Chapter 5 – Egor
I splashed my face with both hands cupped and shut off the tap. The water was like zero degrees, smelling of rust with a hint of blood. The idea wouldn’t have been too farfetched, considering the atrocities that went on inside the small fucked up facility.
Echoing noises from the hallway floated into the cemented room, and I strode back to the limp bed stationed by the wall. Someone screamed, and a bunch of unidentified others threw curses at a few officers passing by.
I blocked them out, tuned off every one of their desperate attempts to rile up the policemen, and focused on the litter in front of me.
Laying on the dusty brown sheets were balls of paper, crumpled paper—testaments of an hour of wasted efforts—because, somehow, I wasn’t getting the edges right. But in the midst of the failures, staring up at me, was the golden goose.
Well, the almost finished golden goose.
I crossed one leg over the other and sharpened the pencil with a rough brush on the cemented ground.
Four nights ago, I never thought I’d be sitting in a jail cell, using a sketchbook tossed into the room by a frightened cop.
But here I was, filthy, in stinking clothes that could have passed off for rags, and idle, with all my concentration on the black pencil and white piece of paper as I slowly sketched the soft curve of her jaw and the hard lines over her eyes.
As fast as the seconds ticked by, the quicker the drawing came alive. Each stroke provoked more thoughts in my mind, like, for instance, what fucking evidence could she have against me?
I shaded her left eyebrow, remembering how it arched when I’d challenged the veracity of her claim.
How the fuck did she even know?
The pencil glided to the corner of her eyes, detailing the crinkles when they’d narrowed dangerously.
I always, fucking always, made sure to never leave any incriminating thing behind at the scene of the crime. Including the late Pahkan ’s study.
I remembered it like it was yesterday: the pretense of a warm welcome but a guarded look on his face when I paid him a surprise visit, his sudden caution when I pulled out my gun, and the anger radiating off him when he realized my intent. To prepare him for an early grave.
“What is this? Put away that fucking gun now.”
I waved it in the air, strengthened my resolve, and said, “No.”
His confidence wavered then when he knew there was no changing my mind. He’d seen how it was going to end and tried to plead. “Why will you betray me like this, Egor?”
“Your gimmicks won’t work on me, Uncle. Your time is up.”
He’d started talking….
And I’d pulled the trigger.
I remembered watching the light leave his eyes and seeing his body crumple to the ground, and after I sent the second bullet through his skull, I remembered walking out of that study without leaving any trace behind.
Just his lifeless, bloodied body on the carpet and nothing else. No one would have had the capacity or intellect high enough to trace his death back to me.
Two years later, Detective Freya Fox popped up from out of fucking nowhere like a mole to shatter the memory in my head and disprove that theory.
Many thoughts poked the back of my brain like a needle. Her identity seemed plain and simple, but I knew women like her had background stories. The type that fueled their motivation to do shit like this.
She was like a silent bomb, an unexpected one. Dropped in the middle of a town going about their normal business. Just before the explosions happened.
She’d disrupted everything. Managed to waltz right in and shake the foundations of a structure I’d raised over the years. And I wanted to know everything about her. Needed to arm myself with enough information to teach her the basic lesson every amateur needed to learn: No one messed with Egor Yezhov and got away with it.
Not even if they had pretty brown eyes and could speak four languages.
I finished the shade on her right eyebrow, added an extra dark stroke to the messy curls hanging over her eyes, and dusted the sketch with the back of my fingers.
I looked at her, and she looked back at me, fierce and fearless, just like she had done back then in the interrogation room.
My lips tilted up.
At the same time, the steel bars rolled backward with a loud clank, and two buffy men marched in with puffed-up chests.
“You have a visitor,” one said rather gruffly. He wore a cap and a bulletproof vest and clutched his gun by his belt. The other one was squeamish. I recognized him, the guard attached to Officer Clinton.
I leaned forward and eyed them both. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
“Well, someone’s in the private room expecting you,” he barked back and sidestepped, urging me out with a whisk of his arm. “Come on, get moving.”
I folded the paper into a square, tucked it into my back pocket, and held my tongue from giving the officer an earful while he cuffed me.
He must have dreamt of the moment he’d get to bark orders at me, and now that he’d gotten the moment, he was savoring every bit of it.
Maybe if I punched him in the face, his moment would taste a lot better.
The door opened, and he shoved my shoulder. “Thirty minutes,” he announced, and I glared before he shut the door.
“Fucking asshole,” I growled under my breath, edging closer to the table in the middle of the room as I rolled my shoulders. The legs of the chair scraped backward when I sat down and assessed my visitor. “So, it’s you.”
He set his leather briefcase on the table with a cheesy smile, opened it, and took out a bunch of papers.
I scratched the edge of my eyebrow. “Care to fill me in? I’m not quite sure what you’re smiling about.”
“Nothing.” Arlo dusted off his dark blue suit and straightened in the chair. “It’s just good to see you.”
A snort escaped me.
“Sure, it’ll be good to see me when you’re at the other end of the table.” Clasping my hands over my knee, I gave him a look. “Everyone around here thinks I have something to do with your disappearance and detachment from this case, and as much as I would like to take the credit, we both know I had nothing to do with it.”
Arlo’s smile widened for a brief moment but was bright enough to show his teeth. “I made quick calls, some contacts that owed me a few favors.”
“A few favors?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, arranged the bunch of papers in a neat stack, and looked at me. His smile dropped. “I tried to grease a few palms to extend their benevolence and even made contact with a number of your resources, but given your reputation, not a lot of people were willing to, you know, associate or get involved. Every man’s looking out for himself. Plus, the case at hand is dire.”
“Hm.”
On a very regular day, I didn’t need Arlo greasing palms for me or making attempts to get anyone to associate . But he was right; I’d had a knife pressed to Ronan’s neck, and the army of my adversaries lurking in the shadows were too numerous to number. A lot of them likely popped bottles to celebrate the news of having me thrown behind bars.
When I got out of here, he was going to give me the names of those two-faced bastards. And maybe I should have appreciated Arlo’s heartwarming effort to help me, but….
My eyes narrowed to slits. “So, you came here to deliver bad news, then?”
“Not exactly.”
He stretched out an arm, handing me the stack of papers. With a growl, I shoved his arm away and rubbed my temple.
“Fucking tell me how bad this is looking, Arlo, and don’t start with the legal vocabulary shit. Say it as it is. What are my chances?”
He smacked his lips like he was reviewing the option to either spill the truth or keep me in the dark. His final decision was clear when he heaved a sigh and dropped the stack.
His fingers twisted together. “Not all your resources turned out to be useless at the end of the day. I’ve been able to secure bail for you for some weeks until the court hearing.”
“So, I’m still going to stand before the fucking judge?”
“ Dah. ” Yes. “They’re not just going to let you go scot-free now, Korol…. They’re going to want you to suffer first. That’s why I have to get you out of here as soon as possible.”
After a heartbeat of silence, I blew out a breath. “Fine, then. What’s the plan?”
***
The driver’s door slammed shut, and Arlo strapped on his seatbelt. The door locks clicked, and I pinched the snug black hoodie from my torso, staring up at him.
“You got the clothes from….”
“Cielle’s store. I figured you’d need a change of wardrobe. I would have gotten a lot more, and maybe sent in a request that they let you shower first before—”
One hard look from me shut him up.
He turned the key, and the engine purred. “Point is, you won’t need the extra clothes for where we’re going.”
The clothes smelled clean and new, and nothing like fucking jail food and sweat and blood and rust. I raked my fingers through my hair and shut my eyes, inhaling the smell of fresh air breezing in through the window.
Then, his words came back to me.
I faced him. “And where are we going?”
His eyes were fixed on the road, and his fingers gripped tightly on the wheel. “Private terminal. Normally, considering the crime you’re being charged for, you aren’t allowed to travel, but as I said, I greased—”
“Some palms,” I finished for him. “Yeah, I get it. Thank you. Now, where are we going?”
“Boarding a private jet to Moscow; that’s where. You’re going home, Korol. I wish we had alternate options, but staying out of sight for now is our best option. You have to leave LA for a while to avoid sniffing noses and prying eyes, especially the police.”
“Hm.”
I mused over the details he’d dished out while he drove the Mercedes at breakneck speed. The recommendations did not lie. Arlo Kenvoz really was the best lawyer one could have.
His gaze brushed over my fingers, and he jerked a thumb at them. “You’ve been busy, I see.”
The black dust on my fingers rang like a bell, loud enough to reecho her words in my ears.
You have ten days.
You think you’re so untouchable, don’t you?
All you have to do is give me a chance to prove that your armor is, in fact, destructible.
If you don’t adhere, I will hand over the evidence to my supervisors, and trust me, no power on or beyond the Earth will save you from what’s coming.
“Turn the car around.”
He didn’t hide his confusion. “What?”
“The car? Turn it around. I need to fetch something before I leave.” Reaching for the back seat, I shuffled the paper out of the back pocket of my pants and showed him the drawing.
His brows creased deeper, and his eyes met mine. “Her?”
I nodded. “Her. She’s the reason I wanted to get out of there so badly.”
My freedom was the only way I could teach her a lesson.