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He was a wanted man. Wanted worse than me.
I finished eating, finished my coffee, and leaned back on my hands.
He was right about one thing at least, I did feel a little bit better.
When he finished eating, he stood and cleaned up. I watched him, trying to understand his motives, trying to figure out why he’d go to so much trouble to keep me alive when I wasn’t much use to him anymore.
He could’ve let me die yesterday and it wouldn’t have mattered much.
“Okay then,” he said, sitting down on the couch across from me, “what are you going to offer me?”
I blinked and tilted my head. “I… don’t know what you want.”
“You want to live. I want to keep you alive, but I need to justify it somehow. So offer me something.” He gestured at me. “You know what I want. So offer it.”
My cheeks burned. I felt a flush between my legs. “If you mean you want to— you know, sleep with me…”
His eyebrows raised. “I didn’t—”
“I might… be able to. If that’s what you want.”
“Huh,” he said softly. “That’s not what I meant at all. But good to know.”
I covered my face with my hands. “Oh my god.”
He laughed. “I meant, what do you know about the Volkov family? Safehouses, members, money. That sort of thing.”
“Oh my god.”
“You’re bright red. It’s actually kind of cute.”
“I take it back. I think I’d rather die. You can just kill me now.”
“Oh, little bird. I wouldn’t kill you in a million years. Not now that I know you’d fuck me in exchange for letting you live. Which isn’t as flattering as you might think.”
I groaned and flopped back onto the bed.
He laughed and stood. I pushed up onto one elbow and stared at him.
“I know your original purpose is more or less out the window at this point, since it seems as though your uncle would rather just kill you than ransom you back. But you have to know something about him that could help. He wouldn’t go to all that trouble to murder you if you didn’t.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I said. “I mean, I worked at one of his places, but—”
“Which one?” he asked.
“There’s a diner at the west end of South Street right before the bridge. That’s one of his places.”
“That’s a good start,” he said. “Lots of Volkov guys go there?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Uncle Maksim eats there once a week.”
“Now that’s interesting.” He rubbed at his cheek. “How regular is he? Same time, same day?”
“More or less,” I said. “Days are different. But it’s always just after noon.”
“What else? You know any guys that show up? Names of his boyeviks? His brigadiers?”
I started to answer then stopped myself. I realized that we were in a negotiation. He wanted information that I had, and I wanted him to give me something in return—except I hadn’t explicitly laid out my terms yet.
“I’ll tell you what I know, but I want something in exchange,” I said.
He grinned. “There she is. I was wondering if you were really going to give it all up without a fight.”
I felt myself blush again. “I need some guarantees.”
“I’m not sure I can provide any.”
“You’ll have to try.”
“You’re already dead to your family. You know that, right? Whatever I can give you will be a step up from that.”
“Not good enough.” I sat up straight and stared into his eyes. “I need promises, Leo. I need something more than just continued existence.”
He walked over to the couch and sat again. “Okay little bird. What do you want?”
“I want a slice of whatever you guys are doing.”
He blinked at me. “What?”
“I want a slice of it,” I said. “You’re taking over the Volkov family, right? That’s the goal?”
“Ideally.”
“Then I want in. If I’m going to help, I want to be a part of your little inner circle. None of this hostage bullshit.”
He barked a laugh. “So now you want to turn into a real gangster, huh?”
“My whole life, I’ve been a gangster. I was born into this family, treated like trash, and still had to live life like a thug. I still had to learn how to fight and survive, probably had to learn it twice as hard as all my cousins and anyone else in this stupid family. Now they want to kill me, and that pisses me off.”
“I bet it does, little birdie.”
“So if you want my help, I want your help in exchange. I want in on this action.”
He watched me for a long moment without speaking, and I couldn’t read his expression. But I felt so sure of this deep down inside. It was like a revelation, like the world was suddenly turning on and opening up to me.
I saw so clearly for the first time.
I saw my uncle giving me shit jobs and treating me like an outcast. I saw my father barely caring about me. I saw the family looking down on me just because I wasn’t full Russian.
