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“Let me see your computer. I need to clean it up a bit,” I tell her, looking over my shoulder. The door is shut but unlocked, so I have to be discreet. I pull out the package of cookies I brought her and hand them over, smiling when she stifles a squeal, opens the package, and crams two in her mouth.
“Easy, there,” I tell her. “You’ll have to hide them so you can have them later.”
I run a virus scan and change the log-on every few weeks so she can continue to get online. We instant message each other often. Though her social skills are significantly impaired, and she remains childlike in many ways, intellectually she’s still on point. Brilliant even.
I open the laptop, then freeze when the computer screen opens. It takes a few seconds for what I’m seeing to register. I blink, scanning down the list of transactions, panic sweeping through me.
“Calina…” my voice trails off and I cover my mouth with my hand.
Oh, God. I read the transactions, and shake my head.
It was a mistake giving her this computer. A very grave mistake.
“I got them back,” she says in a singsong voice, shoving more cookies in her mouth. Crumbs spray on the sheets and she wipes her hand across the back of her mouth. “The people that killed dad.”
“Calina,” I moan, pleading for something I can’t have—her innocence. “You didn’t. Oh, God, tell me you didn’t…”
I scroll through the transactions on her screen. In a panic, I quickly click on the network settings and nearly cry when I see she’s disabled the VPN blocker.
“Didn’t do what?” she says, her voice hardening and eyes flashing at me. “Didn’t bleed their accounts? I did, I did, I did!” Her voice rises in pitch like an angry toddler on the verge of an epic meltdown.
“Hush,” I tell her. “Shhhh. Stay calm.”
“They killed our father!” she says. “And he taught me how to do this, so I did it to honor his memory.”
“Who, baby?” I whisper. God, who the fuck did she do this to?
“They call them the brotherhood,” she says happily, eating another cookie. My stomach churns with nerves. “The Bratva.”
No. This can’t be happening.
“How did you…” my voice trails off as I take a deep breath and try to will myself to stay calm. “How did you know it was them?”
When her eyes meet mine, for one minute I see a glimpse into the Calina that died the day of that accident. Fierce, brilliant, dauntless. “The tattoos, Larissa. The Russian mob all have the same tattoos. I don’t remember much but I know that. The guy who ran us off the road had the tattoos.”
My eyes water and I blink rapidly to stay calm. “Calina, many people have tattoos, honey.”
“But not those tattoos,” she says, getting to her feet. The cookies fall to the floor and scatter, forgotten. I’m on my feet, too, palms faced downward, trying to calm her. “Those are the ones who did it!”
“Shhh, honey. Calina, sit down,” I tell her sternly.
Like a child, she flounces back on the bed.
“You removed the VPN blocker,” I tell her. “I can tell just by looking at this screen. Why?”
My stomach clenches in knots.
“Because I want them to come,” she says with conviction. “I want them to come and tell me why.”
I close my eyes and take in a deep breath, then open them and pick up my phone. I call Glen.
“Yeah?”
“We need to talk.”“They’re coming tonight, Larissa.” Glen’s voice sounds strained, as if he’s going to cry, and the sound alone makes tears prick my eyes.
“What?” I whisper.
It’s been one week since I called Glen after finding out what Calina’s been up to. One week trying to cover her tracks and find out what the hell I’m going to do about this clusterfuck. One week of sleepless nights as I tossed and turned fearing the worst.
I paid one of Glen’s men to patrol the hospital to be sure Calina was safe, but it cost me. The movies might make scammers and hackers look like they’re rich, but the reality is far from the truth. On a good month, I bring in about twenty-five thousand rubles… or about four hundred American dollars. My work is unpredictable and haphazard at best, but I get by.
It took everything I’ve scrimped and saved to pay for the surveillance for Calina, and now…
“What does that mean?” I ask him. “What can I do? How do you know?”
He tells me how he’s found out, and my blood runs cold. If they knew what he’s done… how he’s hacked into the communication between some of Russia’s most feared criminals… his life would be forfeit. I hear what he says but the blood pounds in my ears so rapidly I can’t think straight.
They’re coming for Calina.
I stifle a sob.
