A Love Most Fatal (Morelli Family #1)

30. Nate

30

NATE

I’ve done so many of these interviews that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to have faith in a man.

I am beginning to wonder if my standards for Vanessa are impossible to meet. It’s not like every one of them have failed, but even the ones that do mostly well have one flaw that I cannot look over. And Leo agrees. He’s been in the room for almost every one of these interviews and with each one, he gives a shake of his head with varying levels of intensity or, on rare occasion, a weak shrug.

Today will be my thirty-ninth interview since starting on this mad chase for Vanessa, and after that, I might just have to sign her up for Love is Blind or begin searching outside of the mafia. Maybe to the pool of state politicians. We’ve gone out of the immediate circle. I’ve now interviewed gangsters from California, the nephews of bosses in Chicago (twins, both dicks), and half a dozen guys from Italy who barely spoke English, but did understand the words sex, money, and dinner.

Today Leo and I sit at the old iron table in the backyard waiting for our latest interview. Leo tells me about the baseball team he likes, and I pick tiny green grapes off a vine and burst them on my tongue. It reminds me of another taste on my tongue just last night, and then I have to readjust my pants.

He’s seventeen minutes late. Maxim Orlov. A new addition Claire recommended after the gala, some Russian man I didn’t have the pleasure of running into that night.

Just when I am sure that the man is never going to show up and I will have a few minutes to dissociate thinking about what I will do tonight in peace, Claire leads a huge man through the sliding back door, laughing at something he’s just said to her. Ranger hops up from his spot in the shade and runs at the man’s feet in an instant. He stops to scratch my dog behind the ears, earning Ranger’s forever love and devotion.

I stand to greet him, offering my hand which he gives a firm and respectable shake. No funny business about it. His shoulders are impossibly broad and large, more like a refrigerator than a man, but he makes it look cool. A rather suave refrigerator.

I think all his suits must be custom made, and his hair cut is no less than three hundred dollars, probably every Tuesday.

He is no neighbor’s-uncle’s-nephew, this man is a boss from the fucking Russian mob and he looks every bit the part. He’s got two bodyguards just as big as him trailing behind him and likewise attend to Ranger with the same kindness and ease that earns them a forever companion who would abandon me immediately if they had a meat stick.

“Nathaniel,” I say. We tell everyone that’s my name, but it feels especially important now because saying my name is Nate in front of him might be like giving a nickname to the queen.

“Maxim Orlov,” he says. “Good to meet you.”

Leo and I share a glance and I’m glad I’m not the only one noticing after only fifteen seconds how this man is different from the others we’ve interviewed this summer.

“Sit.” I motion for the chair that Leo just vacated, and Maxim makes it look tiny and special at the same time. Like the chair doesn’t fit him, but in a much more real sense, it was made for him.

“Thank you for coming here,” I say. He nods to one of his guards who brings forth from nowhere a bottle of wine.

“That’s kind of you,” I say, “I’ll make sure Vanessa gets this?—”

“No,” Maxim says. “It’s for you.”

I think he’s joking, but when a quiet minute passes and his face remains earnest, I mutter my thanks and take the expensive vintage and set it next to my notebook.

“Let’s begin.”

“Please.” Maxim clasps together his hands on the table in front of him. The way this man holds himself, his direct focus on me, ready to listen and answer—he’s so unlike the others. They all looked at this conversation as a formality, one they would easily blow past to get in front of Vanessa. Like it was a given. Maxim looks serious.

“You were recently engaged,” I say, referring to my notes. “What happened there?”

“Didn’t work out. She’s now married to someone else and they’re expecting their first child.”

Vague, but at least she’s not dead.

“Why are you here?” I ask, forgoing the usual first questions. Maxim is wearing a black tie over a black dress shirt. There are tattoos poking from beneath his cuffs and snaking across his hands, belying a different man beneath his exterior sheen of luxury fabrics and leather shoes.

“I’ll admit I was surprised to hear that Vanessa Morelli was looking for a husband and using such means to do so,” Maxim says. “But then again, I am unmarried and yet without a successor. If I’d had the idea, maybe I’d be hosting interviews of my own.”

Maxim looks at the grape vines and I do not speak, certain he’s not done.

“I need a wife,” he says. “I have always respected Vanessa, she’s intelligent, independent, and I believe she would do anything to keep her child safe. So, I am here. Because I would be a fool not to be.”

Over his shoulder, Leo’s eyebrows are high on his head, as impressed with Maxim’s assessment and candor as I feel.

“So, you need a child,” I start, and Maxim nods. “What if there could only be one and that one was a girl?”

“My community is a difficult one. Traditional. I won’t lie, leading would not be easy for her, but then again it isn’t easy for any of us. I would support her, Vanessa would show her how, and I would kill anyone who deemed her unworthy.”

I set my pen down next to my notebook, not a clever quip to jot down or a pros and cons column to be made.

“Your business is mostly clubs and casinos, right?” Maxim inclines his head side to side as if to say for the most part. “You both work grueling schedules, her all day and you all night. Would you sleep with other women?”

“No,” Maxim says definitively, his expression hardening. “And I would expect the same courtesy.”

“Even if there is no love between you? There is no one who would tempt you?”

Maxim hesitates. I imagine he’s flipping through a mental rolodex of women, considering the scenarios. “No,” he says, softer this time. “No.”

I’m not even glancing down at my questions; it would feel asinine to give Maxim one of the outlandish scenarios I usually do, what with his security detail and earnest answers about devotion?

I lower my voice and lean on the table.

“How do I know you won’t try to take over her business? That this isn’t just to secure her power?”

“Of course I want her power,” Maxim says. “We’ll need it if we’re going to raise a child with blood ties to this city’s most powerful entities. And as for taking her business, I have no interest in construction, nor the moving of large weapons. It will do us no good if I try to take over her position, spreading me so thin would only make us weaker.”

Maxim leans back in his chair and his hands go to the metal arm rests. One side of his mouth quirks, the first almost-smile I’ve seen from him. “Not to mention that enforcer of hers would kill me for considering it.”

Mary. He’s right about this, Mary would have no issue murdering him, even if he was married to her sister.

“You must care for Vanessa,” Maxim says, and I stiffen. Can this dude fucking read minds too? “These questions are thorough and show a lot of thought. I would want nothing less for one of my own friends.”

I swallow the saliva to wet my dry throat and nearly choke on it. “Well, a woman in her position has to be selective.”

“She is lucky then to have you in her corner.” His flattery doesn’t feel false, and that makes this uneasiness in my stomach heavier. I pick up my paper and rove my eyes over remaining questions.

“I have a few more, let’s keep going.”