Everything for Us (A Bad Boys Novel)

by Leighton, M.

  He answers quickly. Fully clothed.

  The first thing I do is hand him the keys to his car. He frowns as he takes them.

  “Thanks for the loaner. I won’t need it anymore, though.”

  “You getting your own ride?”

  “Nah. I’m heading out today.”

  As perverse as it sounds, it pleases me that he looks a little dismayed. “What? Just like that?”

  I nod. “Just like that.”

  “So no justice for Mom, then? That was all just bullshit? You’re just gonna go back to that hellhole of a life you’ve been living?”

  “Oh, there will be justice for Mom, but my part is done. The rest is up to you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I know my smile is smug. “I’m bringing you your racketeering case, wrapped up all nice and neat. All it needs is a bow.”

  If an expression can be equated with someone holding their breath in anticipation, Cash’s is. “What?” I smile even wider at his question. It’s little more than a reverent whisper.

  “In exchange for his life, Duffy has agreed to testify.” Cash starts to speak, and I’m sure I know what he’s going to say, so I hold up my hand to stop him. “He was also much more agreeable once he realized that all three top men in this cell of the Bratva would be gone and the new person in charge will be . . . friendly to us.” I can see that eases Cash’s mind a bit. “He’ll testify to contract killing. For immunity, of course. He’ll go into witness protection afterward, just in case Slava has reach from prison. But I still think the new leadership will squash a lot of his influence. Anyway, Dmitry, the man I’ve spent the last seven years getting to know and who knows Dad, has agreed to testify against the guy in charge of smuggling. It should be considered an act of terror since the people Bratva sells to are enemies of the United States. Dmitry also knows the number four guy, the one who should step up to take charge. Thinks he can get his cooperation in all this for a chance at being top dog. I tend to agree. Dmitry can be very persuasive.”

  “How the hell—”

  “You don’t need to know the details. Leave the unsavory parts to me.”

  “Nash, I—”

  “I know. I know.”

  “No, I don’t think you do. I never wanted your life. I never wanted this. And to know what you’ve had to do, how you’ve had to live . . .”

  I can see the pain and regret on his face. And I believe him. We both got thrust into this against our will. We did the best we could with only the minimal guidance of our father to go on. Makes me see the wisdom in what Dad just told me. Letting all this go would be a good thing all the way around. And we will. After.

  “The past is the past. Let’s leave it where it belongs and move on.”

  I can tell he has more to say, wants to make sure I understand. I reach out and clap my hand on his shoulder. I nod as I look into his eyes.

  So much of our family’s communication over the last years has had to be unspoken. We’ve had to believe in each other, to trust each other, even when it didn’t seem like the smart thing to do. We had to believe in the unseen, hope in the unlikely.

  Now, standing right here in front of him, I know Cash can see that I understand, and that it’s all in the past.

  Finally, he nods, too. Yes, he knows.

  “The only thing you have to do is get the case together and keep Dad safe for his part of the testimony. Money laundering and cooked books ought to be the nail in the coffin for Slava and his boys. They’re all three involved in different aspects, but all three were knowledgeable about the entire show. Each person’s testimony will show that.”

  After a few seconds of digesting what I’ve said, Cash laughs. It’s a lighthearted laugh, a pleased, nearly gleeful one. “Holy shit! You did it!”

  I get the feeling he wants to let out a whoop. And that makes me smile again, too.

  “I just did my part. The rest is up to you and whoever else needs to be a part of this to make sure it goes off without a hitch. You’re the legal eagle. I’ll leave that stuff to you.”

  “Does Marissa know? She’s got contacts that could be very helpful.”

  “No, I didn’t tell her. I’ll let you do that. You two can get a plan going. I’ve got some things I need to take care of.”

  Leaving now, when things are looking so good, feels more like exile than it did seven years ago. I feel like I’m leaving happiness behind, rather than fighting for it in the future.

  “I wish you could stay.”

  “I do, too, but I just . . . I can’t.”

  Cash nods. “Will you be back? Ever?”

  “Yeah. Someday. I hope.”

  “At least say you’ll come back the day they let Dad go. That’ll be a good day.”

  I can imagine it, and I know that it will. “I think I can manage that.”

  I feel relieved at the prospect of coming back, at the hope of it.

  “And don’t forget your promise to me,” he reminds.

  I smile.

  The wedding.

  “Never.”

  “How are you getting where you need to go? You know I can take you.”

  “Nah, that’s all right. I’ll leave just like I came. In one pretty damn expensive cab ride.”

  Cash shakes his head and smiles. “What the hell kinda cabbies are you using?”

  “The desperate kind.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “But they make good money.”

  “Sometimes desperation pays off.”

  And sometimes it doesn’t.

  Visions of Marissa settle over me like a cloud. The hurt look on her face when she remembered New Orleans will probably haunt me forever.

  “You gonna say good-bye to Olivia?” Cash asks.

  I nod. I guess I’d better. She’ll likely be my sister-in-law one day. I’d better make nice.

  “I’ll be in touch with a number where you can reach me. I’ll be wanting all the gory details on how you botched a proposal.”

  “Shhh.” Cash shushes me as he looks behind him. “She hears everything. Be careful what you say.”

  “Who hears everything?” Olivia says, as if right on cue. Cash and I both bust out laughing. “What?” she asks from the doorway, looking confused.

  “Nothing, babe,” Cash says, reaching out to draw her to him. A little stab of envy pricks me, but I refuse to dwell on it. It’s time to stop being jealous of my brother and his life. It’s time for me to find my own version of bliss, whatever that might be.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Marissa

  I sit, stunned, with my phone in my lap. I find myself doing this a lot lately.

  I don’t know what is making me feel short of breath—the fact that Cash just told me everything Nash has done to secure the RICO case, the fact that I’m going to have to make some very tough career and life choices in the very near future, or that Nash is gone.

  Gone.

  Without a good-bye.

  Without another word.

  Just gone.

  He left things like they were.

  Like I demanded he do.

  I don’t know what I would like for him to have said, or if there was really anything left to say. But I wish he had. I wish he had tried. I wish he had fought. For me. For us.

  But he didn’t. He respected my wishes and he left. Now he’s gone. Forever. Never to be a part of my life. Ever. In any way.

  I didn’t expect it to end this way. I mean, I’m no idiot. After the things that happened over the last day or so, I figured it would end sooner or later, that we didn’t stand much of a chance. Even after our one beautiful, surreal night, I knew we were a long shot. But I guess I thought there would be more time or more words or more . . . something. But, instead, there was nothing.

  And that�
�s where I am. Here. Now. With nothing.

  And Nash is gone.

  I close my eyes. The tears spill between my lashes and down my cheeks. I don’t even try to stop them. There’s no point. These are the first of many that will fall, I feel sure.

  There’s no doubt my life is getting ready to become much more difficult. There’s no doubt there’s a hard road ahead. There’s no doubt the day-to-day details of my existence will be dramatically different, as will the people who fill them. But I won’t shed tears over any of that. I feel no sense of loss; only dread and anxiety.

  For the most part, I’ll be going it alone. I will have the support of Olivia, of course. And Cash, such as his support will be. And maybe one or two more people, but in the end, I’m alone. When the dust settles and I’ve alienated all the horrible people in my life and I’ve abandoned the only career I’ve ever known and thought I ever wanted, I’ll be left with the fallout.

  There may be a great guy who will cross my path one day, but even then, I’ll still be alone. He won’t be Nash. And I’ll never be satisfied with less. There will always be a hole in me, one that no one else can fill.

  And that’s the cold, bitter truth. The harsh reality of falling in love with a man who doesn’t want to be held and who can’t be tamed or contained.

  The thing is, I never really wanted to tame him or contain him. I just wanted to be a part of his freedom, to fly with him. I wanted to be more like him, not try to make him more like me. I’m trying to escape me, not drag someone into my hell.

  Maybe that’s what I did, anyway, by making him a part of my escape. I pulled him into my struggle.

  Maybe I expected him to save me. I know I wanted him to. But he did all the rescuing he was going to do the day he brought me home from a Russian mafia prison of sorts. Anything more than that would have to be his idea, something his heart is in. He’d have to come to that conclusion on his own. There’s no swaying or forcing or convincing Nash to do anything. He’s his own man. One hundred percent.

  Maybe one day I can be my own woman. One hundred percent.

  Maybe today, I’ll be taking the first step.

  Cash doesn’t want to be involved in the prosecution because he’d have to assume Nash’s identity again, which he’s opposed to now for some reason, but also because of his father’s involvement. But he wants to be in the loop, so he asked me to request to be a special prosecutor on the case so I can sit second chair and be involved every step of the way.

  I think he knows what he’s asking. He knows my father, knows the kind of life I’ve led. He knows that taking on a criminal case would be the social equivalent of moving to the ghettos. It’s something I’d never be forgiven for, that would never be forgotten, and that would change the course of my life irrevocably.

  But it’s also just what I need.

  And I think it’s what I want.

  There’s nothing for me in my old life anymore. I’m not even sure law is where my future is. But I know this is important and it would be the most personally courageous, definitive thing I’ve ever done. And I need to be courageous. I need to embrace the new me. Fully. Publicly. Proudly. If I can’t do that, the new me will shrivel and die in the shadow of the old me. That’s my only other option—to go back to the life I knew, the life I had.

  But that’s no option at all.

  I think of Nash. He goaded me, as though he thought I couldn’t do it. Or wouldn’t. But in a way, I think he was prodding me to do it, like he wanted to see me succeed and be the different person that I so longed to be. And if he were here, maybe he’d be a little bit proud of me for doing it, for being strong. Maybe stronger than he thought.

  My heart speeds up.

  I’m really gonna do this. I’m really gonna be the person I want to see in the mirror, the woman I can live with and be proud of.

  I’m looking at a fragile, onetime opportunity to put away three upper-level members of a Russian criminal organization that operates out of Georgia. Not only that, but I have the opportunity to see justice served to the men who kidnapped me. At least I hope we can get them in the process. I don’t even know who they are, but maybe I’m one step closer to finding out. At least we’ll get the guy who ordered it done. Cash assured me the man responsible is one of the three targeted. There will be some satisfaction in that.

  As I think of what’s to come, legally speaking, I feel relieved to have something so consuming to focus on. Something other than Nash. Or the lack thereof. I also feel a little overwhelmed. I’m smart enough to realize when I’m out of my depth. And I am.

  As I consider what my first step needs to be, I scroll through my list of recent calls. I stop on Jensen Strong’s number, my thumb hovering there. As a prosecutor for the DA’s office, he seems like the perfect place to start.

  I press the square and hold the phone to my ear, listening to it ring. A shadow of dread overcomes the determination of my new endeavor. I know that after I talk to Jensen, I’ll have another call to make.

  Daddy.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Nash

  I didn’t sleep much last night, so I’m a little groggy as I thumb through some bills to pay the cabbie who brought me from the motel to the docks. The fare isn’t nearly as exorbitant as the one I paid last night to the guy who brought me from Atlanta to Savannah. But I expected that. He drove me a long, long way.

  The cab pulls away and I glance down at the envelope again before I begin my search. The boat name that Dmitry scrawled across the front is the only thing I have to go on. Budushcheye Mudrost. My Russian isn’t perfect, but it translates roughly to “future wisdom.”

  Dmitry said I could find the boat at port here in Savannah. He gave me the letter to give to the captain, a man he called Drago. He asked that I hand-deliver it. That’s all. That’s the only thing he wanted from me. He’s giving up so much to help me, to help my father and my family, and the only thing he asked in return was that I deliver a letter for him.

  Of course, I agreed.

  He can’t deliver it himself. The only thing he’s leaving the motel for is to meet Konstantin, the man who will hopefully rise into leadership with the local Bratva. Otherwise, he and Duffy will be hiding out at the motel until Cash and Marissa can get the ball rolling, get indictments going, all that technical shit. After that, I’d say Dmitry and Duffy will be deposed and then put in witness protection or something like that. I think that’s how it works, anyway. I wouldn’t know for sure. I’m not the Nash that attended law school.

  It takes me nearly an hour to locate the boat. I was expecting a commercial vessel, something similar to what Dmitry and I have worked on all this time, not the private yacht I’m staring at. The damn fine private yacht I’m staring at.

  I see one person walk by on the upper deck. I call out to him and ask for permission to come aboard. I get no smile or friendly greeting, only a very short, very clipped “yes.”

  I climb onto the deck and wait. In less than a minute, the same guy is standing in front of me. He’s frowning and looks annoyed, like I’m an unwelcome interruption. Physically, he looks like a washed-out, nondescript version of Dmitry.

  “I’m looking for Drago.”

  “I’m Drago,” he says abruptly. His accent is thick and his disposition is surly at best.

  “I have a letter for you from Dmitry,” I say, holding up the envelope.

  His frown deepens and he snatches the letter from my fingers. I watch him run his thumb under the sealed tab of the envelope and remove the piece of paper from inside. He unfolds it and, from between the creases, takes out another sheet of paper. Holding the second piece in his other hand, Drago begins reading the first.

  He looks up at me several times as he reads. I don’t know what that means, but I assume Dmitry is explaining who I am and why I’m delivering it. That or he’s telling the other Russian something he doesn’t like.


  I hope it’s not bad news and this asshole doesn’t go all Boondock Saints and shoot my ass.

  When he finishes the letter, Drago glances up at me again, narrowing his eyes on mine. After staring at me for God knows how long, like he’s trying to figure something out, he hands me the second folded piece of paper, the one from inside the first letter.

  I’m a little surprised that it’s for me. If Dmitry’d had something to say, I would’ve thought he’d have said it to my face, when I was there yesterday. But looking at the page, with its sharp creases and wrinkled edges, it’s easy to see this was written some time ago.

  I unfold the paper and read Dmitry’s neat print.

  Nikolai,

  Many years ago, I met a teenage boy. He was the son of a friend and one of the strongest young men I’ve ever known. He gave up his life, his future, and his family to honor his father and to one day find a way to bring justice to his dead mother.

  I grew fond of this boy. I loved him like a son, like my own family. Over time, I watched him grow and struggle and become a most trusted friend, a man any father would be proud of.

  I feel I’ve played a part in your hardships, Nikolai, even though indirectly. More than anything I want you to find happiness and peace.

  I pray there will come a day when you can escape this life. If you’re reading this letter, today is that day. Most likely, Drago is giving you this note. It has been hiding safely inside the instructions I wrote to him today. I don’t know how many years have passed until you’re reading this, but know that I’ve been planning this gift to you for a long, long time.

  I bought this boat to one day take me to retirement, somewhere far away, but I want you to have one year of freedom on it. Freedom to find yourself, find your place in life, find happiness. And peace. Dearest God, I hope you find peace, my friend.

  The crew and the captain are paid annually. That is taken care of through an account I keep for them. They do some small yet legitimate importing and exporting for me. But for this year, for your year, you need only tell them where you want to go and they’ll take you. I suspect I know your first destination and I’ve told Drago as much in his letter. If you go there, give my best to Yusuf’s wife. Tell her I’m deeply sorry for her loss.