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I’m not the only one sure if she did have a weapon she would have used it by now. David raises the gun to the girl’s face.
Her gasp is ice down my spine. It doesn’t matter I still feel the sting of her hate—the sight of fear on her face sends my hand to David’s arm and pushes it down. “Your name,malyshka. Tell me your name.”
“Karma,” is all she says before she walks away.
The concern I had in the face of how deep her hatred runs disappears. She really had no idea who she was up against if she thought she could threaten me and my family then simply walk away. If she was stupid enough to go up against an enemy without knowing everything you can about them, she wouldn’t live for long.
Speaking in Russian to Boris in case the sound traveled, I order, “Follow her, unseen. Sit on her place once you get there and call me with the address.”
He nods.
Since the woman has been scared off, I have David take me to my condo. The better to be near Milos anyway when Boris calls with the information on the girl. Getting into the SUV, my stomach turns as I consider how young she had to have been for her to be sold by my father. I close my eyes as I think of my father looking at her and seeing nothing more than a product instead of a child.
Not for the first time, I wonder how he did it. I loved—still love—my father deeply, but when I think of the things he did…I don’t like him. It’s painful even though he’s been dead for more than fifteen years. He was a good father, patient and kind to the faults of children, yet guiding and thoughtful of us becoming men. It isn’t easy reconciling the things he did aspakhanwith who he was as a father.
Unlocking the door to the condo, a sigh of relief fills me at being where I consider home. While there is a large family home in the suburbs I visit at least once a week for a meal with my mother, I prefer my own space in the city. I bought my first condo in the Water Tower Place at twenty, then upgraded to a larger one eight years later.
Since Milos gave me the condo—what he called a Christmas gift—I’ve made several changes. The place was too dark. I used the interior designer who did the updates in Milos’s new condo. Gone are the dark colors on the wall and even darker furniture.
Milos wondered how the hell he agreed to the previous decoration. I reminded him he’d been fucking the designer and she told him he deserved a home as dark as his heart. This time he went with a designer who was aware she was designing the space for another woman.
My stomach growls, forcing me into the kitchen. I grab a roast beef sandwich the housekeeper Milos and I share prepared and left for me. I’m not particular, especially when I don’t spend much time at home.
I don’t bother to sit down, eating as I go into my bedroom, checking messages and emails I need to deal with before going to bed. My phone rings, it's Boris.
“I lost her,” he mutters.
“You what? How the fuck could you lose her?” I demand.
“She caught sight of me. One minute she was there flipping me off, the next I looked everywhere and I can’t find her. I’m sorry.”
Christ. “You fucking will be. Go home.” I hang up. Checking the time, I decide to let Milos sleep. Hopefully by the time I’m up Valdez will have found her.
I finish the sandwich, undress, then take a shower.
I’m annoyed as I step out of the shower and dry off. The girl had ruined a pleasant way to fall asleep. This means I’ll need a Klonopin. I don’t like taking them because the more I do the less effective they become, and I have to increase the dosage.
Sleep has never been easy for me, even when I was a teenager. My mind refuses to shut down, no matter how tired I am. I tried everything from weed to downers, but only Xanax that only works for four hours and had me up as soon as it wore off, and Klonopin which works for eight hours, allow me to sleep long enough to feel rested.
I do a quick check if there’s anything new that came in while I was in the shower. There’s nothing. I pop the Klonopin. After a few fuckups I learned to be in bed when I took it—no wandering around and waiting for it to kick in.
Quickly, I check to confirm my alarm is set for one, which gives me a little more than six hours of sleep. While I’m only at the club all night four nights a week, I try to stay on a sleep schedule, or at least the same number of hours.
Normally, I would be thinking of business. But in the almost twenty minutes it takes for the drug to kick in, I consider the girl. Her hatred was a palpable thing. While I loathe the hand my father played in her story, he’s been dead almost fifteen years now.
We haven’t trafficked since two years before my father’s death, and we refuse to work with those that do. Making us pay is going after the wrong people. My last thoughts as the Klonopin pulls me under are of wondering how she planned on making us pay. And how best to kill her quickly and quietly before she could put her plans in motion.
CHAPTER3
Phoenix
My cell phone ringing pulls me from the rabbit hole of a pedophile ring out of Thailand. I check the number, it’s John.
“Yeah?”
“You got your wish. Don’t complain to me when you come to regret it. You start at nine o’clock sharp tomorrow. For the love of god you can’t wear a hoodie and sweats to the office. Get a few suits and something besides those awful shoes. Try and dress like an adult. Don’t embarrass me or make me regret it. If you do, so help me, I will throw you in prison with no computer privileges for the next twenty years.” He ends the call before I can say a thing.
Relief fills me. I came so close to fucking up by getting too damn antsy and approaching Aleksander Levin two days ago. I hadn’t been able to simply watch him as he carried the beautiful woman in his arms. It was that morning when I figured out the difference between him going to the house that in any other neighborhood would have been a few million, but because of the Old Town location was almost eight million dollars, versus the condo in the Hancock building. Women, the bastard had a fuck pad.
