Unwilling Pawn by Measha Stone

Chapter 21

Christian

Stephanie, my current administrative assistant, waited at her desk just outside my office wringing her hands as I made my way toward my office. I kept a private office suite on the upper east side, away from the penthouse.

“Mr. Kaczmarek,” Stephanie swallowed. “There’s a man in your office waiting to see you. I told him you weren’t in yet, but he refused to listen.”

“It’s all right, Stephanie.” I shrugged out of my overcoat and handed it to her. Droplets of rain dripped onto the carpeting at her feet. “I was expecting him. I didn’t put it on the calendar though.” For a very specific reason, his name wouldn’t be showing up on any office calendar or ledger.

“Oh.” She relaxed. The woman was in her late thirties, but as skittish as a young girl. “I offered him coffee, but he declined.”

“I’m sure he did.” I straightened my tie and pulled at my sleeve beneath my suit jacket. “I don’t want to be disturbed once I’m in my meeting. Is he alone?”

“He had some men with him, but he sent them to the waiting room up front.”

I nodded. “Good.”

Igor Romanov stood at the large picture window behind my desk, staring out at the city below as I walked into my office.

“Igor.” I closed the door, catching his attention. He was older than the last time we’d spoken. Several years had passed since we’d crossed paths. At the time my father sat at the head of our family, running our businesses, but now it was me he would have to deal with.

“Christian.” He walked across the room with his hand extended in greeting. I grasped it, shaking it firmly before moving around him to my place behind my desk.

“Before we begin,” I said, sinking into my chair. “I want you to understand that you speaking to my wife won’t happen again. It shouldn’t have happened the first time.”

His expression hardened. “If I were in your position, I’d say the same thing. But once we’re done here, you’ll understand that’s not going to happen.”

As he sank into the chair opposite my desk, I watched his movements, slow and pain ridden.

“Arthritis,” he explained as he grabbed hold of his right knee and stretched out his leg. Igor was soon approaching his eighties. Having started his family late in life, he had to keep his position safe until his oldest son was old enough to take the reins.

“Why did you want to meet?” I asked, getting straight to the point. Igor sat at the head of a powerful Russian family. While I respected him because of his position, I was not willing to allow him to think he could run roughshod over me by approaching my wife.

“Sebastian Gorecki,” Igor said his name as though it rose bile up his throat.

“What about him?” I kept an even expression. Showing any sort of interest or my true feelings for that prick might give Igor more information that I wanted him to have.

“You know him.”

“I do.”

“Your father and his had business dealings.”

“If you already know the history, why ask?” I drummed my fingers on my desk.

“From what I understand, Gorecki swindled your father out of a prominent business arrangement in Chicago. He fucked your family over, and because of the pull he had with the mayor at the time he and his shithead son became untouchable.”

If it had been that simple, my father wouldn’t have sought revenge. Business dealings get screwed up all the time. Sebastian Gorecki had more ties to old families back in Poland at the time, and he’d used those connections to hurt my father. My father’s younger sister had moved back to Poland, and she’d been used as leverage. In order to secure her safety from Gorecki’s influence, my father had had to give up his rightful claims of a full territory.

“I don’t need the history lesson.” I leveled my eyes on him. Men of his generation enjoyed the dance around the bush before getting to the heart of the matter. I didn’t have the luxury for such games.

“My brother, Milo, passed away a year ago,” the old man turned the topic.

“I heard.” I steepled my hands and leaned back. “My condolences,” I uttered the expected response.

“Thank you.” He readjusted his seating. “As we’ve gone through his finances, I’ve found something interesting.”

I moved my hands into my lap. A dark cloud formed as thoughts barreled through my mind. Dots quickly connected between pieces of information my own men had discovered that we hadn’t quite fit together yet.

“And what’s that?” I forced a neutral expression. No matter the chaos running through my mind with the assumptions forming, I wouldn’t allow him to see them. Maybe I was wrong. Hopefully, I was wrong.

“My brother had been paying into a trust over the past twenty-two years. It’s set to continue until his estate has been exhausted in the event of his death.” He rolled his left shoulder to the side, grimacing with the action. “At first the accountants couldn’t trace it. He set it up so long ago and he used someone other than our family associates.”

“This is all very interesting, but what does it have to do with you approaching my wife on the street?”

He deadpanned for a moment, as though considering if he should continue the conversation.

“The trust fund has been paying into Kacper Dudek’s accounts. One set for him and the other for your wife, Amelia.”

I took a deep breath, settling my mind as it spiraled. All dots connected, but I needed to hear it from him. I needed the words to be put into the air and take tangible form.

“And why would he do that?”

“I wondered the same thing; that’s where Sebastian Gorecki comes into the picture. He approached me a month ago, telling me of his good fortune. He was to marry Amelia Dudek.” He frowned. “I asked him what the hell that had to do with me. I know nothing of her or her father. They’re no one.”

“He was never engaged to Amelia,” I inserted. The very idea that scum like Sebastian even thought he could be partnered up with a woman like Amelia turned my stomach. She would have been crushed beneath him. Her spirit would have faded away.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it, since you’ve married her.”

“I suppose.” I lifted a shoulder.

“Sebastian explained that the union between him and Amelia would be good for me as well.”

“Get to the point, Igor.”

He raised a brow. “You already know?”

“I have suspicion since you’re here. But say it.”

“My brother was Amelia’s father.”

The sentence fell hard between us. It wasn’t a shock, not really. Not after I’d found out the money seemed to be coming from an account in Russia, and then when Anthony told me Igor had made a point to talk with Amelia on the street. But now that the words had been said, they could never be put back in the bottle.

“And Kacper Dudek?” I asked, keeping my tone flat.

“My father would never have accepted Amelia’s mother or her into our family. Back then, our families were enemies. They fought over boundaries all the time.”

“A real Romeo and Juliet situation, then.” I remarked.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “I suppose. But instead of being a man and standing up to my father, he sent Stella, Amelia’s mother, away. Her family agreed to send her to Chicago. In order to keep it all quiet and away from blowing up in their faces, her parents had dealings with the Dudek family. A marriage was arranged, and my brother set up the trust in order to support his daughter financially. The Dudeks insisted on being compensated as well, since their son had to raise Amelia as his own.”

“The full lump sum would fall into his lap once she was married.”

“From what I’ve been able to uncover, yes.”

I ran my tongue over my teeth, too many thoughts running through my mind at one time. Amelia didn’t know any of this, that much was sure. She had no idea the man who’d used her as a prop her entire life wasn’t her actual father.

“Sebastian Gorecki. What does he have to do with all this?”

“He put the last puzzle pieces together. Apparently, when he confronted Dudek with what he’d uncovered, Dudek confirmed it all. Sebastian saw it as a payday. Marry her, get a connection to my family, and he’d be living on the high road again.”

“And now that I’m married to her, I’ve cut him off of his payday?”

He nodded. “Yes. He’s demanding I act.”

I raised my brow. “On what?”

Igor swished his hand through the air. “The man annoys me. Fucking asshole. He had nothing left after his father died, he squandered everything. He has the protection of bigger families, but he has nothing of his own. He’s desperate.”

“I don’t give a fuck about Sebastian Gorecki. And I assume you don’t either, so what brings you here, really? You want to make a family reunion with my wife? Ruin what she’s grown up believing, that Kacper is her father?”

“She’s my niece.”

“She’s my wife first. And I won’t have her put in the middle of any sort of play by Gorecki to get on your good side.”

“He’s demanding I step in, make you let her go so he can marry her.”

I leaned forward on my desk, pressing my forearms into the edge. “And since when does Igor Romanov take orders from anyone?”

He grinned. “I don’t. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here because I do want to meet my niece. Not as some man on the street, but as her uncle. I understand it will be a surprise and it will be unsettling, but I have a right. She’s my niece.”

“Your family sent her away, you have no rights.” I shook my head. “She’s a grown woman who has already been moved around like a chess piece in order to solve men’s problems. I won’t have any more upheaval in her life.”

“She has a right to know her real family. She’s not a Dudek. She’s a Romanov.” He laid his fist on my desk. “There’s a history to her she has the right to know. Cousins she should meet.”

“You’re right. She’s not a Dudek. She’s a Kaczmarek. And the fact that she’s my wife means I will decide what happens here. I won’t have you meeting with her.” I paused, putting my hand up when his eyes darkened. “Not yet. She’s still getting settled. She’s trying to find her footing. Let her have time to do that, then I’ll approach the subject. But until then, you stay away. No meetings on the street. Nothing. You stay away.”

“You won’t get in the way of me talking with her.”

“I will until she’s ready.”

He chewed on his lips. Igor Romanov didn’t take orders, but I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of Amelia finding peace.

“I hear you’re having a wedding reception next weekend.”

“We are. I’ve booked out a room at the Natural History Museum.” After Anthony relayed how happy Amelia had been there, wandering around the exhibits, lost in the history, I called our party planner and made the arrangements.

“Invite me,” he stated, pushing up from his chair. “That will give you almost two weeks before I meet her. At the reception, you can introduce me.”

“Of course, you’re invited to share in our celebration, but we will not tell her about this until after. I will introduce you, but nothing will be said at the party.”

He stared at me a long moment, mulling it over. “Fine. And Dudek?”

“I’ll deal with him. I’m not sure if he’s bothering to come or not, but I want a word with him.”

“And Gorecki?”

“You can do what you will with him. He’s still untouchable to me unless I want to cause trouble for my brother back in Chicago.”

He nodded. “I’ll deal with him. Our families are connected now. We’ve been good at staying out of each other’s ways, but we can’t do that anymore.”

“I don’t see how anything has to change. You have your businesses and I have mine.”

“I agree. But perhaps some sort of alliance would work in both of our favors.”

“I won’t use Amelia in that way.” I shook my head. She’d been the prop and the bait for so long, she deserved better than that. “I won’t make any deals that involve her.”

“You’re very protective of her.” He shook his head. “Be careful, Christian. Matters of the heart complicate things.”

“Because I take my responsibility as her husband seriously doesn’t mean I’m being led around by love. Perhaps if your brother had done the same, we wouldn’t be standing here today having this discussion.”

His frown deepened. “Things were different then.”

“I’m sure she’ll find that comforting when she realizes her family, her blood, tossed her aside because her mother came from the wrong country.” I walked across the room to my office door and yanked it open. “I’ll be sure an invitation is sent over to you this afternoon.”

After he was gone and I stood in my office alone, I walked to my window, looking down at the bustling city below. This office had been a way to legitimize businesses and keep them hidden in plain sight. But now, standing there so far away from where Amelia was, it felt wrong.

My place was with her. Igor warned against having feelings for her, but that’s not what this was.

No, this was far worse.

I didn’t just care for her. I wanted her safe. I wanted her happy. I wanted her to crave my next touch as much as I craved hers. I wanted everything.

And I would get it.