by Nicole Fox
I shake my head and steel myself, taking a deep breath. “There’s no baby. It’s just a prank. My, uh, friends are weird like that. Some people say they’re married to their job, but they think I treat my job like a baby. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to confuse you.” It sounds convincing to my ears, I think. I hope.
“Oh no, that’s actually quite funny,” he says. “Besides, you got chocolate, fruit, and flowers from it. Sounds like a good joke to me. It makes sense with the name too.”
“The name?” I ask.
He raises an eyebrow. “Rick Blaine. He’s the protagonist from Casablanca,” he says. “You have to watch some movies that are older than you sometimes.”
I reread the card again. There’s no possible way this is real.
“It’s good to have a sense of humor in this job,” Arthur continues. “Also, it’s good to have some loyal friends because you’ll end up canceling a lot of plans. And that’s the end of my welcoming party. If you need anything from me, just come find me. I’m in the right corner of the office, two desks over from the Tom Harden hellhole.” He winks good-naturedly.
I look at him, suspicion starting to rise up in me, but he’s more focused on my jar of chocolates than anything else. I open up the jar, take two of the chocolates out, and hand them to him.
“It was great meeting you, Arthur,” I say. I mean it—it really was. He’s so nice and warm, the exact opposite of the infamous Mr. Harden. But right now, I need him away from me. I need everyone away from me.
“Thanks.” He unwraps one of the chocolates, popping it into his mouth. “It was a pleasure meeting you as well.”
As he turns away, I focus on the card again. I flip it open, but there’s nothing inside. I lied to Tom; I did have a baby, once upon a time. It’s been a decade since I gave birth, ten years since I was a scared eighteen-year-old with everything to lose.
But no one was ever supposed to know about that. My father went out of his way to hide it.
These gifts—the chocolate, the flowers, the fruit—aren’t gifts at all. It’s a message from someone who knows something that they were never, ever meant to know.
This is a threat.
5
Cassandra
My father once told me there are two types of people in the world: those behind the trigger and those in front of the barrel.
Right now, I feel like I’m falling in the latter category.
I stumble away from my cubicle as my breathing becomes more and more shallow, even as I try to take in deeper and deeper breaths. I stagger to the exit door, shoving it open. It nearly swings back into me, but I manage to get out into the stairwell.
I falter, my knees hitting the edge of the stairs and my hands slamming on top of them. I shakily sit down. My heart is racing so hard that my chest hurts. My vision becomes narrower and narrower. There’s a pinprick of light in my vision. My head feels like it’s filled with air. My hand presses over my throat as I feel myself starting to fall.
No.
I force myself to sit up. Sweat is already clinging to my forehead.
The world may not be truly divided into two types of people, but I’m also not the kind to fall to pieces over some asshole’s threat. I take deep breaths until my chest expands more and the world starts to feel a little less dire.
The door in front of me swings open. I sit up straighter as Tom walks in. He nearly turns down the stairs before noticing me. He runs his hand over his tie—red with tiny white stars.
“Cassandra,” he says. “What are you doing in here? Are you okay?”
“I just needed a second,” I stand up, focusing my strength on lifting myself up with my hand on the railing because I don’t trust my legs. “How is your day going?”
“Oh, you know. It’s always chaos,” he says. “How is your research coming along?”
Oh, you know. It’s always chaos.
“There’s a lot of ideas running through my head,” I stammer. “There’s so much going on in the city.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Do you want to run any of your ideas by me? I’d love to hear some of them.”
“Oh.” I grip the railing tighter. “There’s been a recent string of murders. All the victims were young blonde women. If it’s a serial killer, it would be good to start talking to the police now.”
“What’s a ‘string’?”
“Three,” I admit.
He waves a dismissive hand. “Next,” he says. “If there’s no links, that’s not a story. I want crime and car bombs, Cassandra, not jealous ex-boyfriends with a drinking problem.”
I swallow. “Right. We’ve also got, uh, prices. SM & OV Drug Inc. Lots of affected people, hypertension is rising, and I mean, we could—”
“The Five Boroughs just wrote an article on that. And it’s the wrong kind of drugs. Give me coke, give me dope, give me meth. No one is gonna give a rat’s ass over a front-page article about how Granny has to pay another five bucks for her heart meds.”
The tightness in my chest is returning. “Oliver Olear has been accused of taking bribes?”
“It’s already being taken care of by Lindsay O’Donnell,” he says. “You have two days, Cassandra. Otherwise, you’re writing about your family. Maybe in other jobs, you could get your boss under your thumb, but I’m not that kind of boss. Being pretty isn’t going to get anything out of me.”
“I don’t think that,” I whisper. “I just don’t want to write about my family.”
“Tell me that in two days,” he snaps back icily, “and you’ll be looking for a job in another state.”
I nod, unable to say much of anything. My phone starts to ring, oddly loud in the stairwell. Heat rushes into my face.
“I’m sorry,” I say, taking my phone out. A blocked number. “It’s nothing—”
“No, answer it,” he says. “You’re a reporter now. Anything could be a lead.”
I press answer and hold it up to my ear.
“Hello?” I ask. Tom’s gaze burns into me. A couple of seconds sneak by as I wait for someone to speak. All I can hear is the sound of voices in the distance.
“Hello,” a man’s voice finally says. “Did you like my card?”
I blink several times. This is the man who knows I had a baby.
Tom’s head tilts. I don’t think he can hear the conversation, but he must be able to read my body language. I should have stuck around to learn my father’s poker skills.
“Who is this?” I ask.
“That’s not the question you really want to ask,” the man says. His voice is deep, raspy. “If you want your answers, you’ll come to Claveles Park.”
“Right now?” I ask, but the sound of the voices in the background goes silent. I check my phone. He hung up.
“That seemed interesting,” Tom says simply.
I bite my lip. I don’t have the faintest idea what that was. And I’m honestly terrified to find out.
“It’s a lead,” I tell Tom. “It might be a hot story, so I have to go see him right now.”
I run down the stairs. I should be hoping that Tom bought my lie, but the panic setting fires in my chest isn’t about Tom.
It’s about my secrets.
It’s about my daughter.
It is, like always, about family.
Claveles Park is a small park in a lower-income area of the Bronx. It’s also nowhere near my father’s territory. I can’t imagine any of his subordinates wandering this far away from his little fiefdom, but I also can’t imagine anyone rustling up the story of my daughter.
I never knew my father to excommunicate any of the members—the only way a person left the Mafia was in a casket—but maybe things have changed since I last saw him ten years ago. Maybe one of his former men wants revenge.
All I’ve got is a double handful of maybes, and nothing certain at all.
As I walk through the park, I can’t help but feel like Little Red Riding Hood. But in this version of the story, it seems like every person here is
the Big Bad Wolf. Every grandma knitting on the bench, every group of teenagers smoking weed in the shadows, every soccer mom pushing her precious little baby in a stroller—they all get a once-over. They all pass the smell test.
But when I see the Big Bad Wolf, I know it’s him. He’s not even trying to hide.
Actually, “Big Bad Wolf” isn’t so far off. He’s got dark, ruffled hair, sharp and messy. His strong jawline is traced with stubble, but it’s the glint in his eyes that seems the most feral. The man is wearing a bandage around his hand and wrist and he’s favoring his left leg. Everything about him screams the same thing: Run.
A high-pitched scream distracts me. The park borders a school playground, where several kids are running around. By the time I look back at the man, he’s just a few feet away from me. He indicates a nearby bench.
“Cassandra,” he says. “Welcome. Please sit with me.”
I awkwardly sit down, trying to keep my eyes on him. He sits as well, but he keeps himself on the edge of the bench. The sound of the children playing adds a strange contrast to the situation in front of me. It seems so innocent. This meeting is anything but that.
“Who are you?” I manage to say. He just smirks at me.
I cross my legs, looking over to the playground. He’s a beautiful man and that smirk just adds to his allure. It’s the kind of smile that catches women from across the room and tugs them closer and closer until they realize it is a trap. By the time they notice, it’s too late to escape.
“I’m Maksim Akimov.”
My heart nearly stops.
Maksim Akimov. The boss of the Akimov Bratva. My father’s greatest enemy.
He watches me, taking in my fear with a disgusting amount of enjoyment.
“And I know who you are,” he says, pointing at me before letting his finger settle on my lap. I shove his hand off me. “The daughter of Gianluigi Balducci. And, if it wasn’t obvious from my gifts, I know your secret.”
“You don’t know anything,” I hiss.
He nearly laughs. “No? Do I not know that you had a daughter when you were eighteen? Do I not know that your father took her from you? Do I not know that you ran from him, from all of them?”
I raise my chin, trying to act brave. “The past is in the past.”
A coldness rushes into his eyes, their gray shade appearing almost metallic now. “The past can’t be in the past until the scales are balanced. Besides, I can’t consider it to be in the past when your father is desecrating my dead wife’s grave by killing my men right outside of it.”
His rage is palpable. I can nearly taste blood on my tongue, like he’s willed me into tasting what he wants to spill.
“That has nothing to do with me.”
“Once, that was true. But no longer,” he says. “I’m going to make your father pay for his disrespect. You’re going to help me with that.”
“I’m not going to help you do a damn thing.” I stand up, but he grabs me so quickly that I barely feel his hand before he’s jerking me back onto the bench. My thighs smack against the wood, sending arrows of pain up my body.
I glare at him. His hand remains around my wrist. “Listen, I’m sorry about what my father’s done, but you already know that I don’t associate with him. I don’t want to be involved in any of this shit. I think you’re all repugnant. I’m not going to help you, or him, or anybody.”
“I’m going to take you, whether you like it or not,” he says, his voice frighteningly calm. “If you come willingly, I’ll give you what you need to find your daughter. If you don’t, I will take you forcefully.”
I narrow my eyes. “If that was an option, you would choose it.”
“You’re quite brave for someone who has no reason to be.”
I glance away from him, looking back over at the children. One of them stands on the swing as it’s swaying, barely holding onto the chains holding it up. That’s true freedom. Not a care in the world but how high she can reach today.
After I saw my father do all those terrible things during my childhood and then he hid my daughter from me, the last thing I want is to get involved with more people like him. I don’t want to be in the middle. I don’t even want to be on the sidelines. It’s not bravery I’m exhibiting; I just fear getting stuck in a world I escaped far more than I could ever fear this man.
“I’m leaving,” I say. When I stand up, he lets his hand slacken. His hand slides over mine, sending a wave of heat through me.
“You can leave,” he says.
“Good.”
I turn away from him.
“But you should be aware that I’ll take you when the whim suits me,” he calls. I turn back toward him. “And because you’ve chosen not to come willingly, please know that, when I decide to pluck you from the safety of your life, none of that bravery of yours will save you.”
A soccer ball rolls up to Maksim’s feet. He picks it up, wet strands of grass clinging to it. The sleeves of his button-up shirt are pulled up enough that I can see the muscles in his arms flexing as he spins the ball in his hands. Every one of his actions is deliberate and filled with an intensity that’s hard to not look away from.
He’s a walking contradiction. Half grit and half class. One part South Bronx and one part downtown, add ice and stir.
In another life, I might have been attracted to him. He’s not bad to look at. Tall, rugged, fierce. A part of me can imagine him grabbing me, taking complete control of me, turning me into his toy, and I like it. I like it way more than I should.
But in this life, all I see is a monster.
He leans back against the bench, spinning the ball between his hands. His body makes the bench seem small, but there isn’t any sense that he’s uncomfortable. He strikes me as the kind of man who owns every room he walks into.
A young girl runs up to him.
“Hi,” she says, nervously shifting her weight between her feet. “Um, you have my ball. Could I … may I please have it back?”
He keeps spinning the ball in his hands. I take a step forward, ready to take it from him, when he leans toward the girl, holding out the ball in the palm of his hand. She takes it from him.
“That’s quite a kick,” he says pleasantly. “Just try to stay in the playground next time.”
“Okay. Thank you, sir.” She smiles at him before dashing back toward the playground.
Maksim stands up, striding easily past the park’s walking path to lean against one of the trees. He watches the children on the playground, their screams shifting in the air like a bad radio station.
Looking past him, I see the girl again. She must be nine or ten. Her long dark hair flickers behind her as she pivots, twisting herself around the soccer ball. Under the right angle of the sun, there’s almost a red tint to it.
That dark hair.
So red it’s almost black.
What my father called Saperavi wine hair.
Just. Like. Mine.
I know it immediately. That’s my daughter.
I’m running before I realize what I’m doing. There’s no thought, just instinct. She’s disappearing in a crowd of children being herded back into the school.
I’m close. She’s right there. My daughter, my baby girl. I can see her. Her hair is just like mine.
As I reach the back of the group, an older woman grabs onto my arm. She pulls me away from the children.
“Ma’am, you need to sign in—”
“I just need to talk to that girl—”
“Ma’am, please step back. You—”
Another set of arms grab me firmly. As I pull away, I see it’s a security guard. I try to shove him away, but he keeps a tight grip on me.
“Miss, you need to leave!” he says.
“No.” I shake my head furiously. “Just let me see that girl. The one with the saperavi hair. She’s right there!”
“The what? I can’t let you do that, miss.”
He tries to pull me away. The older woman is escorting the las
t child into the school. I watch her close the doors behind her, her eyes peeking through the small window at me before she vanishes.
And just like that, my daughter is gone.
It feels like my lungs forget how to work. My chest hurts. My knees shake, the muscles in my legs turn to jelly. The security guard is trying to talk to me, but every word he says shoots another jolt of anxiety through me. My hands are sweaty as I try to grab onto the man’s arm to keep steady, but I still feel myself falling.
“Let me go,” I demand. My voice rises to a shriek. “Let go of me!”
I try to shove the security guard. He grabs onto my other arm. I stomp at his feet. I hear the doors to the school swing open. I spin around, hoping to see my child, but it’s another security guard. When the second one—blond and slimmer—tries to grab onto my arm, I swing at him.
He yanks me away from the first guard, throwing me onto the ground. He pins me down, his knee between my shoulder blades.
“Give up, ma’am,” the blond security guard orders. I nod slowly, my cheek rubbing against the wet grass. He pulls me back onto my feet and starts pulling me away from the playground.
My legs fail to work, so he ends up half dragging me to the sidewalk. He lets me fall on all fours as he releases me.
I settle onto my knees, trying to steady my breathing and remember how to act like a civilized human being, but it feels like something has shifted inside me.
My daughter was within feet of me.
My daughter is alive and well, and she’s been in the city this whole time.
“Don’t come back,” the blond security guard says. “We’ll be on the lookout for you. If you come back, we’ll detain you and have you arrested. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I mutter. As he walks away, I consider running past him, getting to the doors before him, and running through the halls, searching for my daughter. I’ll fight every teacher and security guard in the building to get to her.
And when I find her, she’ll know me. She’ll know just by looking that I am her mother. That we belong together. That she was stolen from me.