Chapter 13 Ember
EMBER
Ispent a good chunk of this morning thinking over what I’m going to tell Agent Rastelli when she calls on me again.
So far, there’s not a lot to tell. Just as I told her before, Roman has been keeping his business out of the club.
It worries me. What happens if there is nothing to tell?
I committed to sticking around the club for three months.
What if Rastelli decides to move against him anyway?
Will she tell him I was the one who gave him up?
It’s unnerving. There’s this pit of regret sitting just behind my chest that I don’t even fully understand, and it only got worse when I met his daughter the other day.
She’s a beautiful, polite, and perfectly normal teenager.
There’s nothing about her that even suggests that she knows what her father does.
What happens to her when they come for him?
Is snitching on him the right thing? My father would think so. He’d tell me that whatever happened to him or his family was a consequence of choices he made and we shouldn’t think too hard about it. I guess that’s easy for him to say. He never fucked any of the people he arrested.
That’s a decision I really wish I hadn’t made.
I imagine it would make things a little easier.
I’ve been dreaming about him lately. Dreaming about his arms around me, his tongue in my mouth and my legs around his waist…
It’s made for some restless nights. Maybe I’ll talk to my doctor about prescribing me some sleeping pills so I can at least get a good night’s rest.
Today, they’re not watching me. At least I don’t think so. I’ve almost made it to the coffee shop around the corner and I didn’t see any strange people sitting in cars or aimlessly hanging out by the streetlights.
I guess there’s no reason to watch me now. I’m working for them.
My phone buzzes as I round the corner to where the shop is. It’s Natasha.
“Hey,” I say. “What are you doing up? It’s not even noon yet.”
“Hey, listen… I got a little problem. Kind of hoping that you can talk to your boss about it.”
That sounds suspicious. “You can’t ask him yourself?”
“No. I mean, I guess I could, but he likes you. It might be better if you talked to him.”
Oh, boy. This sounds bad. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s about Carter,” she says. “He’s… he’s been drinking again.”
I stop walking as a cold, chilly rock settles in my stomach. “You’re seeing him again?”
“No. I mean… no.”
“Natasha.”
She sighs. “He came over the other night, okay? We got to talking and one thing led to another—”
“Jesus.” Carter. When she started dating the new guy a few weeks back, I was hoping that was a sign that I’d never hear that name again.
That piece of shit put her in the hospital last year.
Lost his shit on her while he was drunk and beat her so badly the doctors were talking about doing reconstructive surgery on her face.
I told her that if I ever saw him again, I’d have him buried under the jail.
“He said he was sober,” she says. “Like, for real. He said that… that whole thing last year messed him up so bad that he went into rehab right then and there—”
“Messed him up? Are you fucking serious?”
“Please, Em. Don’t judge me for believing him. I always said that things would be perfect if he just stopped drinking. And he swore that he did. He showed me his six-month chip.”
Six months. Guess sobriety wasn’t all that immediate for him. I take a deep breath before I go on with the burning question hanging between us. “Has he put his hands on you?”
“No. At least not yet. We were talking on the phone last night and he told me that he wanted me to stop dancing. When I told him no, he flipped out on me. Said he’d kill me before any other man laid a hand on me.”
Yeah, that’s a sure sign that Carter’s fallen off the wagon, assuming he was ever really on it. “He threatened you,” I say.
“Yeah. I’m really scared, Em.”
Now I understand what she’s asking me. “You know I can’t do what you’re asking of me, Tash.”
“Why not? You saw what he did to me before. You were there through all of it while I was recovering. You know what he’s capable of.”
“I do, but you’re talking about…” I lower my voice, glancing around myself for any pricked up ears. “You are talking about something that could put us all in jail for a long time.”
“They couldn’t put him in jail,” she says, a little bitterness in her tone. “He was arrested, went to trial and everything. And now he’s walking around free like it never happened.”
“He got probation—”
“Oh, fuck his probation. He doesn’t care about that. Em, I really think that if he has the opportunity, he is going to hurt me again. You have to help me.”
“Okay, okay.” I can’t stand the sound of desperation in her voice. The cracks that almost fall into sobs are heartbreaking. “I’ll talk to him. But I’m just going to tell him the situation. What he does about it, if anything, that’s going to be on him.”
She sniffles. “Good enough. Thank you, Em.”
“Don’t thank me yet. Listen, if you need to take some time off to deal with this—”
“I’d rather not,” she says. “I’m probably way safer at the job than here alone at my apartment.”
She has a point there. “Okay. I’ll do what I can to make sure he doesn’t come around the club. Talk to Junie and all that. He’s kind of sweet on you, so he’ll probably jump at the chance to help out.”
“Wait, what? Junie’s sweet on me?”
I laugh in spite of the cold terror sitting in my stomach. “Yes! How do you not see that? He’s always watching you when you’re on stage.”
She pauses and for a second all I can hear are her sniffles. “I just thought that he did that with all the girls.”
“Nope. Only you.” I like the idea of her and Junie together. Natasha needs a good guy in her life. “I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help. Okay?”
“Thank you,” she says.
We hang up and I stand there for a second, feeling like I’m twisting in the wind. The world suddenly feels that much more dangerous and I’m standing here without any kind of shield over me.
I walk the rest of the way to the shop, Natasha heavy on my mind. Carter was a scary guy, but asking a Bratva boss to step in and…
And do what? Whack him? The hell am I thinking?
If there was any question about my going to jail for being Bratva adjacent before this, there’d be no doubt about it once I tell Roman what’s going on.
Even if I don’t explicitly tell him to go after this guy, I’ve got a feeling that he’ll be more than happy to step up to the plate to defend Natasha in her time of need.
Weirdly enough, it just seems to be the kind of guy he is.
It’s busy today in the coffee shop. The moment I step into the enclosed space and inhale the strong smell of dark roasted coffee beans, I have to stand to one side of the door just to get in line. People are lined up at the counters nearly back to chest and every table has people sitting in them.
Well. It’s not like I have any place to be.
I open my phone and start scrolling through the news.
The line’s moving fast, so it doesn’t take all that long for me to get my latte and get moving out of the constricted environment of the coffee shop.
As I open the door and walk out, someone walking in bumps my shoulder… and my latte slips out of my hand.
It doesn’t get far. The man who bumps me grabs the cup with lightning speed, catching it in one hand just inches from where it just slipped from my hand.
“Whoops,” he says with a laugh. “Got it.”
He hands me the cup as I look up at him to thank him… and my blood runs cold.
He’s an ordinary looking man. Golden blonde hair cut low on the sides, the longer part on top gelled stylishly out of his face.
He’s got a large scar that travels down from his eyebrow and over one eyelid.
The lid is lowered slightly, the damage slightly clouding the darkened iris.
His rough appearance is one thing… but his neck is covered in tattoos.
He’s wearing a suit, casual fit with a couple of buttons undone. The small part of his chest is completely blacked out with Russian writing and symbols. Even the backs of his hands are covered in them.
I take the cup from him, trying not to look as shocked as I have to appear. He smiles politely and says, “Another lifetime,” as he motions to his tattoos.
“I’m sorry?”
“The tattoos. You noticed them and you must think—”
“Oh, I don’t… I mean, I’m not assuming anything.”
“You can relax,” he says with a little laugh. “These tats I got when I was young and dumb and thought I belonged somewhere I clearly did not. That life is in the past for me.”
I feel so silly. My face is getting hot. “I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t hide that very well, did I?”
“Most people don’t.” He pauses, looking me over. “I’m Sergei. Sergei Durov.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say, shaking his hand.
“Sorry, I know this is going to sound like a line, but I promise it’s not. I have seen you somewhere, haven’t I?”
I shrug. He seems nice enough, but the last thing I need is to be hit on right now. “I’ve been told I have one of those faces.”
“Yeah,” he says in a musing tone. Then he snaps his fingers. “The Kitten’s Paw. You work there.”
Okay. My cue to leave. I take a half-step back and his face flushes.
“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “I meant… Well, you’re the manager there, right?”
“Right,” I say.
“Oh, that’s fantastic. You wouldn’t happen to be hiring for security or anything? I’ve been looking for steady work for months and…” He motions with his hands, turning them palm down, showing me the edges of his tattoos. “You can imagine this isn’t winning me any interviews.”
I relax a little. A reformed Bratva guy. Who wouldn’t have thought that even existed? “We’re always looking,” I tell him, “But I don’t know if it’s the right environment for someone trying to stay on the straight and narrow. Strip clubs are rife with temptation.”