Under the Skin (18 page)

And now….

Now everything had changed. He’d heard that Volkov had accused Alexei of killing Stachowicz, and the thought of Alexei going to prison for a murder he couldn’t have committed had been too much for Patrick to bear. He’d gone to his captain, determined to give Alexei an alibi they wouldn’t be able to break. The cost to his career hadn’t even crossed his mind, not when a conviction for killing a cop could mean death. He’d walked into his captain’s office to tell him Alexei couldn’t possibly be the murderer. The reaction he’d gotten had stunned him. He had to talk to Alexei.

Picking up the phone, he dialed his lover’s cell number and waited.

Alexei bit off a curse as the phone warbled in his pocket. He could think of only one person who could be calling him. Two days had passed since he had last seen Patrick, and he had begun to convince himself that silence was the only answer he would receive to the question he’d asked before they parted. Not that he had expected any different, but hope was a stubborn weed, refusing to die no matter how often he pulled it out by the roots. The phone sounded again, and Konstantin shot him a suspicious look under lowered brows. Shrugging, Alexei set the case of electronics equipment he’d been unloading onto the dock—suspecting that Konstantin ordered him to perform such manual tasks as much to watch the play of his muscles as to remind him of his place—and dug the phone from his pocket, taking a casual step or two farther from the younger Russian in the process.

“Boczar,” he snapped.

“I wasn’t sure you’d answer,” Patrick said with a sigh of relief. “I wasn’t sure you’d still want to talk to me. Is it safe for you to talk?” That had never been a given, but now Patrick knew just how much more danger Alexei was courting.

There was so much he wanted to say to Patrick, so much he wanted to ask, but Alexei appreciated his lover’s discretion. Or could he still consider Patrick his lover? Perhaps he was calling only to tell Alexei he’d reached a decision, the only decision he could expect from a policeman. All too aware of Konstantin’s suspicious stare, he muttered a short, “No.”

“Meet me tonight, then,” Patrick requested, “whenever you can get away.” Quickly, he gave his address, adding, “It’s safe. We can talk without being disturbed. Tonight, Lyosha.”

“Okay, okay,” Alexei answered dispassionately, memorizing the address as he shut the phone and tossed it on top of his discarded suit coat. “Wrong number,” he answered Konstantin’s unspoken question, hefting another carton from the back of the truck.

The abrupt end to the phone call left Patrick shaken. Alexei had said it wasn’t safe to talk, but that could mean so many different things, none of them good. Even if it was only that he wasn’t alone, that almost certainly meant he was with Konstantin. Despite himself, Patrick felt his jealousy rearing its head again. He tamped it down forcefully. Alexei had enough to worry about without Patrick’s irrational fears of being displaced by another man. Reminding himself they had made no promises—of fidelity or of anything else—he looked around his flat for something to keep himself busy until Alexei arrived.

L
EANING
against a light pole, Alexei watched the block of lofts at the address Patrick had given him. This was unquestionably where the police officer lived, and Alexei told himself again that the wisest course of action would be to turn away. That he stood here still was proof of how big a fool he truly was. But Patrick had asked to meet again—had trusted him enough to ask to meet at his home—and foolish or not, Alexei could not reject what was clearly Patrick’s answer to his question.

Exhaling the last of his cigarette and grinding it beneath his heel, Alexei crossed the street toward the building.

The sharp knock at his door startled Patrick enough that he jumped a little. Telling himself to stay calm, he crossed the room and checked through the peephole to make sure who was there. He couldn’t stop the relieved smile when he saw Alexei. Opening the door, he gestured for the Russian to come inside. “I wasn’t sure you’d come, or that you’d stay once you realized where we are,” he admitted.

Alexei looked around the loft, very different from his own small apartment, much more modern and upscale. “You take big risk asking me here,” he stated flatly, fighting the urge to reach for Patrick until he knew exactly where they stood.

“Nothing compared to the risks you take every day,” Patrick countered, thinking of everything he had learned about his lover. He wanted to reach for Alexei, to pull him into an embrace and keep him safe, but he knew the other man wouldn’t appreciate the gesture at all.

Frowning, Alexei shook his head. “You have always known how dangerous this is, for us both, if we are found out. Inviting me to your home only adds to risk.”

“I didn’t know about the biggest risk of all,” Patrick countered. “I talked to my captain this morning.”

“And what did your captain tell you?” Alexei kept his response calm despite the uneasy mood he felt from Patrick. He wondered whether somehow their association had become known despite his efforts to keep it secret.

Patrick shook his head at Alexei’s stubbornness. “I went to tell him you had an alibi for Wednesday night. Before I could get beyond telling him you couldn’t possibly be guilty of murdering Stachowicz, he told me I was the second person today to remind him you were one of us.”

“Someone is having joke at your expense,” Alexei countered, mentally cursing Graves, who had promised to share what he knew with no one.

“Lieutenant Graves doesn’t strike me as the joking type,” Patrick pressed, stepping closer to Alexei as if he could wring the truth from the other man by his nearness alone. “In fact, he told me all kinds of interesting things about you when we talked this morning.”

“All untrue,” Alexei countered, though he knew by now that continued denial was useless.

Frustrated, Patrick moved to stand directly in Alexei’s line of vision. “Lyosha, I know,” he insisted.

That Patrick was still talking to him at all meant he couldn’t possibly have heard the worst of what Graves could tell him, though the lieutenant himself did not know the worst by half. “What is it you think you know?” he asked tiredly.

“That you’re working undercover for Interpol, that you were responsible for Fyodor’s arrest, that you’ve given the police the name and location of several of the girls Fyodor and Konstantin had enslaved so they could get them out,” Patrick enumerated.

Alexei wondered if Patrick would still be so passionate if he knew some of the darker deeds he could also lay claim to. “Even if you are right, it changes nothing,” he answered heavily. “The risk is just as great.”

“You asked me to trust you, and I do. Now I’m asking for the same. Trust me to keep your secret. Trust me to help you,” Patrick pleaded. He couldn’t see any other way forward for them.

“You don’t understand,” Alexei protested. Right now, if the
vory
discovered the truth about him, he risked no one but himself. He would not be able to keep Patrick safe if he became involved and his role was discovered, and that was a risk Alexei could not take. Beyond that, the more Patrick learned, the more likely he would be to eventually turn from Alexei in disgust. “You can’t possibly understand.”

“Because you won’t talk to me!” Patrick shouted, pushing at Alexei’s shoulders. “How the hell am I supposed to understand when all I get are evasions and half-truths?” He shoved again, herding Alexei in the direction of the couch. “I’m not some random person off the street, you know. This is my profession. I’ve worked undercover practically since starting with the force. I know how to be discreet, but more than that, if you don’t talk to me, I could end up endangering you far worse because of my ignorance.” Shoving hard, he forced Alexei to the couch, the other man having no choice but to sit when his knees hit the edge of the furniture. “Talk to me! Help me understand.” He straddled his lover, keeping him pinned in place. A part of him immediately focused on the hard body beneath him, remembering what it felt like to ride Alexei’s cock to completion, but he pushed that awareness away. They had to talk first, had to resolve this before they had sex again. Otherwise, this was just another fuck, despite what he wanted to pretend.

His pulse racing at Patrick’s commanding actions and the hard cock pressing into his thigh, Alexei took a deep breath, knowing Patrick was right. He owed his lover as much truth as he could share with him. Most important of all, he focused on Patrick’s first plea. “I trust you,” he admitted, lifting a hand to the one pinning his shoulder to the couch and intertwining their fingers. “I would not have returned after first time if I did not trust you.”

“Talk to me,” Patrick repeated, squeezing their clasped fingers as his temper calmed. Alexei was right, in a way. They did trust each other, had trusted each other from the first, on one level anyway. They had each trusted the other not to betray what they had, whatever that was. To hear the words, though, eased one concern. Now maybe Alexei could ease the rest. “Help me understand what you’re doing and why.”

“What you want to know?” Alexei asked. He had kept his own secrets for too many years to volunteer anything, but he promised himself he would answer any question Patrick asked. He only hoped his lover would not ask about subjects he would not want to hear the answers to.

“How many of your tattoos are real?” Patrick asked, thinking about everything he had learned of their significance, from Alexei himself and from his own research.

“All of them,” Alexei answered with a grim smile. “Among
vory
, wearing a tattoo that is not earned is punishable by death.”

“Not the most forgiving bunch, are they?” Patrick grimaced. “I don’t think they’d be any happier if they found out you were working for the authorities.”

Alexei inclined his head in agreement. “Is why I don’t tell them.”

“Don’t make jokes,” Patrick scolded, a chill running the length of his spine at the thought of his lover at the mercy of the
vory.
“I couldn’t stand it if I lost you that way.” He took a deep breath and rested his forehead against Alexei’s. “How long?”

Alexei’s lips twitched—sometimes black humor was all that had helped him survive the hell of prison life. Sometimes he thought he could never leave it behind him. He wondered if Patrick would appreciate the tattoos on his feet—the ones that could be translated to read “You can’t walk faster than your shadow.” But the honest emotion of Patrick’s comment left him with no clever response. “How long?” he repeated, not sure exactly what Patrick was asking. “Was I in prison?”

“How long have you been a mole?” Patrick clarified, though he was curious about the other as well.

“Long time.” Alexei shrugged. “Takes long time to work my way up to where I am now.” There had been other undercover agents before him, but none who had risen high enough in the organization to earn stars. As he’d finally managed to convince his handlers at Interpol, it was an advantage they couldn’t afford to waste. It had to work, he’d insisted. It had to be worth all the atrocities he had committed along the way.

Patrick nodded. He’d learned enough to accept the veracity of that statement. “What made you decide to do it?” That was the crux of the matter, the one burning question Lieutenant Graves couldn’t answer.

“Is long story,” Alexei warned with a quirk of his head. And not one that he looked forward to telling, especially not to the still-idealistic young man straddling his lap.

“We have all night. We’re safe here.”

“We are safe nowhere!” Alexei exclaimed, seizing Patrick by the shoulders and forcing him to meet his gaze. “You cannot let guard down for an instant, do you hear me?” His voice grated with the intensity of his emotions. “Is why it is better we are not together.”

“I’m a cop, remember?” Patrick retorted, refusing to flinch beneath Alexei’s bruising grip. He would let his lover manhandle him, indeed, felt his body react despite himself, but no one else would get the chance. “I know how to take care of myself, and it’s not better not being together. I’ll sneak around and hide what we’re doing, but I won’t give you up. I tried that once. I didn’t like it. Tell me your long story. I want to know.”

Shaking his head in resignation, Alexei settled back against the leather sofa cushions, drawing Patrick beside him to rest with his head pillowed on Alexei’s shoulder. “I was fifteen first time I went to prison,” he said quietly. “My father was construction worker. He was hurt when beam fell on him; long time, he could not work. I sold some of his tools to get money.” He shrugged a shoulder and Patrick’s arm wrapped around his waist, pulling them closer. “Tools belonged to government. I was convicted of stealing Soviet property.”

“Fifteen,” Patrick repeated, shaking his head. He could see the boy Alexei must have been, caught on the cusp of adulthood, trying to prove his worth to his father, in over his head in a world he couldn’t begin to understand. His grip tightened as if he could somehow protect the young man from that past. “You were just a boy.”

“Boys grow up quick in prison colonies,” Alexei replied darkly. “First time, was juvenile facility in Ukraine. Always fighting there—for food… for cigarettes… for sex.” Alexei had never been with anyone, man or woman, before entering the colony, but he had plenty of experience by the time he left.

Patrick flinched slightly at the casual comment. He knew what prison was like here in the US. He didn’t imagine it was very different in Russia. Still, Alexei was strong. He could look out for himself. “And then?” he prompted, not yet having heard what he needed to know. His fingers moved slightly up and down Alexei’s arm, trying to soften his questions. He didn’t want his lover to feel like he was being interrogated.

Alexei grimaced. “In prison I met Piotr.” His expression softened as he remembered those early days of discovering that sex could be about more than pain, that there could be tenderness and joy as well. “We were released around same time, so we went to St. Petersburg together. Foolish, really—we knew no one there, we had no jobs, no money.” He shook his head in remembered sorrow. “We were arrested together for stealing from grocer. That earned us extra time as ‘organized criminals’. We were sent to Kresty—they call it ‘The Crosses’.” His face hardened again as he continued, “In Kresty,
vory
are very strong. Piotr was slender, blond… beautiful. The most powerful
vor
there was named Igor Surov, along with his son Evgeny. Fyodor Volkov was his lieutenant. And Igor Surov wanted Piotr.”