I licked dry lips, thankful that I had already thrown up every single thing in my stomach. Otherwise I would be emptying it here and now, right in front of the pakhan.
“The last thing I want is for Sayer to be in prison,” I told the room full of scary men. “I love him. We were talking about getting married before he went away.” My voice broke with real emotion. “I hate this more than anyone.”
“We are trying to make sense of everything,” Aleksander said reasonably. “We hear that you are the reason, but we see you together and feel that it is real between the two of you. That you love him. But that he also loves you. Very much. Why would someone say this about you if it is not true?”
“Jealousy?” I suggested. “Revenge? I don’t honestly know. But it’s ridiculous. Listen, I was raised to respect this life. I’ve been working for you since I was thirteen and you’ve always treated me rightly, fairly. I’m not some newbie Six that got scared because of a few FBI agents sniffing around.” I took a deep breath and prepared to reveal some truth to authenticate my lie. “Listen, I was interrogated just like everybody else. When we were all arrested, I was one of the last that they talked to. I won’t lie and tell you that I was totally cool, because I wasn’t. I was nervous. I was probably pretty jittery. But I’m not a snitch. I’m not collaborating with anybody. And I know how to keep a poker face. I’m telling you, whatever is being whispered about me is all bluster. No circumstance.”
Roman stepped forward, taking his place in the center of the room. It looked as though he and his brothers had been hiding in my bedroom, waiting for me to come home. I immediately felt icky. Had they been snooping?
What had they found?
“And how will we know if you’re telling the truth if your poker face is so good?” Dymetrus asked.
“What do you want me to tell you? I’m not working with the FBI. I have nothing to hide from you. I have no reason to go to them. I love my life. I am grateful for what the bratva has done for me… for Sayer. The brothers are my family. I would never leave, never betray you.”
“Caro, if you know something, if you’re doing something, tell them,” my dad encouraged. My eyes bugged out. I could not believe him. “If you’re truthful with them, they are not unreasonable men.”
My father, ladies and gentleman. The man that sells out his daughter to keep both of his hands. I pressed my palms against the small bump in my lower abdomen, promising the child that I would never behave like this, that I would cherish and love and protect until the very end of me. Until I took my very last breath. I would never treat my offspring like this. I would never throw them under the bus just to save myself from punishment.
“What do they want to know?” I demanded. “Ask a question, I’ll give you the answer.” I turned to the bosses. “You tell me what to steal, I steal it for you. You tell me who to con, I con them for you. I’ve never taken so much as a dollar that belonged to you guys. I hand over everything. I have nothing to hide. I have no reason to work with the feds. Whatever you want to know I’ll tell you.”
Roman dipped his chin so he had a better angle to look into my eyes. I stared back, unflinching. “I want to know if you’re working with the fucking FBI.”
I didn’t flinch. I didn’t even blink. I just answered honestly. “No. I’m not working with the FBI. Nor have I ever worked with the FBI. I’m loyal to the brotherhood. To you. And I always will be.”
“You swore an oath,” Roman reminded me.
“I did. And I believe in it.” That was my first bold face lie of the night. But it needed to be said if I wanted to stay alive.
Roman jerked his head at me. “We will be watching you, Caroline. Don’t do something stupid. We do not tolerate stupid people. So far you have been very good for the bratva, for our… expansion in the city. But, if you turn out to be a stupid person, well... that would be a shame. It would pain me to hurt you, Caroline. It would pain your father to watch. It would pain Sayer in ways I can only imagine. Do you understand?”
He was threatening not just me, but my dad… Sayer. “I-I wouldn’t dare. I would n-never. I swear it.” He seemed to be waiting on something else, so I said. “I understand, Roman. I’m not stupid. I swear I’m not stupid.”
“Good,” Roman said. “You are such a pretty girl. I would not take pleasure in disfiguring you.”
“That’s not true,” Aleksander laughed, as if we were telling jokes and not talking about torturing me. “You would take pleasure, brother. You would take great pleasure.”
They shared a sadistic smile. “You know me well, brother. Still, she can be valuable alive. She is worth something to our brigadier. If nothing else she is the reason he never steps out of line.”
He meant Sayer. Sayer stayed in line because he was afraid of something happening to me.
“That is why it is good when our soldiers fall in love, no?” Dymetrus added. “They are always so reluctant to watch their loved ones lose body parts.”
I tried to swallow, but didn’t quite manage. I knew their conversation was a warning, that they were reminding me of who they were, who I was and how I should behave. But they were also being honest. They would use Sayer to keep me in line. And they would use me to keep Sayer in line, no matter how high up he went, no matter how much power he had.
Because as long as I was around, they would always have leverage over him.
What about our child? If I was a liability, what about the tiny, helpless thing in my womb?
Would they clip the baby’s fingers off if Sayer decided to leave? Or worse?
It took everything inside me not to double over and dry heave. This child. Oh, my god, I had a child to protect. To keep away from these monsters. To shield from this horrific hellhole.
Roman, Dymetrus and Aleksander left the apartment, their men following behind them. Atticus and my dad lingered in my apartment. I needed them to leave so I could take a long bubble bath and then take a nap for a week.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad.” I slammed my half-finished ginger ale on the nearest surface. “Shouldn’t you be on my side? You know, since I’m your daughter.”
“I am,” he said with that smarmy smile that he used on women he wanted something from. I had been a recipient of that smile the majority of my life. Usually it ended with him taking all of my money and giving me nothing but a hug and a promise that he loved me.
We both knew he didn’t.
“Just give them what they want, honey,” my dad encouraged. “That’s how we stay alive. That’s how we do this. You can’t keep living if you don’t keep giving.”
My dad, the motivational speaker.
Because his nose was so clean.
Yeah, right.
“I saw you, Caro. I saw you talking to that tool, Payne. He knows you. And not just because he’s read a file on you. He’s familiar with you, which means he has a reason to feel familiar with you. And the day the raid happened you showed up acting guilty as fuck. For whatever reason, the pakhan believe you, but it’s only a matter of time before I find proof. Then they’ll know what I know. That you’re a fucking snitch. You’re the reason behind the FBI raid. You’re the real reason your boyfriend is sitting in prison.”
“You couldn’t find your ass with both hands,” I growled at him.
His mouth split open into a crazy smile. Like actually crazy. “I know that the pakhan has given me permission to do the job when we have proof about you and the feds. I know that I get to be the one to extract all the little secrets you have hiding up there.” He pressed a finger to my temple and shoved me so hard I stumbled trying to catch my foothold again. “I know I get to be the one to collect the pieces of you and give them to your precious, fucking boyfriend. Watch your back, Valero. I’m fucking coming for you.”
I tried to speak, but all I managed to do was not pass out. I was completely frozen, my body turning to solid ice. Atticus stormed from my apartment, an avenging asshole that had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
&nb
sp; “I’m not working with the FBI,” I whispered to my dad when the door slammed shut behind Atticus.
He let out a defeated sigh. “Neither was Jack.”
Oh, god, don’t bring up Fat Jack now.
“Dad, can’t you stick up for me? Can’t you say something? You know me. You know I would never sell out the bratva. You know this has always been my life. I’ve never known anything different.”
He shrugged, his face looking drawn and pale. “Caro, they don’t listen to me. I’m a nobody.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “You need Sayer to speak up for you. They listen to him.”
“He’s in prison.” My chin wobbled and tears leaked from the corners of my eyes.
“That’s real loyalty,” my dad said. “Going to prison ‘cause the bosses asked it of you. He’s a good man. He’s a real example.”
My dad praising Sayer for his selfless sacrifice made me want to scream. “Do you believe me?” I asked him. Because it didn’t sound like he did. “Dad, tell me you believe me.”
He stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Listen to them, Caro. Don’t be stupid. Don’t give them a reason to mistrust you. Don’t let them be right. You know you gotta keep your hands clean.”
“And your nose cleaner.”
“You’re a smart girl. You’ll do the right thing.” He walked over and kissed my cheek before moseying out of the apartment.
Twenty minutes had gone by before I moved from where I stood. I stared at my feet for twenty freaking minutes, trying to figure out what I was going to do.
The bratva thought I was working with the FBI. I wasn’t. But Mason Payne thought we were on friendly enough terms to talk to me whenever he wanted.
It looked bad.
It was bad.
And Sayer was locked away for the foreseeable future and not able to help me. Not at all.
Wrapping my arms around my waist, I knew I had to do something. I knew I had to do whatever it took to protect the life inside me.
If it was just my life I was playing with, I would have been able to face it. I would have kept my hands clean and kept my nose clean and everything so goddamn clean and then faced whatever consequences came out of my decisions. But I had more to think about now.
I had more than one life to protect.
Frankie walked in the door, yanking off her heels as she headed to the kitchen without slowing down. “I hate this fucking city,” she growled when she saw me standing in the middle of our apartment.
It only barely registered that she’d told me she was going to be with her uncles tonight and yet her uncles were here. With me.
“Then let’s leave,” I whispered to her. “Let’s just fucking go.”
She tottered in her bare feet. Quirking one eyebrow, she deadpanned. “You’re serious?”
I grabbed her hand and dragged her out to the balcony, lest the possible bugs in my apartment give warning to the feds or Atticus or fucking Santa Claus. And out on the terrace, with the freezing DC wind biting our skin and making our noses run, I spilled everything.
I told her about Payne and his frequent visits, about the deal he offered Sayer that I didn’t get a chance to share with him until after the FBI had pitched it. I told her about my visit with him today, how he will never leave the bratva. No matter what. And how her uncles had stopped by to threaten my life. I cried when I told her about my dad and his less than enthusiastic response. He hadn’t stuck up for me. He didn’t even believe me. And I told her about Atticus and his stupid vendetta against me.
“He’s waited all this time,” Frankie said, in shocked disbelief. “Caro, he’s waited ten years to get his revenge. Ever since you embarrassed him that night in the warehouse with the Irish guns. He’s like an insane spider, just lying in wait, spinning his web. He’s out of his goddamn mind.”
“I know.”
“He’ll do it.” She shook her head, hugging herself tightly. “He’s going to do it. You know that right? He’ll find what he needs on you. He’ll follow through. It’s only a matter of time.”
There was one important detail I’d failed to mention until now. “Frankie, I’m pregnant.”
Her head snapped up, her eyes bugging out of her head. “I’m sorry, what?”
I started crying again. “I’m pregnant. I… I’m three and a half months along.”
“Three and a half months…”
“The last night Sayer and I had… when he was out on bail. We… I don’t know what happened. We drank too much. We must have forgotten to use protection…”
“Aren’t you on the pill?” she shrieked.
I shook my head. “We’ve always been careful. I didn’t think…”
“Oh my God. Oh my God, Caro, what are you going to do?”
I folded my arms over my chest and stared out at the city. Snow covered the tops of buildings, making the glittering lights glow with a charming kind of magic that still couldn’t redeem this place.
“I’m going to leave,” I told her, the words gaining conviction as they left my mouth. “I love Sayer, but he’s not here. I have to do what’s right for this baby.”
“Think about it,” Frankie warned. “If you leave, Caro, you can never come back. You can never have Sayer again. If you leave tonight, that’s it. You’ll have to hide for the rest of your life.”
I met her terrified gaze. “I know.”
We were silent for a long stretch, both of us lost in our thoughts, freezing and shivering and too afraid to go back inside. “Take me with you,” she pleaded, her voice breaking with emotion. “I want to go too.”
“Frankie, they will—”
“I know what they will do. Take me anyway.”
“Are you sure you’re up for this?”
She raised one eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re up for this? At least if we go together than we have each other, right?”
“Okay…” I chewed my bottom lip, mentally calculating everything we needed, everything it would take to pull this off. “If we do this, we have to be smart about it. We can’t make a mistake. We can’t get caught. And we cannot come back, not for any reason.”
“Hey, you’re the one with ties to this city,” she argued. “Not me.”
We both knew that wasn’t true, but I wasn’t going to call her on it tonight. “Are you ready to leave tonight?”
She looked away, a mental wall sliding down over her eyes. “We need to wait until the banks are open. We need cash. We need as many assets as possible.”
“I have assets,” I promised. I had a whole collection of assets. I had asked Sayer to keep them for me, out of the reach of my dad’s sticky fingers. But when he went away, he gave me all the keys and passwords and whatever I would need to take care of his life while he couldn’t. “The morning then,” I decided. “That will give me some time to get to the storage unit.”
“The morning,” Frankie agreed. She turned back to me, a faint smile playing on her lips. “Guess I better get packing.”
“I should too. Not too much though, yeah? Just the essentials.”
She nodded and then moved to the balcony door. “Oh, hey.” I looked at her. “Congratulations.”
Silent tears started falling again. “Thank you.”
She didn’t offer kind words of encouragement or shallow promises that everything was going to be all right. We both knew that it wasn’t going to be. Nothing would ever be all right again.
Instead of wallowing in self-pity though, I set to work packing up my entire life into one small duffle bag and saying goodbye to the life I was supposed to have. The tears stopped as I threw myself into this escape plan.
The bratva would be watching me. The feds would be watching me.
That meant I would have to get creative.
I sent Frankie for the cash. She was less suspicious and had a way of charming everyone she met. I smuggled our bags down the back stairwell of the apartment building, down into the underground garage. I knew the security camera between the stairwell and t
he garage was broken and managed to get them in Frankie’s car without being seen.
Continuing out that way, I took back alleys until I reached the subway three miles away. Then I circled around and headed to the storage unit where Sayer kept our things.
Not knowing if anyone knew about it or if I was being watched, I continued using back doors. I made it to our unit without being stopped or assaulted, so I called that a win.
I unlocked the sliding door and lifted the gate, expecting to find a treasure trove of priceless riches.
We would be set for life. We wouldn’t have to worry about anything. We could pack the car with all of my things and then slowly sell them along the way. It was the perfect plan because I could only be connected to a few of the items. Most of them weren’t even traceable back to me. And I wouldn’t sell the obvious pieces. I’d keep those for myself.
Instead of my coveted treasure trove though, I found nothing. A few pieces of useless furniture, a filing cabinet that was empty and a box of Sayer’s old clothes. But nothing valuable. Nothing priceless. Nothing worth all this fucking trouble.
“Where is it?” I gasped, trying to reconcile what I was seeing with what my brain said should be there. “Did I use the wrong key? Open the wrong unit?”
No. That was the only storage unit key I had. And it had worked. I was inside, wasn’t I?
Only this was all wrong. Sayer had taken my trophies and hid them like I asked. Only he’d hid them too well because now I couldn’t find them.
Had he done it on purpose?
Was this his collateral?
His way of making sure I stayed with him?
My stomach churned and I knew I was going to be sick. I needed a bathroom. I needed a breath of fresh air.
I needed answers.
My phone dinged in my pocket. I ripped it out and opened the text, half assuming it to be Sayer until I realized he couldn’t text me anymore.
He wouldn’t be able to text me for another decade.
Oh my God. What had I done?
Did it! The text said. Which was code from Frankie. She’d gotten the junker car we were going to use to get out. She’d found an old Toyota Corolla on Craigslist and paid cash for it out of our savings.
Constant (The Confidence Game Book 1) Page 31
