Not a single word while we drive back. Not one goddam word.
I tell her the whole business with the Stitches—what we met up about and what we determined to do. Miles. The Russians. Territory wars. Revenge. Her ears twitch a little, but that’s about all I can get out of her in terms of a response. It’s obvious enough that she thinks I’ve betrayed her, but I don’t know how. And I don’t know how to go about even asking her.
“Just a few days,” I say, “just until we can get this whole situation cleaned up. Goddammit, Maya, you know I wouldn’t leave you like this unless it was important. You know that.”
But even I don’t know if the last part is question or hope.
I’ve already decided that I’m going to leave her at Theo’s, but it isn’t like there’s even a choice. If I left her alone in the hotel and Theo found out, even if nothing happened that’s more or less a guaranteed bullet in the head. Even if Theo isn’t going to be exactly pleased that I’m dropping his daughter back home before the whole business with Kit is cleaned up, it’s better than taking risks. Hell, anything is better than taking risks with people or property that don’t belong to you.
I park at the hotel and unbuckle my seatbelt to go in, but Maya tells me she’s already got all her stuff packed up and will just be a second. Before I can get a word in she disappears through the rotating glass doors.
Something’s gnawing, crashing and rubbing uncomfortably at my insides, which I know is guilt without knowing exactly what kind, or whom I’m feeling guilty for. When I took this gig, I made it clear to Theo that any emergencies with the Stitches came first, and having one of my brothers thrown into a quarry by a couple of Russian bastards as a declaration of war is as sure as hell an emergency. Then there’s the part that agrees with Maya and that wants to just take her away to her place down at Sunset Apartments where there are no mobsters to worry about or crews to defend or anyone else’s business to get involved in. Where you can just sit on the deck and cast your line into the salt gray of the cinderblock ocean for as long as you please and that’s just it, just everything. Maya probably thinks I’m just stowing her back away again. And in a way I am.
Then I get the idea that’s it’s probably not smart to just show up on big man’s porch with his daughter and explain there and then, especially when he’s been having problems the way I’ve heard. So I give him a call, and decide to just come out with it straight and easy.
“Mr. Tolliver,” his crusty, powerful voice slips through the receiver. “It’s late. What can I do for you?”
“Mr. Butler—” I bite my tongue, wondering how I’m going to phrase this delicately, and then just decide to say it however I can. “I’ve had a situation with the Stitches. I’m bringing Maya home to you for a few days.”
“A situation, Mr. Tolliver? Are you in any trouble?”
“Not personally.”
“No legal trouble? Is your life in danger? Are you with Maya now? Answer me truthfully, Mr. Tolliver.”
“Everything’s fine. We’ve had an attack on another brother, and we need to make sure our territory is clear. It won’t take much time.” I pause. “I can’t bring your daughter into this, of course. I’m going to drop her off at the mansion.”
“On what grounds are you making your assumptions?”
Christ, the old man was asking a lot of questions. He’s making me feel nervous, and I hate feeling nervous when I have no reason to be.
“We’ve dealt with these guys before. There’s no real trouble. Just a bunch of upstarts.” I work the lie out easy and smooth. One of the more valuable things I’ve picked up.
Theo’s silent for a long moment. There are crunching noises in the background, like feet stepping on gravel. Someone asks for a damp cloth. Someone else asks if the pliers were still in the kitchen. I don’t even want to think about what that might imply, but my thoughts run automatically to Kit.
“Is my daughter there with you right now?” Theo finally asks.
“She’s in the bathroom—in the hotel. I’ll put you on when she comes out.” I pause and look at the hotel entrance. “Just don’t know how long that’ll be.”
“Call me back when my daughter’s with you.” Theo sighs. “I’m afraid you know you’ve chosen an extremely uncomfortable time for your problems. We’re very tied up here. The whole business is unsavory. Nothing can help it of course. I just want you to know.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Tell Maya to call.” The line goes dead.
Maya’s back a minute later, of course. “Your father wants you to call,” I say like a scolding mother. She looks at me like I’m some kind of idiot, and doesn’t make a move to get her phone. I don’t say anything else. It’ll only be twenty minutes, anyway. Twenty of the most damned uncomfortable minutes I’ve ever driven. The last thing Maya wants, or I want, is to be even more on her case.
There’s snow everywhere. Damp, fat, gray, ugly snow. It’s on the side of the highway in sluggish piles, and drips out of the clouds and falls like bird shit, and we go on in silence until we’re three minutes from Theo’s mansion when Maya says what I’ve been expecting her to say the whole night.
“I’m not abandoning you.”
“Kirill’t try that with me, Quinn. Please, just don’t even try that. You sound so damn condescending when you talk like that. And don’t tell me that this is for my protection, either. That’s what Daddy says, and it’s such bullshit, so just don’t.”
“Okay.”
“When are you going to come back?”
“When the job’s done.”
“Jesus Christ you sound just like him. You’re not going off to whack anyone, are you? Should I be expecting to read about some guy found eaten by fishes over at the pier?”
“No. Nothing like that.” The lie isn’t as easy this time.
“Where are you going?”
“Around. To keep the bad guys away from the good guys and to keep the good guys from living in fear.”
“When are you gonna be back?”
“Give me a week,” I say. “One week should be plenty. But I can’t write you, and I can’t tell you what’s going on. If the bad guys get hold of my phone, I don’t want them knowing anything about you. I don’t want them to know you exist. You okay with that?”
“No.” She stares hard at the ugly static of snow. “But you’re going to do it anyway, so I don’t have a choice, do I?”
I don’t answer that one. Swinging the Mercedes around, I pull up to the mansion, behind the short, black car in the visitor’s lot. “I hope you know how shitty this makes me feel. To have sex with me and then to go hang out with your boys and then to dump me back off at my daddy’s house. I just really hope you know how much of an asshole you are.”
She doesn’t wait for the butler to open her door. I can’t say why but I’m even kind of expecting her to stay an extra few seconds and say something like, “See you in a week” or “I’ll write you,” but no. She slams the door behind her and glides up the stairs into the house, and disappears. Not one look back.
Suddenly, there are a ton of things I want to say to her last words. That she doesn’t know what she’s talking about or what I’m involved in, or what loyalty means to me. That one week isn’t anything to ask at all, especially if I’m trying to keep her safe. I run through all the different things I could have said and practice trying to say them.
None of them fit. None of them get past the truth that I feel in what she’d said. That I was selfish. That I was abandoning her. And that after a week, I might discover that I didn’t need a spoiled princess like Maya Butler hanging around my neck anymore, as good as the money was. Two months ago and that’d have absolutely been true. But not now. Not now when I knew that she wasn’t a spoiled little princess, but someone just trying to escape the prison-like life her father enforces on her. She hated her father, but she hated me more. Because I was the one with the keys. I was the one who’d opened the doors for her, and now I was the one shutting her back inside.