Page 150 of Cruel Lies

She was right. She was right every single time.

So I'm going to stop being clever. Cleverness is the whole problem. I've spent this entire relationship measuring her, reading her, learning her, using every scrap of what I learned to build something around her. And she caught me, because she's smarter than all of us.

I don't want to be clever anymore. What I want is to behonest.I'll do it on my knees again if that's what it takes, and if that doesn't work, then I'll spend the rest of my life watching over her from a distance thatshechooses.

But first, she has to be safe.

I reach for my keys. I've got a plan forming, a grand and stupid one. I'll go to her. She can have the napkin and my blackened, shriveled heart along with it, if that's what she wants. Maybe she stomps both or shreds them to pieces. But I'll hand them to her on a silver platter and say,Here is the danger, here are your options. Now, you decide what comes next, and I'll do whatever you say even if what you say is go to hell.

The truth, nothing else.

I've got the keys in my hand. I'm at the door.

Then the third phone rings again.

Navi. It's too soon.

"What," I say.

"Ro." He's out of breath. There's wind in the phone, like he's running outside. "Two things. I don't know which— Fuck, this is all so bad, everything is fucking— Oh, goddammit, no, no, no?—!"

"Spit it out, man," I bark. "One at a time."

"Istanbul. My tail. The one I put on Pyotr to watch our loose end, the one who lost him for a while. Remember that? Well, he found where Pyotr's been staying. A dingy little flat near the water, quiet, exactly the kind of quiet retirement the old man was dreaming about."

"And?"

"And it's tossed. Door forced. Chair on its side. Blood on the tile, not a lot, but enough to raise some eyebrows. His go-bag's still there, passport and heart pills and everything." Navi swallows. "Somebody took him."

I put my free hand flat against the door to steady myself.

Somebody bad has the one man alive who knows where every single Bratva dollar is hidden. Who knows the guns. Who knows the shells, the routes, the names. Everything the feds want, everything my enemies want, everything Cali's machine could trace—Pyotr carries all of it between his ears.

And somebody just walked into a flat in Istanbul and hauled Pyotr away.

"Who could it be?" I manage.

"I don't know. My guy's still there, he's photographing the scene, but he didn't see it happen, he was too late, he— Ro, if it's the feds, it's bad, and if it's our enemies, it's even worse. What if…"

"Navi," I interrupt. "The second thing. You said two things."

He stops. I hear him panting. I hear the wind.

"The men I sent to the brownstone… They were supposed to call me back once they were in position. They didn't, so I rang to check on them, but…"

My whole body goes cold. I already know how this little story ends.

"They're not answering," Navi concludes. "None of them."

I'm running now. Out the door, smashing the elevator button with the side of my fist. My heart is a fist, too, hammering, white-knuckled.

"Get everyone," I say into the phone. "Everyone we have. To her house.Now."

"Ro—"

"Now, Navi!"

The doors open. I lunge in. And as they close on my reflection—hollow-eyed, unshaven, the man my father made and the man I swore I'd never be, standing in the same body at the same time—I think of her doing the exact same thing an hour ago, closing her eyes so she wouldn't have to look.