by JA Huss
“It’s not my fucking market.” God, how many times do I have to tell him that?
“Any evidence they do find will mysteriously go missing in exactly three days.” Pax looks at me. “Ya know, I really wish I knew about your little illegal site before I gave up fixing shit. It’s a goddamned gold mine.”
I throw my hands in the air, giving up. “Now what?” I ask.
“Now we wait for Gori to show up.”
“And my parents?” West asks. “What’s gonna happen to them?”
“It depends,” Pax says. And I’m sorta surprised that he says it in a sympathetic way.
“On what?” West asks, stopping his pacing to look at Pax.
“On whether or not they try to kill my mother.”
Chapter Forty-Six - KATYA
I walk down College and then cut over towards the west side of campus once I get closer to the Antimony House. I didn’t want to drive and potentially get stuck there in a car when I could easily slip outside the back way and stay out of sight.
I opened the package Mariel gave me, stuffing the contents into my pockets and throwing the envelope away in a random trashcan on the curb. The cold steel is comforting and by the time I am a few driveways down from the house, it’s also warm.
This… is it. The final phase of my long-planned revenge.
I walk up to the house, ready to knock on the door, but find it slightly ajar. I push it open, the hinges creaking, and peer inside.
The first thing I realize is that no one is here. Mariel was right. Those girls have left. I really hope she has a plan to get my sister back, because all of this is worthless if Lily doesn’t make it out with me.
“Lily?” I call, keeping up the ruse that she is the one who texted me. “It’s me,” I say. “Katya. Are you here?”
I don’t want to step inside. I really don’t want to step inside. But it’s unavoidable. I only have two choices. Finish this off right now or run away and never stop running.
I’m done running.
I squeeze the steel in my palm and cross the threshold.
Chapter Forty-Seven - OLIVER
The phone rings on my desk.
All three of us look at each other.
“Answer it,” Pax says.
I walk over to the desk and pick up the receiver. “Hook-Me-Up. Oliver speaking.”
“You have made a serious mistake,” the woman says on the other side of the line.
“Who is this?” I say.
“Where is my son?”
I nod to Pax and West. “He’s dead, Mrs. Conrad—”
“He is not dead. Do you think I’m a fool?”
West sits down on the couch, head in his hands. I know he was holding out, but all hope is gone now.
“I’m sure you thought you were clever when Liam believed you, but take my word on this, Mr. Shrike, I am not Liam Henry.”
“No,” I say, regaining my composure as I realize what she really is. “You’re a fucking monster, that’s what you are. We know all about you. We know who you really are, what you’ve been doing all these years, and even though West is dead, and he deserved it, the rest of us aren’t. And we’re gonna make you pay, bitch. We’re gonna make you pay for setting us up eleven years ago.”
“Put him on the phone,” she snaps. “Now.”
“I can’t put a dead man on the phone. I’m sorry, Mrs. Conrad. We killed him just like we’re gonna kill you. We shot that motherfucker in the head for lying to us. For covering up who you are and what you did.”
“You’re lying.” But she doesn’t sound so sure of herself.
“I can tell you where the body is, if that will help you come to terms with it. He’s rotting,” I say. “His body is decomposing as we speak. Not that you care, since you’re the one who put the hit on him.”
West looks up at me, desperate for this not to be happening.
“Should I tell you what I know?” I ask, when she stays silent. “Hmm? Liam talked,” I say. “He sang like a motherfucking canary in the end.”
When I get a dial tone I hold the phone away from my ear and point to Ariel, who came out of the SCIF room when the phone rang.
“I got it,” she says. “She’s at a house on West Laurel. Right across the street from the campus.”
“What the fuck is over there?” West asks.
“Those Antimony Association people,” Cindy says, coming up behind Ariel. “Katya is there too,” she says, holding up a tablet that’s tracking Kat’s phone through the app I put on it last night. “I would’ve told you sooner, but she took a weird route, down a bunch of side streets. And I didn’t realize where she was going. Then the phone rang.”
I look at West. “You’re on, let’s go.”
Pax is already jumping down the stairs. And I don’t care how big of a dick he is. I don’t care if he drinks vodka, or bourbon, or those stupid mint juleps for breakfast every goddamned morning. I don’t even care if he kills ten more people today. He’s always been there for me. He has always had my back, and I’ve never once had to ask.
“Stay here,” I yell at my sisters. “Finish what you’re doing,” I call out behind me as I jump down the stairs after Paxton.
Chapter Forty-Eight - KATYA
The first thing I notice is that the Smilde original is no longer hanging on the wall. The second thing I notice is beeping next to my ear. I turn to look for the source and see nothing but red lights on a ShrikeSafe Security panel.
Disarmed. The red lights mean it’s disarmed.
I don’t know what to make of that.
“Lily?” I ask again, but a little less confident this time.
A shadow moves off to my right in the kitchen. And it takes every ounce of self-control not to take my weapon out of my pocket.
“Hello?” I ask, moving forward. “Lily?”
The smack of a door closing in the back of the house is all the answer I get.
I have to close my eyes for a minute to gather my strength. Because I have only one option. I need to go outside and face my past.
This is it. This is where I make my stand against Lucio Gori.
I walk through the kitchen and open the door, looking out at the back yard. The off-white tents are still there, flaps waving in the cold autumn wind.
Which one is he hiding in? There are so many.
“Lily?” I call out. But I get nothing but the sound of falling leaves. I’m going to have to look in each one of them if he doesn’t make a move.
I take a deep breath and slowly walk down the stairs that lead to the brown grass. My feet crunch on it, the dew from last night frozen on the dormant blades. The flap of the closest tent is blown open, and there is no one inside. Not even the tables or chairs that were there yesterday. It’s like the caterers came and took everything but the tents.
I move on to the next tent. This flap isn’t blown open, and I really want to pull out the weapon in my pocket. But I don’t want him to know I came ready. I can’t. The surprise is all I have left.
“Miss Kalashova.”
I whirl around and face him. The man I have hated for more than half my life. Lucio Gori Senior is sitting in a chair in the largest tent like he is a king.
“Come sit on my lap, sweetheart.”
That motherfucker. How many times has me made me sit on his lap since that night he cut my throat? How many times did I get that sick feeling in my gut when his hands would find their way to my legs, or my belly, or my neck?
“Come here,” he says again. “Don’t you want your reward? Let me give it to you for being such a good little girl.”
I hesitate, looking back at the house. Who else is here?
“Don’t worry about her,” Gori says. “Play first, baby. Then we’ll sort out the business end of this, OK?”
His sweet voice is laced with poison. But who is he talking about? Who else is here?
I fight the urge to look again, and instead concentrate on walking towards the tent.
He smi
les bigger. Even laughs a little. “You like it, don’t you?”
I smile a little too. Even make myself blush the way I’ve practiced over the years. Being underestimated is a survival skill in my line of work. “I do like it,” I say, slowly walking towards him.
“Don’t move,” a woman calls just as the back door of the house slams closed. I’m already inside the tent, so I have to lean out and peek, just to see who that is.
“Mrs. Conrad?” I ask in my most innocent voice.
“Don’t touch her,” Mrs. Conrad calls. “It’s a trap, Lucio.”
“Nonsense. Get over here, girl.”
I don’t wait for another invitation. I practically scurry towards him. His arms are outstretched as I come closer. Mrs. Conrad appears in the open flap just as he wraps them around my body and pulls me on to his lap.
“Stop!” she calls. “Don’t let her—”
But I have the scalpel out. I have it against his throat. I have it pressing against his jugular. And by the time the last of her warning is out of her mouth, I have opened him up. The sick smell of blood floods my nose. The hot sticky mess covers my hand and washes away every minute of torture I’ve endured to get to this moment.
Mrs. Conrad is clawing me off him, screaming and yelling. Her fists pound my face and her fingernails claw at my eyes.
But I don’t care. I just laugh, and laugh, and laugh as I fight back, kicking her and getting a punch or two as I wallow in her rage.
Nothing else matters now.
In this moment, nothing matters but what I’ve done and how I feel about it.
Because now, we are even.
And Lucio Gori will never get his hands on my sister, or anyone else, ever again.
Chapter Forty-Nine - OLIVER
The front door of the house is open when we pull in up in my car. Pax jumps out and he’s running up the steps before I even get the Camaro in park. West and I follow a few seconds behind. Pax is in the living room, gun out, pointing it at each hallway and corner, like he’s clearing a war zone.
“They’re in back. Fighting.”
All three of us turn, and I swear to God, Paxton Vance is a hair-trigger away from blowing his mother’s head off.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says, lowering the weapon. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I’m afraid this is where I come clean, Paxton.” She smiles, but it’s a sad smile. “We’re all going to come clean today. But there will be no day of reckoning if Katya Kalashova kills Mrs. Conrad before it’s over. So I suggest one of you go stop that from happening.”
“Shit,” I say, running through the kitchen. When I get to the porch I see Katya sitting on top of a bloody mess of fur that I think might be Weston’s mother.
“Kat!” I yell.
She looks up at me, covered in rage, and hate, and… sadness.
Pax and I reach her at the same time. He pulls her off, but she’s wielding a scalpel through the air like she’s gonna kill anyone who gets close.
“Kat,” I say, when Pax backs off.
She is like an animal. A cornered animal who has been abused so many times, for so long, that she no longer cares if she lives or dies.
She is mad. Crazy with the things she’s endured over her short life.
“Kat,” I say again. But she just spins, one arm outstretched. Her blade covered in blood. Dripping blood.
Pax leaves her to me and pulls Weston’s mother to her feet. She is spitting words at us, but I don’t hear any of it. I only hear the ragged breath of the girl I love as she comes to terms with her life.
“Kat,” I say, my arms outstretched. “Give me that blade.”
She shakes her head at me and then the tears start. They stream down her red cheeks, cutting through the dirt and filth that covers her face like brand-new scars. “My sister is gone. I’m going to prison. Who cares about anything anymore?” She looks over at Lucio Gori, who is nothing but a man encased in blood. “I killed him,” she sobs.
But I shake my head. “No, Kat. You defended yourself.”
“She is,” West’s mother yells. “Going to jail. That was not self-defense. That was murder.”
“Shut up.”
Every head turns to find West standing on the small back porch of the house.
“Just shut the fuck up,” he says as he descends. “If I have to hear one more lie—”
Cops come out behind him. Guns drawn, yelling things like, “Drop your weapon,” and “Hands in the air.”
Men in blue are everywhere after that. They are a swarm and they are pissed off that their little quiet college town just had a domestic terrorist attack and a murder all in the span of fifteen minutes.
Mariel is talking to them. Trying to explain what happened. How appalled she is that one day after closing on the house next door and witnessing a party that required her to call police almost a dozen times, she is now up to her neck in murder. How could this quaint little town be harboring such debauchery? Surely she should pack her bags for the safety of Kentucky before anything else happens.
If I wasn’t in handcuffs, I’d salute that woman for her cunning and patience.
But when she explains how the dead man was trying to rape the young woman in my arms, she drives the final nail in the coffin.
I almost smile at the irony.
But it’s not really ironic. He would’ve raped her. He did rape her. How many times, I might never know. But if anyone deserves the title of rapist, it’s Lucio Gori Senior.
I just wish he was alive so he’d have a chance to experience what it’s like to live with that label.
We are all taken to the police station. West and me and Pax in one end of the small holding area. Katya and Mrs. Conrad somewhere else out of sight. Mariel is there too, explaining how Pax and I heard the girl calling for help when we were walking up to visit her and ran to her aid.
Pax is grinning the whole time.
West, on the other hand…
“Weston,” his mother kept screaming, as she was handcuffed. “Tell them who I am! Tell them—”
He never even looked at her.
I have no idea where his father is, but he won’t get away.
Any time now the new evidence is gonna come in. I wait for it. I hope I am here to see it happen.
But no such luck. Nolan’s lawyers arrive and start throwing their weight around and two hours later, we have given the statements Mariel made us memorize this morning and we are all released.
When will I stop hoping?
When do I ever get lucky?
Chapter Fifty - KATYA
A man appears after I’ve sat in this interrogation room for hours. One of the lady cops gave me some clothes to change into, seeing as how mine were covered in Lucio Gori Senior’s blood. A t-shirt that says, of all things, Harvard. And a pair of sweats, too many sizes too big to count.
So I guess there’s that.
I guess they’ll be keeping mine for the murder trial.
The man is large, wearing a trench coat, and he smells like the outside. He plops an old briefcase on the metal table as he takes a seat, and then flicks the little lock thingies and it pops open. He says nothing as he shuffles through it, then slaps a folder down on the table, and closes his case. “Katya Kalashova,” he says with a Russian accent.
I just stare at him. If I’m going down for murder, I’m not gonna make this easy on them.
“My name is Alexi Ivanov.” He opens the folder, removes a single piece of paper, slides it forward with a push of his finger, and then leans back in his chair. “This is your statement. Please sign.”
Curiosity has gotten the better of me. “My what?”
“Statement,” he says again. “You would like to go home? Hmmm? Then sign here.” He pulls a pen out of his jacket and places it on top of the paper.
I can’t help myself, I reach for the paper and begin to read. When I get to the end I look at him again. “What is this?”
He frowns at me. “D
o I have a stutter?”
“No. I’m just confused.”
“If you sign paper, you go home. Now sign.” He taps his massive finger on the table three times. “Your car will pick you up after processing.”
I read the statement again. “Am I—”
“No,” Ivanov says before I can finish. “Just. Sign.”
“But it says—”
“I know what it says. I wrote it.”
I look around nervously. “You can’t say things like that. And you can’t come in here with a pre-written police statement and tell me to sign it. This is the United States. It’s not legal.”
“Katya Kalashova, who do you think you’re dealing with here?”
“I don’t know.”
He looks down his nose at me. “Think harder, Katya.”
I know the obvious answer. But I don’t believe it. “What will you want in return for getting me out of here?” I ask, looking up at the cameras, still nervous about making a deal with the Bratva inside a fucking police station.
“You will learn once you sign.”
“What if I don’t sign?”
“Then I will stand up, walk around behind you, and I will make you sign.” He smiles.
We have a staring contest for about ten seconds. “Oh.”
Then he softens, just a little, and says, “It is good, Katya. Better than you could have hoped for. I promise. Sign the paper and you will see.”
I take a deep breath and sign.
Alexi Ivanov gets up, puts his folder back inside his briefcase, closes it up, and then picks up my pre-written signed statement that says Lucio Gori Senior abducted me as I was walking down the street this morning, took me back to the Antimony House—which was purchased in his name one week prior—and proceeded to try to rape me using the scalpel as a threat. That’s when I wrestled it away from him and cut his throat.
Apparently my mind draws a blank after that, but the cops showed up shortly after, so I guess there’s other statements to fill in that blank.