“No.” Fuck no. The word leaves my lips before I even begin to understand the question. Gavriil Popov – one of the gangsters of the Russian Mafia operating in the United States – wants me – one of the brothers responsible for the disappearance of several pounds of his heroin – to take his little sister under my protection?
“Okay.” He doesn’t fight me on it and there it is again. A small match lit in the back of my mind where the blackness lives as an impenetrable force. Respect. “In the back of her phone case, she keeps extra key. Take her inside. Leave her. I will leave hospital and come.”
“Where’s your other brother?”
“With Erik, the boss’s son. Erik knows you have what belongs to him.”
The news is news. Not enough to shock me, but I’m not bored. “How?”
“Informer.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know his name. I am boss’s nephew and threat to Erik. I am not trusted and neither is my family.” He’s asking me again to take her, but I’d rather pull out my own teeth. Not because I’d have to knock out Dixon, which I would, but because everything is okay now with her asleep. What would I do when she wakes? I rub my chest. No, I cannot take her. Not for her sake but for my own. She would see me and my hideousness, in and out, and she would cower in fear. To see that fear for myself would be torture.
“If he knows we have it, then why hasn’t he made contact?”
“He want leverage first. That’s how he work. Take something of yours that cannot be replaced so that he have upper hand, even in your territory. He knows you work with cops. He cannot afford direct confrontation. Something that belongs to you or your brothers will go missing. And soon. He only have three weeks before he must tell his father that the money is gone. Or recover it.”
“Tell me how I can contact him.”
“I can’t do that. Already, I give you too much.”
He has, but I don’t ask why. I don’t need to. I have leverage over him in this moment. I glance to my right as she releases another small whimper. Her lips part. They are full and the palest pink. I brush just the tip of my finger across them. Soft. Even softer than the rest of her. I am disgusted – not with her, but with my inability to resist. I’m poison and sickness. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever come this close to. I’ve got no business doing anything to Alina but killing for her.
“I’ll take her to her room. You’ll find her there. Unharmed.”
“I owe you debt,” he says after a moment.
“I know.” I hang up with no other words exchanged between us.
Night has descended quickly in the time it took to talk to Gavriil. In the back seat, I’ve got several spare changes of clothes. I pull black sweatpants and a black hoodie on over the scrubs I wear, throw on a pair of sunglasses and a black baseball cap. Driving gloves are the last thing I put on before I open up the passenger’s side door. From there I move quickly.
Seizing a long break in the flow of foot traffic, I wrap her up in my coat and take her in my arms to her door. The key is where Gavriil said it would be and I slip inside, kicking the door closed behind me. I’m in her house. I’ve seen it from the outside many times, but this is different. Flipping on a light, I move from the entry into the living room.
The whole floor is one open space – the living room is to my left, complete with a fifty-inch flat screen and built-in surround-sound, and a small dining table sits in front of the open kitchen against the back wall. It’s not big, but it’s decadent. I imagine that it runs her in the realm of four grand a month. With mafia money lining their pockets, I’m betting that her brothers pay for it.
I climb the stairs by the entryway to the second floor, noticing that everything is neatly decorated. Framed photos of family. A large canvas at the top of the stairs with an abstract motif. Just spattered paint, dots and lines. Art never made sense to me. There’s an office to my right, books and paper spread over a drawing table rather than a desk. Bookshelves line the walls and colorful cacti sit on the windowsill above the computer.
Down the short hall to the left there’s a bedroom with pressed sheets and decorations on the wall generic enough for me to know the room isn’t hers. Hers I don’t find until I’ve passed the bathroom and reached the end of the hall. The only messy room in the house. The purple bedspread is bunched in a mound in the center of the queen-sized mattress. It’s four poster and the canopy overhead is printed to look like the night sky.
Stepping around half the contents of a closet spewed over the floor, I push all of the covers to the foot of the bed and lay her down. I’m heavier the moment I do, though it has nothing to do with her physical weight as I give it up. There’s a tearing in my body, like stitches pulled, and I acknowledge that I won’t see the girl again beyond this moment.
Gavriil will take her somewhere safe and if he does his job well, she’ll relocate seamlessly and live out the rest of her life in a place no one will ever be able to recognize her unless it’s off of a magazine cover. If he doesn’t, she’ll be dead. Either way, the intersection of her life into mine is over. Done. I pull the blankets up to her chin and do one final walk through of her room, just to be sure there aren’t any Russians lurking in any crevices. I find none, but I still linger in her doorway when I should have gone.
Her key is still in my pocket. A momentary urge to keep it flits through my mind, but to what end? I go to her bedside table and am about to set it down when I see the ornately illuminated bible. Russian Orthodox. She goes to church every other Sunday, but she missed this week. A long, delicate chain lays on top of it and the thin, gold pendant is what I can only assume to be a Russian cross – three diamond shapes fanned outwards with a crescent moon at the base of the fourth and longest stem.
“Brat?” The whispered word freezes me still. I glance down at the bed without shifting my stance and see her blink slowly. She hasn’t yet focused on my face and downstairs I hear the front door open and close.
I move quickly, dropping the key on the book and sweeping into the bathroom just as heavy feet hit the steps. I draw my gun and crack the bathroom door, angling my weapon so that I’ll hit whatever heads towards the bedroom in the back. A red-headed male about as tall as I am. I mark him as Gavriil easily. I exhale ever so slightly and wait until his hand hits the bedroom door. He pushes it open, his sister’s name on his breath.
“Alina?”
“Gavriil,” she says, sounding teary in a way that I can’t stand.
Moving quickly now, I don’t stop until I reach my car. It’s there that I wait. I don’t leave until they do and when they do, she’s carrying a medium-sized suitcase and he’s carrying an even larger one. They load them into the SUV parked just a half block ahead of mine and speed away.
I wait for an hour after that and watch as her house is broken into by a Lincoln Town car full of Russians. I wonder which of them is Erik, if he’s even among them. I debate killing them all for touching her things, but instead place an anonymous call to the police. The irony. Because I’ve got my fingers on the wheel and a gold chain, as fine as hair, clenched between them. Though they ransack the place, I’m the only thief here.
My soul is empty. The wind wouldn’t even whistle as it passed through it. It always has been. But then there’s that subtle tearing as I pull away from the curb, the sound of police sirens in the distance, and the cross I loop around my neck. I let it fall under my shirt and feel it press against my sternum. Goodbye, Alina Popov. A woman I killed three men for who doesn’t know I exist.
Knox
Dixon is more agitated than usual. He has reason to be, but he doesn’t usually let it show like this. He keeps glancing at his watch. “Where the hell is Aiden? We were supposed to move the drugs an hour ago.”
The bag of heroin Plumeria estimated at thirteen and a half mil sits on the coffee table where it’s been for the past three days. Plumeria’s on the couch beside me, Clifton to her right. Charlie sits on the
ottoman, tossing his gun up and down in the air.
“Something’s got Dixon’s panties all in a bunch.” Charlie laughs, clearly noticing the same thing I do, though neither of us would dare speak it loud enough for Dixon to hear. “Dixon,” Charlie calls, lips pulled up into a smile that I know is about to get him punched.
Dixon doesn’t hear him the first time, or ignores him. He’s still staring at his phone. Charlie repeats the man’s name twice more before he turns. “What, Charlie?”
“I stopped by the club yesterday,” he says, tossing his gun up into the air so that it spins five or six times before catching it. I hold my breath every time the weapon leaves his palm.
Dixon’s voice is a short snarl. “So what?”
“I saw you got new talent.”
“Leave the dancers alone.” Dixon crosses his arm tight over his chest so that it looks like he’s trying to keep them under control.
Charlie looks at me and sniggers under his breath, “Too late for that.”
“I didn’t take you as the type who goes for strippers,” Plumeria smirks. I reach for her thigh and squeeze it firmly beneath my hand, wishing she was in a skirt instead of these long pants. She shoots me a wink and massages the back of my neck, which only intensifies that desire.
“Did you take Charlie as the type to have a type?” Clifton laughs. “You may be the prettiest boy in this house but your standards are erratic at best.”
“All y’all are haters. Y’all know as well as I do that I get more pussy than any of you.”
“No one’s disputing that, Charlie,” Clifton says with an exaggerated eye roll. “But what kind of pussy and whose?”
Plumeria and I laugh while Charlie tries to tell us about his hot date scheduled for tomorrow night. While he does, he tosses his gun into the air and I watch the precarious path it travels up and down and up and down.
“You’re going to blow your brains out doing that,” Plumeria chides.
He shoots her a salacious wink – one that he uses on women at the bars – before turning his handgun on her. My hackles begin to rise, but Clifton edges his body in front of hers before I rip Charlie’s head off. He grabs Charlie’s gun by the barrel and rips it away from him.
Tossing the gun onto the couch, Clifton says, “Knock it off, Charlie.”
“I’m not too worried about it. If his shooting is anything like his fighting then I think I’m pretty safe.” Plumeria shoots him a wink in return and when Charlie shoots up onto his feet in a mockery of menace, I can’t help but laugh. Plumeria rises and they exchange a few jabs – hitting only air – before Plumeria aims her knee for his stomach and Charlie circles his arm around Plumeria’s neck and collapses back onto his ottoman, dragging her with him.
She makes a choking sound that in any other moment might have made me revert to red, but watching her now, I find that the red beast has all but disappeared. He’s docile now, sated. Maybe on Spade’s blood, or maybe by the sound of laughter. Hers. My brothers’. Clifton’s shaking his head and rolling his eyes while Plumeria fights her way free. Charlie’s nearly flat on his back howling.
Plumeria stands above him and makes a more serious comment about his stance. He listens to her and it freaks me out because they don’t just look, but act, like real siblings. “I’m going to get a drink,” I say, patting Clifton on the arm without taking my eyes off of Plumeria.
She’s in a black tank top and black cargo pants. With her hair combed back into a straight braid and a few scars decorating her arms and a few more on her face, she looks like a killer. Hell, against her, Charlie looks soft. It takes less than that to get me hard and when Clifton begins speaking, I’m slow to answer him.
“What?” I bark.
Clifton’s grinning at me in an invasive, knowing way. The kid sees through everything. “I said, get me a beer too, will you?”
“What kind you want? Bud light? Natty Ice?”
Clifton shakes his head, but is still laughing. “Now you’re just being mean.”
I laugh in response, though I sober up as I approach Dixon. He’s still pacing the hall, wearing down the floorboards. “What’s up?” I say, about to move past him.
We haven’t shared warm words since I brought Plumeria home. In fact, Dixon hasn’t really talked to anyone. He’s staring down at his phone with his jaw set. His black eyes are blazing and every few seconds his lips move, as if whispering curses to himself.
“Dixon?” I say his name twice more before he hears me. Or acknowledges me at least. “What’s doing, brother?”
“Nothing,” he spits. “Aiden should be here by now.”
“He text you?” I glance at his phone probingly, but he shoves it in his pocket so I can’t see the display. From what I could see though, looked like a black and white video.
“No.”
“You late for something?” I offer slowly.
He seethes as he says, “Nothing that concerns you.”
“Fuck it. Sorry I asked.”
I head into the kitchen, but he blocks my path. Our shoulders brush and he takes my arm. “I…” He bites his teeth together hard and lowers his gaze. “I’m beginning to understand.”
“What?”
He glances towards the living room where I can hear Charlie and Plumeria practicing. Charlie curses just then and Plumeria reprimands him for something. “Everything,” Dixon exhales, and a small smile lifts just one side of his mouth. “Nothing. How this story began.”
I go to ask him what the fuck he’s talking about when the front door behind us opens.
“Aiden.” Dixon straightens and turns towards our brother, the connection between us instantly severed.
Aiden is slow to close the door, as if surprised to see us waiting for him. Or at least as surprised as he ever is. The man betrays nothing.
“We’re ready to move the drugs. I’ll carry the bag, Knox will drive. I need you in the passenger’s seat. Plumeria will drive the first decoy car. Charlie will drive the second. Clifton will head out now to the bank. Clifton,” Dixon calls.
Clifton responds right away. “On it.” He smiles at Aiden as he passes him in the hall. Seeing them next to each other I’m reminded, as I not often am, that they are twins. Same brilliant blonde hair. Same massive six-and-a-half-foot build. Their grey eyes are the same color but when I look at Clifton, I want to laugh. When I look at Aiden, my testicles shrivel up. I have to remind myself that though he may dwarf my height by a few inches, I’m just as meaty as he is. If push ever came to shove, I might be able to take him. If it were Plumeria we were fighting for, I would. Maybe only then.
He may be my brother, but I don’t know what he’s capable of, so I plan for the worse. For anything.
“I’m out of here,” Clifton says. “Call you when I’m at the bank. Let you know when the box is open and I’ve got the key.” He edges around Aiden – not even the twin will touch his brother. A man who doesn’t like to be touched, I’ve seen the way he fucks and it’s a brutal, soul-crushing thing. Lucky for the women that have to endure it, they’re well compensated.
“What you got there?” Clifton smiles and just the tips of his fingers graze the knuckles of Aiden’s left hand where he grips something that catches the night and turns it gold. That’s all it takes. I don’t know where the knife comes from, but in the next tenth of a second, the blade has drawn a sliver of blood from Clifton’s throat. Aiden holds the stubby hilt in his right hand and with his left, drapes a necklace over his shoulders. He tucks it into the yoke of his shirt before I make out the mark of the pendant. From the little I glimpse, it looks like some sort of religious symbol. Knowing Aiden, probably Satanist.
“Aiden.” Dixon’s voice is severe, but rather than go to block Aiden, he angles his body in front of Clifton’s, like a shield. “Aiden,” he says again, “are we ready to go?”
Aiden nods once and stows his blade underneath his coat, but only after he wipes the blood off on his pant
s. The crimson is eaten up by the darkness.
“Good.” Dixon licks his lips and straightens the lapel of his coat. He looks unsettled. We all are. Aiden doesn’t react to much but whatever that necklace is must be important to him. Few things are – fuck that – nothing is. “Now we move.”
“Wait.” The words are Aiden’s and everyone in the house goes silent. Clifton lowers his hand which is dabbing at the blood on his throat. “The Russians know what we have and who we are.” As he speaks, he wades out into the living room. He looks at his nails as if all of the alarm bells aren’t going off.
“How?” Plumeria is the one to speak.
I wonder if he hates her. I’ve wondered it for a while. But he speaks to her no differently than he would one of us. “Someone told them.”
I suck in a short breath and I don’t miss the way all eyes go to Plumeria.
“It wasn’t her,” I say, moving to her side though I wish I were confident enough in my brothers to remain planted. “For the past weeks, she hasn’t left my side.”
An uneasy silence falls and I look around at all of my brothers. Dixon’s face betrays anger. Clifton’s curiosity. Charlie’s shock. Aiden’s nothing at all. Plumeria. I can see is sweating. Finally, I give up and close the gap between us. I gather her in my arms.
“Why haven’t they made contact?” Dixon asks.
“They will take something of ours. Something of value. They haven’t gotten what they need yet.”
“For leverage?” Clifton asks.
Aiden nods. “Yes.”
“How do you know all this?” Dixon says. Aiden shakes his head, only once, but it’s enough to know we don’t need or want to know the answer. “Is that all?” Aiden nods and Dixon continues, the leader he hasn’t been these past weeks resurfaced. “Okay. We stick to the plan. From now on, we operate on a system of hourly checks. I call Knox,” he swallows, and starts again, “I call Knox, Knox calls Plumeria, Plumeria calls Charlie, Charlie calls Clifton, Clifton calls Aiden, Aiden calls me. We do this every hour on the hour. If any of you don’t get a call within ten minutes of the hour, then sound the alarm.”
The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1) Page 20
