“Just making conversation,” Kristoff says pleasantly.
“Do you know the saying, ‘Rosjanin sika z celem’? It means, ‘A Russian takes a piss with purpose.’”
Kristoff laughs, unoffended. “I think I like one of your other sayings better—‘Nie dziel skóry na niedźwiedziu.’”
It means, Don’t divide the skin while it’s still on the bear.
Kristoff wants to divide Chicago. But first we have to kill the bear.
“You want to plan the hunt,” I say.
“That’s right.”
I sigh, glancing at the dark, moonless night outside my window. Nessa is still out in the garden, refusing to come back inside. The first few drops of rain break against the glass.
“When?” I say.
“Tomorrow night.”
“Where?”
“Come to my house in Lincoln Park.”
“Fine.”
As I’m about to hang up, Kristoff adds, “Bring the girl with you.”
Nessa hasn’t left the house once since I captured her. Taking her anywhere is a risk, let alone right into the Russians’ lair.
“Why?” I say.
“I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see her in the flesh during our last operation. She’s one of our most valuable chess pieces, and she cost me a warehouse of product the other day. I’d like to see for myself the girl that has the whole city in an uproar.”
I don’t like this at all. I don’t trust Kristoff, and I don’t like the idea of him gloating over her like a prisoner of war.
This is the trouble with alliances. They demand compromises.
“I’ll bring her with me,” I say. “Understand, no one lays a hand on her. She stays right next to me, every second.”
“Of course,” Kristoff says easily.
“Do jutra,” I say, hanging up the phone. Until tomorrow.
As the rain starts coming down in earnest, I send Klara out to the garden to retrieve the little runaway.
Klara heads out through the conservatory, carrying a heavy knit blanket from the library. When she returns, Nessa is wrapped up in that blanket, pale and shivering. I can see the monitor still firmly in place around her ankle. It looks scuffed up like she tried to bash it off with a rock. Her leg is scraped, too. Klara’s arm is around her shoulder, and Nessa’s head is down, cheeks streaked with rain and tears.
Nessa must have cried a bathtub of tears since I brought her here.
At first, I didn’t care in the slightest. In fact, I saw those tears as my due. They were the salt that would season my revenge.
But now I feel that most dangerous emotion of all—guilt. The emotion that drains you, that makes you regret even the most necessary actions.
Those girls are growing too close.
And I’m growing too soft.
Nessa is obviously exhausted, half-frozen in her flimsy dancewear. I’m sure Klara will feed her and bathe her and put her to bed.
Meanwhile, I won’t be going to sleep for hours yet. If I’m going to meet with the Russians tomorrow, I need to speak with my men tonight. I want our strategy decided before we throw Kristoff in the mix.
I call them all into the billiards room. It’s one of the largest and most central rooms on the main floor, with plenty of seating, I like to talk and play at the same time. It makes everyone more relaxed, and more honest. And it reminds my men that I can whip their asses at pool any time I please.
We’ve had a hotly-contested tournament since the day we moved into this house. Sometimes Marcel is second in the rankings, sometimes Jonas. I’m always at the top.
Marcel racks the balls while Jonas and I square off for the first game.
Jonas makes a show out of chalking the tip of his cue, sending blue powder drifting down onto the black hairs on his forearm. He hasn’t shaved yet today, so his dark stubble is halfway to a beard.
“You want to put money on the line, boss?” he says.
“Sure,” I say. “I’m feeling lucky today—how about five?”
The standard bet is two hundred dollars a game. I’m starting at five hundred to fuck with Jonas’ head, and to let him know I haven’t forgotten about his little stunt with Nessa in the kitchen. I’ve told him before to stay the fuck away from her. I know how he is with women. He’s constantly hounding the girls at our clubs. The more they turn him down, the more interested he becomes.
Jonas wins the coin toss and breaks first. He makes a nice, clean break, dropping two striped balls into corner pockets. He grins, thinking he’s got the advantage. He hasn’t bothered to look at the placement of the rest of the balls, so he doesn’t see how jammed up his twelve and fourteen are, over by the eight ball.
“So,” I say in Polish, leaning on my cue. “We meet with the Russians tomorrow. They want to discuss our endgame.”
Jonas sinks the nine and the eleven, still confident and grinning.
“Before I haggle over the details, I want to hear ideas. If you’ve got something to say, say it now.”
“Why don’t we kill the girl?” Andrei says. He’s sitting over by the bar, drinking a Heineken. He has a square, blocky head, very little neck, and ginger-tinged hair. He looks surly and malcontent tonight. He hates the Russians and hates that we’re working with them. Understandable, since both his brothers were killed by Bratva—one in prison in Wroclaw, one right here in Chicago.
Andrei takes a long pull of his beer, then sets it down on the bar.
“We got rid of Miller and framed Dante Gallo. We should do the same with the girl. Make it look like Nero killed her, or Enzo. That will blow up the alliance between the Irish and the Italians quicker than anything else we could do.”
He’s not wrong. When I first kidnapped Nessa Griffin, that was my plan. Her disappearance was intended to cause chaos. Her death would split the two families apart.
A wedding was what bound them together in the first place. Death is stronger than marriage.
But now I want to take my pool cue and break it over Andrei’s thick skull just for suggesting it. The idea of him walking up to her room and wrapping those ugly, calloused hands around her throat . . . I won’t allow it. I won’t even consider it. He’s not fucking touching her, and neither is anybody else.
Nessa isn’t a blank-faced pawn, to be shuffled around the board at will. She won’t be sacrificed, either.
She’s worth more than that.
She can be used to much greater effect.
Jonas misses his next shot. I sink the one, the four, and the five in quick succession while I reply.
“We’re not killing her,” I say flatly. “She’s the best leverage we have at the moment. Why do you think the Griffins and the Gallos haven’t attacked us directly?”
“They did!” Marcel says. “They raided the Russian’s warehouse, and they torched Exotica.”
I snort, sinking the three ball as well.
“You think that was the best they could do? It was fucking weak. Why do you think they haven’t firebombed this house?”
Jonas and Andrei exchange glances, in which no information is shared, because they’re both equally stupid.
“Because they know she might be in here,” Marcel says.
“That’s right.” I sink the two and the seven with one split shot. “As long as they can’t be certain where she is—here or with the Russians—all they can do is throw a few grenades. They can’t rain down napalm on our heads. Nessa is our insurance, for now.”