“What—”
“Fuck. Where are your shoes, Kat?”
“They were muddy. I left them—”
“Never mind. Take mine. I’ll call you tomorrow. Don’t come back until I call you, okay?” She shoves my purse at me and takes off her boots as I hear voices downstairs.
Voices I recognize?
“Is that…?”
Nina stares at me. “Please go. Get that thing out of here.” I barely have time to pull on her boots as she shoves me toward the window along the side of the house. This is the one she uses to sneak into when she’s late. I’ve climbed the trellis with her, so I wrap my purse across my shoulder as I swing a leg out.
“Come with me!” I tell her.
“I can’t. They’ll come after me if I go. They know I’m here. Go!”
I climb out, the rain and my own anxiety making the trellis sweaty. Nina closes the window and turns away just as a light goes on in her room, and I duck out of sight. Climbing down fast, I lose my footing once and just barely catch myself. I only make it to the ground as I hear a quick, sharp pop, and although I’ve never heard a gun fired anywhere but on TV before, I know that’s what that sound is. I know it.
I back away from the house when I hear another one of those pops. Tears stream down my face as I turn to the street, thinking to run to the bus stop because where else would I go?
But then I see the Audi. It’s parked at the far end of the road, and I only see it because of another car’s headlights passing on the cross street.
And I’m grateful for not having been able to eat today. For having vomited everything I did eat back up because I feel sick. I feel sick as I run through the backyard and into the shadow of the woods that separate this property from the next.
I feel sick as I hear one more pop, and I know Nina won’t be calling me tomorrow. I know it like I knew Joshua wouldn’t make it out of the basement that last night. That he’d never see the light of day again.
I drop to my hands and knees then, dry heaving. I reach for my scarf, the one Joshua gave me, but it’s not there. I took it off on Nina’s bed, and in our rush, I forgot it.
I do the math again.
Lev works for the Russian mafia. I look down at the drive I’m still gripping and do some more math.
Nina’s dad probably stole this from them.
Shit.
Lev will recognize my scarf. And whether or not he knows I have the thumb drive, he’ll know I was at the house. He’ll realize I know he was there. And that I know what he did.
And he’ll come to return that scarf again. But this time, he won’t be inviting me to dinner. He’ll be putting a bullet in my head.
9
Lev
The pulse in my neck throbs as I shift the car into park and glance up the street. Andrei is already here, and he’s not in his car, which means he’s either already in the house or close to it. Shit.
He’s coked out and amped up, and I have no idea how this is going to go down. Vasily gave us very specific orders, but whether Andrei is capable of following them is another question.
I stuff my pistol into the back of my jeans and check the street before darting toward the house. Sure enough, when I creep around the back, the door is already split wide open.
I step inside, nearly tripping over a few scattered shoes. The place is eerily quiet, and I’m on high alert as I venture farther into the house. Fucking Andrei can’t wait two goddamn minutes. Now I have no idea what the hell I’m walking into.
When I turn the corner to the staircase, something cracks me in the back of the head, sending white-hot pain through my skull. Mother fuck.
I double over and blink a few times before William von Brandt tackles me to the floor from behind. I don’t even know where he came from. But from the shattered pottery around us, it’s apparent he tried to take me out with a fucking vase.
I elbow him in the gut and manage to knock the wind out of him long enough to regain my balance. Blood drips down my temple as I land three solid punches to his face and roll over on top of him. A scream reverberates off the walls upstairs, and William freezes. So do I. Motherfucking Andrei. What the hell is he doing?
“Andrei!” I yell for him, but he doesn’t answer.
This wasn’t the plan. All we had to do was come in here and take care of William. We were supposed to wait until they were asleep. It should have been a quick job. But as usual, Andrei is off his goddamn head, and shit’s going sideways really quick.
“Please,” William begs as I jam the pistol into his throat. “Don’t hurt them. They have nothing to do with this.”
“Where is the drive?” I bite out.
“I don’t have it.” He shakes his head. “I swear to you.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me.” I slam his head into the floor as another scream echoes upstairs. This time, a gunshot swiftly follows it.
Son of a bitch.
William resumes his fight, struggling to free himself. He attempts to wrestle the gun from my hand as I clock him in the face three more times. I need to get upstairs, but I can’t just leave him here.
“Tell me where the goddamn drive is!” I wrap my palm around his throat and squeeze as I jam the pistol into his rib cage.
“I don’t have it!” he spits. “I’m telling you the truth. It’s gone. Please, my wife—”
I squeeze the trigger and blood explodes across my face. William’s chest begins to rattle, and blood gurgles between his lips as he shakes his head, still pleading with me even as he’s minutes away from death.
“You did this,” I snarl. “You made this bed for yourself. Talking to the goddamn feds? Stealing from Vasily? What the fuck did you think would happen?”
Another gunshot sounds upstairs, and this time, a sick feeling washes over me as my adrenaline starts to slow. Leaving William on the floor, I climb the stairs two at a time, pausing on the landing, where Elizabeth von Brandt is lying with a bullet wound to the head. Her eyes are wide open, and she’s far past saving. From Nina’s room, I can hear Andrei cursing under his breath.
Stepping over the dead body, I move down the hall and wipe the blood from my eyes before pushing open the door. But I’m already too late. Nina is lying in pool of her own blood, her pants torn off and her face beaten to a bloody pulp. She’s dead. Kat’s best friend is dead.
“What the fuck have you done?” I charge at Andrei and tackle him to the floor, slamming my fist into his face until the bones in my fingers splinter and his blood covers my knuckles.
When I finally manage to pull myself away, my chest heaves with the reality I can’t shake. He fucking killed them. He killed them both.
“The bitch bit me,” he groans, rolling around on the floor in pain.
“That’s the least of what you deserve.” I spit at him. “You fucking worthless sack of shit. Who told you to touch her? Who told you to kill them?”
He doesn’t answer. And when he stumbles to his feet, I consider throwing him out the goddamn window. How much would Vasily really miss him? How hard would it be to convince him that this waste of human space fucked everything up and William shot him? But even as I consider it, I know it’s only a fantasy. The unspoken agreement is that I need to keep Andrei alive and out of trouble. The minute he’s no longer breathing, I might as well sign my death warrant too.