“He’s not stupid. He’d look.”
“No. He’ll pretend. He won’t look at it. He gets sick from blood.”
“Wait.” I straighten, remembering the smell of his puke after he killed my parents. “Blood makes him sick?”
“So sick, Aleksio. He keeps it secret.” She twists her lips, focusing on nothing, fighting through whatever haze she’s in. “He’ll pretend to look, but he won’t. Get an already dead finger. Wrap it in something bloody. When he sees the ring…” She swallows, swaying. “…When he gets the ring he’ll accept the finger. No question. Won’t look. He’ll accept it.” She looks up. “Do you get it?”
“I get it.” Could it work?
“He’ll have somebody take the ring and give it to him. He’ll know the ring is real. He’ll know you mean business. Okay? You don’t have to kill him.” Tears in her eyes. “Promise.”
“Promise what, baby?” I whisper, held in a trance by her cinnamon gaze…and, admittedly, the waving gun.
“Don’t kill him. You can’t kill him. Not ever.”
Fuck.
“Promise,” she says, swinging the thing around. She seems so off-kilter, she could start shooting just as easily as she could start crying.
“Okay. I won’t kill your dad.”
“Promise. Not Viktor, either. Not any of your guys. You can’t have any of your guys kill my dad.”
Viktor growls.
I glare at him. We’ll settle for making him wish he was dead. “Promise her, Viktor.”
“I promise,” he says.
She lowers the weapon. As usual, she’s forgotten herself. She didn’t ask for us not to kill her, because that’s who she is. She thinks of others before herself.
Raised in a nest of vipers and this is how she turns out.
I’m impressed, but also pissed off. I want to shake her. She needs to give a shit about things like being killed.
I hold out my hands. “Come here.”
She comes to me.
I slide an arm around her and gently grab the cool barrel, keeping it downward. I whisper in her ear, “Let go of the piece.” She loosens her grip, and I take it from her and hand the thing behind me to Tito.
I press my face in her hair. “You’re okay, baby.”
Her chest begins to shake. I realize she’s crying. My ankle is screaming, but all I hear is Mira.
I stroke her hair. “It’s okay. We’ll make it okay.”
She pulls away, eyes swollen, still gorgeous. “He killed a mother in front of her babies! But he’s my dad. Promise you’ll get him medical attention if the blood fucks him up.”
“But he probably won’t even look, right?”
“Yeah, but if—”
“Sure.” I brush back her hair. “What kind of criminal gang would we be if we didn’t have a doctor or two on our payroll?”
“Hold on, what?” Currie says. “Me? Are we talking about Aldo Nikolla?”
I give him a look. We handled some deep loan-shark trouble for him. He owes us his life.
“I’m wearing a mask,” he says. “That’s the only way I see her dad.”
“Fine. Wear a mask, then.” I nod at Viktor. “The morgue. We need a finger and some blood in an hour. Tito knows a guy.” Viktor and Tito start working it out. We need to get this together fast.
“Wait, I might have a source,” Currie says.
“Work it out,” I say. It’ll cost us, knowing Currie. Like I give a shit.
“We need to save baby Kiro,” Mira says.
“Yeah, we do.” My heart hammers out of my chest.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. We’re sorry. Viktor’s sorry.”
She narrows her eyes at him, trying to focus. “But you love Little Vik.”
I twist her hair around my hand, feeling crazy.
She tries to focus on my face. “He’s your brother,” she says, words thick and strange, as if in a trance. “You love him.”
I push my face into her hair and breathe in the scent. “Shh,” I whisper.
Tito and Yuri will be hitting a medical school. Currie can get them in. Bodies donated to science.
Viktor’s glaring at me. His face looks like shit. Eye swelling up. Lip a fat, bloody mess.
I’m glaring back at him with zero pity.
We get inside and Currie slaps the kitchen table. “Up here, Aleksio.”
“Mira needs you more. Take her pulse and shit. She’s been drugged up and traumatized.” I clench my fists, resisting the impulse to fly at Viktor.
Currie sits her down on a kitchen chair and checks her pupils with a small light. Now that the adrenaline is ratcheted down, Mira’s being silly, saying that stupid Russian action-star thing at one point.
Viktor leans in the doorway, beat up and defiant, military haircut sleek and smooth. “What about Kiro?”
“Watch me burn the world for him,” I say.
“We lost time.” His gaze goes to Mira.
I stalk over to him and throw him against the wall. His nostrils flare.
“You will kill me, brat?” he grates out.
Mira whimpers.
“Take it the fuck outside,” Currie barks.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight. I hate that I’m distressing her. I have to stop, I have to…
Viktor grabs my shirt. “I am frightened for him.”
Kiro. He’s talking about Kiro.
“Do I need to give Mira the gun again?” Currie says.
“I don’t remember him,” Viktor says softly. “You knew him. You got to hold him.”
Fuck. I let Viktor down. “We’ll get him.”
We watch Currie listen to her heart. We talk in low tones about how to present the finger to her father. What would make the most impact? A napkin? A box? We know if we smear it up with blood and give him the ring separately, he won’t look at the finger. He’ll tell us what we want to know if there’s more to tell.
It’s then that the call comes in from the chop shop. Our guys holding Nikolla. I answer. “Talk.”
“The fucker’s in the wind.”
“What? He’s gone?”
“Old man got away. Escaped. He turned Driscoll to his side, we think.”
My heart pounds. Driscoll’s one of my guys, who I sent to help Viktor’s Russians. I thought he was loyal.
Viktor’s face goes white.
My man drones on. “Dima’s dead. We think the old man turned Driscoll, and then he shot Dima and got out.”
Dima. Viktor’s youngest guy. Viktor slams a fist through the wall.
Currie’s glowering. “Take it outside.”
Viktor lost a guy. Because of one of mine. “I will destroy that fucker.”
Viktor stares bleakly at the crater he made. I go over and put a hand on his shoulder. He puts his hand over my hand.
With that, we’re back. A team out for blood.
“What?” It’s Mira’s voice. “What? What’s going on?”
She’s sitting up, looking worried again.
I suck in a deep breath. “Your dad got away.”
Mira’s eyes widen.