13. Alice
13
ALICE
“No,” Lifesaver says.
Why does that word sound so hot on his lips?
“Think for a moment. Use your brain,” Brander says, pointing to his own. “It’s perfect.”
“It is,” Match agrees.
“Yeah, for you two.” Lifesaver scratches his head. Sweat shines on his face, and his hair, disheveled from previous activities that now must be kept swept under the rug, shines silver in the soft overhead lighting.
They want to tell Daddy about the Bratva’s plan?
They can’t.
They’ll panic him into next fucking year.
“Can’t you just act behind the scenes like you normally do and save his life without letting him know he’s in danger?” I ask.
Brander unclenches his jaw and turns his head toward me. It’s three times the size of mine, and looking into his half-sunken eyes still intimidates me sometimes. Definitely, out of all three, he’s the toughest. The most unforgiving, and the most ruthless when it comes to fighting. One punch would knock Daddy straight to the ground. He’d be nothing but a pile of rubble.
I know Brander is no stranger to blood and violence. He could eliminate Daddy and get himself and his biker buddies out of his shit, but he’s choosing not to. That has to mean something, right? A perfect opportunity to shift blame onto the Bratva has presented itself, and he knows I’d believe him if he told me the Russians assassinated my father.
I guess there’s still time for him to act and cover it up. But a tiny voice inside of me tells me no. He wouldn’t do that.
“How will your father react?” Brander says. “When he finds out?”
“He’s not gonna,” interjects Lifesaver.
“He won’t react,” I say, “because he simply won’t find out.”
Brander tenses his jaw. Deepens his gaze. “Look. I’m just trying to look out for all of us here. Telling your father that he’s under Bratva attack will give him no other option but to turn to us. It will lessen the blow when he learns of our marriage arrangement.”
“He could go to the police,” I add.
“It never ends well with the cops,” Match says.”
“No.” Brander slips out his phone. “The Bratva have complicated ties to members of the Vegas police force. It’s too dangerous. Detectives who stick their nose into underground, illegal shit lose more than just their nose. Your father won’t be going to the cops.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You say your mother was killed by Russians?”
“Yes.”
Brander extends his hands. “There’s your answer.”
“What are you trying to say? You think my father was involved with the Bratva before? You think my mom’s death had something to do with?—?”
“Let’s not get carried away here.” Match raises his hand. “Listen, Alice. Your father is the mayor of Vegas, which means he knows better than to run his mouth about Russian degenerates to the cops. If he wants his life saved, we are his only hope.”
Way to toot your own horn.
I wander to the window and observe the city. Lights twinkle, and planes wink, descending one behind the other in a line. The city looks peaceful when you gain some distance from it. Looks innocent almost, with the full moon and silver stars glittering overhead.
Vegas is a confusing place. The enlarged billboards displaying strippers and advertisements and all things glitz and gold make it this showy, in-your-face place. But it’s not. Most of what occurs within the city goes unnoticed. The gangs. The deaths. The deception. The place is nothing but a facade. One that I, for many years, innocently bought into, right up until Mom’s brutal death. Humans don’t always look out for one another. They kill because it feels good to draw the air from another person’s lungs.
The planes disappear behind high-rise buildings, but others materialize seconds later. How does it make Lifesaver, Match, and Brander feel when they take somebody’s life? Good? Guilty? They’re different from the Bratva, and kill only if there’s reason to.
What if the Bratva are the same?
Brander’s cutthroat face would suggest he’s been hardened to reality. What sort of life has he lived up until now? Did he even have a childhood? A stage where he floated through the world ignorant to the truths he now can’t ignore?
Anxiety twists my stomach, and a wave of sickness ebbs through me. These guys don’t live in fairyland, Brander in particular, so could his suspicions about Mom’s murder be true? Was there an ulterior motive? A reason behind Mom’s death all those years ago?
“Alice? Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I say.
To be honest, it’s more of a snap, but I can’t help the sharpness of my voice. I’m too busy trying to slow the rapid beating of my heart. Cool myself down.
No. It’s impossible. Murders happen all the time. Not everybody kills with intent like the Venom Vultures. Knifing someone in the heart is an addiction, the same as smoking and vaping and popping pills.
I turn away from the window. Dig my back into the ledge. Dwelling on the past won’t undo the Bratva’s current plans to murder Daddy.
“Do you think my father made a mistake broadcasting his Bratva elimination plans?”
The side-eyes tell me all I need to know—that my father fucked up.
“Look, darling,” Brander says, jumping in just as Match opens his mouth. “All we’re saying is that we need to work as a team here. Me, you, Match, and Lifesaver. Your father will find out about us one day, and I can bet my hot iron rod it will end in tears and three restraining orders. Do you want that? For us to never see one another again?”
The thought jerks my heart more than I’d like to admit. Levi, the fucker, never made me feel like this. My heart always beat at a steady tempo, even during sex, which occurred twice a week max because I was never in the mood.
Previous sexual experiences aside, no man has ever made me feel like this before. Never seeing these guys again sounds as severe as blood circulation being cut off. Prison is what it sounds like. Hell. Already, I feel my temperature start to cool. The blue color of my scrubs hung over the chair starts to pale into something that looks more like gray.
But telling Daddy the Bratva are after him will spiral him. Maybe he’ll abort the campaign and never get justice for Mom, or worse— dive in headfirst without an action plan and end up in a bloodbath.
“I’ll talk to him,” I say with a sigh.
The unsettled expression on Brander’s face doesn’t ease.
“If,” I continue, “he ever finds out.”
“Good idea,” Lifesaver says. He smiles. “Dropping this information on his shoulders will cause more damage, and slim his chances of survival even more. We keep our mouths shut.” He glances at Match and Brander. “All of us. In the meantime—” His eyes return to me. “You need to get some rest, sweetheart. It’s late. I need to get back on shift, and you two need to get yourself back home. Sleep up. Tomorrow afternoon we regroup and start planning our next steps. Something tells me it’s gonna involve blood.” Lifesaver walks to the door and unlocks it. “A lot of it.”
I jump into my car and pull out of the parking lot right away. Thankfully the ER is just one level, and displays a clear view of the surrounding area thanks to the brightly shining sun.
Slipping on my sunnies, I merge onto the road and slam on the gas. My eyes were closed for two hours last night, and for the first hour, all that looped behind them was the image of the blacked-out attacker throwing himself at my car. The choke hold had some force behind it. Kicking him in the balls was a lucky escape. I’m just thankful I managed to locate them in time. Wouldn’t surprise me if they were two marble-sized spheres drooping down to his knees. Fucking bastard.
I’m just thankful three hunky bikers crossed my path the night of my bachelorette. If they hadn’t, there’s no telling how rapid my heart would be beating right now.
Match offered to keep an eye on me tonight after I finish work, to ensure no attackers try jumping on me again, and Lifesaver suggested I equip myself with a sedative so I can jab it into them if anybody tries again, so the plan tonight on shift is to somehow smuggle syringes into my bag when my coworkers turn their backs.
Roadwork ahead, reads a sign on the roadside. A right-facing arrow directs me off the highway onto another. Twenty more fucking minutes before I arrive home. Great.
Begrudgingly, I turn off and thread between high-rise buildings that block the sun. I remove the sunnies and concentrate on the road. It’s narrow. A one-way. At ten AM, traffic is light.
A red SUV drives ahead of me, turning off at the next left, leaving myself and the car behind me alone on the very long stretch of road. BMWs are rare around here, but not extinct. Only the super fucking wealthy are able to afford German imported vehicles like the one rolling behind me, especially black, glossy ones that sport all of the latest features.
I peer through the rearview mirror again to try and catch a glimpse of the person behind the wheel—it’s probably somebody famous. Once, I saw the Adele in Vegas, and I didn’t think I’d ever see anyone better than that, but I’d love to prove myself wrong and find out that I’m being tailgated by someone like Jim Carrey down a side street in the heart of Vegas.
Tammy and Rachel would go crazy.
It would definitely avert their attention from the current state of affairs—me married to three bikers who I’m now banging regularly.
The blacked-out windshield makes it difficult to work out who the driver is, but I catch an outline of them when a spotlight of sunshine escapes through a gap. They’re tall, and they sit high in the seat. Although the face is still unrecognizable, a phone wedged in the crook of their shoulder tells me that they must be somebody important.
Maybe the car is a rental. Maybe they don’t want to connect their device to hands-free and have the car dealership spy into all of their phone conversations and text messages. Famous people are secretive. Daddy—not like he’s an award-winning Oscar nominee or anything—often avoids connecting to hands-free and getting his phone out in public because, according to him, “You never know who’s watching.”
I don’t know how much I believe that, though. It’s not like he restrains himself in the media and speaks in riddles whenever he’s interviewed. Announcing to the public that he plans to eradicate all Bratva groups in and around Las Vegas might be his biggest and only fuckup. People like him. He’s an agreeable man, and I see the sparkle in his eyes whenever people run into him on the street and say something positive. He loves making people happy and I think maybe, in some backward way, it eases the pain of losing Mom. He thought announcing his latest campaign would earn him even more respect and applause.
But actually it’s quite the opposite.
The congratulations mean nothing when your life is on the line.
And he doesn’t even fucking know it.
I just hope between them, my three husbands can pull something out of the bag and stop this before it’s all too late. Before I’m parentless and relying on sleeping pills to ease the grief of losing a parent all over again.
Nearing the end of the road, I glance at the rearview mirror to check if the sunlight has revealed any more of the mysterious celebrity. Nope.
But he’s no longer on the phone.
I turn my eyes back to the road.
Air freezes inside of me.
I gasp and slam my foot down on the pedal to emergency-stop the car before I slam into the red SUV that appeared suddenly out of thin air.
Pop!
A car door opens behind me.
I peer at the side-view mirror to see the driver’s side door of the BMW swing open to reveal, not my highly anticipated Jim Carrey, but the all-black figure from last night, the balaclava pulled tight over their head.
At least I think it’s the same person.
The air starts to solidify inside of me. My brain urges me to get the fuck up and run, but fear has paralyzed my muscles. None of them want to move.
And the black figure strides closer.
And closer.
And—
I kick open my car door and make a run for it, past the red SUV that shot out of nowhere to cut me off. There’s no time to peer into the window and see who the driver is. Tunnel vision. I sprint, legs spinning behind me.
Until two arms swoop me up.
“Gotcha,” says the stranger. Also male.
Sunlight dies as the other attacker closes in. I catch the eyes of the man from the BMW for a second. They’re dark blue, and cold. Staring into them shoots an icy shiver right down to the base of my spine.
The ground moves beneath me.
I try to kick free, but it’s useless. My legs don’t feel like my own.
“Get the fuck off me!”
Nothing. Not even an evil cackle.
Just silence.
Tears blur my vision. I catch a hazy strip of red metal, and one polished shoe that quickly moves out of eyeshot. My pulse drums the same quick rhythm as a tachycardia patients’, and I feel faint, like they’ve stuck a needle inside of me and are draining my body of oxygen.
Consciousness fades, rendering me hopeless as they throw me into the back of a car. Squinting up, I catch a slither of light. Two sets of eyes stare down at me, their faces both protected by the balaclavas. Ugh. If only I could find the energy to lunge forward, perform a surprise attack and tear the stupid masks from their faces to expose them to daylight—something they don’t seem too familiar with as nighttime attackers.
“Please.” My voice is tiny and sounds foreign. “Don’t.”
They continue staring.
“What do you want?”
Like I don’t already know. My father’s head on a spike is what they’re fucking after.
Maybe even mine too.
My breath runs away from me. Panic tears through my heart and sends it into overdrive. My lungs feel short of oxygen. Is this what a panic attack feels like?
“ Please ,” I beg one final time, my voice barely audible.
A gloved hand pulls the top of the trunk down.
And everything goes black.