Chapter 9
Displease him? Displease him!
And threatening me with his belt? Who the hell does he think he is!
“You’re going to cut yourself you keep this up.” Serafina leans over the register counter and covers my hand before I slide the paper cutter through my fingertip.
“Shit.” I pull my hands away and take a deep breath.
“What’s eating at you? You’ve been tense all afternoon.” She slides the cutter away from me and finishes cutting the last of the fliers.
“No one.” I push my glasses back in place and grab the scraps of paper left over and crumble them into a tight ball.
“Okay, but I said what, not who,” she teases.
“Oh.” I throw away the scraps and lean back against the counter. “I’m sorry. Just a lot going on.”
“Yeah? Boy trouble?”
“No.” I huff a laugh, waving away the possibility like it’s an asinine suggestion.
“Really? Cause you said no one. So…” She purses her lips and raises her perfectly plucked eyebrows as though to suggest I’m holding back.
Which I am, but Serafina is barely nineteen. I doubt she’s had much experience with mafia men who invade her space and her brain.
“It’s nothing.” Nothing that is possible anyway. And it’s not something I should even want or think of wanting.
Aside from the fact that he’s in charge of the arms dealing for the Russian Mafia. He’s out trying to find my brothers. And if he finds them, he’ll do God knows what.
I shouldn’t have given in about it. I can blame exhaustion, or emotional overload from stress, but the reality is when he said he’d take over a small part of me wanted him to do it. I wanted the weight off me, but now that I’m clear headed, I see what a horrible mistake it was.
He won’t know how to handle them. He’ll see them as criminals, as low life scum like others have all their lives. They won’t trust him, and it will turn into a whole thing.
They’re my brothers. My problem.
“Hey. I know I have another hour on my shift, but it’s dead. Mind if I head out early?”
She looks up from her phone, having already been distracted by a social media notification.
“No, that’s fine. I got it.” She waves me off and walks to the box of books needing to be stocked tonight.
After clocking out and grabbing my things, I hurry down the street to my car. Lev’s opinion about my car was clear in his eyes. A piece of garbage. And compared to the expensive top of the line cars he’s driven around in, I suppose it is. But it’s mine.
I worked after school and weekends for a full year to save up enough money to buy it my senior year in high school. Which worked out perfectly, since after graduation I was informed I’d aged out of the foster care system and Mrs. Ingles needed my bed for a new foster kid.
Mrs. Ingles was a decent enough foster mom, I have no real complaints about her, but in the end, if she wasn’t getting a check for me, she needed me to move on.
It’s not that I expected anything less; I didn’t.
And I was lucky that she’d let me hang around until I was able to find a new place to live.
The boys had already moved into their own place with some friends, which meant there wasn’t room for me. They offered to get me some work, but what they considered ‘work’ the police considered ‘misdemeanors.’
I had to move further away from them, get a job, and find a place I could afford on my barely over minimum wage salary. I couldn’t help them as much as before, and I think it drove them further into their crime dreams.
I’m here now, though, and if Lev is right about the boys getting into something deeper than they can crawl out of, they are going to need me.
It takes half an hour to crawl through traffic to get to their apartment.
I’ve wanted them to move into a safer part of town, but they refuse.
Their apartment is over a rowdy dive bar that has as many people standing outside smoking as there are inside overindulging on beer and shots.
There’s no parking near the building, so I have to walk a block.
The cold, crisp evening air bites at my face as I hurry down the street, stepping over a man sleeping in the entranceway of a convenience store that’s closed for the night. The iron gate is secured over the door, as well as the front windows.
“Hey, sweet tits!” A man calls as I get closer to the bar.
It’s a familiar voice. Jimmy. A drunk who hangs on the street corner with his bottle of beer and his joint. Marijuana’s legal here but smoking it in the open isn’t. Not that any cop would bother to get out of their car in this part of town for something so low as a joint.
“Hey, Jimmy.” I give a little wave as I open the door leading up the boy’s apartment.
“They ain’t home.” Jimmy shuffles over to me, a cloud of smoke trailing behind him.
“Have you seen them? I was supposed to meet them.” I wave away the stench as his cloud wafts over to me.
“Nah, not for a couple days.” The cherry on his joint burns bright as he takes another hit, sending him into a coughing fit. He offers it to me, but I shake my head.
All it ever does to me is burn my throat and give me a headache.
“Maybe I’ll just check.” I leave him on the street and jog up the stairs to their door. A pile of mail sits on the top step, having fallen out of the thin mailbox.
Scooping up the junk mail and bills they probably haven’t paid in a few months; I tuck it all under my arm and dig around my purse for the key. The stale stench of smoke hangs heavy in the air inside, suffocating me at first when I walk in.
Dropping the mail on the kitchen table, I open the window over the sink, trying to get fresh air inside. Once breathing is more acceptable, I turn back to the apartment.
It’s a wreck. No more than the other times I’ve been here, though. The apartment is a two-bedroom/one-bath. The bedrooms are large enough for a twin bed and a dresser, and the living room and kitchen are combined into one room with a kitchenette set against the exterior wall. It’s cramped.
They’ve definitely not been here for days. Empty beer cans litter the countertop next to the sink. When I check the garbage can, I find it full, as well. I jump back as a roach crawls out from beneath the can and onto my foot.
I check their rooms and find their clothes are still here. Some are even clean and hanging up in the closets. Nothing suggests they’ve left town for an extended time. Maybe they went away on a job.
Digging into what that job might be isn’t going to do anything other than worry me, so I push it to the side and continue looking around. No drugs. No piles of guns. Nothing that suggests they’ve taken things into their own hands as far as sales.
Moving into the living room area, it’s more of the same. Dusty, unkempt, but otherwise nothing suspicious. Deciding to at least clean up a little, I get a garbage bag from the kitchen and start collecting the empty cans and take out containers from around the small space.
As I pick up a crumpled bag from the taco stand down the street from the coffee table, the black butt of a gun sticks out from a pile of used napkins. My stomach sinks. Brushing aside the old, taco-seasoned napkins, a gun similar to the one they left at my apartment is exposed.
Sinking onto the couch, I drop the garbage bag to the floor and stare at the weapon.
“What are you guys doing?” I push away a dirty magazine and pick up the gun. It’s heavier than it looks, weighty in my palm.
My phone vibrates from the back pocket of my jeans. A text message from Serafina asking where the extra deposit slips for the bank are kept. I shoot back a reply then, open up the message thread between me and the boys.
Still nothing back from them, and I can’t tell if my messages are getting read because they’ve turned off that feature. I don’t bother sending another; they’ll only ignore it like the others. Voicemail messages are better off being sent in a message in a bottle than left on their phones.
No. There’s only one way to get them to come out of hiding, I think.
I open my bag and drop the gun inside. It fits just well enough for me to get the bag zipped up.
After scrounging around, I find a marker.
Using the back of a receipt I rip off a pizza box, I scribble a note and leave it on the now cleared off coffee table.
If they want their gun back, they’ll need to call me. It’s a game we played only days before, but apparently it’s the only way to get them to keep me in the loop.
I grab my key, lock the door, and head downstairs to the street. The closer to the door I get the louder the yells from the bar become. It doesn’t sound like a party anymore, but shouted directions.
Stepping out onto the street, flashing red and blue lights light up the corner. Police, a dozen, maybe more have several men pushed against the wall of the bar. Jimmy is one of them.
Before I can fully assess what’s happening, a tight grip wraps around my arm.
“Get over there with the rest of them,” the cop growls at me, shoving me.
“Wait. No. I’m not with them. I just came out of the apartment upstairs.” I try to explain, but he shoves me harder until my cheek hits the brick wall. My instincts kick in, and I shove back from the wall only have the cop’s hand on the back of my head pushing me right back into it.
“Hey!” I kick out but he dodges my foot.
“Calm the fuck down.” He grabs my right wrist, wrenching it behind me. My bag slips from my shoulder onto the ground at my feet as he does the same to my left wrist.
As it hits the ground, the zipper breaks and the gun slides out onto the pavement.
“Oh! What is that?” The cop leans into me. “You got a license for that thing?”
He clicks the cuff too tight, sending pain up my arm. His hot breath against my cheek sets me off and I throw my head back, connecting with his face.
A crunching sound rings in my ears right before his cry of pain.
“That’s assaulting an officer, bitch.” He throws me against the wall, this time without my hands to stabilize me, I hit hard.
“No. I was just—ow!” I stumble as I’m yanked back. Jimmy’s face comes into view; his brows pull down when he sees me.
“Stop fighting them.” He warns as he’s dragged off toward one of the cars.
“Let’s go.” A new cop grabs my arm and pulls me toward one of the cars. He starts talking into this walkie talkie strapped to his vest, describing me.
At least he helps me into the back of the car, so I don’t hit my head.
Once he shuts the door, I look back at the scene I’ve caused.
The original cop has his head forward, blood dripping from his nose onto the pavement.
Another cop has my bag in his hands and takes the gun by the handle and places it in an evidence bag.
Fuck. Me.
By the time I’m pulled into the station, I’m sure there’s nothing worse that can happen tonight. My face hurts from the brick scratching me. The back of my head hurts from head butting the stupid cop. And panic is easing its way into my soul over how the hell I’m going to get out of this mess.
I can’t afford a lawyer. I have no answer about the gun they found. I don’t even have anyone to call to pay bail.
Well. I do. But there’s no way I’m doing it.
I’d rather sit in jail.
“Put her in five.” A female cop tells my armed escort as she buzzes us into the back of the police station. There are ten cells in here, five lining each side.
During intake, they took my picture, fingerprinted me and put all of my belongings into bags. Now, I’m taken to an empty cell and pushed inside. Apparently, words gotten around that I head-butted the cop. As soon as I step in, the cell door slams shut, and the mechanical lock slides into place.
It’s a haunting sound.
I can’t find the energy to even lie to myself about my situation.
I’m screwed. While I was being processed I heard the arresting officer rattle off the reasons for my arrest. Resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer, possession of a firearm, and public intoxication.
That last one is completely bullshit since I haven’t had a sip of alcohol in weeks, but since it’s the least of the charges it’s not really a concern.
They’re going to ask about the gun. They’re going to want to know where I got it, and I can’t tell them the truth.
To do that would open an entire can of worms on my brothers.
They’d search their apartment and then go searching for them.
And if Lev was telling me the truth, that they’d gotten involved with some big bad guys, having the police tracing them would only make things more dangerous for them.
Sitting on the bench, I rest my head against the concrete wall behind me. This could not get worse.
“Maxine.” A deep , dark voice rattles the bars of my cage.
I open my eyes. I was wrong.
Lev Yakovlev stands on the other side of my door. The heat in his glare could melt the bars between us.