Chapter 9 #2
“His people.” She says it with the same tone she uses when a client claims their renovation budget is ‘flexible.’ “Aurora, you know I love you. You know I’m on your side no matter what. I just need you to promise me one thing.”
“What?”
“If this stops feeling like a choice and starts feeling like a situation you can’t leave, you call me. Not him. Not his people. Me. I’ll come get you, and I don’t care how many security codes or armed guards are between us. I’ll bring my brothers.”
I laugh, though there’s a lump in my throat. “All of them?”
“All six. I might be the baby of the family, but I’m also the ringleader. We have your back.”
I swallow hard so I can speak past the lump. “I know you do. No one stands a chance against the Cruz siblings. I promise I’ll call you if things get out of control.”
“Good. Now tell me about Eric, because you mentioned that walking disaster volunteered for something?”
“Yeah, he’s the lead detective probing Dominic’s disappearance. I don’t know why they’re acting so quickly, but I assume someone with more power than Dominic is pulling the police department’s strings.”
The silence lasts two full seconds before Marisol explodes.
“Of course they are, and of course that parasitic, badge-wearing cockroach volunteered. He probably raised his hand before the body was cold.” She takes a breath that I can hear from here.
“I swear to God, Aurora, if that man shows up at my door with his concerned face and his helpful voice, I will shove his badge so far up his ass he’ll need a metal detector to find it. ”
I actually laugh, and the sound surprises me because I didn’t think I had one in me this morning, after last night. “He’ll probably start with phone calls.”
“Let him call. Let him call every day. I will answer every single one and give him absolutely nothing except the satisfaction of hearing me tell him to go fuck himself in increasingly creative ways. I’ve been saving material for months.” She pauses. “Can he compel me to talk? Legally?”
I hesitate. “I think eventually, yes, if the investigation escalates and he gets a subpoena.”
“Then I’ll get a lawyer. A good one. A mean one who makes cops cry.”
I laugh again. “Adrian will provide one.” I say it without checking first, knowing Adrian won’t miss the money and will recognize the value of protecting Marisol’s silence for as long as possible.
“Adrian’s paying for my lawyer?” She says it flatly.
“My best friend’s billionaire boyfriend, who may or may not be in the Russian mafia, is paying for my lawyer to fight my best friend’s stalker ex-boyfriend, who is a homicide detective investigating a murder at the nightclub where my best friend used to work. Is that what’s happening right now?”
“Kind of, but he’s not my boyfriend.”
“That’s the part of that sentence you chose to correct?” She laughs, and the sound is tired and exactly what I needed to hear. “You’re fucked up.”
I close my eyes for a moment, wishing life was boring and routine again. “I know.”
She clicks her tongue soothingly but gets back to business. “Make sure the lawyer is really mean, like a junkyard dog after a thief. I want Eric to regret every phone call.”
I smile. “I will.”
“I’ll make sure.” She clicks her keyboard in the background. “I’ll send you a list of the top three sharks after I do some research.”
“Okay.”
“Be careful, Aurora. I mean it. Be careful with him, with the situation, and with yourself.”
“I will.”
I hang up and sit on the bed for two minutes before picking up the secure phone again.
I open the dial pad and put in the first three numbers for my mom before closing that.
I can’t lie to her convincingly. She’ll hear whatever I’m not saying in my voice.
A text is safer, so I open that app and type a message to my mother from the unknown number.
Hi, Mom. It’s me. I’m traveling for work and have a new phone from the company. I’ll call you soon. Also, Eric might reach out. He’s trying to get back together, and I’m not interested. Please don’t encourage him.
The reply comes almost immediately: New phone? Did you finally leave that nightclub job? You didn’t tell me you were traveling.
I hesitate before deciding on a lie: The nightclub company is considering expanding. I’m touring properties.
That apparently doesn’t warrant a reply. She doesn’t approve of my job, so she ignores it. Instead, she replies: Eric really cares about you. Maybe you should at least talk to him?
I stare at the screen. My mother is loving and completely incapable of understanding that Eric’s care is a costume he puts on over control. She can’t recognize such patterns in the men in her life or in mine.
I type back: This is a temporary phone for the trip. Please don’t give Eric my new number. It belongs to the company, and I could lose my job.
I would never do that without asking you first, but you’re being too hard on him. He’s worried about you, baby.
I turn the phone face down on the bed and press both hands against my thighs until the frustration settles into something I can manage.
My mother will hold my new number for approximately three conversations before Eric asks her gently and reasonably, and she decides sharing it would be an act of love. I need to plan for that.
Just remember not to tell him. It’s important. I don’t want to lose my job.
She sends an eye-roll emoji along with: You don’t have to keep harping on that. I already said I wouldn’t.
I have to accept that for now, even though she’ll eventually break. I just text back: Thanks. Love you.
She replies a moment later with a string of heart-eyed emojis that make me shake my head but smile.
Mom and I have our differences. I’ll never approve of the way she goes through men, just like she’ll never approve of me shying away from commitment, but I know she loves me more than an infinite amount of heart-eyed emojis can convey.
The rest of the afternoon passes in a strange, suspended quiet.
Adrian works in his study with the door open, and I hear him speaking Russian on the phone in a voice that’s lower and more clipped than his English.
The language makes him sound different, harder at the edges, and I find myself listening to the rhythm of it even though I can’t understand a word.
I try reading on the couch. The bookshelf holds Russian novels, financial theory, and a biography of Catherine the Great that looks well-thumbed.
I pick up the biography and read forty pages before realizing I’ve retained nothing because my brain keeps circling back to Dominic’s recordings and the list of clients whose secrets are now in Karpov’s hands.
I text Marisol to also grab my e-reader just in case my concentration improves.
We eat lunch at the same table without talking about anything that matters.
I ask if he can arrange to pick up my items from Marisol, explaining his man packed with a clear lack of female needs.
He agrees while making espresso on a machine that looks like it requires an engineering degree and offers me a cup.
I decline and drink water. He doesn’t push.
He texts someone and says, “Where should Fedor meet Marisol?” Working out the details takes all of five minutes before we revert to silence.
It isn’t hostile, but it isn’t comfortable either.
It’s the silence of two people who’ve shared a bed and a crime scene within the same hour and haven’t figured out how to talk about either one.
Around six, Adrian takes a phone call in the study and closes the door. I’m standing in the kitchen refilling my glass when Viktor walks in through the front entrance rolling one of the suitcases I recognize from my luggage set behind him. “She packed enough for a year.”
I laugh. “More like a week.”
He grunts but smiles very briefly as he releases the suitcase to stand beside me. “There was a laptop inside. Your friend took great care to wrap it between layers of clothing.”
He says it neutrally, but it’s clear he’s realized I was trying to smuggle it in. I nod and try to look innocent. “May I use it?”
“Grigor will need to configure it before you use it for anything connected to a network, but then you can have it.”
“Thank you.” I look at the bag and then at Viktor. He’s standing in the kitchen in his usual dark jacket, looking at me with an expression that isn’t hostile but isn’t warm either. “I know you don’t want me here, but I appreciate your help.”
He shrugs. “Adrian doesn’t bring people into his personal spaces. I’ve known him for seventeen years. In that time, I’ve been the only person besides cleaning staff who has entered this apartment.”
“Oh.” That sounds…cozy. “Did he bring me here because it’s not linked to him?”
“No.” I think that will be his only answer for a moment before he adds, “Not entirely. You should understand what it means that you’re here.” He looks into my eyes. “He made a decision about you, and he won’t reverse it.
“But you will if need be?” I ask under my breath.
He frowns. “Most of the time, protecting Adrian means following his orders.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Once again, he shrugs. “I’m not threatening you. I’m telling you how Adrian operates. Once he decides someone belongs inside his perimeter, he doesn’t let that change unless they betray him, like Dominic did.”
“Do you think that’s a mistake?”
Viktor considers the question for three full seconds. “The only mistake would be if you turn out to be less than what he believes you are.”
I hold his gaze. “I don’t know what he believes I am.”
“Neither does he. That’s what concerns me.” He adjusts his jacket and turns toward the study. At the door, he stops. “Grigor monitors communications on the secure line. He flagged Eric Hayes calling your personal phone twice today without leaving a message. The third time, Hayes left a voicemail.”
I stiffen which is mostly an automatic reaction to hearing his name. “What did he say?”
“He’s asking to meet you. He says Dominic has disappeared, and he needs to speak with you about the club. He sounds very concerned.” Viktor delivers the last two words with a flatness that makes it clear he finds Eric’s concern about as genuine as a three-dollar bill.
“He’ll keep calling.”
“He will, and Grigor will continue monitoring.” Viktor nods once more and leaves the kitchen.
I stand in the kitchen holding a glass of water while analyzing the most honest conversation I’ve had since arriving in this apartment, and it was with Adrian’s second-in-command.
What surprised me most wasn’t the warning itself.
He didn’t soften it or dress it up. He gave me pertinent information and let me decide what to do with it.
He also left me to infer what he’d do if I’m not who Adrian thinks I am, but that doesn’t worry me. I’m not going to betray Adrian.
It strikes me then that I haven’t even considered going to the police to tell them what I know or identify Adrian as the killer.
Part of that is self-preservation, since I’ve flirted with gray areas during my career at the nightclub, but part of it is an odd, unfamiliar urge to protect him like he’s protecting me.