Chapter Twelve
This was ridiculous.
Stupid.
Certifiable.
Groaning, I swept my untamed curls into my signature messy bun and took a step back from the bathroom mirror. Tilting my head, I surveyed the outfit, wondering what was missing.
Ah.
My gun.
Using the new holster Bailey had bought me, I secured my weapon at the small of my back, shifting my oversized knitted cardigan to cover it.
There. Perfection.
“Is that what you’re wearing?”
Great. Just what I needed. An appearance by a Tim Gunn wannabe.
“Is there something wrong with what I’m wearing?” I quirked an eyebrow at him through the mirror.
“No.” Vas dragged the word out, his voice pitching slightly with his lie. “Just seems a bit…casual is all.”
I turned to face him. “You said it was a date.” I pointed a manicured finger at him. “Is this not a date outfit?”
“It’s a business date,” was his rebuttal.
“Well, I don’t want to sit all night in business attire.”
“Your top is too low.”
Looking down, I took in the soft, silken tank top I was wearing. It was white and fringed with a lace sweetheart neckline that prevented me from showing any cleavage unless I was leaning over. I’d tucked it into my black jeans and paired it all with black ankle booties and a red wine cardigan.
I thought it looked cute.
“My top is fine, Dad.” I rolled my eyes. “Why are you suddenly so fussy, anyway? You’re the one who set this up.”
The corner of Vas’s lip twitched. “I’m beginning to regret that.”
“Whatever.” I dabbed a small amount of perfume on my neck and the inside of my wrists. “Too late to cancel now.”
“Don’t be so sure.”
Sighing, I slammed the perfume bottle down on the bathroom counter. “What is your problem, Vasily?” I demanded angrily. “You’re the one who told me this was important. Now you’re acting like a scorned lover.”
Vas scoffed.
“I am sick and tired of your bipolar, shit attitude,” I told him. “It’s giving me whiplash.”
“Ava…”
I held up a hand. “Stop,” I snarled. “The only time you say my name recently is when you’re about to make up some fucking excuse about why you can’t tell me something or to apologize. I’m done, Vasily. You’re relieved of your duty. My father and Igor can take it from here.”
“You need to understand—”
“I am tired of you telling me that!” Brushing past him, I picked up the small satchel from the couch. Purses of any size weren’t my thing, but I wanted to be sure I had my phone and money easily accessible in case something went wrong.
Which it always did.
“The only thing I need to understand is that you don’t trust me,” I snarled. “And I don’t want a Sovietnik who doesn’t trust me. Want to keep your spot? Then man up and tell me what the hell you’ve been hiding. Show me that you think more of me than just Matthias’s widow who’s in over her head.”
Crickets.
Well, that was slightly heartbreaking. Vas was one of the few friends I had. Or thought I had, anyway. It appears I put more stock in that friendship than he ever did. To him, I wouldn’t be anyone other than a mafia widow. Someone he couldn’t trust to keep the secrets he was holding on to.
“Okay then.” Turning, I stalked out the door of the hotel room before he could see the tears gathering in my eyes and the broken shards of my soul.
* * *
“Moving those assets around was pertinent to keeping the Saudi prince safe,” the man pontificated. “He was so grateful he gave me one of his diamond encrusted turbans. The Portland Museum was honored to have us add it to their collection, of course…”
Jesus. Was this guy for real?
Conrad O’Neill, or Crunchy Jr., as I was referring to him in my head, hadn’t shut his useless trap since I’d sat down for dinner. Vasily didn’t have to worry about me memorizing facts about our company. This asshat didn’t care what I knew about Arctic Security. He was more interested in telling me how wealthy he was and how many people owed him a debt.
I wondered if it was bad manners to slit his throat before the appetizers came.
“Good evening.” The waiter approached with a smile. “Have we decided on our orders yet?”
Pushing back a laugh, I smiled and nodded. The poor man had been trying to take our order for the last ten minutes, but each time, he was ignored in favor of another boring tale of how Crunchy Jr. had saved everything from disaster.
The man should write a book.
If he hadn’t already.
“Yes.” Conrad barely gave the waiter his attention. “I’ll have the sixteen-ounce ribeye, rare, with potatoes and asparagus. Also, a glass of your best red.”
“Very well, sir,” the waiter acknowledged before turning to me. “And…”
“She’ll have the house salad with light dressing and a white wine.”
Poor man. The waiter’s gaze shifted nervously between the two of us as he scribbled down our order. Well, Crunchy Jr.’s order. It sure as hell wasn’t mine.
“I can order for myself, thank you.” I put on my best Kendra smile. Fake and plastic. “I’ll have the Bourbon Chicken and Shrimp with fondant potatoes, please. And your best top-shelf whiskey.”
Conrad sneered. I caught the look out of the corner of my eye. If he thought I was the same level of bimbo as his previous dinner dates, he would be sorely mistaken.
“Don’t you think you should have something lighter?” he asked, taking a sip of his wine as I tucked into my dinner. The man hadn’t shut up about my eating habits the entire time it had taken the waiter to bring out our food.
“Well,” I smirked, taking a sip from my glass of whiskey and eyeing his bloody steak, “if you don’t have to watch your figure, why should I?”
Oh, he didn’t like it when a woman fought back.
If looks could kill.
“You’re rather hostile for someone who needs to do business with my company,” he sneered. “I was rather surprised at the dinner offer, honestly. Had I realized I was meeting with the company whore instead of the CEO, I would have suggested we skip dinner and go straight to my hotel room.”
Vas said I can’t kill him.
Vas said I can’t kill him.
“Oh, honey.” My laugh was low, sensual, and full of the promise to do bad things. “I’m no one’s whore. I am the CEO. Maybe you should have paid attention when they told you my name.”
That had him slack-jawed and silent for a moment.
“Yeah.” I wrinkled my nose at him and smiled. “Should have thought about that before popping off at the mouth. And as for my company’s need to do business with yours? There is no need. In fact, from the look of things, you need my company more than I need yours.”
“We don’t—”
Holding up a hand, I interrupted him. “Now, now. There’s no need to lie, Mr. O’Neill,” I assured him, injecting as much condescension in my voice as I could. “Your shares are dropping, and your investors aren’t happy with you overspending your budget every quarter.”
He went to talk, but I didn’t give him the chance for a rebuttal.
“Must have something to do with the fact that you’ve been doing some naughty side jobs.” Taking a sip of my whiskey, I continued. “I wonder what the FBI would think about the money you’ve been shunting through an illegal account that has been funding the Aryan Nation, a well-known domestic terrorist group.”
His grip tightened on the wineglass in his hand, his face turning a rather fetching shade of purple. Like Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka, just angrier.
“I mean,” I chuckled breathily, “if that isn’t enough, I’m sure that the CIA and Interpol would be ever so interested in the many items you’ve acquired and moved for your clients. Or how about the Department of Defense? Do they know you were helping Knightman Security move all that lost cash through the Middle Eastern ports? That one took me a while to figure out, but I do have one of the best hackers in the business.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he hissed, but sweat was beading down his immaculately botoxed forehead. “My company is perfectly above board.”
“And I’m Cindy Lou-Who,” I scoffed. Wiping his mouth with a white linen napkin, he threw it down on the table in a huff and went to stand. But I wasn’t finished with him yet.
His high-pitched scream was music to my ears as my steak knife slid like butter through the middle of his hand, embedding itself into the wooden table beneath the silken cloth. People were staring, but that didn’t matter. Let them see what happened when you crossed a Dashkov.
“Did I say you were dismissed?”
“Fucking psycho bitch,” he spat angrily, tears rolling down his face.
“Heard worse,” I admitted casually. Leaning in, I whispered, “But we’re not here to discuss me. We’re here to discuss you and your sick fuck of a father who started your little company with the blood money he got from suppressing my mother’s case.”
“That’s what this is about?” he asked incredulously. I swatted his hand away when he went for the handle of the knife that was still buried in the table. “Get over yourself. It was a long time ago, and from what I heard, the whore deserved it.”
He paled, his eyes widening in fear when he saw the fury of storm clouds etched across my face. I tsked, shaking my head in mock remorsefulness.
“Wrong thing to say, Crunchy Jr.,” I scolded him. The restaurant was silent. All eyes were still on us. No one moved. Or breathed. Not that it mattered if they did. The only people in this restaurant that weren’t Sully’s or mine were the staff, and they’d been well compensated for their trauma.
I mean time.
Circling the table, I let my fingers graze over the soft tablecloth before clutching the hilt of the knife. Conrad hissed at the contact, the serrated edges digging further into his skin.
“I was hoping you were nothing like your pig of a father.” Disappointment colored my tone, and I tsked again. “Luckily, my hopes weren’t too high. I do hate to be disappointed. Now,” I twisted the knife slightly, and the man howled, “one of your clients caught my attention, and I want to know who the owner is.”
Silence.
Conrad’s teeth clenched together, his lips turned up in what I suppose he thought was a snarl, but it was more of a grimace. He wasn’t going to tell me without a little more motivation.
“Okay, then.” Grabbing the other steak knife on the table, I embedded it into his other hand. He wailed and cursed and cried, but it didn’t matter. “Sorry about that. Some people were complaining that I go for the kneecaps too often, so I thought I’d try something different. But don’t worry. A little bit of surgery, and you might regain some use sooner or later. Who. Is. The. Owner?”
“I don’t…” He swallowed back the pain and sobs. “There wasn’t a name attached, but I’ve seen him. Older man. Irish. With a cane. He was my father’s first client.”
Seamus. Or whoever the hell was pretending to be him.
“Why wasn’t there a name?”
“Guy didn’t want anything traced back to him,” Conrad told me breathlessly. “We kept him anonymous.”
“What about—” Movement at the door to the restaurant caught my attention. It was subtle, and no one else in the room appeared to have caught it.
Blue eyes beneath a wide-brimmed hat burned into my soul, the hatred bubbling up around me at the smug smile that was shot my way.
Kenzi was here.
Then, before I could blink, she was gone.
A ghost.
“Let’s continue this later, huh?” Without a backward glance, I strode out of the restaurant, ignoring the people calling my name. This was more important. The revenge I had been searching for was at my fingertips.
The street outside was nearly empty, save for a few pedestrians.
An engine revved to my left, tires squealing as it broke to a sudden stop in front of me. The window slid down. Betrayal seared my soul when she smiled at me and winked from behind the wheel of her Aston Martin.
“Come and get me, big sis,” she taunted before revving the engine again. Snarling, I ripped my father’s car key from my pocket and darted to it before she could get too far ahead of me. It was pure luck that I had insisted on driving myself to the restaurant.
The door opened automatically at the push of a button, sliding up and out of the way. Once I pressed the keyless ignition, it closed, and I was off like a shot. The Ferrari F60 America glided through the slick streets of Portland with ease. Its compact body allowed it to take the sharp turns of the city, weaving through traffic smoothly.
Kenzi managed to continually stay out of range. She was leading me somewhere. Probably a trap, but I didn’t care. This was my chance. Matthias was dead, and she was the reason why. I didn’t care if she had been tricked into it or was ready to apologize.
All I wanted was for her to bleed like my heart bled every damn day.
Rain began to pour from the open sky. The Ferrari’s wipers were working overtime as I followed Kenzi’s trail down a long dirt road just outside of the city limits. Despite the mud beneath the tires and several near wipeouts, I only inched the gas pedal down farther.
Kenzi had disappeared from my sight. Not that it mattered. There was only one place this road led. An abandoned barn surrounded by a field of trees. Because that wasn’t creepy at all.
“Bit dramatic, don’t you think, Kenz?” I hollered over the howling wind, the rain instantly soaking me as I stepped out of the car. Unease blitzed through me when I peeked at the depreciating structure before me. Summoning what little bravado I possessed, I stalked toward the dilapidated building.
“Come on, lil sister,” I mocked once I had stepped through the open door that led inside. It smelled of mold and musty hay, and the air hung heavy with disuse. “You got me all the way out here.” I let my hand rest on the gun tucked into the small of my back. “You just gonna hide?”
The echoing laugh was mordacious and dark. It made my skin crawl and my jaw clench.
“You used to like to play and seek.” Her voice was distant, and the capacious space made it hard to pinpoint where it was coming from. “Remember?”
I rolled my eyes. Oh, I remembered all right. The twins knew the inside and outside of the house. The secret hallways, the servants’ wings, everything. I’d spend hours looking for them, only to realize Kendra had taken them out for something special while leaving me home.
Yep. There were no forgetting memories such as that.
“That’s not exactly how I remember it,” I returned. “But let’s not quibble over such trivial things.” Not that those memories were trivial. They were branding. A reminder of where I truly sat in that family growing up. “Why don’t you just come on out? Let me shoot you. Get this over with nice and quick.”
More laughter.
“I always knew there was a mentally unstable psycho lurking just beneath that ridiculously na?ve fa?ade of yours.”
I snorted.
“If I’m a psycho,” I told her, “you made me so by murdering my husband. The one man who cared for me.”
“Oh please.” Her voice echoed around me, full of pity. No remorse to be heard. “Libby and I cared about you far longer than he has. We were always there for you.”
“You weren’t there for Libby, were you?” It was a low blow. Really low, but I was angry, and angry, rage-filled Ava didn’t make the best decisions. “Had her believing you were off at college this whole time. Where were you really, Kenzi? Learning to be Christian’s lapdog?”
“Shut your fucking mouth, Ava,” she hissed. “You don’t know anything about what I’ve been through.”
“And you turned a blind eye to everything I went through,” I shouted back. “Pretend all you want, Kenzi, but you always knew more than you were letting on.”
Silence greeted me. I doubted it was because I hit a nerve. More likely she was—
“I did.” I froze at the sound of her voice. Her hot breath on the back of my neck. “But do you honestly think I could have done anything? My father was a monster who didn’t need me and sent me away the first chance he got. But you? The whore’s daughter? You might not have been treated as precious, but he wanted you. He was obsessed with you.”
Snarling, I yanked on my gun, but it was too late. Kenzi had it in her hand and pointed at the back of my head before I could say “fuck you.”
“I’ve learned some tricks, big sis,” she mocked. “Don’t make me use them on you.”
I scoffed. “You’re not the only one with tricks.”
If she thought I was going to let her take me to Christian or kill me, she was about to get a reality check. As soon as I felt her body shift, I twisted out of the way of the gun. Kenzi hadn’t had a physical grip on me, and it was easy to duck out of the way of the barrel. I gripped the wrist holding my gun and twisted it over quickly. The move threw her off balance, and she dropped my gun onto the hay-covered floor.
Spinning around, I swept her legs out from under her. She landed hard on her back with a groan. With lightning-fast speed, she recovered, flipping back to her feet like a ninja. Where the fuck had she been? League of Assassins? Training with Oliver Queen?
Her gaze on me was askance. I smiled at her and winked. Kenzi hadn’t expected me to be able to go toe to toe with her.
Bitch didn’t know I’d leveled up.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Ava,” she cautioned as we circled one another. “There’s a lot that needs to be explained.”
“I’m not letting you take me back to my psychotic brother,” I hissed at her. “You’ll have to kill me first.” I paused and shrugged nonchalantly. “Or I’ll kill you.”
“Really?” she huffed. “You’d kill your own sister?”
“You stopped being my sister the moment you killed the man I love.” I growled and lunged at her. My arms wrapped around her waist in an attempt to tackle her. I was slightly bigger than her, but I could feel the muscles beneath my grip. She wasn’t the only one who had underestimated her opponent. Using my momentum against me, she wrapped her arms around my upper chest and rocked backward even faster as she let us fall to the ground.
Fuck.
Kenzi bucked her hips when we landed and sent me crashing over her head in a heap.
That hurt like a bitch.
Taking advantage of my momentary disorientation, she grabbed one of my arms and twisted it painfully behind my back, driving me facedown into the ground.
“I didn’t kill him.” Her words were a mere breath against my ear.
“Liar!” I roared, my head snapping back to catch her in the face. Kenzi yelped, loosening her hold on me. She rolled onto her back, clutching her nose for a second too long. Her moment of weakness was my time to strike. “You taunted me!” Getting to my feet, I landed a kick to her side. Kenzi grunted. The force of my strike sent her rolling onto her stomach. Another kick, but this time she was ready.
Reaching out, she snatched my ankle in her grip and pulled. The move sent me careening to the floor on my back. She was on me, straddling my waist as she delivered a blow to my left side. Ow. I hoped I still had a spleen after that shot.
“There’s more at work here than you know,” she wheezed through her broken, bloody nose. The droplets of blood dripped down her face onto my chest. “I’m not your enemy.”
I spat at her.
“You weren’t there!” I snapped, bucking my hips to dislodge her. It didn’t work. I needed to distract her again. “You blamed us for killing her, but you weren’t there.”
“That was the point.” She said it so matter of fact. “You needed to believe what I was telling you.”
“You still murdered him,” I cried, tears leaking from my eyes. “You took him from me and left me all alone. Everyone always leaves me. First my mother. Then Libby. You took the last good thing I had in my life and blew him to hell.”
Kenzi threw her head back and laughed.
“And look what you became,” she pointed out with a broad, blood-filled grin. “A warrior. A queen. You would never have become that in his shadow. You needed to grow. To learn what you were capable of. All your life, you’ve lived in the shadows. One person’s pawn after another. A tool. Now you are the master. You decide your fate. No one else. That is what I gave you.”
“You. Gave. Me. Nothing.”
It was small. A glint of silver among the darkness. I barely recognized it for what it was. There wasn’t any time to analyze the psychobabble she was spewing to me.
A trick.
A ploy.
Thrusting my knee into her stomach, I rolled our bodies, snatching the small silver-hilted knife from the inside of her boot as I laid her out on her back. The knife was to her throat before her back hit the ground.
“You. Took. Everything.”
Kenzi’s nostrils flared, her lips parting slightly as the pupils dilated. Her body shook infinitesimally beneath me. For a moment, she was truly afraid.
“Then do it.” She bared her teeth and leaned in toward the blade. My hand trembled, nicking the soft, vulnerable skin of her outstretched neck.
“Enough!”
The command caught me off guard, and I hesitated.
Strong arms wrapped around me and tore me off my sister. Surprise shook me, and I dropped the knife to the ground as the scent of fresh pine and old leather assaulted my senses.
No.
It was a trick.
He was dead. I’d watched him die.
“Enough.” His lips brushed the shell of my ear, and his warm breath cascaded over the chilled skin of my cheek. “Krasnyy.”
“Stop.” I shook my head in denial, my hands covering my face as I let out a sob. “Stop. Please.”
“Red.” His voice was as soft as supple leather, his grip strong and tangible. But it couldn’t be him. He was dead.
“This isn’t real.” I wrenched against his hold, twisting and turning as I kept hollering. “This isn’t real!”
Chest heaving, I struggled to take in air. Black dots etched across my vision. Numbness and tingling spread like wildfire through my limbs.
The world shifted in and out of focus. He was talking to Kenzi, and she said something back, but it sounded like they were underwater, their speech distant and garbled.
Did they know one another?
How?
She killed him.
He was dead.
“This isn’t real.”
“I’m very real, my love.” Had he uttered those words, or was it my imagination? Was it all my imagination? Would I wake up and find myself back in Elias’s shed, starving and close to death? It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been subjected to hunger-based hallucinations.
Was any of this real?
There wasn’t time to contemplate further as the darkness washed me under, and both imagination and reality ceased to exist.