Vanity, Vengeance And A Weekend In Vegas Part 17

"h.e.l.lo?" Please, please, please let it be Anatoly. I leaned my ear against the door and waited for a response.

"h.e.l.lo to you too. Do you still have my gun?"

Alex. I took a step back. Should I be afraid? How did he know about this room? I went back to my purse and pulled the gun out. I took a steadying breath and opened the door. "Yep," I said, pointing the gun at his chest. "Got it right here."

Alex smiled. "Can I come in? You can continue to hold me at gunpoint if it makes you feel better."

I waved him in, keeping the gun trained on him. He smiled and closed the door behind him before taking a seat in a chair by the window. "I thought I'd make it easy for you," he explained. "If you shoot me it'll be easy to clean my blood off the gla.s.s."

"Funny," I sat down on the bed and gave him a blatantly fake smile. "So, how's Fawn?"

"Ah, so you know." Alex sighed and shook his head. "I should have told you she was my sister. I just...I had heard a little about your history with her..."

"You mean the history in which she tried to kill me? That history?"

"Fawn tries to kill everyone," he said offhandedly, "you shouldn't take it personally."

"Believe it or not I didn't...until she called from prison to tell me about Anatoly."

"Yeah, I heard about that too."

The light from the window was reflecting off his hair giving him an almost angelic quality...of course they say Lucifer was once an angel too. "You heard about it?" I asked, "or you were behind it?"

Alex only hesitated a moment before answering. "Both."

"Oh my G.o.d, you're in league with Fawn!" I stood up and held the gun with both hands. "I should shoot you right now!"

"No," he said without the slightest note of fear or anger.

"No? No what?"

"No, I'm not in league with Fawn and no, you're not going to shoot me. I put Fawn up to that call because the Ignatovs instructed me to do so. They've been bugging your house, you know."

"What? You mean in addition to tapping into my phone?"

"No point in doing a half-a.s.sed surveillance job," he pointed out. "Usually the mafia doesn't have a hard time making people talk. But Anatoly is different. They thought if you confronted him he might tell you things that he wouldn't tell them even under threat of torture. Especially if he thought he was at risk of losing you."

"Wait, you're saying that the goal was to p.i.s.s me off so that I would confront Anatoly and he would...what? Confess to helping the FBI infiltrate the mafia? Why would he confess to something like that when all I was questioning him about was his relations.h.i.+p to Natasha?"

"To be honest, I'm surprised he didn't," he said, his brow wrinkling with confusion. "Don't you think you would have been more inclined to forgive him if he had told you that he was helping the FBI take down the mob? Instead he told you, what was it? Ah, yes, I understand he told you that he had worked for the mafia because he wanted American citizens.h.i.+p and the chance to sleep with Natasha. And he was surprised that didn't go over well?"

He had a point. I took a second to really look at Alex. He was completely relaxed. I might as well have been pointing a banana at him. "I don't trust you," I said simply. "You say you're a legitimate businessman but you cover up murders for the mob..."

"I told you, I don't see it that way," he interrupted. "I'm a hotelier. I want my guests to be happy and no one's happy when dead bodies show up. So I just make sure they don't."

"Wow," I breathed, truly impressed. "You're a master! You're, like, the David Copperfield of bulls.h.i.+t!"

Alex rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I think I'm going to take that as a poorly phrased compliment."

"It was a compliment...of sorts, and I phrased it perfectly. You seem to have convinced yourself that you're a law-abiding citizen. You treat covering up a murder like it's jaywalking or letting the registration slip on your car."

"I've never let the registration slip on my car."

"You're not a law-abiding citizen. You're dangerous."

"Not really, certainly not to you."

"Well no, not as long as I'm the one holding the gun."

Alex laughed. The guy actually laughed in the face of death. "You're really considering shooting me with my own gun?"

"Happens all the time. It's one of the main arguments used by gun control advocates."

There was a definite twinkle in his green eyes. "You don't want to shoot me."

"What I want are answers and since I have the gun what I want counts for something. That's the argument used by pro-gun advocates and at the moment I find it so appealing I'm seriously considering donating to the NRA."

"It's a good feeling, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Power," he said softly. He stood up, his eyes still trained on mine. "Danger." He took another step forward "Don't move," I whispered.

He took yet another step and then another. Gently he put his index finger against the barrel of the gun. "I like danger too," he said, his voice was softer now, seductive and absolutely terrifying. He let his finger slide along the barrel, then the handle and then to my shaking hand. "You are definitely a force to be reckoned with."

I jerked away and glared into his smiling eyes.

From his jacket pocket I heard a phone ring. He pulled it out without bothering to ask if that was all right. "This will be quick," he promised as he glanced at the screen.

I walked away from him and leaned against the dresser. The gun really wasn't having the effect I had hoped for.

Alex answered with the standard "h.e.l.lo," but what came next was a string of rapid Spanish. Not Russian, Spanish...which reminded me of Anatoly.

I had only discovered a few months ago that he also spoke Spanish. It had been a disturbing revelation and not because I had anything against his being fluent in three languages. That was s.e.xy as h.e.l.l.

Oddly enough the problem was that it was s.e.xy as h.e.l.l. When a guy speaks three languages he usually lets you know by the third date. It made no sense that he would hide something like that from me.

And yet he had, only inadvertently letting it slip after we had been living together for over a year. Why had he done that?

Alex got off the phone and stuck it back in his pocket. "Someone from my staff," he explained. "Vegas is an international city, helps to be multilingual."

I didn't answer. Obviously it was useful for a hotel's GM to be fluent in as many languages as possible. But there was something more than that going on here.

Alex flashed me another grin. "Now, I believe you said you had some questions for me?"

"Yeah, why didn't Anatoly want me to know he spoke Spanish?"

What happened to Alex's face then was...interesting. I had expected him to burst out laughing or just look at me like I was crazy. He did both of those things but there was a split second before that...the moment when his face registered the question and at that moment he looked...cornered.

"Oh my G.o.d, you actually know the answer."

"How could anyone know the answer to that?" He peeled off his jacket and carefully draped it over the chair by the window. "I like these chairs but I wonder if they'll seem a little dated in a few years."

"Alex, why didn't Anatoly want me to know he spoke Spanish?"

Alex continued to study the chair as if it was the most fascinating thing in the room. "It's possible," he said eventually, "that he used some of that Spanish while working for the family."

"Why would Anatoly need to know Spanish to work for the Russian mafia?"

"Because some of the people in the old neighborhood, people who worked with the Ignatovs, weren't Russian. Most were but... the Ignatovs wanted to expand the drug business into the Spanish speaking immigrant communities."

I felt my heart drop down into my stomach. "Anatoly helped bring drugs into low income immigrant areas?"

"I didn't say the neighborhoods were low income," Alex said as he finally turned his attention away from the furniture.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I snapped. "Was Anatoly bringing the drugs into high income immigrant areas? That would give him a pretty small market, wouldn't it?"

Alex chuckled and sat down in the attractive, but-soon-to-be-dated, chair.

"For a guy who just deals with the legal end of things, you sure do know a lot about the illegal stuff," I noted.

"You can't do business with the Ignatovs without knowing what's up."

"Really?" I asked. "See, if I was running a mafia family I'd keep everything on a need to know basis. This company-wide memo business seems counterintuitive."

Alex smiled. "I have friends who trust me enough to share certain things."

"They trust you and yet here you are spilling the beans."

"Do you want me to keep secrets from you?"

"No, I'm l just trying to figure you out."

Alex nodded and glanced down at my hand. "Forgive me for harping on this, but how long do you plan on holding the gun?"

"It gives me a sense of security, gun rights advocate argument number two."

Alex s.h.i.+fted the chair and stared out the window. "You know, I used to have a brother."

"Used to?"

Alex nodded. "I don't have a brother anymore. Just my sister, Fawn."

"Oh." I drew up a mental picture of Fawn. "s.e.x change?"

"Um...no. My brother's dead."

"Oh...sorry. How?"

"The Ignatovs needed to make a point." Outside the world was still bright and cheery. The perfect contrast to Alex's sudden change of mood.

"A point...to you?"

"No, I had nothing to do with that particular conflict."

"How can you still work for them after they killed your brother?"

"I don't have a choice. If they're not convinced that I'm more loyal to them than my own flesh and blood I'll be a marked man."

"Your brother...did he die quickly?"

"I don't know."

"Oh."

Alex got up, crossed the room and leaned on the dresser next to me. "I want to help you...and Anatoly. Not because I'm nice but because I'm angry."

"Angry with the mob..." I said for clarification.

He nodded. "I shouldn't be forced to prove my loyalty every f.u.c.king day by kowtowing to my brother's murderers." He stared at the carpet and I noticed that his hand was now in the form of a fist. "They've been nursing a viper in Rome's bosom," he muttered.

"Yeah, okay, you gotta go now."

"What?" Alex blinked himself back to the here and now. "I was just telling you why I want to help you and Anatoly defeat the mob. I'm on your side."

"You're also crazy," I noted.

"I'm your only chance. If the Ignatov family finds Anatoly before we do they'll kill him."

That doesn't make sense! A little voice in my head screamed. I knew I was smart but I was having a hard time following this whole thing. I tried to put everything in order in my head. Fawn had been told to give me enough information to get me to confront Anatoly about his mob days. That argument was recorded. Then, when I announced I was going to Vegas, they set a trap for Anatoly. But Natasha, the mafia princess, saved him (b.i.t.c.h). And now everyone was trying to get their hands on some information Anatoly had on the mob.

And supposedly this all started because of an FBI agent who Anatoly may or may not have helped infiltrate the mob...

It didn't come together the way it was supposed to. It was messy. "Einstein taught that the most accurate equations are usually the simplest ones," I said quietly.

"He didn't call them simple," Alex said. "He called them beautiful."

"Yeah, well this equation is a big ugly mess. Too many people have tinkered with it and now I just can't trust it at all."

"I'm not sure I'm following you."

There was a knock at the door. "Sophie, are you in there? I forgot to ask for Mary Ann's keycard."

Dena was back. I glanced up at Alex. "You really need to go now."

Alex shrugged. "You know where to find me if you need me...when you need me."

He pushed himself away from the dresser and got the door. "Careful," he said as he ushered in my surprised friend, "she's packing heat." Alex turned back and winked at me before leaving. Dena turned to me and then lowered her eyes to the gun, which I quickly put away in the top dresser drawer. "So, Leah and Mary Ann are down at the casino?"