Bargains and Betrayals (16 page)

“When? Where?”

He shrugged. “Soon. The asylum.”

My vision narrowed as I read his very open expression. Shouldn’t this be a trap? “And you’re telling me this because?”

“Because you have no idea how badly I want to get my hands on Jessica one more time. For old times sake,” he said. “And I’m used to getting what I want—one of the drawbacks of being spoiled as a child with absentee parents. Both Pietr and I want her out of the asylum—alive. I can’t get her out; Pietr can.”

“He won’t
give
her to you.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he assured me as if he expected Jessie to just come to him. “Just pass along the message.”

A Mercedes pulled up.

“Ah. My ride’s here.”

He strolled off, down my sidewalk and to his waiting car.

I closed the door, locked it, and put my gun away. Our situation had all the makings of a Russian tragedy: a young woman torn between two men—neither of them truly good for her—a battle over family and life itself …

The train sounded.
Da
, there were even trains and horses.

And so much hung in the balance. If Jessie broke, then it would all be for nothing. Without her blood there was no cure, no way to fix the damage already done to Mother. Of course, we’d never tested anyone else’s blood. Would it not be but one more cruel twist of fate to find out the cure lingered in everyone’s blood—that it was as common and as simple as humanity itself?

Peering into my coffee cup I wanted something much stronger to drink.

But Cat was right. They needed me sharp.

Alexi

The wonderful thing about the black market—if anyone dared string such a phrase together—was that the black market was never where most people expected it to be. People working in the shadows also indulged themselves in bright lights and odd comforts.

The contact I needed to tap for information and supplies was rumored to have a love of carriage rides through big city parks. So I took the money I had squirreled away thanks to hustling an occasional pool game and understanding American football better than most other Americans, drove a distance, and hunted down the correct horse and carriage at the appointed time.

After, of course, I had delivered Derek’s message to Pietr.

Waiting in a line with others, the carriage nearly disappeared against the growing evening oozing across the rolling park’s cobblestone paths. Its dark horse stomped impatiently, nearly as black as the carriage it was hooked to.

The convertible black top up, it shielded my contact from view. Whereas most of the carriages had low doors, if doors at all, my appointed carriage had doors that rose high enough no one from the outside could see what bargains were made within.

A small and mean-looking driver examined both me and the case I carried. “
Strasvoytcha
.” I waved. He nodded and reached behind him to open the door.

I stepped up into the carriage, its interior even darker than the falling night outside.

Before my vision had cleared and my ass had even hit the seat, there was a gun to my head.

She reached around me, tugging the door shut, her perfume like flowers blooming in Russia’s wild forests. “Sit,” she commanded, kicking the seat ahead of her.

The carriage jolted forward and I sat.

Even holding a gun to my head, Nadezhda was undeniably hot. God. I needed to get out more. I sank into the seat, holding the case to my chest.

“You’re not Boris,” I mentioned, peering openly at her. My eyes traveled the length of her sleek form. She was so definitely
not
Boris.

No black catsuit for this Russian femme fatale, Nadezhda sat straight and stiff beside me, dressed in the finest European fashions, her long blond hair wrapped elegantly up and away from her slender neck.

I gave her a look—but the same look that landed Max invitations to flats from Moscow to Paris to New York City played differently across my sharper features and could potentially get me slapped with a harassment complaint.

She was a princess, not a mobster
, I thought. Hoped.

But something seemed wrong—something was just a bit
off
.

“Do not look at me,” she snapped. “You have no right to look at me after what you’ve done.”

This was going badly.

I looked straight ahead and rested the case on my lap. I needed to think of anything other than the beautiful woman seated beside me.
Da
. Like the reason I was here.

“You promised to return for me. And then—what? What, Alexi? You drop off the face of the planet. You disappear into the backend of the American nowhere.” The gun’s muzzle jabbed my temple as the carriage turned.

Down an even more isolated pathway.

“I—”

“Shut up! Did I ask you a question?”

“Actually—”

“Shut up!” She drew down a deep breath. The gun poked me again. “You turned on the family,” she murmured. She sniffed, pouting. “Alexi, I understand why you did what you did. There is no good life with this family—it is so splintered, so filthy, as bad as the CIA and common street gangs.”

I couldn’t help it: At her mention of the CIA, I blinked.

She sighed, stretching the sound out. “You did what you did out of love, Alexi.
Yah pohnemyoo.”

“
Da
. It is good you understand.”

“Then why did you not finish things? Out of love? Why did you not come for me?” she asked softly. “Did you not love
me
?”

I sat as still as the jostling carriage allowed, my spine fused.

“Tell me the truth, Alexi.”

“Uh…”

“Oh.” She set the gun down between us. “The truth.”

So I turned in the seat and told her everything that had happened since I’d left Moscow. That I still wanted her. And that a declaration of love seemed ill-timed when she might question the authenticity of the emotion, wondering if the sentiment had been influenced by the presence of a gun.

She chuckled.

“And you, White Crow,” I whispered, finding it hard to believe I was smiling at her and she was smiling at me, “why are you here?”

“I needed to know,” she said. “And I thought I might kill you for sport.”

“Is honesty not wonderful?”

“I wish I could be completely honest with you. But so much has changed. I made some hard decisions.” She ran her tongue across her lips and my mind drifted to a much warmer place and time.

In Moscow.

In Nadezhda’s room.

No matter how many ways I took apart her expression, measured the aspects and points creating her face, I couldn’t break it down far enough to forget that this woman was the one I still loved.

“We all make bargains,
da?
” she confided. “Little moves to secure our own happiness—and safety. And sometimes we make big moves. Betray those closest.” She shook her head and straightened in her seat. “But this is not all pleasure. You came for business. There are things you requested. There is information you need.”

“And you?”

“—are what we shall call an enabler.” She smiled.

Oddly, the least amount of time spent in that carriage was spent on guns, passports, and getting the name of places to purchase pigs’ blood.

“Oh. Alexi, be careful. We have news there is someone in your area who may be getting ready to make a big move of his own. He wants an oborot for a captain.”

My heart dropped into my gut.

“Watch out for him.”

I nodded. “
Da
. And you,” I whispered, stepping out of the carriage. “Watch out for you.”

She smiled and pulled the door closed, but not before I got one more glimpse of her shoes. The red soles were unmistakable. But so was the amount of wear on them.

Nadezhda had been doing far more than walking comfortable red carpets and hanging with the trendy friends who used to take up most of her time.

The carriage took off, leaving me to find my way back to the more brightly lit areas of the park and transportation home.

I jumped when I heard something in the bushes groan, and my hand went to my gun.

“Uhhh. Crazy bitch.”

I stepped back, hugging the shadows as Pietr and Max did so expertly and watched a man crawl backward out of the bushes and struggle to his feet.

He dusted off his tracksuit and reached back under the shrubs, looking for something. Dragging his cell phone free of the park’s dirt and debris, he made a call. He plucked a leaf from his slicked-back hair and then returned his hand to his head, his face twisting in pain. “
Da
. Your baby’s here. But she’s not your baby anymore.
Da
. She reeks of Interpol.”

Nadezhda?
Interpol?

Bargains and betrayals,
she’d said.

I looked down at the case I held. As long as the merchandise worked, I did not care who was selling it. I needed it to free Mother.

And probably to save Pietr.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jessie

Although the new room looked nearly identical to my old one, there were significant perks that kept me hanging out inside it more frequently. No camera equated to less paranoia—at least as long as I stayed in. And the fact I could press a button that buzzed the nurses’ station to let me out made it seem like I had a
choice
. Fred and Jeremy seldom shadowed me anymore, but it seemed they were kept busy by the continuing population boom at Pecan Place.

I tried to steer clear of all of it. I kept my head down, my eyes and hands to myself, and waited on my rescue. When it finally came, I was unprepared. But when I heard Dad’s voice raised in anger, I headed straight out of the common room and toward the commotion. “I was told when her room got changed her visitation privileges were upgraded.”

The nurse muttered a response.

“So call Dr. Jones,” he demanded.

Hand on the phone, the nurse said, “Dr. Jones isn’t in the office, sir. She’s unavailable.”

And that was when I saw Pietr. I froze, motionless as a deer spying its hunter, my heart racing at least as fast. He looked at me and Dad’s words faded to a jumbled mess of nothing.…

“Then you need to make the right decision. I don’t want to drive all the way home.…”

… like background noise—static.

And before I really understood what was happening, Dad had somehow gotten the nurse to open my room and let the three of us, Pietr, Dad, and myself, inside.

“Oh-god-oh-god-oh-god!” I launched myself straight into Pietr’s arms.

He held me for a long, quiet moment, his face in my hair, breathing in the scent of me as the stress left his back and shoulders little by little. “Shhh,” he soothed. “Jess, we don’t have much time.”

“Dammit, Pietr, we never have much time. Kiss me.”

Dad cleared his throat.

“It’s not like you haven’t seen people kiss before,” I protested.

“Not my daughter.”

Grumbling, I moved away from Pietr’s embrace, letting my hand slip into his.

I held on.

Dad sat on the edge of my bed, the springs groaning faintly. “This boy of yours,” he muttered, “is saying some pretty crazy stuff. He would not take no for an answer when he showed up on our doorstep this morning. And he would not tell me where he’s been all this time.”

“Where were you?”

“Later.” He grabbed my other hand and stared down into my eyes. “You’re in danger, Jess.”

I blinked. “Seems it’s my normal.”

“Pietr insists someone in here is trying to kill you,” Dad said with a snort. “I told him the food’s probably awful and I’m sure not Dr. Jones’s biggest fan right now, but kill you?”

“There’ve been some—
dangerous
—situations,” I confirmed. “But I thought I had it under control.”

Dad gaped. “Why didn’t you say…?”

“There’s only so much guilt a body can handle, Dad,” I explained, keeping my focus on Pietr. “You’re at your limit. And I wanted to believe I was safe.…”
Untouchable
.

“Well, why the hell would anyone want to kill my girl?” Dad muttered, running his hands through his hair. “I don’t understand.…” He shook his head. “And why now?”

“No camera,” Pietr said, glancing back toward the door. “They could make it look like a suicide. No one would know the truth.” He paced slowly around the room, his eyes pausing on the ceiling’s heavy lighting fixture.

I saw what he was wondering: How they’d do it. Hanging? Damn fluorescents. There were even more reasons to hate fluorescent lights.

Pietr saw my journal on my bed and picked it up, examining the pen first. His thumb flicked the metal spiral holding it together, his features registering
sharp
.

He looked at my arms. My
wrists
. I rubbed them frantically, looking away from Pietr’s cool and grimly assessing gaze. His eyes were somehow different, more calculating and distant.

I wondered if Derek was in the loop about the plans they had for his pet and favorite battery? Was he—even now—arguing to save me out of his own twisted sense of need?

I shivered at the thought and reached out for Pietr’s hand again, turning back to face Dad.

“But, why?” Dad pushed. “Have you done something, Jessie?”

“No, Dad. I
am
something.” I tried to choose my words carefully. “What if I said there’s something in my blood that can help certain people”—I squeezed Pietr’s hand—“and other people don’t want them to get that help?”

Dad looked up, bleary eyed. “I’d need—I’d need more than that, Jessie. Something in your blood? You aren’t even O negative, and that’s the one everyone wants for blood drives … universal donor…” He began to babble.

So
that
was where I got it from.

I dragged Pietr forward and crouched before Dad, unwilling to release Pietr now he was here but feeling the need to set my hand on Dad’s knee, to reassure him.

Pietr crouched beside me.

“Dad. Dad.”

He looked at me again.

“There’s something you don’t know … something big. I never wanted to drag you into this, but…” I shook my head and looked at Pietr. Lost.