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Kat’s mother, Tracy, answers the door after the first knock. Her dark green eyes are narrowed, and she’s drying a casserole dish with a towel. “You,” she says, with derision. “Well, you might as well come in.”
She turns away and disappears, leaving me to open the screen and let myself in, which I find to be a bit disrespectful on my part.Americans. I’m not sure I’ll ever quite understand them.Following Tracy into the kitchen, where she’s cleaning the dishes, I think:Maybe I don’t really want to.
“Is James home?” I ask, eyeing the yard through the back window.
“No, you can relax. Adam isn’t here either. He’s at daycare.”
This I knew. I’ve been tracking Adam’s every movement for Kat’s sake. And, if I’m honest—for mine, too. He may not be my son, but he’s only in danger because of my relationship with and to his mother. Besides, although I know Konstantin wants to wound me by hurting Kat, I wouldn’t put it past him to throw in hurting her child, too. Hurting any child, really.
“I know,” says Tracy, her back to me as she scrubs a skillet vigorously. “I know who you are.”
I stare at her. Considering. “Is that so?”
“I know enough. Frankly, I don’t care to know more.” She turns, pinning me with a hard look. The stare is laser-hot, and just as pointed. She may not be in the mafia, but I wouldn’t fuck with this woman. “I know you’re a dangerous man, and that you’re putting my daughter in danger. And through her, my grandson. Kat is old enough to make her own damn foolish decisions, but Adam is just a child.”
“I know that.”
“I know that you know that.” Her tone tells me that I am a complete idiot, all without her needing to speak such a word. “Your actions have repercussions, boy. I don’t know what the hell they teach you over in Russia, but here we don’t let people endanger children if we can help it. He’s not yours to fuck with. His life isn’t allowed in your twisted little game with my daughter.”
I deserve her anger. I deserve worse, in truth. “That’s precisely why I’m here.”
Tracy’s eyes narrow impossibly further. She’s done drying her dishes, and hangs up the towel, turning to lean against the counter and consider me with that harsh gaze, arms crossed over her chest. “Oh? Why, exactly?”
“To discuss Adam. And his safety.”
“Oh, please. If you gave a damn, you would just leave. You would get the hell out of his and Kat’s life and let them get back to the way things were before you showed up here.”
“I do intend to do that,” I say, pulling out a chair and sitting at the dining room table. I fold my hands in front of me, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees. “I do. But it isn’t safe yet, for me to go. Whether I’m here or not, Kat is in danger. But with me here, she at least has the resources to be protected.”
Tracy considers this. “Alright. So, what’s your plan, then?”
“I need you to take Adam, and go away.”
“Go away?” Tracy barks out a laugh. “Oh, now you’re talking nonsense. I have a life here. So does Adam. And as much as I hate that Kat is all tangled up in this, she needs to be with him. He needs his mother. If not in his house right now, at least in town, just up the street, where they can be together in an emergency.”
“This is an emergency.” I keep my tone, my face, my gaze very calm and level. Measured, so as not to alarm her. “And it is only going to become a more pressing one. With you and Adam out of town, held somewhere safe, somewhere with shored defenses and eyes at every point, I can deal with this more quickly and efficiently. With less of a threat of harm to you or your grandson.”
Tracy is looking at me strangely, like maybe she’s really hearing or seeing me for the first time. Like maybe, she’s finally starting to take this seriously. Slowly, she moves to the table. I pull out a chair for her, and she doesn’t seem to notice, as she doesn’t waste time giving me a dirty look or making a cutting comment. Instead, she just drops into it heavily.
“You’re serious,” she finally says, looking at me. She’s paled slightly, and the meanness in her eyes has faded, replaced with real concern. And real fear. “This person you’re…I don’t know,feuding with—you really believe that he would…that he could harm achild?”
“I believe it is his entire intention.” This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but what does it matter? If there’s any threat at all to Adam’s safety, it needs to be taken seriously. As seriously as if he had a knife to the boy’s throat. “I’ve made all the arrangements, Tracy. For you and Adam, and James if he’d like to go. It will look like a vacation. A stay at the lake. But you will be entirely protected, entirely safeguarded. And best of all, you will be where this man cannot find you.”
Tracy looks away, out the kitchen window. She’s shaking slightly. “And Kat?”
“Kat…is the target. Wherever she goes, he will follow.”
“You want to, what? Use her as bait?” Her voice wobbles. Underneath that hard exterior is a soft woman, a loving mother. She’s hard on Kat, that much I know from James’s upbringing and Kat’s attitude toward her mother. But it comes from love, a fierce love. And I can respect that, at least.
“I have…methods. To protect her.” No use in mentioning the wordmarriage—I can’t imagine such a thing would make Kat’s mother anything less than irate. “And I will be at her side. Until it’s over.”
She looks at me sharply. The fear in her eye is bare now, clearer—and it’s not a fear of Konstantin or some invisible threat against her daughter. It’s a fear of me.You’re going to kill that man,her expression seems to say.Aren’t you?
I make no change to my expression. Let her think what she will; the scarier of a monster she can conjure in her head, the better. If she fears me, at least, I think, she will heed me.
“What does Kat think of this?”
I drop my gaze.
