by Sidney Bell
Yasha wrung his hands. “Something bad. Vasya, did you do something bad?”
Vasily blinked, his attention finally diverted. “No. Ghost is what she wants, Ghost is what she’s gonna get. I’m gonna do this. She’ll see and she’ll be sorry and it’ll be better again—”
“What did she say, Vasya?” Seryozha took a step closer to his brother.
“She has to see what I can do!” Vasily shouted. “Now do what you’re told and shut up!”
“No. Answer my questions.”
“Questions?” Vasily asked. “You have questions? You always have to be the smart guy, don’t you? Even when you don’t have all the information. Mama wants Ghost, it’s all she can think about, so you’re gonna shut up and sit down. I’m doing the right thing.”
Seryozha stared at him. “Tell me again how you hurt your nose.”
Flushed and snorting breath through his swollen nostrils, Vasily said, “I swear to fuck I’m gonna—”
Grisha, listening to all this with a frown, said, “I think you’re doing that thing, Vasya, that thing you do where you get us in more trouble because you’re mad—”
Church laid it all on the line and said, “Why don’t we just call Mama and ask her?”
Seryozha shot him a quick look, and Church had to struggle to keep his expression blank. Yes, Seryozha had definitely inherited his mother’s brains. The fact that I have something to gain doesn’t mean I’m leading you in the wrong direction, Church thought, willing Seryozha to hear it.
He didn’t have time to see if he’d been convincing. Vasily erupted, shoving Seryozha hard against the wall and throwing a punch.
And Church leaped for Miller.
* * *
There was a lot of yelling, but the only thing that mattered to Miller was that Church was there, taking his arm.
“Hi,” he whispered.
“Hey,” Church murmured back. “We gotta go.”
“I think I’m going to puke,” Miller said, as Church helped him up. Something crashed behind them and one of the brothers shouted, but Miller didn’t look up. It took all he had to keep his feet under him. His head swam. He’d never felt pain like this. He hadn’t realized it was possible for the human body to hurt like this.
It struck him as a design flaw, honestly.
By the time they reached the kitchen, Church was half-carrying him. “Keep going,” Church muttered. “I know it hurts, Mill, keep going.”
With black spots forming at the edge of his vision, Miller obeyed. He could see the back door from where they were shuffling forward, and for a heartbeat he thought they were going to make it. Then Church shoved him forward and yelled, “Miller, go!”
Which sounded great, except that when Church was yanked away from him, Miller’s knees turned to water. He managed to catch himself on his good hand, but he couldn’t keep his sudden change in altitude from rocking his bad one, and he choked out a cry as agony swam up his nerves like a wave of lava, like fire ants, like rocket fuel, burning everything in its path.
When he could see again, Miller forced his head up.
Yasha and Grisha had Church shoved against the wall, although Yasha seemed more concerned with staring at Vasily, who was unconscious and sprawled across the carpet like a starfish. “What did we do, Grisha?” Yasha asked, wide-eyed and horrified. “We hurt Vasya. What did we do that for? He’s gonna be so mad when he wakes up, Grisha. So mad.”
“We had to,” Grisha said soothingly. As Church’s phone buzzed again, Grisha turned a frown on Church. “Who the hell keeps calling you?”
“That’s my friend who’s gonna call the cops if I don’t text him back.” Church sounded pretty damn calm, all things considered. He glanced at Miller. “You okay?”
Miller nodded because words required air, and he still didn’t have any.
Seryozha paced behind Miller, speaking Russian into a phone. The conversation went on for several minutes before he hung up.
“Now what, Seryozha?” Grisha asked. “What did Kellen say?”
“Now Church is going to text his friend, and we’re going to take a ride in the SUV,” Seryozha said grimly as Vasily began to stir. “Yasha, put Vasya in the trunk. Kellen says we’re going to see Mama.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“You should’ve left me,” Miller whispered, trying his hardest to stay conscious in the backseat of the SUV as they rattled over potholes and gravel. “You could’ve run.”
“No, I couldn’t,” Church whispered back. His hand was cupped around Miller’s knee, and it was such a small thing to take such enormous comfort from. Miller was pretty sure they’d be dead soon, but until then, he had Church’s hand on his knee. “I’m not leaving you again, Miller. Don’t you get it yet? You’re the one.”
How strange to find a flicker of happiness in such an awful moment. “Will I still be the one if I puke on your shoes?”
“Yep. You’ll just be the stinky one.”
“I love you too,” Miller murmured. Church’s hand tightened on his knee, desperate and trembling, and Miller closed his eyes.
* * *
While she waited in her office, Lena finished her notes for the next day. Her fingers felt weak on her pen.
If he said no again, even once she’d showed him the file, there would truly be nothing that would convince him to help her. She would have to find another way, something that would work without the boy, and this afternoon would end very differently for him and his friends.
What was coming made her stomach ill, but she didn’t let that sway her. The choice had been made. It was out of her hands. She told herself this over and over as she wrote, getting her thoughts in order, getting herself under control.
When Kellen finally knocked on the door, she was ready.
“He’s here?” she asked, and Kellen nodded.
“When my sons arrive, have Seryozha keep the loudmouth under control in the living room,” she ordered. “Have Aunt Polya do something with the injured one. And bring Vasily to the main basement room and wait.”
Kellen nodded again and left, and Lena called out, “Come in, Ghost.”
He appeared in the doorway dressed in black jeans and a torn T-shirt. His big black boots were untied, his eyes lined with kohl so they seemed big and round, emphasizing his youth and waifish image. Everything carefully coordinated to present an image of vulnerability. Masterful camouflage. She could admit he was beautiful. He stirred nothing lustful in her, but she could appreciate things that were difficult to categorize, and he was certainly that. She imagined he terrified some men, those whose minds were so rigid that the merest suggestion of femininity dirtying masculine waters was all it took to move them to disgust and irrationality. The boy was too delicate, too lovely, too slight, and it was easy to picture rough men unable to make sense of him, and in their confusion, striking out.
Men of that sort saw only the surfaces of things. They wouldn’t notice the vein of rot at the core of the boy.
And likely take a blade in the back as payment for their shortsightedness.
He walked to the chair opposite her desk but didn’t sit. He moved gracefully. Like a dancer, perhaps. He was trying to pretend he was unbothered by being here, and a few more vicious thoughts about her oldest son crossed her mind once more.
“You said we would be allies,” Ghost said, in that deep, rich voice that seemed incongruous from such a pretty boy. “You said you weren’t going to threaten or hurt me or my friends.”
“I won’t.”
“So let them go. I let your viper bring me here like you wanted. Let them go.”
Lena didn’t approve of the way Ghost spoke of Kellen, but she ignored it for now. “I’m going to allow you to leave with your friends in a moment. First, there’s been a development in what I have to offer you.”
“I don’t care about money, I told you that. There’s no amount you could offer me that would change my mind.”
“It’s not money.” She unlocked a drawer in her desk to find a manila folder, thin, almost empty. She slid it across the desk.
He opened it. She watched him closely; at first, other than the fading of the healthy pink in his skin, he gave no sign of the catastrophic riot that must have been going on within him. She knew how she would feel if similar contents had been handed to her by someone she viewed as an enemy. Then his eyes went distant, and he stumbled back, falling into the chair. She settled in to wait while he recovered.
A considerable amount of time later, his eyes focused. His breathing steadied. The folder trembled in his hands, and he laid it on the desk with quivering fingers, watching it like it was a venomous snake that could strike at any moment.
“I suspect you have a preference in how that’s dealt with.” She tilted her head. “This is how it will work. You will assist me with a particular task. You’ll stop working the streets in the meantime to minimize the possibility that you’ll be recognized. I’ll support you; you may live where you wish. After you’ve completed your side of things, we can discuss renewing if we’ve found the relationship a beneficial one. Regardless of your decision at that time, I’ll give you whatever you need to take care of that situation—” she nodded at the folder “—however you like. If you want arrests, that can be arranged. If you want heads to line your mantelpiece with, I will provide. I want a colleague, Ghost. Not a captive.”
He thought about it. She didn’t rush him.
Finally, he said, “It’s tempting. But you’ve told me things before now that’ve been disproven by people in your—”
“If you say yes, you and I will handle Vasily. I want your concerns assuaged.”
She didn’t think about what she was saying. She stared at Ghost, only at Ghost.
He rose and walked to the door. He moved jerkily now, and tension coiled within her as she watched him, wondering what he’d do, if she’d played it correctly. He put his hand on the knob before turning back abruptly.
“No one sells me,” he said with a viciousness she hadn’t expected, a viciousness she identified with. She had been property once.
“I won’t be selling you,” she said. “Colleagues, remember?”
He frowned. His eyes flickered once toward the folder before flinching away. “I want your word that my friends are safe. All of them.”
“Done.”
“Even if I fail in this task of yours. They’re off-limits.”
This request was harder to allow, but she nodded all the same. “Done.”
He exhaled. “If you can get Vasily to leave Church alone, we have a deal.”
She didn’t smile. The pit inside her wouldn’t allow her to. She tilted her chin at Ghost to get him to follow her and led him out of the office.
They passed two rooms as they walked down the hallway. The first, kept behind a steel-reinforced door with a peephole, held more than 700,000 dollars in cash, already counted and bundled. That would be moved later. The white buckets of meth, confiscated from Vasily’s supply, would be sold to the man from her meeting yesterday for a deep discount. She wanted that poison out of her house.
In the next room, behind a reinforced door kept locked by a series of padlocks on hinges, was a single metal desk, a rickety chair and four file cabinets. The cabinets held many things—photographs of unsuspecting lovers, deeds to properties and copies of insurance policies, none of which were in her own name. Every item represented a life beholden to her and her alone, waiting in a holding pattern of her choosing. She thought of these items as her collection—objects of power more valuable than any jewels or money.
She continued past both doors, her stomach hollow, her chest numb, her throat tight. At the mouth of the big, soundproofed basement room, she stopped. Her son stood before her on the cement, agitated, sulky and furious, every inch the child within his so-called male pride. Kellen, at the foot of the stairs, watched silently.
Lena looked at Ghost. “This is not being done because of you. You witness it only so you have proof that I keep my word.”
His brow creased. He didn’t answer beyond a tiny nod.
She turned to Kellen. A silver pistol was already extended in the palm of one long-fingered hand. Lena accepted it.
“It’s ready to fire,” Kellen said.
Lena remembered the covetous eyes of the men in the meeting, the men who watched her for weaknesses, the men who would eat at her entire family like carrion if she did nothing. Polya, to whom she owed so much, Kellen, last survivor of a lost beloved, and Lena’s other sons, vulnerable and almost led into danger by her eldest. It was simple math. She protected the many with this act that destroyed the one.
Vasily refused to obey. He threatened them by doing anything else.
“Mama,” he said, eyes going wide, mouth trembling open. There was confusion and hurt and—
She took aim and pulled the trigger. The body crumpled. She couldn’t hear anything when she handed the gun back to Kellen, who wiped the weapon clean of Lena’s fingerprints and slid it back into the holster.
Ghost was ramrod-straight at her side, lips bloodless. She could see the pulse thundering beneath his jaw, but he forced himself to meet her gaze.
“Done,” Lena said. “Do we have a deal?”
It took Ghost a moment before he swallowed and murmured, “Yes.”
She said, “You can go. I’ll be in touch.”
Kellen gestured Ghost upstairs, although not without giving Lena a long, careful glance. Lena should give some sign that she was all right, but it was beyond her right now.
She went back down the hallway to her office instead, locking the door behind her. She didn’t fool herself that it’d keep Kellen out, but the illusion of privacy was enough.
Lena sat in her chair and pretended the claustrophobia of the closed walls was responsible for this feeling.
* * *
At the table upstairs, Church steadied Miller while Seryozha sat next to them and Grisha and Yasha hovered in the doorways. Maybe blocking the way out. Maybe keeping them company. The way the Krayevs were acting, Church couldn’t tell if he and Miller were captives or fucking houseguests.
“How long are we here for?” he demanded.
Seryozha sighed. “Not long.”
“Miller needs to go to the hospital.”
“If Mama wants him to, he will. Later.”
Church hated all of them. His heart pounded so furiously in his chest that it almost hurt, but he tried to stay calm. Miller was looking at him with his brows crunched together like he was concerned about Church, and Church didn’t want to be one more thing for Miller to worry about.
“Are you cold?” Church asked him. “Do you want my jacket?”
Miller shook his head slowly, probably afraid to jostle himself with quick movements. Church murmured to him, stupid nonsense that couldn’t be all that soothing, and touched his thigh with very careful fingers.
“Just a little longer,” he said.
The old woman came into the kitchen and bustled around them, filling a mammoth plastic bag with icy slush before draping it around Miller’s hand with businesslike movements. She ignored his low bark of pain, dropped a couple of pills into his mouth while it was open, and tipped a water glass against his lips until he either had to drink or wear it. She ignored Church’s loud protest entirely and shoved a small jar of yellow stuff at him along with a spoon. She said something in Russian and held up two fingers.
“What is it?” Church asked Seryozha, eyeing the goop warily. “What did she give him?”
“Pills for the pain. Ginger syrup for the stomach.” Seryozha rolled his eyes when Church frowned. “I’ve had it a million times for t
he flu and indigestion. It gets rid of nausea. Won’t hurt him.”
Church hesitated. Miller looked seasick and hazy, so he unscrewed the lid and got a spoonful. It did taste like ginger, although with a bitter aftertaste, and for a second he wondered about poison. Seryozha sighed impatiently, reached out and took the whole spoonful for himself.
“See?” he garbled with his mouth full. “If we wanted you dead, we’d just shoot you.”
Church yanked the spoon out of Seryozha’s weak grip with a dirty look and gave Miller a couple of bites of the syrup. While he capped the jar, Miller laid his head down on the table, and in a few minutes, through a mixture of medicine and ice, he seemed quieter. The waxy gray faded somewhat from his skin.
Church ran his fingers through Miller’s hair.
Time seemed to drag on, interrupted only by Tobias’s texts and the low rumble of Russian as the old woman spoke to the Krayev brothers.
Church would never be more surprised about anything in his life than he was when the heavy basement door opened and Ghost came out, closing it behind him before extending a hand toward Seryozha. “Keys to a vehicle, please. I’ll return it soon.”
Well, Church would never be more surprised than he was when Seryozha obeyed.
“Can he walk?” Ghost asked Church, nodding at Miller.
Church startled, and realized he’d been standing there staring at Ghost. If it weren’t for the fact that Church could see Ghost’s tense expression and smell the soft, clean scent of his shampoo, he would almost think he was hallucinating. But Ghost was here, helping Church get Miller on his feet, steadying him when he wobbled, his rosebud lips pursing when Miller let out a soft, gasping cry of pain as the ice bag shifted badly.
They walked outside, and Church got nervous, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for their escape to suddenly end in more bloodshed, but the Krayevs didn’t do anything. The old woman clucked her tongue and closed the door behind them, and like that, they were free to go.
As they helped Miller into the backseat of Vasily’s SUV, Church said, “We’re going to talk about this. After we get Miller to the hospital, I’m gonna talk to you about this so hard.”
