Headhunter (With Me in Seattle Mafia 2)

“In the mafia,” he says with a nasty sneer. “How appropriate.”

“So you knew where I was, after all. And you never came after me.”

“You started to have a mouth on you. I knew that you didn’t always deliver what I sent you to do, and that no matter how much I punished you, you wouldn’t fall in line. Just like your mother. It angered me when you ran away, but I had other problems to see to. Worrying about where you ended up was not a priority.”

I wanted the truth, and he was giving it to me.

There was a time when his words would have hurt me.

But not now.

“You’re a worthless piece of garbage,” I inform him.

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, Laryssa.”

I snarl, but then Igor’s words come back to me. Family isn’t always blood.

“I was never your daughter in any way that mattered. I was a tool. And I got out. I’m nothing like you.”

“Aren’t you? Are you telling me then that you’re not here to kill me?”

“Oh, I’m going to kill you,” I agree. “But not because I’m the same as you. No, I’m going to kill you because you slit my mother’s throat and left me motherless.”

“She was nothing.”

“Is that why you still have her photo hanging on your wall? Because she was nothing?”

He narrows his eyes, and his hands fist at his sides.

“I did not realize you’d let your daughter speak to you in such a disrespectful way.”

We turn as a man walks into the room from what must be the kitchen, gun in hand. He’s tall and lean with round, wire-rimmed glasses. He looks like Doc from Back to the Future.

And his accent is the same as my father’s.

“Both of you, sit,” he instructs us, pointing to the two chairs facing an empty television. I eye him, considering whether I can fight him for the gun, but he steps forward. “I said, sit.”

Pavlov sits, glaring at the man, and I sit next to him.

“I am Elian Pavlov.”

I scowl. “Pavlov?”

“That’s right. I’m your father’s brother. Your uncle. We’re just a big, happy family.”

“I’ll break out the photo albums. Oh, wait, we don’t have any. Because we aren’t a family.”

Elian doesn’t smile. “Your father’s past transgressions when he was still living in our homeland have caught up with him.”

“The transgressions from after he left Bulgaria have caught up with him, too.”

Suddenly, Elian starts speaking rapidly in Bulgarian and pacing the room as if a switch was flipped and something I said—or didn’t say—set off his temper.

“What are you saying?”

He doesn’t reply, just keeps going, pointing at me and then my father.

“What the fuck are you saying? I don’t speak Bulgarian!”

He stops and stares at Ivan. “You did not teach her?”

“He taught me how to be a son of a bitch, and that about covers it.”

“He is saying—” my father begins, but I cut him off by holding up my hand.

“No. I’ve said all I need to say to you, and I don’t want to hear another word from your lying mouth. You,”—I point to my uncle—“you talk.”

He pushes his face close to mine. “You may speak to your father like that, but I won’t allow it.”

I raise an eyebrow. “I don’t fucking know you. And, frankly, I don’t care who you are.”

I have no idea where this bravado is coming from, aside from the fact that I’m damn sick and tired of the men in my family being assholes.

Elian backhands me with the butt of his sidearm, making me see stars.

“You will speak with respect, the way a woman should.”

I glare at him.

My father shifts next to me.

And then I look at them, back and forth, as the situation starts to make sense.

“Have you been here this whole time?” I ask Elian.

“Of course.”

“You followed us.”

He smiles thinly. “You’re smarter than you look.”

“There’s a mole.” I shake my head. “There’s a mole in the Martinellis’ organization.”

“I’ve been watching you for a long time, Laryssa,” Elian says and then laughs. “I mean…Ivie. We finally had you in our grasp in New York, but you managed to wiggle your way out of that.”

“You were behind the kidnapping.”

“No,” my father says as he stands next to his brother. “I was.”

My mouth drops open. I stare at the two men and then narrow my eyes as pieces start to click into place. “Are you twins?”

“Triplets, actually,” Elian says. “Our brother was hanged just over twelve years ago.”

I blink rapidly as the last of the puzzle fits together. “You killed your brother to hide your death, and then you let the Sergis hide you?”

“We used their money,” my father says. “Let them think they were the ones I was funneling information to. Let them believe they were in charge.”

“They were not,” Elian adds.

“What do I have to do with any of this?”