THIEF

by A. Zavarelli

  After some digging, he retrieves his phone from the cushions and shakes his head, flopping onto the sofa. I collapse against the wall and gulp my next breath of air.

  Tomorrow.

  I just have to make it to tomorrow.

  “Tashechka.”

  The hand on my arm is persistent, and I’m confused when I wake to find it’s Nonna shaking me. I sit upright in bed, noting from the darkness outside that it’s not yet dawn.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “Nikolai has asked for you.”

  “He’s here?” I rub the sleep from my eyes and move the blanket aside.

  Nonna doesn’t answer, but she guides me to the closet and instructs me to dress.

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s waiting for you, but you must hurry.”

  I don’t understand what’s happening, but I dress in the clothes Nonna hands me and when I’m finished, she leads me down the stairs and nods to the guard.

  “She’s ready.”

  He opens the front door and gestures me outside, but I hesitate. I’m supposed to leave today. Gianni will be waiting for me, and I won’t be able to meet him because I don’t know where we’re going.

  “Where is Nikolai?” I repeat.

  The guard looks at Nonna, and she shrugs as if to give permission. When I look back, he’s moved closer. I try to step away from him, but he reaches out and grabs my arm.

  “Nonna?” I look at her for reassurance, but there isn’t one to be found.

  “It’s time for you to go,” she says. “Don’t make it harder on yourself. Nikolai wants you gone.”

  “No.” I throw an elbow and the guard grunts, but his grip tightens. The door is open, and if I can just get past it, I’ll be okay. I can run and hide until daylight when Gianni comes to save me.

  It’s the only hope I can grasp onto, and it’s snatched away before it has a chance to grow roots. The guard knocks me onto the floor and pins me down with his knee, forcing my wrists together behind my back. He gestures to Nonna, and she produces some rope and tape that he uses to secure me before propping me upright.

  “Why are you doing this, Nonna?”

  This woman has taken care of me. She has provided my meals and made my bed and showed her concern when I wasn’t eating. I can’t make sense of it.

  “It’s not me,” she says. “It’s Nikolai. I only do what he tells me. He does not want you anymore. If you accept this, it will be easier. Don’t fight.”

  I don’t want to believe her, but how can I not? Nikolai has gone and left me to my fate. The fate he warned me would inevitably end in tragedy. And I know before the guard even places the tape over my mouth that this is it. They are taking me to my death.

  Gravel crunches beneath the tires as the car moves away from the house. Around us, there is nothing but wilderness. Even if I did manage to get out, I doubt I could outrun the guard in my current state. But I know I can’t give up. I can’t give up hope until I’ve exhausted every option. I wiggle my arms back and forth to loosen the rope, but it makes too much noise.

  “Stop,” the guard orders. “Or I will make it worse.”

  I meet his eyes in the rearview mirror. He is little more than a soldier, and his rank within the Vory is insignificant. Yet this is the man who Nikolai sent to bring me to my death.

  Perhaps this is why he opted not to say goodbye. There is no goodbye when it’s forever. He knew I would be gone when he returned, and he would be free to marry Ana and fulfill his duties as a loyal Vor. It’s the only solution for him because he just couldn’t let me go, thinking that I might have a life on my own without him.

  A sob rips from my chest, and I continue to thrash against my restraints regardless of the guard’s threats. If I must die, then I will go out fighting.

  “I told you to stop,” the guard bellows.

  He pulls over, and I slide to the other side of the car, curling my knees into my chest. I’m prepared to kick him with as much force as I can manage when he wrenches the door open and comes at me. My legs heave toward him, clashing into solid flesh. It’s a blind effort, since my hair is a mess, and I can’t see past it. My ears, however, are still intact.

  An explosive sound vibrates through my skull, and something wet sprays across my skin. I jerk backward, but there’s nowhere to go, and now the weight on my legs is too heavy to move.

  “Tanaka.”

  A hushed voice breaks through the chaos, and I shake my head, trying desperately to see through the tangle of hair.

  “Gianni?”

  The door opens behind me and strong arms drag me out. I’m still not sure if it’s the enemy or my savior until the knife cuts through the restraints on my wrists, freeing me.

  I scrub the hair out of my face and sniffle when I see his face.

  Gianni.

  He came for me. He came like he said he would. And I am not going to die today.

  “Quick.” He grabs me by the arm and leads me through the brush to a waiting Jeep.

  Before I can even thank him, he hoists me inside and takes his place in the driver’s seat, firing up the ignition. The ride is a bumpy one, and it’s left up to me to remove the tape from my face, which is also partially tangled in my hair. It hurts, but compared to what could have happened, it’s nothing.

  “How many other guards are at the house?” Gianni asks as he speeds down the dirt road and onto the highway.

  “That was it. Just him.”

  He nods.

  “Is he dead?”

  Gianni glances at me and then back to the road. “Yes.”

  I take a moment to process that. “How did you know?”

  “I came early,” he says. “I’ve been camping out all night, watching the house. The panic in your voice yesterday concerned me, so I didn’t think there was much time left.”

  “There wasn’t.” I swallow and look out the window. “They were going to kill me. Nikolai sent me to die.”

  Gianni looks at me incredulously. “Tell me you didn’t fall for him, Tanaka.”

  “Of course not.”

  It isn’t believable. Gianni shakes his head but makes a point not to argue about it. There are more important things to discuss, like my future.

  “Where are we going?”

  “That depends on you,” he answers. “Your options are limited, Tanaka.”

  “I know.”

  “Does that mean you’re ready?”

  Reality settles over me, and it’s heavy. What he’s asking will change everything. It means letting go of my old life. Letting go of the memories of Nikolai, and any love that lives in my heart.

  I close my eyes and lean back against the seat. The words don’t come easily, but they do come. “I’m ready.”

  “Kol’ka.”

  Viktor gets out of his SUV, and I step out of my car. After this week, this is the last thing I want to do, but I know why he’s waiting here at my home.

  “How is Alexei?” he asks.

  I lean back against the car and cross my legs. “As good as you might expect. He doesn’t want to talk right now.”

  “I don’t imagine,” Viktor says. “This changes everything.”

  The uncertainty weighs heavy on his face. As the pakhan, it is up to him to decide when we go to war. And when a sin like this has been committed, we have no choice but to go to war. Upon our return to the states, we got the news that Alexei’s pregnant wife had been murdered in our absence. It’s a crime too horrific to imagine, and I have no doubt that Alexei will be painting the city with the blood of our enemies in no time at all.

  “Are you certain she’s dead?”

  Viktor sighs. “I don’t know. It could be months before we know for certain. There is nothing left to identify, but it won’t stop Alexei. He will need to be kept in check.”

  He believes me capable of keeping Alexei in check, but he’s wrong. I will not be the one to stand in the way of his vengeance. I will be the one to hand him the gun.

  “I
need you to keep an eye on him,” Viktor says. “Just help him come to terms with it. Let him kill who he wants, within reason. I don’t need a war on our hands until we know exactly who’s responsible.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  Viktor nods, but he isn’t finished. “About Ana—”

  I am tired of this discussion and, more so, this dark cloud looming over me. I’ve had a very long journey and difficult news, and I’m not in the mood to feed him more lies. If there is anything I learned from Alexei’s pain, it’s that life is too short. It needs to be now or never.

  Viktor wants the truth, and the honorable thing to do is give it to him. I will face whatever consequences he deems necessary, but I will not live another day under this oppression.

  “Viktor, I can’t marry your daughter.”

  His face mottles with red. “What do you mean you can’t marry my daughter?”

  “It wouldn’t be fair to her. She deserves more than I can give her. She deserves a man who loves her.”

  “Are you telling me that my daughter is not worthy of you?” he sneers.

  “Not at all. In fact, I’m telling you that I am unworthy of her. You’ve had your suspicions about the Valentini girl from the start, and I am sorry to admit that you were right. She isn’t Russian, but she’s mine.”

  There’s a moment in which I think that Viktor might put a bullet between my eyes here and now. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.

  “I should cut out your stars for dishonoring my family this way,” he says.

  “If that is what you must do, then I accept it. I will go to my death willingly, as long as you promise to leave Tanaka untouched.”

  He laughs. “And why would I promise that? The whore seduced you. She blinded you. And now you ask to cast my daughter aside and spare the life of the woman who will take her place?”

  “You accepted Alexei’s choice. Now I am asking you to accept mine.”

  “Ana is in love with you.”

  “Ana knows nothing of me. She is young, Viktor. Too young to marry someone like me. She should be with someone her own age. Someone who can give her everything she needs. I am sorry that I hurt her. I am sorry if I led her on, but I did not want to disappoint you. I did not want to insult the honor you had bestowed upon me.”

  He lights up a cigarette and smokes it in silence. Perhaps it was not the ideal time to bring it up, but I don’t regret that I did. Even if it means I don’t breathe another day on this earth, I won’t regret it.

  “What of Manuel?” he asks. “Have you found the answers you seek?”

  “Yes.” I kick the dirt beneath my shoe. This is the part he will not like. “I was correct. He beat and tortured and killed my mother, and Sergei gave him the honor of doing so.”

  Viktor shakes his head in visible disgust. “And still you ask to spare his daughter’s life? Where is the justice in that? What about your mother? Will she have died in vain so that you may please your dick?”

  “No,” I force out. “I would ask for your blessing to kill Manuel myself, as well as any of the men in his employ who touched her.”

  “And your father,” Viktor adds.

  “And my father,” I agree somberly.

  Viktor tosses the butt of his cigarette on the ground and stubs it out with his shoe. “It would be a reasonable request, if it weren’t for one small matter, Kol’ka.”

  “What is it?”

  “Nonna called to report that some of Manuel’s men broke into the house while you were away.”

  That isn’t possible. That doesn’t even make sense. I glance at the house, but Viktor goes on.

  “They took the Valentini girl, and they destroyed your security system. It’s what I came here to tell you.”

  I abandon Viktor for the stairs, determined to see it for myself, but the pakhan isn’t finished delivering bad news.

  “Before you think about storming into Manuel’s compound, you should know that the feds got him. Everything is cordoned off. You won’t get in there, and you won’t get near him. She is gone, Nika.”

  Manuel adjusts the phone closer to his mouth, breathing heavy into the other line. “Do you know where my daughter is?”

  What a fucking joke. He is a vile cunt of a man, and if there wasn’t inches of glass between us, I would jam this phone through his skull until his brains decorated the floor.

  He wants to play stupid, so I’ll humor him for now.

  “You tell me, Manuel.”

  He closes his eyes and sighs. “I can’t believe she would do this to me. It’s you. You have turned her against me.”

  I silently pick apart his words, attempting to find logic in them. But I know that it can’t be right. He can’t be implying what I think he is.

  “A fucking rat. My own daughter.” His mood swings from violent to hysterical in the span of two seconds.

  “Are you trying to tell me that Tanaka flipped?”

  He levels me with vacant eyes. “It’s fucking Gianni. My own man. I trusted him, and he was a goddamned fed. He’s been playing me all along. They both have.”

  My fingers turn white around the receiver as Manuel comes unraveled on the other side of the barrier. He’s losing his mind, but there is still some substance to what he’s telling me. I just don’t want to believe it.

  I tap on the glass. “Pull yourself together. I need to know where she is, Manuel. Who took her?”

  “Fucking Gianni,” he roars. “It has to be him.”

  I shake my head. It can’t be right. He’s out of his mind. He’s delusional.

  “You’re next,” he says. “She will flip on you too.”

  “That won’t happen.” Tanaka wouldn’t turn on me. Or maybe it’s only what I want to believe.

  “You know what you have to do,” Manuel tells me. “I can’t pay the debt. The feds took everything, so you have to take it from her. I just beg of you, be merciful.”

  I smile at him through gritted teeth. “As merciful as you were to my mother? You remember her, don’t you?”

  He blinks, unsettled, and I can see the gears turning in his mind. He is trying piece together which one she was, but I’m content to remind him.

  “Irina Lemeza.”

  The color drains from his face, and his palm comes to rest on the glass, sticky and desperate. “No.”

  “Yes, Manuel.” I lean toward him. “You know the Russians are fond of an eye for an eye. I know you worry about your daughter, but there’s no need. She won’t be the one to pay the debt. I think for once in your life, it’s time to do the honorable thing, don’t you?”

  “Nikolai is here to see you,” Magda says.

  Alexei is slumped against his desk, drunk again. And though I have spent the past four weeks helping him slaughter every man he deemed remotely responsible for his wife’s death, it has done nothing to ease his pain.

  It has, however, come as a welcome distraction while I seek out Nakya.

  “Send him away,” Alexei murmurs.

  “Too late.” I step into his office so that he can see me. “I have something I believe you will want to see.”

  His eyes move to the drive in my hand, and for the first time in weeks, there is a spark of life inside him. He takes my offering and rouses the computer from sleep, bringing up countless images of his wife on the wall-to-wall monitors.

  Alexei glances at the images, haunted, and breaks down all over again. I take it upon myself to bring up the surveillance video from the club. The same video of the day he was humiliated in front of his Vory brothers. When it begins to play, he makes an effort to watch.

  “I had Mischa look at it.” I bring the cursor to a time stamp on the screen and click on it. “It’s on a loop. Whoever it was knew what they were doing. They were fast, and they came prepared.”

  “How long?” he asks.

  “Thirty seconds maximum. You couldn’t have noticed it, Lyoshka. It was very well edited.”

  He falls back into his office chair as reality sett
les over him. Someone wanted him to believe it was Talia who betrayed him, but in truth, it was one of his own Vory.

  I take a seat across from his desk. “There is something else.”

  “What is it?”

  “Katya’s guard mentioned that she visited a security store a few months back. He didn’t know what she purchased but found the trip out of character for her.”

  “Then we need to talk to her.” Alexei nearly stumbles over himself as he tries to stand.

  I signal him to sit back down. “I already tried. She was found dead this morning, bratan. Hanging from a rafter in her ceiling.”

  Alexei flops back into his seat and reaches for the bottle of cognac, only to realize that it’s empty.

  “She wasn’t working alone,” I tell him. “Someone is cleaning up loose ends. Katya is not smart enough to set up that slideshow, and she was not in the building that day.”

  My words settle over Alexei like a dark cloud, and it doesn’t take him long to draw the same conclusion I have. He sinks back, eyes darkening as he utters the name we have both come to hate.

  “Sergei.”

  “Niki.”

  Gianni takes a seat on the park bench beside me, tapping out a message on his phone before he turns his attention to me. I grab another handful of oats from the plastic bag in my lap, carefully dividing it among the ducks as I throw it.

  “It’s a beautiful day,” he remarks.

  I look up at the clouds, clear and blue. The sun warms my face, and I think that it’s always a beautiful day in Florida. It’s a different kind of heat, though. Muggy and thick. It’s hard to adjust to, just like everything else about my new life.

  “How are you doing?” Gianni asks. “Anything new to report?”

  “I’m fine.” I shrug. “Nothing new to report. Every day is the same.”