“Yes, sir,” she rasps quietly. I start to hang up, but before I can, I hear, “And, sir?”
“Yes?”
“Since I’m already being bold … if what you said is true and you weren’t just playing some messed-up joke on me, then you should find your child. Kids need their fathers.”
Again, silence. I’m stunned. I look down at my hand again, eyeing the crusted path of the blood winding from my palm, past my knuckle, past my fingertips.
“That is too bold by a wide margin, Charlotte.”
I hang up before she can say another word.
Next to me, Yelisey wants desperately to ask what the hell that was all about. If I had an answer for him, I might indulge the question. As it stands, I am as speechless as him. How many blows can a man take in a single night? A dead ex, a surprise baby, a secretary who suddenly has a mouth useful for something other than wrapping around my cock? I do not like to have my world shaken so much. Especially not all at once.
But Charlotte surprised me, and despite my inclination to be irked, I can still feel the ghost of a smile playing on my lips. To sass me back and then tell me what to do with my own fucking kin is so ballsy as to deserve my respect.
So I won’t kill her. I won’t make her disappear.
In fact, I might even take her advice.
My world has been turned so upside down that it doesn’t even sound as crazy as it normally might.
I change my mind again.
I will find my daughter. I will keep the girl.
Natasha is dead and all of her games died with her. This is my chance to reclaim the life I once thought I had. I will not let pride keep me from seeing that.
“I’ll bring the girl to the house.” Yelisey’s question is disguised as a statement, and I nod. “Shall I hire someone to care for her?” I probably should’ve thought of it, but that he has is another of the reasons why I pay him.
“Yes.”
He goes on for a minute about something or other as he stares down at his phone screen, but I can no longer hear his muttered rambling. In the blackened window separating us from the bodyguard driving our SUV, I catch the reflection of headlights close behind us. I do not like the look of them.
I push the button that lets me communicate with Geoffrey. “Turn left on Sepulveda.” I lower the window. The light’s red, and traffic’s coming, but I shove his shoulder. “Now.” He screeches through the intersection, narrowly avoiding a Mercedes, then speeds through the turn. The car behind follows. “We have a tail. Lose him.”
The command wouldn’t be an easy one to follow for a normal man, but then again, I do not hire normal men. Geoffrey is highly capable behind the wheel of a car. He swerves, weaves, maneuvers through LA traffic, across lanes, through lights and into one alley and out of another.
Still, the car follows at every turn.
“Sir?” Yelisey, who has finally put his phone down, opens a case embedded into the seat and hands me an automatic rifle. It’s been a while since I’ve had to take a shot for more than pleasure, but I am locked and loaded before Yelisey has his own rifle out. Something about this day has been off from the start, and now I know why.
“Get us out of town.”
We’re already on the outskirts, but it appears that our pursuers will not be shaken so easily. The SUV is roaring along at one hundred and thirty miles per hour, yet they stick closely behind.
“There,” I indicate, pointing towards a large, abandoned industrial park. “Pull in. Turn around.”
Geoffrey swings the SUV around and heads for where I’m pointing. He blows through the chain-link fence and spins us so we’re facing the oncoming Escalade that plows through the hole we made in the fence, then comes to a screeching halt. Its occupants throw open the doors and climb out.
I roll out of the car and fire the first shot. It’s answered by three gunmen who use their vehicle for cover. Bullets slice through the air to pierce metal or whizz past as they miss me and my men.
Glass shatters. Air hisses from punctured tires.
Geoffrey is low, Yelisey is high, and I’m crouched off to one side, adrenaline washing away apprehension. No man lives to tell of shooting at Kostya Zinon.
The SUV takes round after round, but the firefight is over almost as soon as it started. It takes only one last shot from my rifle, a shot in the middle of the last man’s thigh, to end this unexpected confrontation. I have the opportunity to put a bullet between his eyes, but I need one alive.
For a moment, anyway.
I hold the rifle down at my side and walk to where he lies prone on the ground, blood pooling beneath him. I kick his gun away and crouch beside him. I want to kill him, to watch the light leave his eyes, but I need him. Goddammit. I need him to give me answers.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Young and dumb, his mouth is drawn into a tight line, but I know his tattoo. I grew up knowing it.
1919, it says in a tight serif font along the base of his throat. It was a significant year, if you happen to be Irish. The year that Ireland signed its Declaration of Independence.
That means one thing: the bastards are from the Whelan mob. My Bratva’s bitter rivals. Callous motherfuckers, down to the last of them.
“You want that I shoot him?” Yelisey slips back into broken Russian. It always happens when stress takes hold. Probably the only endearing thing about him.
“No. Lock him up. We might find a use for our little redheaded friend.” I nod to Geoffrey who is rifling through the pockets of the other men, looking for clues or evidence. “Get their
