“I don’t think the cameras are working,” she says, showing me a screen of static footage. Meanwhile, my phone is still ringing.
Gritting my teeth, I finally answer it. “Grayson—”
“Get the fuck out of your casino!” he yells, cutting me off immediately, the sound of screeching tyres rising up in the background. “Move! You’ve been compromised!”
A beat later, there’s the rapid sound of gunfire coming from the gaming floor next door.
CHAPTER 35
ADA
This morning, when I wrote Alex and Frankie’s names in the condensation in my bathroom, I pictured us together.
We were in a forest—a place I’ve never been to before—where the trees were like giants and that earthy damp aroma was sweetly overpowering. They were walking a couple of metres in front of me, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying because of all the bird song in the branches overhead.
I called out their names, but only Frankie turned around. Alex just kept on walking, his skinny boy shoulders stooped, his head hanging low. Soon, he was nothing more than a dot, taking half of my heart with him when he finally faded from view.
Frankie took a step towards me, and then his eyes fixed on something over my left shoulder. When I turned, I saw a flash of pink, but the more I looked for it, the more I couldn’t find it.
The rest of the day has been stagnant and stale. I’ve wandered from room to room, finding emptiness in all of them, trailing my sadness behind me like a dark shadow. There’s a strange atmosphere about the place, like there are secrets in the stillness that are tired of being unheard.
I tried to read, but all I saw were words that were blurry and asinine. Any food I ate tasted bitter and bland. I spilled some water on the counter and found myself writing out the number four in it before daring to believe in a life outside my prison walls.
It’s not just this house that is restless. Every time I glance out of the window, there are fewer and fewer Bratva soldiers patrolling the grounds. When I look again at six p.m., I only see one.
In the end, I head back upstairs to lie down, but ten minutes later there’s a loud thump at my bedroom door, followed by another.
“Get up, blyad!” Adrik’s surly voice ramps up again, with another desultory thump. “Your husband is waiting for you.”
Kirill’s here?
Stealing myself, I follow him downstairs and into the kitchen. Kirill is leaning against the counter, ankles crossed, balancing a small, serrated hunting knife on the back of his knuckles. It’s the most relaxed I’ve seen him in days, which makes me instantly wary.
He looks up as I enter and beckons me over, stepping aside to reveal a laptop that’s open on the counter. “I’ve brought you a gift, meelaya,” he greets with a smirk, which tells me it’s nothing good.
I stop dead, despising the glint in his dark eyes. Wishing I could stop the countdown that’s started in my head. The only gifts he’s ever given me have come with his fists.
A rough shove from Adrik has me stumbling forward. At the same time, Kirill clicks a button on the laptop and the screen flickers to life.
I recognise the security feed immediately. It’s my empty studio. My mother’s legacy. My lifeline when everything else had been severed.
“What is this? O’Sullivan said I could keep working. You heard him yourself the other day.”
“O’Sullivan has changed his mind.” He gives me a smile, as cold as any warning, before glancing at Adrik. “Go,” he orders in Russian. “Ada will not be requiring your services any longer. Take all the men left behind and head back to London. Once I am finished, I will follow.”
My blood turns to ice. No part of that order included me.
His gaze drifts back my way. “Where are your students today?”
“I closed the studio for a few days. You didn’t leave me a choice. You and your men were endangering my students’ lives.”
“That is a shame.”
Ice turns to fire at the thought of him hurting them. “Is this my gift, Kirill? A new invasive security camera to spy on underage girls?”
His fake smile drops at my accusation. “No, Ada. This is your gift.”
I watch in horror as his finger hits the keyboard again and the screen turns a bright blinding white before the feed turns to static. Somewhere beyond my ten-million-pound gated, hillside prison, there’s a loud boom, and the kitchen windows rattle politely.
No.
“Why?” I whisper.
“I am punishing you.”
Punishing me for what?
But I have a hunch when he grabs the back of my head and slams it down on the counter, grinding the side of my face into the black granite so forcefully, I cry out in pain. “I wanted to kill you, Ada, for what you have done, but O’Sullivan wanted you more.”
Oh God, he knows. He knows about me and Frankie.
“Get off me!”
“From now on you will live in his basement, and this time he will not be ordering me to break your legs. He will be breaking other parts of you himself. That is your other gift, suka. A broken, bleeding pussy instead of a wooden box.” I try to twist out of his grip but he’s too strong. “After what he did to your brother for seven days, it is not a gift I think you will enjoy.”
Flicking my heel up, I catch him between the legs, and he snarls out a curse in Russian before crushing my head even harder into the counter. “It seems Lastra’s cock is less selective than mine, Ada,” he hisses. “I heard he fucked you all night long.”
Keep the spotlight on you. Whatever you do, keep the spotlight on you.
“I was asleep,” I gasp out. “I’ve already told you a million times that I haven’t seen him.”
He laughs as he leans over me, grinding his elbow into the small of my back and making me cry out again. “You always were a bad liar. You even smell of him. But it does not matter anymore.” Releasing me, he shoves me away to deliver his final blow. “Lastra will be dead before midnight. He might even be dead already.”
“I don’t believe you,” I yelp, skidding into the wall, but there’s so much about his strut and his confidence that’s taking a lit match to my paper-thin hope.
“He has a casino now, but I am guessing he already told you that.”
My stomach twists in agony. He knows. He knows. But how?
“He and Razor had the balls to try and start a business in London, thinking we wouldn’t find out.”
“It’s not your city though, is it?” I say, staggering around to the opposite side of the kitchen island, putting four hundred pounds of granite between us. “It was never your city, Kirill. It was always O’Sullivan’s. You only paid rent and did your master’s bidding.”
His eyes narrow as he starts to circle the island, too. “You know nothing, Ada.”
“I know that you stalked me as a child. I know that’s the reason my mother and I had to keep moving. He manipulated you. He manipulated your obsession with me to get what he wanted… The only thing O’Sullivan ever wanted…power. Over cities. Over people—”
“You are only making things worse for yourself, meelaya,” he tuts, matching me limp for step in a dangerous cat and mouse game that will only end in violence.