27. Roman
TWENTY-SEVEN
Roman
“Where are we?” Lucas asks when we stop. He probably expected us to drive to the estate and is surprised that we’ve already reached our destination.
“Our club,” I tell him, keeping my hand on his shoulder, signaling him to stay down as Quinn gets out of the car.
Lucas doesn’t ask for more information and I’m glad. Talking is still not that easy for me, especially when I’m stressed. I have to deliberately make myself speak, and that takes focus. I have little to spare right now. I can’t even afford to be angry. Not yet.
As I get out, I exert pressure with my hand, telling Lucas not to move. He’s used to my nonverbal signals and obeys.
Scanning the private parking area, I walk around the car to Lucas’s side. Quinn is already waiting at the club’s back door, alert and with his gun in hand. I don’t think we were followed, but neither of us is about to let our guard down.
When I open Lucas’s door and motion to him, he scrambles out. I shield him with my body as we hustle to the door that Quinn opens for us.
As we enter the club, my senses are immediately assaulted by slashing lights, a writhing mass of people, and a techno beat thumping through it all.
In some ways, I handle these total assaults on my senses better than the everyday chaos of the city. It reminds me of walking through the crowd in Oscar Crowley’s warehouse on my way to the fighting ring. There’s so much surrounding me that it kind of simplifies itself. I focus on anomalies. Movement that’s out of sync with the crowd. Sounds that disrupt the general cacophony.
I guide Lucas along the edge of the crowd to a guarded set of stairs that take us up to the more exclusive mezzanine level. Quinn and I have stowed our guns, but our brisk movement has people looking up from their conversations at the banquettes.
As we approach the door to the private rooms, Sasha opens it and stands back. Our passage through the club has been tracked via cameras, reported also by security. This is one of the reasons, in addition to the club being closer than the estate, that we’ve come here. Between the extra security and the public as a buffer, attack here is less likely and easier to repel.
As we enter the lavish office/lounge, Sasha closes the door behind us. Vitali is standing behind the desk talking on his phone.
He looks up, visually evaluating us as he says, “Yes. Fine. Good.” He ends the call. “Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell happened?”
I guide Lucas to the couch and push him down. While Quinn fills Vitali in, I start pacing. I can’t switch gears as fast as Quinn. I can’t just shut down my adrenaline, and without a focus for it, it’s quickly turning into anger.
“You’re sure it was the DiMaggios?” Vitali asks after Quinn reports.
“Yes,” Quinn answers. “The one who came at Roman—”
“We kill them,” I cut into the conversation. “All of them.”
Vitali says, “If it were that easy, I would’ve already done it.”
I go stalking toward him. “Lucas could have been killed. If you fucking think—”
“We will retaliate,” Vitali insists, holding his ground as I crowd into his space. “We just have to decide how to do it. We have to choose a target that we can access.”
The door opens. Anton walks in looking furious. “Is it true? The DiMaggios came after Roman?”
Vitali says, “Yes. So we need to figure out the cleanest and most accessible target—”
“Fuck that,” Anton interrupts. “This isn’t the first time they’ve come after Roman. We have to end this.”
I stare at my uncle, stunned by his reaction. I would never have thought he would take my side or be upset on my behalf.
“Tonight needs to be a statement,” Vitali argues. “We’re not ready for war—”
“Would you say that if Roman had been killed?” Anton demands. “Or captured again and sold like a fucking slave?”
I don’t really react to his words, but Vitali does. He goes cold. He turns vicious. I watch it happen in his eyes as Anton’s words twist something inside him.
“Fine,” Vitali says with icy calm. “We hit Gavino. His house.”
“Good,” Anton agrees.
Somewhere inside me, an alarm rings, but there are so many alarms ringing that I don’t know whether to pay attention to it.
Shit happens fast after that. Calls are made, orders given. I let it happen around me. I step back from it—because I can see that Lucas is worried, that he’s scared. His eyes are huge as he tracks everything.
As I approach him, he pops up from the couch. “Don’t leave,” he begs. “Please stay.”
“You’ll be safe here,” I promise him.
“I’m not worried about me! None of this is about me! Roman—”
“This has to be done, Lucas,” I say, forcing all my focus onto him so I can explain. “I cannot have it be unsafe for you to be in the city with me. The DiMaggios need to understand the consequences of attacking us.”
He shakes his head like there’s some other way to understand this. “But Vitali said we’re not ready—”
“He’s with me on this.”
“But only because your uncle—”
Lucas gets cut off again as Vitali calls, “Roman.”
I grip the back of Lucas’s neck. “You’ll be safe here.”
The location is safe, and Quinn will be with him, along with Anton and his bodyguard.
Lucas’s hand curls around my wrist. “Roman, something is wrong. I can feel it.”
“Roman,” Vitali calls again.
I haul Lucas close to tell him that I love him because I have no more words. He grabs on, holds tight, tries to stop me, but I have to go. This is the way I know to solve these problems. It’s like more of that long-dormant muscle memory, like when my hand curled so familiarly around that whiskey glass.
I pull away and go with Vitali. I don’t look at Lucas again as we leave. I don’t look at my uncle either, but I do hear his voice as he says, “Blood and honor.”
I’ve heard it a hundred times, spoken by him or my father or Vitali, but something about it echoes strangely as I walk out into the sights and sounds of the nightclub, triggering another wave of déjà vu.
I fight it with everything I’ve got. I cannot afford to be distracted right now. I have no time for my own shit.
I manage to keep the sensation at the edge of my awareness, but I can’t banish it completely. As we descend the steps from the mezzanine into the belly of the club, the slashing lights and thumping beat and writhing crowd feel doubled. I look out across the chaos, dizzied by it, seeing it both now and in the past.
A hand claps on my shoulder because I’ve stopped. I look up, suddenly nauseated.
For a second I see my uncle as I hear, “Let’s get outside.”
But it’s not my uncle. It’s Vitali.
I swallow my nausea and follow him along the edge of the crowd to the door. As we step out into the night air, I suck in a deep breath.
I try to rid myself of the nagging sense of déjà vu, but it only intensifies as a black van pulls up and the back doors open. Vitali says my name. He’s staring at me. He knows something is wrong, but he doesn’t know what it is.
Neither do I.
So I push it away.
I get in the van and sit on one of the benches lining the side, crowding in with our men. Vitali gets in as well. The doors close, rendering the interior dark. The van starts to roll.
The sense of déjà vu won’t go away, and now that I have silence again, with nothing to decide or do, I realize that all those alarms are still ringing inside me for some reason.
I’m missing something. Something important. I close my eyes as we pick up speed.
Pieces of memories float up. The chaos of the nightclub. A glass of whiskey. Dizziness. Nausea.
Let’s get outside.
Staggering through the club and out into the night like I’m drunk. Falling.
Seeing pant legs and shoes as someone stands over me. But who?
Fuck— who ?
The van rolls onward, just like another van did that night when I was lying semi-conscious on the floor of it with my wrists and ankles bound.
I force my mind back to the parking lot, to the shoes. The man crouches.
Blood and honor—what a fucking joke.
My eyes pop open. “Stop the van!”