14. Lifesaver
14
LIFESAVER
I rev my Harley and curl around a bend at top speed. Wind whistles in my ears, and my beautiful bike sings my second favorite tune—it was number one before Alice entered my life and took first place.
I could listen to her moans all day. Shove my AirPods in and stroke my dick all night thinking about her. God save my dick if my Harley and Alice ever join to perform a double act. That symphony would go down in history. Better than anything Beethoven composed.
God, did I mention putting together a video at some point while we’re fucking her? A semi grows in my pants at the thought. Don’t get me wrong, married and bonded to her for life gives me a lifetime’s worth of enjoyment with the woman…but a lifetime doesn’t feel like enough. I need two lifetimes. Three. I need to be buried in her pussy or mouth at all times—her hands if the other two are unavailable. Watching her body writhe with pleasure needs to be one of my five a day. We can save the video for times when we’re not able to see one another…which could quite possibly happen soon.
Enter Peter.
Half a fucking million people live in Las Vegas, and I’ll wager one quarter of those, at least, are fathers. Why Peter? Vegas is home to many dads, yet luck would have it that he happens to be the father of the one woman I crave more than water.
I enter the highway into the city and cruise, overtaking cars until we’re filed into one single lane to prepare for ongoing roadwork.
“Fuck’s sake,” I mutter under my breath as the road veers away. A diversion sign instructs me to turn off. I suppose I don’t have a great deal of choice in the matter, given that the road ahead is blocked.
I reduce my speed by more than half as I enter down a side alley that seems about as wide as a truck. A cruising ride into the city is what I needed—not this crap.
I came from the clubhouse where Match, Brander, and a few others were hanging out. Alto got his hands on some King of Denmark cigar, and I got bored watching them all pass the thing around, each taking turns to suck on the end like they were passing around some incredible cock. Fucking Alice as soon as her father left the room was bad form, so I think they needed a distraction.
And so did I.
That’s why I hopped on the bike.
Spotting an obstruction ahead, I slow my bike and squint. A car collision, perhaps? That’s no surprise. It seems strange that traffic management chose to divert vehicles down this road when other wider options were available nearby. Granted, it’s a quieter highway, the North Strip doesn’t accumulate as much traffic as roads like the Spaghetti Bowl, but still, choosing a different road could’ve prevented this very horrific-looking…
Not a collision.
What I’m seeing is more of a close call.
Except it’s more than that.
Turning off the ignition, I hop off my bike and lean it against the wall to inspect the situation. Parked askew in front of a sports BMW is a white Mercedes with a familiar license plate: 247-X41.
My heart misses several beats at once.
Alice’s car.
Before giving in to panic and calling her name, I try the car door, and it’s unlocked.
No sign of movement, even in the back seat.
What about the trunk?
Nothing.
The black BMW, practically kissing Alice’s bumper, has been locked, but that doesn’t mean I can’t smash the window and dive in.
I remove my boot.
SMASH!
These babies never disappoint.
The inside stinks of pretty-boy cologne—probably something the driver panic-sprays to alleviate the smell of all the dead bodies stored in the trunk.
Now’s not the time to make a fucking joke, Lifey.
I rifle through the middle compartment. Keys. An empty bottle of water. Aha. A booklet of some sort except…it’s in fucking Russian.
Russian…
Dread builds inside of me.
I pocket the booklet anyway and reach over to the glove box to yank the thing down. Again, more keys. Napkins and a BMW car manual. I stuff another Russian booklet in my pocket for Brander to decipher later, and slither out of the broken window before I bring attention to myself. Being discreet isn’t exactly my strong suit. That’s more Match’s kinda thing. I take a step back, minding the thousand glass shards on the road.
Fuck. Now what?
I rifle a tense hand through my hair and roll back my head to exhale a breath. We messed up. Should’ve had somebody from the club watching her twenty-four seven, not just at night. I shut my eyes. Collectively, we should’ve known better than this. The Bratva might seem nocturnal, but they’re not. They perform business every single fucking millisecond of the day, and I don’t know why this never crossed our minds before.
No. I do know.
The woman scrambles our heads every time she takes off her goddamn clothes.
And now mine hurts.
Along with my chest.
I reclaim my bike and swing a leg over, restarting the engine because I need to get the fuck out of here. Now. The BMW owner has an expensive repair on their hands, and I don’t want to be on the scene when they return. The phone call to Alice will have to be made a block or two away.
Her phone was nowhere to be seen in the car, so she must have it on hand.
If the Russians haven’t taken it from her yet.
RING! RING! RING!
I press my feet to the ground and wrestle my phone out of my pocket, almost dropping the device because I can’t seem to still my fucking hands.
It’s Peter.
My pulse drums loud in my chest.
After looking over my shoulder to ensure the coast is clear, I answer.
“Peter.” I straighten out my voice. “Hey.”
His heavy breathing blows static down the receiver.
I squint. “Peter?”
“I’ve just received a message.”
“From who?”
Alice. Please be Alice.
“I don’t know.”
I feel like smashing the device against the wall next to me, but I settle for slamming my palm into the bike handle to outlet my frustration.
I’ll throw something later when this hell is all over.
“What does it say?”
His breathing shakes. “ Peter Dyson. You will take the Bratva elimination out of your campaign or you will never see your daughter again .”
I sit upright on the bike. Panic ripples through me at lightning speed, but I force my mind to think logically. Surrendering to emotion will not save Alice.
“Have you seen her?” Peter goes on.
“No, I haven’t,” I say, and I can be honest about that.
But perhaps not so much about my feelings.
“But, man, I think I’ve just found her car.”
“Her car. What do you mean? Are you sure?” Just as I think he’s done with the questioning, another shoots out. “How do you even know what her car looks like?”
“I looked it up on the computer system at the hospital. Anyway, that’s not important for now.” I hop off the bike to double-check her license plate, a shard of glass crunching underfoot.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” I say, because I can’t exactly tell my mayor friend that I’ve just broken into a Russian’s limited edition BMW. “The plate of the Mercedes is 247-X41. Is that Alice’s?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, then it’s hers.”
“And she’s not there?” His voice breaks.
“Sorry. No.”
“Fuck,” he heaves down the receiver. Damn. It’s been years since I last heard him curse. “What am I supposed to do?”
It’s etiquette to break the news that the Bratva have taken his daughter in person as opposed to on the phone. I return to the wall and kick a foot up onto it. “Where are you, man? I’ll come and see you.”
“Home.”
“I’ll be ten minutes.”
I hang up before he even has time to reply, and stick the device back in my leather pants. Driving down the rest of the street induces tears for some reason, and the chest compressions worsen the further away I drive. I watch her car recede in the rearview mirror and feel tempted to pull out my hair.
Where the fuck is she?
I turn onto a new road, and my hands reach back into my pocket for my phone. I find Alice’s name and lift my phone to my ear.
Each unanswered ring digs a sharper wedge of pain into my chest.
I leave it ringing until the voicemail cuts me out, then shove the thing back in my pocket to concentrate on the upcoming intersection. Summerlin reads the road sign up ahead, a left-turning arrow below it.
Damn. It feels like it’s been a century since I last drove this way. These were the first roads I drove on when I first got my license, and the piece of road I’m now turning onto carried me, at eighteen years old, into the unknown.
At the time, that was college. My parents wanted me to stay home so they could employ me into the family investing business, but that never fizzed excitement through me like my dream of being a doctor did. It was too risky. Too expensive. “It’s always best to play safe,” they said, “because you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.” A quote that is only starting to resonate now, twenty-four years later.
I was crying on my drive out of Summerlin.
Now I’m crying on my way back in.
Peter never invites me to his place. He would sometimes message whenever he got something renovated, but the invite for me to come check it out myself never came. That, I think, has something to do with him keeping me at arms length from his “baby.”
If there’s one thing Summerlin knows how to do, it’s childhood. Mine was perfect. No cracks of real life penetrated through those huge parks, tidy streets, and all those impeccable detached houses that were made with only the finest building materials. Paradise isn’t extortionate five-star hotels and casinos on the strip. It’s Summerlin.
Summerlin shelters both children and adults alike from the harsh truths of reality, and that’s why my parents bawled their overprotective hearts out when I left on my Harley for college. Eventually, you break away from the cocoon and realize that Summerlin isn’t the world. For some, the urge to escape comes early, but for others, it’s in retirement—my parents reached seventy and eventually decided to get out and travel the globe.
Peter, I can see, has tried to shelter Alice from the world for as long as possible, and he still does. But it’s not enough. Putting a Band-Aid on something doesn’t erase the problem.
And danger will never go away.
What Peter needs is to trust Brander, Match, and me to take care of his daughter. To protect her. He might be able to change the forecast in the world of politics, but when it comes to Russian criminals, his hands are tied.
All four of us have the same goal—to protect Alice.
If he can see what lengths we’re willing to go to protect Alice and get her back, maybe he’ll only hate me half as much.
I park up the Harley and pace down the driveway, banging on the door that opens without a second’s hesitation. Was the guy standing behind it or what?
“Come in.”
The door bangs shut behind me. It’s airy in here, the air conditioning on full. His wife Marybeth was always into dark oak, so it’s nice to see the place furnished how she would’ve liked. A photograph captures my attention, and I turn to it briefly. It’s Alice smiling for a school picture. She had braces as a kid. I stopped showing my teeth when I had those nasty things fitted, but metal bits of wire never stopped her from shining, it looks like.
I feel myself both melt and shake with panic all at the same time.
Peter stares at me, waiting.
“Show me the message,” I say.
He slips out his phone, and I read.
(702) 002-8932: Peter Dyson. You will take the Bratva elimination out of your campaign or you will never see your daughter again. Alice will be returned to you as soon as you announce that you will no longer pursue the campaign.
“Did you call the number?”
“No.”
“Good.” I stare into his eyes. I should’ve seen it before—they’re identical to Alice’s. What am I supposed to do, though? Drop the news? Terrify him even more? This campaign means the fucking world to the guy, and more. It’s justice for Marybeth. For the out-of-pocket murder that drilled a lifelong hole in his heart. Getting rid of the Bratva would be the first step in sewing bits of it back together again.
Brander did have a point earlier, because the Bratva do oftentimes act intentionally, but Peter isn’t one to associate himself in Russian syndicate drama. Summerlin-raised individuals don’t even know the word Bratva. The only reason they would is if a member came knocking on their door. It would never be the other way around.
Besides, what would Peter need con-experts for anyway?
All I see standing in front of me is a widower and a father worried about the safety of his daughter.
“Law?”
“They want you dead.”
His eyes widen. “Who?”
“The Bratva. Listen.” I let out a huff of air. “I know you think you’ve got it under control, but these things have consequences.”
I mean, did it not fucking occur to the guy that the Bratva would find out?
“I know this doesn’t solve anything, but you shouldn’t have publicized the campaign.”
Peter’s anxious eyes search mine. “I don’t understand. Why have they taken my daughter? This has nothing to do with her. It’s about me and the campaign.”
“She’s your prized possession. You’ll do anything to protect her, and they know this.” I grit my teeth. “I’m afraid they haven’t left you much choice.”
“I can’t go back on my word. They’ve done too much. They’re too dangerous.”
“I know,” I say. “But they’re about to be even more dangerous.” I halt for a moment to think. The situation is time sensitive. “I think you need to make the announcement.”
“Can’t you help me? You and the boys?”
Aha! Step one of Brander’s plan.
Except it’s Alice’s life on the line, not Peter’s.
“Yeah, we can help, but I think you should still make the announcement. We might save Alice, but her safety can’t be promised for the rest of her life.”
“I could lie.”
I narrow my eyes. Rookie fucking mistake. “Lie? What do you mean?”
“Make the announcement but still go ahead with my plan.”
“And how will you do that?”
“My team will still meet to?—”
“Your team? No. Absolutely not.”
“What do you?—?”
“Lies always find their way back to the Russians. You know Brander, my buddy?”
Peter gives a curt nod.
“He used to have friends that wove in and out of their networks. Trust me on this. Double-crossing them never works out. Nobody ever lives to see the day.”
A small “I know” comes out of his mouth.
I deepen my frown. “What do you mean?”
He dips his head.
“Peter?”
He tenses his shoulders. Looks me square in the eye. “These criminals are too dangerous. I can’t pull out now, and I won’t stop until they’re buried. Every single one of them.”
I chance a reassuring hand on his arm. “I can’t begin to think how you feel. I’m sure Marybeth’s death still haunts you, and I know you think it’ll make you feel better if you can impose justice, but it’s in the past. Think about your daughter.”
A tear slips from his eye. “I know.”
I force a sad smile.
“I know,” he repeats. But he’s not done yet. “I know how dangerous they are.” His eyes meet mine. “Can you keep a secret?”
I’m keeping the one about me fucking your daughter pretty darn well.
“Yes. Of course.”
“I killed her.”
“Who?”
“Marybeth.” He wipes a wad of snot from his nose. “Not me personally, but it was my actions that caused her death.” He tenses his jaw. “I wanted to be mayor, it was my dream, but the other two candidates were so much stronger. I approached Vlad. I didn’t have the money, but I told him I’d pay him back.” He shrugs. “I don’t know what he and his team did exactly, but I woke up the following morning to a breaking news article on my TV detailing the passing of two of the most promising Vegas mayor candidates. ’”
Peter pinches the bridge of his nose. “God, I regret it so fucking much.” He’s speaking to the marble-polished floor now. “Vlad didn’t say much to me. My only instruction was to not get into the hire car that was taking us to the Bellagio.”
He returns his gaze to me, wiping a tear from his eye. They can’t focus, eyeballs rolling up and down my face like he’s trying to work out if I’m mad at him or not. “So I didn’t. I stayed put and took some sleeping pills to knock me out. It was wrong, I knew it was, but fuck, I was so desperate. It wasn’t fair. I’d done so much work. A hell of a lot more than the other two. It was a last resort, and so, yeah, that morning I woke up to the news that they were dead.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Vlad’s right-hand man came knocking on my door just as the news article was wrapping up. He held a paper invoice in one hand, and had the other laid out flat waiting for the cash to hit his palm.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“I closed the door behind me. Stepped out onto the porch because Marybeth and Alice were both inside. I tell him Vlad said it was okay to pay later, but he’s not having any of it. He grabs my hand”—Peter grabs mine to demonstrate—“and peels my fingers”—he bends mine backward—“to…”
SLAP!
“Give me the invoice.” Peter lets go of my hand. “He leaves after that, and for two days I see nothing of him.” He exhales a weighty breath. Wipes tears from his eyes. “Friday comes around, and Marybeth’s gone off on her morning walk. She always goes early before the commuters hit the road.”
I shuffle uncomfortably—I don’t particularly wanna hear what comes next.
“She’s been gone ages, so I check her location on my phone. There isn’t one. That’s when I take off after her to see if she’s okay. She takes the same route every morning, out of Summerlin into the desert. I find her body on a desolate street, the one that leads out into the countryside.”
His eyes drop to the floor. “Dead like roadkill. Her eyes are wide open.” Peter widens his own to terrify me even fucking more. “She’s covered in her own blood, and it’s dried—she must’ve been there for an hour, two tops. Anyway, something catches my eye. A piece of paper. It’s tied around her ankle. Her fucking ankle , Law, with a string. I bend down and focus my eyes to concentrate on the text. It’s the invoice the right-hand man slapped in my palm two days before, except this one is different. The total amount billed isn’t fifty thousand dollars anymore. It’s ‘your beloved wife’ scribbled in black marker.”
Peter stares at me, waiting for me to speak, but no words come out. Finally, I know what it’s like to be speechless.
He fucked up.
And although debts have been settled with the Bratva—at least as far as I’m aware—a big one still looms over him like a black cloud. Ending the Bratva is the only way he can repay himself, truly, for what he did.
“Listen,” he says. “Please help me. You know where they base themselves, right?”
“Yes,” I say. “Brander can find that out for us. But in the meantime, I need you to stay put. Don’t leave the house. You could make things worse.”
Peter’s eyes turn a sort of gray-green. He looks nothing like Alice now.
In my eyes, the two couldn’t be further apart.
Peter’s always been the good guy. He was the guy who stuck up for me in biology, and throughout college, and never let me take it too far with the booze when I got too carried away with the vodka. He’s the hero of fucking Vegas, not the villain that slid into sin one night because of a bruised ego.
Two innocents died for him to become mayor, and the incident still remains in the books as some freak accident. Does he not feel guilty? Probably, judging from the pale face and his inability to make eye contact, but I suppose listening to public endorsements all day about how good of a mayor you are eases the pain. If you fill your head with something enough, it has the power to consume you.
This would explain why Peter, for years, has always been able to keep his smile. Maintain a good public appearance and continue wearing suits and ties every day as opposed to three-week-unwashed sweats.
He’s talked himself out of it to be a good mayor, and a good father.
But what about Alice?
We can save her.
But that won’t get the Bratva off her tail forever.
Peter squeezes my hand and looks up at me. So much for Mr. Perfect. Standing in front of me right now, snot-nosed, tearstained eyes and a guilty conscience, is a man with one big fat juicy secret.
Now we have that in common.
“Do you think you can help me take them down?” he asks.
“The Bratva?”
Peter nods.
“One thing at a time,” I say. “Let’s focus on the present situation.”
“Okay.”
I head to the door and wrap my hand around the handle, unsure if I’m doing so to open the thing, or to anchor myself on something for a moment. The ground beneath my feet feels different.
“Oh, and Law?”
I spin back around.
“Please don’t tell Al.”