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I washed my hands in the bathroom and got Michelle a cup of water. I kept a smile on, but I was in shock. She was four. She shouldn’t have had the instinct to hide—and hide well. She shouldn’t have had any experience that forced her to think about the details, turning off the lights, hiding her toys, tucking herself away and making no noise. But she had.
The sense of always being safe, of never having to hide, had been stolen from her at such a young age, and the very thought of it made me hate the Ivanovs even more. They had stolen thatpart of her innocence. If not for sheer dumb luck, they might have stolen much, much more.
I wanted to do more than protect that little girl now. I wanted to avenge her. My daughter or not, she deserved it. So did her mother.
“What’s with that grim look? You get a shit caught crosswise?” Sergei was pouring the brandy into two blown-glass globes from my cabinet when I came back out. “I didn’t even know you had these glasses. What is this, Mexican? Fancy.”
“I picked them because they’re tough.” Mexican glassware was pretty, yes, but it was also thick and heavy and fit my hands. “And they hold more brandy.”
He laughed, taking my faked smile for a real one. “So tell me about this woman and her kid,” he said halfway through our first glass.
“Alissa’s an old lover, like I said. Half a decade ago, little more now. Amazing girl, really sweet. We hit it off, but you know my policy.”
He nodded, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, never more than one weekend with the same girl. I know. But now this one’s back in your life?”
“Yeah, it looks like traffickers grabbed her kid. I’m going to get the two back together.”
“Wait, you’re taking off the clock work for your old lover?”
“Just rescuing her kid. It’s kind of personal.” I fished around for the reason he might grasp the fastest.
“How can it be personal? You had one night with this girl and then moved on.”
I took a deep breath. “Just between you and me? Alissa and I got together a little over five years ago. The kid? Four years and change.”
He blinked at me slowly, then his eyes widened. “Wait. You mean that little girl?”
“She could be mine, yeah.”
He set down his glass, staring at me. “Holy fuck. What a way to learn you might be a dad—someone’s grabbed the kid.”
“Yeah.” And it had been sheer dumb luck that I had been the one to find her. But I was never going to admit that to Sergei.
“So you find the kid, reunite her with Mom, then maybe get something going with Mom?” He waggled his eyebrows and I snorted.
“Maybe. Thing is, I already have a pretty good idea where the kid is, but that’s through our resources. I have to have a good cover story.”
“Oh, don’t want her to find out you’re a mobster, huh?” He scooped up his glass again, smirking.
“It’s not just that. I don’t want her knowing too much about us. I want her to get her kid back, but I don’t want to compromise our security in the process.”
“Vasily would be pretty pissed if you did that. Can’t you just say you have to keep your sources private?” Weirdly, he seemed more sober now, as if he’d just started drinking with me instead of an hour earlier.
“I can do that some, but too much and she’ll catch on that something’s up. The girl’s smart, Sergei, and observant.”
“Sounds like you gotta walk a fine line with that one. You up to it?”
I chuckled and took a swallow from my glass. The stuff went down like sherry. “Always. If she gets too nosy, I’ll just seduce her until she doesn’t know up from down.”
He brayed out a laugh, his long, homely face full of merriment. “That’s the spirit. Yeah. I think you’ve got things under control. So…you tell the boss about any of this?”
I hesitated just a beat too long as he stared at me. “Not yet,” I admitted. “I mean, it’s a long, weird story, and I’m doing all this when he doesn’t need me.”
“He’ll still want to know, especially if you think the kid’s yours. Most especially if you’re using organization resources for this.”
My jaw tightened. I didn’t need a fucking lecture, not when I’d already gotten one from Vasily when I asked about the Ivanovs. “I’m trying to figure out how to approach him about this. Not much of what I’m doing should even be on his radar.”
“You don’t think so?” He sounded amused. “Well, if any of this trafficking stuff crosses over into our territory, all of this becomes the boss’s business.”
