by L. L. Ash
He got us to the airport with no problem and I handed over some cash before hurrying into the massive building.
“I—I forgot my passport,” Mila said suddenly. “I’m so sorry...”
Tears started forming in her eyes as she realized just how much she royally fucked up.
“It’s ok,” I told her, pulling her toward baggage.
“They won’t let me go,” she murmured but stumbled behind me.
I got to the counter and slapped our passports onto the counter. Edward Keller was making another appearance, and joining him was Mimi Bisset, French born and raised, visiting Russia from her home in Paris on her honeymoon after her marriage to yours truly.
“Tickets to Paris,” I told the woman in broken Russian.
Mila looked at me like I was crazy, knowing I spoke the language fluently.
“Paris?” the woman at the ticket counter said. “Going on vacation?”
I smiled and shook my head.
“No, my darling Mimi lives in France. I’m going to get live there too now, I guess. We just got married!”
The woman smiled at us, and Mila looked downright horrified for a split second. Luckily her training as a drug lord’s daughter kicked in and she smiled at the woman, speaking flawless French.
“Yes! We’re going home!”
The woman looked at Mila like she was an alien, having no idea what she was saying, then handed the passports back and typed into her computer.
“Her dad just came down sick and so we’re cutting the honeymoon short. We want to get back as soon as we can to help.”
“Soonest flight to Paris leaves at 21:45.”
I nodded and slipped her my credit card that had the right name on it.
It was a pre-loaded card that I could toss whenever I needed and no account was hooked to it. Kinda like the burner phones of credit cards.
I handed the woman my bag that I had no intention of picking up when we landed and we made our way smiling and looking like a happy couple toward the security check. Looking around, I didn’t see any threats, so right before getting to security, I stopped for a minute in the men’s bathroom to trash my gun.
It was such a nice gun, too.
Waistband and all went into the trash of the empty bathroom and I left feeling more naked then when I went in. Going through security was quick and easy, only my backpack and her purse going through the ex-ray machine while we managed security. On the other side, I breathed a little sigh of relief. We were safe enough for now.
Our plane left in less than an hour, so we had a pretty safe exit plan.
“Mila,” I whispered to her. “I need you to put your hood up. I know you’re probably warm, but I don’t want the cameras to pick up your face.”
She nodded and lifted the hood before sitting in front of our gate.
“What the hell is this?” she asked me, holding out the passport.
Well shit. How was I going to explain this one?
“It’s our ticket out of here,” I finally said. “You’re welcome.”
She looked at me with wide eyes before starting to slide over in her seat away from me.
“Hey, hey,” I told her, pressing my palm over her thigh. “It’s me. It’s Max. I’ll explain it all on the plane. We just need to get out of here before we attract attention. If your dad found out, he’d kill us both.”
Her breathing picked up as she processed what I’d just said.
The truth was coming out little by little, but she had no idea yet that I was a total fake.
Mila’s fingers twined together and snapped apart nervously until our flight was called.
“They’ll be looking for me by now,” she said, evidently not trying to hide who she was anymore.
“Of course they are. Where did you tell that guy you were going?”
More shock crossed her face before she mumbled, “I said I was going to get a drink.”
“Good. That’ll give us some time. They probably think you are with a local and will start small. When they don’t find you in St. Petersburg tonight they’ll start looking for you wide. We’ll be way out of their radar by then.”
She curled her lip into her mouth, stopping it from trembling as we stepped onto the airplane. The hostess smiled at us and waved us into the plane.
With all the passengers in the plane, they shut the doors and we headed toward the runway.
“How?” she asked the simple question over the engine roaring.
I didn’t answer right away. There was a fine line I had to dance until I had her in my safehouse, tucked away from the world where she couldn’t put us in danger.
“Did Kir send you?” she asked eventually when we’d been in the sky for half an hour.
“Fuck no. The Brotherhood knows nothing about me. I’m a private contractor.”
The words ‘private contractor’ had tears leaking from her eyes and soft sobs slipping past her lips.
“Is she ok?” the flight attendant asked, stopping by my chair since Mila had the window seat.
“She’s...Her dad just passed. We’re on the way to the funeral,” I told her, doing what comes easiest to me.
Lying.
She gave a sympathetic look and offered a complimentary drink before we landed in Helsinki for our hour long layover.
I shook my head and put my arm around Mila to look like the attentive lover.
“I know this is confusing and you’re probably angry as fuck, but I need you to stop crying. You’re attracting attention. We need to be forgettable, Mila.”
She sucked back her aching tears and sat up with a brave face on. Though, she didn’t look at me again for the rest of the short flight.
On the layover, I got us some packaged food at the only stand open at the airport and a couple drinks from the nearby bar. I needed it, and I was sure she did, too. I got the good drinks, sharp and potent.
Taking one shot for myself, I brought her a tall glass of the stuff. If she passed out on the plane, then all the better. I would take care of her and get her safely to Paris.
When I took a seat beside her at our gate, I handed over the cup of Finnish Vodka.
“Is this poisoned?” she asked me, eyeing the drink.
I stifled a laugh, albeit poorly, and she just gave me a deadly glare.
“If I was trying to kill you, kisa, I wouldn’t drag you out to fucking Finland to do it.”
She stared up at me with resolve in her eyes and a bitter smile on her lips.
“Then what do you plan on doing with me? Who hired you? The Italians? The Irish? Whatever they’re paying, my father will pay double.”
I just shook my head.
“I’m not getting paid for this, Mila. I’m doing this to keep a friend safe. And I will keep my promise; to them and to you. So long as I’m breathing, I will get you through this and will get you safe. You’ll have a better life than whatever Popov would have given you.”
She seemed taken aback by my words, but was obviously unsure if she should believe me.
Hell, I wouldn’t believe me if the roles were reversed. But until she believed me on my own merits, she’d just have to have blind trust in me, because I was her best chance of surviving this in one piece.
Dragging her back onto the plane was the hard part. I had to physically manhandle her, which caused a little bit of a scene, but I simply had to whisper into her ear to get her to be agreeable.
“Your father and the whole fucking Brotherhood think you ran off with a lover, Mila. There will be no mercy for you. They will tear you from taint to asshole for letting someone like me take your virginity. Don’t fight. Stay calm. You’ll be rid of me soon enough.”
She smiled at the man taking our tickets before whispering back, “I hate you.”
“Fine with me, kisa.”
I watched her eyes get glassy, but then she giggled and looked up at me like she was happy.
No doubt she was an amazing actress.
When we landed in Paris four h
ours later, she had yet to say anything to me or even acknowledge my presence,
Slinging my backpack over my shoulders, I grabbed her elbow and slid her fur coat out from over her arm.
“What are you doing?” she yelped as I threw the shaggy thing into a trash can on the way out of the airport. “That’s my coat!”
“I’ll get you a new one,” I told her, handing over my hoodie for her to stay warm.
“I don’t want anything from you,” she growled.
I grunted to cover up a laugh. She needed everything from me in the upcoming weeks and months just for survival. But I’d let her pretend that she had some sort of power left. She’d be faced with the glaringly obvious truth soon enough.
“Fine. Freeze,” I told her, palming my jacket in my other hand as my eyes scanned the pickup zone for a cab.
I waved one down and they saw me, motioning us into the cab even though they were in the far lane. Dragging Mila, I hurried us through the lines of traffic and slid her in first, then climbed in behind.
“Where are you going?” the driver asked in broken English.
I gave him the address to Serge’s meeting place in perfect French and the driver nodded before sliding out into the quicker flow of moving cars.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to see France?” I asked her while sitting back and getting comfortable for the drive.
She didn’t respond. She just glared at me and held her hands over her arms, shivering slightly in the winter weather. I just sighed and slipped the hoodie around her shoulders while she sat there. I could see she wasn’t happy about it, but she was also cold, so she didn’t shrug it off, either.
When the cab stopped in front of a beautiful, tall apartment building in Paris, I frowned.
Why would he have me meet him there?
There was an apartment number in the text he sent, so I threw some bills toward the driver and ushered Mila out of the car.
“Where are we going?” she asked me, eyes looking around at everything looking confused and disoriented.
The building had no elevator so we went up four flights of stairs before coming to the number in the text. I knocked and we waited.
A tall, thin woman in her forties opened the door. Her face looked familiar to me, but she looked at me like I was a stranger. Which I was.
“Adele?” I asked, and her eyebrows drew together in confusion.
A little baby toddled over to us, staring up with wide, round blue eyes and puffy pink cheeks.
“Serge?” she called behind her, not taking her eyes off us or the place I held Mila by the elbow.
“Of fuck,” I heard Serge say from behind her as he saw us standing there.
He moved his wife and scooped up his baby so we could enter what was their home, evidently.
“What is this?” I asked, looking around me as if somehow the operation had been compromised.
“I’m an idiot, that’s what,” Serge said simply. “I must have given the food delivery guy the other address...”
Sucking in a patient breath, I motioned Mila to the small couch in their little living room. The boxes scattered through the house didn’t escape my notice.
“Are you moving?” I asked him.
“Going back to New York. Adele’s network is floundering without her. The board finally pulled their heads out of their asses and begged her to come back.”
“I’m sure your...friend doesn’t care about my life’s business,” Adele said, staring at me with sharp eyes. “Are these who you were talking about?”
Serge nodded at his wife.
“You’re such an idiot!” she said, swatting him pretty damn hard on the shoulder before going to sit next to Mila.
“Do you speak English?” she whispered to Mila, who nodded, giving nothing away with her stony expression. “Did they tell you what this is all about?”
Mila licked her lips, moving her eyes to me, then back to her before shaking her head silently.
Adele glared at me with a fierce frown that left me just a tiny bit unsettled before pressing her hands to Mila’s cheeks.
“Sweetheart,” she said with a sad sigh. “This is all just a big mistake...”
“It’s not a mistake, Adele,” Serge came in, asserting himself as the headstrong asshole I knew he was when he wasn’t being whipped around by his wife. “This had to happen. I’m not sacrificing you and Ami so that a mob boss’s daughter can have a cushy life.”
“Actually, I think we just saved her ass from perpetual abuse and rape,” I added in, always one for good information.
Adele’s eyes widened in horror as she turned back to Mila, who was now breaking down, her hands covering her face to smother her sobs.
“Oh my God...” Adele murmured as she held the younger woman. “Fix this, Serge. Fix it now.”
Serge just sighed and slid his fingers into his hair, pulling on the ends.
“Well, congratulations. You’ve officially gotten your family involved with the target,” I told my friend, none too happy to be standing in his living room as our operational meeting place.
“She is not a target!” Adele whispered harshly. “She’s a woman and you’ve both scared the hell out of her!”
“My job isn’t to make her comfortable, Adele. It’s to keep her alive. It’s to keep all of you alive. Let me do my job.”
Adele just swallowed thickly, her throat bobbing in what must have been unshed tears.
“Your life?” Mila murmured, looking up at the first true kindness she’d seen in maybe years. “How are you involved in this?”
Adele just stroked back her hair and brushed her thumbs over Mila’s black brows.
“Serge used to be part of the mob,” she whispered, but Serge hissed, telling her to stop.
His wife just turned harshly on him and growled out her dismay.
“She deserves to know! She’s innocent in all this!”
Innocent wouldn’t be the word I’d use. More like naïve.
“He used to have an...unsavory profession back home, and the mob kept him safe from the authorities. When we met, he didn’t want to do that job anymore and he promised a favor to the boss. A couple weeks ago he called in that favor. That’s where you come into this.”
“What about me?” she begged. “I did nothing! I don’t have any mob ties or… I am just a singer!”
“You’re the daughter of a dangerous man,” I chipped in. “And you were engaged to a mobster. You were involved.”
“I didn’t have a choice!” she shouted at me.
“Yes you did. I’d fucking die before marrying into a bloodthirsty organization like that! You had options, but you’re too spoiled and brainwashed to do anything else but obey.”
Mila’s mouth opened and shut in shock. It was the first harsh thing I’d ever said to her, and I regretted it immediately.
She didn’t deserve it, whether it was true or not.
Adele pulled Mila up from her seat and moved her toward what looked like a bedroom at the back of the small apartment.
“You boys have your meeting where you get to play with people’s lives. I’ll be in the back with the target.”
The two women disappeared behind the door, leaving it open only long enough for the baby Ami to follow in behind them.
“The fuck are you doing?” Serge asked me with a frown.
“The fuck am I doing?” I huffed. “What the fuck are you doing? Mixing up our meeting place? You’re compromising your whole family just having us here. At least you’re leaving, and back to America. Vishka will protect you there.”
“That’s the main reason we decided to go back. We’ll feel safer under his wings. And if this all blows up...Shit...I don’t want to think about that. Vishka has to win the war or we’re all fucked.”
I shrugged and went to his fridge, pulling out some eggs.
“Get away from my stove,” Serge said as I rattled around his tiny kitchen for a pan to cook the eggs. “Let me do it.”
So I
did. I leaned back against the table to watch him make me an omelette.
“What kind of proof does Vishka want that the target has been removed?” I asked him as he cooked.
“Nothing. He said that he’d find out on the wedding day. If it’s been called off, then he’ll know. He’s in Russia right now. I think he’s planning on making his attack now that Vasile and Popov are going to be at each other’s throats. Gets one gun pointed away from his own head, at least.”
“So it’ll be over soon?” I asked.
“I assume so. Nobody really knows. What are you doing with her now that she’s removed? She doesn’t look like the type to lay low and learn to survive.”
“No, she’s not. I’ll stay with her long enough to make sure she’s safe. After that I have to keep moving. I can’t stay in one place too long.”
I could. I mean, I was essentially dead to the entire world, but my brain wouldn’t let me settle down for longer than a few days between jobs before I started going stir crazy.
“Hey, make another for the target. She hasn’t eaten in a while, either. And we have some long flights ahead of us.”
“Happy to be of service,” Serge said sarcastically as he flopped the first omelete out and started working on a second one.
“We don’t need to stay long. I need to re-equip myself and Mila needs a suitcase of some kind with clothes, then we’ll get out of your hair for good. Think that wife of yours can give her some clothes?”
“You know? That’s the first time I’ve heard you say her name, and not just ‘target’.”
“You can’t get emotionally attached to the targets, Serge. You know that. It’s the same in your business.”
“It was. But all rules get broken at some point. Even for...whatever the hell you are. International...assassin or something.”
Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner.
I just shrugged and picked up the plate with the eggs and scooped them into my mouth with my fingers. No fork required for me. That’s how hungry I was.
When the other was done, he dumped that onto a plate too and walked it to the door where the women visited behind.
“Brought some food. Figured you were hungry,” he said in a gentle voice. “Babe, can you get Mila a bag? I guess she doesn’t have any—oh, ok. Thanks.”
