Vlad drove home alone. Maybe that had been his expectation earlier in the evening, but as the date progressed, he thought it less and less likely that he would be able to separate himself from her when the time came. Their heated moment in the shadows behind the column had solidified his opinion of where the fiery woman belonged: beneath him, beholden to him and the pleasure he alone could bring her.
He could see now how impossible his wish was. Madison O’Connor had submitted herself to him only once, and he doubted she would let herself get into a similar situation with him again. What’s more, he shouldn’t want to find himself further entangled with the woman; she was a dangerous distraction from his investigation. Especially now, considering that she had outright admitted to being the one who had delivered the note to his father on the night of his murder.
She was as much a suspect as anyone, as far as he was concerned. If only he could convince himself to stop wanting her long enough to see that.
Less than ten minutes later, he was turning the key to unlock his apartment. He pushed the door open slowly, surveying his domain with minimal interest. He wasn’t a poor man, none of the Karev brothers were, but he lived sparingly, deliberately. He supposed he lacked imagination, or at least that his brother Dmitry must not have been far off in accusing him of such a deficiency.
The apartment was one of the larger one-bedrooms in the building. Vlad kept no pets and no plants. The paneled wood floor boasted no rugs, ornate or otherwise. He did not have a TV. There were dishes piled in the kitchen sink, but they hadn’t been there for more than twenty-four hours and were certain to be dealt with immediately now that he had arrived home. If he didn’t command a cozy environment, then at least it was an easily managed one, a controlled one. He owned a couch and an armchair, and in the armchair sat someone who had decidedly not been there when Vlad left that evening for his date with Madison.
Vlad felt no fear at the discovery, only a flood of coldness. Even stranded in the darkness of the apartment, the shape of the figure’s slumped shoulders wasn’t unfamiliar to him. He reached out and flipped on the light.
Maxim Karev sat in the chair, pouring himself a glass from the bottle Vlad normally kept perched atop his fridge. He had been planning to help himself to it before starting the dishes. Vlad tossed his keys down onto the barren table in the entryway and crossed his immense arms in disapproval.
“Looks like you’re missing something,” his eldest brother remarked, never lifting his eyes from the fast-thinning stream of alcohol splashing across the ice in his glass. He had let his dark beard grow in, Vlad noted. It added to the impenetrable nature of the shadows cast around his brother’s expression.
“Yeah. My vodka.” Vlad nodded pointedly with a single jerking movement of his head as Maxim finished emptying the bottle. His brother set it aside on the stand beside the armchair and sat back, rolling the glass in his hand.
“What happened to your dinner jacket?” he prompted.
“Dinner ended.” Vlad moved into the open kitchen. He didn’t feel like engaging with his brother, not tonight. They both knew exactly where the conversation would go, and what terrible words risked being exchanged.
This didn’t appear to deter Maxim. Then again, Vlad wasn’t sure much could deter his brother at this point. Not only had he let himself into the apartment, when Vlad had been certain to never give him anything even resembling a copy of the apartment key, but Maxim must have been drinking for the better part of an hour to have already succeeded in finishing a half-empty bottle on his own.
“Was it nice?” Maxim asked.
“Why are you here?”
Vlad pushed up his sleeves and started in on the dishes. He watched for a moment as the water splashed over his wrists, darkening the tattoos on his arms. He kept his hands from clenching into fists through a conscious exercise of his will. He had already come to blows with one brother today. Better not to lose his temper now, even if his aborted date and mounting suspicion about Madison made him want to punch a hole into something pliant. Another human being, especially one as annoying as Maxim, seemed like the optimal target.
“Dmitry said you stopped by today,” Maxim said, which didn’t strike Vlad as an especially illuminating answer. “He seemed worried about you.”
“I can take care of it.” Did he dare qualify what he meant? Or did he let Maxim keep guessing? He hadn’t been home for more than five minutes and they were trespassing into dangerous territory already. “I don’t need you coming around to breathe down my neck about the family business when you’ve made it very fucking clear you want no part in it. You can take whatever insight you think you have on how I’m running things and shove it up your zhopa.”
“Is that what you think I’m here for?” Maxim laughed, and Vlad’s blood boiled at the mocking tone in his voice. Maybe it was the liquor making the bitter humor come so readily to his brother now. “To criticize you?”
“Every Karev has an opinion,” Vlad snapped. “But only one of them is running the show. I don’t need advice on how to operate, either personally or professionally, from someone who tucked tail and ran from his responsibilities.”
Maxim sat up straighter in the chair, shifting forward on the cushion until he looked about to fall forward or spring up; his leg jogged, the lamplight reflecting off the gloss of his expensive dress shoe. He still dressed like Head of Security for the mob, even though it had been two years since he had officially relinquished the title. Looking at him now, and feeling like he was seeing the old Maxim, made Vlad despise him more. His brother had cut himself adrift, so why didn’t he own it? Why didn’t he pursue whatever insipid, promiscuous life he wanted and quit sniffing around Vlad’s own?
“Hey. I didn’t come here looking for a fight, but don’t think I have any reservations in beating your ass, Vlad,” Maxim warned. ” I’ll give you a scar over your other eyebrow to match the one I left you with last time.”
The threat was real, but Vlad doubted it would go down quite the same way tonight if they did wind up resorting to violence.
Maxim was obviously drunk and seemed less in possession of himself in recent days. Where he might have once dominated Vlad in the boxing ring, Vlad doubted he could so much as tear open a crate of boxed wine at the moment without a soberer pair of hands to assist him.
Maxim sighed and settled back in the chair once more. He looked exhausted. It startled Vlad to see details of his own reflection, in the wake of their father’s death, evidenced in Maxim’s face. “No. I’m sorry. That wasn’t what I came here to say, not at all. Jesus, this is starting to feel like the last time I saw Father.” He reached up to pinch the straight bridge of his nose with so much force that Vlad thought he would bend it; then Maxim gave his head a shake as if to clear it.
Vlad felt a sudden chill spreading up his back between his shoulder blades. He leaned back against the sink, large hands wrapping around the lip of the counter to hold him up… or to hold him back. “What do you mean?” he asked eventually. “When was the last time you saw him?”
“You mean besides at the old man’s funeral?” Maxim smiled bitterly. “I saw him the day before Peter found him lying face down on the floor of his office in a pool of his own proud blood. Hell, I was in that office with him not even twenty-four hours before, getting chewed out and disowned all over again for simply trying to talk to him!”
“You saw him.” Before Sergey Karev died, Maxim saw him. Fought with him. The revelation left him with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach he couldn’t seem to shake, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that it was Maxim he was now factoring into the scenario of Sergey’s death. “Were you as drunk as you are now?” Vlad demanded. “Did you make these sorts of threats against him? Similar threats?”