9. Tamara
TAMARA
My pussy is sore and swollen when I untangle myself from Finn’s arms in the night and find my skirt on the living room floor.
My panties are shredded, but I couldn’t wear them even if I wanted to.
Which I don’t. I like wearing his kisses on my body, his handprint on my ass, his cum inside me. They make me feel … real.
Alive.
More me than I’ve ever felt before.
But I can’t stay here.
I don’t belong here in the arms of the Irish enforcer. This isn’t my home. Leonid’s mansion isn’t my home either, not without Ivana, but it’s familiar, and familiar is the best I can hope for until I find my sister.
I wander back into the bedroom and watch Finn sleeping from the doorway.
He looks like a little boy despite the dark stubble on his jawline, sleeping with one hand under his cheek, and his other arm curled across the pillow that was mine until I got up.
His snores are small rumbles like innocent thunder fading into the distance.
Watching him sleep, it’s surreal to think that, until a short while ago, we were fucking in the kitchen, in the shower, on my knees on the bedroom floor with my face buried in the comforter that we’d somehow managed to drag off the bed.
So much passion followed by such peace.
I could crawl back underneath his arm, curl up into the spot against his chest where I can listen to his heartbeat, and close my eyes.
I know it’s what he would want, to wake up with me in his arms. He will fuck me again with his tongue and his fingers and his cock, and I will bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from screaming his name out loud when the pleasure is more than I can contain.
But my sister is out there, and I don’t deserve so much pleasure when she might be being tortured by an enemy of the Ivanovs right now.
Finn will understand.
And if he doesn’t… then he isn’t the person he claims to be. The person I’m starting to think that he might be.
I let myself out of the apartment and close the door softly behind me so as not to wake him.
The city is peaceful at night, the lights softer like hospital lights trying not to disturb sleeping patients.
The sound of my footsteps on the sidewalk is softer too as if I’m subconsciously tiptoeing and holding my breath like this is a game of hide and seek, and I don’t want to be found.
Leonid’s home is in slumber when I let myself in.
I go straight to my room, shower the smell of Finn and sex from my body without dwelling on whether I will miss it or not, towel myself dry, and then pull on clean clothes.
My jacket smells of him, and I hug it close to my neck as I slide my weapons into my pockets and inside my boots.
I’m momentarily swayed by the image in my head of my feet on his shoulders while he eats my pussy, and the orgasm that hasn’t completely faded since I met him, resurfaces with a vengeance.
“Not now,” I warn my body. “Later.”
There will be a later. I don’t know when, but I will see him again, and the thought is strangely comforting, more comforting than the black and white photograph of my mother has ever been.
The sun is barely turning the sky pink when I walk away from the house and take a taxi back to the Lake Calumet terminal where I saw the woman with white-blonde hair fleeing the dock workers who were chasing her.
If I can find her, she will talk to me; I feel it in the way my stomach clenches when I think about her.
The dock is already awake, and I scold myself for leaving the hard hat and hi-vis in Finn’s car. It’s unimportant though; the workers are careless with their PPE, almost as if they don’t care who comes and goes as long as their salary hits their bank account at the end of every month.
The ship the Russians with the serpent tattoos were waiting for last night is gone. I see no men dressed in black. There are plenty of tattoos, the regular kind: hearts with arrows through them and two sets of initials, naked women, skulls, demons, tribal sleeves.
“Not a single fucking serpent in sight.”
Several workers eye me up as I walk past. One calls out, “Hey, love, you’re going the wrong way,” like he knows where I want to be, and I raise my hand in a salute and keep walking.
She isn’t here.
I don’t waste time waiting for her to show. I take a taxi to the Senator Dan Dougherty Harbor, and there’s no sign of her or the serpents here either.
I systematically make my way from harbor to harbor, eyes alert to anyone with white-blonde hair peeking out from underneath a hard hat.
My legs are trembling and my belly is rumbling with hunger when I realize that the only dock I haven’t visited is the Iroquois Landing, the one where I met Finn two days ago.
Not finding her isn’t an option.
I haven’t met anyone else whom I think might give me some answers, and I’m not so na?ve that I don’t think my curiosity will get back to the Petrovs. Leonid has eyes and ears everywhere. The Sicilians also. Why would it be any different for the Petrovs even if this isn’t their city?
When I arrive at the Iroquois Landing, I ignore the containers behind the quayside where I met Finn and focus instead on the ship pulling into the harbor as I step onto the dock.
I’ve seen plenty of ships moored up at each harbor over the last forty-eight hours, but this one raises the hair on the back of my neck before I even seek out any of the crew members with my eyes.
I don’t understand why until a memory that I’ve tried to whitewash out of existence comes flooding back, hitting me like a blow to my gut, and stealing the air from my lungs.
Eight-year-old me being dragged out of the back seat of a car by a man in a smart black suit and with darkness in his eyes.
The ramp that bounces underfoot as he drags me into an open container.
The frightened eyes watching me from inside the foul-smelling cell, and the ship beyond it with its rusty nets hanging from the side, the hull discolored from the seawater, and the silent men turning a blind eye to the cargo they will be transporting.
I’m not sure if this is the same ship, but every instinct is telling me to turn around and get the fuck out of here.
Only, my feet refuse to move. I scan the ship’s deck, searching for the faces that have been imprinted behind my eyelids for seventeen years, my pulse accelerating too quickly and making me feel lightheaded.
Even when I know they aren’t on board the ship, I remain still, like my feet have planted roots in the quayside.
Those men who paid the matron to hand us over and caused my sister to lose the hearing in one ear might be dead by now.
I pray that I’m wrong. I hope that the universe wouldn’t cheat me out of my revenge for what they did to us, or that it at least ensured they got the slow painful death they deserved.
When I finally drag my eyes away from the ship and search the men on the dock waiting for it to drop anchor, I find the same serpent tattoos coiled around the same necks I saw yesterday.
They must work for the Petrovs.
These docks have been controlled by Leonid and the Sicilians since they reached an alliance five years ago, which means that the Petrovs have convinced the authorities to look the other way while they offload their illegal cargo.
But how?
I should inform Leonid. He told me to observe and report back to him, but he would want to handle this now.
The longer they continue to operate in plain sight, the harder it will be to stop them because, unlike mine, their roots will be permanent.
And unstoppable. But I was so distracted in my pursuit of the white-haired woman that I forgot to bring my radio, and I don’t use a cell phone.
Fuck! I’ve allowed Finn to interfere with my focus and I’m already making mistakes.
“Hey!”
The voice penetrates my thoughts, and I realize that someone has been trying to get my attention. A woman. I turn around and spot her at the far end of the harbor, the woman with almost-white hair peeking out from underneath a white hard hat.
From this distance, it’s difficult to see her clearly, but I think she’s gesturing at me.
I start walking towards her as a hand clamps over my mouth from behind to stop me from crying out, and I’m dragged backwards, my boots scraping across the dock.
I slide my hand inside my jacket pocket, but my attacker pulls me back against his chest so that my feet leave the ground and pries the gun from my hand as he swings me around.
He isn’t alone. The other man facing me, arms spread wide and knees bent in a fighting stance isn’t wearing PPE, but he does have a tattoo coiled around his neck.
My attacker has my arms pinned to my chest, one hand still smothering my mouth.
I can smell his overpowering cologne and something else, something foul, like dirty dishwater, or damp clothes on sweaty skin, and I fight the urge to gag.
Instead, I draw my lips away from my teeth and bite down on his palm, tasting blood.
He curses me in Russian. “Suka!” Bitch! before his fist meets the side of my head.
Pain rings through my skull like a siren, sending stars floating before my eyes.
Everything else is blanked out behind the flashing lights and pulsing pain, the busy dock, the trucks driving in and out, the workers who won’t interfere because they don’t fancy their odds against two men attacking a woman.
Fucking cowards!
As the second man approaches, I draw my knees towards my chest, relying on my attacker to support my weight and give me the leverage I need. He does so, and I lash out with my feet at his friend, kicking him in the jaw.
He barely reacts apart from flaring his eyes and nostrils in anger.