My fingers tremble as I jam the key into the ignition. There’s no way they could know about Kat. No fucking way. But as I’m telling myself that, I notice the muddy footprint Andrei left behind. He drove my car. I never gave it a second thought, but is it possible that he found something?
No, he’s too stupid for that. I keep telling myself I’m just being paranoid as I jam the car into gear and take off down the street, fumbling with my phone as I try to dial Pasha. He doesn’t answer. I curse under my breath and then try Kat, but again, I get no answer.
The car accelerates, blowing through a stop sign I didn’t even see. But it doesn’t matter. Nothing else fucking matters. My fingers curl around the steering wheel, and I try to focus as I navigate the streets back to the house. I’m trying to dial Alexei when my phone rings, and Vasily’s name flashes across the screen.
I tap the button to ignore it, and in my frustration, the phone slips from my grasp and flies onto the floor beneath the passenger seat.
Motherfucking fuck.
I kick up the speed, laser-focused on the streets. I have to get home. It’s the only thing I can think of. And when I do, they are going to be all right. It won’t be like last time. I won’t be too late.
But even as I swallow my own assurances, I can picture my mother’s face. Her dead gaze has haunted me for so many years. I wasn’t there for her. I didn’t save her. And now I’m failing Kat and Josh all over again. I can feel it in my soul. My heart is already slowing to a crawl, prepared to die an agonizing death at a loss I won’t ever recover from.
26
Kat
Twenty minutes pass, then thirty. Josh is bathed and dressed and playing with the toys in his borrowed room.
I take my now-charged phone upstairs to check on him yet again and decide to text Pasha. I don’t want to appear helpless or afraid, but there’s no denying that I am anxious. He doesn’t reply right away, and when that thirty minutes becomes forty-five minutes, my stomach twists into knots.
I leave Josh’s door slightly ajar and go downstairs. I need to call Lev, but I don’t want Josh to overhear anything.
Apart from the sounds of Josh driving the toy truck around the room, the house is quiet. I am too as I descend the stairs, phone in hand.
A sound at the back door makes my heart leap. I hurry to the front window, staying out of sight of the sliding back door and peer through the divide in the curtains. The SUV could be Pasha’s. I don’t remember the make of his, just that it was a black SUV with tinted windows.
The phone in my hand vibrates with a text message and I look down to read it.
Pasha: Almost there. I’m stuck behind an accident. Everything okay?
My heart races as my brain puts things together, and this time, the sound at the back door is louder and unmistakable.
Glass cracking.
Then shattering.
I run up the stairs, the phone slipping from my hand.
“Mommy?” Josh starts, alarmed when I charge into his room and close the door, putting my finger to my mouth as I gather him up in my arms.
“We’re going to play a game, Josh.”
“A game?”
The house isn’t very big, and a moment later, I hear heavy footfalls on the stairs.
“Lev’s home!” Josh says as I try to cover his mouth.
“Shh. We have to hide now, Josh. We’re going to play hide-and-seek.”
“With Lev?” he asks in an attempted whisper.
I nod and carry him to the closet. It’s empty but for some boxes. “You hide here, okay? Behind the boxes,” I whisper, my hands shaking as I try to hide him.
“What about you?”
“I’m too big to hide here. I’ll find somewhere else. Shh now.”
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” a man sings outside.
Josh turns his head in the direction of the sound, expression confused.
“Don’t come out until Lev or I come for you, okay? Not matter what. Promise?”
“Mommy?” His eyes grow wide as the bedroom door creaks open.
I put my lips to his forehead. “Hide, baby. Hide.”
I close the closet door, stand and press my back against it. My eyes on the opening door, I slide my hand into my back pocket and close it around the pocketknife.
A black boot comes into view first, big and caked with mud. My chest vibrates as I suck in a ragged breath, my stomach tight with anxiety.
The man peers inside, and I can’t hide, not if I want to keep Josh safe. Not if I want him to stay in that closet because this man is looking for me or for Lev, but there’s a chance he doesn’t know about Josh, and I have to hold on to that.
I creep away from the closet, and when he steps into the room, it’s the shiny metal of the pistol in his hand I see first. By the time I drag my eyes up to his, he’s staring at me, this giant of a man, with crazy eyes and a shit-eating grin on his face.
It’s the grin I recognize.
He’s the one who took Nina home that night at Delirium. The man who had his hand possessively around her arm.
The one I didn’t like.
And I like him less now.
Was he the one who did it? Who splattered Nina’s blood all over my scarf?
“There are you,” he says, looking me over and tucking his pistol at the back of his jeans as he licks his lips. “Been a while. Kat, right?”
I swallow, keeping my pocketknife hidden. I need to get out of this room. Whatever happens to me, I have to keep Josh safe.
What was his name? “Andrei, right?” I ask, playing stupid. “Lev said he was sending someone.”
He looks confused for a moment, then nods.
“Thank God. I was worried,” I say, trying to control the situation.
I tighten my sweaty hand around the knife, taking inventory. He’s not as fat as Robert George was, but he is as tall. He’s built differently, too. Like a solid wall.
And he’s a trained killer.
“Yeah, uh, Lev sent me to get you.” He’s improvising. “Said you might be bored.”
I walk toward him. “Yeah, I was.” He steps out into the hallway, and I follow, closing the door behind me, hoping he doesn’t notice when I turn the key in the lock grateful now for those keys I’d found strange when I’d first seen them.
“What were you doing in there?” he asks, eyes narrowing.
I’m not sure how to answer, so I distract him. “You were at the club that night,” I say as if I just remembered. “You took Nina home. She said you were cute.” I want to barf.
“Nina von Brandt.”
His expression is flat, eyes empty. Can I push him down the stairs?
“She didn’t think I was very cute later,” he says, and I realize he’s not as stupid as I hoped.
The game is over.
Andrei takes a stalking step toward me, and I run, gripping the banister and flying down the stairs so fast, I slip and tumble down the last few, the pocketknife flying out of reach.
He’s right behind me, body heavy as he tackles me at the bottom of the stairs.
“You’re not going anywhere!”
I can’t help my scream when he grips a handful of hair as soon as I’m back on my feet. He tugs me backward into him, the smell of sweat on him making me nauseous.