Chapter Twenty-Four
Juliet sniffled in my lap. I’d told her she needed to be as quiet as possible, but she couldn’t stop the fearful tears from falling.
I didn’t blame her. I wanted to cry too. I wanted to sob and scream and fight.
However, my hands had been tied behind my back and I’d been shoved to the floor of the Volkov club. The club was dark now, empty of people.
Actually, it looked like it had been closed for a while. The tables were covered with thick dust and cobwebs hung from every corner. A pile of broken chairs sat off to one corner.
My back ached, my butt was numb, and my legs desperately needed to stretch out for relief, even though there was nothing I could do to relieve them. I didn’t move. My body had become a vessel to protect my daughter and my pain didn’t matter.
They’d bound Juliet’s hands in front of her and shoved her down on the ground with me. She’d quickly crawled on my lap and refused to move. Atticus’s men hadn’t asked her to yet, but they kept threatening to gag her if she didn’t stop crying.
Frankie was nowhere to be seen. I wanted to believe she was somewhere in the building, but I hadn’t seen any evidence of that. Atticus had disappeared shortly after we’d arrived too.
That was fine with me. If Atticus wasn’t here, then he couldn’t give orders. His men were loyal enough that they wouldn’t act without his instructions. I would wait in pain and discomfort because it was better than the alternative.
Atticus and his thugs were going to kill me. And probably Juliet too.
I’d realized that as soon as they’d taken us from Sayer’s apartment and loaded us into a windowless van. This was how they were going to punish Sayer for his betrayal.
Apparently, the file folder from the FBI had been enough for the pakhan and now they had no need for me. Or the whole thing had been a decoy. They wanted Sayer to pay for his sins. I would die and probably suffer greatly in the process.
And everyone here was going to die and suffer even more in the process. Once Sayer found us, he would rain down hell on these assholes. He would burn this whole city to the ground in retaliation. They had no idea the war they were starting.
I wished I could stick around for that part of it.
Stretching my arms behind my back, I tried to wiggle my wrists, but they’d tied them together with zip ties.
I could break into almost anything. I could bullshit my way out of anything. But I could not wiggle out of these tight freaking zip ties.
“Mommy, I want to go home,” Juliet whimpered with her cheek pressed to my chest.
“We will, baby girl. In a little bit.” Tears sprang to my eyes. That was the hardest, most unconvincing lie of my life and I hated that I’d even said it.
“Zatknis!” one of the guards yelled.
The word meant shut up and even though Juliet couldn’t understand Russian, she clearly knew what the tone meant, because she burrowed closer to me and quieted down.
I wasn’t as compliant. “Where is Atticus?”
The guy, shaped like a mix between a pit bull and a refrigerator, scowled at me, cursing in Russian. “That is not concern of yours. You sit. You be quiet. You not worry about boss.”
“Is he really your boss though?” I pushed, knowing I was playing a dangerous game. But really, what did it matter?
Right now, I was set to lose, but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. It wasn’t in my nature to sit down and give up. I was a fighter, a survivor. And I prayed as hard as I could that I would survive this nightmare. That Juliet and I would somehow survive this city one more time.
“Atticus is boss,” the thug growled again in his heavily accented English.
I shook my head back and forth, desperately planting the seeds of doubt. Clearly this man was not originally from America. That wasn’t unusual for the syndicate. Often, the brothers recruited bad guys directly from Russia.
They had the advantage of speaking Russian and not caring about anything but the brotherhood. They were born and bred goons and gangsters and assimilated easily to their new job, especially in situations like this.
“Atticus is boss,” the walrus repeated.
“He’s pretending to be boss. The pakhan would never let a traitor become leader.”
He stomped his huge foot and stood glaring at me. “You are stupid girl. You know nothing, stupid girl.”
“He’s working with the Cubans.”
He spat on the ground next to my leg and I had to jerk to the right to keep it from landing directly on me. “Ack, Cubans.”
“It’s true,” I insisted. “Or at least according to the FBI.”
“The FBI lies,” he insisted.
“Why would they lie to me?”
He didn’t respond to me. He walked away, swinging his semi-automatic rifle at his side. I watched him long enough to see him engage another guard in conversation. They put their heads together and spoke in low tones.
Good. Spread the Cuban rumor far and wide.
For the second time, I thought about what a lowlife Atticus really was. He’d somehow managed to get the Cubans in his back pocket, but only to secure his own immunity. Even for a criminal, he had no principles, no loyalties, no… soul.
Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. Atticus walked in from the bar entrance with Frankie by his side. Her hands were bound with a zip tie too, but in front of her, and her mouth was duct taped shut. She had been crying. Her face was streaked with makeup and her eyes were puffy and red.
My heart screamed at the sight of her. I nudged Juliet off my lap so I could scramble awkwardly to my feet.
“Frankie!” I gasped. Her entire body was shaking. She looked the most fragile I had ever seen her. This wasn’t my strong, resilient, once-an-heiress-to-the-Russian-syndicate friend. This was a battered, beaten version of her.
Her eyes found mine from across the room and we shared a look that said a thousand words. Help me. Run. I’m going to kill him. I love you, friend. I’m sorry. I hate this. We should have never left Frisco.
“Sit down,” a guard yelled from a few feet away.
I obeyed, but only for Juliet. She was crying again. I whispered for her to get on my lap and she didn’t hesitate. “Daddy is coming,” I promised in her ear. She let out a quiet sob and I kissed her cheek, hoping to console her. Hoping to console myself. I knew Sayer was coming, but he didn’t know I had been taken. And he didn’t know where we were. The chances of him getting here in time were slim.
Then again, the chances of him finding me after I had left DC were slim too. The chances of us still being in love after all this time and everything we’d gone through were also slim. The chances of us surviving our childhoods and this world and having any semblance of normality or a moral compass, were also slim.
We were used to beating the odds. We were used to thriving amongst intense adversity.
And most of all, we were used to Atticus and his bullshit.
“Have a seat,” Atticus told Frankie, pulling out a dusty bar stool for her. “You can watch me kill your friend. It will be good for you.”
She whimpered, her eyes widening with fear. We shared another look and the tears streaming down her face made tears stream down mine too.
“Mama!” Juliet sobbed at Atticus’s threat.
“Shhh,” I soothed her. “Daddy’s coming.”
Atticus grinned at me. “Shit, I hope so. I wouldn’t want him to miss the show after all the work I’ve gone through to make it perfect for him.”
My stomach churned with terror, making me feel sick. I leaned back against the wall feeling defeated, feeling lost and without hope. “Why are you doing this?” I demanded.
Atticus looked completely amused. He leaned back against the bar on his elbows and crossed one leg over the other at the ankles. “Do you really not know? They used to think you were so smart, so talented. But you’re pretty stupid, you know that?”
I looked down, my face heating with shame. It was an act of course, but one he expected. That’s when I saw it—a paring knife from the bar. It had a flat, rectangular blade and a white handle. I remembered them from my youth. It’s what the bartender would have used to cut up lemons and limes.
Atticus went on. “I’m doing this because it’s what the pakhan want. They want you dead. They want the traitor dead. I’m carrying out orders.”
He didn’t say anything about Frankie, making me incredibly nervous for her. If this situation were reversed I would never recover from something happening to her, especially if I had to watch it happen. Never. I would rather be dead than live with those memories.
And that was only half of what Frankie should fear. Atticus had always been obsessed with her. And Atticus had always been a psycho. I couldn’t imagine what terrible things were ahead for her.
“It’s more than that,” I pushed, hoping to rile Atticus up. “You’ve always hated me. Even when we were kids.”
His lip curled back. “You’ve always been a bitch that thought she was better than everybody else. You thought you were untouchable. Yes, I hated you. You were obnoxious as shit.”
“You were jealous,” I argued. “You’ve always been jealous of my talent.”
“I don’t want your talent,” he snarled. “You’re a low-level thief. I’m the spy.”
“Because Sayer’s not here. You’re second in command because they have nobody else.”
Atticus’s entire body clenched with fury. He stood up and walked over to me. I nudged Juliet off my lap again and positioned her behind me. Thankfully, she obeyed without a fight.
“Shut the fuck up, Caro, before I lose my patience.” He pulled out his side piece and pointed it at me.
A wave of terror scraped my skin from my head to my toes, and I tried not to sway. It wasn’t my life I was worried about, it was my daughter’s—if he missed. Or if the bullet went straight through me…
My mind told my mouth to shut up. My mouth didn’t listen. “Do you think the pakhan are disappointed? I mean, I know that you have to kill us. But do you think they wish it was you that had betrayed them? Don’t you wonder if they wished they could have Sayer instead of you? I do.”
His face turned a strangled red and he backhanded me across the face with the gun fisted in his hand. My vision went black and I sprawled across the floor. Distantly, I heard Juliet scream and Frankie fight the duct tape. Atticus yelled something profane at me, but my head reeled, and a sharp ringing sound muffled my hearing. I stayed on the floor for a minute trying to regain my balance and equilibrium.
When the fog cleared, throbbing pain took its place. The entire left side of my jaw burned in pain and a piercing headache bloomed in my skull.
Still I managed to grate out a pained, “So you agree with me then?”
I didn’t even see the kick coming this time. The residual pain in my side as his boot landed was clear enough. I flopped forward again, my legs sprawling, straining, pushing me further under the table as I fought the blinding pain and an intense rush of nausea.
“This is fun,” Atticus laughed, kicking me again in the side of the kneecap. I screamed this time and wondered if he’d shattered bone. “Let’s keep playing this game, Caro. This is the best time we’ve ever had together.”
A crash from the other room immediately caught Atticus’s attention. I realized through his shouting that Frankie had something to do with it, but I was fighting pain and sickness and the need to grab the knife. It was just six inches from my face, blurred by tears and fuzzy stars as my vision continued to swim. The problem was my hands were still bound behind me back.
Juliet hurried to my side now that Atticus left to deal with Frankie. She cupped my face in her tied hands, tears pouring out of her eyes. “Mama, mama, mama,” she cried. This had to be terrifying for her. The mom instinct inside me wanted to protect her from this trauma, hide her from it. But it was more important that we got out of this alive than it was for her to turn a blind eye.
“Juliet, listen to me,” I whispered sternly. She continued to sob. “Listen, honey. Mommy needs your help.” She nodded through her tears. “Look down. There’s a knife. I need you to help Mommy sit up and put that knife in my hands so the bad guys can’t see it. Can you do that?”
She was shaking violently, and I wasn’t sure how much she understood, but she nodded.
Ignoring the excruciating pain in my knee and face, I swung my legs into the fetal position, and with Juliet pushing on one shoulder, managed to sit up again.
Atticus had turned around and started yelling at his men, but he could now see what we were up to. He gave us a disgusted look and I said a quick prayer that Juliet knew to wait on the knife. She glanced back at him and scurried to my side, wrapping her arms around my shoulders.
Atticus’s gaze moved on. Juliet crawled onto my lap again and my heart sank with the realization that she’d given up on the paring knife. The same guard from earlier stepped back over and eyed us.
Without the knife, I decided to continue taunting Atticus. “Are you second in command with the Cubans too?” I sounded like I had a mouth full of marbles, but I pushed through the pain and discomfort. They were second thoughts at this point. Atticus didn’t respond directly to me, but he did call me a stupid girl in Russian to his men. “I asked the feds to arrest you yesterday, but they told me about your immunity plea. They offered me one too. I didn’t take it.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Atticus growled, looking as calm and annoyed as usual. It was his pupils I paid attention to, the way they flared with panic, the way they bore holes into my head from across the room demanding that I stop talking.
It was true. I almost couldn’t believe it, but it was true. “I was too loyal to the brotherhood,” I said loud enough for all the guards to hear. “I mean, yeah, I ran, but that was for my daughter. I never turned anyone in.”
“No, that was your traitor boyfriend,” Atticus growled.
“And still, he never got in bed with the Cubans. What’s worse?”
“The feds,” Atticus barked. “Obviously.”
I grinned. I imagined I looked terrifying with my bloody mouth and bruised and swollen face. But I’d set the trap and he’d walked right into it. I was too weak right now not to gloat. “Well, you’ve done both, so I guess you’re the worst of us all.”
“You stupid whore.” Atticus stormed across the bar and I knew this time would be fatal pain, death kind of pain. He had lost his mind. Whatever sense of logic and reason had been in his sick head had disappeared at my accusations. He was going to murder me. And it was going to hurt.
Frankie threw herself off her barstool and stepped in his path, putting gentle hands on his chest. He couldn’t even see her at first, so he pushed her out of the way. She let out a scream of pain, finally grabbed his attention.
In the next second, Juliet had scrambled off my lap and grabbed the paring knife. While Atticus dealt with Frankie on the ground, she put it in my hands and then sat back down on my lap.
I sat there stunned for a minute at my daughter’s cleverness. Apparently, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I didn’t think a four-year-old had it in her to wait for the right opportunity. I was very wrong.
Atticus picked Frankie up off the floor by clutching her forearms and planted her back on the bar stool. “I told you to quit causing trouble, bitch. Fucking listen to me.”
I started to saw at the zip ties desperately trying to cut through the center of them. My hands were numb and the knife was ridiculously dull. Frustrated tears sprang to my eyes as I realized I didn’t have the time to get all the way through it before Atticus came back to hurt me.
“Hurry, Mommy,” Juliet whimpered.
It was the encouragement I needed, and I didn’t even think she knew what she was doing or how effective her sweet words were. I sawed faster, ignoring the agonizing tingle in my hands. The tight plastic started to give, allowing my hands more room to move. Progress!
Atticus was suddenly over me. “What are you doing?” he growled. His gun clicked and he leveled the barrel with my left eye.
Holy shit. This was it.
“Get behind me,” I ordered Juliet. She didn’t hesitate.
“Think about what you’re doing,” I warned Atticus. “Weren’t we friends once?” At his disgusted look, I quickly added, “Brothers then. I’m still bratva. I’m still syndicate.” Lies, lies and more lies, but lying was what I did. I couldn’t even help it.
“You’re a traitor and a bitch,” he argued. “You’re the entire reason the organization fell apart. If you would have stayed, your boyfriend wouldn’t have spilled his guts to the FBI.” He gestured at the empty, dilapidated bar. “This is all your fault.”
“Wrong,” a voice called from the other side of the room.
Atticus and I turned together to see who it was and both of us were equally stunned to see Sayer on the other side of the room that was filled with his men. The Russians that had been guarding us, were held at gunpoint by Irish and Italians and Yakuza. There were Hispanic people too, but I didn’t know if they were Mexicans or Cubans or what.
The gun stayed pointed at my head. “Just in time,” Atticus crooned. “I didn’t want you to miss the show.”
Sayer tilted his head to the side, his eyes stayed trained on Atticus. He didn’t look at me. Didn’t acknowledge me. He was too focused on the guy pointing a loaded gun at my head. “You need to get your facts straight first.”
“What facts?” Atticus demanded impatiently.
“About the feds,” Sayer continued. “I made the deal with the feds before Caroline left. I made it the night I was arrested.”
“What?” I demanded, uncaring that this wasn’t really my conversation.
“The second the pakhan asked me to take their fall, I made the deal. The bratva betrayed me. And today I will put an end to that betrayal for good.”
“Fuck you, Sayer,” Atticus shouted.
And that’s when all hell broke loose.