“Hurry up,” I snap at my men, returning to my observation of them. “The timeline moved up. I want to be home in an hour.”
They acknowledge me by moving faster, heaving a large rectangular lid onto the crate in front of me and beginning to nail it down as fast as they can without making mistakes. We all ignore the muffled screaming and banging coming from inside.
He’s the reason we’re here, after all. He was never getting out of this, except by coming with me.
I don’t normally get this personal, this messy. I’m not an emotionally driven creature, not one to act on impulse. But this man? He messed withmine.
Once the makeshift coffin is ready, my team lifts it in tandem and I lead them to the vans we have lined up out in front of his dilapidated home.
“Get this one to zone B,” I order Yosef. “I’m going home early. It can wait for me there until tomorrow.”
As they load the crate into the back, my phone chimes again. A message from Kira’s driver pops up, which isn’t unusual. But instead of a standard status update, I get an irregular alert.
Miss Sokolov has requested an immediate meeting with you, urgently, with the company of her fiancé.
I stare at the words, uncomprehending for a long moment. They’re flat, just words, but they hold so much meaning. A chill goes through me as I realize–something is wrong.
Something happened to either scare them, or harm them. Kira doesn’t ask for me urgently. Ever. There is no if or but about it; she never has. And Tommy would rather eat dirt than admit he needs me. Which means that something is very, very wrong. Something at the dinner venue upset them, put them in danger, and they’re scared.
I’ll burn that whole fucking restaurant to the ground.
Logic threads through my implosion like a needle, a sharp, silver thought; if they were injured, the driver would’ve said so. That should calm down my emotional reaction, but I don’t feel logical right now. Until I know why they need to see me, I must assume that they are under some kind of threat or duress, and that makes me…
Makes me…
Furious.
“Get him packed the fuck up,” I snap. “Then move out with me, threat level two, status check on my niece and my–Tommy.”
I get a round of ‘yes, pakhan’ from my men as I respond to Kira’s driver with a fast message instructing him on where to go. My near slip of the tongue–almost calling Tommymyfiancé–is startling, but not totally unwelcome. Whatever he is to me, he’s important and likely permanent.
And now he’s in some kind of trouble, and I’m not with him to sort it out.
I clutch my phone so hard it creaks under the strain. Yosef must notice my tension because he throws the car into gear and we jump forward into motion.
“The accounting firm,” I command. “They’ll meet us there.”
“Yes,pakhan,” he says gruffly. “...Is he alright?”
And it’s telling, so damnably telling, that Yosef already knows exactly who is on my mind.
“As far as I know, they’re both unharmed.”
“Maybe he just got in a little scuffle again,” Yosef ponders. He’s the only one of my men who speaks to me so casually, but I can tell he’s trying to keep me calm. Me? Needing to be calmed down? I’ve never needed to be managed like that before.
But I don’t like not knowing what’s wrong.
“Just get us there,” I grit out. The engine revs as he presses down harder on the gas.
****************
Tommy
Thirty minutes after leaving the restaurant, we pull up to that fake accounting office, the one that hides Young-gi’s war room. I expect him to be here already, but the parking lot is dark and silent, and the building unlit. It’s ominous at night, and it’s not helping my dreadful nerves.
“Ma’am,” the driver says through the partially lowered partition. “Your uncle says he’ll be here shortly, and we’re to wait here for him.”
“Thank you, Nigel,” Kira says, but I’m not very grateful for that announcement. We just have to sit here and wait? Wring our hands and get increasingly nervous until he finally gets hereand decides whether or not I’m worth all this mess? I’m already anxious enough as it is!
