Celia

The funeral home was packed, every chair taken, with overflow in the room next to the one we chose. I’d had no idea how many colleagues and friends Spencer had. We ran out of printed handouts and our assistant from the funeral home had to quickly print off more. Luckily, they had a color printer in the office or there would have been a lot of people leaving without a memorial flyer. A few of Spencer's colleagues spoke – about his work as a ADA and then DA, how he was dedicated to fighting organized crime and bringing criminals to justice.

I had a hard time not laughing out loud when the colleague said that, because standing at the back while the eulogies were being read, wearing dark glasses, was Sergei Romanov himself. When I glanced back and caught sight of him, I had to do a double take. He caught me watching and removed his glasses, smiling at me.

That smile made me shiver.

I turned back to watch the Assistant DA while he finished his eulogy and felt a sense of doom. Hunter was in jail. I wasn't entirely sure Hunter wasn't guilty. I was still in danger because the Romanov brothers knew me and knew I was a way to get to Hunter.

After the memorial was over and we had shaken hands with those colleagues who wanted to give us their condolences, we packed up the wheelchair and drove to my Aunt Diane's for a small family gathering.

It was very small, just my mother – who was exhausted and immediately took her morphine and lay on the sofa – my Aunt Diane and her husband Mike, their kids, Graham, and me. We talked about the good times, and they were few. Trips we had taken to Florida before Mom got really bad. Time spent at the beach. Family barbecues.

When it was time to take Graham back to the hospital, I went with him and got him settled back into his hospital room. I spent the rest of the evening with him, having a late snack from the cafeteria vending machines instead of dinner.

We sat in his hospital room and talked quietly about Hunter and whether he was guilty and what would happen if he was.

"He told me he wasn't guilty. He didn’t kill Spencer but his prints were on the weapon. It makes him look guilty. He says he was set up by Sergei Romanov."

"I hope he's not guilty," Graham said, his eyes distant. "We were friends once. So Romanov did it because of the sex ring connection?"

I nodded my head. "There must be some connection and Spencer was silenced when the connection was in danger of being exposed."

"Hunter said he'd kill Spencer if he ever hurt you again. Spencer hurt you again, remember? I'm not so sure he didn’t do it. He had a motive."

"He didn’t mean he'd really kill Spencer. That was just something he said in anger."

"Hunter was a soldier. He killed people in Iraq and Afghanistan."

"He was a soldier," I said firmly. "He isn’t one now. He didn't do it."

I said it, but of course, I wasn't entirely sure myself. I only knew I wanted him to be released and to come back to the warehouse and stay with me.

I said goodbye, kissing Graham on the cheek, and went to find James waiting besides the SUV. He opened the door for me and squeezed my arm softly as he helped me in.

"How are you?" James asked, glancing at me as he drove off.

"Tired. Any news on the Hunter front?"

"I got a text from George. Nothing new. Grand jury meets on Wednesday. I guess we'll have to wait for them to hear the evidence."

As we drove through the quiet backstreets to the warehouse, I leaned my head back and hoped against hope that Hunter was innocent, and that the grand jury would send him home and back to me.

I slept most of the next day, rising only to have a shower.

That night, I finally felt like getting up. My stomach grumbled – I had barely eaten anything, wondering about Hunter and when he'd be released. I rose from the bed and went to the bathroom. George was at the door when I finished.

"You're feeling better?"

I nodded. "I'm hungry. Have you heard anything about Hunter?"

"Nothing. Come, I get you some food." George went to the kitchen and waved me to the island. "Lawyer will call tomorrow after grand jury."

I sat at the kitchen island and watched as George opened the fridge and looked through the items inside.

"I bought some borscht. Maybe you like, heated up with some good black bread."

"Whatever you fix will be fine."

George poured the container of borsht into a pot and put it on the stove. Next, he took a round loaf of black bread – caraway pumpernickel – and started slicing it up.

Suddenly I heard an explosion of automatic gunfire outside the apartment door.

"What was that?"

George stopped what he was doing and drew his gun. He motioned to me. "Go hide in bedroom under bed."

I complied, watching as George slid along the wall to the doorway. I hurried to the bedroom and turned to watch as George peered at the video feed. "Go!" he said, waving his gun at me. But before I could, the door exploded open and several men in SWAT uniforms entered, throwing in a grenade of some kind.

"Hide!" George shouted. He fired his weapon and leapt behind the desk. I turned away, but was unable to go far. A blast knocked me off my feet and into the wall. As I lay on the ground, sparkles of light dancing before my eyes and my hearing dulled, I wondered if I'd die.

My vision cleared and I watched as a dark figure entered. One of the uniformed men grabbed the gun from George’s hand and knocked him in the head, and then in the neck. George collapsed once more to the ground.

One of the black-uniformed men ran to me and knelt. Before I could say anything, he pulled out a roll of duct tape and covered my mouth. Next, he pulled out a black hood and covered my head, then he fastened my hands behind my back with plastic ties.

"You're coming with me."

Ivan had treated me with respect when he brought me to his club, but Sergei Romanov was completely different. His men were rough, handling me like I was nothing, throwing me into the back of a van, where I lay on my side, my face pressed against a filthy carpet on the van's floor. Every bump in the road jarred me, knocking me around. My arms ached from the position I was in and I felt my lip swell from where I'd hit it when I fell.

We drove for what felt like an hour, but I heard traffic all around us when we stopped at lights and so I wondered if we were driving around Boston. Maybe throwing someone – Hunter's people? – off the track.

Finally, we stopped, the tires screeching, and I was roughly dragged out of the back of the van. I was thrown over someone's shoulder and carried up a flight of stairs. In all the confusion, I tried to take note of the smells and sounds of my location in case I survived and was questioned by police. I hoped I would survive. Even that thought sent my pulse racing, so I shut it down. I shut off my worry and just went with what was happening, not trying to second guess or predict what they would do to me.

When I was finally thrown down onto a sofa and my blindfold taken off, I found myself in a large warehouse, the walls brick, the ceiling lined with ductwork, and the floors hardwood. The place looked like it was used for storage, and there was plastic sheeting hanging, like the place was being renovated.

A man came to where I lay, and I glanced up at him in fear.

Sergei Romanov.

I recognized him from news reports of his crime family and he'd been to Spencer's memorial service. His beefy face was bearded and he wore his longish dark hair slicked back. A large gold chain hung around his neck. He wore a cream sweater and dark jeans, and looked to be in his forties with a touch of grey in his hair.

"What am I going to do with you?"

His voice, rough-sounding, had a thick Russian accent.

"What do you want?"

"I want Hunter. That's what I want."

"He's in jail."

"Not anymore."

That made my heart rate increase. "He was let out?"

I heard the man snicker.

"So, what will I do with you? You're a pretty thing, and Hunter needs to be taught a lesson."

Adrenaline surged through me, and I wondered what that meant. Would they kill me to punish Hunter?

There was nothing I could say.

"Please don't hurt me."

"Leave," he said to someone else behind me.

I tensed when I heard footsteps and a door close. Then silence.

Sergei walked over to where I lay. The look in his eyes said everything I needed to know. When he grabbed his belt and began to unfasten it, I closed my eyes and tried to shut off.

Shut everything off.