Chapter 25
KATE
Cole and I wait outside the front entrance to the National Zoo, eyeing a steady stream of parents dragged through the gates by eager young children.
“It’s a mistake to do this today,” I say, renewing a well-worn argument. “I need more time.”
“You’ve barely left your computer in the past two days. If Viktor had a major flaw, you would have found it by now.”
“I don’t want Breagha used like this.”
“Complaint already registered,” he says. “Three times, in fact.”
“She’s not tough enough—”
“She’s a Lynch. Like you.”
As if my sister is listening in, my mobile buzzes with a new message.
Breagha
Caught in traffic
Five minutes out
I stare at the panda emoji, fighting the urge to reply with a warning. Turn around. Go back to Baltimore. Save yourself before it’s too late.
Instead of typing, I scan back through the string of messages we’ve exchanged over the past two days.
It was disturbingly easy to convince my sister to visit her beloved pandas at the zoo.
After that, all the pieces fell in place easily enough.
Da forbade Breagha to leave the family compound. Mam argued Pyotr could keep her safe.
I want to know if Mam enlisted the bratva brigadier because she knows exactly how much I’ll hate the shitehawk’s presence.
No. I don’t actually want to know that at all.
In any case, Cole was right. It’s easy to get people to do what you want when they think it’s their idea. Breagha and Pyotr will arrive at the zoo in minutes. And then we’ll convince the bratva gobshite to accept a thumb drive holding the Viktor code.
“There’s no way Tarasov will fall for this.” I’ve said the same thing a dozen different ways just since dawn.
“He will if you act your part well enough.” Cole repeats his standard reply.
“I’m a hacker. Not an actor.”
He snorts. “You can be both.”
“Easy for you to say,” I grumble. “You just have to act like an overbearing, demanding shitehawk. Not straying too far from the truth, are you?”
“Careful, my dear,” he warns with a toothy grin.
My dear. He hasn’t called me that in days. Something flips deep inside my belly, and heat rises from my chest to my throat to my cheeks.
He laughs.
I jab my fist toward his biceps. When his fingers close over my wrist, I blush even harder. Holding my gaze, he brings my knuckles to his lips. I gulp at the brush of his kiss.
“Who’s that, Mommy?” a small girl shouts. “Is that somebody famous?”
I follow the child’s pointing finger to the curb on Connecticut Avenue, where the longest stretch limo I’ve ever seen has just pulled up. It’s black, with polished chrome fittings. A uniformed chauffeur scurries around the massive vehicle, rushing to open the door.
Da would give both his bollocks for a car like that.
Cole’s eyes turn to stone as Pyotr Tarasov climbs out of the limo.
The bratva brigadier poses on the pavement, shooting his cuffs like he’s heading to a business meeting and looking around through his dark sunglasses.
His blue suit is a shade too bright, a bit too tight, a tad too short.
His feet are bare inside his brown shoes.
The eejit probably thinks he looks young and hip. Instead, he looks like someone’s desperate bachelor uncle.
Breagha scrambles from the car with the help of the chauffeur’s hand.
She blinks as the sunlight sets fire to her blonde hair, emphasizing her cornflower-blue headband.
Her matching dress has tiny flowers embroidered at the hem, the same dusty pink as her ballet-slipper flats.
She looks like a fairytale princess, the type who talks to magical animals.
“Breagha!” I call, quickly closing the distance and pulling her into a hug.
Clutching me back, she whispers in my ear, “I have so much to tell you!”
I hide my surprise by offering my obligatory greeting to Tarasov. “Pyotr,” I say, keeping my distance. I don’t offer him my hand.
“Lisichka,” he responds, with a greasy smile that twists my belly like a sour rag. He looks hungry as he turns to my husband. “Wolf.”
Cole’s lips tighten just enough to show his eyeteeth. “Tarasov,” he says. He doesn’t offer his hand either.
“I believe you have something for me?” Tarasov asks. He’s expecting more data from Da’s files.
Cole touches the breast pocket of his jacket. The black summer-weight wool disguises the hard lines of the thumb drive he loaded this morning.
Reluctantly, I step into my assigned role. “Not here,” I say, batting Cole’s hand down to his side as I shoot a cautious glance toward a nearby security camera. “Do you want us all in jail?”
Breagha looks from me to Cole to Tarasov. It’s beginning to dawn on her that today’s zoo visit might be about more than her favorite animals. But she takes my hand as if we’re children again, saying, “Let’s start with the pandas.”
But Cole says, “Lions first.”
I glare at him, only partially acting my role. “We want to see the pandas.”
“And you will. But we’ll start with the big cats,” Cole says coolly.
I snarl. Tarasov smirks. All the old insults rise to my lips: Wolf is a feckin’ shitehawk, he’s a controlling eejit, only men with little pricks have to issue orders about something as meaningless as zoo animals.
But Breagha pets my arm and says, “That’s okay. I’m just happy you invited us today. Let’s start with the lions.”
I stomp down the path, barely making sure Breagha can match my angry pace. She waits until Wolf and Tarasov are a few steps behind before she says softly, “I thought things were going better for you two.”
“They are,” I snap, because that’s what the old Kate would say.
“When you came to Sunday Roast, he seemed…”
I’ll never find out how he seemed, because the men catch up with us.
The next hour and a half are hell. When I say I want to take a path to the right, Wolf orders me to the left.
When I want to linger at the elephants, he insists on going to the reptiles.
We dance our way through a dozen different power struggles, and he yanks my invisible leash on each and every one.
I agreed to this. Tarasov must believe I disapprove of this meeting. He has to think I don’t trust the venue, that I fear we can all be tracked by law enforcement as my husband consorts with a known career criminal.
One more hour. That’s what it will take to soften up the bratva brigadier. After that, I’ll protest Cole handing off the thumb drive. I’ll say it’s meant for Da. I’ll say I’ll die before I let the Russians have it.
And if Cole and I play our cards right, Tarasov will agree to take Viktor just to spite me. He’ll prove he has as much power over me as Cole does. He’ll spring our trap, loading unknown software onto his computer, all to prove he’s a man.
Judging from the frown on Breagha’s face, my play-acting is quite successful.
Several times, I catch her shaking her head, studying me with a worried scowl.
Once, when Wolf snaps his fingers to get my attention, Breagha shoots a worried glance at Tarasov, as if to ask if he’s noting the same behavior.
Another time, Wolf cuts me off mid-sentence, and Breagha cringes, waiting for me to explode.
Finally, the four of us are sitting at a tiny table near a snack bar, balancing on molded plastic seats.
I’m sulking as I eat vanilla ice cream. I wanted chips, but Wolf said he didn’t want to smell them on my breath.
I’m moving my plastic spoon around the flimsy bowl, wondering how much more of the dessert I have to choke down.
My dear. He called me that by the front gate. He kissed my knuckles. He made me swoon.
He’s acting now. We both are.
If we were in the dungeon, he’d have every right to snap out his commands. When it’s just the two of us, I’ll even call him Master. He makes the rules. He sets the pace. And every bit of it, every step of the way, he measures my response.
He does it for me. I know that. He takes responsibility for my pleasure. He makes decisions so I don’t have to. He proves to me, over and over again, that I can bear so much more than I ever thought I could, that I’m stronger than I ever imagined.
But here in the outside world, his domination feels entirely different. It’s insulting. Demeaning. As I choke down another bite, I fight the nearly overwhelming urge to scratch the red scars carved into my thighs.
“Finish your ice cream,” Wolf says. “Or you won’t get to go to the pandas.”
I’m not a feckin’ child! I want to scream.
Breagha pushes her frozen lemonade away. “I’m done,” she says. And then she raises her chin in uncharacteristic defiance. “Kate? Come with me to the restroom?”
I brace for Wolf’s order to stay seated. Instead, he gives an off-hand shrug before brushing his fingers against his breast pocket.
He thinks this is the right time to pass the drive to Tarasov, but he’s wrong. He needs me here. I need to fight. I need to cement the deal.
I try shaking my head without moving a muscle. Wolf’s jaw simply tightens. I flatten my hands on the table.
“Kate?” Breagha says, tugging at my sleeve.
Glaring at Wolf, I push back from my melted ice cream. Breagha gives me a tentative glance as we start down the footpath for the toilets. “What?” I snarl.
“N— Nothing.”
Raging at her is like plucking whiskers off baby kittens.
I stop in the middle of the walk and close my eyes.
Taking a deep breath, I hold it for a count of five before I exhale slowly.
When I open my eyes, Breagha is studying me with such obvious concern that I force myself to smile.
“You said you had a lot to tell me. What’s the craic? ”
She blushes and studies her clasped fingers. “It’s not important.”
I cajole her. “It’s important to me.”
Breagha’s laugh is like a wren’s song, sweet and high and quick. “I know Mommy and Daddy will be so angry when they find out. But…”
“Go on, then,” I urge her after she trails off.
“Last Monday,” she says. “I was filling bags at St. Abigail’s.”
I nod. The Canton Crew has supported the food pantry for donkey’s years.