Order of Protection Ch. 08-14

Olga wrote a few things down on her pad, then looked up. "You have proof of this?"

He pulled out a cassette tape recording, handing it to her. "This is the story in her own words. She recorded it before she went to Moscow, just in case," he said. Then he pulled out a smaller cassette, along with a player that was about the size of a pack of cigarettes. "She got a meeting with Yevgheny, and had this hidden in her purse when she went to see him."

I listened to the meeting in horror. "Miss Klishnina, Mr. Zubkov will see you now."

"Mr. Zubkov, thank you for seeing me." I started to cry, she sounded a lot like I did.

"My pleasure. Please, sit. Would you like a drink, Ekatarina?"

"No thank you, sir."

"Very well, what can I do for you? Do you need a job again?"

"No sir, I no longer dance. It's about my daughter, Natalya. Our daughter." I heard her purse moving. "I don't mean to cause you trouble, sir. I wouldn't have dared given your name as her father, but you are. I was a virgin when you took me, I've been with no other man. I am here only to ask for help."

"I see. What kind of help do you need?"

"My savings have run out, and I can't make enough money as a waitress to cover the cost of child care and my home. I have no family left to help me. I'm begging you for assistance, sir. I will never reveal her father to anyone, but I have to live."

"I understand. You have nothing to worry about, Ekatarina. Your struggles are over, I'll take care of everything."

"Thank you, sir. Thank you." He reached over and turned off the recording.

"Is there more?"

"I don't think you want to hear more, Natalya. She was told she was going to a lawyer's office to set payments up, instead his guard broke her neck and stuffed her into the trunk of his car. I saw them unload the body and make it look like an accidental fall." He pushed the recording over to Olga. "Of course, we will be happy to supply DNA for testing that will prove Yevgheny was her father."

"Of course. It will be difficult, but it can be done," Olga said. "From what I have read in the papers, you are correct, he has no direct heirs. The courts are trying to determine how it should be split among his more distant relatives."

I looked at her. "He was my sperm donor, never a father. I want to be his heir not to carry on his legacy, but to allow my Mom to have a final revenge after all these years. All she wanted was a little money to live on."

"And you'll end up with everything," Olga said. She was fully aware of the value of his estate, and even her 5% of net proceeds fee would be a fortune. "You have yourself a lawyer," she said as she shook my hand.

Ch. 12

Olga smiled a little as she considered my case. "You may be lucky. From what I have seen, no valid will was in place for your father when he was killed. Therefore, the Court has to determine how the estate is to be liquidated, and who inherits it. If he was still married, it would default to his wife; since his wife is already dead, it becomes more difficult. His brother Yuri is expected to inherit the majority of his estate, since he is the closest living relative until you showed up."

Father Kempechny shook his head. "Yuri is as bad as his brother, he is leader of the Russian Mob in St. Petersberg. Nasty man, he is known to be involved with smuggling, prostitution, slavery, drugs- you name it and they are probably doing it. Even if you didn't touch the money, keeping him from getting it would be a public service."

Olga nodded. "This will be very delicate, because right now you are all that stands between Yuri Zubkov and an estimated three billion rubles."

"He's a dangerous man, that's why we need to keep you well hidden," the Father agreed. "Olga, you may use Natalya's name because she goes by another one, that trail will be almost impossible to uncover."

She nodded. "That's fine with me, I don't want to know." She handed us each a card, an email address and a phone number on the back. "These are my private lines, not the firm. If you have any questions, call me, and don't use Natalya... use Natalie." I nodded. She turned to an intercom. "Svetlana, bring tea and come here please." Turning back to us, she reviewed her notes. "The recordings and the birth certificate are easy. I can find employment or tax records for you mother to prove she worked at your father's club. The rape doesn't matter, only paternity does. To prove that, we need your DNA results and a comparison with his."

The door opened, and a young blonde came in with a tray containing a tea service. She poured us each a cup as Olga called a medical testing company, directing them to immediately send a person to their office to obtain a blood sample for DNA analysis. "They'll have someone here in thirty minutes," she said. "We will take two vials, one I will have analyzed myself, the other we will submit to the Court for their own testing. We have to work fast, the probate case will close soon unless we intervene. The first step is to file a petition to establish paternity; once you are declared his daughter, then we can enter into the probate case."

"How long will that take?"

"It could take months to get the court to recognize you as his legal daughter. The DNA helps, but we also have to address any other issues that arise. Did you change your name?"

"No, I was adopted," I said.

She wrote some things down, then looked at the Father. "I take it Yevgheny never was notified of the adoption or gave up his parental rights?"

"Correct. She was declared an orphan after her mother's death and then adopted." He looked at me, then her. "It was the best way to keep her alive, Zubkov had already killed her mother and was actively looking for her."

"That's good, we can argue the adoption wasn't enough to remove his claim to paternity." We talked more about the process; I would not be required to be present, and she would be requesting I not be required to be in attendance due to the risks to me of being identified. "Even if we weren't worried about Yuri, which we are, your father was a powerful man with many enemies. You are better off if no one ever knows you are his daughter."

There was a knock on the door, and the secretary let a man in with a lab coat and a small black bag. He quickly took two small vials of my blood, packed one of them away and was gone again. "Are you staying in town overnight," Olga asked.

"I'm afraid not, we need to return home."

She looked at her watch. "There are some forms I need Natalya to sign, but it will take a few hours. Can you go get some dinner and return after?"

"We can, Olga." We rose and shook hands, and her assistant Svetlana showed us out.

Svetlana's POV

I listened with one ear to the microphone I'd placed in the conference room. I smiled, my brother would be pleased, and this information could be worth a lot of money. I knew as soon as I saw the priest that there was something more to this than a simple will. I could tell the meeting was coming to an end, so I ended the recording and removed the jump drive it was being recorded on from my computer. It went in my pocket.

Olga beeped for me and I came to the door, escorting them out. I made sure my phone got a good picture of the two of them in the process. Once they were out, Olga was waiting for me with the papers. "I'll be in my office getting these forms ready," she said. "Start a client file, here is the representation agreement and the other background." She handed me some papers, I didn't show any surprise that she didn't give me the recordings. That was all right, I'd have what I needed.

I texted my brother, telling him I had information for him and needed to see him soon. He was in St. Petersburg; his boss and almost everyone else above him had been picked up in a police raid, and he was switching crews if the new bosses would accept him. He was meeting with a potential boss and would be back in the morning. He asked me to email it to him, but I'd have to do that when I got home. I couldn't risk doing it on the work network.

I worked for another couple hours, leaving right after the young woman and her priest returned and met with Olga for ten more minutes. I popped my head in the office when they were gone. "Anything else, Mrs. Alexandrov?"

"I'll be here half the night getting this written up, but it doesn't have to ruin your night. See you in the morning."

"Thank you, Ma'am." I closed the door, grabbing my purse and making my way out of the office and down to my car. In thirty minutes I was home, the jump drive in my laptop, and Mikhail had the information he'd need to secure his place in the St. Petersburg Mafia.

Patrick's POV

My father had purchased the ticket to Moscow online and dropped me at the airport, the flight left only three hours after I had found out she was gone. I spent most of the flight sleeping, the rest worrying. When I arrived, I picked up my bag and was met outside by two big guys holding a sign with my name. Both were werewolves from the Kstovo Pack, sent by Alpha Viktor to help me protect and return Jessie to America. "Dobryy vecher, Beta Patrik. Good evening. I am Sergey, the quiet one here who doesn't speak English is Ivan. Did you have a good flight?"

I shook their hands. "It was twelve hours locked in a tube with smelly humans, and I'm glad to be on the ground again." Sergey laughed, most wolves felt the same. We would much rather run than fly. "Do you have any other luggage?"

"No, I barely had time to toss a change of clothes in my backpack before I had to leave." We made our way out to the car, a third warrior, Anatoly. I sat in the back with Sergey as we pulled into Moscow traffic. "Have you located her yet?"

"No," he said. "We left a man at Father Kempechny's apartment and another at the graveyard, those were the only two places we figured we might pick them up. She just had too big a head start." He looked over at me. "Our Alpha said to help you and protect her, he didn't say why."

I could tell it bothered him, but the fewer people that knew the better. I settled for a version of the truth. "She's over here trying to find the truth, and there are dangerous people who don't want that truth to come out," I said. "She has no idea what kind of danger she is in, and since she is human, I can't tell her."

He thought about it for a minute. "What kind of dangerous people?"

"Moscow Mafia," I said.

He whistled. "She worth all this trouble? You flying over here? Five of us being sent to protect her?"

I nodded. "Our Alphas think so, and that's all we need to know. My job is to make sure she doesn't get killed before I can convince her to come back."

"You her boyfriend or something?"

"I wish, just look at her." I took out my phone and showed them a photo of her I took when she was socializing with the puppies. Her raven-black hair, the sparkle in her eyes, and the figure partially revealed under the T-shirt caused Sergey to whistle in appreciation. He passed the phone to his friends in the front seat before I took it back. "I haven't found my mate, but she is important to our Pack and I consider her a friend."

"She have any friends here in Russia?"

"Not that I know of." By the time the two hour drive to Sergiyev Posad was done, we were friends. His Pack members in the front seat? Not quite as friendly. The men had gotten hotel rooms a few blocks from the Father's apartment, and they let me sleep while they set up a rotation to watch it.

Ch. 13

Beta John's POV

"PEARSON! Visitor." I looked up from the game of chess I was playing with Doc Smith and nodded. Doc was a good player, he was doing ten years for fraud after getting caught in an insurance scam. I got up, my orange jumpsuit bulging with my muscles underneath it.

"I'll wait for you," Doc said as he went back to watching television. The medium-security prison had a few amenities if you could behave, since those who didn't were sent elsewhere. I walked through the common room in my cellblock, the other inmates not meeting my eyes. I had been challenged my first day here by the dominant inmate, but he had never met a man like me. I wasn't scared, and I was calm and dispassionate as I ignored him. When he tried to hit me, I leaned back, and while he had his weight on his front leg my instep hit the outside of his knee. It collapsed on him, and I walked away before anyone could notice I'd just blown his knee out. He was still in the prison infirmary.

I hadn't had any problems since.

I followed the guard through the doors and hallways, allowing him to shackle my feet prior to being allowed into the visiting area. The visiting room had tables fixed to the floor along with benches, and families mixed with inmates as I walked to the table my new Alpha was sitting at. "Mr. Larsen," I said to Stan as I sat down.

"How are you doing, John?" He was a lot younger than Esca, but he was a good Alpha to his Pack. When I was first allowed visitation after jail, Esca ordered me to temporarily join his Pack. It wasn't a good idea to be so far from an Alpha, or so long in another Pack's territory.

"No problems thus far." It was true, I was determined to stay on good behavior and get out of this place as soon as I could. The smells, the fear, the food, the confinement- all of it made it difficult for me to handle. It was another reason my Alpha visited once a week, to make sure my wolf stayed under control. "I'm a model inmate. Ten more weeks and I'm eligible for release."

"Keep it that way, I'm looking forward to your kilted ass getting back on the other side of the pond," he teased. "Anything you need?"

"No, my canteen fund is full and there isn't much to use it on. I'm trying to keep busy, I'm doing a lot of reading and playing a lot of chess."

"You should try something new, learn a language or something."

He was hiding something. "Like what?"

"Russian." I looked at him funny. "It turns out your little mate is actually Russian. She's over there now, trying to find out about her birth mother and who her father was. The birth certificate didn't say, but she contacted a priest over there who knows."

My hands gripped the table, I'm sure my eyes were starting to shift. The Alpha stared me down, forcing my wolf back until I calmed. "She's over in Russia? Alone?"

"Of course not," Stan said. "I sent Patrick over there with her. She trusts him, and his cover is that he needed to go there for business and decided to see the sights with her."

"You're not helping, Alpha. Having her over there alone may be preferable to having her with an unmated Beta male."

He just laughed. "You don't have to worry about Jessie, she has him so deep in the Friendzone he'll never find his way back. He is waiting for his mate, and he has been made aware of what happens to him if he touches another man's mate. He is there solely to protect her until she can return to us, and be under our Pack protection again."

I thought about it, as long as he kept his hands off of her, it was better than not being protected at all. My wolf chafed at me, I told him it was HIS damn fault we were stuck in this prison, so he better back off. He chuffed and laid down in the back of my mind. "Is she doing better? Healed?"

"Physically, she is fine. The dislocated shoulder was almost fully healed. Mentally? She's having issues. She's lost her mother, found out her parents weren't, her mother was killed by her father, had a stranger beat the shit out of a guy in front of her, lose her job, and move. I'd say she needs a vacation."

"Very funny," I said. "I'm more interested in how she is handling everything."

"She is strong, but she talked about it last week and had a good cry. It's the start of healing for her."

"I wish I could talk to her, write her even. Damned Order of Protection." I looked up at the doors. "Has our lawyer figured out any way to get me out of being deported? Or at least to void the no-contact part of my parole?"

He shook his head no. "Don't risk it, in here even trying to send her a letter could cost you your early release. He did say that after you are being deported, you aren't technically on parole. A violation of the order would mean nothing, they can't enforce it. However, you still can't get back into the country. That to me is a good reason to learn some Russian." I still didn't get it. "Idiot, she's got no reason to vacation in Scotland, but she probably will visit Russia again. She could even apply for dual citizenship. She'll probably go back there again, and that's when you'll have to try and get her to love you and agree to mate you, since you won't be let in the United States."

I leaned forward and placed my head in my hands. "This isn't going to be easy, is it Alpha?"

"Nope." He patted my shoulder. "But learning Russian will give you something to do, and it shows her you are interested in her heritage. I talked to the prison staff, they accepted my donation of the language software and will have it available to use on the computers there. Take advantage of your time."

"I'll ask around and see if anyone speaks it," I said. "Thanks, Alpha."

"You're welcome. Get through this quickly and get back to your home, John. You've been nothing but trouble for me." He laughed as he said this, I knew I'd been a pain in his ass. At least Jessie was no problem, she'd just fit right in. My woman could never cause trouble.

Mikhail Gustova's POV

It had taken me days to arrange, but I finally had a meeting set up with Aleksandr Kurkova, a Beta in the St. Petersburg Pack. He ran the prostitution racket in the area, and reported directly to the Boss and Alpha. If I could convince him to let me transfer Packs, I'd have a job and a place to live. Moscow was too hot anymore.

I was going through in my head my criminal resume. I was a normal ranked member of the Moscow Pack, working for a now-dead Beta who coordinated the political and influence-peddling portion of the empire. Essentially, I delivered bribes, gathered information that could be used to ensure compliance, and occasionally eliminated obstacles to our Pack. One of the Omegas had picked me up from the train station and was bringing me to the meeting. I still had my phone, but not for long. It would be left in the car, and I would be thoroughly searched before going in. No one was taking risks now.

I saw the email come in from my twin sister Svetlana, she had finally made it home after texting me a few hours ago. I had an earphone in, so I listened to the audio file attached. My jaw dropped as I listened, and a smile came over my face. I was so proud of her; this information would not only secure our entrance to his Pack, it would make my name with my new Alpha. How much was it worth to give him information that could keep him from losing billions of rubles?

Certainly enough to set up my sister and I with a new life in a new city.

The driver stopped in a parking garage where a Mercedes was waiting. I got out, at the same time Aleksandr did with a bodyguard. "Change of plans, Beta Kurkova," I said. "I need to see the Alpha."

He laughed. "The Alpha is a busy man, he doesn't have time for low-level recruiting. Maks, search him."

I allowed the search but refused to give up my phone. "You can't have a phone, Mikhail. Leave it in the car or you can go back to Moscow now."

"Sorry." I looked at the Beta, not in his eyes in a challenging way, but to show my determination. "I have found information that directly affects the Alpha and this Pack. I need to see him to provide him with this information directly."

"Give it to me, I'll see it gets to him," he said dismissively.

"You're not understanding, and you're wasting time. I have information on a person who is going to try and take billions of rubles away from the Alpha, don't you think he'd want to hear that immediately?" He tried to get me to hand it over, but I stayed firm- this was my chance to see the Alpha and be rewarded directly.