13. Thirteen
I woke up feeling like dogshite. My head was full of wet socks, and Pavel had put them there this morning at the flat.
I was in my pants on a wooden chair, hands tied behind me, shoulders gone past complaining and into proper protest. The rope at my elbows had been done by somebody with a grudge.
Under the wet socks, my blood was running high and sour.
I was hours past a dose, and whatever Pavel had stuck in my leg hadn't come with a kit.
I kept my eyes shut and listened. Two of them were in the room, one American, one Russian, both whispering softly. The Russian I had straight away. It was Pavel. Cardigan-and-cross Pavel from this morning at the flat.
The American took me a second longer. When I got it, I wished I hadn't.
It was Mr. K. Of course it was. Who else would Pavel sell me to?
He'd come round the east-side workroom every other Tuesday for six months to walk down the row and count us out.
We were goods to him. He'd been in the doorway of my da's shop on Victoria Street when they shot him.
He'd walked out with my granddad's tool roll while my da was still on the cutting floor.
I went cold all the way down. It was the kind of cold where your hands stop being yours.
I'd thought about Mr. K most days for six months. I'd thought about killing him. I'd thought about what it would be like to be in a room with him again, what I'd say, how I'd hold my face. Turned out the reality was a chair in my pants and a head full of wet socks. Brilliant.
I opened my eyes.
The chair had creaked, the listening was over, and I was sick of being in the dark with my own thoughts, anyway.
It was a workroom. There was a cutting table, a leather strop, a Singer in the corner with a fresh bobbin on the plate. The whole setup was Mr. K's, hidden behind whatever the shop pretended to be from the street. Same as the east-side workroom, just dressed up in money.
I was back at it. Different room, same bench. It made me want to chew through the rope just to put my hands somewhere they couldn't sew.
Mr. K was six feet in front of the chair, hands behind his back, dark wool suit, the fake Rolex still on his left wrist. He gave me the inventory check. Same one he'd done eighty-odd times at the workroom. I'd been misplaced and now I was back. Some things you could count on.
Pavel was a step behind him. Cardigan, cross at the throat, the look of a man who'd been told there'd be coffee.
"Finlay. You look well."
I had to dig for my voice. "I'd stand up, but I'm a wee bit indisposed."
Mr. K looked me over. Chair, rope, pants, gooseflesh up my arms. "Pavel. Did you not think to put something on him?"
"He doesn't need it."
"He's freezing."
"He's an asset. Not the guest."
Mr. K made a small huff through his nose. He took off his suit jacket, walked four steps over, and laid it across my bare shoulders like a barber's cape. The silk lining hit my skin, and I recoiled. He stepped back.
"Better."
It wasn't better. It was worse. I'd rather have sat in the cold than wear the jacket of the man who'd had my da shot.
The smell of him was in the lining. Cologne, smoke, money.
I tried to shrug the thing off, and the rope at my elbows held my shoulders where they were.
So I sat there with Mr. K on my back and my face on fire.
"You've had a hard week, Finlay. Pavel did not handle this well."
"He held a gun to my head and stuck a needle in my leg. Define handle."
"Indeed." He drifted back to the cutting table and rested one hand on the edge.
The ring on his finger was thin, old gold.
"Pavel had been in some difficulty. We accommodated him.
The arrangement was that he would deliver to me what I had lost in the warehouse. He has delivered. You are what I lost."
"Christ. Yer terms of trade are dogshite."
"You always did have a mouth."
"Aye, well. It's the part of me ye didnae break."
"Pavel." He didn't turn. "Car?"
"Round the back. Five minutes."
"Good. We'll have him in the air by midnight." There's a kit in the car for him. See it gets on the plane." He didn't even look at me when he said it. "The asset is of no use to me in a coma."
Five minutes.
That landed hard. I'd been ready to die for six months. I wasn't ready to leave. Mr. K didn't need me dead. He needed my hands. He was going to put me on a plane in five minutes, and that was worse than dying.
I tried the rope hard. The chair grunted. Nothing else moved.
Aleksi was on his way. He had to be. That was who he was.
He'd be on it somewhere by now, doing whatever vor things you did to find a missing man.
He was going to walk into Pavel, Mr. K, the Italian at the door.
He was going to die for me on a shop floor in Greek Village. I hadn't even kissed him properly yet.
Don't come, you fucking idiot. Don't come. Please come.
"Pavel."
Pavel came round and pulled a small folding knife from his cardigan pocket.
"Let's get him on his feet."
The knife came at my right ankle. I twisted under it. The chair grunted. The blade stopped against the inside of my foot.
"Finlay," Mr. K scolded. "You're making this harder than it has to be."
"Aye. I am."
The Italian at the front door of the room stepped in with his sidearm coming up.
Mr. K raised a finger, and the Italian stopped where he stood.
The rifleman against the back wall didn't move.
He didn't need to. He was Pavel's man from this morning, the one I'd put a paperweight through.
Someone had taped his nose with a field dressing, gone red at the edges already.
Pavel got the first ankle free. He'd just reached for the second when the bell at the door rang.
My chest dropped through my ribs. I knew.
Mr. K knew too. He turned his head a fraction toward the back office door.
The Italian at the front door pivoted with his sidearm already coming up. The first shot was in the room before anyone was ready. It took him in the throat. He went sideways into the doorway with the sound of a wet bag. The sidearm hit the boards before he did.
I flinched so hard that the chair lifted at the back legs.
The rifleman at the back wall came off it fast. The second shot took him under the jaw. He sat down against the wall and stayed sat. The rifle clattered off his lap.
Aleksi.
It had to be Aleksi.
Pavel dropped the knife. He reached for the gun at the small of his back. The third shot came from the doorway behind him and took him in the back before his hand made it.
He went forward onto his face on the boards. The three-bar cross at his neck swung once and stayed.
He was here. He'd come!
Mr. K was already at the back door. Aleksi spotted him over my head and fired. The round went into the doorframe a finger from his ear. Mr. K ducked through the back door and pulled it shut behind him.
I should have cared more that he’d gotten away.
I didn't. Aleksi came round the front of the chair, and I'd run out of room for anything else.
He looked like shit. His coat was open, his tie was on wrong, and he had blood on his cuff that wasn't his. His lips were a thin, angry line. He'd come in here ready to put four bodies on the floor, and he'd settled for three, and the one that got away was the one he'd wanted.
"Christ," he said. Like I'd been a fucking inconvenience.
"Aye, took yer fucking time."
"Shut up, Fin."
He started cutting the ropes. My shoulders unlocked, and I made a sound I wasn't proud of. My arms came forward and dropped where they wanted. Wrist next. Pins and needles started before he'd got the rope clear. I bit the inside of my cheek. No tears in front of him this time.
He took one of my hands and worked it roughly between his. It hurt. The blood coming back into fingers that had given up an hour ago hurt like a bastard. He did the other hand the same way.
"Yer hair needs cutting," I managed.
"Shut. Up."
"Just saying. Told ye on Sunday. Ye've ignored me a fair amount this week."
He looked up. His jaw was tight enough that I could hear his teeth. Then he saw the jacket on my shoulders.
"Take that the fuck off."
The silk came off in his fist hard enough to rock the chair. The jacket hit the floor, and he put his heel on it and ground.
"Possessive bastard, aren't ye?"
"Fin."
"I'm just —"
He grabbed the back of my neck and kissed me.
It wasn't soft, and it wasn't kind. He kissed me like he wanted to put me through the chair.
He tasted of vodka and cordite and bad decisions.
I'd waited a week with a split lip he'd given me, with his cowardice, with his fucking back-out, and the second he gave me his lips I bit them.
He grunted and kissed me harder. The metal taste of the drug came up the back of my throat and I kept going.
He pulled back like I was the problem. His hand was still locked on my jaw, and he hadn't decided yet whether to let go or break it. He half looked like he wanted to hit me. The other half looked like he wanted to kiss me again. I'd given him about a second to make up his mind.
Then I slapped him.
The sound was sharp in a room with three dead men. His head turned with it. His eyes came back. They weren't angry. They were tired. They were grateful. He'd known he had it coming from the drive over.
"That was for being a fucking coward." My voice cracked.
I caught the front of his shirt in both fists and hauled him in for another kiss, this one slow. His hand moved from the back of my head to the side of my face and stayed there until I let him go.
"And that was because ye came for me, ye fucking idiot."
"I earned that."
"Aye, ye did."
He pushed up off his bad knee with a grunt and shrugged out of his coat. He stepped round behind the chair and dropped the coat over my shoulders, settled it, pulled it closed at my front.
The weight of it nearly put me through the floor. The wool was heavy, warm, and smelled of his cologne. I closed my eyes for a second. If I'd looked at him in that moment, I'd have done something I couldn't take back.
"Better?"
"Aye."
"Up."
"Bossy."
My legs had some opinions about being mine again. Aleksi got past them. He had a hand on my elbow, and that hand was non-negotiable about whether I walked, so I walked. The shop was longer leaving than coming in. Either that or my legs were liars.
Gregori had the car at the curb, engine running, eyes ahead. He didn't look at me in his boss's coat. He didn't look at his boss in shirtsleeves.
"Cleanup crew?" was all he said.
"No time. Murphy can't hold four blocks forever, and the kid needs Collins." Aleksi pulled his door shut. "Leave it. It'll cost me. Drive."
He drove.
I slumped against the back of the seat the second I got in. The leather was cold, and I didn't fucking care. Aleksi was next to me. Aleksi's coat was on me. The second the door shut, I started shaking, adrenaline finally catching up to me, and he didn't say a word. He let me shake.
Mr. K would be on a plane by midnight. My da was still where I'd left him in Edinburgh. The coat smelled of vodka, cordite, and a man who'd shot three people to get me back. I'd take that and the bill that came with it.