by B. B. Hamel
But I knew this could easily be a trap. They were probably trying to play into my loyalty still, seeing if I’d go somewhere to talk with a man that I looked up to for so long. I had to resist that desire.
I had to remind myself that my old friends were now my enemies. Any one of them would kill me without a second thought, especially if Vadik ordered it. I couldn’t trust him and I couldn’t trust them, no matter what.
Still, I needed to do something. I couldn’t sit around in the hotel room all day long fucking Sadie, as much as I’d love that. It was up to me to solve this fucking crisis. Sadie would help but she could only do so much.
“What did you have in mind?” I asked him.
“I’d love it if you came to my place, but I know that won’t happen.”
“For obvious reasons.”
“Of course. I don’t plan on killing you, Gage, not yet at least. I’d like to talk and work this out between us first if we can.”
“Somewhere public,” I said. “Somewhere with lots of people.”
“You think we won’t kill you in public?”
“No, I don’t. I know you’re not that stupid.”
He chuckled again. “I suppose not.”
“Miller’s Park around three.”
There was a short pause. “Smart,” he mused. “It’ll be full of moms with their kids. It’d be pretty stupid of us to try and kill you in front of a bunch of children.”
“Well?”
“Okay, Gage,” he said. “Come alone and unarmed. I’ll do the same.”
“I’m sure you will.”
He laughed again. “I like you. No bullshit, no games. I had big plans for you.”
“See you at three.” I hung up the phone.
I stared out across the parking lot, trying to make sense of this. I didn’t know what Vadik wanted from me or why he wanted to meet in person, but I was willing to take the risk. It was a necessary risk if we were going to make some fucking headway.
I hated not having a plan and going into shit blind. This whole thing was a fucking mess, and I haven’t had the opportunity to get my fucking feet on the ground. It wasn’t like I couldn’t improvise, which obviously I could, but more that I needed to make sure that I could win. The best way to do that way to have a solid plan and stick to it.
This was better than nothing at least. I’d listen to Vadik and make my plan from there. It would be dangerous, and I was sure that they’d try something, but it was better than nothing.
I went back inside and saw Sadie sitting up in bed. She smiled at me. “Everything okay?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Everything’s fine. You hungry?”
She shrugged. “I could eat.”
“There’s a diner just down the road. I’ll go grab us something to eat.”
“Okay.” She paused and looked down at the ground. “What are we doing?”
For a second, I thought I should keep the meeting with Vadik to myself, But Sadie was strong and only getting stronger. I knew she could handle it, even if she didn’t like it.
“The person on the phone was the leader of the Petrov family,” I said. “He wants to meet with me.”
“Oh.” She looked back at me. “You’re not going.”
“I’m going,” I said.
“That’s crazy. It’s clearly a trap.”
“Maybe. We’re meeting in a public place that’ll be full of kids.”
“Do you think that matters?”
“Right now it does. The family is on lockdown. They don’t want any violence coming back to hurt them in the court system right now.”
“I’m going to come too, then.”
I sighed. “No, you’re not.”
“Gage. I can’t keep asking you to risk your life for me.”
“You’ll be a liability. I can’t do this if I have to worry about your safety the whole time.”
She went quiet and looked back down at the floor. I walked over and sat at the foot of the bed.
“Trust me, Sadie. If you could come, I’d let you. This is as much your meeting as it is mine, but it’ll go better if you’re not there.”
“I get it,” she said softly. “I just hate this feeling of powerlessness.”
“You’re not powerless.”
“I am,” she said fiercely. “That man was going to rape me, and I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t do a thing about it. I’ve only survived any of this because you’ve kept me safe.”
“I wish you could understand how strong you’re being,” I said softly. “Maybe you’re not physically strong enough to fight off a man like Kuzma, but you’re a survivor.”
“I’m just going along with whatever you tell me to do.”
“Of course you are. But have you broken down? Have you given up? That’s real strength. The ability to keep going when things look bleak is real strength.”
She nodded slowly, eyes locked on mine. “Thanks, Gage.”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “Sure.” There was a brief pause and then I smiled. “So, what do you want for fucking breakfast?”
She laughed and the tension broke between us.
I hoped she understood what I was saying, and understood the necessity of her staying behind. She was just a liability out in the field. I couldn’t account for her safety or for what she was going to do if I was going to have a shot at making this meeting work.
But before any of that could happen, we needed to have breakfast. Everybody should have a good fucking breakfast, even people on the run from the mob.
Hours later, around two thirty in the afternoon, I parked my car in the lot at Miller’s Park and waited.
I scanned the area, looking for mafia guys. I knew almost every man in the family, though there could be a few that I’d never seen before. From what I could tell, the park was full of moms and their kids. The only men in sight were either very old, very young, or clearly just suburban dads out watching their children.
You could always spot a mafia man if you knew what you were looking for. A lot of us have tattoos, but that wasn’t necessarily what you needed to look out for. It was more of a way of holding yourself, a swagger, a confidence. Mafia guys thought they owned the fucking world, and walked around like everything they saw was there for them to take. Often that was really the case, but it marked a man and made it obvious if you knew what to watch out for. Even a guy just sitting there did certain things that marked him as mafia.
There were no mafia guys in the park. I was pretty positive of that. I got out of my car, checking my gun before slipping it back into my waistband. I had ten minutes before Vadik would expect me, and so I started to walk the perimeter of the park.
I stayed close to the action, but I kept my eyes peeled. I watched trees, other cars, nearby buildings, and anything that could hide a man. There was nobody around that seemed suspicious aside from the usual weirdos that went to a park full of kids. I wasn’t interested in those guys, though.
I made my rounds and didn’t find a single fucking thing. That actually made me even more worried. Vadik had to know that I expected him to bring some muscle around and I doubted he would hide them if he did. But instead, I really was seeing absolutely nothing, no sign of anything amiss.
I headed back toward the main part of the park. It was time, and I needed to get into position. I figured it would be best if I could sit down first and choose the spot.
As I headed toward the playground, which was the most populous part of the park, I had to slow down and stop walking. Sitting at the very bench I was going to choose was Vadik himself, reading a newspaper.
I stared for a second, a little surprised that he had actually shown up. I expected someone else, or at least a whole group of guys. But he was alone as far as I could tell, just casually reading the paper like nothing big was happening.
I scanned the area, heart racing. Part of me wanted to get the fuck out of there, but I had come this far already. I walked over, not letting my unease get in the way of my confi
dence.
“Vadik,” I said, stopping next to him.
He looked up and smiled. “Hello, Gage.”
Vadik Petrov was in his late fifties. He was thin with gray hair and sharp features. His eyes were a cold steel blue and his smile was crooked. He looked like an accountant, but the scar down his chin suggested a bloody and violent past. He wore thin framed glasses and a suit like he had just come from the office.
“Sit, please,” he said. “We’re very much alone here.”
“I checked the park. You might not be lying.”
He laughed. “Good. You’re smart to be thorough.”
I sat at the other end of the bench. “First sign of trouble and I’m gone.”
“No trouble,” he said, folding the paper. “Want this?” He held it out for me.
“No, thanks.”
He shrugged and put it in his lap. “So. You killed Kuzma.”
“I did.”
“I never liked that guy,” he said. “Brutal, mindless. He was a thug. Perfect for certain jobs, like the one we sent him on, but sometimes difficult to fully control.”
“You don’t sound like you miss him much.”
“Oh, I don’t,” he said, laughing. “Of course, I have to pretend to be outraged about the whole thing. You did kill a member of the family, after all.”
“He was raping her. I was told that it was up to me to handle her.”
“You were ordered to send her a message,” he said coolly. “You didn’t follow through. We had to take drastic measures.”
“By sending Kuzma?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Why does this girl matter so much?”
“Ah, now you’re asking the right question.”
“It’s been bothering me. Sure, she’s the ADA prosecuting Evgeni, but who the fuck cares about Evgeni? He’ll probably get off anyway.”
Vadik slowly took a box of cigarillos from his pocket. He slid out one and put it in his mouth, holding it there. Finally, he took a lighter from his pocket and lit the thing, puffing it gently. He didn’t seem to care that families and kids were nearby, and that the park was supposed to be a nonsmoking zone.
It was just a display of power, I knew, but it still annoyed me. I didn’t give a fuck about secondhand smoke, but I did care that he was subtly pushing back against me, showing me who was the boss in this situation.
“There’s pressure from above, as you well know,” he said. “The feds are sending out funding in order to start cracking down on organized crime. Our little town was on that list of places that will get a large chunk of that fed cash.”
“Which explains why the cops won’t take bribes, but not why she’s so important.”
“She found something,” he said. “My contacts in the DA’s office told me that she was doing research not just on Evgeni and his case, but on the entire family. As far as I can tell, she found some very interesting little connections while digging around.”
I clenched my jaw. The fucking stupid and brave girl. Of course, she went above and beyond what she needed to do. She hated the mafia more than anyone I’d ever met, so of course she was going to dig as deep as she could.
Naturally she found something. Ashertown was built on the back of scandal, corruption, and bribery. It was a fucking hotbed of mafia activity because every single cop, politician, and businessman was thoroughly fucking corrupt. It was a mafia man’s playground. All she needed to do was sniff around a little bit and she’d turn up loads of incriminating shit.
“How bad?” I asked him.
“Bad,” he said. “Very, very bad. The sort of things that we’ve buried in the past.”
“What do you want from me?” I asked him.
“I want you to remember where your loyalties lie,” he said, anger slipping into his voice. “But seeing as that isn’t happening, I want her files.”
“That’s it? Just her files and this all goes away?”
“After what you did, nothing goes away. But no, that isn’t it. The files are just the start.”
“What else do you want?”
“I will pay you half a million dollars for her.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Half a million dollars if you turn her over to me. And I will let you leave Ashertown a fairly wealthy man.”
“That’s a lot of money.”
“She dug very deeply,” Vadik said.
“I have to think about it.”
He nodding, puffing his cigarillo. “Think fast,” he said. “Very fast. I’m running out of patience.”
I stood up, glancing around. Part of me expected a bunch of thugs to emerge from behind the trees to grab me, but nothing happened.
I turned and walked quickly away. “I’ll be in touch soon,” Vadik called after me. “Remember what I said.”
I didn’t look back. Vadik’s offer was rolling around in my mind, and I almost couldn’t believe how much he was willing to pay to get her back. Sadie must have found something important, something very important. Whatever it is might be enough to take down the whole mob, or at least Vadik seemed to think so.
That was a good thing. That meant we had leverage.
But it also meant that Vadik was never, ever going to stop. He was never going to back down, no matter what happened.
I could be a rich man after this. All I had to do was betray the woman I already sacrificed so much for.
17
Sadie
I felt complete stifled sitting in that room alone. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to leave, but Gage had already promised me that the mafia didn’t know where we were.
Besides, for some reason I was still starving. The greasy pancakes he brought me from the diner didn’t do nearly enough to stop my hunger. Maybe it was because I was still in shock or something, but I was absolutely starving.
I tried to distract myself by leafing through files, but that didn’t last long. I’d gone through them hundreds of times and teased out whatever connections I could. There was a lot of stuff in there, some of it pretty surprising, but none of that mattered anymore. I was effectively done practicing law, even if I wanted to.
I had to get out of that room. I put on some jean shorts and a black top, pulling my hair back in a tight braid. I paused, staring down at the small pistol Gage had left for me. He told me I should use it only if I absolutely had to, but he didn’t have anything to say about me leaving the hotel room.
I slipped it into the waist of my jean shorts just like Gage did and draped my shirt overtop of it. Nobody was going to notice the bulge, and if they did, nobody would care. Ashertown was a gun-toting town, and practically everyone carried.
I probably would know how to shoot better if we had stayed instead of moving away. My father wouldn’t have liked that, but I was positive boys would have taken me out to the range anyway. Maybe even Gage would have. Instead, we went out to Seattle and I never shot a gun.
I couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. On the one hand, it was better that I lived my life not needing to shoot a gun at all. On the other, now suddenly I needed to know but I had absolutely no experience.
It didn’t matter. I was carrying the gun. It made me feel better, even if I probably wasn’t going to use it at all. I briefly thought about how I almost shot Gage the day before, but I was past being that jumpy. I was going to keep myself calm and centered for this.
I stepped outside onto the balcony and took a deep breath. I looked both ways and it seemed clear, so I walked down the walkway and took the steps fast. Once in the parking lot, I walked along the edges, staying away from the middle where I was easily visible.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I was trying to be sneaky, but really I probably just looked like a crazy person. The diner was back down the road a few minutes, and since Gage took the car, I was going to have to walk.
I didn’t mind. It was a beautiful day and there weren’t many cars out on the road. I walked slowly, taking my time, trying to enjoy what little bi
t of nature I could.
The diner was about ten minutes down the road. I spotted it ahead and picked up my pace, suddenly starving again. I made it without any issue and walked in the front door.
Fifteen minutes later, I had a to-go bag with a cheeseburger and fries waiting to be devoured. I debated whether I wanted to eat at the counter or not, but I figured I needed to get back in case Gage showed up. I headed back up the road, smiling to myself, feeling halfway decent for the first time since all this happened.
I let myself daydream. I thought about what my body felt like up against Gage’s, the way he took me so easily, his thick cock between my legs. He dominated me so completely and I loved it. His broad shoulders pressed me up against the bed while his skillful hands explored my skin. I got wet just thinking about him touching me, which was totally unheard of for me. Usually I could control myself. People said I was a cool customer, not showing my emotions, playing my cards close to my chest. But with Gage I felt like it was all out in the open for him to take, and he knew exactly what to do with me.
As I walked, a car passed me. It was a large black SUV, and it was driving pretty slowly. I glanced at it sideways, wondering what the heck it was doing, but I couldn’t see the people inside. The windows were tinted practically black.
The car kept driving, though. I shook my head, keeping myself steady. I took a deep breath and went back to daydreaming about Gage.
He was surprisingly tender for a man that loved to be so rough. Whenever we spoke, he was so gentle with my feelings, though he didn’t seem to be bullshitting me. He was honest and soft in a way I never expected for such a hard man. The way he touched my hand and held me after we fucked said so much more than anything he could possibly say out loud. I even caught him looking at me once like he was surprised to see me lying there next to him.
He looked at me like he did when we were still teenagers. It was that adoring look, filled with lust and admiration. Nobody had ever looked at me that way before, and it made me feel good, deep down to my core.