by Callie Hart
I’ve had to put animals out of their misery before, and it doesn’t get any easier. I will pound my fists into another man’s face all day and all fucking night, until my knuckles split open or his skull does, and I won’t feel a single fucking ounce of guilt. Not one tiny morsel. But a defenseless animal? An injured animal? If I’d been alone in the loft when that had happened, I’m not ashamed to admit that I would have been crying like a little bitch as I gently collected that bird’s fragile body and released it, letting it sail over the side of the balcony and into the canopy of trees below.
I should have taken it outside and buried it properly. I wish I fucking had, but we didn’t have the time. We had to get out of there. Because no bird could have accidentally flown into those windows and really broken them. That was fucking tempered glass, the really-fucking-hard-to-break kind, and that bird had weighed no more than three fucking pounds. Like most birds, its bones were hollow, its mass mainly comprised of feathers, so this begs the question: how the hell did the glass break?
I’m keep drawing the same conclusion over and over again. The bird didn’t break it. Something or someone else did, and the owl was just a message. A very clear, very pointed message that I was bound by my heritage to understand.
You’re fucking with dangerous people, Pasha Rivin. You’re involved in something far bigger than you know. You’ve bitten off way more than you can chew, my friend…and now someone is about to die.
Sitting next to me in the Mustang, Zara thumbs through the keys on her keychain, flicking each of them around the brass loop one at a time. She’s lost inside her own head, but at least she didn’t have to feel the bird’s sticky copper blood on her hands as she stroked its feathers soothingly one last time before it died. She didn’t have to feel the give in the bird’s skull as it caved. I’m glad I kept that from her, at least.
We both snap out of our shared reverie the moment we pull up in front of her apartment building. I leave the Mustang directly next to the payphone, wheels butting up against the curb, even though it’s a no parking zone, and we both climb the three flights of stairs up to Zara’s apartment in silence.
She lets us in, and the very first thing I notice are the size eight Italian leather shoes, buffed to a high shine, sitting neatly side-by-side next to the mail stand in the hallway. Men’s shoes. They weren’t there when we left for the Rivin glen. When it comes to this place, the place Zara and I slept together for the first time, my memory is fucking eidetic.
Zara sees the shoes and goes utterly still, her eyes are wild as she shakes her head in answer to my unspoken question—no, she doesn’t have clue who the shoes belong to. Fuck. Is it too much to ask for? To have one thing go fucking smoothly for once? I don’t have a weapon with me. I should have snatched the Specialist I keep in the lock box in my closet before we left my place, but I had other things on my mind. It doesn’t matter, though. I’ll fucking end whoever’s here with my bare hands if I have to.
“Ms. Llewelyn? I heard the door close. Please. Do not be alarmed.”
The voice comes from the living room. A male voice clipped by an Eastern-European shortening of the vowels.
I haven’t noticed until now: Zara’s hand is resting on the pommel of a baseball bat. It must have been propped up against the wall behind the door or something. There’s a fierce determination on her face that even the scattering of freckles pinpricked across the bridge of her nose can’t diminish. Fuck, this girl is going to be the end of me. She’s planning on charging into the living room with that bat hefted over her fucking head, and I’m not going to be able to stop her, because the woman’s about to give me a goddamn heart attack.
I snatch the bat out of her hands, sending her a reproachful look. The look she sends back is a middle finger in scowl-form. She can be mad at me all she likes. I’ll deal with her anger later if I have to. At the moment, all I care about is keeping her safe, and if that means I have to piss her off by disarming her so I can handle the situation, then so fucking be it.
Shoulders back, bat in hand, I step into the living room, first noting the guy dressed in a suit sitting on the couch before quickly scanning the corners of the room, looking for a second and a third intruder. There are no other guys, though. Just the lone man sitting on the couch. I turn my attention back to him, noting the finer details of him now: slightly balding; mid-forties; narrow face; weak blue eyes, watery, that still seem to command respect. His pin-striped suit and his gnarled hands stacked on top of one another in his lap give him the air of a nineteen-twenties gangster. A prohibitionist. He’d cut a far more threatening figure if he wasn’t sitting here in a pair of black and grey Argyle socks.
There are two questions any smart person would ask in this situation. Firstly, who the fuck are you, asshole? Secondly, what the fuck do you want? These questions aren’t important, though. This motherfucker, whoever he is, broke in to Zara’s apartment. She does not look pleased to see him. There’s only one thing I have to say to this guy, and it won’t cost me more than three syllables. I lift the bat over my head and release a low growl from the back of my throat. “Run, Motherfucker.”
“Pasha, wait!” Zara’s hand lands on my shoulder. My instinct is to follow through with the swing, bringing the bat down in an arc so the maple wood connects with the bastard’s temple, solving this problem in a quick and very permanent way. But the pressure from Zara’s fingers increases, digging into the top of my shoulder, and I hesitate.
Throughout all of this, the guy on the couch hasn’t even flinched. He looks up at me with his watery blue eyes, as if he’s merely curious about what is going to happen next. Huffing, I lower the bat and stick the end of it in his face. “Explain. Quickly.”
The man’s lips part. He unfolds his hands and brushes his palms along the length of his thighs, as if sweeping away imaginary lint. He turns and gives his attention to Zara. “I’m a suspicious man, Ms. Llewelyn. I think you know this about me.”
Zara’s eyes are almost black, her pupils so blown and wide as she meets the stranger’s inscrutable gaze. “Yes, Mr. Petrov. I think I gathered that after our last meeting.”
Petrov.
At once familiar. Immediately worrying. This is the dead child’s father. He’s also one of the most influential, powerful men in Spokane, and for all the wrong reasons. When I was a kid, there were no Russians in Spokane. They arrived one year while I was away at boarding school, and when I returned here for Christmas break, they were all anyone was talking about. They’d taken over the city and didn’t like the Rivins being here. A series of scuffles had followed, where the Petrovs had tried to coerce the clan, encouraging us to move on, and a number of the clan’s men had gone out to pay them a visit with knives tucked up their sleeves. When they’d returned, they were two men down, the blades of their knifes were bright red, and an accord had been struck: we wouldn’t interfere with the Russians, and they wouldn’t interfere with us. Simple.
I’ve had numerous run-ins with the Russians at the flower markets. There’s big money in the fights, and, like everyone else, the Petrovs have their stake in the blood and sweat that hits the canvas. I’ve never met the head of the Petrov organization, though. Descending into the hellish realm below the flower market is both literally and figuratively below a man of Yuri Petrov’s standing.
The man has the look of a cold, dead fish that’s been discarded on a quayside. I’ve come to the firm decision that I do not fucking like him, and I definitely don’t like the way he’s staring at Zara. “I apologize for violating your privacy, both now and the last time one of my men came here, to your apartment,” he says. “You were so interested in my son’s fate. You were the one who took his call. The police detective said you were asking a lot of questions. It appeared that you might be involved in Corey’s disappearance. I was merely…making sure your motives were…honest.”
“I’m sorry that my general concern over a missing five-year-old looked nefarious to you, Mr. Petrov. I was simply doing my job,�
� Zara says coldly. She’s nervous, I can feel it radiating off her, but she’s standing tall. Defiant. If she only knew how many hardened criminals the man sitting on her couch had flayed alive and dispatched from this world, screaming like babies, she might not be wearing such a challenging look in her eyes.
Then again…
The second I run the scenario through in my head, replaying it once more, with Zara fully aware of every dark and sinister crime that stains Yuri Petrov’s soul, I know that her back would still be straight. She’d still be ready to defend herself and wouldn’t for one second allow herself to be cowed by the man.
I’m sure, for most guys, the realization that they’re in love with someone comes to them during the hazy, sleepy, honeyed moments after sex, with the girl of their dreams curled tightly against their body, their skin slick with sweat and endorphins.
For me, it comes in a dimly lit, book-filled living room, as a woman with hair the color of embers and burning coals faces down a mass murderer and does not blink.
She’s the picture of composure as she addresses the man. “I’m so sorry. About Corey. I saw the newspapers this morning. I’d hoped…”
Yuri Petrov quickly turns his head to look out of the window. He swallows. “Yes. Well. I’m afraid I lied to you the last time we met. The video of Corey I showed to you was real, but the threat was far from over. I wanted to see what you would do. I wanted to see how you’d react. If you had anything to do with his kidnapping, then I had convinced myself I would see it in your face. When you drove out of that parking lot, I knew you were innocent. It was already too late, though. My colleague had already been here and left my gift to you.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Zara agrees. “You invaded my privacy. You made me feel unsafe in my own home. Much like you’re doing right now.”
Slowly, Petrov turns away from the window, as if he’s seen enough of the rooftops on the other side of the street. His attention falls to me, not Zara. His words are clearly meant for her, though. “I’m sorry to have robbed you of the illusion that you were safe here. But I came unarmed, and you have your protector here to defend you. I promise you won’t have need of him.” His eyes narrow as he picks me over, his assessment of me stony and mildly disinterested. “I know you,” he says. “You’re the Roma boy. You broke my trainer’s nose a few weeks ago.”
It comes back to me—the fight with the paunchy, slow bastard the night Patrin came to find me for the first time. The trainer that had tried to tell me to go down in my fight. He’d laid his hands on me, which I hadn’t appreciated, and I’d let him fucking know it. His words ring clear in my head now. “You got no fucking sense at all, you fucking moron? Have you any idea what the fuck you’ve just done?” The trainer’s words had been a warning; the slab of meat I’d just tenderized was one of Petrov’s men. I should have guessed.
“Your trainer was stupid. A man shouldn’t step foot inside a cage unless he knows how to fight his way out,” I inform him.
Yuri adopts a stunted smile. It looks uncomfortable on him; he probably hasn’t executed the maneuver in quite some time. “I told him the same thing. He wasn’t happy. He wanted something done about you.”
“And?”
Yuri’s smile deepens, softening his face a little. It looks like he’s growing accustomed to the feel of it now. “I told him that I’m a business man. If I disposed of every man willing to step into a cage with one of my fighters, they’d quickly run out of opponents, wouldn’t they?”
“Very practical of you.”
“You refused to throw the fight. You have honor. It’s a foolish personality trait to possess. Most men have it beaten out of them pretty quickly in my experience.” He squints at me, then adds, “But I admire it. It means you can trust a man at his word, no matter what.”
“Great. Then you’ll believe me when I tell you that I’m going to fucking hurt you if you don’t explain why you’re lurking in my girlfriend’s living room like the ghost of Christmas past.”
Zara folds her arms across her chest.
“Well. I’m afraid this is a complicated situation. I have to confess, I did worse than have someone break into your apartment, Zara. The gift I gave to you was a trojan horse, in a way. There was a device sewn into the lining.”
Zara goes pale. “What do you mean, a device? A tracking device?”
Shaking his head, Yuri sighs. Seems like he’s bored by having to explain himself. “It was far more important that I heard your conversations. My associates thought that perhaps you might say something to incriminate yourself. If you did…”
“If I did?”
“We would have come for you.” He admits this easily, without the slightest hint of shame. I hate him for it, but then again, in his shoes, would I have balked at scooping up a woman and torturing the whereabouts of my missing, kidnapped child out of her? Hell no, I would not.
“Putting it in the coat seems pretty stupid,” Zara says, crossing her arms. “It would have made more sense to plant the device in my apartment, surely?”
Yuri looks repentant as he slips his hand into his pocket and takes something out. When he extends his hand, his fingers splaying open, a small, clear disc sits in his palm, rimmed red around its edge, with two tiny wires snaking out of it, one black and one red. “We’ve had cause to do this a number of times before, Ms. Llewelyn. We are not amateurs. The coat was a secondary device. A contingency, for when you left the house.”
Zara looks like she’s about to boil over; her face has taken on a hot-tempered shade of crimson. My own anger levels are almost scraping the ceiling, too. This bastard bugged Zara’s apartment. He’s been listening to her in her own home for days. The Petrovs must have been listening when we came back here, warmed and loosened by tequila, and fucked on the very couch Yuri is sitting on.
I…am…going…to…fucking…kill…him.
“I’m sure you were disappointed when you realized I didn’t plan on keeping your bribe,” Zara grinds out.
For a fleeting moment, a mirthless glint of amusement brightens Yuri’s eyes. “You could say that. Maybe I’m a little…out of touch with the younger generation. Back in my day, there were very few women who could resist a beautiful fur coat. But you, Zara…you gave it away.”
“So sorry to have disappointed you.”
Slowly, Yuri Petrov sighs, leans forward, braces his hands against the edge of the couch, and heaves himself up out of the chair. He doesn’t react when I make a show of tighten my grip on the baseball bat. In fact, he ignores me altogether as he steps toward Zara. “Your apology is disingenuous. I can understand why. Mine, however, is not. I’m sorry for doubting your motives. I’m sorry for intruding into your private life so egregiously. In a way, I am glad that I did, though, Zara. If I hadn’t, my associates wouldn’t have heard what happened here three nights ago. They wouldn’t have heard—”
“Oh my god!” Zara cups her hands over her mouth. Her eyes are twice their normal size, the whites showing. She looks stunned. I realize why a second later. Back in her kitchen, when she’d told me about her suspension from work, she’d also told me about her first run-in with Petrov and the gift he’d left for her in her apartment. And then she’d told me she’d given the coat…to Sarah.
“She was wearing it? When he took her?” Zara whispers behind her hands.
Yuri Petrov nods. “They. She was wearing it when they took her.”
Nineteen
ZARA
I’m under water.
I don’t know which way is up.
My eyes are filled with starbursts of light that leave my vision patchy and disjointed. My apartment spins around me as the head of Spokane’s Russian mafia walks into my hallway and carefully slides his feet into his shoes.
Pasha watches the man like a hawk as he stoops, failing to hide a spasm of back pain as he ties one set of laces and then another. When Yuri straightens, he looks suddenly ill. A decade older than he did five minutes ago. “For what it’s w
orth, I hope the information is of use to you. If you find these men before we do, bring them to me. For my son, I will make sure that they don’t die slowly. You have my word.”
The apartment echoes with silence once he’s gone. Pasha and I stand on either side of the kitchen table, staring down at the Dictaphone Yuri placed in my hand after he told me his people had transferred the audio of Sarah’s kidnapping onto a tape. The slim, silver recorder is an unexploded bomb. It’s innocuous enough, sitting there on my kitchen table, but it has the potential to devastate at at a moment’s notice. I don’t think I have it in me to purposefully set it off.
“Will you do it?” I ask softly.
Pasha nods. His hair is a mass of dark waves as he bows his head and leans over the Dictaphone, hitting the play button.
A crackling static fills the cramped kitchen. Then, the sound of a car passing, tires rumbling against a wet road. The rustling sound of movement, the clip, clip, clip of heels. I hear steady, even breathing, too; they must have sewn the bug into the collar of the coat or something.
Suddenly, the clipping of Sarah’s heels stops, and she laughs. “Well, hello! That looks new. Did you borrow it?”
I can’t hear what’s said back to her. My ears are ringing. God, it’s only been a short time, but I’ve missed the sound of Sarah’s voice. There’s a chance I might never hear it again in person, and that makes it even harder to hear now, like this.
“Oh, no. I’m fine, thank you, Sugar. I had a migraine earlier, but it’s gone now. Oh, oh, okay, well…” There’s a scraping sound, and then a clatter. My eyes meet Pasha’s—he’s just as tense as I am as he strains to hear what’s happening. We both duck down, leaning closer to the small speakers. “What the hell are you doing?” Sarah asks. Her voice is light and playful but edged with the beginning of panic. Another loud scraping sound distorts the recording, and then a loud shout follows quickly after. “No! No, I don’t want—”
