16. Tate
Tate
The world is still moving around me in slow motion.
I realize with complete certainty that I’m with someone who is unlike anyone I’ve ever met before.
I don’t even know if I can say I’m falling for him, now.
I already fell.
I thought I knew badass people at my last school. Guys who acted tough. Had a few tattoos, maybe came from bad parts of the city.
They were nothing like Roman Petrov.
There is a depth of feeling inside him that I’ve never known in anyone else. He’s like an iceberg, and everything beneath is laced in just as much beauty as tragedy.
His face was nothing but pure, cold calculation as he moved through the property, holding his gun in front of him in a controlled way like he was in a fucking movie. And even now as he does one last loop around the house with Rayne and Hunter, I can’t take my eyes off of him.
The muscles of his back and torso tense up as he rounds each corner carefully, and I watch the ink on his skin shift as he moves.
Or maybe it’s that I can’t fucking handle what I’m feeling right now.
Would Roman truly kill someone for me?
I know he’s done it before.
Know he’s capable of it.
But I don’t want him to have to do it. I don’t know how to merge that version of Roman with the incredible, tender man who just kissed the tears from my cheeks, right in front of his friends.
I stay close to him as he and the other guys do a final search around the outside of the house, scouring the backyard, the sides, and the front gardens.
There’s no trace of anything suspicious.
Back inside, Roman grabs a laptop from the front room and brings it onto one of the long, dark red couches beside the fireplace.
When I sit down, I feel like I’m watching all of this from somewhere outside my body.
I stare blankly at the laptop as it comes to life, the black screen turning blue, then starting the system. Roman’s hand lands at the small of my back, and he keeps it there.
Rayne and Hunter are on the other nearby sofa, talking to each other quietly. Roman’s hand slides over my lower back until he’s wrapping his arm around my waist, pulling me closer toward him on the cushion.
“You’re shaking again,” he says in a low tone.
“Yeah. Sorry. I’m not even that scared, I just I can’t stop—”
I exhale, finally looking away from the laptop screen to meet his eyes. I lean over, resting my head on his shoulder when the room starts to feel like it’s spinning.
What does he feel, when he looks at me now? Is he aware that I’m falling in fucking deep?
We look at the camera footage over and over for the next half an hour.
Rayne and Hunter come over and huddle by us, watching the replay. In the video, the guy comes to the front door. He’s wearing glasses. He smiles at Rayne, then just waves, walking off down the street.
He looks completely innocent.
Roman searches through footage from the rest of the day, trying and failing to see any other instance of this guy on camera.
Eventually, Weston and Sev saunter over too and ask what we’re looking at. Hunter gives them a short version of the story.
“I think I’ve seen that guy,” Weston says, leaning over and squinting at the laptop. “Yeah. Definitely. He’s in my biology lab class this semester. Really fucking nice guy.”
Roman’s eyes narrow. “What is his name?”
“Fuck. I don’t remember. He said he was from Mexico City. Ramirez, I think, is his last name.”
Weston navigates to a website I’ve never seen before, typing in a login and password quickly. Suddenly, an official-looking Crimson College database comes up, showing a long, unadorned list of names and birthdates.
“What is this?” I ask.
“My friend works at the admissions office, and she showed me this once. It’s a private database, but all you need is a login, and… well, she gave it to me.”
He uses the search function to look for the last name “Ramirez” and finds two entries.
“That’s him,” Weston says. “Leandro. He goes by Leo.”
Roman zeroes in on his phone number and immediately takes out his phone to dial it. He turns it on speakerphone and it rings, once, then twice, before Leo picks up.
“Hello?”
“Leo. I’m calling from Onyx House. Did you stop by today to drop off a letter?” Roman asks.
“Yeah! Um, who’s this?”
“Did you write the letter?”
“No. Some guy paid me fifty bucks to drop it off at Onyx House. I didn’t even know Onyx Society was a real thing. Do guys have to, like, participate in rituals to be part of a secret society?”
“Who paid you the fifty dollars?”
“Random guy in town. Had dark hair. Um… he was wearing a black shirt? Long-sleeve? I saw him at the diner when I went and got a bag of bagels for my dorm—”
“You saw him at Capp’s?”
“Yeah.”
“Any other details you can remember?”
“Not really. I didn’t really look at him closely.”
Roman nods. “Thank you, Leo.”
“Um, who is this?”
Roman hangs up and a moment later, there’s a knock at the front door. I jump at the sound, but Roman puts a palm on my back.
“It’s just Maks. See?”
He points to the live feed at the corner of the laptop, where we can see Maks, alone, at the Onyx House front door.
I relax a little.
“Are you sure it’s just Maks at the door?” I ask. “What if someone has a gun pointed at him from far away, and they’re going to have him kill us? Did you even know he was coming?”
“I told him to come,” Roman tells me. “But I’m very glad you’re finally thinking about your own safety.”
Roman greets his cousin at the door and then brings him back into the front room where the rest of us are sitting.
Maks glances at Hunter, Rayne, Wes, and Sev, but Roman waves a hand through the air.
“You can speak freely here, Maks. Tell me. Have you found any info?”
Maks gives him a grim look. “What I found is not good.”
“How bad?”
“You are not going to like it, Roman.”
My heart plummets low in my chest.
Maks and Roman are similar in that they don’t tend to exaggerate about anything. If Maks says the news is bad, it has to be catastrophic.
“Tell us. Now.”
Maks sits down on the sofa where I’ve been sitting with Roman.
He pulls out a small black laptop and opens it, showing Roman the screen.
“This is the background record of the boy that Tate was pictured with on the beach. Tate, were you aware that Lucian Farina’s father is a high-ranking inspector in the New York City police?”
My chest goes cold. “No. He never mentioned a thing about that.”
“This must be how he got my crime record,” Roman says. “Earlier tonight, Tate got a message about one of my arrests from the city, a few years ago.
Maks nods. “At first, the only piece of information I could glean about Lucian Farina was about his mother, Eva Farina. She grew up in New York. She was a beautiful socialite. They were wealthy. But I couldn’t find a single piece of information about his father.”
“Did you figure out why?” Roman asks.
Maks nods. “His father isn’t named Farina. It’s his mother’s maiden name. His father never married Eva Farina, but he has one child with her. I was able to find a record from the hospital, the day Lucian was born.”
“And who is his father?”
“Dino Sampietro,” Maks says.
Roman stares at Maks like he has suddenly turned to stone.
I see him clench his hand into a tight fist, then let it go, then clench again.
“What? Who is he?” I ask, hating the panic rising in my voice.
“The Sampietro family is paid by the Malettis. We’ve known for years. They are the Malettis’ corrupt connections within the police force. The person you were with on that beach was paid by them, Tate.”
“Is that bad?”
“It is unspeakably bad,” he says, turning to look at me with a wild look in his eyes, then turning back to Hunter. “You are sure his location was still in the city tonight?”
Hunter navigates to a few different apps on his laptop, shaking his head. “It said he was, but it looks like the location hasn’t been updated for a couple of hours now. It doesn’t make sense, because it should be refreshing many times a minute, but…”
“Fuck,” Roman says.
“If the guy turned his phone off completely, it wouldn’t update,” Maks says.
Hunter nods. “Correct. I’m afraid of that.”
Roman stands up and paces around the room, running his fingers through his thick hair. “Blyat. Fuck, fuck, fuck, this cannot be happening. I… I don’t think that day at the beach was a random, chance meeting, Tate. I think it was a set-up.”
I swallow. “How? I left the beach, and went back to my hotel…”
“How did you leave the beach?”
“Well... I snuck away, actually. The Farina guy was starting to get pushy, and when he was at the bar ordering another drink, I slipped off into the crowd and left.”
“Thank God you left. You were likely nearly kidnapped that day. You may have been killed—”
“You’re saying if I didn’t happen to sneak off like I did, he would have taken me somewhere?”
Roman runs his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. “And you screwed up their plan when you slipped away. No wonder the kid is pissed at you. He… he probably fucked up an initiation. Fucker.”
Roman strides over to the fireplace mantle and slams his fist against it hard.
It makes a thud throughout the room.
He does it again, two more times, then lets out a pained, frustrated groan.
“What’s an initiation?” I ask. “What the hell does that even mean?”
“Lucian Farina is likely being initiated to be a member of the Maletti mob. If he was able to nab you, and take you back, he would have been in. Now that it got fucked up, his life is on the line. He’s trying to prove himself to them. To win their trust back.”
Roman won’t say it out loud, probably for my benefit, but I can see it in his eyes.
This is so much worse than I knew.
Far worse than he knew, as well.
I shake my head, trying to piece it all together.
“I’ve never even heard of the Malettis before. They’re… they’re a part of your life, not mine. Why would they have wanted to kidnap me, months and months ago?”
“Dollar signs,” Maks says. “You would not be the first child of a wealthy celebrity that they have used as a ransom ticket, Tate. These things happen all of the time, and news of it never makes it to the public if they get their money.”
My stomach feels like a pit. “But I ran. So they never got their money.”
Roman is staring into the fire with his eyes wide.
“No. It is still too close to home. Too much of a coincidence. The Malettis want to make my life hell… so how did I end up watching over one of the kidnapping victims that they failed to score?”
“Yegor is the one who connected us with Tate,” Maks says. “Yegor despises the Malettis. He couldn’t have purposely led them here… no?”
Roman’s expression is unreadable.
My heart sinks.
“You know what this means?” Maks asks, staring directly at Roman.
I’m too afraid to ask.
“I do know what it means,” Roman says, standing up from the couch.