Using You 2

by Ariel Arnold

  The door to the task force office was pushed open and Agent Ramirez entered, making me jump.

  “Hello, Officer Valencia,” he said pleasantly and I fidgeted in my seat.

  “Hi,” I replied lamely, glancing away from him. The man intimidated me way too much to keep eye contact with him for long periods of time. He rounded the desk and stood behind the chair I sat in.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, looking over my shoulder.

  “Just going through the surveillance files, seeing if there is anything that could help me as I’m trying to gather information.”

  “And have you found anything useful in the time you’ve spent with Volstolv?” he asked.

  “No, I haven’t. Not yet,” I promptly answered. I didn’t know why I didn’t tell him about breaking into Ilya’s warehouse and the things I’d read, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Maybe if it were Detective Callahan asking me these questions, I would have been truthful.

  “So, even though he was in your apartment all day yesterday, you weren’t able to get anything out of him?” he asked. I gulped upon realizing they were surveilling me, or were they surveilling Ilya and had only watched me because he had shown up at my apartment? Either way, I didn’t like the thought of them keeping tabs on me, watching me.

  “I’m starting to think you aren’t trying as hard as you could, that maybe you don’t really want to find anything out,” he said, still behind me, his voice going chillingly low. “Maybe you already know everything but just want us to think you remain clueless. Are you in love with Ilya Volstolv, Officer Valencia? Are you protecting him?” he asked.

  I jumped up from my chair and turned towards him, face flaming. “That isn’t true. That is so far from the truth. I’m at risk of an anxiety attack every day trying to figure out how to get information for you guys. Every second I’m afraid, thinking today is the day he’ll figure out what I’m doing,” I practically yelled at him.

  Agent Ramirez nodded. “You have another angle you can try. Amanda Lacey and Yazmeen Jones. They are your friends, they trust you. If you push casually, I’m sure you can get information out of them.”

  My stomach churned and I felt like I might vomit. That was a line I hadn’t wanted to cross, the reason I’d been so distant from the two lately. I didn’t want to lie to them, deceive them, use them like that. Not Yaz and Amanda. They were too important to me, but it wasn’t like I could say that. I couldn’t tell this police officer that I put my relationship with them over my job. So, I nodded silently as I tried to come up with a way to get information without involving Yaz and Amanda.

  Chapter Five: Ilya

  I was looking down at my phone, waiting to see if Nana would text me back immediately. I knew she was at work, but I was hoping she would have a spare moment to entertain me. So far, however, I hadn’t received anything back.

  “Earth to Ilya,” Yazmeen said, waving a manicured hand in front of my face. I looked up to see everyone at the table eyeing me. I was currently having lunch with Nikolai, Amanda, Aleksandr, and Yazmeen, and I’d obviously spaced out, ignoring them.

  “What did you say?” I asked her sheepishly.

  Yazmeen rolled her eyes. “Really, Ilya? I know you don’t like to talk a lot, but you usually listen,” she said, eyeing me, a little annoyed.

  “I’m sorry. I’m listening this time. I promise.”

  “It’s because he’s obsessed with that cop. She’s all he can think of. Despite all the proof that he shouldn’t still be contacting her,” Nikolai said in disapproval.

  “What cop?” Amanda and Yazmeen asked almost simultaneously.

  I eyed Nikolai and shook my head firmly. I didn’t want him telling them about me and Nana. I didn’t want them to know that Nana could, well, no, was investigating us. I knew it would hurt her if they knew.

  “No one,” Nikolai mumbled as he went back to eating his food. Both women watched us suspiciously for a moment before Yazmeen continued what she was saying.

  “Are you bringing a date to my wedding?” she asked.

  I shrugged. Probably not. The only person I wanted to bring was Nana and that was impossible. I was still pretending like I didn’t know she was investigating me and she was pretending like she didn’t know exactly who I was while she investigated me. Inviting her to Yazmeen’s wedding would put an end to both of our charades. But still, there was a big part of me that wanted to ask her anyways.

  “Are you seeing anyone?” Amanda asked. “Is it someone we know?”

  I froze as I looked at her. Had she figured out it was Nana from the little Nikolai had divulged? “Why do you think it’s someone that you know?”

  She shrugged. “I just thought you and Lydia had a thing,” she explained. I scoffed, and barely stopped myself from spilling that the only person who had ever been involved with Lydia was Nikolai. It was years ago, before Amanda and Nikolai were together, but that didn’t mean she would want to hear about it.

  “No, we don’t have a thing,” I informed her.

  Yazmeen sighed, “Okay, whatever. I’ll just put you down as plus one, just in case, since you’re being all mysterious.”

  After lunch, the ladies went their own way, leaving me, Nikolai and Aleksandr. I heard something about more wedding planning.

  “So, what do you have planned for your day, cousin?” Nikolai asked. “Some boring lab stuff?”

  Niko loved bothering his cousin and making fun of him for his profession. Though I’d never said it, I was always very impressed with Aleksandr and the way his brain worked. The man was a genius. I didn’t think I was stupid or anything, but my intelligence and Alek’s intelligence were two very different things.

  “Shut up. It’s not boring. Maybe if you weren’t such an idiot, you’d appreciate the beauty of science,” he replied. “But actually, I have nothing to do. I’ve finished my latest project. I was going to try and convince Yaz to do something with me, but she ditched me for Amanda.”

  “That’s sad… your own woman…,” Nikolai started to say and I sighed, knowing where this was headed. Luckily, Alek shut him down before he could get started, though.

  “Shut up, like Amanda wouldn’t leave your ass in the dust in a heartbeat for Yaz.”

  I laughed out loud when Nikolai couldn’t even deny it.

  “Well, at least we have women, and not some little girl who is only using us,” Nikolai said dryly.

  Twice in one day, Nikolai had brought up Nana and made me feel like shit. Every time he said anything, I wanted to punch him in the face. I just glared at him before taking a few deep breaths. “I’m out of here,” I told the two cousins.

  As I turned to leave, I saw Alek punch Nikolai in his side and mumble, “Now why did you have to go and say that for?”

  By the time I got down the street and was unlocking my car door, my cell phone was ringing. I knew it would be Nikolai. Though he said some stupid, hurtful shit all the time, and could definitely be ruthless, he didn’t like to hurt the ones he cared about.

  “I’m sorry,” were the first words out of his mouth. “Fuck, you know I can’t control what I say most of the time. This whole situation with this girl, though, is a tricky one. I almost want to tell Amanda not to hang out with her anymore. She has you, she has the girls, who knows what she’s planning.”

  “Don’t do that. If you tell Amanda not to be friends with Nana anymore, she’ll want to know why. If you tell her, Amanda and Yazmeen both will confront Nana. I don’t want Nana to know that I know what she’s doing yet. I have it all under control, Niko. I promise, just trust me.”

  “That’s the only reason I haven’t ended all of this already. Because I trust you,” he said. “Me and Alek are gonna go and see some stupid ass movie he wants to see. Do you want to come?”

  I chuckled, imagining the two of them sitting in a movie theater together, watching a movie. “No, I’m good. I have some stuff over at the warehouse to do.”

  I hadn’t been to the warehouse in a few days and som
ething was telling me I needed to. Maybe it was my need to go through all the records. It was still bugging me that we had no concrete leads as to who was responsible for Vidor’s death. Something in the back of my mind kept screaming that I already had all the answers, I just needed to put them together.

  As I entered the warehouse, Dimitri was talking on his phone, jogging towards the exit I had just entered. “Everything okay?” I asked, stopping him before he could leave.

  “Yeah, chief, just a minor problem you don’t have to worry about. Me and the boys can handle it.”

  I nodded and let him continue. I had to learn to not want to control every little aspect of this operation. I had to let the guys do what they were trained to and not ‘coddle’ them as Gavril said I often did. I figured that whatever the issue was, it had something to do with HBD. They were really becoming a thorn in our side lately. I wanted to wipe them out completely, go for their leader and cripple them, show them they couldn’t mess with the Bratva as easily as they pleased. However, we were trying to keep a low-key presence recently. Since Vidor was killed and Nikolai was forced to take up leadership early, we couldn’t afford to have the American authorities on us. They already especially had it out for Nikolai.

  Though I knew all this, I also couldn’t shake the feeling that HBD had a part in what happened to Vidor, and that they needed to pay.

  I sat down in my chair and immediately clicked onto one of my files. I paused and looked curiously. Someone had accessed my file, and recently, too.

  Had it been Dimitri? Was that why he’d rushed out of here when I arrived? No, he wouldn’t dare. Then who?

  My mind then called up the image of a small, beautiful, woman with a great smile. Nana. She was very well capable of doing what I had suspected had gone down. Someone had come in here, looked through my things, trying to find something. Nana knew where this warehouse was. I’d stupidly brought her here when I was in the dark and blindly trusted her. I gripped my phone in my hand tightly as I looked to see if she had texted me back yet. Nothing.

  I was livid. She had to have recently come here. That meant she was still investigating me after everything between us, after the intimacy we had shared.

  I think somewhere deep down I thought I could make her, I don’t know, fall in love with me and that would sway her away from this investigation. That she would put me above her job. I don’t know why I thought that, though. Her job was her life, her legacy to her sister, and I understood that. It just was bad fate that doing her job meant betraying me.

  This all would have to come to an end. I was going to have to end this charade sooner than I had anticipated.

  Here I was, at least public enemy number two, after Nikolai, and I was standing right in front of the New York Police Department. I leaned against the passenger side door of my car and watched the entrance intently.

  Nana should be coming out soon.

  Another fact that made me foolish. So, not only was I standing outside of a police station where I was hated, I couldn’t let Nana go. I was in lust with a cop, a cop sent to spy on me. Yeah, I was beyond foolish.

  I knew that it was foolish and that I should stop, but I couldn’t. I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed. What the hell was I going to do about Nana Valencia?

  I had come here to confront her, but the moment I was actually here, all I could think about was seeing her again.

  Did I have the courage to end this beautiful lie I’d surrounded myself in? Would I be able to give up days with her, nights out, seeing her face, touching her skin?

  A pair of uniformed cops were standing a few feet away from me at the foot of the stairs that led to the precinct, smoking a cigarette. Their conversation easily floated across to me, catching my attention.

  “Did you hear about the body they found downtown last night?”

  The other cop shook his head and continued to suck on his cigarette.

  “It was that seventeen-year-old girl that went missing, Ama. They found her in an abandoned building. Got a call about squatters and when they got there, they were surprised to find a body instead.”

  “Drug overdose?” the second cop asked around a ring of smoke.

  “Nope. Murder. Figured she was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and then murdered.”

  “Bastard. I hope they catch whoever did it.”

  They then began to trail off onto different topics, which I wasn’t listening to anyways because it didn’t matter to me. But this couldn’t be a coincidence. A young girl dead in a warehouse downtown sounded way too familiar for comfort. I thought back on the night that me, Nikolai, and Aleksandr had found the girl’s body. It had to be the same girl.

  Did I make sure all evidence of us being there was erased? I was as thorough as possible with the time constraint. We hadn’t really touched anything. I was sure there was nothing that could link us to being there. So absorbed in my own thoughts and a nagging ominous feeling, I didn’t notice Nana walking towards me.

  “Ilya, what are you doing here?” she asked, sounding completely shocked.

  Shaking away the bad feeling, I concentrated on Nana and shrugged. “I just wanted to see you.”

  “You could have called me. We could have met at my house,” she said, sounding a little impatient. She glanced behind her and then back at me. “Let’s go.”

  Coming out of the building and looking straight at us were detectives O’Reilly, Callahan and another man I didn’t recognize.

  So, that’s what was up. She didn’t want her senior officers seeing her meet up with the Russian thug, though I’m sure those same senior officers were the ones who roped her into this act in the first place. Just because I was angry, bitter, and feeling spiteful, I refused to budge. Instead, I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her into me, cupped her face and brought my lips down onto hers. At first, she stiffened in my arms and tried to pull away, but I held her firm, and softly coaxed her to engage by nipping on her bottom lip. She sighed in defeat and sank into me, actively kissing me back.

  When I was satisfied that everyone around knew that Nana was mine, that Nana herself knew the effect I had on her, I pulled away.

  “Let’s go.” I guided her to my car and pulled off.

  “I can’t believe I just let you kiss me in front of everyone I work with,” Nana mumbled in disbelief. “I will not hear the end of this tomorrow.”

  “What, cops aren’t allowed to date?” I asked.

  “Yes, we’re allowed to date,” she said exasperated, “just not freaking mo—” She cut herself off and looked at me fearfully. I could see her watching me out the corner of my eye, but I kept them straight on the road.

  “Just not what?” I asked nonchalantly.

  “Just, it’s embarrassing to have everyone talking about how I was making out in front of the precinct,” she said, backtracking.

  I nodded, letting her have her lie for the moment.

  “So, where are we going?”

  If this were any other day, I would have wanted to bring her to my place, cook for her, spoil her, but with the way tonight was going to end, it would be better if she was at her own home.

  “Let’s go to your place.”

  Nana unlocked her front door and kicked her shoes off. “You know where everything is. Relax while I change, then I can order some Chinese or something. I’m starving, as usual,” she said in a rush of words as she began unbuttoning her top.

  I didn’t feel like going through the motions or dragging things out. Suddenly, it felt urgent that I stop waffling and lay everything out on the table, especially before I changed my mind.

  “Why did you break into my warehouse?”

  Nana was stopped mid-step with her back to me at my words. They seemed heavy in the silent, still air, almost as if I could still hear them echoing around the room. She didn’t say anything, didn’t turn towards, me her body remained ramrod straight.

  “Did you find anything out about Nikolai?” I asked, knowing that she hadn’t.
This had the desired effect of making her gasp. “Turn around and look at me,” I ordered firmly. I wanted to see her face as everything was torn apart.

  Chapter Six: Nana

  I had thought the worst thing to happen today was to walk outside of the precinct and see Ilya standing there in all his sexy, smoldering glory. Then I thought nothing could be worse than my superiors seeing me make out with the Russian mobster and question my loyalty to this operation. But now, it was clear to see that this, this moment right here, right now, was the worst thing to happen to me today.

  Slowly, I turned around and faced Ilya. He stood, watching, his face completely devoid of all emotions. He didn’t even look angry. I had no way of reading him, no way of telling what he was thinking. Did this mean he knew? Did he know everything I was doing all along? I couldn’t stop myself from asking. I wanted my voice to come out strong and confident, but the moment I spoke, my voice shook.

  “How… how long have you known?”

  “Since the night you broke into Nikolai’s office at the club. We stood and watched you the whole time on the cameras,” he said.

  I winced. Of course, they would have security. Why hadn’t that occurred to me? As I stood there in front of Ilya, feeling small and guilty, imagining him watching me snooping, I began to get angry. When in a situation so charged with emotion like this, and even though I knew I was in the wrong, anger was my only defense. And I desperately needed a defense against this feeling.

  “So, all this time you’ve known and you have just been pretending. What about everything you’ve said to me, everything you’ve done to me. Right here in my own living room!” I shouted, pointing at the couch where Ilya had given me the most pleasure I had ever felt in my life. Now it was tainted. Why did he continue to pretend if he knew what I was doing all along?

  Ilya scoffed and smiled sardonically. “You don’t get to be mad. You started this game first, hun.”