Tristan
Jane arrives sooner than I could have imagined. She brings Abe’s dad, and the first thing he does is go into the kitchen to see what food is in the fridge. He begins talking to the doctor like they’ve known one another for years.
“Thanks for doing this,” I tell Jane, whose face is paler than normal. I hadn’t even finished speaking to her on the phone when I heard the sounds of someone getting ready to leave their house. “I have to go to Fujimori’s. I’ll be there and back.”
“What happened?” she asks, not caring about anything else.
I hesitate. It’s like all those times my dad tried to ask questions and I swept them under the rug.
“I know someone is trying to kill her,” Jane says, her voice steady. She’s never been given much credit. She spends all day weaving around the restaurant, smiling at mobsters. Jane Fujimori can handle the truth.
I just don’t want to admit it. “Shit got real bad. One gunshot wound. She took the guy out herself.”
Jane’s face tightens, but she nods.
“It was hand-to-hand,” I add so she understands how close and personal it was.
“She is sleeping?”
“She hasn’t moved much. The doctor will be here.” I mess with the strap of my wristwatch. I need to get moving. “I don’t think she really understands that we’ve moved her.”
“Don’t worry.” Jane squeezes my arm. “Go. We’ve got her.”
I pretend her kindness doesn’t affect me. “Thank you, Jane.”
The commute is awful because it’s an important meeting. But it’s also one I called without having any clear facts.
“Alley,” Ben says when I get there. There’s a good bustle, everyone taking an early lunch since it’s Friday.
“Thanks.” I clap his shoulder.
He narrows his eyes. “Jane and Abe’s dad isn't here.”
There’s an aggressive fire on the stove as I pass through the kitchen, Abe yelling about Madonna and fried rice.
I find Boris Akatov leaning against a brick wall, his ankles crossed, with a cigar in his hand.
“His wife doesn’t like them in the house,” Dimitri explains when he sees my confusion. “What are you and the little shit playing at?”
Ben wasn’t lying when he mentioned the Russian doesn’t like Hadrian.
Boris is calm, but I notice the steady way he studies me. He is here because something went down with his daughter's best friend. Not to mention when they were nearby.
“Thanks for meeting—”
“Spit it out,” Dimitri demands, riled. I’m not sure what plans I interrupted.
“Isolde killed a spider yesterday.”
“What?”
“Isolde killed a spi—”
My back hits the wall before I even notice Dimitri moving, his fingers twisting in my black shirt. When his dark eyes glow, I see it. The savagery of the Bratva.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
Boris says a few words in Russian, flicking ash on the ground. “Careful,” he chides, using English for my benefit. “Look at his fucking face. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Beneath the brim of his flat cap, Dimitri’s brow furrows.
I thought the brutality of killing a guy with her hands had fucked with Isolde’s mind, and that’s where her tears were coming from.
I push Dimitri off me. “What the fuck is a Spider?”
“What the fuck is a Spider?” Dimitri tugs at his cap. “Your girl took out a Spider, and you don’t fucking know?”
“No.” Someone needs to start explaining.
“Then how do you know it was a Spider?” Dimitri asks.
“Because Hadrian and Isolde said it was.”
Dimitri’s head swivels toward Boris.
He takes a deep drag of the cigar, smoke curling from his lips before he shrugs.
“Fucking Hallow. That. Fucking. Fuck!” Dimitri paces. He tugs at his hat so hard I think the fabric might split. “What the fuck are they doing that they know about the Spider.”
“Is the Spider not a triggerman?” I ask.
Dimitri laughs. “A triggerman. Oh, sure. Yeah, a fucking triggerman.”
I look to Boris for help.
He flicks more ash to the ground. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never met a Spider.”
What the fuck does that mean?
“A Spider. . .” Dimitri scratches his goatee. “The Spider is a myth. Or perhaps a ghost story. Or maybe he is just a triggerman. I wouldn’t know.”
“Someone sent him to kill Isolde,” I point out. He was definitely a triggerman.
Dimitri nods. “Yeah. And in the 1970s, you remember that guy stirring up trouble in Libya? A Spider also killed him.”
Boris shrugs. “Supposedly.”
“Slovakia’s president in 1999,” Dimitri says. “Killed by a Spider.”
Boris shrugs again. “Rumored.”
“That rich dude who died unexpectedly on his yacht last summer. Spider!”
Boris nods. “That one is most likely true.”
Luis said the man looked to be in his late forties to early fifties. “That’s a long time to be active.”
Dimitri closes his eyes, taking a deep breath like I’ve just pointed out the stupidest thing.
Boris inhales tobacco. “The Spider is not just one man.”
Understanding dawns. “A network.”
Boris shakes his head. “A family.”
“Who?”
“Fuck if we know,” Dimitri says, his hands curling into fists. This lack of knowledge kills him. “We think it started in the late sixties. If the rumors are true, there were eight brothers. Hence the name the Spider. With their stupid little legs and beady eyes and webs of bullshit.”
“I’m taking it you’ve had a few run-ins?” I ask.
“You ever hear about those men obsessed with the Loch Ness Monster?” Boris asks. “The Spider is his Nessie.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, messing with my collar. “So how many are there now?”
Dimitri doesn’t have to say anything. I can read it on his face. They have no clue.
“Right, so. . .” My shirt sticks to me, the warm summer air not helping. “Let’s say someone manages to kill a Spider. What do we think would happen then?”
The men are silent.
Boris finishes his cigar, dropping it to the ground. His Italian suit is immaculate despite the heat, his nonchalance a stark contrast to his brother-in-arms.
“A Spider in the city—it's best to prepare now,” he says. He’s played good cop so far, but his serious face silently relays his thoughts. His wife and daughters weren’t the target, but a Spider got close to them.
“We’re not fucking involved in this,” Dimitri says. “We’re not fucking involved in this.”
“Why did he come to town in the first place?” Boris asks.
Dimitri picks his head up. “Who the fuck did she get into it with?”
“Guy named Cade. Weed and Tweed.”
Disgust twists Dimitri’s face. “Those fucking idiots who sell to bumbling aristocrats.”
“Perhaps they’re not all bumbling,” Boris murmurs, looking to me for confirmation.
“Cade and Isolde got into it over his newfound venture, selling women to customers. His family wasn’t in on it. The O'Connells think it’s only a matter of time before he slits his father's and uncle’s own throats.”
“I know you worked for the Irish, but you can’t trust the O'Connells as far as you can throw them,” Boris says. It’s all the confirmation I need to feel right about keeping Ian off Fujimori’s radar.
“The Stuarts aren’t fucking with him either,” I say.
Boris and Dimitri frown at one another.
“There’s no way the Stuarts know the kid’s got a Spider in his back pocket,” Dimitri says. “They would never let that stand.”
“They’re weak,” Boris reminds. “They have been for ages.”
I tuck away the information that Boris is calmer talking about the Stuarts, the same family who kidnapped his daughter, than he is about the O'Connells.
“No.” Dimitri shakes his head. “Something about this isn’t right. The kid might be trying out a new venture, but how the fuck does he get the money and influence to even be in contact with a Spider?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Boris says. “It’s happening.”
“I don’t fucking like it.”
“Neither do I.”
A silent conversation runs between them.
Boris sighs, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Call whatever O’Connell you’ve been talking to. Tell them Cade’s got a Spider on the payroll.”
“You think they’d take him on?”
“Alone, no. With the Stuarts, possibly.”
“You think they’ll actually work to—”
“No one,” Dimitri says, “wants someone with access to a Spider in their city. The O'Connells will work with the Stuarts, but I guarantee you they’ll get the most out of the deal.”
Further hampering the Stuarts, who’ve been a pain in everyone’s ass. I’m not sure if Boris thinks giving the O’Connell’s London will keep them from trying to come back to New York, but I’m willing to bet he thinks the odds are high. That’s the only reason he’ll give them a possible win.
“And the Spider?” I ask. “What about him.”
Dimitri’s lips are a thin line. “I feel for your girl. I really do.”
“He showed up outside the bridal boutique,” I tell Boris.
Anger dims his eyes, not needing the reminder. “We’ll talk to our contacts. But the Spider has gotten where he is today because he can walk among us. No one knows who they are. Even after all this time. I don’t suppose you took a photo of the dead guy?”
No one thought to do that. We were doing everything to get rid of evidence.
“That’s actually a fucking pity,” Dimitri says. “You still have access to the body?”
I shake my head.
Dimitri growls under his breath. “The only thing I’ve ever heard is there’s a tattoo. On their right arm, down to the wrist.”
“What tattoo?”
He laughs again. “That’s the joke. You only recognize it when you realize you’re about to be killed by a Spider.”
“Anything else?” I ask.
“Nope.” Dimitri claps my shoulder. “Like I said, I feel for your girl. We’ll tighten shit up around here, but the best thing to do is prepare.”
They leave, and I am left to bleed out in the alleyway.
Hadrian and Isolde knew Cade had access to a mercenary that’s managed to stay faceless for decades. It’s why he hired me. Why Isolde fought it. Why she hasn’t asked for help.
She knew what Cade would do. Who he would send along. She’d gotten in that car yesterday because a guy like the Spider has the skill and lack of emotion to kill everyone in a bridal boutique just to get his target.
“What’s going on?” Ben appears in the doorway leading to the kitchen. “Trevino? Why the fuck did you meet with the Russians? Where’s Isolde?”
It takes everything in me to keep my voice level. “I need you to call Ren. Tell her she needs to get on a flight now.”