Chapter 15
“This isn’t the way to the hospital.” Elana presses her hand to her window as I turn on to the dirt road.
We’ve been off the highway for half an hour; I guess she assumed we’d be heading into town. I let her have her assumptions.
“I told you no hospitals.”
“Dammit, Artem. You’re back to that?”
“We’re almost there.” I slow the car looking for the right spot. When I see the barely there green marking on a fallen tree, I pull past it and turn.
“Almost where? We’re nowhere! What are you doing; you’re getting off the road.” She braces herself with her hands on the dashboard as the SUV bounces, driving over small logs and debris.
“It will smooth out in a moment.” I assure her, keeping my focus on finding where the path picks up again.
“You’re crazy. Do you know that?”
I grin. “Says the woman who scaled down the side of her friend’s apartment building in order to shake loose her security detail.”
“That wasn’t crazy; that was smart.”
“Or when you used a garbage can to climb up to the small window in the bathroom so you could squeeze through and get out to the alley behind that club you had no business being at. Again, to get rid of your security.”
“You’re just sore because I was able to get away from you so easily,” she boasts, her voice full of pride.
The terrain finally smooths, and I turn onto a beaten down path, taking us further into the woods.
“You really believe you were able to shake me every time?” I take note of the camouflaged cameras pointed at us from the treetops. I slow down as we pass the next to give him time to see our faces. The last thing I need is him racing out of the cabin with guns pointed at us.
“I did, though.”
“We’re here.” I stop the SUV.
“Wait.” She grabs my thigh. “You can’t just say something like that then end the conversation.”
“Not once did you evade me successfully. Not a single time. Even when you were able to break away from the men I put on your detail, I knew where you were. Every time.” The car jostles as I turn to face her. “I knew about you and Tony.”
She pulls back. “What? How?”
“Your brothers have a tracker on your phone.”
“Then they would have known—”
“Kaz put the tracker on right after Tony and his brothers were killed. He knew you’d take off, and he wanted to be sure he could find you. What he didn’t know was I had already installed one when you moved out of your apartment at school.”
“No, you didn’t.” She digs around her coat pocket until she finds her phone and yanks it out, swiping through the applications. “There’s nothing here.”
I pluck the device from her hands and scroll through the screens, tapping on an icon that looks to be for a pre-loaded game. Inside the app, which looks like a factory set gaming app, I tap the settings and show her the actual purpose of the software.
Her mouth drops open, and she snatches the phone back.
“You knew? The whole time you knew I was seeing Tony?” When she raises her eyes back to mine, confusion swims in them.
She twists to look behind her when she notices I’ve moved my attention to what’s outside the car.
“Who is that?” She whispers her question as though the old bastard can hear her from this distance.
Seamus stands on the porch of his cabin. He’s aged since I’ve last seen him. It’s been ten years, but the man looks like it’s been twenty. It’s probably the damn beard. He’s let it get too long, and it’s turned gray.
“That,” I sigh, “is Seamus Kelly.”
“He’s Irish?” She swings back to me. “Like Irish-Irish?”
I drape my arm over the steering wheel and peer at him through the windshield. He knows it’s me. I can tell because he looks ready to peel my skin off. Don’t really blame him.
The last time I saw him, he’d been nursing a black eye and broken nose I’d given him.
“We can trust him.”
“How do you know him?”
I pause a beat. “He’s my father.”
A little sound comes out of her, like the squeak of a mouse. She covers her mouth with her hand as though to keep any response from falling out and turns back to the window.
“You’re Irish?”
“No.” The weight of iron is in my answer. “He’s Irish.”
“I don’t understand.” She shakes her head a little.
“There’s going to be a lot of that with him. Right now, let’s just get this over with.”
“Is he a doctor?”
I laugh. “No, but he’s the closest to one I’m going to get around here. Unless you’ve decided we should go home?” I arch an eyebrow at her.
If I truly wanted to get her ass on a plane and back to Chicago, I could. It’d be as easy as lifting her and throwing her over my shoulder, but one thing I’ve learned with Elana, pushing her makes her feel cornered. And just like any other wild animal, when she feels that way, she attacks.
“I don’t understand how that man is your father.”
“Not now, Elana.” I squeeze her hand.
“Fine. But you’re going to tell me everything.” She pats my arm, over the bandage of where the fucking raccoon bit me.
She must notice my body stiffen because she yanks her hand back.
“Sorry. I forgot.” She laughs as she pushes the door open.
“Forgot? The whole reason we’re here is… you know what, never mind. Let’s go.” I shove open my door. It’s this place. I’m already on edge, and I haven’t even gotten close enough to him to smell the pipe stench clinging to his clothes.
I can sense his eyes on me as I stalk around the front of SUV to Elana’s door. She pops it open just as I reach her side and jumps down.
“Since you’ve never mentioned him, I’m assuming you don’t have the best relationship with him,” she says under her breath as we make our way toward the cabin.
“You’re alive.” Seamus grunts, hooking his hands on his hips.
“So are you.” We stop at the foot of the stairs.
“Hi.” Elana pipes up. “I’m sorry to barge in on you like this.” She climbs three steps, stopping one below him.
He slowly moves his gaze to her, lifting his brows when he notices she’s stuck her hand out to him.
“I’m Elana. It’s nice to meet you.”
Just like her to breeze through the tension of the situation as though it’s not even there. I wonder if she realizes her ability to soothe tensions so easily. She’s also capable of creating enough hostility to make grown men tear each other apart.
A woman of many talents.
Seamus looks to me, ignoring her hand.
“Elana Volkov,” I tell him. “Vladimir’s granddaughter.”
“Oh.” He takes her hand then. “I suppose that’s fitting.”
“What’s fitting?” She asks, looking over her shoulder at me. I lift my shoulders like I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“Him taking a Volkov woman to his bed.”
Elana yanks her hand away from him. “What the hell does that mean?” she demands.
He’s lit the fire now.
“Ignore him, Elana.” I move up the steps to her side. “I need some medicine, then we’ll be out of your hair.”
“Medicine?” He eyes me. “For what?”
“He was bitten by an animal with rabies. I flushed the wound, but it needs to be treated, and then he’ll need antibodies. I told him we should go to a hospital, but he seems to think you can help.”
I pull up the sleeve of my jacket, exposing the white bandage Elana taped over the wounds.
“You were bit? By what?”
“Does it matter? Do you have anything that will help or not?” Elana grabs hold of my hand, as though to give me strength. Does she think he’s getting under my skin?
I’ve taken bullets; a few barbs from this bastard aren’t going to hurt me. Besides, I learned a long time ago his opinion doesn’t count for much. A man who shirks his responsibility to his family isn’t a man at all.
“She’s got a mouth on her.” Seamus eyes me again. “Come inside. I’ll get you patched up.”
He opens the screen door to the cabin and goes inside. I grab it before it slams shut.
“Behave while we’re here,” I warn Elana when she steps onto the porch.
She laughs. “What do you think I’m going to do? Start a war between another crime family and mine?”
I sigh. Chaos seems to choose her.
Seamus gestures toward the kitchen. “Have a seat. I’ll get what I need.”
“I did not expect this.” Elana stands next to me surveying the cabin.
The exterior of the cabin is exactly what’d anyone would expect in the middle of the woods. A log cabin with small porch, some rickety wood planks for steps. A screen on the door to keep out the mosquitos. An ordinary small hunting cabin in the middle of the trees.
Inside, though, is like stepping into a James Bond movie. The kitchen has stainless steel, top of the line appliances. Granite countertops, and a kitchen island with an iron pot rack hanging overhead. The rest of the cabin is furnished the same way, modern and sleek.
“It’s so much bigger than it looks,” she says taking a step into the living area. Stairs trail off into a lower level on the side of the fireplace.
“Most of it is underground.” I tell her, shucking out of my jacket.
“Like a bunker?”
“Exactly like a bunker.” It wasn’t only my mother and family Seamus abandoned in his life. He has good reason to be hiding deep in the woods of Maine.
“How long ago was the bite?” Seamus brings a medical kit into the kitchen and sets up on the island. He glances up where Elana is looking at a frame on the wall in the living area. “Don’t touch that.”
Elana pulls her hand back like it was about to bite her.
“It’s crooked, I was going to fix it,” she explains.
“It’s crooked for a reason. Come over here and sit before you get yourself hurt.” Seamus points at the stools surrounding the island.
“He’s just as bossy as you,” Elana mutters, passing me and taking the stool at the end. “How can I get hurt touching a frame?”
“It’s not the frame, it’s what’s behind the frame,” I explain to her, watching Seamus pull out vials and needles from his kit. “What the hell is all that for? Isn’t it just some ointment?”
“For rabies? No.” He laughs. “You need a shot now, and then you’ll need to take one every couple of days. So, when did you get the bite?”
“A few hours ago.” I peel off the bandage from my arm. The wound has stopped bleeding, but the skin around the teeth marks is angry red.
“Good, then so long as you do the whole sequence of shots you should be all right.” He draws up medicine into a syringe then places it on the counter. “Gotta clean it first.”
“She poured a bunch of alcohol into it already.”
“Good.” He pulls out a small, unlabeled bottle and gauze. “You did a good job, too.” He says to Elana as he inspects the wounds.
“Oh, am I allowed to talk? I wasn’t sure if I should just sit here with my hands in my pockets.”
“Elana,” I warn, glaring over at her.
“I have to pee. Is there a bathroom that’s safe to use?” She hops off her stool.
“Down those stairs. Take the first right, it’ll be on your left down the hall.” Seamus tells her.
“I’ll be right back.”
Once she’s down the stairs and out of earshot, I turn to Seamus. “There’s a bathroom right around the corner on this floor.”
“There is.” He nods. “But this way it will take her a little longer. She needs to walk off some steam.”
“Your comment about her being in my bed pissed her off. She doesn’t like being labeled a Volkov.”
He stops dabbing around my wounds to look up at me. “Who’s that? Is she not proud of the Volkov name?”
He stretches out his back, expanding his chest as though he’s mimicking being full of pride.
“Focus on what you’re doing and leave her alone.” As much as the fire in her eyes gets my blood pumping, I’m the only one allowed to light the flames.
He cleans the teeth marks on my arm with more antiseptic wipes.
“How did this happen, anyway?” he questions, getting the injection ready.
“I was bitten.”
He gives me a sharp look. “No shit. But how did you get bit, and by what? A rabid dog?” He looks closer at the wounds. “No, this isn’t a dog bite…a raccoon?”
“Just give me the shot.”
He laughs as he injects the medicine. I clench my teeth as the sting spreads through my skin.
“You’ll need another in a few days. I’ll get the syringes set up for you and write down when you need them.” He pushes the cap back on the needle and cleans up his workspace.
“That’s fine.”
“So, now tell me. What is going on? How did you end up here with the Volkov princess?” He leans back against the counter with his arms crossed over his chest.
A scream echoes through the cabin just before glass crashes.
“Elana!”