“You bitch,” he howls.
He kicks me off him, the screwdriver snagging in his shirt. There’s a loud ripping noise, then air. My fingers come away empty, the plastic handle wrenched from my grip. My weapon clatters to the floor by his feet, and he shoves it away with a shoe. It skids down the hall and into the bedroom—too far for me to lunge for it, especially considering the weapon in his other hand.
The gun, aimed at my chest.
“Shiiiiit.” I think it. I scream it. Maybe both.
Retaliation comes like a cannon shot, a sudden backhand to the face. I didn’t see it coming, didn’t notice the smooth arc of his arm coming at me until it’s too late. The heel of his wrist clocks me in the ear, but it’s the gun that hits me the hardest. It slams my cheek with a wet crunch, whipping my head backward, blasting stars across my vision, hurling my body into the wall.
I slide down it, and then...nothing. The room swims in and out of focus. There’s a strange ringing in my right ear, but no pain. Only a heavy pressure on my cheek, a dull, empty moment where my brain acknowledges the blow, but it doesn’t hurt. Not yet.
And then the pain arrives, a shattering explosion on the whole right side of my head. Like a sledgehammer to the cheek, like my face was dipped in lava. Dull and sharp at the same time, fire and ice and a million beestings. It’s a sickening agony that short-circuits my brain and lifts me up and out of my body, crowding out every thought except Beatrix, hiding somewhere in this house.
Please, God, don’t let this bring her running.
I suck a breath and hold it, listening for a scream, a flurry of footsteps coming my way, but there’s nothing. Only silence.
Just in case, I heave myself up off the floor, stumbling to a strategic spot in the middle of the room, gasping in pain while puffing myself up, straightening my back and spreading my legs wide, an easy human target to take a bullet meant for my daughter.
Not happening.
Not today.
“You’re going to regret that.”
I press a hand to my throbbing cheek and glare, my eyes welling with hot, angry tears.
The only thing I regret, asshole, is that I missed.
C A M
5:51 p.m.
Maxim Petrakis’s office is housed on the back end of a strip club, one of the seven he owns in the city, and smack in the middle of a seedy thoroughfare known for its massage parlors and streetwalkers. The parking lot is packed with the predinner crowd, shift workers and folks sneaking in a pit stop on their way home from the office.
Last stop on the desperation highway—for them and for me.
I find a spot at the edge and slide out of the truck into air heavy with noise—the steady bass beating through the club walls, the traffic like crashing ocean waves on the overpass ahead.
I jog across the pavement for a door most patrons wouldn’t even notice. Plain, unmarked, unremarkable. A smooth slice of solid steel set flush into the brick, and painted the same bright white. No handle, nothing at all to grab on to—which is probably a good thing, since whoever tries to bust through uninvited is likely to get shot.
A male voice booms from a tiny speaker built into the wall. “Sir, the entrance is on the opposite side of the building.”
I tilt my face to the camera hanging from the roofline just above the door. “Cameron Lasky. Mr. Petrakis is expecting—”
There’s a buzzing, followed by a sharp click. I lean on the door with a shoulder, and it swings open to reveal a wall of bouncers. Two giant men, both Black, both heavily armed. One of them tells me to spread it, then pats me down with hands the size of my feet.
“I guess it’s a good thing I left my gun in the truck, huh?”
Neither bouncer cracks a smile.
They separate, opening the view down a clean, modern hallway. Glass-lined rooms, polished concrete floors, LED lighting. The music is louder here, but not deafening because these rooms are soundproofed, fireproofed, bulletproofed, every other proofed you can think of. Every dollar that gets shoved across the bar or tucked into a stripper’s G-string gets counted and double counted here, millions and millions of them per year. Unlike in the restaurant business, Maxim’s safes are bursting with cash.
“Third door on the left,” one of the bouncers says.
I thank him despite knowing the way—and even if I didn’t, the cloud of smoke pouring out of the open door would be a big, fat clue. Maxim Petrakis doesn’t give a shit about the state’s Smokefree Air Act. He’s spent his entire career skirting laws and ignoring regulations, and there’s not a politician or policeman in Georgia who can make him stop now. If you don’t like your boss puffing on a cigarette all day long, then don’t work here. It’s as simple as that.
He’s wrapping up a call on speakerphone, the only piece of technology on his glass-topped desk. I give him a bit of space and wait in the doorway.
“That’s not what we agreed to, Tony. It’s not even close.”
As usual, Maxim is impeccably dressed. Custom suit, three-piece and pin-striped. Double-knotted silk tie. Pocket scarf, arranged just so. His hair is still thick and white, combed straight back off his forehead. Say what you will of Maxim’s businesses, but he’s got the mobster look down pat.
On the other end of the line, Tony launches into what promises to be a longwinded rebuttal, which Maxim cuts off ten seconds in.
“Tomorrow. You have until the end of the day.” He punches a button and gives the phone a noisy shove. “Well, well, well. If it ain’t the Steak King, as I live and breathe.”
Barely. Maxim’s lungs sound like a rock tumbler filled with gravel, a noisy in and out that makes my own chest seize in sympathy. Maxim smokes like a chimney. He doesn’t exercise or sleep. He eats fried potatoes and red meat drowning in butter sauce, which he washes down with booze. But he’s trim and energetic and when he’s zipping around town in his convertible Maserati, he looks like a million bucks. Maxim is like one of those deep-water sharks—he’ll live to be four hundred.
I lift a hand in greeting. “Maxim. You’re looking good. Have you been working out again?”
He laughs, a harsh, phlegmy sound. “Flattery will get you nowhere, kid. Now sit down and tell me some good news. You look like shit, by the way.”
I glance behind me for one of the matching white leather chairs stationed across from his desk, and that’s when I see him—a guy I didn’t notice before, leaning against the far glass wall like a silent sentry. I take in his oily hair, his black leather jacket, and he lifts a pocked chin in greeting.
I turn back, sinking onto the chair. I don’t love the idea of an audience, especially considering what I came here to do—beg Maxim for another loan, a whopper, and before I’ve paid back what I owe him on the last one—but I also don’t have a choice. The clock is ticking, each second pounding with urgency in my chest.
“I feel like shit, too, honestly.” My leg is going to town under the glass table, and I swing my ankle over the knee and bear down, forcing the thing to stop bouncing. I tell myself to calm down, slow down. Business with Maxim always requires a bit of finessing. “It’s been a day.”
“I hear Nick pulled through.”
Nick—an employee of Maxim’s I’ve met only once, in a dark and abandoned parking lot in Castleberry Hill, who wore an oversize puffy coat and a Braves cap pulled so low, there’s no way in hell I could ever pick him out of a lineup. That night I passed him ten thousand in cash, and then I did what Maxim ordered and tried to forget Nick ever existed.
It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.
Now it takes every bit of my will to hold on to my poker face. “I thought you and I were never to speak of that name again.”
“This is my house, Cam. Regular rules don’t apply here.” Maxim flicks his gold lighter at the end of a fresh Marlboro and gives a mighty suck, blowing the smoke from lips like sun-age
d leather. “Did everything go as planned?”
The question ignites in my gut, but I manage to nod without pause. “The fire started in the outlet.” I don’t have to mention which one, or that it was next to the cooking grease. I’m positive Nick reported back to the boss. “Faulty wiring, apparently.”
“And the alarm?”
“Malfunctioned.”
Maxim lifts a brow. “See? I told you Nick was good. So that’s done, then. You can move on.”
Move on. If I weren’t so totally miserable I would laugh.
Pain seeps across my chest, and as much as I want to ram it with a fist, I can’t. Maxim would see, and he’d know there’s something I’m not telling him—that Nick’s job wasn’t all that clean, that despite my performance with Flavio and George the inspectors are already throwing around the word arson, which means the insurance payout I’m counting on to dig myself out of this hole isn’t looking like the sure thing Nick promised when I forked over that ten thousand.
And then there’s Maxim. No way he’ll give me another loan, not without the promise of that insurance money, and definitely not on top of the $100,000 I already owe him, plus a three point vig. That’s 3 percent interest, tacked on at the end of every week, and onto an amount that is cumulative—meaning it adds up fast. By the time the loan comes due, at the end of the month, it will have more than doubled. Naked ladies and criminal connections are not Maxim’s only source of income, or even his primary. Maxim is a loan shark, a highly successful one.
“The insurance adjustor assures me I’ll have a check in my hand by Monday morning at the latest. When that happens, your palm will be the first I slap.”
I try not to think about what Maxim will do when he finds out I’m lying, but it’s impossible. He will send one of those goons guarding the hallway to find me, along with a weapon heavy enough to knock out a kneecap, or a saw that will cut through muscle and bone. A chef missing a finger or two can still cook, but all things considered, I’d really prefer to keep all ten.
Maxim squints into the smoke. “So what’s this, then? A social visit?”
The irony punches me in the gut. “Not even close. I’m here because I don’t know where else to go. Because I have nowhere else to turn. You’re my last hope, Maxim, and I know how weird that sounds but—”
“Spit it out, kid.”
“There’s a guy at the house with Jade and the kids. He put a gun to her head and he forced his way inside, and then he tied her to a chair and he...” I shake my head, unable to think about what else he’s done. “My family, Maxim.”
I put the accent on family because I know Maxim’s. I’ve met his wife, I’ve cooked for his kids, I know all his grandkids’ names and the order in which they were born. Those family values he’s always touting? I am praying they translate to mine.
He leans back in his chair, studying me as he takes a deep, long drag that takes all day. Less than an hour until the bullets start flying, and Maxim here is taking his sweet time. The tobacco crackles as it burns its way up the tube.
“That explains why you’re so jumpy, at least. How much does he want?”
“Just over seven hundred thousand. I’ve managed to piece together some cash, but it’s not much. I’m still way short.”
I sound calm, but on the inside I’m at full-on panic. Maxim is my last resort. If he says no, I’m out of options. I’ll lose Jade, the Bees, and it’ll be all my fault.
“How much are you short?”
“I need $685,296.”
Maxim whistles between his teeth—a sound I don’t take as a good sign. It’s the most I’ve ever asked from him, way more than I would normally dare, but the thought of life without Jade, without the sound of little feet tearing up the hardwood floor upstairs as they get ready for school... I can’t even process what that would be like, or why up to now I’ve been okay with missing out on so much of their lives. They’re sound asleep by the time I drag my ass home from work, long gone by the time I roll out of bed. I grumble whenever the noise from their morning routine wakes me, but I never get out of bed to give Jade a hand, or kiss everybody before they take off. Why not? What the hell is wrong with me?
He flicks a quarter inch of ash into a silver ashtray. “Let’s say I float you this cash. Seven hundred thousand to save your family. How would you pay me back? Your restaurant business isn’t exactly booming these days.”
“I’ll put up all my shops. Every last one of them, including the real estate. I own every building but Bolling Way, and I already told you the insurance money for that comes Monday at the latest. That’s only a few days from now. When that happens, every penny I owe you from both loans plus interest will be in your hand by the end of the day. And in the meantime, you can hold the pink slips for all my shops as insurance.”
He waves a crepey hand through the air. “What do I want with a couple of overpriced restaurants halfway to Tennessee? I don’t go outside the perimeter, you know that. And I told you when you bought that Inman Park property, it’s on the wrong side of DeKalb Avenue, which means you can call it Inman Park all you want but really it’s Reynoldstown. Bolling Way is the only one of your properties I’d be even remotely interested in, and you don’t own it.”
“My house, then. A neighbor up the street just sold for two million, with a smaller lot and no pool. Mine’s got to be worth more.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong here, but didn’t you come to me last month for that hundred grand because the bank refused to give you a third mortgage?”
I don’t push back, because it’s true. There’s more debt than equity in our home, way more. If Maxim found out how much, he’d sic his goons on me for even suggesting it.
“You know me, Maxim. I pay my debts on time. And you’ve seen how hard I work. I work my ass off.”
“How hard you work is not the issue, Cam. The issue is the shaky economy on the other side of these walls, and that Bolling Way is the only decent property you got but you don’t own it, and that nowhere but in Buckhead are people falling over themselves to pay a hundred bucks for a Lasky dinner when they can toss a decent steak on the grill at home. Tell me, how many times a night do you turn the tables in your other shops?”
I don’t answer, because Maxim is not wrong. The only shop pulling in any sort of decent revenue is—was Bolling Way. It’s what was keeping the others afloat.
“Please, Maxim. I am a desperate, desperate man. I’ll pay whatever you want. I will run your kitchens and cook your steaks until the end of time. Just please. I am begging you.”
He stubs the cigarette out, then pulls a fresh one from the pack. “I’m a businessman, Cam. You’re a businessman. Let me ask you, if you were sitting where I’m sitting right now, would you do it? Would you give yourself the loan?”
No. Hell no. I’m not stupid. Only desperate.
I flash a glance at my watch, and my heart wants to crawl out of my chest, Alien-style. It’s 6:10, and home is still more than a thirty-minute battle through Buckhead traffic.
I swipe a sleeve over my clammy forehead. “What do you want, Maxim? Tell me what you want as collateral, and I’ll give it to you. I’ll do any...”
My words trail as I get a look at the back of a head, the greasy-haired man leaning around me to swipe the dirty ashtray from the desk. It’s the first time I’ve seen him from behind, seen that what I first thought was a slicked-back style is really something much more elaborate—a thin patch of scraggly hair combed over a mostly bald crown, then gathered into a wispy bun at the nape of his neck.
A man bun.
He turns to dump the ashtray into a can, and I get a closer look at his face. Deep marks, purple and red scars run across his cheeks and chin and forehead.
“It’s you. You’re the asshole who’s been following Jade around town. She told me about you.”
He grunts, and his expression doesn’t chan
ge. He just dumps the ashes into the trash can, bonks it against the side a couple of times and sets it back onto Maxim’s desk. No reaction. Not even a twitch.
Rage travels through my body like electricity, from my lips and tongue down my spine to the soles of my feet, then surges up and lurches me out of my chair.
“Sit down, Cam,” Maxim says, gesturing for me to drop back into my chair. “Nick doesn’t work for you anymore, he works for me. He keeps tabs on my investments. That’s what I pay him for.”
The words are like gasoline on the fire in my veins. Nick, the shady arsonist from the parking lot is also the creepy guy following Jade around town. My skin goes hot then icy, my right hand bunching into a tight fist. I am one second away from losing it when another realization hits.
“Oh my God. It’s you.” I turn, stare across the desk at Maxim. “You’re the one holding Jade and the kids at gunpoint.”
Maxim glances at Nick, just a subtle flick of his eyes, and I know what he’s doing. He’s calling for backup, those two big bouncers guarding the door are probably already on their way. I’m making more than enough noise.
“You’re upset,” Maxim says, his tone calm and controlled, “and I would be, too, in your shoes, which is why I’m going to pretend you didn’t say any of that.” He squints, pointing at me with his lit cigarette. “But from here on out you’d do well to watch your words, do you understand what I’m telling you? Most people don’t survive insults like the ones you just hurled.”
My shoulders slump. My lungs empty and the room goes slippery, tinged with smoke and the stink of my own sweat. That’s it. I’m done. Uncle.
“Just kill me, Maxim. Put a bullet in my head and me out of my misery.” Me for my family. It’s a rotten trade, but Maxim will see it as a noble one, and at least then this whole nightmare will be over. “Just please. Please don’t touch my family.”
A scuffling noise comes from behind me, two large bodies moving into the room, and I brace for what’s next—a tackle from behind, a blow to the skull or fist to the kidney—but Maxim stops them with a hand. “Sit down, kid.”
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