster behind his back.

“How is she?” I attempt to move and wince at the pain.

“She’ll live.” Junior’s gaze is hard. “We brought our own doctor and we’re taking her home to recover. You go near her again, I’ll cut your balls off.”

I nod my agreement. I deserve that.

“And stay out of my fucking country. I see you back in the States, you’re a dead man. Capiche?”

“Da.”

“Da,” Paolo sneers. “Fuckin’ Russian.” The Tacones file out of the room.

I close my eyes in relief. Not that they spared me, but at the news that Alessia made it. The transplant was successful and she now has my kidney.

I was able to make up for nearly causing her death.

I’d called Junior and filled him in when I found out her kidney failed. I told him to come right away to take her home after the operation.

Victor agreed to let them come, but only because I have their money. He doesn’t know I returned it weeks ago. I kept Mika’s account flush, though.

Before I went under the knife I showed him where it is and how to get to it if anything happened to me. I want him to have options apart from the bratva if he chooses.