The estate was huge. There was a broad flat field full of warehouses and other buildings like that, which I didn't really care about that, but up on a huge hill was the biggest house I had ever seen. It was old and pretty, like something from a movie. There were several sports cars in the driveway, which made me happy.
"nice" I breathed when I saw 3 Lamborghinis.
Alex smiled at the place too.
The driver parked at the front of the house and a man in a fancy suit came out to meet us.
"welcome to my home" He had a deep voice and a very obvious Russian accent.
I tried not to frown. He looked just like his older brother.
Alex extended a hand
"its great to be here Mr. Veitenhov"
"And wonderful to have you Andrew. Your father and I are great friends. Whos this Lovely lady?"
He gestured to me and I wish I could have bitten him.
"This is my friend Emery."
He looked at me with distaste. With my red converse, jean shorts and sturgis t-shirt, I probably didn't look like the friend of a multibillionaires son.
"Wonderful to have have you" he said with barely disguised coldness.
An awkward silence followed.
"I like your cars" I said. Not lying a bit.
"Yes. They are very nice to have. My favorite is the black one on the end. I had the engine custom built. 14 cylinders " he said proudly.
"Nice" I truly was impressed.
More awkward silence. Man! What a fun mission!
"Well I have a meeting to get to, so ill have someone show you to your rooms. I'll be back in time for dinner."
Mikhail shook hands again and got in the car we had come out of. It drove off, and a maid person came and got our bags.
We folowed her inside and she led us up to separate rooms across the hall from each other. Mine had a great view of the warehouse area. It was beautiful with all its dirt and smoke coming out of the chimneys.
I changed into an aeropostale jascket and walked out. I knocked on Alex's door. He came out and minute later just as the lady was coming back up the stairs.
"Mr. Veitenhov has asked me to tell you that you are welcome to anything on the north side of the estate," she said politely.
"Cool" I said and Alex nodded.
It was much more than cool. He had an entire dirt bike and a wheeler area. There was an olympic sized swimming ool that might have belonged to the Schlitterbahn it had so many rides. There was a stable for horses that had arenas for almost every equine sport there was. A house set apart from the main mansion was bigger then mine and it was just the game room. It had a full arcade and every gaming system in the world. To top it all off, he had a racetrack with 5 stock cars.
"Awesome!" I took off for the dirt bike course and alex followed, just as excited.
I chose a yellow ninja, even though it wasn't a dirt bike. Big mistake. I was almost beating him when the wheels spun out on the dirt and it flipped off the track. I screamed because for some reason, no matter how tough I am, I always manage to let out girly noises.
Alex immediately stopped his motorcycle and ran back to me.
"Are you okay!?" he asked worriedly.
I stood up carefully, with the help of his hand. Awkward!
"nothing broken, just bruises and cuts" I smiled. I ran back over to the motorcycle and picked it up. It was fine too thank God.
"Okay, how bout we do something less… dangerous now"Alex said jokingly.
"sounds fine with me" we put the bikes back and walked down to the stables.
We rode around out of boredom for an hour, and then went back to the house. Before we got there I hear someone talking behind the garage. A voice I knew all to well.
The thing is though, even though I do most of my work in Russia, I never did bother with learning the language, which proved to be a big problem. I knew a few phrases and I could understand little snippets, but nothing too important.
The voice came from a man talking on a cell phone. He was tall and buff, but had the crappiest hair cut I'd ever seen. I didn't know his name and he didn't know mine, but we'd both seen our fair share of each others' guns' muzzles. He's been working as an assasin for the Veitenhovs for as long as I'd been in the business, and was pretty much the only one I had not managed to kill. On his part, he had taught me what swiss cheese feels like. Anyway, he was a guy I didn't want to meet.
I stopped and grabbed Alexs shirt collar, stopping him and holding a finger to my mouth. We waited a minute, but he didn't speak english the entire time. He could have been talking about the nuclear terrorism situation, or telling his wife he would remember the to pick up the milk.
He hung up and me and Alex made a hasty retreat back to the house.
"who was that?" he asked when we were back in the tv room.
I looked around. No one was there but it probably wasn't safe to talking about my whole past with this family.
"Ive met him a couple times before. On business stuff." I made a finger gun and ran my hand across my throat. My wonderfully secretive code sign language.
Alex nodded understandingly.
I thought about all the times id had the joy of hanging out with him. He'd been with V6 for years. V6 was what the Veitenhovs were refered to as back in the states. It wasn't their official name, but it worked. The Veitenhovs are like a mafia. 6 brothers. All extremely wealthy, and extremely dangerous. I've mostly done work against the second oldest, Tuvia, but ive had the pleasant company of all of them at some time or another, this being my first with Mikhail.
Me and alex watched tv for a while and then it was time for dinner. It was italian. Pretty good italian food too. Mr. Veitenhov actually was fun to talk to. He had lots of stories and seemed interested in what we had to say also, but through the whole dinner, as often as he laughed, there was a shadow over his face. His mind was on other things. After dinner, we had an entire cake for the three of uss, and it rocked.
Things went normal for the next few days. Me and alex spent time goofin off on the estate and Mikhail disapeared every morning to do some business or another, but he was always back by 5:00.
It was great.
And then the next day, I woke up with a knife to my throat.