“Good meeting with you, Frankie.” He stands up and holds his hand out to me.
I drop my feet from the desk and rise to meet him, shaking it firmly. “Next time stay awhile. I’ll get Thiago to bake cookies.”
The corners of his mouth lift slightly as he lets go of my hand to slide his Beretta into the back waistband of his jeans. “I’ll be in touch before Sunday. Nice casino by the way.”
“All the better to take your money with.”
“All the better to clean Santiago’s money with.” He pauses in the doorway and runs his hand across his jaw again. “Semenov has her house surrounded with twenty more men, but tomorrow night, at around nine p.m., most of her security will be pulled away. Don’t ask me the details. Just be there. I can buy you an hour.”
My face doesn’t betray any emotion, even though the ground just shifted. “I thought this was a ‘no waves allowed’ zone.”
“Let’s just say I owe Aiden a favour. But stay out of sight. And don’t think about doing any spur-of-the-moment stupid shit like running off with Semenov’s wife. You know the penalty for that.”
My wife. Not in name yet, but she’s only ever belonged to me.
I was the first and I’ll be the last.
“How the fuck are you going to pull all those men away from that house?”
“I said not to ask me about the details.”
A beat later, my office is empty again, and my mind is on sixty minutes of touch, taste, and Ada.
CHAPTER 23
ADA
I may have won the battle, but I didn’t win the war.
When I wake the next morning, my knees are swollen and stiff. It’s the worst osteoarthritis flare I’ve had in ages, but after yesterday it could be worse. I could be lying in a hospital bed with a hole in my head, or dead like Guido Rossi.
I know Frankie killed him.
I’m so happy Frankie killed him.
Would I have had such macabre thoughts if O’Sullivan had never stolen me from my mother? If ‘normal’ had been my normal—with a steady job, a stable family, and a five-seater Volvo? Or does that well of dark water exist inside all of us, one that rises to the surface with every kick, every rape, every wrongdoing, until it’s an endless tide spilling over the edges.
Turning onto my side, I wince as the pain shoots through my body. I try to swing my legs out of bed, but I end up sinking back down into the mattress in defeat. With a heavy heart, I grab my phone and call around all my students’ parents to cancel off today’s classes. I hate doing it, but I have no choice. If I take it easy today, I should be well enough to continue tomorrow.
Downing a couple of strong anti-inflammatories, I wait for the relief to kick in. I didn’t close the curtains last night, and the sky outside is as blue as my melancholy.
This is what constant pain does. It’s a thief and a trickster. It robs you of the ability to find light in the darkest of places. Just when you think it’s subsiding, you move an inch, and it takes a mile. It’s a bad drug that hazes your memory when you’re crying out for every detail.
I remember him touching me, but not the moment it set fire to my skin. I remember his rich scent filling my lungs, but not how much it made my head spin.
Go away, pain. Just go.
Sliding my hand under my pillow, I pull out the crumpled betting slip. I hid it there to fill my head with his promises, like one of those hypnotherapist podcasts that works when you’re unconscious. The bloody fingerprints have darkened overnight, but the words are just as clear.
He never stopped wanting me.
He wants our son, too.
Did he know about Alex from the moment he was born?
By eleven a.m., the pills are working enough for me to stagger into the bathroom, but every movement is a slow step of anticipation and frustration. Running a hot bath, I stand in front of the mirror and write two names in the condensation. It’s a ritual I do every morning.
Afterwards, I close my eyes and imagine where they are and what they’re doing. Today, Frankie’s chain-smoking in a fancy office somewhere, reliving the past and plotting out the present. Alex is kicking a football against a wall on his own, stuck in a moment and constantly wondering.
Butterflies and parallel lives.
I sink down into the water and let the soothing heat do its thing. This time when I close my eyes, the only person I see is Roisin.
I need to get a message to her, but I don’t know how.
O’Sullivan has her trapped in another guarded fortress, and our lines of communication are constantly monitored.
I’m still thinking about her an hour later when I limp into the kitchen. I have a housekeeper called Valeryia, but I never see her. She scurries away like a frightened mouse whenever she hears my footsteps, but the place is always sparkling clean. I’ve knocked on her bedroom door more than once to introduce myself, but she never answers. When I try the handle, it’s always locked.
Adrik and one of his men are sitting at the table eating lunch, shovelling fistfuls of bread into their mouths like it’s their last meal on earth. When they hear me, they turn and scowl in my direction, as if I’m the unwanted intruder.
“Eat.” Adrik flings a bowl of salad in my direction, but I decline it with a tight smile. The pills and the company have made me lose my appetite. “Suit yourself.”
Crossing the room to the sink, I pour myself a glass of water and gaze out of the window, mostly so I don’t have to look at them. Bright sunshine is spilling through the branches of an old oak tree, making a latticework of shadows on the green lawn below. Six armed men are patrolling the gravel path next to it, their long shadows a million shades darker. There are more men on the other side of the garden too and three more at the rear.
So many soldiers.
So many bars of my cage for Frankie to break through.
Behind me, Adrik and the other man have resumed their conversation in Russian, laughing and joking with the kind of scorn that tells me they’re talking about a woman. They still haven’t figured out I can understand them yet. I taught myself the language with the help of books from the local library. Yes, I kept that tradition going long after Frankie left. Every book I borrow is kept hidden amongst the shelves in the study.
Setting my glass down, I go to switch the tap on again when I hear Roisin’s name, and then another laugh. I pause, screening for phrases I recognise, and then ‘hospital’ and ‘suicide’ are slipped into the conversation like dirty bombs.
Oh God.
“Is she okay?” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. “I-I spoke to my husband earlier,” I add, quickly backtracking when I see Adrik’s face. “He told me what happened.”
“You spoke to Semenov?” he says scornfully. “Do not lie to me.” He throws the rest of his bread down and rises to his feet, but he doesn’t sound as convinced as he should. In fourteen years of marriage, Kirill and I have rarely shared a bed, let alone a conversation. Then again, he’s not in the position to question anything about his pakhan after what went down yesterday. His orders were to keep me in the private box, and I was stopped a metre from the door. “She is a stupid bitch.” He looks me up and down like I’m dirt, placing me firmly in the same bracket. “She could not even slit her wrists properly.”