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“Onlyshit-sucking scumhurt women,” he tells me.
I think about Sasha and my hand around her neck and her bruised red mouth, crawling with poison, and the knife in her hand when she slashed it across my chest, and the promise she made to see me in hell.
“Trust me, Kav. Some womenlovethe pain.”
“Is that what you tell yourself so you can still get off?” he asks.
Oh, if only he knew the truth. I smile at him.
“Quite the opposite, Kav.”
In November, Sasha makesher triumphant return to CHOKE. The bouncers fail to recognise her but Marcus spots her on the CCTV and immediately alerts me. I don’t even bother going to CHOKE personally. I’ve just come back from a fencing session, and besides, I’m done running around after her. I have a bloodhound for that.
The bloodhound picks up my call immediately.
“What do you want, Fletch?”
He sounds like he’s in one hell of a bad mood. Good. It’ll sharpen his instincts.
“Looks like Little Miss Blackmail is back on the prowl. Time to go hunting, wolfie. You got a shadow to catch.”
“I got something on tonight,” he grunts. “Can’t it wait?”
As if Iakov ever has anything better to do.
“Depends how quickly you want me to start looking for that lost sister of yours, Kav.”
It’s Machiavellian, but it works a charm.
“Text me an address. I’m setting off now.”
“Good man. Cheer up, Kav. I just need you to tail her to her place and get me her address. I’m not sending you to fetch me her heart in a fucking box.”
I’d rather be the one to cut it out myself.
He hangs up, and the hours pass, and the night wears on. Outside my windows, the wooded acres of my land grow dark and silent, turning the floor-to-ceiling windows into black mirrors. The moon alone, a round white hole, pierces the sky like a ghostly peephole.
I can’t sleep, so I’m sitting on the couch reading a book when a text finally lights up my phone screen.
Iakov:You can’t kill her.
Ever the white knight to troublesome women.
As if I would ever kill her. As if I would deprive myself the pleasure of thoroughly punishing her for her hubris.
I respond to Iakov in a quick flurry of text.
Luca:So you have her address. Well done.
Luca:She’ll be fine. Send the address.
Luca:You want me to help you find your little sister or not?
He doesn’t respond. I know Iakov well enough to guess what’s going through his mind right now. He’s done this horrible little thing, tracked down this young woman all the way to her home.He’s thinking about his sister, how much he wants to save her. But he’s also thinking about how he’s trading the safety of one woman for another’s. An ignoble bargain, unworthy of him.
He’s wondering, right now, if this is a choice he’s capable of making.
I wouldn’t normally stoop to reassure a faltering employee, but I would pat my dog’s head if it needed soothing. And when I think of Iakov, I don’t think of my staff—Woodrow or Nadine or the others.
