CHAPTER 45
Luna
Marlon squeaks when the door pressurizes thirty-two minutes later. I school my features but if I wasn’t so dehydrated I probably would’ve peed my pants at the sound.
Could be Quinn to collect me. Could be his mysterious boss to kill me. Could be a Russian to torture me. Could be my best friend’s fucking senator spy husband sent to abduct me and blame it on someone else!
But it’s…a teenage girl? Or maybe she’s twenty? Hard to say. White blonde hair, bleached, straight and sleek. She has huge eyes and a unique way about her. Totally stunning.
“That is not a very good disguise,” she says, her voice matter of fact, when she walks in. She just stands at the door looking at me, then Marlon, then me again.
“Not much I could do with almost-black hair. A shaggy, blonde, man’s wig had to work.”
“Yes and you’re built to pull off men’s clothing, too, but the nose is falling off a bit.”
I huff what might be a laugh if I wasn’t dead inside and completely broken from the last twenty-four hours. “Got me here, didn’t it, Vix?”
“True,” she admits. So this is Vix. Huh. She asks, voice still almost monotone, “Why are you here?”
“I have information.”
“In exchange for?”
I roll my eyes, “Power, obviously.”
She narrows her young eyes at me, “Be more specific.” She’s an odd one. Not a big fan of eye contact. Expressionless.
“I’ve been spying on Quinn for months. I want to be the Italian Don. Yes, instead of my own father and definitely instead of his moron Bosco. I can’t overthrow him on my own because I’m a woman.”
“Okay, what’s the information?” She tries.
I glare at her, “I’m happy to tell you that,” her brow quirks, “as soon as we’re in a room with your dad.”
“He’ll never agree to a meeting with you.”
“Your brother then.”
She studies me, everywhere but my eyes, looks to Marlon, then back again.
“It better be worthwhile,” she finally says.
“It is. You know better than most, Quinn’s place is a void. I’m the only one who’s been…inside.”
“How did you escape?” She asks.
She waits.
I give her a saccharine smile.
Yup, I can do this all day, sweetie, go get your dad if you want me to talk.
She looks at Marlon again before saying, “You are an odd person.”
At that, I actually laugh. I decide to say back, “Thanks, and right back at you.”
She doesn’t react. Not even a hint of a smirk.
“You’ll have to wait here. It’s a safe room,” she says.
“It’s a jail cell.”
She nods, “It can also withstand a bomb, tornado or earthquake. This building could collapse and this room would remain untouched in the rubble.” Either she’s lying to me or someone’s lied to her. We’re on the thirtieth floor, that can’t possibly be true.
She lifts her wrist and speaks into her watch. I look at the device with unabashed longing. Before remembering any device I could’ve had would’ve been monitored by some fucker named “O” and his gaggle of super spies. I sigh.
“You’ll be brought food, water and a spa blanket, should this take more than twenty-four hours. I’ll be in touch.”
Before I can say thank you or ask any questions, she’s gone. The door pressurizes and I force myself to focus on Marlon instead of the fact that I’m in a small, locked, windowless, possibly indestructible, cement cube.
“Not much longer now,” I say to my tiny best friend. My voice is weak. But I’m not.
I did it.
Got the intel of all fucking intels! A shadow spy organization within the syndicates and the United States government! And other governments!
I’ll have Volotov go with me to kill Papa. Just like Van—Quinn, whoever…the big burly liar of all liars—said, Papa murdered Mama and made it look like an accident. And I think I always knew. Deep down. The way he wouldn’t talk about her. The way he clammed up when I did.
Beautiful mama. What did you do? Affair? Informant?
I’ll never know. Car accident my ass. I breathe deeply to stop emotion from welling up.
The man I called father can rot in hell. We’ll take out all Papa’s top men too, I guess. No other way to stage a coup.
Marlon whines up at me.
“I’m only crying from shock,” I say. He huffs in disbelief.
After killing my way to the top in Miami, I guess I’ll shore up defenses for war against Quinn and his bosses. Against Ellie and Mark. Against everyone.
Which means I’ll become the exact kind of monster they’re fighting against.
So be it.
We’re all drowning in this, we’re all going down eventually. Quinn and all his brothers, mysterious “Command” they’re all going to die too.
Before I go, I’m making my mark.
As the don.
·····
The pressurization of the doorknob wakes me right before it opens. I’m sitting on the floor with my back against the wall and Marlon in my lap. I didn’t use the blanket or the pillow. It’s not six months in the wilderness but I feel like Quinn would—
Wait, I don’t care about impressing him. He’s a traitor.
“Luna Mancini,” says Vadim Volotov, Vix’s oldest brother and the first heir to the Russian empire that runs New York and the rest of the north east. Vix walks in behind him.
He’s like a tall, manly version of her but where she’s alluring he’s more…
terrifying. His vibe is like a serial killer.
It’s like he’s more of a Skulls Quinn than Van…
Damn it! Stop thinking about him!
“So, you want to play boss, eh?” He says, his accent much thicker than his sister’s.
“No playing about it.”
“You want to kill your papa?”
I shrug, “He killed my mother.”
“Ah,” he says. It’s fucking tragic how unsurprising the information is. This is the world we were born into. Though I think the Volotov children still have their mother. I’m not totally sure.
“And I will help you with this why?”
“Because I know something you don’t.”
He crosses to sit in the chair. I haven’t moved. I don’t love being beneath him but I’m not about to reveal that it bothers me. I am unbotherable. I am a don.
“So my sister says. She seems to trust you. I do not.”
“Fine, kill me then. But I know about the Long Island Sound,” I bluff. I don’t look up from where my hand is oh-so-casually petting Marlon.
“Fuck off. There’s no way you know about that,” he spits.
I don’t respond. “Fucking Quinn, the big stupid ape. We should have hunted him and killed him like the wild boar he is.” My entire being bristles at what he’s saying and how he’s saying it.
But I stay frozen. “Four years we’ve moved product in the magazines and you’ve been married what, a few weeks? ”
“Vadim,” Vix scolds.
Product in magazines? What the hell? I didn’t read anything about that. I’m not even sure what that means. Magazines in the weapons? What?
“Well then, Vaddy boy, don’t get married. Pillow talk kills.” I say, hopefully hiding my surprise at whatever he’s talking about. I go on, “I’m telling you. You want to know what I know. And you’ll learn it all, the same moment your father does.”
The two bicker in Russian. I should’ve learned the other languages instead of focusing so much on my own family and weapons and combat.
Vad cuts his sister off and locks his ice blue eyes back on me to say with practiced calm, “You still haven’t convinced me, little Mancini.”
“You know why you couldn’t find a needle or a damn haystack at Quinn’s place?” I ask Vix. “Because it’s all underground.”
“Not possible. For us to have missed the heat signatures it would have to be—”
“Really fucking deep under the house. Like take a tunnel and stairs and then a hidden elevator kind of deep. And I know how to get to it. All their computers, weapons, everything.”
More Russian arguing.
“Fuck, this is going to be fun!” Vad says, standing.
Visibly excited. His sister, on the other hand, is a vault.
“I shot him, you know. Only got him in the side though, shifty bastard. And I hate going in with masks, can’t see for shit.
Big as he is, he’s fucking fast.” My pulse skyrockets. He shot Quinn.
“Too bad you couldn’t take him out for me,” I stand. “Shall we get out of this tiny box? I can’t breathe in here,” I say, meaning it. I put Marlon in my backpack and zip it partially so Marlon can see out.
“Sure, sure, we have a safe house for you. Has grass for the pup too,” Vad says. “Cormac was also fast. Bunch of shifty fuckers, the Irish. Next time, though, I’ll take out more than just the old aunt, eh? We can shoot them together.”
The aunt.
This idiot killed Shae?
I…
I grab the burner phone I tucked in the pocket of the bag and turn it on before I even know I’m doing it.
My heart is making decisions before my head can catch up.
Too late now, no going back. I smile at the siblings as they lead me out of the locked room.
As soon as we hit the hallway, with false bravery and skills I don’t even really have, I pull out my gun.
I shoot a round of bullets at Vadim legs hoping to hit a knee, because they’re right there and I need him immobile. Vix pulls a gun but I’m too fast and she was too surprised. I aim for her side, shoot her in the shoulder and yell, “Vix! Everyone is a glass black bird. Run!”
But she’s already screaming Russian orders into her watch.
As I run down the hall to the exit, two men close in behind me but I focus on the doorknob. Shot after shot on the keyhole. I miss but hit, miss, miss, hit again.
I scream in Italian so the burner phone and any cameras in here can hear me, “Van, I don’t know who you work for but they better be as powerful as you say. Get me a chopper on the top of this building! Right fucking now!”
Please, God, get me out of this spa!
By the time I reach the lobby door, the glass shatters and when I press on the door it opens. It’s heavy, still wanting to be locked but the bolt is gone from my gunfire.
Push, Push, Luna, Push!
I use every bit of strength I can think of, channel all the anguish, fear, bitterness and bitter rage I can into the damn door.
It moves. Outside there’s a guard but I use a few shots to take out one of his legs too.
I am missing a lot because this is not the gun range and the targets are moving, but luckily I packed a lot of fucking bullets.
The guard curses and shoots me in the gut but Van’s kevlar vest takes the brunt. Still, the wind is knocked out of me. The guard falls, at least, but I know he won’t stay down if he’s had any kind of worthwhile training. I run out the Spa’s door into the hall.
I make a point of finding two things, a stairwell and a security camera. I find both around a corner. “Van!” I say to the camera. “Right fucking now!” Then I smash through the stairway door and up two flights. I bust out into the hall on the thirty-second floor and find the elevator.
“Come on, come on…”
Marlon is whining badly in my backpack but I block out the sound. He could be bleeding out. He’s such a tiny dog and one stray bullet…
Stop! You can’t help him if you’re dead!
The elevator is empty and I get in and get the doors shut but we only make it a few floors before it stops.
I brace myself to have to shoot more guards as soon as the doors open.
But it’s just a little old man in a suit.
He takes five hundred and thirty five days to walk onto the elevator and press the button for fifty.
We only make it three more floors. I brace again.
Shit, two guards.
I use way too many bullets to take out their legs.
“Shit!” I say as fire burns through my left hip and right shoulder. “Motherfucker!”
The doors start to close.
OW OW OW! I feel woozy. No! Just keep moving! Keep moving!
I debate the stairs. I can't climb the stairs quickly enough with a busted hip. “Van,” I say to the elevator camera, “I’m hit in the hip, I can't take the stairs and I won’t make it to the top of this building unless you work some kind of miracle here!”
“M-m-my name is Ernest,” says the poor little man next to me.
“Hey Ernie, can I call you Ernie? We’re going to be fine. You’re not going to get shot. My boyfriend is part of a secret superhero organization that better be fucking watching and listening right now and they’re going to get us to the roof!”
Ernie faints.
“Fuck, Ernie, get it together,” I say because I’m trying not to sob. The Russians are stopping the elevator at the next floor. I don’t know if I can even lift my gun to shoot again. All my adrenaline is leaking out through my eyes. And maybe my bullet wounds.
But…
The elevator doors aren’t opening. It stops and the number lights up and the sound chimes but it doesn’t open.
“Thank you,” I manage to say. But I can tell I’m losing too much blood.
Or I was too tired and dehydrated from biking across a forest, changing identities in a gas station, catching a bus, and running all over Manhattan before getting shot.
Either way, I can’t stay up. It’s a slow elevator and the Russians keep stopping it on each floor.
I guess Van has some good hackers on his team. That’s good.
“Vadim Volotov killed Shae,” I say to the camera.
My voice sounds weird. “And I think we should try to save Vix and I’m sorry I was going to turn on you there for a minute because I really wanted to be a boss and I think Marlon was shot and,” my voice is getting faint, “And I think I am in love with you but I don’t trust you and I…
I’m really pissed. I may never talk to you ever again.
I do have to admit I’m really impressed with this whole elevator thing, very sp—”