Claim

6

Lyon put Kira in the Rover with Rurik and slipped into the passenger seat of the car in front of it. Markus Garin had arrived while they’d been inside the club, just as Lyon had ordered, and turned to him from the driver’s seat.

“Where to, Boss?”

“The address in Long Grove.” Markus set the GPS on his phone, put the car in gear, and pulled away from the curb without another word.

Lyon was glad he’d replaced Bash, the young recruit who’d started driving Lyon when Rurik had been reassigned to Kira. Bash had potential, but the stakes were too high for Lyon’s personal safety to be in the hands of someone so green.

Markus was quickly becoming a first-rate body man, anticipating Lyon’s needs, alert for danger even in situations when Lyon himself was preoccupied with business.

Lyon watched in the side mirror as Rurik made a U-turn behind them and felt a pang of loss. He slipped his hand into his pocket, felt the damp underwear he’d yanked from her body. He enjoyed being with his wife, enjoyed talking to her.

Enjoyed fucking her.

The feeling was obviously mutual, at least to some degree. She’d been wet the moment he’d slipped his fingers inside her, and her kiss had been hot and feverish, the press of her ass again his cock urgent while he drilled into her again and again.

He stifled a groan as his body responded to the memory. Kira had a hold on him in a way that was increasingly uncomfortable, in more ways than one.

He turned his thoughts to business, to the meeting ahead, and watched as the city fell behind them. The landscape opened up little by little, the traffic thinning as concrete became rolling hills, some still dusted with snow.

They got off the highway about an hour after they’d left Ludis and continued over a set of smaller roads. Soon they were met with long stretches of white fencing. Lyon imagined it must be very beautiful in the summer when the fields were lush and green, the branches on the mighty oak trees heavy with leaves in their prime.

Now everything looked stark, although no less beautiful for it.

Markus turned down a long driveway bordered by more fencing and continued toward a smattering of buildings in the distance.

“Toward the barn,” Lyon said, when they reached a fork in the road. He pointed away from the enormous white farmhouse to a matching barn down a narrow road.

There was only one other car parked outside the barn, a nondescript Buick that looked to be at least fifteen years old. Markus parked next to it and cut the engine.

“Let’s go,” Lyon said. Sometimes Markus waited in the car, but this was a time for caution.

Lyon looked through the open doors of the barn, but there was no one on the wide dirt walkway that ran its length, just the quiet sound of horses chuffing and snorting in the shadows. He kept walking and hooked a right around the building.

A smaller fenced area came into view, a horse and rider making its way around the ring while an older man leaned on the fence, watching, his back to Lyon, though he surely heard Lyon’s approaching footsteps.

The man’s dark hair was threaded with gray, something Lyon hadn’t noticed during their last meeting, but he was still trim beneath an expensive wool coat. He was almost forty years Lyon’s senior, but still, Lyon wouldn’t have relished meeting him in an alley under the wrong circumstances.

Markus fell back as Lyon continued. He came to a stop next to the man and rested his arms against the fence, his attention going to the horse making rounds in the ring.

It was a beautiful animal, with a sleek ebony coat and finely muscled legs that sent ripples through its body as the rider spurred it into a gallop.

“Getting into racing?” Lyon said without looking at the man at his side.

“Perhaps,” Tolya Sakharov said, his eyes still on the horse. “It intrigues me.”

“Beautiful horse,” Lyon said.

Tolya turned to look at him. “You look well.”

Lyon nodded. “And you as well."

“Did you enjoy the drive?” Tolya asked.

“No.” Lyon wasn’t in the habit of lying to please anyone. He was a busy man with serious business at hand. He wouldn’t have made the drive at all for anyone other than his father’s old friend. “But I’m always happy to see you.”

Tolya was Lyon’s one reliable connection to Moscow. Technically, Tolya was no longer part of the bratva — in America or anywhere else — but his old connections remained, and Lyon had been grateful when Tolya had been willing to use those connections to help him ferret out David Chaban as the traitor in his organization.

“I heard your mother is in town,” Tolya said, straightening to light a cigarette. He offered one to Lyon and Lyon shook his head.

“Yes.” Lyon wasn’t surprised Tolya knew about the arrival of Lyon’s mother. “She got in yesterday.”

“Not quite.” Tolya took a drag on the cigarette and exhaled. Lyon lifted his eyebrows and Tolya continued. “Got in two weeks ago. Demenov met her at the charter terminal.”

Ivan. Lyon wasn’t even surprised.

He cursed under his breath and returned his gaze to the horse making circles in the ring. “What do you make of it?”

“Aksana isn’t a criminal mastermind,” Tolya said dispassionately.

Lyon’s laughter came out as a snort. “No.”

His mother was an opportunist. She always had been, which was why Lyon had been concerned the moment he saw her sitting in his living room with Kira.

No, his mother was no mastermind, and she wasn’t a concerned mother either.