by Bethany-Kris
“You care about him.”
“He gave me a life. Better than the one I had,” she returned simply.
If only that mattered.
“I don’t give a fuck what you think Maxim would have done if he knew the truth. You say he knows the truth now. So be it—where has he taken Karine?”
Her mouth hung open, and her chest collapsed roughly with a rattling breath. Her shoulders shook with the effort of trying to catch her air, her sob as wet as her tears. It was a pitiful sight.
“I swear to you—I don’t know,” she replied.
He could have killed Masha. Right then, right there. He had his weapon tucked into the back of his pants, and it would have taken so little effort to pull it out and shoot her in the head. She fucking deserved it.
Maybe they all did.
So many of them had failed Karine.
Over and over.
Again and again.
Even me, he thought.
Masha had single-handedly fucked up his plan for keeping Karine safe. All because she thought she knew what was best for her.
The only thing that did save her in that moment was Karine. Roman didn’t kill her because he wanted to leave her alive for his wife to make the final decision; her emotional attachment she had towards this woman, and the fact she had, in a way, tied her future to Karine meant that she should decide how, or if, Masha’s life would end.
Roman didn’t consider that he wouldn’t find Karine—not for a second. He would bring her back to him, and when he did, she could decide what needed to be done to the woman who had betrayed her.
“You won’t be able to keep Maxim’s hiding place from me for very long. I will find Karine, and when I do, everyone who was involved in taking her from me will pay for it. Mark my fucking words, Masha.”
Tears freely rolled down her cheeks as she said, “I don’t know where they are. Maxim wouldn’t give me that information.”
Roman was sure it was true. Maxim would have used Masha to gain access to Karine—and no matter what their relationship was, he wouldn’t risk being found by divulging his whereabouts to Masha. Clearly, she was as disposable to Karine’s father as she was to Roman. Shame that the only one who did care for Masha was the same women she had put in danger by doing what she’d done.
Roman rubbed a hand over his face, the frustration growing as the questions bounced between one to another in his mind. Where would he even begin looking for her? Where could Maxim have taken her—back to Chicago? Were they hiding out in the Nevada deserts? Was he going to return her to Dima and make peace?
How long do I have to find her?
“You helped someone take her from where she was safe. Where she was finally getting the help she needed. Now what? She’s with the same man who has used and manipulated her all her life.”
Masha yelled her anger back at him. “He is her father! He deserves a chance to—”
“He deserves fucking nothing. I was taking care of her! You saw what she was like in Vermont. How much better she was doing. You saw that, Masha. Why?”
The woman said nothing, her pursed lips wet with her tears, and a hard gaze turned on the wall away from him.
That was it.
Right then, Roman was done.
“Fuck this,” he muttered, standing from the chair. “You’re insane. All these years, Karine was wrong in thinking you were on her side when all you did was whisper in her father’s ears. How long have you been warming his bed?”
Masha shook her head violently. “I love her, too. It’s not just about him.”
Roman was already walking away.
She shouted at his back, “You have to believe I love her, too!”
“Yeah, but at what fucking cost.”
He didn’t wait for a response before he left the basement.
SIXTEEN
His mother rarely ever came to the loft to visit him, and that suited Roman just fine.
So, when he emerged from the basement to find Claire standing next to a vehicle that was in the process of being chopped down by two of the guys—who had scattered earlier when the boys arrived—Roman was more than surprised.
“Ma.”
She looked away from the pieces of dismantled vehicle to find him wiping his hands on a rag one of the guys had left on a work bench. More red than usual, her cheeks and sunglasses belied the calm way she presented herself. She didn’t have to say she was worried—he could see it.
Claire still fixed a warm smile on her face and walked open-armed toward her son. Tipping her head sideways at the car, she asked pointedly, “Can we talk—why don’t you invite me up to your loft?”
“We can go upstairs,” Roman told her, “but I don’t want you cleaning up after me.”
His mother was who she was. Cleaning was the way she coped, but he hadn’t needed his mother picking up after him since he was a boy. She didn’t need to be in his business in that way, either.
“No, don’t worry, I’ll leave that for Karine—if you’ll even let her tidy your things. You always were particular about that.”
Claire curled an arm around him so he could lead the way. Hearing Karine’s name made him a little sick. He wasn’t sure if his mother knew that Karine was missing from the facility. How would she?
In the loft, he found it amusing the way his mother refrained from pointing out all the little things that might make his place feel more like home. Or rather, a home to her standards. She wouldn’t mean any harm, but he’d learned to like less.
“Coffee?” he asked, trying to ease her into the reason she was there.
Adrenaline raced through his veins. Masha was still in the basement, tied up and left in her own misery until he was ready to say otherwise. Claire would have undoubtedly, immediately gone to the woman’s rescue if she knew—regardless of what Masha had done.
Is who she is, he repeated to himself.
He couldn’t say he was the same.
Clearly.
Karine was still missing, and Roman had every intention of going out there to look for her, the very first second he could. Even if he didn’t have shit to work with. He prepared the coffee while his mother surveyed the Guns & Ammo magazine he’d left sitting on the island.
“You and Karine will have to get a bigger place when she’s out. A much nicer place. I’ll start looking at some properties. Of course, we’ll want the two of you to live close to us,” Claire said. “It’ll probably make things easier.”
Her rambling told him that she was trying hard to cover her own emotional turmoil. Marky dying would have been a blow to her, too. As graceful and strong as his mother was—kindness and humanity were at her core. It’s why she’d been a nurse for so many years. She formed emotional attachments easily to the people in her life. The people she liked.
“Like what things?” Roman asked as he brought a mug of coffee over to her.
She offered him a weak smile. “I didn’t mean anything. With Karine, I just assum—”
“We don’t know what it’s always going to look like.”
Claire nodded, then shook her head. “We’re here to help. I know the last few days haven’t been easy for you, son. Marky didn’t deserve what happened to him, but Roman, you’re married now. You have a woman who relies on you and loves you. You can’t put yourself in danger for revenge. Blood keeps spilling.”
He understood. Roman let his mother finish speaking, before he took a sip of his own coffee.
She stared at him, waiting for a response, but he really had only one thing to say.
“I’ll deal with Marky’s death later. Right now I have to focus on finding Karine.”
“Finding Karine—what?”
“Maxim broke her out of the facility she was staying at.”
Claire quickly found the stool to sit down at the island, and she clung to the coffee mug in her hand like she needed the warmth. Her lost stare gazed into the creamy pool of coffee for a long while before she finally asked, “How ... how could this
happen? They were going to keep her safe there. You made sure of it, right? Your father said—how did Maxim find her?”
“It was Masha. Some of the paperwork she stole from Dad’s office had information on the facility. She’s been in contact with Maxim this whole time, and I think you can figure out the rest.”
Roman sat in the chair across from his mother, drumming his fingers to the island before clenching them into tight fists to stop the jitteriness racing through his veins. Helplessness was not his strong suit.
He didn’t know where to go looking for Karine. He didn’t know the first thing about locating Maxim. What plan did he have—what did he even fucking want with Karine? At this point, Roman suspected it wasn’t for anything good. How long did he have before she was no longer safe with her father?
Was it already too late?
For the first time, he acknowledged that helplessness and wondered if that was how Karine felt.
All the time.
Not knowing what would happen to her next. Being in the dark about every aspect of her own life.
Claire covered her face with both hands. “Does your father know?”
“Nobody knows. I’ve only recently found out myself. I have to go looking for her, Ma.”
“Roman,” she hissed, shuddering as she glared at him with bloodshot eyes. “You can’t. You wouldn’t know where to look. Where would you go? Think about it.”
She wasn’t wrong.
He also wasn’t rational.
“I’ll start with Nevada. There has to be something for me to find. The man isn’t a fucking ghost.”
Claire shook her head.
“Your father will never allow it. You can’t go anywhere. It’s too dangerous right now, Roman. Look at what happened to Marky.”
“My father doesn’t need to know. At least, not until I’m already gone.”
Claire stood up, then, placing the mug softly down on the table and meeting his gaze at the same time. “I suppose that means you’ll have to get past me, then—will you do that?”
Goddammit.
*
“This feels like a trap,” Demyan said. “You can’t leave New York. Not now when all eyes are on us. Even the cops are trying to watch every move you make. They’ll trail you wherever you go, so if you think you can rush in, guns blazing, and find Karine—it’s not going to happen. You’ll just end up leading everyone else to a bigger problem that nobody needs. Or worse, you’ll lead Dima directly to her.”
The only way Claire moved out of the way back in his loft was when Roman agreed to take her back to the house and talk to Demyan. She stayed close to him the whole time—like she thought Roman wouldn’t leave if she was at his side the moment he stepped out of his place.
Really, it was a matter of respect—he wouldn’t defy his mother’s wishes.
At the house, even though she didn’t want to leave—Demyan made Claire go up to her room and take a bath so she could relax. Before she left she made Demyan promise that he wouldn’t let their son leave New York.
Roman stood there, blazing up with rage and frustration while his father made the promise to his mother of, “He’s not going anywhere.”
Satisfied, because her husband always kept his word when he gave it to her, Claire stepped out of the office. Finally, the two men were alone.
“What kind of a trap?” Roman asked
Demyan sucked in a deep breath, tapping his pen on the desk. “Karine going missing and word getting back to you that Maxim went off with her—it feels like a trap. Look at it as if it all feels very convenient. A ploy to lure you out of New York and alone in Nevada.”
“You think Maxim is working with Dima?”
“I don’t know what to think. I can’t figure it out. There are a lot of holes in this story.”
Obviously.
Knowing that did nothing to help, though.
“So you don’t trust Maxim, either?”
“I do trust him,” Demyan returned fast, adding after, “... or at least I’m foolish enough to. Our last conversation—right before the house burned down—was something else. He sounded like a different man.”
Tigers didn’t lose their stripes.
Roman arched a brow. “Why would he take Karine out of the place she was safest at, then?”
“Maybe he didn’t look at it that way. Maybe he thought you were the one who abandoned her, and he had to step in and take care of the girl,” Demyan answered.
There was very little Roman could do to control his frustration at that ridiculous answer. He gripped the back of the leather bucket chair until the blood ran out of his knuckles, and the skin turned white.
Demyan said and did nothing—allowing his son the outlet to release his rage.
Just when Roman thought he was back on track with Karine—just when he thought he would prove himself, get his act clean—he lost his best friend, and now he didn’t have the first clue where his wife was. His sick wife who had, time and time again, believed in him to her own detriment.
Was he good for her?
Was Roman any better?
“We will find her, son,” Demyan said after a long pause between the two.
“I’m not going to stop until I do. So yeah, you’re damn right we’ll find her. I just hope we’re not too late. Unlike you, I haven’t seen the good side of Maxim. I don’t trust him to do right by Karine—he never did before. The past says a lot more about someone than a future they haven’t even lived.”
“He did right by her when he told you to take her and leave.”
Roman tried not to think about that day in the car when they drove to New York. When she sat beside him, staring out of the window at a landscape she had never witnessed before, switching right before his eyes between herself and Katina as he tried to find some sense of steady ground amidst chaos. She’d found it with him—briefly.
Somehow.
She’d trusted him.
And where had that got her?
SEVENTEEN
Twenty-four hours.
Roman counted each of them.
Again and again.
Over and over.
He kept counting them. What else could he do?
Twenty-four hours of not knowing where Karine was, or how she was. Who she was with, even. And in that time, Roman had been able to do nothing other than pace around the house, waiting for something to happen.
As much as his father wanted to believe that Maxim wouldn’t hurt his only living child, it was impossible for Roman to erase the memories of how he saw Karine being treated in the Yazov mansion.
Maxim had been dismissive and uninterested. Karine’s very life and secrets were proof he had been neglectful and selfish, at least. Roman found it hard to believe that the man changed without an underlying motive, and he didn’t want Karine to be her father’s collateral.
Demyan didn’t say it directly, but it was obvious he considered Roman a flight risk. The unspoken concern might have been encouraged by Claire who was in a constant state of paranoia that Roman was going to make a run for it.
And she wasn’t off the mark.
So, not only was Roman back to being not allowed to return to his own loft, but he was also being constantly watched by the bulls again.
His every move was being reported back to the boss.
Roman itched.
Just to go.
It would be easy—yeah, it’d make a scene. But he’d made messes before. His father cleaned up more than once for his son. He was trying to do better, though. Roman wanted to be better for his parents, and Karine, too.
But barely.
He made phone calls to every contact that was relevant.
One of the many reasons Roman had picked that facility for Karine’s treatment was because he didn’t have a strong connection in Nevada to anyone or anything. He knew neither the Yazovs nor the Avdonins had much power or control out there, so she would be safe outside their territories where contacts were limited.
Th
at backfired.
Roman didn’t have many people to draw on as he raced to catch up with whatever footsteps Maxim and Karine might have left behind.
A lot of good it did.
He was in the same place where he started—right in the middle of fucking nowhere.
His guys at the loft were watching over Masha, and she still hadn’t talk, sticking to her claim that she knew nothing. Maxim hadn’t divulged that information.
Roman had come terribly close to ordering her death. The call would have been easy, and the minutes it might have taken before he got the confirmation could have been sweet, but he didn’t.
His remaining conscience stopped him but still, the rage inside him festered. Poisonous as it ate away at his dying heart. It wasn’t even the anger killing him—it was the unknown sucker punch to the fucking chest with every passing second that his wife wasn’t beside him doing the job.
Fair was fair.
The universe gave Roman everything he felt like he deserved.
Distracted in his self-loathing, it took his cell phone three rings before he noticed it vibrating in his hands. Peering over the back property from a spare bedroom, he answered the call with a snapped, “What?”
Exhaustion was getting the better of him, but who could sleep?
“What’s the fucking plan?” Lincoln asked. “For the rat problem in the basement, I mean.”
Even on burner phones. One couldn’t be too safe considering the circumstances. Roman immediately knew what the man meant as they were still holding down the issue at the loft with Masha.
Roman scrubbed his hand over his face to muffle the sigh. Masha needed to be kept in check and subdued until Karine was found, and then he would decide what to do with her. She was the least of his problems when she was just one more issue that was better kept contained at the moment. It was the man’s short patience for watching Masha that irritated Roman the most, though.
“I have other shit to handle, man,” Lincoln told Roman.
