17. Emil
EMIL
This is the first time Fia falls asleep in my arms, which makes no sense, considering she refused to speak a word to me after the sex.
But I make the most out of what I can get.
I lie awake, remembering my encounter with Alexander. He knows who crashed into Fia and is being ambiguous as fuck about it.
Alexander is many things, a pain in my ass and a terrible leader, but he’s not a liar. If he says he saw the driver, he saw them, whether that was through his own eyes, or through a photograph taken by an associate.
Striking in the middle of the day isn’t Alexander’s forte.
He only comes out at night, using the shadows to his advantage.
Plotting to kill Fia at precisely 1:33 pm on a Tuesday when the streets are teeming with commuters on their lunch break would be a stupid idea, especially with all of those witnesses.
Approximately one hundred people saw the car hit her, but not one of them could identify the driver…
My heart thumps erratically in my chest, making sleep impossible. Sleep is for the weak, for those who are at peace with their life and carry no regrets. Fia has never had difficulty sleeping, and being by her side helps me relax, sometimes allowing me to drift off.
But from now on, I must sleep with one eye open… and even that is a luxury.
“What the hell are you doing here, Jas?” I hiss at my younger sister when I find her creeping around the dock after dark.
“I came to find you. Why are you out here this time of night? We have school tomorrow.”
“Father’s orders.”
“Fuck what Father thinks.”
“Father rebuilt our family from the ground up after we moved here a few years ago. We owe him our lives.”
“And you owe it to yourself to get the hell away from the docks. Do you ever switch on the TV and check out the news? Three bodies were found in one of the containers last week, registered to Father.”
“The cops won’t find him,” I reassure Jasmine. “He runs a tight ship.”
“He’s killing people. Wake up. I see the terror in your eyes every time you tell me it’s fine. Nothing about murder is fine, Em, and I know you think the same,” says Jasmine, a pleading look filling her eyes as she stares at me through the darkness. “You’ll turn into a carbon copy of him.”
“I’m trying to survive, Jas. Our lives in Moscow were rough, which is exactly why we moved, to rebuild.”
“Just to repeat the cycle?” challenges Jasmine.
“Ask yourself why things were rough the first time around,” she says, glancing nervously over her shoulders, into the darkness.
“Please,” she begs. “I can’t lose my father and brother.
Life already sucks without you disappearing every night to work at the docks.
” She keeps watching me. “Please tell me you haven’t?—? ”
“No, Jas. The knife stays in my pocket at all times. I help load the containers.”
“Which are full of dead bodies.”
I rub my face. “We don’t know that for sure.”
She folds her arms over her chest, painting herself in a very vulnerable light. This is no place for a girl, and Jas is tiny. She broke her shoulder last year after tripping over a stair. The machinery here could crush her, reduce her body down to ash in seconds.
“Jas,” I sigh, rubbing my temple. “Please get out of here. We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
“Please don’t become like him. I couldn’t bear it if?—”
A gunshot tears through the atmosphere like thunder, the shadows parting to reveal thick gunpowder, trailing up into the air like smoke.
My heart stops beating as I turn back around, my eyes meeting sodium lights instead of Jasmine’s face.
One look down tells me I failed her.
“Jas!” I shriek, my pulse spiking, the very foundations of the world coming loose, sending everything into strife.
My vision distorts, my head foggy. Instinct drives me over to the man behind us. He has some fucking nerve, shooting the most important person in my life.
Fueled by red hot anger, I slip my gun and bury the blade straight into his chest before he can take a shot at me. Blood squirts, a blood curdled cry echoing through the columns of containers.
I return to Jas, dropping onto my knees, my hands soaked in her blood as I apply pressure to the wound in her chest, which continues expanding.
“No, Jas.”
She coughs and splutters, dying while looking at the stars.
“Jas…” I whisper, my voice completely broken.
In trying to be a good person, I failed to protect the only individual in this world I have ever loved.