13. Thirteen
Thirteen
Luka
The plan felt loose and flimsy and I wasn’t sure how long I could keep up this charade.
I should have driven faster, but something kept me from pressing the gas pedal all the way to the floor.
I thought about the Petrovs. I thought about Katya. I thought about Enzo. I couldn’t help but wonder which life would be better for her; the one on the run always checking over her shoulder waiting for the Petrovs to catch up to her, or the one where she stayed in a loveless controlling marriage with a family who looked right through her every night at the dinner table. I inhaled, thinking she had no good choices. She had to decide between the worst and darkest options in front of her. It made me sick to think that my light sweet sister had nothing but fear and hard decisions ahead of her.
The screen on my dashboard lit up with a call. It was Katya.
“What’s going on? I know I missed the world’s greatest cheesecake.”
“Oh my God. I don’t know what to do.” She was panicked and out of breath.
“Okay. Okay. Slow down and tell me what’s going on.” I waited for an explanation. Everything had been boring and uninteresting twenty minutes ago.
“Enzo’s parents,” she began. “They called me at the restaurant.”
“What? Why would they do that? Why did you answer?” I didn’t mean to berate her.
She lowered her voice. “Because Enzo was supposed to be at his mom’s birthday dinner tonight and he didn’t show.”
“Fuck.” I hit the steering wheel. “You didn’t mention that detail.” I was angry. I had asked for every piece of information. This was a loose end that could cause problems.
“I didn’t tell you because I forgot all about it until they called me tonight,” she explained. “Luka, they went to his apartment.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “What did you tell them?” I asked.
“I didn’t know what to say,” she answered. “I tried to stall, but they didn’t listen. I said I’d go check on him, but they were going to go no matter what I said.”
“How do you know that?” It felt as if the wheels were coming off with every part of this conversation.
“That’s how they are. They are good parents. Good people.” She paused. “And I’m lying to them about their son.”
“You have to.” My sister wasn’t Bratva-trained. It was either a perk or sin of being Dmitry’s daughter. She could pull off a charade, but the skill of lying wasn’t something
“I know, but they know. They know something isn’t right.”
“Why would they think that?” Katya was quiet for too long. “Answer me,” I growled.
“It’s possible they might know something about our families,” she admitted. “And who Enzo works for.” I didn’t like the way Amara was casually dropped into this.
I hung my head, realizing how things had become more complicated.
“What are they going to do when they go to his apartment and he’s not there?” I asked.
“They are giving it until the morning for him to get in touch with them,” she answered.
“And then what?” My impatience and irritation with the Barone family was growing.
“And then they are going to the police.”
“The police.” I said it, but I almost didn’t believe it.
“We’ll find him by then, right?” I couldn’t tell if the hope had drained from her voice or if she was the only one who had any left.
I shook my head.
Our family lived in the shadows, that’s where it belonged. We didn’t have the right to walk in the sun or to live the same lives as Enzo’s parents. But by falling in love with him, Katya had chipped at the crack in the wall between our two worlds. I had no idea how I was going to seal it back up if I didn’t find him before daylight.
The underbelly of our world had never been so exposed. Family business good bad or ugly was family business. Things were settled between families. Justice. Punishment. Revenge. Our laws and codes had been handed down for generations. Bringing in Enzo’s parents changed the game. And I wondered if his kidnappers knew what could happen to all of us if the game was exposed.
“I can’t promise that,” I told my sister. “But I’m trying.”
“I know you are, I just…how do I sleep next to Andrey tonight?”
I couldn’t answer that question for her. “You better go. I’m almost out of cell reception.” I was closing in on the farm.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you later. I’ll check on you in the morning.” I couldn’t risk anyone knowing where I had hidden Amara, not even the person I trusted the most. There was too much at risk.
“But call me. As soon as you hear something.” The words were rushing together again.
“I will. I will. Goodnight.” I pressed the button to disconnect our call.
* * *
I parked behind the stables. My car was recognizable, but I had to hope that no one on Katya’s payroll would care enough to comment on it. I had every intention of leaving before the first guy came to clean out the stalls in the morning.
I used to know the woods here well. There was a small window of time in my memory bank of being a child. A sliver, really. I ran through the trees, jumped over the creek, and caught crayfish with Katya. She was tiny then. She’d yell for me to let her catch up. It was more fun to let her chase me. To splash her. To hide in the woods from her. We did the things that kids do when no one is watching. We played like we didn’t carry burdens. We laughed like we were free. It was hard to believe we were kids once.
As I walked off the path near the equipment barn, a branch broke beneath my shoe. I stopped, waiting for the sound of another footstep. A sound that indicated someone was watching or following me, but it was quiet. I continued toward the cabin, carrying Amara’s dinner.
I stepped onto the porch, paused, and turned the key in the lock. Amara barreled into my arms and I almost dropped the bags of takeout I had brought her when I walked inside. She was warm and still smelled like the lotion she used after her shower. She wrapped herself around me.
“Hey.”
She squeezed me harder. “You came back.”
“Of course.” I leaned over to deposit dinner on the small table so I could wrap her in a full hug. “I wanted to be here sooner, but I had to pick up dinner at a restaurant not owned by the Petrovs.”
She nodded against my chest. “We need to find him. He’s not like us. He’s barely a business grad student.”
I held her at a short distance. “Where is this coming from?” There was a noticeable shift in her. I wondered what had happened in the two hours I was gone.
Her lashes fell over her eyes. “A stupid dream. But it felt real. And I don’t know that Enzo can survive long. He doesn’t have survival skills. He’s not that part of my team. He doesn’t even carry a weapon. He’s not Ciro.”
“He has a reason to survive and that’s what will get him through it.” I tried to assure her.
“Katya?” she whispered.
“Yes. He wants to get back to her.” It was the crumb of hope I was clinging to, to buy us time.
“God, he has to. How was she at dinner? How did it go?” Amara was frantic with questions. I couldn’t blame her as long as she had been here with no way to use her phone.
“I’ll tell you all about it. How is your hand?” I asked, leading her to a chair in the kitchenette.
She shrugged. “The same.” I saw how she cradled it to her chest.
I started to unpack dinner from the paper bags. “I got nothing at the dinner.”
“Really?” She frowned. “Nothing at all? I don’t understand. They have to know something,” she insisted.
“The Petrovs never flinched. There was nothing to play there.”
“How can you be so sure?”
I eyed her. “You know Inna and Vasha. I’m assuming you know them well. They have money. They have influence. They’ve never been master manipulators. They’re too focused on their grandchild. When’s the last time Vasha took out a hit on someone?”
She pulled out a chair and sat. “Never. That I know of,” she answered.
“Exactly. It’s not his style. He’d rather hike up interest rates or accumulate properties to trade for debt. I don’t think he would have gone after you and Enzo.”
“But Enzo said…” she stopped. “What I mean is, what if this is about Katya? What if they discovered the affair? It’s all personal to them. That changes things. The humiliation after the kind of fuss they’ve made about the baby. I got a shower invitation delivered by someone who was holding a live stork. They have lost their damn minds.”
“It would change everything if they knew, but they don’t. I read that room tonight. They are living in ignorant bliss. So is their son. Right now, that’s a blessing for Katya. And for me. It means she’s safe tonight.”
Amara opened one of the white cardboard boxes. “I’m starving. I could eat all of this.”
“Good.” I smiled, watching her twist her fork in the pasta. She lifted it toward her lips. “Did you say a live stork?”
She giggled. It was the first time I’d heard her laugh since our morning meeting in the office. There was suddenly warmth and light in the cabin. For a second, I thought everything was going to be okay and we weren’t at the epicenter of a dark and sinister world.