“Something’s different,” Dima said when I sat down across from him.
“What’s different?” I asked him. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s more confidence, but you’re not the same person you were yesterday.”
He was right. I was more confident, but not in my ability to work with him. I was more confident in Garrett. If I had wondered who he really was before, I knew now. I knew the gentleman he could be, the noble savage. Garrett managed to blend his rough and tough exterior, his hard-nosed thuggish biker persona, with a caring and gentle man, while so many I’d known before couldn’t even get the gentleman part right.
“Well, thanks, I guess,” I said.
I shifted my weight in the chair and sat up a little straighter.
“So, let’s talk.” I remembered what I’d said to Garrett about using his idea of researching the Russian underground through Dima, and I decided to treat our interviews as research. Maybe by digging deeper into Dima’s history, I could get some good current information to use.
“Alright, let’s talk,” he agreed, but his voice sounded like it was hiding something dark and sinister.
“Do you have anything for me today?” I asked him.
“That depends,” he taunted me.
“Depends on what?” I wasn’t afraid of pursuing him.
He grinned. “It depends on what you’re bringing me today.”
“Well, I’ve got some questions of my own today,” I started. “Just some things to satisfy my personal curiosity.”
“Okay. I like the sound of that.” His eyes narrowed as if he was trying to get a read on me.
“I told you my name when I came in, right? Dr. Jenna Dunn at the University of Chicago. I’m a research fellow and the history department chair. My specialty is Russian history and culture. I’ve made a career out of it, so instead of sitting here running over the same old drills, I figured maybe we could actually talk a little,” I explained myself.
Dima nodded. “What can I teach you about Russian history and culture that you don’t already know?” he asked.
“Organized crime.”
His blue eyes focused on me suddenly.
“Don’t worry, I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble or anything like that,” I assured him. “I just got to thinking last night, I don’t know a whole lot about the Russian underworld, and you can probably help me out.”
“Can I refuse to answer?” he asked cautiously.
“Sure, if we run across something you don’t want to discuss, we don’t have to talk about it. You can pass,” I agreed, establishing the boundaries of our conversation.
“I’m ready to start whenever you are,” he said.
I took a deep breath. This was a different approach, and I just hoped I didn’t give myself away too easily. “Alright. First, how long have you been working for Igor?”
“I’ve only been working for Igor for a couple of years, as long as I’ve been in the States.”
“How did you get connected to someone in the States?” I asked him.
“It’s not that different from the way it works here,” he told me. “Igor has connections back home, and he told a guy who knew a guy who knew me that he needed some muscle, so someone reached out to me, and here I am. Networking is networking, whether it’s in America or Russia. Or, in Igor’s case, in both places.” He smiled, pleased with himself.
“I guess it really wouldn’t be different, would it?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s different,” he added. “The networking is the same, but back home we have more power than we do here. Here we have to be careful a lot of times when we wouldn’t have to be back home.”
“Really. I guess I shouldn’t be shocked, with all the changes that have occurred over the last few decades.”
“Exactly. See, you already know.” He seemed amused at my questions, and maybe they were a little naïve, but in all of my time studying Russia, I had never really paid attention to the criminal element, especially in regards to organized crime.
I added the Russian mafia to my bucket list of things to study.
“So, that’s all I’ve got,” I told him. Hopefully, I thought, it would be enough to get him to talk a little more to me.
“Well, I’ve got something for you,” he said. “Something you need to know.”
“Okay.” I wondered what he possibly could have told me that I just needed to know.
“I know why you seem a little more confident today,” he started.
I sat back and crossed my arms. “Why’s that?”
“You went home with Garrett last night, didn’t you?”
“I’m sorry?” I knew my face must have given me away.
“Maybe you didn’t sleep together, but it seems like you guys are circling each other right now, maybe flirting a little, trying to figure out how to court each other,” Dima taunted me.
“How do you know all of this?” I ask him, incredulous.
“I’ve seen it all before,” he said distractedly.
“What are you talking about? You’ve seen what before?”
“Nothing in particular.” He tilted his head back and looked into the darkness above the light hanging over us. “He’s using us both, you know. Well, you should know, but maybe you’re a little blind right now because your hormones are firing off here and there, and you think you might be falling for this big alpha male street thug.”
“Come on, now. Stop dancing around it, Dima. Tell me what you’re really trying to say.”
He looked at me again. “It’s easy. He’s got you thinking you’re helping him out with me, and he’s got you thinking he might like you, making it easier to get you to come down here and ask me questions, trying to find out where Igor is or what he’s up to. I think you even believed at one point that he was going to let both of us go home when all of this is over.”
I had believed that at first, before conversations with both Dima and Garrett made me realize he probably wasn’t leaving the interrogation room in the basement of the Crowns of Satan HQ. I didn’t want to admit to Dima that I had changed my mind.
“The truth is, doll, he’s not letting either one of us go. Once he’s done with me, he’s going to finish you off. And honestly, things will probably get a little stranger and more intense for you before that happens.”
I thought about how Garrett had passed up the perfect opportunity to take advantage of me the night before; he’d had a couple of opportunities, and he passed them all up. But if Dima was right, then all of it was just his way of disarming me so that I would continue to work for him without any fuss.
“Neither one of us is going to get out of her alive, Dr. Dunn, unless you help me. I can free us both.”
Then again, it was entirely possible that Dima was doing the same thing he accused Garrett of doing—filling my head full of distractions to get me to help him when all he planned on doing was double crossing me in the end.
I began to feel the drain of talking to Dima again. The confusion he worked so diligently to foster in me sapped me of all of my energy. I didn’t want to put up with it again.
“Dima, I’m not going to help you. I’m going to take my chances with Garrett,” I told him.
“You’ll be sorry,” he told me. “Garrett is not who you think he is. He’s putting on his charm so you won’t see how ruthless he is. Why do you think Igor needed me to come all the way from Moscow to work for him? Garrett is ruthless and brutal. He will leave us both dead. You already know the Crowns’ reputation.”
Again, Dima was right. The Crowns of Satan did have a pretty nasty reputation as a brutal motorcycle gang. They definitely weren’t anything like the MCs that had been springing up over the last few decades, the groups who tried to help their communities by getting kids off the streets and giving them something to do.
From what I’d seen prior to meeting Garrett, the Crowns had more in common with the motorcycle gangs of the 1970s and earlier. They had developed a strong prison network through a regular revolving door of members getting sentenced and let out.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Dima, but I can’t let you do this to me again tonight. I can’t let you confuse me again like you did before.”
I pushed my chair back and stood up to leave.
“Listen, just watch your back,” he added with what looked like genuine concern in his eyes, but I was pretty sure guys like him were good actors when they needed to be.
“Thanks for the advice, but our conversation here is done.” I turned and walked back to the door, unlocking it on my own. Garrett had given me the key for it when we came in that morning. He told me I could come and go as I pleased to talk with Dima.
He was still sitting in a chair waiting for me when I walked out.
“Anything yet?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “Nothing yet.” I didn’t want to tell him what Dima had told me this time.
“You look troubled,” he said. “What did he say?”
“Nothing. He’s just trying to confuse me,” I said.
“How so?”
“Nothing, alright?” I snapped at him, storming away through the pit, heading for the stairs. “I need some fresh air.”
For all I knew they were both trying to manipulate me for their own selfish needs in this. Once again, I found myself trying to figure out who was the actual good guy in this story. It was very possible, I realized, that neither one of them was the hero. That would make me the heroine. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with that idea either.
I didn’t go back downstairs all day. I didn’t want to talk to Dima again. It was beginning to seem like a hopeless pursuit to try to get information from him. He just wanted to get out, and he was pretty determined to get me to help him. My loyalty was already paid for. My allegiance in this was no secret.
That being said, I also avoided Garrett the rest of the day. Every time I saw him, all I could think of was Dima telling me that I was essentially a prisoner, just like he was, and my fate was going to be the same as his once Garrett tired of his little game.
Garrett had told me only to pack about a week’s worth of clothes and that ideally I wouldn’t be returning to my apartment until all of this was over. He’d also told me to let the department know that I was chasing a research lead on the Russian underworld.
Was he going to kill both of us and make it look like I’d been shot by someone who’d been tracking Dima? And wouldn’t his criminal connections be what got me shot anyway? If Garrett did it, wouldn’t it be the same as if someone random had done it?
By the end of the day, my head was spinning with so many conspiracies, suspicions, and doubts.
Garrett found me sitting in a metal chair in the garage at the end of the day, my head in my hands, trying to stop the spinning and contain the noise.
His large hand rested gently on my shoulder. “Are you ready to call it a night?” he asked in a tender, caring tone.
I touched his hand, expecting my confusion and suspicions to subside, but they did not. I was in too deep to turn from him, though. I couldn’t run at this point. I was stuck playing the part I’d been paid to play.
“I think I called it a night before lunch,” I told him, managing to force a light little laugh out for him.
“Come on, then,” he said, stepping around me and taking me by both hands. He walked me outside to the street and climbed onto his old Harley Davidson. It was one of the older, longer models, with the front wheel sticking way out in front and the longer handlebars that always made the driver look like he was sitting back, taking it easy.
“We’re taking your bike?” I asked, surprised.
“Hop on,” he said flatly.
I climbed onto the motorcycle behind him and put my arms around his waist, leaning into his back as fired up the engine. The motorcycle roared to life, startling me. The noise of the engine rumbling beneath us was deafening. It was my first time on a motorcycle, so I clung to Garrett for dear life.
I felt my body start to tense up with fear and apprehension as he walked us out of our parking spot. Then, the bike started moving, and I knew for sure I was going to fall off the back. I clenched my arms around his waist and closed my eyes. As excited as I had been at the prospect of riding with Garrett, the openness of the motorcycle terrified me.
It was too much freedom. Too much open road.