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O’Sullivan hesitates. “You sure?”
“Positive. There is blood everywhere.”
“Cops?” He shoots a warning look in the Italians’ direction, daring them to insult him again.
“They are all over it.”
“Then we need to leave. Have the drivers bring the vehicles round to the Owners car park. I want us gone within the next five minutes. And get my contact at the Met on the phone.”
“Sure thing.”
“Semenov,” he bellows, as my husband stalks back in. “Ada’s coming home with me for the next few days for her, ah,safety and well-being.
Back to that hell hole.
Back to the basement.
Never.
Kirill just laughs like he couldn’t care less.Which he doesn’t.“What about your wife?”
“I’m thinking she’s due another stay in hospital.”
Roisin’s face filters through my mind. I see the lipstick letters on her wrist.
“You can’t do this to me! To us! I won’t let you!”
My rare outburst silences the room. The next thing I know, my throat is in a chokehold, and my lungs are paralysed and screaming for air.
“You do whatever I tell you to do,Ada.”
“Not this time.” I try to wrench O’Sullivan’s fingers away. That glimpse of his vulnerability has turned a tide in me. I refuse to be trapped in this losing game any longer, to be crushed and cowed without a fight.
“No?” he repeats, his grip tightening. “Are your wings beating against those bars?”
“You wanted me as bait, then use me as bait,” I croak, despising myself for saying it. Trusting that Frankie will find another way. Knowing he’s so much smarter than all of them.“Let me go about my day as normal. Let me run my businessas normal.”
I’m close to passing out when I feel his fingers loosening, and then he’s pushing me away like I’m poison. “Kirill, add another twenty of your best men to the house security but keep it subtle. Make Lastra believe she’s his for the taking. If he so much as breathes within fifty metres of her, he’s ours.”
Did I just win the battle?
My head is spinning from oxygen deprivation and the smallest taste of victory.
“Let’s go.”
There are thirty-three steps from the private box down to the racetrack. It’s the same number of steps I was dragged up when they were done with me in the basement. I know because I left a piece of my heart behind on every single one.
All around me, the crowds are strung-out with panic as they push towards the exits. The rest of the races have been cancelled. The day is about death now. There are no bright racing silks or sleek thoroughbreds anymore, just strips of black and grey as I’m jostled by grim-faced bookies and gamblers.
“Keep up,blyad.”bitch.
Adrik tries to take my arm, but in my newfound identity as a survivor, not a victim, I yank it out of reach. He turns to grab it again when the crowd sweeps sideways suddenly, and I’m caught up in the squall.
Falling a couple of steps behind him, I’m aware of a huge shadow looming to my left, and then a rich scent wraps itself around my senses, making me shudder from its wanted familiarity. Tears fill my eyes when I feel the lightest touch on the small of my back—the same brush of fingers that sealed our fate in a library when I was seventeen years old.Fingertips as unique as fingerprints.
Frankie.
A piece of paper is pressed into my hand, and then the shadow is gone, replaced by bright sunshine and the memory of five murmured words:
