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“We’ll leave you with one of our cars,” Evelina said, pulling out a set of keys from her pocket and tossing them to me. She told me the make and model and roughly where they’d parked it. “When you find a new place, let me know.”
They hurried out to take care of their end of things. “What can I do to help?” I called.
Evelina stopped in the doorway and shrugged, but gave me a sympathetic look. “All you can really do right now is get yourself somewhere safe and wait. And keep your damn phone on, for God’s sake.”
With that, they were gone. A moment later I headed down to the parking garage and found the nondescript black sedan with Georgia plates. Now I was nothing more than a tourist. If I maintained the speed limit and got a little bit lucky, I could disappear without a trace until we knew more about what was happening.
Knowing it was futile, I drove around the area, up and down side streets and through residential areas, keeping my eyes peeled for Karine. If she’d left on foot, she wouldn’t have gotten far and I prayed I’d see her walking somewhere.
The idea that she knew the truth and despised me turned my stomach and chilled my blood. But if she really did run away from me, it meant she wasn’t in danger. That was something to cling to, even if it meant she’d never want to see me again unless she was pointing a gun at my head.
For the moment, all I could do was lay low and keep looking. And hope that she was all right.
Chapter 26 - Karine
I woke up once again with a throbbing headache, the second time in how many days? It seemed like months since the explosion. I was lying in a bed that I could tell right away wasn’t the thick, firm mattress at the hotel. A spring stabbed into my side, and the distinct, musty smell of a Florida house that hadn’t been lived in for a while filled my nostrils. The sounds of a window air conditioning unit rattled and whirred somewhere close by, working overtime to cool wherever I was.
When the rush of nausea subsided from waking up, I cracked open my eyes. A dusty glass lamp sat on a stool beside the bed and beyond that there was faded green and white striped wallpaper. Somewhat familiar but definitely not the hotel.
How long had I been out? If I wasn’t in so much pain I would have indulged the anger that welled up over Demian not only knocking me out, but taking me somewhere against my will. Only wanted to talk, my ass.
With a groan that I quickly stifled so he wouldn’t come in to check on me if he was even around, I rolled over to get a better sense of where I was. That’s when I realized my left hand was tightly cuffed to the metal bed frame. The slight movement caused the cuff to pinch my wrist and the chain it was attached to rattled and clanged, seemingly loud enough to wake the dead.
I froze, but a few moments passed with no noises outside the small room I was in and I looked around again. It seemed like late afternoon based on the sun outside the tiny window, half-shaded by green checked curtains. A few cheap wooden picture frames showcasing the photos they’d been sold with were hung on one wall. A half-hearted attempt to make the place comfortable.
I was at one of my father’s safe houses, way out in the country, in a lonely stretch of land between the Everglades and one of the wildlife preserves. I was here about a year ago, bringing homemade cookies to a couple of our guys who were laying low after taking out an especially high profile lawyer for my father.
Besides being cuffed to the bed, which enraged me, I was otherwise free to move around, and the chain attached to the handcuff allowed me to sit up at least. On the other side of the bed was a pitcher of water on a rickety side table with a doily on it to catch the condensation.
My throat was parched, but I didn’t dare take a sip. I didn’t trust Demian not to drug me after what he’d already put me through. What had he said right before I passed out from the blow to the head he dealt me?
Oh, yeah, that I was an idiot. In this particular instance, he was right, but it still chafed my feelings on top of everything else. Some friend he turned out to be.
I must have made too much noise, because I heard footsteps in the hallway outside my room. I got in as defensive of a position as possible without the use of my left hand and stared at the door with a defiant scowl when he shoved it open.
“Well, hello, sleepyhead,” Demian said, grinning in a way that made me start to inwardly shake.
I didn’t know this person at all. Not anymore.
Forcing myself to pretend I wasn’t tied to a bed and quaking with fear, and that we were still old friends, I smiled in return. The last thing I wanted was to incite another outburst where he felt the need to hit me again.
“So, why did you think it was a good idea to bring me to one of my father’s houses if you’re on the run from him like you said?” I asked, my fake teasing tone making my stomach churn worse than the headache. The headache he gave me.
His grin never faltered. He sat on the edge of the bed near my feet and it took all my willpower not to drag them away. “For now, I’m playing both sides to see which one suits me better,” he said. “I can always make it look like I’m rescuing you from the big bad Morozovs if I have to.”
I shook my head at him, unable to hide my disgust. As much as it was killing me to learn my father really might have been behind the order to bomb my house, nothing could shake my belief in Roman.
“Still trying to sell that part of your fairytale?” I asked.
“Oh, Karine.” He snickered. “That part wasn’t a lie.”
“So you admit any of it was a lie?” I leaned forward, hoping to trip him up.
“Stop deflecting. It’s time you see the proof of what you married. What you’ve been letting fuck you all these weeks.”
I recoiled back to the edge of the headboard, horrified by the way he was talking to me. He left the room, returning a few seconds later with a sheaf of papers. He thrust them at me, but I refused to take them. Coming closer, he smashed them against my chest so that they crumpled.
“Read them,” he demanded. “Right now. Then you can stop being in denial and get over it. Get over him.”
