by Brook Wilder
Danya barely looks my way as he holsters his gun and gives orders to his men to take care of the bodies. He says more, but I can’t seem to hear over the roaring filling my ears. My knees start to shake and then I’m sitting in a chair. Danya’s standing beside me, though I don’t remember him walking toward me. He’s speaking with Luka now, but the bodies of the dead men are still lying in the middle of the floor.
“Why?” I ask loudly, interrupting him.
“Lukas, give us a moment.”
“Why?” I demand again as Danya rubs a hand down his face. “Why would you shoot them like that? You … you executed them point-blank. I don’t understand.”
“You said you wanted to be in the loop, that you wanted to know about every aspect of my life. This right here? This is part of my life, Stella. It’s part of our lives.”
“No,” I mutter, but he crouches in front of me and takes my hand. I want to yank it away, but that killer look lingers in his eyes, freezing me to the spot. I search in vain for any hint of the man I love and find the tiniest sliver peeking out from the darkness.
“This is our life,” he says firmly. “There’s no changing it.”
“But what he said about the baby,” I say, then bite my lip. “Danya.”
I can’t get the rest of the words out and am too worried I’m going to let slip that I’m not worried about Elena’s baby. I’m worried about ours.
“This is what I didn’t want you to see,” he says quietly.
I steel myself and watch the guards carry the bodies away through another door. “You’re right, though,” I reply. “This is our life. The violence. The blood. The killing. It’ll never stop. There’s no changing it. There’s no getting away from it either.”
He tries to reach for me, but I pull away. The hurt that appears in his eyes is quickly replaced by the same coolness that I used for years to put distance between myself and those around me. To stop myself from feeling. I walk for the same door we came in through. Danya stays behind, but Lukas escorts me out and to the jeep. He lets me sit in there alone. As my heart races and my hands shake from witnessing Danya murder two of his own men, I see my nightmare coming to life right before my eyes. I can’t let it happen.
I won’t.
I can’t risk making a phone call with Lukas watching over me. I memorized Jack’s number and send him a quick text that says we need to talk. I send it then anxiously wait for a response. My cell dings just as Danya’s exiting the warehouse, rolling down his sleeves as if he didn’t just play the part of the grim reaper. Jack says to call him as soon as I can, and we’ll find a time and place to meet. I delete the messages and shove my cell back in my purse the second Danya opens the driver’s side door.
“Let’s go home,” he says and takes my hand. “Stella, look at me.”
I do as he asks, and he gently cups my cheek with the same hand he used to pull the trigger. How many others has he killed with that hand? How many deserved to die?
“I love you.” He brushes his lips against my forehead.
“And I love you,” I reply automatically. It’s not that I stopped loving him upon seeing the monster come out. Now I just know how hard it’s going to be to save him and me. To save our baby. He’ll fight me every step of the way. Mikhail ensured darkness would grow in him all these years; it’s probably why he didn’t want Danya to be with me. He knew I would save him in the end.
And that’s just what I’m going to do.
Chapter 11
Stella
Three days pass before I’m finally able to meet up with Jack. It takes careful planning on my part and finding a valid excuse for why I need to leave the mansion. Ditching the guards is harder. At the last second, just as I’m about to head out the door, Lukas is called away by Danya, and two other guards are placed as my tail. They wind up being much easier to lose.
When I asked Danya the night before about heading out, I could tell he was ready to turn me down. I still am not sleeping well, and he has said a few times he’s noticed I’m not eating. It’s hard to do when I’m nauseous all the time. I can’t tell lately if it’s because of the baby or my anxiety over what I’m planning to do if I am pregnant.
Danya agreed to let me get out for the day on the condition that I don’t ditch my guards. I promised I wouldn’t, but I do easily enough in one of the large department stores downtown. I walk to a nearby location to meet Jack, and he’s there to pick me up.
“You’re quiet,” he says a little while later as he parks along the curb outside a medical building. “I was surprised to get your text. Something happen to make you change your mind?”
He asked me the same question when we spoke on the phone, but I agreed to meet with him if I didn’t have to give him any details yet. I had to know for certain if I was carrying Danya’s child. Then I’d make up my mind about moving forward with this insane plan.
“Yes,” I respond shortly. “You’re sure you can trust this doctor?”
“I am. He’s one of the best, won’t tell a soul he saw you. I didn’t even give him your real name. You’re safe here, Stella.”
“I’m never safe,” I whisper, then climb out of the car.
He follows, and before long, we’re inside the office. The name he made the appointment under is for Hannah Russ. I can’t decide if he’s trying to be an ass or if it was the only thing he could come up with. I almost leave the phone number and email blank, but if there are any test results, I want to ensure they come to me. I put down my number and hand back the papers. I go back to see the doctor by myself, get checked out, and have blood drawn. The minutes tick by slowly, so damn slowly, until two hours later, I’m walking out of the office staring at an ultrasound picture of a tiny, itty-bitty little blip.
“Well, I guess congratulations are in order,” Jack says with a smile.
“No.” I fold up the picture and will the tears burning in my eyes not to fall. Once we’re alone in the elevator, I push the button to stop the car from descending further. “Before, when you said you could get us out of this life, did you mean it?”
“I did, if you’re able to help me with what I’m working on.”
“I won’t help you bring down Danya. I want you to understand that. If you get me out, you get him out, too. That’s the deal.”
The sly grin I saw the first time we talked doesn’t appear on his face. Instead, he offers me a kind smile and holds out his hand. “That’s the deal then. I do need your help, though. There are a few pieces to the puzzle I haven’t been able to work out. With your help, I can finally do what I’ve been trying to do for years.”
“And that is?”
“Probably the same thing you were trying to do before you married Danya. Bring down the families. All of them.”
I rest my hand on my stomach, closing my eyes and telling myself to stay strong. “And you’re sure you can do it?”
“Yes, once I have the rest of the information. Stella, is there something else you’re not telling me? Aside from the baby?” he asks and glances at the elevator panel. The ringing starts to grate on my nerves, and I hit the button for us to keep going. “Stella?”
I finally take his hand and give it a firm shake. “If you think for a second you can’t get us out of this life in one piece, I need your help finding someone who will help me terminate my pregnancy.”
“You’re sure?”
I let out a shaky breath and nod. “Yes, I’m sure. I won’t have our baby be used as a pawn.”
He doesn’t seem so sure anymore about talking to me, but then the elevator doors open and we’re leaving the medical building. “All right, I know a guy. He’s a doctor, certified and all that. You can trust him to do it. I’ll send you the information so you have it and can use it when you need to. Just mention me and he’ll take care of you.”
“Good, thank you.” I stand at the passenger side of his dark sedan. My reflection seems to glare back at me, not believing what I’m contemplating doing. “I want proof you�
��re close to bringing down the families,” I tell him. “You helped me by bringing me here, but I need more, Jack. I need to know who’s side you’re on.”
“I understand your need for caution.” He glances up and down the street, as if worried my guards or Danya himself are going to appear and attack him for being near me. “How long can you be out today?”
“I have some time, why?”
“I’m going to show you all I’ve got so far, but it’s at my office locked up in my desk. I’ll take you there if you want and give you a copy of the file. I’m not sure how much you know about Danya’s inner workings, but this might give you a bit more insight into what he does.”
I flinch and wrap my arms around myself as an image of Danya killing those two men replays in my head. “I know exactly what he does.”
“Maybe some of it, but I doubt all of it.” Silence stretches between us until he says, “Is that a yes?”
“Yeah, I should be fine.”
Once again, I left my cell in the Mustang so if the guards try to find me by tracking it, they’ll wind up back at the car. Right before I slipped away from them, I walked into a lingerie store that sold a wide variety of sex toys. Neither one saw fit to follow me in there, and I told them with a giggle that I might be in there a long time trying a few things out for Danya and me to use. Anything I bought was meant to be a surprise, too, and they were not to tell Danya what I was up to.
The two guards were around my age and turned three shades of red as they told me they’d wait outside. By now they might be suspicious, but I’m banking on them being too stupid to realize what I’ve done.
The drive to Jack’s office doesn’t take long at all. His floor is packed with people, but with my sunhat and sunglasses, none of them pay much attention to me as we weave between desks overflowing with papers and dodge past people on phones. Jack’s office is cramped but private. He closes the door once I’m inside, flips on the light, and walks to the file cabinet on the back wall. He takes out a key from his pocket and opens the metal doors to reveal shelves and shelves of file boxes.
“Wait, all of that is on the families?” I ask, momentarily forgetting why I’m here. “How did you get all of that?”
“Years of working and digging to find the truth.” He pulls out the three boxes on the top shelf and sets them on his messy desk.
“If I could’ve gotten my hands on that, I could’ve done some damage.”
“I have no doubt you could. You know, I meant to tell you that documentary was put together damn well. You ever consider being a journalist? I mean, once you’re out?”
I open one of the boxes and thumb through the manila file folders absently. “Everything I’m going to say in this office is off the record.” Jack nods in confirmation and I continue. “When my dad gave me permission to attend college, I was ecstatic, mostly for a chance to get out of the house and away from him,” I say quietly. “He made certain my degree would be useful, but one day, I bumped into a few journalism students. They invited me to attend a lecture with them. That day, I learned what my ticket out of this shithole could be. A way to get revenge against Joseph Russo and all the other bastards who treated me like I was worthless unless I spread my legs for a business deal.”
“You said Danya was a childhood friend.”
“He was, but our marriage in the end was a business deal, one my dad thought would save our family. Instead, it got him and Mom killed. If I was normal, if I hadn’t been born the daughter of a Mafia family, I would’ve gone into journalism. Now all I want is a peaceful life. A quiet life.”
Jack’s hand takes mine and he holds it, not in a hitting-on-me way, just something a friend might do. Something Danya would’ve done back in the day when we were just best friends. “Then let’s get you there, all three of you.”
The change in Jack since our first meeting bothers me slightly, but the hope that I finally do have a friend on the outside, one who can help me shake off the bonds of violence and the blood, is too much to ignore. It bubbles inside me as he pulls out stack after stack of files and starts to walk me through what he’s found out. As he talks, I ask questions, and it’s not long before we’re discussing the legislation Danya recently told me about. After a half hour passes, Jack hands me a file and tells me to check it out. I take it, curious about what’s in it.
“Wait, am I reading this right?” I ask, unsure if I should believe what I’m holding.
“I wondered if Danya let you into the business that far. Hell, he might not even know since this has been going on for so long. Probably established by Mikhail.”
I can think of no reason why Danya wouldn’t want me to know that some of what the Ivanov family has been doing all these years is actually beneficial. I set out the pages, lining them up as I study each one. They’ve been smuggling in alternative medications into the country that have been outlawed largely because these medications can’t be patented. They’re a threat to the drug companies and their profits.
“This is crazy,” I mumble more to myself than to Jack.
“I thought the same when I stumbled over it,” he replies. “It includes prescription meds that they’re selling to addicts, but they’re providing the black market with an enormous source of therapies desperately needed by the sick who can’t afford to leave the country. They’re bringing those treatments here.”
“And the only reason they can’t legally get them is what, the drug companies?”
“Yeah, they’re a bunch of dicks. All they want is money. They don’t care about who needs the drugs. What the drug companies are doing, keeping these treatments out of the country, is technically legal even though it’s killing hundreds of thousands of innocents every year.”
“But what the Ivanovs are doing is illegal, but they’re helping people.”
“Making a shit ton of money, though. The drug companies are making money, too, obviously, but they’re paying the government to make it legal to stop these treatments and drugs from being made available. I told you, I always follow the rich. That road is paved with the corrupt.”
The old excitement at breaking a story and digging for facts brings a smile to my face. Jack grins right along with me and hands me another file. Eagerly, I take it and flip it open, ready to see what else I don’t know about the Ivanovs.
“Then the legislation De Luca is supporting, that will give more support to the pharmaceutical companies?”
“In a sense. Some of the details are missing as far as how and what they’re getting out of it. What doesn’t make sense now is why they’d still want that legislation to go through even after the twins, as you call them, have married Francesco’s daughters.”
I hesitate to give too much information to Jack just yet, but he’s showing me all his research, every last bit of it. He’s taking a chance for me. It’s time I do the same. “Danya believes the twins are still plotting against De Luca. They’re going to take over the Ivanov empire, kill Danya, and rework the entire system of the families in their image. If they do that, there’ll be blood in the streets. They’ll wipe out anyone who won’t abide by their new rules.”
“Yeah, we’ve all heard what the twins are capable of,” Jack mutters, lifting his lip in disgust. “I have a whole box alone on them and their covered-up crimes.”
I don’t even want to touch that box. I’ve heard enough on my own to imagine what might be in it. I sift through the pages of the new file and frown when the name of a nonprofit catches my eye. “Who runs this company?” I ask, handing the page to Jack.
“Angels of Grace? Looks like it’s run by CD Industries. Why?”
“This organization—they assist people in finding money to cover treatments and drugs, right? Even go so far as to fly them out of the country, I think.”
“Yeah, supposedly do research too. You heard of them before?”
“I stumbled across them a while back when I was digging into Dad’s connections. This popped up a few times, this company.” I continue to
turn pages while Jack spins around to his computer, I assume to start searching for the company. Why does this sound so familiar? I heard it back when I was working with the journalism students, but something nags at my memory. Someone mentioned it more recently. Who the hell was it?
“Here’s their website,” Jack says and turns his monitor for me to see. “Any of them look familiar?”