by April Lust
I clenched my jaw and swore to myself that I wouldn’t take it out on him. It wasn’t his fault.
“You couldn’t stop it,” I said. “I know you tried.”
“I was takin’ a piss, man, and when I came out, they were already here. I guess they came in through the fire escape.” I looked over. That would explain why the window was open.
“There were two guys, and another one who held on to…” He trailed off. He didn’t want to say her name in front of George.
“Did they say anything? I mean anything at all?”
“No, man. They hit me in the head with somethin’ hard, and I went out. I did try, brother. You gotta believe me.”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “I believe you. I know you love her. Don’t blame yourself for this. It’s all my fault.”
He frowned, and took the ice pack Marco put on the back of his head. What good that would do, I didn’t know, but I didn’t say anything.
“Why’s it your fault?” he asked. “You did everything you could.”
I looked at the guys, then looked at him. He didn’t know.
“The guys who came in here. Were they wearing masks or anything?”
“The one guy was. The one who had her. The other ones didn’t.”
I nodded. That made sense. “We found out earlier today who Joe Green is. He’s Vitaly Ivanov.”
It took Marco and me working together to keep Daniel on the floor. He tried to get up the second Vitaly’s name was out of my mouth. “What are we doing hangin’ around here? We gotta go get her! He’s gonna…!” I could tell it took everything he had to shut up. We all knew what that animal was going to try to do.
“He won’t,” I said, staring at Daniel. I kept my voice low so the kid wouldn’t hear. “He won’t, because I’m gonna stop him. I need you to keep it together, okay? I’m gonna have somebody take you to the hospital to get your head checked out.”
“No. No way I’m sittin’ in a hospital while you guys go out there and risk your necks.”
“I know you don’t want it this way, but this is how it’s gotta be. I’m sorry, brother, but that’s it. I don’t wanna lose you for some stupid bullshit reason like your brain swelled or some shit.” I didn’t even know if that was possible, but I was reaching at that point. I needed him to understand a guy in his condition couldn’t ride. He looked like he still had a hard time staying focused on my face.
I looked over at George. He was trying to be brave, the poor kid, but he wasn’t doing a good job of it. Spike sat next to him on the couch, asking questions about the cartoon they were watching. He tried hard to keep George upbeat, but it was a waste of time. He needed his mom. I needed her, too.
I motioned for Spike to get up so I could sit next to him. He moved a little closer to me, and I couldn’t help feeling good about that. He trusted me. I would need him to if we were gonna get through this together.
“Hey. Are you sure you didn’t hear them say anything? Any words at all? Even if you don’t think it’s important, it might be.”
“I really didn’t,” he said with a sigh. “I’m trying and trying to remember, but it’s not working.”
“I understand,” I said, patting him on the head. His hair was just like mine. I wanted so bad to tell him, even if it only meant making him feel less alone. Like he had somebody on his side still. A parent. She would kill me if I told him that way. I couldn’t go against what she wanted.
“Your mom’s phone is still here, on the table. Is there somebody I can call for you? I mean, somebody you could hang out with today, while we go and look for her?”
“Carla. She was our neighbor.” I noticed how he used the past tense like he didn’t expect to go back to that apartment. Kids were so weird like that. They got used to things a lot faster than grown-ups ever did.
“You want me to call her? I can have her come here to keep an eye on you. I’ll leave one of my friends here, too, to keep you safe.”
“Why? I wasn’t safe before.” Smart kid. He didn’t look at me when he said it, and his voice was flat and dull. I wondered how badly we’d fucked him up over all this.
I couldn’t worry about it then. All I could do was think about how to find Tori. It had been almost thirty minutes since George called. Thirty minutes. Where would Vitaly take her?
I called Carla using Tori’s phone and gave her a quick rundown. “Can you come?” I asked, giving her the address.
“Give me fifteen minutes.” She hung up without saying goodbye, just as scared as I was. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I was. Terrified, actually. I knew the sort of things Vitaly could do.
“Eli. I gotta tell you somethin’.” Daniel motioned to me, wanted me to come closer. “Somethin’ Tori told me today. She didn’t wanna tell you, but I think she’ll forgive me if I do it.”
“What is it?” I leaned in.
“She didn’t wanna leave you, man. She was scared.”
“I know, she told me that.” Did he think I needed to hear it?
“You don’t know why, though. She was gettin’ phone calls from somebody threatening to kill her, and you.”
“What?” I knelt on the floor beside him. “Calls from who?”
“I didn’t know when she told me, but it all makes sense now. I’ve been sittin’ here thinkin’ about it. It must have been Vitaly. He was the only one back then who would do somethin’ like that, right?”
“What did he say to her when he called?”
Daniel took a deep breath. “He said she had to get you to leave him alone, or he was gonna kill her. And if she told you, he would kill you, too.”
“Holy shit.” If I didn’t want to end his life before that, I sure as hell did then.
“And—just chill when I tell you this—he followed her to the drug store the day she picked up the pregnancy test. Or somebody did. He told her so.”
I had to leave the room. I went to my gym and punched the shit out of my heavy bag until sweat dripped down my face. I knew I was wasting time when I did it, but I needed to get the rage out of me or else I would lose it, and the kid would be even more scared. How could he? How could he scare her like that? He made her leave me. He ruined my marriage, the son of a bitch. He made her raise our kid alone and struggle and hide because she was too afraid he would kill us.
I went the bathroom to clean myself up before going back to the living room. In the back of my mind, a voice told me I was already thinking like a parent. Putting on a better face for my kid.
Carla showed up. Cute, young girl who obviously loved George. He loved her back, running to her, telling her all about how his mama was missing. I tried to tell her as much as I could without freaking him out too much—I couldn’t get her alone since he wouldn’t let go of her. “We’re gonna go looking for her,” I said. “It’s the guy she borrowed the money from. We’ve got a history with him. So does she, but she didn’t know it. He changed his name.”
“Oh, God.” Her eyes filled with tears. “You have to find her.”
“I know that,” I said, holding back my temper. Like I needed her to tell me my business. My fists clenched by my sides. “We’re going out now. I have to leave Daniel here—he won’t go to the hospital until we find her. And I’m gonna call one of the other guys over from the club to have him stay with you. Don’t worry about anything, okay?” I took her number and put it in my phone. “I’ll call you as soon as I know anything’s up. Don’t worry, they won’t come back here. They have what they want.”
Carla shuddered a little when she heard that. I ran a hand over George’s head. “I’m gonna get your mama back for you. Okay? Don’t worry about anything.”
He nodded, eyes wide. I hoped I wasn’t lying to him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tori
Joe Green was Vitaly Ivanov. I tried to put the two names together. I remembered Eli talking about him sometimes, back in the day. He wasn’t supposed to tell me his business, really, but there were times when shit hit t
he fan and he needed to confide in me. That’s what I was there for, or so I told him. So I told myself.
Vitaly. He was a bad, bad man. Not like I needed the reminder, since he shoved me in a trunk and drove off with me. I had no idea where we were going. I wasn’t even sure how long I’d been in there. At first, I’d tried to count off the seconds as a way to keep track of time and keep the panic from rising in my chest. If I could focus on counting, I would be all right. That hadn’t worked, and soon I’d lost track of the numbers. I couldn’t help but worry about my baby. What did he think when he came out to the living room and found Daniel the way they’d left him? What did he think when he found I wasn’t there?
I can’t think about that. I’ll go crazy. It wasn’t productive. It wouldn’t get me out of there.
What would? I wasn’t strong enough. I could never overpower them if Daniel couldn’t. And Eli had no idea where I was.
Eli. My heart ached. I had tried so hard to spare him the madness, but he was at the heart of it. It had taken seven years, but I’d managed to ruin his life despite my attempts to keep him safe.
What did he think? I didn’t have to ponder that question for long. He would be out for blood. I hoped he would get it, one day. I didn’t think I would see that day, though. Vitaly would kill me.
I wasn’t ready. There was too much to do. I was too young. It wasn’t fair. All that and more went through my head. One thought stood out above the rest: I loved Eli, and I had already lost so many years with him. I had to make up for that. It wasn’t fair that he would come back into my life for such a short time, just for me to leave him.
Would he ever know why I left? I didn’t think so, since Daniel was probably dead. I remembered all the good times with him, especially when we were kids. He always defended me, protected me, treated me like a little sister. And I couldn’t do anything to help him. If it hadn’t been for me, he would have been okay. They attacked him because he tried to help me. And I couldn’t do anything for him.
A cry escaped my throat, and I gave way to it. If they didn’t like me crying in the trunk, so be it. I didn’t know who drove or who sat in the car. They would have to deal with hearing me cry. It was payment for putting me in the trunk.
I cried for Daniel, remembering the time he threatened to beat up my father for me when he gave me a hard time about coming home too late. I had been hanging around with Eli and Daniel, of course—a fact which only made my father angrier, as he didn’t like me spending time with “wild” boys. I was just as wild as they were, but he didn’t want to hear about that. He thought they were a bad influence, when really, I gravitated toward them because I was wild and needed somebody to be wild with.
I might not have been wild on the outside, the way some girls were. I was never promiscuous, never did drugs or drank. I rarely even broke curfew. But I had a wild heart. I wanted to do all those things—if anything, it was Daniel who kept me on the straight and narrow. He took better care of me than my father, and was probably better than any brother I could have had. The first time I tried a cigarette, he railed against smoking for hours. Of course, he was already a smoker. “I don’t wanna see you hooked on these things!” he’d yelled, throwing the pack into the river that ran not far from our neighborhood. We used to hang out along the old, unused docks. I was sure they could hear him on the other side of the river, he’d yelled so loud.
Another time, a rival club member had decided to go after me. Instead of Eli fighting the guy, Daniel had stepped up to protect his “Lil Sis,” as he used to call me sometimes. He’d protected my honor, he said, so nobody would think I was just some skank, up for grabs to whoever paid attention to me. It was a lesson nobody in our neighborhood soon forgot, as Daniel made sure everybody knew I was spoken for. There was a time of two when I’d wondered if Daniel might have a crush on me, but it became clear that he really just wanted to protect me like a brother. I would never forget that.
And I would never forgive myself. How could I allow him to suffer for me like that? I used to wonder sometimes if he would ever do something crazy like get himself killed over a fight for me, but that was years earlier. I didn’t expect it to happen when we were adults.
I pounded on the inside of the trunk’s hood, rage pulsing through me. I was angry by then, so angry. Furious. How dare somebody come into my life and try to take what was mine, the people I cared most about? I hoped they pulled over to tell me to shut up. I just hoped they did.
Not they. He. Vitaly. I tried to remember what Eli had said about him. He never went into specifics—he tried to keep me as far away from the grisly parts of his life as possible, and I understood that. I preferred it that way. It was easier to watch him walk out the door without knowing exactly who he faced when he went out there. I’d already worried enough back then.
I should have known it was he who called me all those years ago. Vitaly was the only name that kept coming up again and again when Eli talked about the people he worried most about. Not that he was afraid of Vitaly—just of what he could do.
But Joe Green? How could I have guessed that? What were the odds of a friend of Carla’s knowing him, and of Carla recommending him? It was like some massive karmic joke. I must have really pissed off somebody many centuries earlier if I deserved such a hilarious twist of fate. He must have known me, must have seen me on his security camera and put it all together right away. No wonder he’d been so eager to give me the money. Maybe he’d hoped I would lead him to Eli all over again, though it wasn’t as if he couldn’t have found him if he’d tried. The Vipers weren’t exactly unknown in town. Why had he waited all that time? What did it have to do with me?
I banged on the hood, on and on, until my arms ached. Then I kicked. I was fully aware that I might get myself tied up for all my efforts—he was good enough to leave my hands and feet free. He could just as easily change his mind. It was a risk I was willing to take.
Within what couldn’t have been more than a mile, I sensed the car pulling off to the side of the road. I realized I didn’t want it to. What would he do to me? I heard two motorcycles pulling up behind the car. The pigs who had killed Daniel. I wished I could give them a taste of their own medicine. I felt around the trunk, hoping against hope for a crowbar, a wrench, anything I could use as a weapon. They’d cleaned the trunk out before dumping me inside—it might have been a rental, for all I knew.
The hood popped open, and I blinked against the bright sunlight. We were on a fairly deserted road—I already knew that, thanks to the lack of traffic around us, and the way we didn’t stop and start. No lights, no traffic.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” That voice. It made my skin crawl. “I know you think you’re being a clever girl, but the joke’s on you. There’s nobody out here to hear you. There’s nobody to see you. I wouldn’t even have taken the chance of pulling over if I had thought anyone would see me do it. You think this is my first rodeo?” He sneered.
Only slightly less repulsive than his voice were his eyes. They were cold, empty, dark voids, just as they’d looked when he put me in the trunk. I almost hated holding eye contact with him, but I wouldn’t have broken it for anything. I wanted him to know I wasn’t afraid.
It was cold outside. I scrambled. “It’s freezing in this trunk,” I said. I wasn’t wearing a coat or even a heavy sweater, only a t-shirt and jeans. I’d taken off my cardigan while talking with Daniel. “Can I have a blanket or something?”
“I don’t have a blanket.”
“Your coat, then? I know you have to have heat in the car. Please. My fingers are starting to go numb.”
“Blow on them.” He reached up, about to close the trunk.
“Please!” I nearly shrieked it. “I’ll go crazy in here. I won’t stop banging. I’ll get somebody’s attention. I will. Please, give me something. Anything. Or let me sit in the back.”
He laughed his high, almost wheezing laugh. “You can’t be serious,” he snarled.
“I am.
I won’t cause trouble, I swear. I just need to be somewhere with heat. I’m so cold. Please. I’ll behave. I mean, what could I do? Your guys are behind us. They’ll be able to watch me.”
Vitaly appeared to think this over, his eyes narrowing. He reminded me a snake about to strike. I half expected fangs to show over his bottom lip.
After glancing at his men, who shrugged, he turned back to me. “I guess we can manage that,” he said. “But you have to promise to be a good little girl. Will you?”
I could have thrown up at the words he used. “Yes. I promise. Just sitting up and feeling the heat on my hands will be enough.”
“I’ll heat your hands.” One of his two pals. Both of them laughed nastily, and my skin crawled again. They disgusted me beyond words, beyond anything I’d ever felt. I dare you to put my hands anywhere near anything belonging to you, I thought. Wait and see how long you would still have whatever it is.
