Chapter 47
CHAPTER
FORTY-SEVEN
Sia
Val: Maxim says he wants you and Lettie to head to the lake. I probably should give you some bullshit excuse about why, but the fact of the matter is you’re about to marry him so I believe you’re able to handle real talk. He wants you and Lettie to stay out with Polly longer. His boss is at the house, and he doesn’t want you there. Don’t tell Lettie though. He wouldn’t want her to worry. Just go to the lake and wait for my report.
Val’s text gave me pause, but I didn’t let that show.
Me: Should I worry?
I didn’t understand why I should. I mean, Maxim said his boss was like a second father. Unless, his boss had some bad news…
Val: I’m not sure.
Val: I’m on my way to the house. Just take Lettie to the lake and be discreet.
I didn’t know what excuse I’d use. It was cold enough to see our breath outside. It was winter for fuck’s sake.
And I was worried. The unknown made me worry, and the fact that the man I was about to marry was in the mob. He also hadn’t wanted to tell me anything, and that really made me freaking worry. I lifted my head. “Hey. Why don’t we take Polly to the lake?”
Lettie had been directing Polly back to the house. She adjusted her coat. “You sure? It’s kind of cold.”
We’d taken the long way through the vineyards. Polly had her snow boots on, and Lettie and I had been chatting. It’d been nice, but it was cold so we’d been trying to head back. I shrugged casually. “Yeah, I like us just talking and stuff.”
I didn’t like lying to her, and though I did enjoy talking, I wouldn’t normally linger out in the cold.
Lettie, as open as she was to adventures, didn’t question it, and I smiled before leading the charge. I took Polly, and Lettie followed behind me.
She adjusted her scarf around her head. She had it wrapped like a Hollywood starlet over her pale locks. She squinted. “Hey, I think that’s Ivan.”
Lettie waved a hand to a man who was already by the lake. It was him and a couple other guys, and they all had serious dispositions about them.
They were also big as fuck.
They wore ankle-length wool coats and hats. They all turned, and the one in front lifted a hand in our direction. I assumed that was Ivan, and when Lettie started to head toward him, I touched her arm. “Hey, um, I’m not sure we should go over there.”
I didn’t know those men, and then there was Val’s warning. I just didn’t feel comfortable, and Lettie laughed.
“It’s cool. I do,” she said, rubbing my arm. “They’re my goddad’s guys. They’re good.”
Was her goddad Maxim’s boss? That would make sense since Maxim said Natan was his second father. Even still. “Lettie?—”
She started sprinting toward the men before I could finish, and I had no choice but to follow her. I kept Polly with me, close, and tried to stay close to Lettie too.
“Hey, guys,” she said. She hugged the one she called Ivan, and though he hugged her back, he studied me. It wasn’t a pleasant stare either. It was one of scrutiny and made me feel like I wasn’t wearing any clothes.
Like he was looking through me and not at me.
I really didn’t know what to make of it. Especially when he told Lettie she needed to go back to the house.
“Natan wants to see you,” Ivan said, and that didn’t sit well. Again, I didn’t know this guy, but I did know Val, and she told me not to do that. Something felt off with this whole situation.
That confirmed when the guy put his hand on my friend.
Ivan got her shoulder, forcefully, and proceeded to direct her to the house. She asked what was going on, and when another guy went for me, I reacted.
I kept my whisper to Polly low, but she heard it. I said get , and she bit the guy’s ankle before he could grab me.
“God. Fuck!” the man roared, and Polly took him down. I’d been training her for defense little by little after the day I was attacked outside Maxim’s manor.
Polly growled at the man once he was down. She kept him there when she got his clothes, but my heart leaped in my throat when Ivan suddenly pulled out a pistol. He directed it at Polly, and Lettie grabbed him.
“What do you think you’re doing!” she shrieked. “Stop!”
Ivan wasn’t going to stop and both Lettie and I saw that. Lettie hit at his hand, and he shoved her to the ground. She screamed, and the guy’s distraction gave me an opening.
I kneed him right in his balls. Polly still hovered over the guy who tried to hurt me, and after I got Lettie up, I whistled for Polly.
She came right away, and I ran with her, taking Lettie with me. Thrown, Lettie was flailing, but she picked up her pace quickly.
I think that had something to do with the heavy footfalls behind us.
“Stop!” Ivan shouted, and Lettie and I turned but didn’t stop running.
Pop. Pop. Pop.
Gunshots. Ivan fired three shots in the air, and my stomach rolled. I nearly tripped but kept on my feet and both Lettie and Polly continued to bolt with me.
“Stop right fucking now.” Ivan shot in the air again. Polly barked. “I don’t want to hurt you!”
I didn’t believe that fucker, and neither did Lettie, whether she knew the guy or not. She grabbed me, directing me and Polly. Polly was barking until I told her to stop, and Lettie and I disappeared into the vineyard. We didn’t have much coverage since it was winter, but Lettie appeared to know where to go.
“Come on,” she whispered, our footfalls crunching, but the men behind us were too. “Dad has a safe house out here.”
Of course he did.
“Lettie!” Ivan called out, and we both nearly yipped when another gun shot hit the air. Lettie and I both went into survival mode, our heads low and sprinting fast. I was very impressed by her, but I shouldn’t be. This was her father’s world, and she understood it. At least to some extent.
I thanked God for that, and even more that she was aware of what to do in this situation. She found the safe house quickly, which happened to be in a shed within the seemingly miles upon miles of dormant grapevines.
Lettie didn’t even have to unbolt the door. She headed inside, and once we were in there, she typed in a code on the wall. A slat in the floor opened, a metal one that lead to a staircase.
“Come on,” she whispered again, and I quickly followed. Downstairs was completely different than upstairs. Upstairs it was just a beat up old shed, but downstairs it looked like the Pentagon. There were monitors and buttons everywhere, and after Lettie typed something into one of them, the slat above closed.
The room went dark.
But then Lettie called out lights and every light in the room flickered on.
This really was a safe house. There was an entire wing outside of the computer room, but I didn’t have time to explore when both Lettie’s and my phone went off.
“It’s Natan. My goddad,” she said, looking like she was going to answer it. She thought better though, and I blinked when she destroyed her phone against the wall. She swallowed. “He could be tracking it.”
Smart.
Lettie gazed around, her eyes wild. “Why did he send people out here like that? I don’t understand?—”
My phone was still going off, distracting us both, and I almost destroyed mine too. Almost.
Maxim’s name on the front gave me pause, but only for a second until I answered. “Maxim?”
The line was quiet. It was with the exception of my breathing.
But not for long.
“To whom am I speaking?”
I recognized the voice even though I’d only heard it once before. I’d only seen him once before too. My mouth parted. “This is Maxim’s phone.”
It was, and he should be answering it. Not this guy. Not his boss.
My throat squeezed, and an alarm hit Lettie’s eyes. I think it was an alarm we shared. In fact, if I was looking in a mirror I was sure I’d see the same degree of fright on my face.
I put the call on speaker phone.
“This is Maxim’s phone,” Natan said. “I have it, and now, I need to know to whom I’m speaking.”
“Natan. What’s…” Lettie’s eyes flashed when I waved my hand for her not to speak. Something was going on here, and whatever it was didn’t feel like it was good.
I mean, his men shot at us.
They didn’t shoot at us per se, but they’d let off rounds to alarm us.
“Lettie, my dear. Is that you?” Natan asked, his voice just as ragged and gravely as it’d been that day at the house. It was like he gargled nails on the regular, and his face came into my mind. He had lengthy black hair and was thin. He also had just as many tattoos as Maxim had, and his were faded in a way that reminded me of prison tattoos.
I might not have been far off.
“Natan, what’s going on?” Lettie questioned, her voice high, worried. She swallowed. “Natan…”
“I know you’re in the safe house, Lettie,” he said, and we both faced each other. “But you aren’t in any danger. I would never hurt you, dearest.”
She said nothing, waiting like me.
“That being said,” Natan continued. “I’d like both you and your friend to come to the house?—”
“And why is that exactly?” I asked, definitely not doing that. “Where’s Maxim, and why are you calling from his phone?”
There was silence on the line for a second, but only a moment.
“Because you obviously picked this call up and not my own from Lettie’s phone,” he said, calm. He was so fucking calm, and I didn’t like this shit. At all. “And hello again. You clearly aren’t going to tell me who you are, but I think I have an idea. You’re Maxim’s fiancée and congratulations to you. I was just telling him that back at the house.”
Lettie was wavering, and I was too. I didn’t know her reasons, but they were probably similar to my own.
“Where is he?” I asked, and Natan laughed. Laughed. It was a low laugh. A harsh one.
A cruel one.
I didn’t know this guy from Adam, but he was freaking me out, and Lettie was grabbing my arm. Even though this man was supposed to be her goddad, a person who claimed he would never hurt her.
“I have to say you probably wouldn’t care so much about him if you knew who he was,” Natan said. “What he’s done…”
My eyes narrowed. Maxim had done a lot of things. I stood tall. “I know the kind of man he is.”
“Do you?” It felt as if he was patronizing me. Like I was a little kid, and he was teasing me. “I don’t think you do. Not really. In fact, I’m pretty damn sure you have no idea about the man you’re about to marry. If you did, you’d want nothing to do with him.”
Lettie’s face was red, and mine was hot. Like, lava hot.
“You know, I didn’t used to be in charge around here,” he continued. “For a time, I worked under someone else. A tyrant, and it was your Maxim who aided me in my position. Want to know how he did, Sia?”
I didn’t like my name on his lips, and I refused to answer. This felt like a game, and I wouldn’t.
“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway?—”
“Have you hurt him?” I asked, refusing to play this game too. “I swear to God?—”
“He helped slaughter an entire family,” he said, continuing as if I hadn’t spoken at all. As if I didn’t fucking matter. “An entire legacy. He did that for me. Helped me rise.”
I knew about that. Well, sort of.
A family…
Maxim said he got revenge against the man who killed his father, and after he had, Natan took over. He never mentioned a whole family though. Did that family include a wife? Children?
I had to say I didn’t want to know the answer, and anything he’d done I needed to talk to him about. I didn’t need to talk to this man. I swallowed. “Is Maxim okay?”
“You’re still asking about him,” he said, and Lettie was shaking beside me. I was too, and we held each other. “Like I said, you wouldn’t if you knew.”
“Knew what, Natan?” Lettie’s voice shook as much as our bodies did.
“You’re both going to come to the house, Lettie,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken now. “This doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, it can be very simple. I want to discuss a few things with your friend Miss Reynolds, one of which is what to do about her fiancé now that I’ve confirmed he’s betrayed me.”
I gripped Lettie, and she gripped me back. She shook her head. “Betrayed?”
“Yes, my darling,” he said, and the audacity he had to call her that. He was clearly holding her father hostage. “For you see, the family he aided in eliminating was our very own Miss Reynolds’.”
The phone slipped from my fingers and hit the floor. A piece of it broke off, but I still heard what he said next. Lettie and I both did.
“Come to the house, Miss Reynolds,” he stated. “Or should I say, Miss Novikov.”