Chapter 35 - Daniil
Anatoli’s pilot was waiting for me when I arrived at the airport, promising the jet would be ready to take off soon. I paced the tarmac, impatient but begrudgingly grateful that I didn’t have to wait until the next day to follow Paisley.
The night sky was clear and bright with stars, the chill weather hardly reaching me as I feverishly went over everything I knew so far.
It wasn’t enough and far too much of it was based on hunches and feelings.
I normally trusted my gut. It hadn’t let me down when I suspected something was very wrong right before the explosion at the lodge.
But I was too wrapped up in emotions, something that had never hindered me before.
Was I wrong to believe that Paisley hadn’t been plotting against my family?
It didn’t make sense to me that she would worm her way in to cause harm when she seemed to love the kids so much, especially Alina who idolized her.
Paisley didn’t have to go out of her way to offer snowboarding lessons.
I had been in the room when she jumped to volunteer, her eyes shining as bright as Alina’s at the chance to teach someone her favorite sport.
No, it didn’t make sense, but a lot of things were just plain fucked up.
I had seen pure evil in action many times before.
It was basically impossible for me to meet someone new and not instantly distrust them unless I knew what family they were from, their allegiances, and had spoken to people I knew would jump in front of a bullet for me to vet them.
And even then, those people had to earn my trust.
Not Paisley, though. My gut, my heart, every fiber of my being, refused to believe she had done anything wrong.
And that was stupid. Beyond stupid. If my trust was misplaced, I could be walking into a trap.
A surefire way to screw up the Christmas holiday that Aleks had wanted for everyone was to become a hostage, or worse.
Despite my confusion, I had to laugh, short and bitter, as I thought about him refusing to ransom me until after New Year’s just to make a point.
“We’re ready,” the pilot called, leaning out of the open door.
Wiping my hand over my face, I closed my strained eyes as I nodded. Heading up the stairs, I tried to push everything aside, good or bad. Facts. I needed facts, not feelings, not gut instincts. I had to shove aside everything in me that screamed that Paisley was mine, and was worthy of my trust.
The real, hard cold fact was that there was nothing but evidence against her. That she had fooled me as easily as the others. That everything we’d shared had only been to advance her motive to cause mayhem against my family.
“Drink, sir?”
My eyes shot open. Somehow I had chosen a seat and now the business-like attendant hovered in the aisle, a bland look of expectation on her face.
An entire bottle of vodka was my first choice, but I only asked for coffee to burn off the ice that seemed to flow in my veins.
When I had the strong brew in my hands, I breathed in the dark roast, unfettered with sugar or cream.
It wasn’t a long flight, but it was enough of a break for anger to begin simmering around the edges. Not good for keeping a clear head, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t push it aside.
What would I do if I was faced with incontrovertible proof that Paisley was an enemy spy?
Anyone else and I would rip them apart. I would only be feeling rage, not this sense of betrayal. My damn chest hurt like a great clawed monster had its talons around my heart. What the fuck was that? All over a little fling with the nanny?
As soon as the plane was on the ground, I shoved past the flight attendant who struggled with the door.
I needed air, clarity. It wasn’t there in the Los Angeles night and the abrupt change of temperature, from crisp and cold to balmy and languid, had me peeling off my sweater and tugging at the collar of my shirt.
There was only one thing I was sure of. Paisley was mine. Those claws only dug in deeper when I thought about letting her go. Not happening. But if she was responsible for that bomb, that definitely couldn’t go unpunished. It felt like I was being torn in two.
Now what? I was in LA, where Paisley had gone, but I was at a dead end.
I let Anatoli know I had arrived, and headed for the car rental area.
I had to keep moving. Even with no clear direction to go, I had to keep forging forward in my quest to find her.
Despite the late hour, people jostled past me.
They were like wraiths, and I hardly noticed them, only focused on one thing.
As soon as I had my car, but nowhere to point it, Anatoli called. I answered breathlessly.
“Tell me good news.”
“It’s news, at least,” he replied. “Not sure how good it is. You can thank LAX for having so many security cameras.” He went on to inform me that since he knew which flight Paisley had taken, thanks to tracking her bank card, he was able to hack into the cameras at that gate and hone in on the exact time it landed.
I tapped my foot, clamping my lips together to keep from telling him to hurry the hell up.
“So you spotted her?” I finally asked, interrupting his technical explanations.
He cleared his throat. “Yes.” He cleared his throat again. “She met a man.”
“Okay,” I said. “Did it look like she was under duress?”
“No. In fact she looked relieved to see him.”
“You got this from security camera footage,” I said, shoving down the desire to rip this mystery man’s head off.
“I’ve been working on enhancement capabilities,” he said. Before I could shout at him, he continued in a somber tone. “I was able to identify the guy she met up with. He’s FBI.”
“What?” That was unexpected. “A cop?”
“As dirty as they come,” Anatoli said. “I’ve linked him to the Collective. It’s tenuous, but it looks like he’s been helping sweep their crimes under the rug.”
Once again it felt like my heart was getting ripped out of my chest. For a split second I thought she was on the side of the law, working undercover on some kind of sting operation.
Disappointing, but as many cops as the Collective had on their payroll, my cousins had twice that number.
It was rare any of us would ever spend much time behind bars.
But if she was working for the Collective, it was very likely that she had been involved with planting the bomb.
I was silent for too long, as all of these thoughts swirled in my head like muddy water breaking over a storm barrier after too many days of hard rain. None of it made any sense, because I still didn’t want it to.
“What happened after they left the airport?” I asked. “Do you have a direction?”
My head felt like a jackhammer was going at full speed against it. LA was huge, and they were hours ahead of me. The direction they took to leave the airport would hardly help at all.
Now it was Anatoli’s turn to pause, finally sighing. “Not just that.”
“If you have a location, send it to me,” I said, pacing back and forth in the parking lot, clicking the keyfob to unlock my rental.
“Better just to leave her,” Anatoli told me after another pause. “Aleks’s guys will pick her up eventually, and we might be able to sweep up some of her buddies at the same time if we hold off.”
“What if she’s innocent in all this?” I asked.
He made a strangled sound, like he was coughing back a humorless laugh. “Does that sound logical to you?”
“Listen man,” I said, trying to hide my desperation. “I was one of the loudest voices telling Masha to not trust you and to ditch your ass. What if she had listened?”
“You’re sure about this?”
No, I wasn’t. But no matter how hard I fought my gut feeling, it wouldn’t shut up and settle down. “Send me the damn location,” I said.
He ended the call without another word, but a moment later, he sent me a link to a map with the route highlighted.
I got behind the wheel of the rental and squealed out of the parking lot.
I didn’t know what I was going to find when I got there, or what I was going to do.
But no one was going to hurt my woman, even if she wasn’t who I wanted to believe her to be.