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Agreeing to be Ezra’s fiancé, wife, who the hell knew what, wasn’t without its complications. What Ezra didn’t know was that I was the daughter of the new Petrov Pakhan. Word on the street was that my father had taken over after Katarina Petrov killed her husband. It wouldn’t be good if Ezra discovered that fact about me. It would be even worse if my father found out, especially considering that he thought that I was dead.
All of that was why I found myself standing outside of a warehouse with a large roll of cash. I sighed as I walked to the warehouse. I wasn’t scared of the person inside. I was worried that someone would stop me and steal the money I was carrying.
“Ricky!” I yelled out, as I entered the warehouse. I didn’t plan to be here any longer than necessary. This wasn’t a good neighborhood, and it was nearly midnight.
“Jesus,” Ricky moaned out as he walked out of his hovel. “Why are you screaming?”
I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Ricky was a nineteen-year-old blonde boy who looked like he belonged in the library, not selling illegal documents out of a Bronx warehouse.
“Did I wake you?” I asked, sweetly. He was dressed in blue joggers that were two sizes too big, and a white tee-shirt. It was different from his usual chinos and button up.
“It’s like midnight,” he said.
I shrugged. “I told you that I would be coming back when I had the money.” In truth, I was a little pissed with Ricky. After I’d recovered from my gunshot wound, I’d come to Ricky and begged for new documentation. If I was going to disappear, I needed a social security card, a license, and a passport. And he’d been happy to secure all of those things for me, when I could give him money for them.
“Look, I know you are pissed…”
I said nothing. I just pulled out the cash and threw it at him. It smacked him in the chest before he grabbed it. He looked at it, turning the wad over and over in his hand.
“Feel free to count that if you need to.”
Ricky had the good sense to just pocket the cash. “I trust you.”
I snorted at the statement. Ricky didn’t trust anyone. He’d come on the radar of New York’s underground after he’d done enough hacking to put him on the FBI’s most wanted list. Now, at nineteen, he was living off the radar in a Bronx warehouse, selling papers to people like me who wanted to disappear. He charged a fucking fortune for it too.
“Do you have the papers or what?” I asked, crossing my arms together.
“I’ve got them,” Ricky said. He walked over to a filing cabinet and started to sort through his folders. His nonchalance nearly made me laugh. Apparently, there were a lot of people in New York who needed fake documentation.
“Here,” Ricky said. He handed me a folder full of papers. I opened them and began flipping through the documents. I’d paid for the full package, and I had to say, Ricky had done a good job.
“They’ll pass any check you can throw at them,” Ricky said. I looked up from the folder and into Ricky’s preening face. He looked so much like a young kid that it almost broke my heart that he’d ended up working for criminals.
“Thanks,” I said. I lifted the folder up. “This is going to be helpful.”
One of my stipulations for Ezra was that I needed ten grand up front, no questions asked. I’d cringed as the words had left my mouth, but I couldn’t ignore how badly I needed the money. Ezra hadn’t blinked once. He’d pulled out his checkbook and wrote me a check for ten grand. I’d cashed it and headed straight to Ricky.
“Where’d you get the money?” he asked. “Last we spoke, you did not even have a job.”
The question caused me to tense. Ricky didn’t work for the Blanchis or the Petrovs. As he always said, he was an outside contractor. I’d learned of Ricky through Nikolai. He’d created papers for my ex to disappear when we’d all thought that he was dead.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, as I examined the papers closely. These were the lifeline I had needed for so long and holding them in my hands made me feel nauseous as I considered what I had to do to get these.
Ricky sighed audibly, and when I looked up, I noticed a pitying look on his face. “What?” I asked, tucking the folder under my arm.
“I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in, but if I can give you some advice…”
“I could be saying the same to you,” I told him, pursing my lips. “I grew up in the life. You chose it.” I wanted to urge him to get out before he got more wrapped up into something that he couldn’t walk out of. At least, not unscathed.
Ricky shrugged. “I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
His words made me sad. I’d felt that way a year ago. When Nikolai had contacted me, after years of thinking he was dead, I’d thought I’d felt relief. After all, he was the man I’d literally been groomed to love. But when he came back, things were different.
“You’ve always been nice,” Ricky continued. He ran a hand through his hair, and I could tell that he was uncomfortable by whatever he was going to say next. “But you make terrible choices.”
Ricky’s bluntness took me aback, and for a moment, I was pissed. I knew that Ricky was thinking about Nikolai. He’d been unhinged the dozen or so times he’d visited Ricky, not understanding that the kid just made fake documents. Nikolai had been convinced that Ricky could get him guns, drugs, basically, anything that he wanted.
His comment pissed me off because in many ways I hadn’t been with Nikolai out of choice. My father had brainwashed me into thinking that being the wife of the heir to the Bratva was an honor. Looking back, I wondered if I would have chosen Nikolai if I’d had a choice.
