Black Swan

by London Miller

  “Usually the crying doesn’t happen until after,” she reminded her, not wanting to think about what those words truly meant.

  “If you must know,” Katherine said, electing to ignore that, “I don’t believe Miss Islington will finish the program.”

  “Why’s that? According to your evaluations, she excels here.”

  “Have you been keeping up with her then?”

  There was no right way to answer that question without having at least a dozen more lobbied at her. “It’s impossible not to hear things.”

  Whispers couldn’t be avoided, and though the girls had a tendency to be careful of what they said around her, sometimes they seemed to forget when she was in the room entirely.

  Karina blamed it on her desire to not be seen—to keep to herself and avoid the curiosity of everyone around her—but that didn’t mean she didn’t listen.

  “What do you think of her?” Katherine asked with a slight tilt of her head.

  “I don’t know her well enough to have an opinion,” she answered easily.

  Though that wasn’t quite true.

  Kava was quiet and polite. She rarely, if ever, spoke out of turn or fought with the other girls. She absolutely, one-hundred percent, didn’t belong amongst the likes of them, considering her silent nature.

  But even knowing all of that, Karina figured there had to be a reason she’d elected to come here because nothing else made sense.

  “You never told me,” Karina went on, “why you don’t think she’s going to finish.”

  Katherine made a low humming sound as she smoothed a hand over her perfectly placed chignon. “Her parents want her home.”

  A startled laugh left her as she absorbed that. “When have you ever cared what someone else wanted if it didn’t suit your interests?”

  “Careful there, darling. That almost sounded like an insult.”

  “Why does it matter what they want?” Karina asked instead, attempting to adopt a more civil tone.

  “It matters because they’re footing the bill for her being here, and if she no longer has a sponsor, being who she is, there’s nothing I can do with her.”

  Karina frowned, not quite understanding.

  Most of the girls who came here to learn under Katherine were of a certain sort—most had once been homeless or orphaned. This, despite everything else, had proven to be a better option.

  She didn’t think, in all the years her mother had been fostering the girls, one’s parent had paid her to do so.

  “Who am I,” Katherine said as she stood, “to keep a child from their parent?”

  Karina thought of Kava’s face before Katherine had sent her from the room. “But it doesn’t appear as if she wants to go back.”

  “My rules are clear, Karina. I have them for a reason.” She moved to walk around her. “But, of course, if there’s a better option for the girl, I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard at all for you to convince them.”

  Though her expression didn’t reflect it, Karina was almost sure her mother had baited her in some way. “You want me to speak with her parents?”

  “You do as you wish, darling. But I would suggest speaking with Kava first. I imagine she’d want to tell you the truth about why she’s here.” Katherine’s expression shifted for a moment, her expression unreadable. “In the meantime, since you’ll be traveling abroad, take her along. If I don’t see her again, I trust you’ve left her in the care of her parents.”

  There was no greater feeling Karina hated than feeling as if there was something she didn’t know.

  Elias’s men were so starkly out of place amongst the soft colors of Ashworth Hall. What Katherine chose to do with them, however, wasn’t really any of her concern.

  “I think it would be best if you took a team with you, don’t you think?” Katherine asked in that way that said it wasn’t really a question.

  “I don’t need a team, Mother,” she reminded her as she stared out at Kava as she took it upon herself to have their luggage loaded into the trunk of the idling car.

  But she also noticed the way Kava was very careful to keep her distance from the driver, though the man didn’t look capable of harming a fly.

  “Everyone needs a good team, darling. It’s what best and ensures you work efficiently.”

  “Yes, but if I do choose to form a team of my own, then I want to choose who I keep close to me.”

  And the last thing she needed was to have men around whose checks were signed by a man she didn’t necessarily trust.

  Katherine sighed, a long-suffering sound, that quite clearly showed her level of dissatisfaction. “I can’t for the life of me understand why you and your sister insist on surrounding yourselves with those incapable of understanding our way of life.”

  Incapable of understanding our way of life … A rather convoluted way of saying they were beneath them.

  Their protection, she meant.

  Her, because she now had the Jackal—a man as tortured as he was skilled.

  Isla, because she had Zoran, who didn’t aspire to grace in any way, something that went against everything Katherine preached.

  “The difference is, I trust him,” she said with a brief nod in Jackal’s direction where he stood eyeing the men standing near the fountain.

  “Why? I thought you said he hasn’t spoken a word since you got him.”

  Oh, she didn’t need to hear him speak to trust him.

  Even after all of his conditioning and the brutal torture he’d suffered at the hands of men who wanted to turn him into something dangerous and terrifying, he hadn’t lashed out of her.

  He’d protected her when the only thing she had wanted to do was buy his freedom, even as it was freely given.

  She’d kept her promise, and now he wanted to give her something in return.

  His own trust.

  “It’s always better to make one true connection rather than a dozen false ones. You taught me that.”

  “If you insist …”

  She certainly did.

  Kava was quiet for the first hour of the flight, but it was clear to anyone who looked at her, she had something she wanted to say. She was a fidgeter, twirling her thumbs in her lap and chewing on her bottom lip whenever she glanced over at Jackal.

  Karina had almost thought to tell her she wasn’t in any harm where he was concerned, but when she finally looked over at Kava to do just that, she didn’t see the fear in the girl’s eyes.

  Curiosity, maybe.

  And when she noticed Karina was looking in her direction, she cleared her throat, color blooming in her cheeks.

  “Do you …” she started before clearing the hoarseness out of her voice. “Is it possible to know where we’re going?”

  “This isn’t an assignment for Mother,” Karina said quickly, tucking her book away, “rather something … personal. A friend of mine was taken by some men, and I want to get him back.”

  Three years had passed since she’d last seen Orion. Longer, more than likely.

  While he was still something of a Jack-of-All-Trades when it came to the criminal scene, he had been working for the same man for the last year and a half as far as she could find.

  “And me?” Kava asked, her dark brows drawing together. “Why am I here?”

  She thought of her conversation with Katherine about the girl’s parents and what they wanted for her. Even if it wasn’t necessarily what she wanted for herself.

  Contemplating her response, she didn’t know how to answer at first. “I overheard a bit of your conversation with Mother.”

  Kava did her best to keep a straight face. “Oh?”

  “I imagine there’s a reason you don’t want to go home,” Karina said softly.

  It was the only thing that made sense, though she couldn’t say even she would have made the same choice.

  But she also didn’t know the reason behind it.

  Shame reflected in her eyes. “She didn’t … tell you the details?”

&
nbsp; “No, and you don’t have to either if you don’t want.”

  She wasn’t one to force someone to share if they weren’t ready.

  “Does he work for Mother as well?” Kava asked softly, her gaze drifting in Jackal’s direction before she swiftly looked away once more.

  Her subtle way of trying to change the subject. Karina didn’t mind. “He doesn’t.”

  Though, if she were being honest, it wasn’t as if she had designated any particular role for him since his release from Gheenă. She’d wanted to give him a bit of privacy for a while—relax, for what she was sure would probably be the first time of his life—but now she wasn’t so sure if that had been the right decision.

  Because now he just seemed lost.

  Something she needed to remedy.

  “Excuse me, a moment,” she told Kava before unbuckling her seat belt and crossing the aisle over to where Jackal sat, his eyes straight ahead.

  Very carefully, she sank into the seat, ensuring he saw her every move.

  But once they were facing each other, he still didn’t speak, though she was almost positive he wanted to.

  “You’re not my prisoner,” she told him once they were alone. “I won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to.”

  She’d grown used to his silence—the way it would feel as if he weren’t sitting there at all even though he was impossible to ignore. She was even prepared to leave it at that, knowing that his actions would provide his answers, but instead, his voice made her pause.

  “But—but …”

  One word, softly spoken in Romanian before he repeated the word in English with a sharp shake of his head—as if he’d made some sort of mistake and had to correct himself.

  She’d been too surprised by the sound of his voice to realize how quickly she had turned—and how that might have seemed to him because she turned just in time to see the way he tensed, his jaw flexing.

  As if he were waiting for a strike …

  Was that what they had done to him in that place if he dared utter a word?

  Karina had known he’d faced horrors in there—she could see that simply from the surroundings he’d been kept in and the pit where he’d had to fight for his life—but she hadn’t imagined it was because of them that he chose not to speak.

  And for a fraction of a moment, her thoughts drifted to Grimm, knowing he had now taken his place—that he would undoubtedly suffer the way he had—and when it did, she felt a modicum of guilt knowing what she was consciously subjecting him to.

  But on the heels of that guilt came anger with both him and herself.

  She shouldn’t care about how he might hurt.

  He’d killed her daughter.

  “I don’t know what their orders were,” she said, keeping her voice gentle so he knew she meant him no harm, “but you’re always allowed to speak freely with me. In fact, I assist upon it.”

  It would make it easier to find out what he needed and how she could help.

  Jackal seemed to gather himself, staying silent for so long, she wondered if he had reverted back to the man they’d made, but finally, his lips moved. “You must want something from me.”

  She wanted to say of course not, but that wasn’t quite right. It might not have been the same thing the director and that organization had asked of him, but it was certainly something. Sure, she might word it differently, and there was certainly a difference between the two in her mind, but wasn’t she asking him to risk his life as well?

  “The man you fought,” she began, her voice growing softer. “He … almost killed me and he—” The words, no matter how much time had passed, were still so very hard to say. “—took something very precious from me. He worked for a man I lo—trusted—and if I want to get to him, I’ll need protection.”

  She kept her gaze on his profile, wanting to make sure he understood the gravity of what she was about to say. “But if that’s not what you want, I’ll still help you in any way I can.”

  “Why?”

  There were a thousand and one answers to that question, but only one really mattered. “Because everyone deserves to live.”

  Jackal might have nodded, the barest tilt of his chin, but from the expression on his face, she didn’t think he understood. Not really.

  The voices inside the warehouse tapered to a halt as she entered the room, mindful of the click of her heels and the way the bottom edge of her coat brushed across the back of her calves.

  There was no mistaking the surprise on their faces at her sudden entry.

  Of course, they were in the middle of beating a man half to death, so the last thing they’d expected was her—or the man she had come in with.

  But she paid very little attention to the two men who were too busy staring at her to ask a proper question and focused instead on the man hanging from his wrists by a length of rope that chafed the delicate skin there.

  Orion.

  His hair was a shade longer and dripping with sweat—much like the rest of him. He’d even allowed his beard to grow out a bit longer. But even with the changes in his physical appearance, she’d know Orion anywhere.

  And seeing him strung up there, beaten nearly black and blue and his head hanging limp, she didn’t appreciate the sight very much.

  “Who the fuck are you?” one of the men asked, finally finding his voice.

  Orion had yet to look up despite his torture coming to a standstill, and only the rapid rise and fall of his chest kept her just being done with the men outright.

  “While I’m not entirely sure why you have him strung up here, I doubt whatever your reason is good enough.”

  It was her voice, she imagined, that had Orion stiffening, his head finally lifting, though now that she had a look at his face, she couldn’t imagine he could actually see her with how badly his eyes were swollen.

  But whether he could make her out clearly was unimportant because she could tell from the way his jaw slackened that he knew it was her. And from the wonderment in his expression, she was pretty sure he’d also thought she was dead.

  “Listen, suka—”

  “Call me a bitch again,” Karina said carefully, “and I’ll give you a demonstration in respect.”

  The man, whoever he was, laughed—the force of his laughter making his shoulders shake. “Yeah, and who’s going to teach me this lesson?” he asked, that Russian accent of his thickening.

  “You handle your shit with me,” Orion said, his voice strained, each word sounding as if it took a great effort. “Leave her out of it.”

  Only he would find himself in a position like this and still be trying to protect her.

  But of course, he was still unaware of all that had happened. He didn’t know how much she’d changed in the time since they’d last seen each other.

  “Yeah?” the Russian asked, completely ignoring the way Orion thrashed now in an effort to get free. “And what the fuck are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing,” she answered honestly. “But he will.”

  These two were all brute strength—meant to inflict as much bodily harm to a person as they possibly could. They weren’t trained in the art of torture or killing, though they’d probably done a lot of it.

  Though not, she was sure, as much as Jackal had done.

  And like the predator he could be, he emerged from the shadows, his face that blank slate he’d worn when he was in the pit. But he merely stepped to her side and stood there—waiting for a command.

  Only once he finally noted she wasn’t alone, the Russian hesitated, his jowly face leaching of blood as he took in the man at her side—and oh did she know the terrifying sight Jackal could make when he was coiled like a panther about to strike.

  “Let him go,” she ordered with a nod of her head in Orion’s direction, “and I will let you leave this room. Don’t, and I’ll—”

  “You must not know who you’re fucking with,” the Russian’s partner cut her off, his face in a sneer.

 
“There are only a few prominent Russian syndicates here in New York. You don’t work for the Volkovs, this isn’t their territory. And if Orion were in debt to the Semenovs, I would have heard about it by now.”

  Especially since Katherine had done a few deals with those men.

  “Which only leaves the Orlovs.” Her gaze dropped the chest of the Russian who’d first spoken, his sweat making the shirt he wore nearly transparent. “And considering neither of you bears any stars, you’re nothing more than hired help.”

  That knowledge had come from a story she’d been working on featuring a Russian call girl who’d been caught up with a man she hadn’t known had unsavory connections. As the weeks passed working on it, she’d learned far more about the Russian mafiya and what their tattoos meant than she’d anticipated.

  The men didn’t take too kindly to what she said. “I’ll show you fucking—”

  He only managed one threatening step before Karina said one word that stopped him. “Jackal.”

  And not because the word meant anything to him, but because Jackal shot forward without a word. Managing to disarm the one on the left before breaking his arm when he attempted to resist, Jackal then brought the other man to his knees with a vicious twist of the man’s arm that had his eyes pinching shut and a shout escaping his lips.

  How quickly they learned when just a little bit of pressure was applied.

  “What were you saying?”

  The man wisely kept his mouth shut, his now wild eyes turning to Jackal, staring him down as if he’d never seen someone like him before.

  He undoubtedly hadn’t.

  “You have one chance to do as I ask before I have him do the same to you. Either release Orion, or you’ll never use that arm again.”

  Jackal gave his arm a flex in warning before he released the man and took a step back.

  The Russian gave a very audible sigh of relief before he shuffled to his feet and did as he was told.

  Orion stumbled as his feet touched the floor once more, practically keeling over as he dragged in a breath and held it. She didn’t want to think about how long he’d been forced to dangle there from his extremities before she’d arrived.