After he’d cleared the table, he motioned to Danny to take a seat.
“Liam called a meeting with Cian and Finn at about midnight last night,” Danny began without preamble. “They all came to Cian’s place. I was on overnight shift.”
Robbie grunted. His oldest son lived in a trendy penthouse in another part of town. Robbie wondered how often Cian remembered that it was he—the man Cian disdained so heartily—who had paid for that fancy condo.
“He brought along a friend,” Danny said, a smirk fully in place.
“Well, get on with it, then.”
“A girl. Blonde, hot, and Russian.”
Robbie blinked at his spy. “What?”
“Apparently, there’s a new Russian whorehouse in town. Liam went to try it out and came back with a door prize.” He chuckled.
Robbie didn’t find anything about the situation to be funny.
“There’s goddamn Russians in town?” he asked, incredulous.
“Yep. And they’re trafficking women from overseas.” He looked longingly at Robbie’s tumbler of whiskey.
Robbie gritted his teeth and motioned for the girl he had waiting tables to get Danny a drink.
“So what the hell was he doing with the girl? He pay for her or steal her?”
Danny took the drink he was served and downed half of it in one gulp. “Don’t know for sure. But Cian was pissed as hell at him, and Liam and the girl stayed at Cian’s place the rest of the night. Finn went home after about an hour.”
Robbie snorted. His third son, Finn, was supposedly the brains of the bunch. But he was also soft. Quiet, always thinking. He didn’t even carry a gun most of the time. What kind of a man in their line of work didn’t carry a gun?
“You need to find out everything,” Robbie instructed. “If Liam’s gotten sideways with the Russians, I want to know about it.”
“Sure thing.”
“What about Cian and the girl from Rogue?” He watched Danny for any sign of the previous squeamishness at the mention of the hacker, but Danny was a good soldier. He’d gotten the message last time they’d talked. He coughed up the information with no hesitation.
“They had a sleepover a couple of nights ago. He hasn’t seen her since.”
Robbie’s lips twisted up in a wry smile. “Good. As long as he’s fucking her, she’s leverage.” He stood and donned the black jacket. “Find out what’s going on with the Russians. I don’t want them in my town, and Cian’s not up to the job of getting them out.”
Danny gave a quick nod as he polished off his whiskey.
As Robbie turned to walk away, Danny stopped him. “Hey, boss?”
Robbie looked at the big bodyguard over his shoulder.
“You find him yet?” Danny asked, head tilted to the side like a slightly curious dog.
Robbie’s whole soul darkened with anger. When Robbie got his hands on Connor, not even his beautiful wife, Angela, would be able to protect the kid.
“No,” he answered brusquely. “But I got the rest of my life to keep looking.”
As she opened her eyes, Katya had a moment of panic. Her heart raced, and she gasped, sitting up and looking around frantically, searching for something she could use to protect herself.
Then everything came into focus, and her pulse relaxed, her breathing returning to normal. The bedroom was sparse—some weights in one corner, a dresser, leather armchair, the king-size bed she was in—all the furniture in black, plain white sheer curtains on the large glass door that opened to a small balcony.
As she got her bearings, she could hear him in the other room talking on the phone. Liam MacFarlane, the man who’d taken her out of the whorehouse.
“She’s still sleeping, but I’ll bring her by in a bit….yeah, yesterday I just let her watch TV and eat whatever she wanted. She’s still pretty scared, but hopefully today, she’ll tell us a few things.”
He paused, then his voice dropped, and she couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation. She swung her legs over the edge of the large bed and stood, looking at the stack of clothes he’d taken her to buy the day before. He’d been a perfect gentleman so far, making sure she had everything she needed, giving her the bed and sleeping on the big sofa in his living room, not pressuring her for anything, just letting her be. But she still didn’t trust him. He was a mobster, like the men who’d stolen her. Why would he be nice unless he expected something eventually? Something she undoubtedly wouldn’t want to give.
She slipped on a pair of black track pants with the black tank top she’d worn to bed, then covered up with a hoodie before taking a deep breath and opening the door.
“Hey,” Liam said from his perch at the kitchen counter where he was drinking a cup of coffee and reading a newspaper. It was an incongruous sight—the burly guy in a white sleeveless T-shirt and gray sweats, a Chicago Sun-Times in one hand and a cup that read Luck o’ the Irish in the other.
“You hungry?” he asked.
She crossed her arms in front of her protectively. She’d noticed the day before that he never got too close to her, and when he stayed on the stool instead of approaching her, she nodded slightly.
“Yes. Please.”
He smiled casually and made his way into the kitchen. When there was a counter between them, she moved and took a seat next to the one he’d been occupying at the bar top.
“Did you sleep all right?” He cracked some eggs in a bowl before whisking them.
“Yes.”
His gaze darted to her. “I told you yesterday I’d answer any questions you have about what’s going on. Do you have any?”
She swallowed, carefully watching his movements around the kitchen. She was starving; she needed to eat. She’d refused dinner the night before because they were eating here at his home. She’d eaten lunch only because it had been a hot dog at a Target store where she knew he couldn’t slip something into it.
Once he’d poured the egg mixture into the pan, he handed her a glass of orange juice, then leaned back against the refrigerator watching her.
She drank the entire glass of juice, the acid burning her esophagus as it moved down.
Setting the glass on the counter, she finally complied with his request. “Why?” she asked. “Why did you take me? And what are you going to do with me?”
He stirred the scrambled eggs before turning down the heat on the gas burner.
“I took you because I couldn’t stop thinking about you in that place.” He had the decency to look repulsed when he mentioned the brothel. “And because you have information that could be helpful to us. The Russians are trying to take over my family’s territory and we need all the information we can get to keep them out.” He paused, looking away from her. “We don’t condone slavery. We won’t allow it in our city.”
She didn’t say anything else while he scraped her eggs onto a plate and handed them to her. She was still wary of eating or drinking anything he’d prepared, but she also knew she’d never be able to escape if she was weak with hunger.
Taking the plate, she set it down and took one small bite, chewing while he watched her. She swallowed, then asked, “But I am prisoner here with you too? I cannot walk out the door?”
“Where would you go? You have no immigration papers, no money, and if the Russians saw you, they’d kill you on the spot. I’m not keeping you a prisoner, I’m protecting you.”
She snorted softly before giving in and shoveling the eggs in her mouth as fast as she could.
“So I give you information, then what? You say it—I have no papers, no money, nothing. You will kill me then?”
He shook his head. “Of course not. I don’t kill women or civilians—you’re both.”
“And what of Nadja?” she finally asked. She’d spent the previous day so shell-shocked, she hadn’t been able to focus on anything but surviving. As Liam had politely helped her get some essentials and allowed her to rest, she’d been terrified each and every moment. Not knowing what he was going to do next,
not trusting a word he said. But this morning, after a night’s sleep, she knew she couldn’t forget Nadja. Nadja would think she was dead. She would be inconsolable.
For the first time since he’d broken down the door where she was imprisoned after the beating, she sensed doubt in him. His gaze fell to the floor for a moment as he leaned back, his arm muscles bunching in the sleeveless shirt. When he looked at her again, his gaze was dark, and her heart beat fast, but not in the same way it did when Alexei or Sergei looked at her that way.
“I’m not sure.” Her heart sank. But as much as she wanted to damn him for taking her away from Nadja, she was here, sitting in sunlight, having slept in a real bed and showered without fearing one of Sergei’s guards would try to get a freebie. She couldn’t bring herself to hate him.
“I don’t have a plan for how to get her out, Katya,” he admitted, his expression full of sympathy. “We’re going to be at war with the Russians now, and it would require a major military-grade operation to get back in that building and take her.”
She swallowed. She’d sworn from the first time they’d shoved her into a room with a strange man that she wouldn’t cry. She’d never give them the satisfaction of seeing her break, and she wouldn’t give it to this man either, but the idea of never seeing Nadja again made her want to. It made her feel as though she’d been given a glimpse of the sun, then someone had drawn the curtains, leaving her in cold, black desolation.
“And what about me?” she asked in a small voice.
“You’ll have to go somewhere away from here, but not back to Russia. They’ll be looking for you, and they won’t stop.”
Something inside her did break then, something that even the men who’d raped her hadn’t been able to destroy. Katya had been many things in her short life—poor, hungry, desperate, afraid. But she’d never been alone, and now she realized she was. Because whether Russia was perfect or not, it was her home. Whether Paula was perfect or not, she was her mother. And whether Nadja was weak or not, she was her best friend.
Now she had none of them, and she was probably not going to ever get them back. But she wouldn’t cry. No, she wouldn’t cry.
Instead, she did what she’d done every day since Sergei had shoved her into that van. She ground her teeth, breathed deep, and gave Liam MacFarlane her haughtiest gaze.
“If it is last thing I ever do,” she spat, “I will make them pay for all of it. I will make them pay for taking everything from me.”
Liam looked at the beautiful young woman glaring at him as if she could burn him alive with her eyes alone. She’d told him she was twenty-four, the same age as his youngest brother, Connor, and eight years younger than him. He knew he’d slept with women her age, but she was different somehow. Less worldly, yet also more worn. Vulnerable in a way he wasn’t used to, yet with a spark and a steel that almost made him…proud.
“I’ll do it for you,” he promised. “You don’t need that on your conscience. Know that I’ll do whatever it takes to make them pay for what they did to you, and to Nadja. And I won’t let them find you,” he added softly, trying to reassure her. “We’ll have to figure out where to send you, give you a new identity. We can do that.”
She relaxed a touch, and not for the first time in the last few days, he wondered exactly what they had done to her. It was a foregone conclusion she’d been raped, and he knew she’d been beaten, but the devil was in the details. How many times? How violently? Conscious? Unconscious? Was she tortured? Drugged?
Liam had been the chief enforcer in his family for nearly ten years. He knew about torture, both the giving and the receiving. He knew about being imprisoned, as well as about taking prisoners. And he knew that Katya wasn’t that different from a cornered animal right now. She was terrified, bruised, battered, and didn’t trust anyone. He could see it in her eyes. It was why he’d kept his distance, making sure to give her ample space, never moving too fast or doing anything she might perceive as threatening.
“But now you need information?” She looked longingly at her empty plate.
He quietly reached across the counter and took the plate away, replacing it with a bottled smoothie he took out of the fridge. “Open it,” he instructed when she simply stared at it. “You need the calories.”
She cracked the seal on the cap, and he saw relief wash over her as she took several healthy swallows of the chocolate-flavored smoothie.
“Yes, we need information. Anything and everything you saw or heard while they had you. It might not seem important to you but could give us a clue that helps us run them out of town.”
She finished the smoothie and belched. Her eyes widened in shock at the sound, and her cheeks turned pink almost instantly.
Liam laughed as she continued from pink to crimson.
“Idi k chertu,” she snapped, glaring.
“Sweetheart, I don’t know what you just said, but you don’t need to be embarrassed in front of me. I grew up with three brothers. There’s no sound or smell you could make that would surprise me.”
She tried to keep a straight face, giving him her fiercest look, but then she cracked, a throaty laugh breaking free as a grin spread across her face. Liam felt the sound reverberate through him like some sort of slow wave rolling into shore. His own grin grew, and she laughed harder, collapsing onto the counter in front of her, gasping for breath as her eyes began to water.
Liam watched her, fascinated by the first unguarded emotion she’d shown since he’d taken her out of that hellhole. Her golden hair was a disheveled mess, she didn’t wear a speck of makeup, and she was possibly the most beautiful thing he’d ever laid eyes on.
When her laughter finally subsided, she wiped the tears from her eyes, little aftershocks of giggles coming every few seconds as she tried to regain control.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Then she sobered, her mind taking her somewhere else for a moment. “I don’t think I laugh since I came to America,” she added softly.
“I’m glad I could be of service.” He kept smiling. He never smiled this much, but damn. That laugh.
He turned and retrieved a pot of coffee he’d brewed before she woke. “It’s still warm,” he offered, showing it to her.
She hesitated for only a second before nodding. He poured her a cup.
“Cream or sugar?”
She snorted. “I’m Russian. We drink the coffee that is…” She struggled for the English word. “Powdered?”
“Instant?” Liam asked, disgust causing him to wrinkle his nose.
“Yes. That. Instant. If you put milk, it taste like milk. I don’t like milk.”
“That’s because instant coffee is hardly better than toilet water,” Liam scolded. “Drink some of that. That’s what coffee is supposed to taste like.”
She took a sip, her eyes growing wide. He waited for her to gag or demand the cream, but instead, she smiled, taking a larger swallow.
“Da. This is much better. I like this.”
Katya liked coffee. And God help him, Liam liked her.
Chapter 8
“So basically Liam risked his neck to pull her out, and all she could tell us was a few first names and the way they have the place set up.”
Lila watched as Cian paced in front of the window of his condo. His slacks were black, his knit shirt a shade of blue that she’d describe as azure. It matched his eyes, and try as hard as she might, she didn’t think she’d ever forget the exact shade of his eyes as long as she lived.
“He did a good thing, though,” she added as Cian stopped and turned to face her. “I know you’re upset he took such a big risk, but you saw Katya. Can you imagine what it must have been like for her in there?”
Cian sighed before walking over and sitting on the sofa next to her. Not too close, but not far enough either. Lila had no idea where the two of them stood after their most recent night together, but she knew the closer Cian got, the more it scared her.
“I can’t think about it,” Cian said softly. “I�
�m trying to balance so much here. I can’t think about what those girls are going through. It’s…” He swallowed, his gaze leaving hers for just a moment. “Beyond horrible. And I can’t help them, so I can’t think about it.”
Her chest contracted the smallest bit, and she broke her own rule that she’d made just that morning at breakfast by reaching out and putting her fingertips on his arm. “I know. You can’t save everyone. You have to put your family first.”
He stared at her for a long breath, something in his eyes so disquieted, she wondered what she’d said wrong.
He finally released a shaky breath. “Yeah. The family has to come first,” he murmured before he shifted, reaching out to run a finger down her cheek. “Will you keep helping me with the Russians, Lila from Rogue?”
She couldn’t smother the ghost of a smile that spread over her lips at his nickname for her. The first time she’d ever texted with him, she’d introduced herself that way. He’d never let her live it down.
“I’ll feed them whatever information you want under the guise of being Xavier. But that’s not what you mean, is it?”
He sat up straighter, pulling away, and she knew it was back to business. Because Cian never left business behind for long.
“Finn has come up with a plan,” he began, leaning back and putting one booted foot over the opposite knee. “We have to get the Russians out of town. But conventional warfare won’t work with them. We need to hit them in a way they won’t expect from us—beat them at their own game. Finn wants to wage cyberwar.”
Lila blinked. Before she’d gotten the relatively stable job setting up systems for Rogue, she’d done a lot of hacking for a lot of people, but she’d never been involved in a war of the type Cian was describing.
“Oh-kay,” she said slowly. “Do you understand what that entails?”
Brush of Despair (Dublin Devils Book 2) Page 7
