Under the Skin (14 page)

His groan swallowed in the heat of Patrick’s mouth, Alexei closed his eyes. The counter trapped him between its wooden surface and the detective’s hard body, but in truth he had no wish to escape. Putting the empty storefront, the secrets he was forced to keep, everything that stood between them from his thoughts, he gave himself to the moment. His hands slid down Patrick’s back to cup his ass, pulling him closer, his thumbs tracing the crease beneath the soft linen.

The frottage robbed Patrick of his control, his need swamping him as he rubbed against Alexei’s body. He bucked harder into Alexei, dragging their lengths together through their clothes. He needed this moment of mindless escape from reality. When they were done, he would go back to the precinct and continue his search for Stachowicz’s killer, but for the next few minutes, he wanted to forget.

“
Bozhe moi
,” Alexei gasped in a heaving breath, the pulse drumming in his ears. He hadn’t planned for this to happen—each time he and Patrick met, the sane part of his brain urged him to tell the detective that this would be the last time. Until Patrick touched him, and his self-control went up in flames. The press of Patrick’s arousal against his was maddening, but not enough. He needed to feel Patrick’s skin beneath his palm. He slid a hand over the wing of Patrick’s hip, blindly finding the zipper of his pants and working it down until he could slip his hand inside, groaning again as he closed his fingers around the silken flesh of his lover’s shaft.

The heat of Alexei’s hand nearly brought Patrick undone. He rocked into Alexei’s grasp, a groan escaping as he rushed toward release. He pulled restlessly at Alexei’s clothes, trying to get his hands on his lover’s body. When he finally found skin, his fingers dug deep. He wanted Alexei as desperate as he was.

Patrick’s urgency fanned the fire of Alexei’s need, already close to blazing out of control. Gritting his teeth, he eased Patrick’s cock through the placket of his slacks, his thumb rubbing over the crown while he freed himself from his trousers. He dropped his head to catch Patrick’s lips in a brutal kiss, gripping both their cocks in a large hand and stroking them with a rough clasp.

“Oh fuck,” Patrick gasped, breaking the kiss only long enough to catch his breath. Then he dove back into the blinding embrace, clutching Alexei’s hips. The rubbing of their cocks together shattered his control, his release spurting over Alexei’s hand.

The slippery heat was all it took to trigger Alexei’s climax. His spine stiffened and he clutched Patrick’s hip tightly enough to bruise while he shook through the aftershocks, his palm still shuttling over their softening shafts. When he trusted his arm not to shake, he raised his hand to his lips, cleaning it of their mingled seed.

Patrick shivered at the sight of Alexei licking at his hand. He sagged against his lover, all the stress of the last few days rushing back in again. “I went with Detective Thames to tell Stachowicz’s wife he’d been killed. Every cop’s spouse lives with the knowledge it could happen, but this is the first time I’ve been the one to deliver the news. She knew as soon as she opened the door. She took one look at us standing there, nodded once, and asked us how he’d died.”

“Is risk you take,” Alexei answered, his damp palm coming to rest on Patrick’s bare stomach. He stroked it absently as he wondered who would be notified if anything happened to Patrick. The thought was enough to tighten his throat. He would never know the details of Patrick’s life, of who was important to him and who he was important to. All Alexei had were these moments, and he told himself again they would have to be enough, because even this much was more of a risk than he should take.

“Yes,” Patrick agreed, his voice breaking. “We all know it when we sign up for this job, but that doesn’t make it any easier for the ones left behind when a cop is killed in the line of duty. I don’t want to go back out there, and yet I can’t let it rest. I spent too many years undercover. I have to help find the person who did this.”

Alexei nodded but said nothing, holding Patrick in silence until the younger man’s breathing slowed and he had no further excuse to prolong the embrace. Lowering his arms, he shifted enough to reach between them and refasten his trousers. “I call you if I find anything,” he said again, picking up the keys from the countertop.

Patrick wasn’t ready to move, but he had no more excuses to linger. He kissed Alexei one more time and straightened his own clothes. “Thank you. Be safe.”

Alexei had started toward the door, but he turned at that and held Patrick’s gaze. “And you, Patya.”

Patrick swallowed hard, knowing it was a promise he could only keep halfway. He wouldn’t take unnecessary risks, but every cop in the city was on duty until they caught Stachowicz’s killer. “I’ll do my best.”

After locking the door behind Patrick, Alexei turned out the lights in the vacant storefront and left through the back entrance. The grit and broken glass in the alley crunched beneath his feet as he walked, turning the detective’s revelations over in his mind. As soon as he’d seen the photograph of the murdered policeman, he’d recognized the body he and Konstantin had disposed of—the body of the man Fyodor had killed.

Alexei was sure the older
vor
had no idea the man was police when he’d shot him. Everyone knew killing a cop was bad business. Fyodor must have thought he was sending a message to a rival family to keep their noses out of his affairs. Alexei wondered what Volkov would do once he found out he’d killed an undercover detective instead.

When his steps brought him past Holy Trinity Cathedral, Alexei climbed the steps and entered. As always, the air of silent peace calmed him. Pausing before an icon of the Blessed Virgin, he knelt and murmured a quiet prayer, then crossed the nave to the shrine of St. Michael. He lit a candle, dropping a bill into the offering box and asking silently for Patrick’s safety.

He’d promised the detective he would learn what he could, knowing as he spoke who the killer was, but under the law of the
vory
he could not reveal what he knew. He was still wrestling with a way to reconcile the two pledges as he left the church and walked to his apartment.

The moment Alexei opened the door to the flat, the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Easing his gun from its hiding place, he edged deeper into the room on silent feet. He could not point to any one thing, but someone had been in his apartment, perhaps was still there. He would check to make sure it was clear, and then he would figure out what was missing.

A careful check of the apartment revealed no intruders, so Alexei began an inventory of his belongings. Nothing was obviously missing, but the intruder surely had a purpose in breaking in. He had only to figure out why.

The closet and drawers in his bedroom appeared undisturbed, as did the shrine to St. Michael, and none of the admittedly small cache of food in the kitchen seemed to have been tampered with. Returning to the living room, Alexei raked the room with his gaze, trying to put himself in the intruder’s mind. If he hadn’t broken in to take something, perhaps he had left something instead.

Alexei frowned, a suspicion growing as he ran a hand behind the television and around the CD player and speakers. Kneeling before the sofa, he lifted each cushion, and finding nothing, he bent down and peered underneath it.

A sleek black pistol sat on the floor amid the dust that had gathered. Frowning, he went to the closet to retrieve his gloves from his coat pockets. He pulled them on and drew the gun out into the light. “
Blyad
,” he spat, recognizing the weapon as the Yarygin PYa Fyodor had acquired on his last trip to Russia. Alexei couldn’t swear it was the only gun of that type in the city, but he doubted it was a coincidence. For whatever reason—and he could think of a few—Fyodor had decided to pin the murder of the undercover cop on Alexei.

Setting the gun on the table beside the couch, Alexei rubbed the back of his neck and sat to consider his options. He had planned to take Fyodor down in his own time, but the old man had forced his hand. Even if he disposed of the gun now, Fyodor would no doubt come up with some other way to throw suspicion on him—the
vor
would not dare risk the consequences of killing a policeman himself. Alexei could turn the gun over to Patrick, but there was nothing but his word to tie the weapon to Fyodor, for the gun had certainly been wiped of any fingerprints before it was planted under his couch, and in any case, turning Fyodor over to the police would violate one of the most basic precepts of the
vory
code. He would be marking himself for death were he to do anything so foolish as to accuse Volkov directly.

Which meant the police would have to find enough evidence to arrest Fyodor without Alexei having any visible hand in it.
Dovol’no horosho
, he could arrange that. As he remembered his mother say when he was a child, the bird might sing, but the cat would still eat him.

Walking into the bedroom, he pushed aside the shoes at the bottom of his closet and used the tip of the knife he kept strapped to his ankle to pry up a loose floorboard. He extracted a small box from the exposed space and took out the wallet he had removed from the dead man’s pocket before he and Konstantin had dumped the body into Lake Michigan. His fingertips ghosted over the other contents of the box before he replaced the lid and returned it to its hiding place. Rising to his feet, he moved to the dresser and retrieved the copy of the key to Fyodor’s car he had made early on, when he was still only a messenger and enforcer for the Volkov family. One never knew when such a thing would prove useful.

Returning to the living room, he set the wallet beside the gun and then got a plastic bag from the kitchen and placed them both inside. After sealing it, he took off his gloves and sat back on the couch, a grim smile twisting his lips. There was only one more thing he needed to set the trap that would bring Fyodor Volkov down.

Chapter 10

PK 2521

Patrick stared at the text on his phone for several seconds before the coin dropped and he realized Alexei had sent him a license plate number. He had been surprised enough to get anything from Alexei, despite his lover’s promise to see what he could find out. Alexei had made such promises before, but this was the first time he had ever contacted Patrick with information rather than waiting for Patrick to get back to him.

Pulling up the DMV database, he ran the license plate number to see who Alexei had fingered. The plate came up registered to Fyodor Volkov. “Oh fuck,” Patrick cursed softly. If Volkov was involved, and Alexei wouldn’t have sent him the plate if he had any doubts, life was about to get very complicated, especially since he was Alexei’s alibi if Volkov tried to implicate Alexei.

He’d hope it wouldn’t come to that, but he couldn’t keep back the information. “Thames,” he called, gesturing for the other detective to join him. “I need some advice.”

“What’ve you got, sweetheart?” she asked, leaning over Patrick’s shoulder to peer at his computer screen. “Volkov again? What’s he up to this time?”

“Murder,” Patrick said, “at least if my informant is right. I talked to him last night about Stachowicz. He sent me Volkov’s plate in a text this morning.”

Reba pursed her lips, her forehead creased in thought. “Eddie wasn’t undercover with the Volkovs,” she said slowly. “If he was made, it would more likely be one of the Surovs who killed him. This could be an effort to misdirect us. How much do you trust this informant?”

“He’s never led me wrong before,” Patrick replied, his voice steady despite his pounding heart. He trusted Alexei with his life every time they met. “If he’s sending me this information, it’s because he believes it’s the truth, but he’s more valuable if Volkov doesn’t know where the tip came from. I need a way to question Volkov without bringing my informant into it.”

Her eyes narrowed, making Patrick wonder if Reba had heard something in the tone of his voice, but the other detective nodded. “If he’s that good a source, you don’t want to jeopardize him. Do you think you can get any more specifics about how Volkov is involved?”

“I can try,” Patrick said, “but I’m not sure he’d be able to meet with me again so soon. He doesn’t want to raise suspicions.”

“We can’t bring Volkov in for questioning without something more solid to go on, but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep a closer eye on him.” She poked Patrick’s shoulder. “Go tell Captain Jacobs about this. He can name Volkov as a person of interest in Eddie’s murder. If Volkov does a mile above the speed limit, we can pull him over and hope we can find something dirtier to hold him on.”

Patrick nodded. “Let’s hope we find something.” If they didn’t, he’d have a harder time convincing his captain to listen to anything Alexei might tell him in the future, and he’d have endangered his lover for nothing.

He knocked on the captain’s door, waiting for the man to finish his call before going inside.

“What can I do for you, Flaherty?”

“I have a lead from an informant that suggests Fyodor Volkov might have something to do with Eddie’s murder,” Patrick explained, “but it’s not anything concrete. I was hoping you’d put eyes on his car to give us a chance to see what we can find.”