Into the Shadows

by Carolyn Crane

  Eventually, the drilling started up. Richard came down and found them soon after.

  “Anything?”

  “Nah. A lot of questions about who’s been in and out of here,” Richard said. “He’ll ask you the same.”

  She nodded. “He say anything about the raids?”

  Richard shook his head.

  “I’ll see if I can get something,” she said, watching Benny dig at the dirt with a stick. He was a talented digger for his age.

  “See. We need the whole picture.” The or else was implied. Or else we’re not doing another raid. “It’s not fair to the guys to go in there blind.”

  “We can’t not do tomorrow,” Nadia said. It was more urgent than ever, now. God, the Slaters could completely dismantle or move the sweatshops. “Crap. Maybe we should just peek in so it’s less of an operation.”

  “That’s what you want to do? Just peek in? Not take anyone?”

  She closed her eyes, picturing the faces of the women they would find in the places. The fear and confusion and deep weariness. “No,” she said. “We have to take them.”

  “We’ll do the best we can.”

  “If she’s even alive.”

  “Don’t,” he whispered.

  “I’ll grill him.”

  She didn’t think she’d get a chance—Thorne and the guys seemed determined to work nonstop, but just after midnight they broke up. The two men went to the rooms she had designated for them. She found Thorne stretched out on his stomach on the rug in front of the fireplace with Rufus next to him. The rug he’d shot at.

  She grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniels and walked over. “He’s not supposed to be in the house with Benny.”

  Thorne raised up his hand, showing her the leash that was curled around it.

  “How are his paws?”

  “Good. I put more of the ointment on, but he’s fine.” He rubbed Rufus’s head.

  She sat down cross-legged beside him and handed him the bottle.

  He grabbed it with a smirk. “Think I’m that easy?” He took a swig.

  She didn’t answer, but yes, she hoped so. In spite of all of their chemistry and craziness, they’d had a friendship, an easy alliance. Outlaws inside the outlaw camp, meeting and collaborating in secret. He’d told her things back then. Maybe he’d tell her something now. “Are the Slaters and those other gangs really coming? I thought you were shitting me, but Richard thinks you’re not. Are we in danger?”

  He stared at the fire, a half frown. Insulted. “Not while I’m here. Just keep that safe room open. It’s not you guys they’re after.”

  “So let me help you find this thing.” It felt almost too natural, them on a project together.

  He looked over at her, not trusting that she’d help him. That was so Thorne, quick to distrust, especially if he didn’t see anything in it for the other person. She used to tell herself that’s why he’d been so cruel at the end, that it was a trust problem. Like it was him, not her.

  “Once you find this CD, you’re out of here, right?” she added.

  He stared at the fire. That he trusted: somebody wanting to get rid of him. “Yep.”

  “If I help you find it and you go, the other gangs won’t come around?”

  “Nah. We’ll knock down the mystery pretty goddamn fast once we find the thing.”

  “And what exactly is the mystery?”

  He said nothing. Wary.

  “If I know what it’s all about, maybe I can help. I did grow up with the man.”

  He took a swig of the bottle and handed it to her. She took it, but she didn’t drink. She liked to stay sharp. Unlike the Party Princess.

  “I’m not an idiot,” she continued. “I saw things. Things sunk in. I might have the puzzle piece and not even know about it. And I can keep a secret,” she added. “As you know.”

  He turned around and sat up, arms propped behind him, legs stretched out in front, tennis shoes too close to the fireplace. His jeans had scooted down so that she could see the red elastic band of his underwear peeking up above his waistband. That was new, him wearing underwear. Above the red band was a line of smooth, pale skin broken by bits of tattoo and just a hint of the softly furred trail that stretched downward from his belly button. She used to like to touch it, smoothing it down over his warm, solid belly. Sometimes she’d trace the fanciful vines and scorpions, too.

  “Your tennis shoes are going to melt.”

  He kept his gaze on the fire. “This is a long shot, but, I could use the names of all the repair personnel that have been through here in the past six months. Richard didn’t have them, but you must have payment histories.”

  “Okay.”

  “Any new friends you thought twice about? Or maybe guys with a beef about how I split up your old man’s operations? You know it wasn’t just drugs, guns, and money he was running, right?” Old Victor was moving and exploiting human cargo, he meant.

  “Richard told me,” she said. “I don’t know why he kept it so secret. Everybody found a way to justify pretty much anything back then. I sure as hell did.”

  The silence seemed suddenly heavy. She hadn’t meant it as a jab about their relationship, but the pain in his eyes showed he took it that way. Let him suffer, she thought.

  “He ran his outfit like a spy organization, in separate cells,” Thorne continued. “In silos blind to each other for the most part. Nobody from drugs knew anything about how money laundering ran. Nobody in money laundering knew about his human trafficking. And at the end, that’s how it was so easy to split up the operations between the Quartet. It’s what prevented a war after your father was killed,” he added.

  “Don’t forget that money laundering was your golden ticket into Hangman,” she said. “You’re welcome.”

  He watched the fire calmly. Always expecting hate. Always welcoming it.

  “This is all stuff I know, Thorne,” she added.

  “The one thing that connected Victor’s separate silos of business was the storage and shipping network. A lot of well-hidden warehouses had garment distribution fronts.”

  She furrowed her brows as if she didn’t understand. She needed him to talk about the co-ops.

  He obliged.

  “It was a solid network, and the Quartet cooperated to keep the warehouses up and running as neutral zones, keeping everything just the way your dad set it up. The system has been running fine for two years, but in the last month, two of those warehouses have been raided—by somebody who obviously has inside knowledge of how your dad’s operations functioned and how every piece fits together.”

  “Somebody ripped off a warehouse?” she asked, playing dumb.

  “Yeah, and on days when they’d have the most to steal, which suggests alliances between the silos. If we can find the CD or whatever Victor kept the details of his networks on, it’ll be like an X-ray into all the operations across the Quartet. We can look for connections between the players. Hack has software that lets him run the guys’ financials and travel patterns; it would help us identify the co-op pirates.”

  Co-op pirates. So they had a name.

  “Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” she offered.

  “The first, maybe, but not the second. It was timed for maximum hurt. Which is the other possibility—like maybe somebody with knowledge of all four silos wants to start the groups warring.”

  “A war?” She’d thought the Quartet would be pissed; she didn’t think they’d turn on each other.

  “It’s brewing. And you know Hangman’s rep…”

  “Into chaos,” she said.

  “And who split your dad’s pie?”

  The breath went out of her. “You.”

  He nodded.

  She and Richard had never given any thought to how the raids would look. But of course people would suspect Hangman, and specifically, Thorne.

  “And naturally, I was unaccounted for during both raids.”

  Her heart pounded. “You’ve never been the accounted-for type,
” she said.

  His smile broke her heart, eyes sparkling in the fire. It was scary, how easily she found her way back to him, how badly she wanted to reach out and touch that warm slash of belly skin glowing in the firelight, or maybe slide her fingertips over the place where his pulse banged just under the edge of his jawline. His faded black T-shirt hugged the curves of his shoulders; she used to enjoy shoving her hands right up under his sleeves. Sometimes, she’d grab onto his shoulders; other times she’d draw her hands up and down his arms, enjoying the feel of his muscles, like steel pythons under faded ink.

  “But even I never had that level of knowledge, what I’d need to pull off raids like that. Seems people think I have it now. Even inside Hangman, it’s causing problems for me.”

  “Your own gang seriously thinks you’re doing the raids?”

  “It’s 20 percent suspicion and 80 percent politics.”

  Shit. “Are people looking to kill you?”

  “Well…” The fire made his cheekbone scar flash white over his five o’clock shadow.

  “Excuse me. More people than usual,” she joked.

  He watched the flames without expression. “The pirates are foolish. Nobody sane would be doing this. I’ll figure out who it is and I’ll take care of it. I have to.”

  Shivers flew over her. “Killer bee?”

  He turned to her with a smile in his eyes. “That’s right, princess.” An old joke. Kill or Be Killed was a Bruce Lee movie, and for the longest time, whenever Thorne referred to it, she’d thought it was Killer Bee Killed, as if the movie was about killer bees in jeopardy. It evolved into a joke after that—they’d use killer bee as shorthand for any fight to the death. Any fight where one person would probably die.

  She forced herself to nod impassively. “Always is, huh?”

  He thrust up his chin, his style of nodding yes. “Your dad would’ve kept the file semi-accessible, but he would’ve had a deep hiding place for it in case of a raid or any kind of trouble. Clever, accessible, and imperceptible.”

  She nodded. As it turned out, it had been a clever and imperceptible hiding place, though not all that accessible: it had been inside a fireproof and heatproof safe in the furnace. Victor had literally surrounded it in flames. You had to turn off the furnace to get at it. The HVAC repair guy had found it when she’d had the system cleaned. They’d pulled it out and she’d hired an old-timey safecracker to crack it. That’s where the disk had been, along with the photo of her mother that changed everything about how she saw her father—and even herself.

  He was watching her face. “What?”

  “He spent a lot of time in the study.” She handed back the bottle.

  “Hmm.” Thorne took a swig.

  “I’ll keep thinking,” she said.

  “Appreciate that.” He stroked his hand over Rufus’s jet-black ears. “He’s cute. The kid. Benny. How old is he?”

  “A bit over one.” A bit meaning six months.

  “Richard’s?”

  “No,” she said, unable to bring herself to tell that particular lie.

  “Who’s the father?”

  She shook her head and gave him a strong look, signaling a no-go zone. “Not in the picture,” she said. “But Richard’s been great to him.”

  “Richard’s a good man. I didn’t much mix with him before.”

  “He was busy chasing me around the club scene. The malls.”

  “Benny,” he said, like he was testing it out. The name on his lips filled her with fear—and longing. “He’s lucky to have you as a mother.”

  “I’m the lucky one. He’s made me better. He’s everything to us.” She fixed her gaze on the fire, feeling his stare. “What?” she asked without looking.

  “He has your big, apply cheekbones.”

  Her heart lurched.

  “And the way he watches. Like he sees everything, like an old soul in a baby’s body. It kind of freaked me out.”

  She smiled. “I know.” Not many people noticed it, and she felt excited that Thorne had, because it was something that he and Thorne shared, not that Thorne would notice. Thorne had this idea that he didn’t get people, and he reacted by watching them closely, always trying to understand. Overcompensating. His lack made him a consummate observer—of everybody but himself.

  “His eyes are this brown-gold,” Thorne whispered.

  “Yeah. Toasty.” She loved to stare into them. She sometimes felt like she could stare at Benny forever. “My mother’s,” she blurted without thinking.

  She felt Thorne’s attention rivet to her, and she froze. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

  He sat up and gripped her forearm. “Nadia!”

  Shit.

  “You found pictures?”

  She pursed her lips and tried to think what to say.

  “Nadia!” He moved between her and the fire, kneeling in front of where she sat cross-legged. “Hey!” He grabbed her hands, searching her face for the happiness that should be there. “That’s great,” he said. He alone had known how badly she’d wanted a photo of her mother—anything, even just to see what the woman looked like.

  “It’s…”

  “What?” he asked.

  Their fierce and determined search for any photo or even any record of her mother had been one of the few pure things in their relationship. Absent mothers were something she and Thorne had in common, though Thorne at least remembered his mother—he’d been seven when she’d abandoned the family. Thorne would buoy her hopes when she felt like giving up the search, always coming up with new ideas. He’d even broken into three of Victor’s associates’ homes to ‘borrow’ photo albums so that he and Nadia could look at party pictures from the year before Nadia was born, scanning for unidentified women on Victor’s arm and pregnant women they didn’t recognize. Nothing.

  Victor had said her mother’s name was Suzy Volkov, and that she’d come from Russia—that’s all he’d say. When Victor Volkov decided a topic was closed, it was closed. Toward the end, Nadia had given up hope. He was a powerful crime lord with a wild temper. He could erase people out of anger; why not grief?

  “You know what she looks like. You found a photo,” Thorne said.

  She gave him the smile she knew he was looking for, conscious of his hands enfolding hers, one mangled hand and one good hand. His happiness for her was generous and uncomplicated, and it made her think of Benny and her heart lurched.

  “Well?” He searched her eyes, squeezing her hands. The force of his happiness for her was nearly physical. “Whatever happened, you know I wanted that for you.”

  “I know,” she said, heart racing. She felt when the awareness hit him that they were doing something from the old days, but he kept her hands.

  She didn’t pull away.

  It was as though the news of finding her mother’s picture opened a trapdoor that dropped them into the past. His face was shrouded in darkness, but she could see the shine of his eyes, and the firelight behind him made the tips of his black hair glow brown.

  “Where’d you finally find it?”

  She looked down at Rufus, snoozing contentedly at Thorne’s side. “Basement.”

  “Where?”

  “Furnace room.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “Thanks,” she whispered.

  Everything flattened out. Got simple. “And?”

  “She’s beautiful,” she said. She wanted to tell him all about the horror of what she learned, and how that horror mixed with the joy of seeing an image of her mother after all this time, peering at her baby self with love. The way she recognized her mother’s expression not with her mind, but with her heart. Her eyes felt hot. She did not need to cry. “She’s beautiful, that’s all.”

  “Shh,” he said softly. “It’s something. And something to show Benny, so that he knows his grandmother.”

  She yanked her hands from his and wiped her tears before he could stare at them too long. He always saw inside her, pain junkie that he was.

  �
��Nadia.” His fingers lit gently on her cheeks. Another tear rolled down. She watched him watch it. And she braced.

  He drew close and pressed his whiskey lips softly to hers in a kiss that lasted only an instant.

  “Thorne,” she said, warningly. The tone was a lie. As if she didn’t want him to keep on touching her and coming at her.

  He watched her tear. “What?”

  She closed her eyes, enjoying the intensity of his regard, craving another kiss.

  He pressed his lips to her other cheek, leaving the tear in place. “What?”

  “Don’t.”

  Her eyes brimmed with tears now, and she closed them. He kissed them, one eye and then another, as if to anoint her with his dark affection.

  “We can’t,” she said, even as the fire between them glowed.

  “Why? Because of Richard?”

  Oh, she knew that tone, and it had never boded well for her. “I’m not a cheater, Thorne.”

  Slowly he lowered her onto her back, uncrossing her legs and angling them so the fire wouldn’t burn her toes. “I know you’re not a cheater.” He loomed over her in the firelight. He used to like to lay her out like this and just touch her, savor her.

  “Oh, my God,” she said, hating herself for allowing this. For wanting it. Thorne was truly the enemy now, part of her father’s twisted world. She’d slept with other men before him, and those guys had always enjoyed themselves. Thorne alone had enjoyed her.

  “You’re not with him, Nadia.”

  “You wish.”

  “I don’t wish. I know.”

  “You don’t know shit,” Nadia said.

  He slid his fingers up her arm. Her pulse sped up as he took control of her hands, pressing the backs of them into the rough noodles of shag above her head. He fixed them in place with his bad hand. He would always hold her with the bad hand, reserving his more capable hand for the fine mechanical work of undoing buttons or plying her with pleasure. Hungrily she watched him as he trailed the edge of Rufus’s leash down the tender underside of her arm, trailing wild sensations. She should be stopping him—if she said no, he’d stop.