The Dysfunctional Affair

  Hadena James

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination and are purely fictitious. Any resemblances to any persons, living or dead, are completely coincidental.

  Hadena James

  Copyright © by Hadena James 2013

  All Rights Reserved

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to Jason and Mollie for letting me work.

  Huge thanks to Eliza Bay, my content editor and Krissy Smith, the proof reader for their work on this book.

  Prologue

  Vacation Blues

  Danes & a Roommate

  Shopping Woes

  Kidnapped

  Home Again, Home Again

  Melina Visits

  The Marriage Theory

  Hangovers

  The Arrival

  The Other Arrival

  Tahiti Meets Russia

  Amanda Reed

  Brother #3

  Oleg Borisovich

  Weird Behaviors, Normal Day

  Wedding Plans

  Also By

  About Me

  Prologue

  My life is a disaster of my own making. Well, that isn’t entirely true, I have help from time to time in the disaster area. For example, on any given day, it is possible that a particular someone will try to run me down with a car. It is also possible that the Russian mob will show up at my door. Or worse, that my mother and her sisters will show up at my door.

  Vacation Blues

  My cell phone rang. I checked the flashing caller ID and grudgingly hit the talk button.

  “This is Nadine,” I said quietly.

  “How was Russia?” Zeke Laroche asked.

  “Beautiful, magnificent, breath-taking, amazing,” I paused, “if you give me a second I can probably come up with some more adjectives, but they won’t do it justice.”

  “I get the picture. I need to talk to you.”

  “Uh, today’s not good; I have tons of things to do.” This was the truth; I’d been in the office three days, and hadn’t gotten anything done. Even my email had been left unread. I knew I had a case of the vacation blues, but wasn’t sure what to do about it. I’d bawled on the return flight, hating the idea of leaving Russia.

  “I’m sure you do.” The door to my office opened. Zeke stepped inside, squeezing the phone closed. “But Lucy says you haven’t sent her a single email all week, so you obviously aren’t looking at them.”

  He checked the ceiling before taking a seat across from my desk. This had become standard operating procedure since a pencil fell down, hitting Anthony in the head.

  “What’s up?” I sighed, resigning myself to the task of talking.

  “You haven’t read your email.”

  “Sure I have.”

  “Liar, if you’d read it, you’d know I was currently homeless.”

  “Oh, yeah, about that,” I groped for something to say. I hadn’t read a single piece of email and had no idea what he was talking about. “I’m sorry about the fire; did you manage to save anything?”

  “What?” Zeke shook his head and closed his eyes, a smile curling up the corners of his mouth. “My house didn’t burn down.”

  “Oh, was it flooded?” I folded my hands on the desk. Zeke shook his head again. “Infested by termites, rats, maggots, in-laws, ghosts, poltergeists, zombies?” He shook his head at each of these suggestions, the smile wider as my suggestions became more ridiculous.

  “You aren’t even close.”

  “All right, why are you homeless?”

  “Denise tossed me out about six months ago. I’ve been living in an apartment, but the neighbors are complaining about the hours I keep. I need a place to stay for a while.”

  “Did you ask Sebastian?”

  “Yes, he’s sleeping on Jacob’s couch. His girlfriend tossed him out too.”

  “Oh, well, what can I do?”

  “You have three extra bedrooms. I could rent one from you for a while.”

  “Me?” I frowned harder. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, I mean I am your boss.”

  “Nobody cares; several suggested I contact you about a room.”

  “Why?” I couldn’t hide the surprise.

  “I can’t tell you.” Zeke smiled.

  “Well, who said it?”

  “Again I can’t tell you that. If I tell you, you’ll get pissed off and spend the next three weeks bitching at everyone and giving them shitty assignments.”

  “Oh, come on, you’re killing me. I have to know what they said. I promise not to get mad. If you don’t tell me, it’s going to drive me crazy.” I have enough curiosity to kill at least fifteen cats. I really hate it when people allude to things, and then don’t tell me what it is.

  “Well, if you sign a contract about leasing me a room for six months, I could probably tell you what they said. But, you have to sign the contract first.”

  “That’s blackmail.” I pushed the intercom button.

  Lucy appeared with a small stack of papers. She set them down on the desk, directly in front of me.

  “We typed the contract last week,” Lucy pointed where I was supposed to sign.

  “Fine.” I quickly glanced at it, signed where indicated and passed it to Zeke. He also signed. “Now you have to tell me who said what.”

  Lucy raised an eyebrow. “I said that you needed a roommate and babysitter and that if Zeke wanted to stay with you, he’d have to blackmail you into signing the papers. Then during last week’s staff meeting, a couple of people said, ‘stay with Nadine, she has tons of room.’” She smiled as she exited the room.

  Zeke stood up. “Sorry, Nadine, but it’s been a bad week. I had to do something.”

  He also left. I sat there, pissed that I’d been tricked by the two of them. I tossed a pencil at the ceiling and watched as the eraser hit the tile and fell back down. It landed, lead first, on a stack of folders. The top folder was marked “if you don’t read these soon, I’m going to superglue them to the windows of the Hummer.” I grabbed the folder, pretty sure that Lucy was serious about the superglue. That would be impossible to clean up.

  Right on top of the stack was an agenda for a staff meeting. I looked over it. It didn’t sound all that important. I pushed the intercom button again.

  Lucy immediately returned to the room, carrying a clipboard, taking the seat that Zeke had vacated. Her face was pleasant and she seemed amused. She noticed the folder in my hands.

  “No, you may not reschedule the staff meeting,” she said taking a seat.

  I shook my head, “Why not?”

  “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a time when at least fifteen people can attend a meeting? There are some scheduling conflicts that need to be ironed out, some general grievances about current working accommodations, ideas for the next office party, ideas for the summer picnic, the current lawsuit, the publicity we’ve been receiving, the stepping up of our own security until the publicity goes away, ideas about a press release in an attempt to divert attention from our work and your lieutenants would like a follow up staff meeting regarding safety and your ideas on what to do for the people you’ve helped. I think that about covers it.”

  I scanned the agenda and saw none of those items. “Did we print a fake agenda?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Yes, there was a disagreement about whether you would try to take the day off if you found out what was going to be discussed.”

  I nodded my head; it was a pretty slick trick. I would have to remember it.

  “Huh, well, I’m working at getting over my vacation blues. I have every intention of being there.”

  Lucy smiled, “So you can’t think of an excuse to run away.”

  “Nope, not a one,” I smiled back at her. I crumbled the agenda and threw it in the general direction of my recycle bin.

  The staff meeting was regarding a woman named Amanda Reed. A year earlier, Alex Zeitzev and I had helped her disappear. She was in an abusive relationship. What we hadn’t known at the time was that she had stolen money before we picked her up. At the moment, we didn’t know where the threats were coming from nor how much had been stolen. We also couldn’t figure out how they knew Alex and I were involved. Now, we were getting death threats. It was part of the reason for my vacation to Russia. My family had connections there, connections that others steered clear of. It had been the safest place for me to be.

  I made it through the staff meeting, but was very tired afterwards. Staff meetings were rough. When everyone is an alpha, there’s a lot of talking over each other. I leaned back in my chair and felt my eyelids droop. I hoped a pencil didn’t fall on my head while I napped

  My nerves suddenly awoke with a panic that comes from being seriously startled. Adrenaline surged through body; my ears seemed to pick up every sound. It was the sound of light footsteps that had put me into hyper alert mode. I stood up from my chair and drew my gun, footsteps that light and slow were probably a bad thing. If it turned out to be nothing, I’d apologize later.

  The doorknob gave a slight rattle as the {
PAGEBREAK} door eased from the frame. Zeke walked in with a slightly amused look on his face. He looked down at the gun and then back to me.

  “You really gonna shoot me?” He asked, closing the door.

  “What the hell are you doing sneaking around the office?” I tried not to yell. The adrenaline was starting to slow down; I felt stupid. He took the chair across from me and I holstered the Berretta.

  “You were snoring, I was trying to wake you without scaring you,” he grinned.

  I thought about it for a moment and checked my clock. Yep, I had definitely fallen asleep at some point. I fell back into my chair and was forced to compensate for its attempts to roll away. I rubbed my face and looked at the desk.

  Zeke looked at me, “you still haven’t read your email. My car is broken down.” He said this slowly as if it was supposed to ring some bells. When I stared at him blankly, he continued. “Sebastian gave me a ride here, he’s already left. Since I now live at your house, either you have to drive me home or give me the keys to the Hummer, because I’m not sleeping here tonight.”

  I stuck out my tongue at him. It wasn’t entirely satisfying, so I blew a raspberry, as well. Zeke laughed and stood up, walking out of the office. I debated staying an hour or so longer and decided I would probably get a more restful sleep at my house. I followed him out, turning off the lights as I went.

  Danes and a Roommate

  There are six dogs in my house, six large dogs. Great Danes are wonderful pets; they are affectionate, loving, protective, and loyal. There is really only one problem with them, they are inside dogs. Now a small dog makes a great indoor dog. However, a dog that stands over 36 inches from the floor is not the ideal candidate for the house. I have no idea why they were bred to be inside dogs, but they were. I absently petted the one closest to me. They would stay like this until I got up or until something caught their attention and they had to investigate. I figured as soon as Zeke started down the stairs, they’d be out of the room like lightning. This was one of the advantages of a big dog, if they were smart, they could figure out how to open doors. Especially since I had put in handle door knobs instead of round ones. I only had two that had learned how, but those two were able to let the others out.

  The shower turned off and the dogs lifted their heads from the bed, listening to Zeke as he moved around in the bathroom. I waited quietly; the mad dash would begin any moment. They would fly off the bed, Loki or Set would open the door and then they’d scramble down the stairs. At least one would trip and slide to the bottom. I would wait until they were completely downstairs before attempting to get up and moving. It was much less dangerous.

  I heard the bathroom door open and close, then the spare room door closed. Instantly, the dogs were off the bed and running for the door. By the time all six were assembled, Loki had gone to work. The door latch clicked, then it was pushed open as the dogs headed out. I heard their paws thud against the floor as they ran for the stairs. It was the sound of distant thunder, one that I was used to hearing. The boom intensified as they reached the stairs, still running at full speed. Then the yelp as one lost its footing and went crashing to the bottom. So far, only Set had suffered an injury from this falling spectacle. Then I heard Zeke yell as they crashed into him, happy and excited at the prospect of getting his attention. I stood up and dressed. Unlike the Danes, I calmly walked down the stairs.

  “Holy crap,” Zeke gave a small shriek. He grabbed the nearest dog, Enki, trying to hide behind him. I stared at him for a moment. Anubis and Loki were playing tug of war with a towel.

  “Are you naked?” I asked.

  “I had a towel,” he looked at the dogs. “I usually shower, get a cup of coffee and then get dressed.”

  “How’d that work for you?” I asked, walking over to my biggest Dane and grabbed the towel from Anubis. It was covered in dog slobber. “You’ll probably need another shower if you use this.” I handed it to him over the back of Enki.

  “Wow, that’s nasty,” Zeke looked torn between wrapping up in it or wrapping up with Enki.

  I turned my back, trying not to laugh. I heard his feet move up the stairs. The dogs moved with him. He shouted at them to let go of his towel three more times as I sat down at the kitchen bar counter. A minute or so later, the group came back down the stairs. Zeke landed at the bottom first, splayed out like a murder victim. Marduk landed on top of him, his breath wheezed out dramatically. Suddenly the others were there too. They all piled on, licking and sniffing my new roommate.

  I smiled at Zeke as he tried to pull himself from the mob. For my five foot two inch frame, the struggle was a long grueling battle that took ages. Zeke was not faring any better. I walked into the kitchen and got down a bowl. I was a cereal kind of gal. I had eight different kinds, I had very little of anything else in the cupboards. I poured some Crispix and added milk. I topped it off with a nice glass of OJ. I knew how to make a wonderful breakfast; juice and cereal was perfect. As I sat down, Zeke joined me at the table.

  He looked at me and I smiled back at him. His face was red from the drool bath he’d just received. He grabbed a handful of napkins and started wiping his face. “Did you start coffee?” He asked sounding grumpy.

  I raised an eyebrow at this. I am not a coffee drinker. I got all my caffeine from soda. “Uh, no, why would I?” I replied, trying not to look befuddled.

  “Huh,” he got up and walked into my kitchen. I ate my cereal quietly, smiling from ear to ear. It was nice to see someone else get attacked in the morning. If they exerted their energy on him every morning, I could get used to the roommate thing. He sat back down at the table. “You have no food.”

  I stared into my bowl. “Of course I have food. There is cereal in the cabinet by the stove, white milk, chocolate milk, orange juice, apple juice, Pepsi and left over Chinese in the refrigerator. If that’s not food, I don’t know what is.” I thought about it for a moment, “There’s also dog food in the garage.”

  Zeke glared at me, “I’m taking the morning off to go grocery shopping.” He sounded irritated. “I have always heard you lived on take out, but I didn’t believe it until now.”

  I laughed, “So what, you just thought every time you came to my house I was between shopping days?”

  He looked at me seriously, “A lot of single people shop one day at a time, I figured you were one of those.”

  “I go shopping every time I run out of the essentials.”

  “What are essentials?” He asked, sounding doubtful.

  “I’ve already told you,” I retorted, “cereal, milk, soda, juice, and dog food. Did you wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

  He made a disgusted noise and headed back to the kitchen. I was guessing Zeke was not a friendly person until he got coffee in him. As an after-thought I added, “I also keep coffee in the house at all times, just in case I have visitors.”

  “You give them coffee, but not food,” he said from the kitchen. “That makes a lot of sense.”

  “I can order out for food; it is much harder to get good coffee from take out,” I replied, not quite friendly.

  “You’re bizarre; you are probably the most bizarre person I know.”

  “Are you always this grumpy in the morning? Cause if you are, I’m going to crush your alarm clock that way I know I’m gone by the time you wake up.”

  He sat down, “Sorry, no I’m not always this grumpy in the morning. I’m just used to bacon, eggs, toast, bagels, etc. for breakfast. Cereal is not among my favorite foods.”

  “You’re the bizarre one. There’s an IHOP on the way to the office, call in an order and pick it up if you don’t want cereal.”

  He nodded his head and looked at me, very seriously. I didn’t like the look; it was the look people got when they wanted to talk to me. Usually, it was not something I wanted to talk about. “Anthony is compiling a list of people that Amanda Reed might have stolen from. Most of them are dangerous.”

  I nodded my head. “It’s probably a long list. He should also consider people that might just want to kill me and blame it on someone else. Criminals talk and while in Russia, the Russian Mob paid a visit to one of my cousin’s because they had heard I was involved in something nefarious and they didn’t want me bringing them a turf war.”

  “How many people are you talking about?” He took a sip of his coffee.

  “I don’t know really. But you have to admit, I’m a lot better at making enemies than friends.”

  “Seriously Nadine, can you think of a couple of people in particular that are pissed enough to want you dead?”

  “How about the guy who occasionally tries to run over me?” For the last four years, I’d had to watch where I was when walking down the street because some jackass had a tendency to jump curbs trying to run over me. It only happened once or twice a year, but the police and Alex were at a loss to figure out who it was. The car was always stolen, and he rarely left evidence behind. In the beginning it had been scary, now it was just irritating. So far, he’d always missed because cars have to get some speed behind them to jump curbs and kill people, which means they make lots of noise. Plus, he didn’t seem to want to hurt anyone else, he always chose a time when I was alone and not in a crowd. It