Mr. Match (Mister #5)

by JA Huss

  I look at West. “You’re on, let’s go.”

  Pax is already jumping down the stairs. And I don’t care how big of a dick he is. I don’t care if he drinks vodka, or bourbon, or those stupid mint juleps for breakfast every goddamned morning. I don’t even care if he kills ten more people today. He’s always been there for me. He has always had my back, and I’ve never once had to ask.

  “Stay here,” I yell at my sisters. “Finish what you’re doing,” I call out behind me as I jump down the stairs after Paxton.

  Chapter Forty-Eight - KATYA

  The first thing I notice is that the Smilde original is no longer hanging on the wall. The second thing I notice is beeping next to my ear. I turn to look for the source and see nothing but red lights on a ShrikeSafe Security panel.

  Disarmed. The red lights mean it’s disarmed.

  I don’t know what to make of that.

  “Lily?” I ask again, but a little less confident this time.

  A shadow moves off to my right in the kitchen. And it takes every ounce of self-control not to take my weapon out of my pocket.

  “Hello?” I ask, moving forward. “Lily?”

  The smack of a door closing in the back of the house is all the answer I get.

  I have to close my eyes for a minute to gather my strength. Because I have only one option. I need to go outside and face my past.

  This is it. This is where I make my stand against Lucio Gori.

  I walk through the kitchen and open the door, looking out at the back yard. The off-white tents are still there, flaps waving in the cold autumn wind.

  Which one is he hiding in? There are so many.

  “Lily?” I call out. But I get nothing but the sound of falling leaves. I’m going to have to look in each one of them if he doesn’t make a move.

  I take a deep breath and slowly walk down the stairs that lead to the brown grass. My feet crunch on it, the dew from last night frozen on the dormant blades. The flap of the closest tent is blown open, and there is no one inside. Not even the tables or chairs that were there yesterday. It’s like the caterers came and took everything but the tents.

  I move on to the next tent. This flap isn’t blown open, and I really want to pull out the weapon in my pocket. But I don’t want him to know I came ready. I can’t. The surprise is all I have left.

  “Miss Kalashova.”

  I whirl around and face him. The man I have hated for more than half my life. Lucio Gori Senior is sitting in a chair in the largest tent like he is a king.

  “Come sit on my lap, sweetheart.”

  That motherfucker. How many times has me made me sit on his lap since that night he cut my throat? How many times did I get that sick feeling in my gut when his hands would find their way to my legs, or my belly, or my neck?

  “Come here,” he says again. “Don’t you want your reward? Let me give it to you for being such a good little girl.”

  I hesitate, looking back at the house. Who else is here?

  “Don’t worry about her,” Gori says. “Play first, baby. Then we’ll sort out the business end of this, OK?”

  His sweet voice is laced with poison. But who is he talking about? Who else is here?

  I fight the urge to look again, and instead concentrate on walking towards the tent.

  He smiles bigger. Even laughs a little. “You like it, don’t you?”

  I smile a little too. Even make myself blush the way I’ve practiced over the years. Being underestimated is a survival skill in my line of work. “I do like it,” I say, slowly walking towards him.

  “Don’t move,” a woman calls just as the back door of the house slams closed. I’m already inside the tent, so I have to lean out and peek, just to see who that is.

  “Mrs. Conrad?” I ask in my most innocent voice.

  “Don’t touch her,” Mrs. Conrad calls. “It’s a trap, Lucio.”

  “Nonsense. Get over here, girl.”

  I don’t wait for another invitation. I practically scurry towards him. His arms are outstretched as I come closer. Mrs. Conrad appears in the open flap just as he wraps them around my body and pulls me on to his lap.

  “Stop!” she calls. “Don’t let her—”

  But I have the scalpel out. I have it against his throat. I have it pressing against his jugular. And by the time the last of her warning is out of her mouth, I have opened him up. The sick smell of blood floods my nose. The hot sticky mess covers my hand and washes away every minute of torture I’ve endured to get to this moment.

  Mrs. Conrad is clawing me off him, screaming and yelling. Her fists pound my face and her fingernails claw at my eyes.

  But I don’t care. I just laugh, and laugh, and laugh as I fight back, kicking her and getting a punch or two as I wallow in her rage.

  Nothing else matters now.

  In this moment, nothing matters but what I’ve done and how I feel about it.

  Because now, we are even.

  And Lucio Gori will never get his hands on my sister, or anyone else, ever again.

  Chapter Forty-Nine - OLIVER

  The front door of the house is open when we pull in up in my car. Pax jumps out and he’s running up the steps before I even get the Camaro in park. West and I follow a few seconds behind. Pax is in the living room, gun out, pointing it at each hallway and corner, like he’s clearing a war zone.

  “They’re in back. Fighting.”

  All three of us turn, and I swear to God, Paxton Vance is a hair-trigger away from blowing his mother’s head off.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” he says, lowering the weapon. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  “I’m afraid this is where I come clean, Paxton.” She smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “We’re all going to come clean today. But there will be no day of reckoning if Katya Kalashova kills Mrs. Conrad before it’s over. So I suggest one of you go stop that from happening.”

  “Shit,” I say, running through the kitchen. When I get to the porch I see Katya sitting on top of a bloody mess of fur that I think might be Weston’s mother.

  “Kat!” I yell.

  She looks up at me, covered in rage, and hate, and… sadness.

  Pax and I reach her at the same time. He pulls her off, but she’s wielding a scalpel through the air like she’s gonna kill anyone who gets close.

  “Kat,” I say, when Pax backs off.

  She is like an animal. A cornered animal who has been abused so many times, for so long, that she no longer cares if she lives or dies.

  She is mad. Crazy with the things she’s endured over her short life.

  “Kat,” I say again. But she just spins, one arm outstretched. Her blade covered in blood. Dripping blood.

  Pax leaves her to me and pulls Weston’s mother to her feet. She is spitting words at us, but I don’t hear any of it. I only hear the ragged breath of the girl I love as she comes to terms with her life.

  “Kat,” I say, my arms outstretched. “Give me that blade.”

  She shakes her head at me and then the tears start. They stream down her red cheeks, cutting through the dirt and filth that covers her face like brand-new scars. “My sister is gone. I’m going to prison. Who cares about anything anymore?” She looks over at Lucio Gori, who is nothing but a man encased in blood. “I killed him,” she sobs.

  But I shake my head. “No, Kat. You defended yourself.”

  “She is,” West’s mother yells. “Going to jail. That was not self-defense. That was murder.”

  “Shut up.”

  Every head turns to find West standing on the small back porch of the house.

  “Just shut the fuck up,” he says as he descends. “If I have to hear one more lie—”

  Cops come out behind him. Guns drawn, yelling things like, “Drop your weapon,” and “Hands in the air.”

  Men in blue are everywhere after that. They are a swarm and they are pissed off that their little quiet college town just had a domestic terrorist attack and a murder all in the span
of fifteen minutes.

  Mariel is talking to them. Trying to explain what happened. How appalled she is that one day after closing on the house next door and witnessing a party that required her to call police almost a dozen times, she is now up to her neck in murder. How could this quaint little town be harboring such debauchery? Surely she should pack her bags for the safety of Kentucky before anything else happens.

  If I wasn’t in handcuffs, I’d salute that woman for her cunning and patience.

  But when she explains how the dead man was trying to rape the young woman in my arms, she drives the final nail in the coffin.

  I almost smile at the irony.

  But it’s not really ironic. He would’ve raped her. He did rape her. How many times, I might never know. But if anyone deserves the title of rapist, it’s Lucio Gori Senior.

  I just wish he was alive so he’d have a chance to experience what it’s like to live with that label.

  We are all taken to the police station. West and me and Pax in one end of the small holding area. Katya and Mrs. Conrad somewhere else out of sight. Mariel is there too, explaining how Pax and I heard the girl calling for help when we were walking up to visit her and ran to her aid.

  Pax is grinning the whole time.

  West, on the other hand…

  “Weston,” his mother kept screaming, as she was handcuffed. “Tell them who I am! Tell them—”

  He never even looked at her.

  I have no idea where his father is, but he won’t get away.

  Any time now the new evidence is gonna come in. I wait for it. I hope I am here to see it happen.

  But no such luck. Nolan’s lawyers arrive and start throwing their weight around and two hours later, we have given the statements Mariel made us memorize this morning and we are all released.

  When will I stop hoping?

  When do I ever get lucky?

  Chapter Fifty - KATYA

  A man appears after I’ve sat in this interrogation room for hours. One of the lady cops gave me some clothes to change into, seeing as how mine were covered in Lucio Gori Senior’s blood. A t-shirt that says, of all things, Harvard. And a pair of sweats, too many sizes too big to count.

  So I guess there’s that.

  I guess they’ll be keeping mine for the murder trial.

  The man is large, wearing a trench coat, and he smells like the outside. He plops an old briefcase on the metal table as he takes a seat, and then flicks the little lock thingies and it pops open. He says nothing as he shuffles through it, then slaps a folder down on the table, and closes his case. “Katya Kalashova,” he says with a Russian accent.

  I just stare at him. If I’m going down for murder, I’m not gonna make this easy on them.

  “My name is Alexi Ivanov.” He opens the folder, removes a single piece of paper, slides it forward with a push of his finger, and then leans back in his chair. “This is your statement. Please sign.”

  Curiosity has gotten the better of me. “My what?”

  “Statement,” he says again. “You would like to go home? Hmmm? Then sign here.” He pulls a pen out of his jacket and places it on top of the paper.

  I can’t help myself, I reach for the paper and begin to read. When I get to the end I look at him again. “What is this?”

  He frowns at me. “Do I have a stutter?”

  “No. I’m just confused.”

  “If you sign paper, you go home. Now sign.” He taps his massive finger on the table three times. “Your car will pick you up after processing.”

  I read the statement again. “Am I—”

  “No,” Ivanov says before I can finish. “Just. Sign.”

  “But it says—”

  “I know what it says. I wrote it.”

  I look around nervously. “You can’t say things like that. And you can’t come in here with a pre-written police statement and tell me to sign it. This is the United States. It’s not legal.”

  “Katya Kalashova, who do you think you’re dealing with here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He looks down his nose at me. “Think harder, Katya.”

  I know the obvious answer. But I don’t believe it. “What will you want in return for getting me out of here?” I ask, looking up at the cameras, still nervous about making a deal with the Bratva inside a fucking police station.

  “You will learn once you sign.”

  “What if I don’t sign?”

  “Then I will stand up, walk around behind you, and I will make you sign.” He smiles.

  We have a staring contest for about ten seconds. “Oh.”

  Then he softens, just a little, and says, “It is good, Katya. Better than you could have hoped for. I promise. Sign the paper and you will see.”

  I take a deep breath and sign.

  Alexi Ivanov gets up, puts his folder back inside his briefcase, closes it up, and then picks up my pre-written signed statement that says Lucio Gori Senior abducted me as I was walking down the street this morning, took me back to the Antimony House—which was purchased in his name one week prior—and proceeded to try to rape me using the scalpel as a threat. That’s when I wrestled it away from him and cut his throat.

  Apparently my mind draws a blank after that, but the cops showed up shortly after, so I guess there’s other statements to fill in that blank.

  “It has a been a pleasure,” Ivanov says. “Be patient. These policemen are slow.”

  And then he walks over to the door, raps his knuckles on it four times, and leaves me there to wonder just what the fuck is happening.

  I don’t know how long I wait after that—maybe hours. Maybe it’s the next day. But a uniformed woman finally appears and tells me it’s time to go.

  I sign more papers. They hand me a plastic bag with my phone and keys, and give me back my coat.

  I slip it on as I walk through the doors that lead to an outer hallway, and then head straight for the front door and stand at the top of the steps, trying to figure out what just happened.

  A man gets out of a long black car, walks around to the passenger side, and opens the door.

  I point to myself. “Me?”

  He nods.

  “Well, this is it,” I mumble, walking slowly down the steps towards the car. I’m gonna find out what they’ll expect of me now. I just hope it’s not too bad. I just hope they don’t sell me to another asshole crime boss. I just hope—

  I slide into the back seat and sink into the soft leather.

  I have no idea who the man across from me is.

  “Katya,” he says, extending a gloved hand. He has the same Russian accent as the lawyer from inside. I give his hand a girly shake and pull away. “My name is not important but I have been watching you for many, many years.”

  “Oh. Great. Another mobster spying on me.”

  He smiles but I don’t have anything to smile about.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We’re not going anywhere. We are having a chat.” He says the word ‘chat’ like it makes him happy. “I have something to tell you, something to show you, and then I need an answer before we can move forward.”

  I sigh. Heavily. Resigned to my new fate. “OK.”

  “Your sister is bad.” He frowns, like this makes him sad. “She has sold you out even though you have given up everything to save her. Katya… she cannot be saved.”

  What? “Why are you telling me this? Where is she?”

  “We will get to that shortly. I am going to tell you this first so that you do not make more mistakes.”

  “I didn’t make mistakes,” I say, my voice rising because I’m suddenly defensive. “I was thrown into this life. It’s not my fault—”

  “No,” he says. “It’s not. But you have choices, Katya. And you have made some bad ones. So I’m telling you to give up on this sister.”

  “No,” I say, so fucking angry. “I don’t even know you. And I sure as hell don’t trust you, even if you did just lie to the fucking p
olice to get me out of there. I’m not taking your word for anything. Where is she?”

  The strange Russian sighs. “OK,” he says. “We do it your way.” He picks up a tablet from the seat next to him and opens the lock cover. “This is your Lily four days ago. Who is that?” he says, like he’s talking to a small child and asking them to name the farm animal in a picture book. “Oh, that is Lucio. Do you know how much money she is taking from him?”

  I lean in to look closer. She is taking money. “Why is she taking money from him?” I say it to myself, but the Russian answers anyway.

  “She works for him. Has for a very long time.”

  “In what way?” I ask, hoping he won’t say she’s his girlfriend or something. Because I just can’t deal with any more….

  “His spy, Katya. She spies on you. Back when I first sent you here, she was spying—”

  “You sent me?” I laugh. “You didn’t send me anywhere. I don’t even know who you are!”

  “—on you. That’s why I had Lucio call you back to Brooklyn. Why let her spy,” he says, “when I can spy too, hmm?”

  “What the hell are you talking about? I don’t know who you are, but if you’re Russian, then you’re scum. Just like Lucio Gori and his stupid, pathetic monster of a son.”

  “You think that because you know only what they told you. You know nothing of the truth, Katya Kalashova. But I’m going to set you straight now.”

  “I think you probably had my parents killed.” I have lost all the energy I had left. I sink back into the soft leather seat of the car and let the heat waft over me like a blanket. “I’m tired,” I say. “I just want to go wherever we’re going now. You can keep your story.”

  He’s silent after that. And when I open my eyes he’s frowning again. “We didn’t sell you to the Italians. I think you need to at least understand that. Yes.” He nods. “I did kill your parents. Because your father was Bratva and he let them make their mark on your throat. He sold you, Katya. Not me. I killed him to let everyone know, from that day forward, our children would not be sold.”