Chapter 17 #4
I remind myself that stabbing Burt isn’t a viable option, resting my right arm casually on the edge of the open car door.
“Want to make a bet with me? If I win, I get a contract with your talent agency and the keys to this car.” I’m toeing the line of what’s appropriate here, but that’s what makes me interesting.
“A bet?” Burt laughs, lodging his cigar between his teeth and talking around it. “You’re laying out your demands and you haven’t told me what the goddamn bet is.”
“I’m going to win the Stars and Stripes finale.
By the end of that same day, I’ll have your other two conditions met.
How’s that sound? I do all that by the Friday after next, and you give me what I want.
If I lose, the boys and I will sign over all of our cars to you.
Not Pavel’s cars obviously, but the Pantera, the Chevelle, the Stingray, and a really nice ‘69 Shelby GT500 that we stole from Jonas.”
Burt is intrigued, studying me as I stand in the embrace of his suicide doors, the rain pattering on that creepy umbrella.
“Alright, Mrs. Borisov. Tell ya what.” Burt leans toward me, extending a hand. I shake with him before he can change his mind. “I’ll take that bet. I’m warning you that if I do win, I’ll have your vehicles dismantled and sold for parts. It’ll be a good reminder for you to stay humble.”
“Thanks, Uncle Burt.” I withdraw my hand, taking a small step back from the car. “But you’re gonna be the one that gets a big ol’ slice of humble pie. If you want, we can head over to Wesley’s and get it in the form of a shake.”
He doesn’t laugh.
“Try not to spend too much of that money before you’re sure it’s yours.” Burt reclines in his seat, still smoking, and snaps his fingers.
The doors are shut and the car rolls away into the rain, slow and menacing as its headlights cut through the dark.
“Follow me.” I walk into the parking lot and the boys follow.
All around us, there are vineyards strung with lights. The glow hits the men’s faces from below, turning them into underworld demons. We’re built different, the five of us. Politicking. Frame jobs. Murder. Cakes that scream.
“Is that daddy’s car?” I ask, pointing out a sleek Mercedes.
Ash nods. I move over to the trunk of the Pantera, opening it.
Thinking of Jonas, saying he’s going to need another son while looking at Yua.
This is dangerous. He’s so fucking dead.
I pull a red gas tank out of the trunk, setting it on the ground so that I can open it up without getting any gas inside my precious car.
The front seat of the Mercedes is occupied by Jonas’ driver, slumped behind the wheel and scrolling on his phone.
We only utilized the signal jammer for a precious few seconds earlier, just to make sure nobody was live-streaming or anything.
Any longer than that and somebody on the grounds would’ve noticed that their service was cut off.
“Remove him,” I command and Widow steps up to take care of it, wrenching the door open and grabbing the driver’s shirt the way I’d do if he wasn’t around to do it for me. Yeah. I lick my lips. Doppelganger. He’s my goddamn doppelganger.
Widow drags the guy across the gravel parking lot and then chucks him unceremoniously down the hill. The driver rolls down the grass between grapevines, frosty grass crunching under his body. He’ll live. Good deal.
Bohnes helps me check the car and its trunk to ensure there’s nobody else hiding inside.
Remember? First rule of arson: Check the structure to see who’s in it.
I grin. Aloud I say, “second rule of arson: be careful when you light your cocktails. Step back boys. I don’t ever endanger my crew.
” I pop the Mercedes’ engine and douse it in gasoline.
Kaboom. Only…not. Because the car’s not going to actually explode.
Doesn’t matter. It’ll be ruined. It’ll be threatening.
It’s going to show that I’m willing to do crazy things, too.
I flick my sister’s lighter, turning my own face into that of an underworld demon.
I back up several steps, squat down in my heels, and then touch the flame to the line of gasoline I’ve drawn out. The fire whooshes to life, clear but orange-tinged. Getting hot quick. I’m mesmerized by the dance of flames.
Gloved hands grab onto my shoulders, dragging me back. Alexei.
Widow is taking his baseball bat to the windows. Ash is smiling a cat-with-cream smile while Bohnes uses the flames from the car to light a cigarette. Glass shards litter the pavement like diamonds, and Widow does this thing where he reaches angry fingers up to his tie and yanks aggressively on it.
Nisha and Basti reappear in the parking lot, raising their brows at the burning car.
“Shouldn’t we be getting the fuck out of here?” she asks, knowing as well as I do that someone is bound to stumble on Polina’s body or the flaming S-Class in the next few minutes. And that’s if the guy Widow threw down the hill hasn’t already called his master.
“Did you get the content?” I ask, and Nisha nods.
Photos and video of Chet arguing with Polina in the parking lot.
Of her dead body in his car. I even asked some of my girls to grab a few quick shots of me and the guys inside the party.
Candid shots. Paparazzi shit. I’m going to give it all to Emma Jean, let her write a salacious article about this whole thing.
The more visible we are, the harder we are to kill.
I’m sure the mayor is thinking the same thing.
He has more than half of Springfield in love with him.
Everybody already assumes he’s going to be the next governor.
Anyway, I’m on top of it. Half of Springfield doesn’t include Prescott.
I know how my neighborhood works, and I’m going to use it like a weapon.
Chet and Jonas don’t stand a fucking chance.
“Now that I really look at Chet, he does look a lot like Lemon.” That’s what Basti says. Yeah. Tonight was harder than I’m admitting, between Miss Ito as a hostage, Pavel’s severed finger, and Polina’s murder. Me. I’m her murderer. Killing has never bothered me before. I don’t like this feeling.
“Nisha.” All I have to do is say her name and she’s tense and ready to move.
“Yes, Queen?” she asks, on high-alert in such a high-stakes environment. Our girls versus the mob? I can understand her trepidation. I’ve got it under control though.
“Tell the girls to start the music.”
“Finally,” she grouses, frustrated that my wedding events are being corrupted by this nonsense. We deserve to celebrate as a crew, without being threatened or having to threaten. It’s frustrating.
Nisha heads over to the open front doors to tell Shirley who tells Jennifer and so on and so forth. Word spreads quick. No texts or paper trails. Gossip is such an underrated form of communication.
I head back into the building with the boys just behind me and a herd of hot girls ahead.
On cue, my ratchet bitches pour onto the dance floor and drive all the ridiculous, back-stabbing nabobs (that is to say, Chet and Jonas and their ilk) out of the building in disgust. Poverty is contagious, is it?
The live piano playing is substituted for a booming subwoofer and KMZI 66.6. “Chichinya” by Ashnikko is the bop that fills the room just in time for us all to hear the lyrics about ripping out a dickless asshole’s eyeballs and putting them on a necklace. Aww, another apt metaphor.
Diving into the fray, I let myself get swept up in the bumping, jostling mass of my girls. Fist in the air. Smile on my face.
Eyes closed and silent tears on my cheeks.
It was either her or us. That’s the truth, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.
So.
Jonas and Chet are making their moves, but so are we.
Send your assassins. Send your lackeys and your goons. Hell, send the mob.
The one thing those morons don’t get is this: I am the most fucking PSYCHO of them all. I will race, kill, and romance my way to the top.
No regrets.
The house is brightly lit when we get back.
Gram is sitting in the formal living room area, a cup of tea in her hands, her eyes on me when I walk in.
The last thing I feel like doing is talking to her.
If she knew what I’d done tonight—if she truly understood that the only reason I didn’t kill my own sister was because my fuckboy did it first—then she’d never speak to me again.
My stomach churns, nausea rising from my belly to my throat.
“Hey, Gram. Didn’t expect to see you up.” I stand awkwardly in the doorway between the foyer and the living room. Gram stares back at me with dark eyes, mouth pressed into a perfectly flat line.
“I’ll catch you in the morning,” Bastian mumbles, giving my shoulder a squeeze.
Nisha and Hype have already fled to their room.
It’s nearly four in the morning, and I’m exhausted.
We danced and ate cake in the winery until I was drunk with revelry instead of alcohol.
No police showed up to the estate. Nobody said a word about Polina.
“Night.” I smile as Bastian walks away, leaving me and my boys with Gram.
She doesn’t say a word to me, so I take off for the stairs after a minute. I’m too tired to worry about my broken relationship with Patricia.
As soon as the door to our bedroom is shut and bolted, I’m on my knees in front of the toilet, throwing up.
The toilet water is red from the red velvet cake.
My least favorite color. The one that reminds me of blood in a minivan and my dead brother, my battered cousins.
It used to be my trauma, that memory. Doesn’t even register anymore.
“Are you sure you’re not pregnant?” Widow asks, his voice so soft and gentle that I whip my head around to stare at him, just to make sure he’s still the same guy and that he hasn’t been body-swapped.
I’d know. I could take one look at his face and figure out if the spirit of Adrian Lawless resides within those amber eyes.