There’s another emotion churning inside me, too…something much more unexpected.
Satisfaction.
Our dynamic has shifted slightly, courtesy of a single gunshot. For the first time, I’m catching flashes of uncertainty behind his mask. I’m seeing his paranoia, sitting like a devil on his shoulder.
He’s afraid of Frankie. Afraid of what he’s capable of. Afraid of losing.
Reap it, you bastard. Reap it.
I’m silently screaming this at him as Adrik storms back into the box.
“Guido Rossi is dead.”
O’Sullivan hesitates. “You sure?”
“Positive. There is blood everywhere.”
“Cops?” He shoots a warning look in the Italians’ direction, daring them to insult him again.
“They are all over it.”
“Then we need to leave. Have the drivers bring the vehicles round to the Owners car park. I want us gone within the next five minutes. And get my contact at the Met on the phone.”
“Sure thing.”
“Semenov,” he bellows, as my husband stalks back in. “Ada’s coming home with me for the next few days for her, ah, safety and well-being.
Back to that hell hole.
Back to the basement.
Never.
Kirill just laughs like he couldn’t care less. Which he doesn’t. “What about your wife?”
“I’m thinking she’s due another stay in hospital.”
Roisin’s face filters through my mind. I see the lipstick letters on her wrist.
“You can’t do this to me! To us! I won’t let you!”
My rare outburst silences the room. The next thing I know, my throat is in a chokehold, and my lungs are paralysed and screaming for air.
“You do whatever I tell you to do, Ada.”
“Not this time.” I try to wrench O’Sullivan’s fingers away. That glimpse of his vulnerability has turned a tide in me. I refuse to be trapped in this losing game any longer, to be crushed and cowed without a fight.
“No?” he repeats, his grip tightening. “Are your wings beating against those bars?”
“You wanted me as bait, then use me as bait,” I croak, despising myself for saying it. Trusting that Frankie will find another way. Knowing he’s so much smarter than all of them. “Let me go about my day as normal. Let me run my business as normal.”
I’m close to passing out when I feel his fingers loosening, and then he’s pushing me away like I’m poison. “Kirill, add another twenty of your best men to the house security but keep it subtle. Make Lastra believe she’s his for the taking. If he so much as breathes within fifty metres of her, he’s ours.”
Did I just win the battle?
My head is spinning from oxygen deprivation and the smallest taste of victory.
“Let’s go.”
There are thirty-three steps from the private box down to the racetrack. It’s the same number of steps I was dragged up when they were done with me in the basement. I know because I left a piece of my heart behind on every single one.
All around me, the crowds are strung-out with panic as they push towards the exits. The rest of the races have been cancelled. The day is about death now. There are no bright racing silks or sleek thoroughbreds anymore, just strips of black and grey as I’m jostled by grim-faced bookies and gamblers.
“Keep up, blyad.” bitch.
Adrik tries to take my arm, but in my newfound identity as a survivor, not a victim, I yank it out of reach. He turns to grab it again when the crowd sweeps sideways suddenly, and I’m caught up in the squall.
Falling a couple of steps behind him, I’m aware of a huge shadow looming to my left, and then a rich scent wraps itself around my senses, making me shudder from its wanted familiarity. Tears fill my eyes when I feel the lightest touch on the small of my back—the same brush of fingers that sealed our fate in a library when I was seventeen years old. Fingertips as unique as fingerprints.
Frankie.
A piece of paper is pressed into my hand, and then the shadow is gone, replaced by bright sunshine and the memory of five murmured words:
“I’m coming for you, Ada.”
No, don’t leave. Don’t leave!
With my heart thumping, I search frantically for a glimpse of him as I’m propelled forward by the surge again.
Where are you, Frankie? Where did you go?
My head is a riot of a thousand questions, but all I need answered is one:
Why didn’t you take me with you?
I stumble in my heels, tripped up by confusion this time, as Adrik reappears by my side. “I told you to keep up,” he says angrily. “Where did you go?”
Heaven. For a few brief seconds, before heaven disappeared again.
“Move faster.”
The cars are waiting in the car park, just as O’Sullivan ordered: a sleek line of SUVs with their doors wide open. Five gaping black holes to ferry us back down to hell.
I’m bowing my head to climb into the first one when I see a flash of red out of the corner of my eye. Whatever it is, it’s approaching us at top speed.
“Get ze fuck down!” Adrik roars, pushing me face-first into the vehicle, my tender knees exploding in agony as they hit the floor, right before the sound of bullets punching metal fills the air.
Crying out in terror, I press my cheek into the leather seats as the noise goes on and on.
“Die, O’Sullivan. Pieprzony gnojek!” You fucking bastard! I hear a voice yell, and then another spray of bullets is fired into the side of our vehicles, destroying the windows and pelting my head and shoulders with flying glass.
There’s a screech of tyres, and then O’Sullivan and his men are returning fire at the escaping vehicle. Shoving me further into the car, Adrik jumps in after me and slams the door as Kirill swings into the passenger seat. Now, they’re shouting at their driver to get moving while they’re reloading fresh clips into their weapons.
Through the shattered window, I see the red car spin out of the car park at high speed and into a side street, cutting up a bus and forcing a white van into the incoming traffic. Moments later, I’m being shunted forward as Kirill’s driver slams his foot down on the accelerator and we’re tearing out after him, along with the rest of O’Sullivan’s SUVs.
At first, I’m too dazed to translate what Adrik and Kirill are shouting at each other. I’ve taught myself the rudiments of Russian over the years, but they’re talking too fast for me to understand.
After a minute, I start to recognise snippets:
“The Polish want a piece of the action.”
“Assassination attempt.”
My stomach flips. “Is he dead?”
I find my answer in Kirill’s mocking smile as the wind comes whipping into the backseat through the holes in the glass. “No, meelaya. Not even a scratch. No need to wear the black just yet for your papa.”
A call comes through to his phone.
“Da… Sukin syn!” Son of a bitch! A moment later, I hear the wail of sirens behind us.
“We lost him,” I hear him say to Adrik. “Get off the main roads. We are too public.”
“Tell me Alex is okay,” I plead quietly. “Please, Kirill… I know you said he was here today. Just tell me he wasn’t hurt in what happened.”