What Lies Ahead

Chapter Two

"Are you okay?"

I jumped at the sound of the familiar voice, turning in my seat to see Ava standing in the doorway to my little office. Ava was a colleague and a good friend. She had started working for the company just one month before me, four years ago, and we had become friends almost instantly. We had similar personalities, and I think that was what drew me to her when we first met, besides both of us being newbies.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why?" I gave her a tight smile. I'd had little sleep the night before, unable to stop thinking about my newfound collaboration with Maksim Volodin. I was anxious about our meeting today, and I had to admit that at the peak of my anxiety, I even contemplated not coming in to work today... or ever. It was a useless thought because I was pretty sure he would have gotten his way regardless of my feeble attempts at dodging this meeting. The man was relentless.

Ava leaned against the doorframe. "You look... strange."

"Just tired. I didn't get much sleep last night."

"Are you having issues with your new project?"

I stared at her for a long second, deciding what to do. I needed to talk to someone, and I knew Ava could keep this to herself if needed. "Could you close the door for a minute? I have to tell you something."

She frowned, quickly realizing this was serious, and stepped inside, closing the door. "What is it?" She sat in one of the leather chairs in front of my desk.

I cut straight to the chase. "Ever heard of Maksim Volodin?"

"As in Volodin hotels?"

"I suspect the hotels are just a front for other businesses, but yeah, one and the same." I dropped my voice, even though no one could hear us through the closed door. "I heard he's connected to the Russian mafia. Not sure if it's true or not, but I saw something on the news a couple of years ago."

"Okay, but why are we talking about him?" Ava asked tentatively.

"He wants to hire us... or me, to be more exact. He basically told me to drop Lanier's project so I could work on a house he bought. I met him last night and I'm seeing him again this afternoon to go see the house." I ran a hand over my desk absentmindedly. "He's... intense."

Ava stared at me incredulously. "Wait, wait. Back up. How did you meet him?"

At this, a blush crept its way up my neck. I knew I should have treated last night's meeting differently. "He had someone contact me on his behalf and pretty much ordered me to his penthouse. Apparently he's best buddies with Mayor Hicks and he saw the summer house. He won't take no for an answer. He somehow knew I didn't get to sign the contract with Lanier, and he made him back out of it."

"I–" She shook her head as if she couldn't believe it. Neither could I. "Why did you go if you knew about these mafia rumors? Why didn't you tell Matt about it? You know what you did was stupid, right? At least you could have taken one of the guys with you."

Give it to Ava to tell it right to my face.

"I thought I could handle it," I said quietly, feeling embarrassed by my lack of judgement. I was too used to dealing with important people and their overly inflated egos. Some foolish part of me really though I could make Volodin take a step back and wait until we were able to accommodate him. Going alone to meet with him hadn't been my finest moment. I'd basically given him the opportunity to intimidate me into doing what he wanted.

"Who contacted you? You should have told them no from the start."

"Some guy named Dima. One of his henchmen, I'm sure." I sighed. She was judging me and for good reason. "At first, I did tell this guy no. I told him I was involved in another project and that his boss would have to wait. The moment I refused, his tone of voice changed. He was still polite, but I could hear this threat lying underneath all that feigned good behavior. He called me every day for a week. Then I thought I could just go to the meeting and negotiate like I usually do. I've handled plenty of difficult clients before. Obviously, this time it didn't go as expected."