Chapter 18 Bastian
BASTIAN
brigade system /bri?ɡād ?sist?m/: noun
I pull out of the Saints & Skinners parking lot and merge onto the highway. The strip club’s garish neon signage fades to a pink smear in the rearview. The last thing I see is GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS before the evening clouds sink low enough to hide it from sight.
Eliana sits stiffly in the passenger seat, her hand resting over her stomach in that protective gesture I’ve noticed her doing more and more. She probably doesn’t even realize she’s doing it.
But I notice. I fucking notice.
“So what’s the plan?” Eliana asks, tapping her nails on the center console. “We have forty-eight hours before they move Sage. That’s not a lot of time to scope out a Bratva safe house and figure out how to rescue a kid in a wheelchair without getting everyone killed.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Well, do it faster.”
I squeeze the steering wheel. “I need to do recon on the Karlov building tonight. I won’t be able to decide on a game plan until I see what we’re working with.”
“And where does that leave me? Sitting in that moldy motel room twiddling my thumbs?”
“Somewhere safe and isolated.”
“Absolutely not.” Her jaw sets in that stubborn line I know too well. “I’m not staying anywhere without Yasmin.”
“Eliana—”
“Add it to the list of non-negotiables, Bastian.” She turns toward me, and even though her eyes can’t see much of me, the force of her glare is unmistakable.
“She’s been with me through all of this.
She gave up everything to run with me. I’m not abandoning her now because it’s inconvenient for your timeline. ”
I exhale through my teeth. “Fine. We’ll get Yasmin first.”
“Good. Get off the highway at the next exit.”
I follow Eliana’s instructions for a few miles until we pull up outside a dingy restaurant.
The OPEN sign flickers uncertainly, like it’s considering giving up entirely.
Through the smudged windows, I can make out the shapes of customers hunched over their plates and tired waitresses weaving between tables.
Eliana reaches for the door handle. “I’ll go get her.”
“I’ll come—”
“No!” she blurts. “No, you stay in the car. If Yasmin sees you before I can explain, she’ll either call the cops or try to shank you. Possibly both, and probably not in that order.”
I settle back. “Fine. But hurry. We don’t have much time.”
She rolls her eyes and gets out. I watch her navigate the parking lot with her walking stick. It fucking kills me to sit here while she steps hesitantly through a dangerous world without anyone there to help her.
It should be me carrying her over uneven ground, holding doors, pointing out obstacles, all that shit.
Not some fucking stick.
I watch the clock irritably as minutes pass. Then, just when I’m getting ready to say fuck this and go charging in, the diner’s back door bangs open.
Yasmin emerges in a grease-stained uniform. Her hair is escaping its ponytail in sweaty wisps, and there’s a ketchup stain on her apron that looks like a Rorschach blot.
The second she slides into the backseat and realizes who’s driving, any hint of kindness in her eyes is snuffed out.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t start screaming bloody murder right now.”
I should’ve known she wouldn’t make this easy.
I meet her eyes in the rearview mirror. “There isn’t one. I’m a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve either of you in my car. I killed a man in front of the woman I love. I faked my own death and let her mourn me. I’ve done things in the last two months that would make you vomit if I described them.”
Yasmin doesn’t soften. If anything, she hardens further.
“But my little brother is sixteen years old, paralyzed, and being held hostage by a psychopath who unfortunately shares my DNA,” I continue. “So I’m asking anyway. Not because I deserve help. Because he does.”
A car pulls into the lot behind us. Headlights sweep across the rearview mirror, filling the car with light until it passes and darkness plunges back over all of us. I catalogue it automatically—00s model Honda, single occupant, not a threat—before returning my attention to Yasmin.
“If you hurt Elly again,” Yasmin finally says, “I will personally ensure they never find your body.”
“Understood.”
“I mean it.” She reaches out between the seats and claws my forearm. “Unlike you, Bastian Hale, I mean it when I say things. I will kill you without a second’s hesitation. Are we clear?”
“Crystal.”
Yasmin sits back. “Good. Now, someone tell me what happens next.”
Eliana fills in Yasmin on everything that’s happened as I start the drive back to Chicago. I get lost in my thoughts. The highway stretches ahead, an undulating ribbon of black concrete in the darkening evening.
Yasmin takes in the whole complicated story with an expressionless face.
“So let me get this straight,” she summarizes when Eliana finishes.
“Your psycho mob boss brother is holding your other brother hostage in some shithole apartment building under armed guard, and we have two days to break him out before they move him to God-knows-where?”
“That’s the condensed version, yeah.”
“And you need us because…?”
“Because Aleksei knows everyone in my life,” I answer. “But he doesn’t know about Eliana. Not really. He had her followed for a while, but after I…” I trail off.
“After you killed a guy and broke her heart,” Yasmin finishes flatly.
“Yeah. After that. Then he kind of assumed I was all in on his shit.”
“And are you? Are you ‘all in on his shit,’ Bastian?”
Again, I meet Yasmin’s gaze in the mirror. Eliana is watching, too. Listening. Waiting.
“I’m trying to do right by the people I love,” I say at last. “That’s all.
” Yasmin harrumphs, but she seems to accept that answer, because she doesn’t ask any more questions.
Not for a while, at least. Not until Chicago opens its jaws to swallow us up and the neighborhoods start to look more and more familiar—and more, and more, and more familiar, until…
“Hold the fuck up,” Yasmin protests when the puzzle pieces click in her head. “Tell me we’re not going to—”
For the first time in a long time, I wince uncomfortably. “It’s the only place we can go. We won’t be here long.”
Yasmin’s hand flies to her mouth as she starts gnawing anxiously on her nails. I see the glimmer of unshed tears in her eyes.
“What?” asks Eliana. “Yas, what’s going on? Bastian? Bastian? For God’s sake, somebody—”
Yasmin clears her throat. “We’re going to—to—”
She can’t finish the sentence, so it falls on me to do it for her. I sigh as I ease the car into a parking space in front of our destination. “We’re going to Zeke’s.”