I closed my eyes and tried to work through the information. We were actively and blindly walking straight into prison. If it wasn't for Jade...
Her eyes dead serious, Jade looked up from her paper and continued, "After your shipment arrives, you should pause and clean up your crew, but not in the way my dad predicts."
Clean up our crew. Fuck. I was ready to kill every single one of them. Nine men snitching? Our operation was huge; we had so many guys involved. To cherry-pick those nine would be a loud declaration that we had insider information.
“What do you suggest?" I was curious to hear Jade’s take on all this. Having her on our side, contributing her thoughts and advice, was not only luck. It was a godsend.
"I think you need to let him know that you knowsomething.Not everything, but that you're aware of what's going on. And you need to get rid of Slater and the other guy, first and foremost."
Get rid of? I sat there and admired her. What exactly was Jade suggesting?
"There are two more names that are very involved with the investigators; they need to go too. I'll find them and you can make it...just an accident that they are receiving less information. Is it a coincidence that the Voronstov guy left for Russia a few days ago? Right before you figure out what happened to your shipment? He was responsible for triple-checking every car before sending it off, wasn't he?" Jade asked, already knowing all the specifics.
Jade's story about how incredibly ignorant we’d been continued on into the night. She revealed everything she knew and provided advice and ideas on how to circumvent the troubles we found ourselves in. She also suggested we lawyer up, which was essential at this point.
Sometime around two a.m., Jade dozed off on the couch while Olga had been in bed for hours. Andrei and I quietly discussed our next steps, both of us realizing that at some point, we’d become too relaxed and cocky. The strict vigilance of our business faded, and we took a back seat, just collecting the money instead of staying on top of it all.
"First thing we should do is get rid of Slater. While Ilya’s at home, I'll get one of our guys there to take him out." My thoughts were rambling on in my head, and I was spewing out instructions that I had no idea would even do anything at this point.
My mind was spiraling as Andrei and I sat at the dinner table, looking over Jade’s makeshift diagram.
This waswayworse than we’d thought, and both Andrei and I had a lot of self-reflection to do, but there wasn’t any time for that. There was only time to disappear. Barely.
I glanced at my Jade peacefully dozing on the couch, and somehow, that didn’t seem like a bad idea.
In the middle of the night, I carried a sleeping Jade inside our little beach house. She opened her eyes just as I was placing her on the bed and, with a look of deep worry, she grabbed onto my neck.
“Oh, you're here,” she whispered as if waking from a bad dream and pulled me into her. "Don't go anywhere, okay?" she spoke through her veil of sleep. "I want to be with you. Just with you."
I lay in bed wide awake with her head on my chest and her hand in mine, and slowly, this whole ordeal began to look insignificant. Fuck it. I'd leave it all and run away with her. I had enough money to never have to worry about it. As long as we were together, not much else had any other meaning in my life.
I would never let her go.
21
Endless Interruptions
Jade
Iopened my eyes to the sunrise. The light blasted through the window, but gently. As if afraid to disturb. As if afraid to start the day and bring me into consciousness. Because that would mean remembering everything that happened yesterday.
And that would mean coming to terms with it.
Alex was part of The Nightcrawlers. No, he was at the top. And his heavy arm was wrapped around my waist, my back pressed into his chest, his steady breaths tickling the back of my neck.
And I fucking kissed him last night. No, no—it wasn’t a kiss, it was the breaking point. An admission of something I was deathly afraid of while trying to actively drown in.
We don’t have to rush.
I know how to be gentle.
I promise.
Just let me.
His words echoed in my head as I tiptoed to the bathroom, discarding last night’s clothes in the laundry hamper.
I sat on the floor of the shower and thought about it all. Alex, me, my father.
