The floor disappeared beneath me and I fell down the rabbit hole. Down and down and down, I kept falling. There wasn’t a bottom to this request. There wasn’t solid ground anywhere. Only the sensation of falling, of never being upright again. And just like that, this ugly, greedy world had swallowed me whole once again. “Excuse me?” I whispered.
“Your… boyfriend did a good job,” Roman continued. “He managed to give the FBI what they needed without relying on a large number of witnesses.”
“Witnesses are easy enough to take care of,” Dymetrus explained. “They either want money or death. I can give them both desires.”
I highly doubted they wanted death, but he painted a pretty clear picture of what happened to them if they refused his bribes.
“But we do not have witnesses to extort,” Roman finished. “We need the evidence to…” he rubbed his hands together, imaginary dust falling from his fingertips to the floor. “This is your job. You will destroy whatever the FBI has on us prior to our trial.”
“That’s impossible. I don’t even know what they have—”
Roman raised a hand, effectively silencing me. “This is your job. Once it’s completed we will… reassess your commitment to your brothers. Do a good enough job and we might even let you go back to your precious, winter paradise.”
My mind spun with possibilities, good and bad. “And my daughter?”
“Will remain with you as long as you are obedient.”
The breath of relief that rushed from my lungs nearly knocked me over. “And if I fail?”
Roman’s gaze turned impossibly cold, chilling me all the way to the bone. “You have been with us a long time, Caroline. I think you know that would not be a wise idea.”
Noted. “Go now,” Dymetrus dismissed me. “We are ready to speak to the traitor.”
Traitor. The word bounced around the room like a lead ball or a bullet looking for a body to penetrate.
I had somehow managed to do something less offensive than Sayer. I might have been a valuable asset once upon a time, but Frankie and I had left. We hadn’t left stacks and stacks of evidence for the FBI or gotten anyone arrested. We simply disappeared.
Sayer had been their rising star, the boy that would likely take over their entire organization one day. And he hadn’t only brought down everything they’d worked their whole lives for, he’d made it almost impossible for them to escape their tangled web.
The door opened and I hurried from the room. Sayer was already there, his eyes liquid pools of concern.
“I’m okay,” I mouthed to him as we passed each other in the doorway. He nodded, but it was all he had time to do before he disappeared to the other side.
“The prodigal son returns,” I heard Aleksander croon before the door began to close.
“Was she worth the trouble?” Dymetrus prodded next.
“From what I understand he doesn’t even have the fox yet,” Roman added with a businesslike tone. “All that work and he is still a man without a family. He is still the lonely street rat begging us for a home.”
My heart pinched for Sayer. I found myself pressed against the cement wall, parallel with a prison guard. The door had caught on the rubber stopper on the floor and hadn’t closed all the way.
“Why don’t you let me worry about my relationship status,” Sayer suggested evenly.
“It’s just that you’ve worked so long for this,” Aleksander tsked.
“He looks confident enough,” Roman said in an amused tone. “She must not know about the beginning yet.”
“Look at his face!” Dymetrus laughed. “She does not know. He’s kept his secrets all these years. I think I’m impressed.”
One of the other brothers laughed. The guard noticed the door open an inch and pressed his hand against it until it clicked shut. I stayed where I was for another five minutes, hoping to hear tidbits of their conversation.
What secrets had Sayer kept all these years? What had he been keeping from me? Did they mean all the things Sayer had hidden from me? Or something else?
Was Sayer playing them? Or was he playing me?
Or were they playing us both?
I felt dizzy and disoriented. There were too many what-ifs, too many unknowns. And now in light of everything, I was going to have to clear the Volkov name. I lurched for the bathroom, following the signs until I’d shut myself in a hole and dry-heaved all my remaining energy.
When I finally managed to pull myself together and settle down, I splashed myself with water and took a minute to collect my wits. I checked my phone and noticed four missed calls. One of them was from Maggie. She hadn’t left a message. The other three were from Frisco local PD. They’d left a voicemail each time wondering where I was and wouldn’t I please come in so they could help me. I paced the length of the bathroom, deciding whether or not to call them back. On one hand, I couldn’t explain to them what I’d done. On the other, I didn’t want to become an accidental suspect. Or victim. Depending on how this meeting turned out, it could really go either way.
I made it back just in time to meet Sayer as he walked out of the room. Our gazes clashed and it felt accidental, as though he’d been hoping to avoid looking at me. We stood there for a long minute, not speaking, not knowing what to say. Something darkened in him, shifted to the shadows where it would be hidden, protected from the light. But I was too out of it to decipher what he wanted to hide from me. I was just happy to see him alive and unharmed.
He held out his hand, but remained silent. The guards were everywhere and I suspected most of them were on someone’s payroll. Even the walls were probably listening in a place like this. I would wait to grill him about everything until we were back at his car.
Only when we got back to the car, Cage was leaned against the bumper, a worried Juliet sitting on the trunk. I broke into a run, sprinting across the parking lot. She leapt from the car into my arms where I twirled her around and squeezed her until neither of us could breathe easily.
“Mama!” she cried against me. “I missed you so much!”
“I missed you too, sweet Juliet. So much.”
I didn’t know how long we stood there, me just holding her and hugging her and crying into her wild hair. But when Sayer finally cleared his throat to get our attention the sun was low on the horizon and the cold wind pricked my wet face.
“We need to get back, Caro,” Sayer said in a low voice.
I turned around, just barely remembering he was here. “Do you want to meet—”
He shook his head. “We can do that later.”
Shooting him a relieved smile, I carried Juliet to the backseat and crawled inside the car after her. Cage took my previous seat in the front and Sayer slid into the driver’s seat without glancing back.
Trapped in the relentless crush of rush hour, Juliet and I huddled together and enjoyed breathing the same air. The men stayed quiet as I asked Juliet questions about her body and her captivity until she couldn’t answer me without yawning. I finally gave her relief and let her slump against me. She fell asleep within minutes.
I stroked her hair for a while, watching her safe and at peace in my arms. She probably hadn’t slept all night. I yawned, realizing I hadn’t either.
With my daughter safe, relatively unharmed, and at my side, it wasn’t long before I also gave into heavy eyelids and the adrenaline crash after such a traumatic twenty-four hours.
I had a hell of a to do list when I woke up, but the rumble of the car and the foreign feeling of safety lulled me into a heavy, dreamless sleep I couldn’t resist.
I’d face the consequences when I woke up.
Chapter Nine
I blinked at the darkness and tried to make sense of the bed beneath me. My mind moved slowly, slower than my lazy limbs nestled in the comfort of luxury. Where was I?
Then it all came back at once, a bucket of cold water on my head. I reached out, struggling to make sense of the room. My hands bumped into a body, a tiny body. Juliet.
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I pulled her close to me, wrapping my arms around her once again. She made an adorable noise of protest, but didn’t wake up.
My mind started to think more clearly as I struggled to shake off the heavy drowsiness. We fell asleep in Sayer’s car on the way back from Central Detention. She was here. She was safe.
Oh, thank God.
Holding her even closer, I let my mind sift through the events of the day and what had been asked of me. DC, the pakhan, Atticus… All of it conjured from my worst nightmares.
This was exactly what I didn’t want to happen.
This was the exact scenario I’d fought so hard against.
And yet here we were.
I licked dry lips with a tongue made out of sandpaper and grimaced at the awful taste in my mouth. Leaning up on my elbow I saw that it was close to midnight. I’d been napping for something like six hours, but I felt better than I had in weeks, ever since Sayer had shown back up in my life.
The worst had happened and I was still here, Juliet was still here. We weren’t exactly safe in the grand scheme of things. We weren’t as far away from this ugliness as I’d preferred, but both of us were still alive.
Sliding my arm carefully from underneath her, I slipped quietly into Sayer’s bathroom and used the toothbrush I’d left out earlier. Then I washed my face and tied my hair in a messy bun on the top of my head. Peeling off my chambray shirt, I traded my street clothes for a pair of sleep shorts and a sweatshirt that hung off one of my shoulders. Much better.
Except now I was hungry.
With the bathroom light on behind me, I stood in the doorway a few more minutes watching Juliet sleep. Her chest moved rhythmically and her hands curled beneath her cheek. She was an angel like this, complete perfection in human form.
My heart squeezed again with the painful reality I had almost lost her. This was why I would go against everything I knew to be right and smart and wise and do what the bosses wanted me to do. She was why I would risk my life again, and my freedom, and my nearly perfect criminal record (at least on paper) to steal from the FBI and destroy precious evidence. She was the reason I would ignore common sense and what it would mean to have the pakhan back on the streets. I would do anything to keep her safe.
Finally believing she was safe enough to leave for a few minutes, I tiptoed to the hallway and crept quietly to the living room. The TV was on, casting the room in shades of blue.
I noticed Sayer on the couch and my chest tightened all over again. He was reclined awkwardly, with his long legs stretched in front of him and his elbow resting on the armrest, his open palm propping up his head. His eyes were closed and his mouth slightly ajar, letting out the softest sleeping sounds.
Noticing his bare feet, I retrieved a throw blanket and stealthily laid it over his legs. He barely stirred as I slunk away to the kitchen.
Sayer’s apartment was fairly gigantic and all wide rooms and impossibly high ceilings except for the two bedrooms and office tucked toward the back. But the rest of the wide space was all open. The entryway fed into the dining area. That was connected to the kitchen and opened to the living room where workout equipment had been set up in the corner to look out at the city. A door in the corner of the room led to a long balcony suspended high above the busy DC streets.
As soon as Sayer had turned eighteen, he’d left Gus’s house and moved into a place of his own. During the next few years, while he made his way up the ranks of the syndicate, he had moved several times. He was always getting a better place, moving to a better part of town. It had been extremely important to him to have the nicest home he could afford. He’d gotten this apartment at the pinnacle of his success.
I couldn’t help but wonder how he’d managed to keep it during his years in prison. I knew this building was pricy and he obviously hadn’t been making any money while he was locked away. And according to Gus, he’d sold all of his savings to find me. It wasn’t like Sayer to waste money on a space he couldn’t even use. He was meticulous with spending. Yes, he bought the nicest things he could and spent money when he wanted to. But he also saved and saved and saved.
I’d recognized his secret fear of returning to the streets early on. But it had evolved into a fear of needing someone else to provide for him, of relying on someone else to take care of him. He wanted to be totally self-sufficient, that meant having the kind of deep bank account that would make his lifestyle possible without worry.
He didn’t want to need anybody.
I wondered now if that included me.
Opening the refrigerator, I realized there probably wasn’t any food in a kitchen that hadn’t been used in years, but to my surprise I found takeout containers on every shelf. They must have ordered in when Juliet and I had been conked out.
I pulled out a white box and sniffed the contents. Oh my God, my favorite. Peanut Butter Chicken from House of Lee. I popped a piece of cold chicken into my mouth and groaned at the rich, delicious goodness.
Frisco had given us a life I could never have gotten here, but they didn’t have House of Lee. I mean, there were decent Chinese places in Summit County. Then again… they didn’t have House of Lee.
I dumped rice and sauced chicken into a pan and turned on the low heat. Sayer had a microwave, but I’d only just gotten House of Lee back. I wasn’t going to ruin my first meal by zapping the flavor out of it.
Digging through the other containers I found Kung Pao and Spicy Lo Mein. I found myself smiling for the first time in at least forty-eight hours—it felt like longer than that. My facial muscles stretched to make room for real happiness and I couldn’t stop myself from snatching bites out of the pan before it had fully heated.
“Oh my God,” I moaned around a spicy bite of Kung Pao.
“We thought the food would rouse you earlier,” Sayer said from across the island.
Whirling around and wielding chopsticks, I scolded him. “You should have woken me. I’m starving.”
He spread his hands on the tall counter and bowed his head, stretching his back. “Nah, you needed sleep.” His head lifted and hit me with a staggering look from beneath his long lashes.
I remembered to breathe and turned back to my food. “So did you.”
“It’s been a long day.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. “Where is everybody?”
“Frankie’s in my guest room. Gus took Cage back to his place.”
That news surprised me enough to face him again. “You both kept apartments? Why?”
“I kept my apartment. Gus uses his dad’s old place.”
“Are both of his parents dead?”
He shook his head. “No, his mom is still alive. She just doesn’t spend very much time in the city. She prefers to travel. And I think she has a place in Martha’s Vineyard. Or near there. Anyway, I can’t even remember the last time Gus flew out to see her. She’s… the same as she was when you knew her.”
Vindictive. Petty. Bitter. I didn’t blame Gus for not spending more time with his mother. She was tough to take. “I’m surprised his dad left him the house though. I thought for sure Atticus would get it.”
“Atticus has his own. Besides, Gus bought it from his mom. It wasn’t like his dad left it for him.”
That made more sense.
“She was probably anxious to get rid of it.”
Sayer made a deep humming noise, agreeing with me. “Is, uh, Juliet okay?”
I turned back to the stove, scraping at the bits that were beginning to stick to the bottom of the pan. “Physically, she’s fine as far as I can tell. Emotionally? Time will tell. It had to be a totally traumatizing experience for her. I would give anything to take her back to Colorado. She needs her home, her bed, things that are familiar.”
“She’ll be all right,” Sayer countered. “Kids are resilient.”
The Chinese became a little less appetizing as my stomach churned with all the possible ways she could be screwed up forever now. “Oh, yeah? You know a lot of resilient k
ids?”
“I used to be one.”
His letters came back to me like a punch in the face. I turned the stove off and faced him. He’d made his way around the island and stood just two feet away. He wore his version of pajamas, navy blue sweat pants and a worn t-shirt with bare feet and adorably disheveled hair. His jaw had a shadow of a beard and his eyes were still sleepy. His glasses had been discarded somewhere.
Butterflies took flight low in my gut and I struggled to swallow at the sight of him leaning against the opposite counter. I lifted a hand to pat my messy bun, feeling unsure of my own sleepwear.
“D-do you want to talk about it?” I asked him, afraid he would say yes. Afraid he would say no.
He shook his head, his eyes moving over me, drinking in the sight of my bare legs and naked shoulder. He was all masculine mystery, quiet strength. And I was nothing but a trembling wimp.
I lost the ability to breathe when he crossed his arms over his chest, pushing his biceps out. The light over the stove cast him in golds and smooth skin, highlighting the best parts of him, making my body ache with a new kind of hunger.
“What did the pakhan want today?” he asked, diverting my attention to more important matters than lust.
“They want me to clear their name, get all the charges dropped.”
He nodded, probably already suspecting as much. “It’s not going to be easy. I built a pretty airtight case.”
I shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know what else to do. I have to try.”
His chin jerked again, accepting this to be true. “You’ll have to face your dad at some point.”
Turning back to the cupboards, I found the bowls right where he’d always kept them. I pulled two down and divided the heated Chinese evenly. “What did the pakhan want with you?”
“It wasn’t so much what they wanted. More like threats of what they’re going to do. Kill me slowly. Watch me suffer. Cut off my hands and disembowel me upside down. That kind of thing.”
He was purposefully avoiding the meat of their meeting. I saw the secrets swimming in his liquid gaze. So, I worked harder to push him into telling me what happened. “You’re still alive, so that’s a good sign?”