Chapter 4
RUSLAN
“You had her brought back here?” The familiar charming yet equally painful tones of Valentina Greko carry across the kitchen with the force of a slap. “Are you insane?”
“I told you I needed transport.”
“To a safehouse or another hospital,” Valentina snaps. “Not here! Do you have any idea how many rules you’ve broken?”
I keep my back to her, spooning sugar slowly into my full cup of coffee. “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
“Ruslan, these rules aren’t a game. They’re in place to protect all of us and everything we stand for. What part of that fails to make it through that thick skull of yours?” The angrier she gets, the deeper the Italian notes in her voice become, and I fight an amused smile.
We might all be on the same side here, but that doesn’t stop it from being amusing when she gets pissed off.
Valentina’s a firecracker and the best shot out of all of us, which makes her one hell of a good Queen.
That doesn't make us friends. Ever since I got here, she’s been trying to lord over me as if my position as Ace isn’t already firmly at the top.
“Look.” After adding my eighth scoop of sugar, I finally turn to face her. “I made a decision and I’m sticking by it.”
“Forget that decision,” booms a deep voice ruined by years of drinking and far too much smoking. “What the fuck were you doing there in the first place?”
Through the dark doorway looms the King. Bradley Doyle. He’s built like a truck and the doorway gasps for breath as Bradley steps through while adjusting the watch on his wrist.
This kitchen isn’t small by any means. Kitted out with only the best cookware and appliances and with enough countertop space that all five of us living here could cook completely unbothered at the same time, it’s almost as big as the entirety of my old shitty apartment.
Bradley makes it look small.
His grey eyes narrow as our eyes lock, and after he finishes fiddling with his watch, he rubs his hand through his tightly waved black hair.
“You don’t think that plane crash was important?” I ask, holding his gaze.
“I think it’s not something we care about,” Bradley replies. “So again, what the fuck were you doing there?”
“That plane came down like a rock. You know how this city gets about planes, and the cops were sniffing around getting their panties in a twist about the drugs. Isn’t it our job to keep the cops out of sensitive business?”
Bradley’s impassive face doesn’t change. He stands there, staring at me as if he’s waiting to hear a specific bit of information that will satisfy him.
“You told me that if I saw something that needed our attention, then nine times out of ten, I would be right. And I was. That deal would have ended the war none of you have found a solution to.”
Valentina crosses her arms across her chest. “Are you accusing us of not doing our job? You’ve only been here six months. You don’t know anything.”
“I know that those drugs were the one thing that would end the blood spilling across the streets because some Russians and Italians can’t play nice together. I know that someone sabotaged it, so don’t you think that’s good enough for us to look into?”
“Why the girl?” Bradley demands, ignoring the back and forth between me and Valentina.
“Her dad was murdered. Her mom’s in a coma. I know a hit when I see one.”
“Why leave the mom alive?” Bradley asks, finally moving from his spot near the door and approaching the fridge.
“I can answer that,” comes a third voice. Raven Brady, better known as the Joker, skips into the kitchen with a file in hand. She flashes me a bright smile and passes the blue folder to me, then steals my coffee cup off the counter. “I got what you asked for.”
“Thank you.”
Raven sips my coffee and then immediately gags, her face twisting, and she throws her head back so violently that her muddy brown curls fly around her pale freckled face like a mane. “Holy shit, dude, how much sugar do you need? Bleh, bleh!”
“Don’t steal my coffee and you don’t need to worry,” I reply, carefully snatching my mug out of her hands.
“You’re going to give yourself diabetes.” She snorts, pulling herself up onto one of the counters to sit.
“If that’s how I die, then I’ll be lucky.”
Bradley clears his throat, a deep sound that vibrates through the air and makes me shiver slightly.
It draws attention back to him as he uncaps a smoothie and drains it in three gulps.
Even Valentina seems a touch less pissed now that Raven is here.
At a glance, Valentina is as cold as ice and Raven is far too bubbly for this line of work.
Somehow, they’re best friends.
“The mom?” Bradley repeats, irritation melting into his tone.
“Right.” Raven swings her legs back and forth.
“So the autopsy on the dad is still waiting on a conclusion, but I spoke to the M.E. Given the state of the crime scene, the mom was raped and beaten and the dad was tortured. I figure part of that torture was watching his wife be defiled and beaten. The torture dad went through, though?” Raven glances at me and sucks air through her clenched teeth.
“It was personal. I’m telling you, they were either very, very unlucky or they really pissed someone off.
I think Dad died too early and they would have finished the mom off, but the neighbor interrupted. ”
“You’re telling me they could assault and murder them but drew the line at harming the neighbor?” Valentina scoffs.
“Neighbor’s a cop,” Raven replies cheerily. “Killing a cop is a whole lot more trouble. I found that the dad was supposed to meet the neighbor for lunch and never showed up. He comes knocking, disturbs the killer, and they flee before they can finish the mom.”
Every detail Raven gives me settles in my mind. There’s one hell of a puzzle here and the more she talks, the more I know I was right not to just kill Ivy and sweep this mess under the rug.
“The cops that came to Ivy’s room. They weren’t there for any station,” I say, sipping my overly sweet coffee. “I think they were there to finish the job.”
“Isn’t that what you were going to do?” Valentina snaps. “Instead, you brought her back here. We never bring people back here, Ruslan. It’s insanely dangerous, or does the concept of a secret not register?”
“I was going to kill her, but something felt off. I listened to her story and I’m telling you, I don’t believe she had a hand in this. I don’t think she crashed the plane and I don’t think she was there to destroy the drugs.”
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Bradley cuts in. “It matters what the truth is. They know she’s alive. Both families want her head.”
“And if we give it to them and we’re wrong?
Whoever is really behind this will just destroy the next chance at peace and that war will never end.
” My lips press together. “Maybe it’s nothing.
Maybe she’s as innocent as the rest of the passengers, but we all know that what happened to her parents is far too much of a coincidence.
I know I haven’t been doing this as long as the rest of you, but isn’t this what we do?
We keep a fragile peace, we make sure that this city doesn’t descend into chaos.
I dunno.” I gulp my coffee once more. “It looks to me like someone is trying real hard to keep the chaos coming.”
“You shouldn’t have brought her back here,” Valentina snaps, but her words lack the icy edge they had earlier. “You’ve put us all at risk.”
“I know what I’m doing.” I wink at her.
Valentina’s eyes narrow, growing as sharp as the dagger she keeps in her boot.
“Do you?” A fourth voice drifts through the door, and the last member of our group wanders into the kitchen, his face stretched with an easy smile. “Team meeting and I wasn’t invited?”
Cassian Russo, better known as the Jack, strolls in with a bare chest and low-slung jogging pants clinging to his hips.
“Cassian, are you allergic to clothes?” Valentina grumbles. “Didn’t you hear we have a guest?”
“I did,” Cassian replies. “And as much as it pains me, I think Ruslan did the right thing.”
Bradley breathes so deeply, it’s as if the air gets thin for a moment. “Why?”
“Look at this.” Cassian weaves through the kitchen and touches a button just behind Raven’s head. It brings down a screen from the ceiling and as it flickers to life, I drain my mug and move around to get a better view.
There’s no audio, but there’s enough information flashing across the screen to tell me everything we need to know.
One of the survivors of the plane crash took their own life.
My stomach tightens. Surviving something that traumatic must be insane and I can’t imagine the pain that comes from walking away knowing so many other people died.
“He couldn’t hack it,” Valentina remarks. “So what?”
“Keep watching,” Cassian says over his bare shoulder as he rummages through one of the cupboards.
Text flashes across the bottom of the news report, making my heart sink.
This ‘suicide’ is just the latest death in a string of misfortune reaching the survivors of the Alpine crash.
One survivor, an elderly man, had a heart attack two days ago.
Another, a young woman, was a victim of a fatal mugging after daring to leave her home for the first time after the crash.
And a fourth survivor took their own life by jumping in front of a subway train.
“I don’t know about you,” Cassian says, turning to face us while battling with a protein bar wrapper in his teeth, “but it’s pretty fucking weird that the survivors are dropping like flies.”
“You think someone is taking them out?” Bradley asks.
Cassian shrugs as the bar finally tears open. “We can’t prove it.”
“Maybe we can.” Raven hops off the counter. “There are a hundred ways to induce a heart attack. And jumping in front of a subway car? If they were pushed, I’ll be able to find it on the cameras.”
“And if it’s just bad luck?” Valentina pipes up. “If you hear hoofbeats, you think horses, not zebras.”
“Can you look me in the eye and tell me what happened to Ivy’s parents doesn’t scream Mafia hit to you?” I face her, my eyes narrow. “Tell me that with one hundred percent honesty and I’ll drop Ivy back off where I found her.”
Valentina’s lips part but in the end, she relents. “You still shouldn’t have brought her back here. We have safe houses for a reason.”
“Agreed,” says Bradley. “I have to go. I’m out of state for at least a couple of weeks fixing this legal shit with customs and the Irish.” He points at me with one thick finger. “Don’t fuck this up. This place had better still be standing when I come back.”
A smirk creeps across my lips. “I outrank you.”
Bradley’s palm slaps the back of my head as he passes. “There are no ranks here, dumbass. We’re a team. You’re just new.”
I wave him off and watch him leave as Raven loops her arm around Valentina’s elbow and drags her out. “Come on.” She grins. “The sooner we find out the truth, the sooner we can make his pet project vanish.”
Despite the rubbing of personalities and nipping at one another, the kitchen’s colder without them. Cassian wanders past but pauses as the screen slides back up into its home.
“You really think this is something?” he asks, his head tilting to the side.
“I really do.”
“So why bring her here?”
My shoulder lifts. “Her dad’s dead, mom’s in a coma. Those cops found her as fast as I did. Didn’t seem right to take her to a safehouse and dump her if we want answers.”
Cassian’s lips roll together and he nods. “Alright. I’ll back you on this, Ace, but you gotta be careful. What we do works only because we follow the rules. You start breaking them, this whole thing falls apart.”
“If I’m wrong, you can fire me and find a new Ace.”
Cassian snorts. “If it worked like that, I wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.”
Before I can say anything else, a sudden, sharp scream of terror rises up from deeper within the apartment.
Cassian’s eyes glint. “Sounds like your pet’s finally awake.”