14. Rashid
RASHID
The boy hasn't stopped crying since the car, and I'm starting to think he's never going to.
I carry him through the front door and Marta freezes in the kitchen doorway, staring at the screaming child in my arms.
Clearly she was not informed that I'd be having company in the form of a baby, and she doesn’t look quite prepared.
"Get my mother," I tell her, and she disappears down the hallway without a word.
This is a nightmare. I figured there'd be crying, but forty minutes through the doctor's exam and then a thirty minute drive is a bit excessive.
He is so attached to his mother I'm going to have to alter my plans.
I can't deal with a spoiled child.
I hold Lex against my chest and try what I saw Emory do when she affectionately coddled him on the school courtyard, pressing his head into the crook of my neck and rocking him.
It doesn't work for me.
His face is soaked and red and his fists are balled up against my shirt, pushing away from me with everything he has.
He doesn't want me.
He doesn't know me, and right now I'm just another stranger who ripped him away from the people he trusts.
This is her fault.
Had I known him as an infant, he'd feel comfortable around me, and I'd have had time to learn the important rules of rearing a child.
Right now this feels contrary to everything I know.
I murder people who blink wrong.
I'm not cut out for comforting an infant.
Mother comes up the hallway in her house slippers with her hair still pressed flat on one side from her nap.
She's scowling before she even reaches me and I can tell she's about to say something sharp, but then she sees the boy and her mouth shuts.
She stands there for a second studying him with her hand hovering over her mouth.
And her whole countenance changes on a dime.
The hard angry shell of a woman crumbles as she shuffles over to me with outstretched arms, replaced by someone I haven't ever met.
"Give him to me," she says, gesturing with her hands rapidly.
I hand Lex over and she takes him with a grace I didn't expect from a woman who complains about her frail body every chance she gets.
She tucks him against her shoulder, puts one hand flat on his back, and starts moving in a slow circle, humming a low tune I don't recognize.
Within thirty seconds his screaming drops to whimpering and frantic stuttering breathing.
Within a minute he's just hiccupping against her neck with his fingers curled around the collar of her dress.
He lays his head on her shoulder and his eyes shut, and I am utterly speechless.
I'm not sure what I'm seeing.
This is a woman who has told me she hates noise, and disruption, and anything that interferes with her schedule.
She once made Xavier cry at Christmas dinner because he laughed too loud at the table.
Now she's standing in my hallway swaying with a child she's never met, humming to him like she's been doing it her whole life.
"Rashid." She doesn't look up from the boy. "Whose child is this?" Funny how when she comforts him she's the softest woman alive, and when her eyes turn to meet mine, the icy glare I know so well comes out.
"He might be mine." I start unbuttoning my coat and watch her expression harden further.
Her eyes are sharp and searching as she studies my face. She's deciding whether I'm telling the truth or being reckless. "You said you were bringing a child. I didn't think you meant a baby. How old is he?"
I shrug out of my coat and move to the coat tree, hanging it there as I speak. "About two and a half."
"Christ alive!" She shifts Lex to her other shoulder and he goes with it, relaxing into her so easily. He's already taken to her while rejecting me. That won’t do. "Where has he been for so long, Rashid? Who has been raising this boy without you?"
"His mother kept him from me. I didn't know he existed until recently.
" Revealing my shame is embarrassing, but if she's going to live with me she'll learn the truth anyway.
There aren't many secrets I can hide from her.
The last time I tried she took me by the ear and forced me into my study to get a lecture.
"Who's his mother?" Now the viper comes out, a hissing, spitting anger rising up in her chest. I love that her response to my shame is to feel defensive.
When she looks at me I'm the enemy, until someone defies me.
Then she's on my side. It's the one thing I can count on—for her violent side to be consistent.
"A woman I was involved with before he was born. It doesn't matter right now. I?—"
"It absolutely matters," she says, cutting me off.
She's rocking him still, but her voice has an edge to it now that I know very well.
"Is she someone decent? Is she educated?
Does she come from a family I should be concerned about?
" All good questions, and none of those answers are any of her business.
"Mother, I'll answer all of your questions when I have answers to give.
Right now I'm waiting on a DNA test and I need you to help me with the boy until I get the results.
" I turn back to face her fully as her eyes go wide.
In her day, they relied on people to be truthful and hones,t and they cut out the tongues of those who lied.
My father would've had Emory strung up already.
I am a different man. I like to confirm every detail before I make a move, but when I do, everyone knows I'm a hundred percent right. That's why people fear me.
"A DNA test." She shakes her head and huffs out a breath through her nose. "So you don't even know for certain. You took this child from his mother on a suspicion."
"Look at him."
She pulls Lex back from her shoulder and holds him at arm's length the way I did in the car, except when she does it the boy doesn't scream.
He just blinks at her with those dark eyes and his bottom lip pushes out. He's still breathing in stutters as she turns his face gently with one hand, studying his jaw, his brow, the set of his eyes.
Then she looks at me and back at him.
"He has your father's mouth," she says quietly, "and your hair. Exactly your hair when you were small." She pulls him back against her chest and Lex drops his head onto her shoulder again. "How long until the test comes back?"
"Six hours at the earliest. Could be days if the lab is backed up, but Dr. Volkov is rushing it for me."
"Then we need things for him. You can't keep a child this age in a house with nothing for him.
" She's already walking toward the kitchen and I follow trying to keep up with her suddenly spry movements.
My mother's in charge of the boy and I'm just here to make it happen.
"Marta," she calls, and the maid appears from around the corner.
"Come with me. We need to make a list and someone needs to go to the shops before they close. "
Marta looks at me and I nod to give her permission. It's obvious I'm not needed now, though I'm not sure how I feel about that. I didn't bring my son here to be raised by my mother.
He is mine and I will raise him. But Marta falls in behind my mother and the three of them disappear into the kitchen.
I stand in the hallway and listen to her talk to Marta about the boy's needs, and I hear her voice soften again.
Never in a million years did I think my mother would become a saint when introduced to my child, but here I am.
I leave them with Lex and walk down the hall toward my office, but when I push the door open Devid's already sitting across from my desk with two of my men by the window.
They all turn when I come in. Anger is masking their features, and I can tell from Devid's face that whatever he's about to say isn't going to improve my evening.
"Talk," I tell him as I stalk over to my desk and sit down. The old chair groans as I pull it forward and I rub my face of the previous stress to prepare for the current stress I'm about to download.
"The decoys got hit," Devid says. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees. "Both of them were stopped—the first one on the M10 outside Tver and the second one at the Novgorod checkpoint. It appears to be very similar to the other shipment."
I contain the anger that boils up, but my voice is tight when I say, "And how did they know which trucks to stop if they were decoys?"
"That's what I'm telling you, boss. They didn't know. They're stopping everything now. Every truck, every van, anything that even looks like it could be ours. Gusev's got people camped at every checkpoint between here and Moscow."
"Fuck," I grunt, leaning back. This is a real pain in my fucking ass. "How many checkpoints are we talking about?"
"At least six that we know of. Could be more.
Kolya drove the southern corridor yesterday and counted three stops in a ninety kilometer stretch.
They've got cars parked on the shoulder and men walking the road waving people over.
" Devid is so confident, and he knows how I like him to verify things, so this is very bad news.
He's done his homework with evidence to back up his claim, and I'm screwed.
"Were they armed?"
"Every one of them," he sighs. "They're acting like they own the road."
I turn to the two men by the window. "And neither of you thought to call me when the first decoy got stopped?" Sometimes I feel like the ingrates we hire and train are incompetent. How many times have I used one or more of them as an object lesson and they never get the fucking point?
The taller one shifts on his feet. "It happened so fast. By the time we got word on the first truck, the second one was already pulled over. We figured it was better to come here and brief you in person than burn time on the phone."
"I don't care if it's three in the morning. When we lose a vehicle I hear about it immediately. Understood?" My temper is flaring now, making me hot around the collar. I loosen my tie and glare at them, and they both nod rapidly, like they understand how close they are to losing a hand or an eye.
I turn back to Devid. "What's the exposure on our real shipments?"
"Right now everything's sitting in the Kolpino warehouse.
We haven't moved product in four days because there's no safe route to push it through.
If we try to run the M10 they'll stop us and if we go south it's the same problem.
I don't think they know where we store it, so it's safe, but we lost so much already... we're boxed in, Rashid."
"Then we unbox ourselves." I stand up and both of the men by the window straighten. "I want Oleg Rostov found. Get a bead on him, find out where he's operating from, what he knows, and how deep he's in with Gusev. Don't approach him and don't let him see you coming. I want information, not a body."
"That could take a few days," Devid says. "We should just act now. If we set an ambush and?—”
"Then it takes a few days," I snap, cutting him off. "I need Rostov to follow him back to the source. I can't risk him alerting anyone that we know it's Gusev. Do you understand?" The boy is in my possession now, and it's time to get serious about this problem.
Devid rubs his jaw. "We have to do something, Rashid. Not just sit on our thumbs."
"Then pull men from the eastern detail. Nobody's moving product east right now anyway." I'm livid, unable to think straight. Maybe I should’ve let him take over a long time ago while I fished for Emory and the boy, but I'm back now. "Arm extra trucks and send them out."
"That leaves the port exposed."
"The port can survive a few days without a full detail. Our shipping lanes can't survive another week of Gusev treating them like his personal toll road." God I'm second guessing myself. Emory is toxic to me.
One fucking look at her and I start making horrible decisions for my life.
I've let Gusev run my lanes for too long, but if I strike hard and fast, we may lose Rostov and thus the source he's been getting intel from.
I can't have a mole in my organization.
"Boss..." Devid says, and I almost bite his head off.
"Just fucking do it!" I shout, chest heaving. "You wanted me to move, so I'm going to fucking move. Now you need to do what I say when I say it. Do I make myself clear?"
He stands and the other two follow him toward the door, pausing with his hand on the frame "What about the girl? You want us keeping the tail on her?"
"She'll come to me on her own. Don't waste the manpower."
They leave and I pull up the security cameras on my laptop.
I'm going to sit here and wait because I know it won't be long.
The instant she finds out I have my son she's going to come running.
If she's half the mother I believe her to be, she's not leaving either.
And it will be her free choice to make.