Page 68 of Wreaking Havoc
“No.” Sascha looked around the bar. At Seth, laughing on the dance floor. At Benny, chatting with some equally muscled dude at the entrance, most likely about gym routines of some kind.
Sascha might still not know them very well, but he wasn’t going to risk these people getting hurt in the cross fire of his baggage. Sascha had brought evil here, to this town that was accepting him so easily. And it wasn’t the demon at his side.
Anger replaced the unease swirling in his gut. Hot and fierce and strangely satisfying.
“We need to deal with this,” he told Kai firmly. “At the source. The delay’s over. Time to clean up our mess.”
18
Sascha
It felt like an entire lifetime had passed since the last time Sascha had walked up to Ivan’s office building.
Just the sight of the hulking structure should have been enough to send Sascha into a panic—considering his last visit had ended with an ambulance—but he couldn’t muster up the appropriate anxiety with Kai at his back. His soothing warmth, the steady presence that in such a short time had come to mean safety to Sascha.
Sascha had meant what he’d told Alexei: he couldn’t ever remember feeling this way, safe and cared for. It wasn’t that there hadn’t been any love in his childhood. Papa had loved him—Sascha knew that—but always there’d been that threat of violence, of consequences for disobeyed orders.
Maybe Sascha had felt that safety with his mother, when he was a baby? But he’d been too young to remember now. And she’d left when Sascha was barely a year old, so how safe could he really have been with her?
What kind of mother left her baby with mobsters?
But Kai wasn’t going to leave. And he wasn’t going to send Sascha away. And he wasn’t going to let anyone or anything hurt him.
So Sascha wasn’t even fazed when the new security guard sneered at the outfit peeking out from Sascha’s black wool coat. His new version of business attire: loose-fitting white trousers and a matching white tank, with a short-sleeved baby-blue overshirt tucked in. He’d even accessorized with a few gold necklaces.
He looked fucking amazing, but he knew it wasn’t what these mobsters were used to. They wouldn’t know fashion if it bitch-slapped them in their judgmental faces.
The man’s sneer didn’t last long though. Not after he caught a look at Kai over Sascha’s shoulder. Kai, who looked equally amazing, if intimidating as hell, his human form dressed all in black and his long hair swept over his shoulders, placing his neck tattoos on full display.
Sascha waltzed up to the guard’s desk, leaning over it with a bright smile. “I’m here to see Ivan.”
“He’s not in,” the guard mumbled after another wary look at Kai.
Sascha glanced over his shoulder, and Kai nodded with a wicked little grin—he sensed the Book here. Sascha turned back to the guard. “I think you must be confused. He’s here, and he’ll see me.”
He didn’t wait for any acknowledgment, just swept past the desk, leaving Kai to deal with the guard’s protest. By the time Sascha rounded the corner to the elevator, Kai was already back at his side, a strange whimpering sound coming from the security guard’s desk.
Sascha hit the button for the top floor in the elevator, sending a wink to the security camera in the corner. He hoped Ivan was watching, the dick.
And he must have been, because the door to his office was open.
Sascha took a deep breath before entering, fortified by the heavy warmth of Kai’s hand on his lower back. He wasn’t alone. He wasn’t powerless.
He could do this.
Ivan was seated behind his desk. He looked…oddly flustered, in a way Sascha had never seen. His tie was loosened and the top two buttons of his shirt undone. His short blond hair was mussed, like he’d been running his hands through it.
But his expression was as cold and placid as ever. “Sascha,” he greeted, ignoring Kai’s presence entirely. “I expected you hours ago.”
Sascha got right to it. “We need the Book, Ivan.”
“Why?” Ivan asked, as if he had a right to. As if he hadn’t stolen the thing right off Sascha’s coffee table and fled. “To summon more demons, perhaps? Maybe give one to Alexei? Then the two of you can really fuck me over.”
Of all the ridiculous bullshit.
Sascha threw up his hands, all his poise leaving him in an instant. “God, Ivan, what the fuck? You really think we’re conspiring against you? When have Ieverwanted even a piece of your empire? You’re such a lunatic.”
“Am I?” Ivan asked quietly. “I had two brothers who were supposed to be at my side. Now I have none.”
