“I thought of you,” she said. But not every day. Because she had been living as the Party Princess, all about fun and being a gangster’s daughter.
Her mother touched a little bit of hair that had fallen out of her hat. “Every day.” She put a gnarled hand on the other woman’s leg. “Sister. Marta.”
Shivers flew over Nadia. An aunt. “Marta,” she said.
The women looked so pale. God, did they ever get any sun? But their clothes were beautiful and imaginative, lavishly decorated, fabric on fabric, like the women in the other places.
Nadia stiffened as sirens sounded behind them.
Nadia called up to Thorne in the front. “Those sirens for us?”
“I say we hold tight and see. For Chrissakes, seatbelts,” Thorne said. “This gets rough now.”
He got Richard on the radio and they started yelling back and forth.
“Shit,” Nadia whispered. Thorne had possessed the presence of mind to get the two women up front buckled in, but nobody in back was. Because they didn’t ever ride around in cars, these women.
She helped Marta get hers on. She felt so connected to all of them; they were beautiful—not magazine beauty, but beautiful in the way of people who had been through real things. The woman on the very end of their seat was thin and young and couldn’t catch her breath. Nadia reached over her to fasten her buckle, and then she knelt in front of her, clutching the handhold on the door. “Don’t be scared.” She looked over at her mother. “We’re on it.” She didn’t have the Russian for that, but had the tone, full of menacing promise.
“We’re splitting up from Richard,” Thorne called back. “Meeting at the shelter.”
“Got it.” There were only three belts in back, but four people. She made her mother take one.
“No. Together,” the woman said. “Together, my Nadja.” She scooted over. It was stupid, and not even safe, but her mother was making this space for her. Nadia squished in, trying not to smash her mom. She belted them in and put an arm around the back of the seat. Like she was hugging her mom.
And she felt suddenly happy. Just happy inside, even in the midst of all the danger.
“I looked for you,” she said. “He said you were dead. Myortve.”
“Myortve,” her mother said. “Victor would say this.”
Marta, on the other side of her mom, made a disgusted sound. “Victor,” she said, as if just the name was sufficient.
Her mother gazed out the window with a look that chilled Nadia, and Nadia knew there were things that she would never know. Things that her mother would never tell her. Darkness she would never reach.
God, what would Yana say when she saw the house where Nadia grew up? “I didn’t know.”
“Is okay, Nadja.”
Nadia wiped her eyes and straightened up. She caught Thorne’s glance in the rearview mirror. They didn’t need words, either. But she mouthed it anyway. Thank you.
“Hang on,” he said.
Marta translated as Thorne did a U-turn, spitting gravel on the shoulder. He drove calmly the other way, passing the wailing cop car.
“Crap,” Thorne said from the front.
The cop didn’t turn around at all.
Thorne grabbed the radio. “He might be going for you, Richard,” Thorne yelled. Another cop car was approaching from far off, probably also going after Richard. “Two squad cars.”
A voice through the phone. “Fuck. My trannie’s fucked. I can’t get any speed.”
“No,” Nadia breathed.
“Shoot your gun when they pass, Nadia.”
“What?”
“Open the damn window and shoot at them as soon as they pass. Don’t hit them, just shoot!”
Nadia pulled out her gun. It wasn’t the kind of thing she liked doing in front of her mother, shooting at cops. “To help our friends,” she explained. “Hands over ears.”
Marta and her mother translated.
Nadia stretched over her mother and Marta. She opened the window, stuck the gun out, and shot in the direction of the police car. And then again and again.
“That’s enough,” Thorne barked. “Let’s hope they both turn around and come after us. We can handle them better than Richard.”
Thorne sped up and turned up along straightaway between two fields. It was faster than she’d ever gone in a vehicle.
“Do you know where you’re going?”
“I’ve been studying the map all morning, baby.”
Her heart did a leap. She’d been so scared, but she had Thorne on her side, studying the map. Making things right. She felt her mother’s eyes on her. She pointed at Thorne up front. “He’ll get us out.”
Her mother nodded. She might not understand the words, but she’d get the message.
Thorne sped down one side street and then another, looping down alleys and across parking lots as the sirens wailed around them, sometimes near and sometimes far.
Richard reported in—no cops to be seen on his end.
Thorne slowed as they neared the historical center of a small town, matching his pace to the traffic down Main Street. “I need to get out of sight,” he said.
“The car wash!” Nadia said.
“A car wash is just another fucking elevator,” Thorne said. “Got any cash?”
“Yeah.”
Thorne turned onto a parking ramp. She stuck her hand out and took a ticket, like they were any normal passengers and driver in a car. The arm opened. Thorne sped onto the dark ramp. He circled around and around, nearly up to the top level. He parked and hopped out.
Nadia unbuckled herself. More criminal activity. “Changing cars,” she said, pointing to the red minivan Thorne had just broken into. The alarm blared, but he was on it like a flash, and it stopped.
Yeah, just changing cars.
Five minutes later, they were heading the other way, out of town. Nadia cringed every time they’d pass a cop car coming into town.
They picked up Richard and his passengers and drove into the next county. Nadia tried to explain what would happen to the women as best she could. That people would help them find homes, food, and other resources. They were going to a Russian Orthodox church. She wondered if any of the women were still religious, or if they’d ever been.
“You have a family with me,” she said. “You too, Marta, if you want to stay with us.” She took out her phone and flipped to a picture of Benny, feeling so excited. This was something she could offer. Something she didn’t have to feel apologetic about. She found her favorite shot, Benny in the yard, holding a handful of grass up to the camera.
“My boy. Your grandson.”
“Prekrasny,” Marta said. Beautiful.
Nadia smiled. “Wait until you meet him. He’s such a wonderful boy!” She watched the phone get passed all around the van. The women seemed so genuinely happy for Yana, speaking rapidly. Nadia was on overload; she could barely understand the women’s comments, but they swelled her heart all the same. This was what she’d dreamed of—sharing Benny with her mother.
Her mother asked all kinds of questions and Nadia went on about Benny. She knew she probably wasn’t making a ton of sense, telling how good he was, and that he loved trucks and swings and how sweet he was, and generous, and curious, but there was a way where the communication happening now wasn’t based on words.
Yana reached out and squeezed Nadia’s hand. “Nadja.” It was a hard squeeze, surprisingly muscular. This woman was not breakable. She was a survivor.
“I had to find you,” Nadia said.
Yana squeezed her hand. “Okay.” And then she smiled, a little bit crooked, one tooth wrong, but the smile was stunning. It was the smile of a woman who was not dead inside. Far from it. Maybe Nadia couldn’t take away the dark memories or undo the damage of the life she’d led, probably not even a fraction of it, but she could give her a home and a grandson, and a safe place with her sister. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
Nadia smiled back at her through her tears and lowered her voice. “
And if anybody ever tries to hurt you or your sister ever again, I will make them so sorry.”
She didn’t know what of that Yana understood, but Yana squeezed her hand again. She thought bitterly of how Victor had kept them apart. “And I’m sorry it took me too long. I was so stupid.”
“You weren’t stupid,” Thorne barked from the front. “Your daughter is special, Yana,” he said. “Nadia is special. And amazing. She grew up around some of the worst people in the world thanks to her creep of a dad, and made that home bright. She is an amazing mother. She looks at that kid, and you can just see that love. And if you’re her family, she would do anything for you, and you can trust her with your life. That’s who your daughter is.”
The women might not have caught all of that, but Nadia did. Maybe it was her open, vulnerable state, but she felt, suddenly, like weeping. For her mother, for Benny, and for the goodness that shone out of Thorne.
“You are father of boy?” Marta asked.
“No,” Thorne said, and it was the coldest no she’d ever heard. One word, alone in the cold. “No,” he said again.
Her mother took another look at the photo of Benny and handed back her phone. Yeah, anybody with eyes could see that he was Benny’s father.
She glanced up at Thorne, who kept his gaze fixed on the road. She needed to find a time to tell him. Maybe the world could never know, but Thorne needed to know.
She could trust him.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Lorna met them at the back door of the church and led them to the barren basement.
Thorne followed. “Keep it short. The minivan has a definite expiration date.”
“Okay,” Nadia whispered, letting Lorna finish her spiel.
“Ready?” Nadia asked her mother as they all paused at the pocket door. “We have a room for you at my home. Both you and Marta. Home.” Nadia pressed a hand to her chest. “Home.” She pointed over her shoulder.
Marta and Yana exchanged glances with each other and their friends. Nadia panicked. God, Yana and Marta had been with these women nonstop. Was it too much to ask that they all split up now?
“We need to go,” Thorne said.
They seemed hesitant, and Nadia’s heart sank. Lorna translated, but Nadia knew it wasn’t a language issue. These women were Yana’s and Marta’s real family.
Nadia’s mother put a hand on her and spoke to Lorna.
Lorna turned to Nadia. “They don’t like leaving their friends.”
Nadia got that. “Let’s go in for a few moments. I want them to see that their friends have a good place to stay.”
“Two minutes,” Thorne said. He and Richard headed back out.
Nadia could follow along a little bit with what Lorna was saying, mainly because it was similar to her memorized spiel. Lorna was telling the women that they would find their families back home or here in the United States. They had places for the women to stay while they searched for families; they would try and help them with green cards.
Yana nodded along. She was fiercely protective of her people; Nadia could respect that. Finally, Yana linked her arm in Nadia’s. “Okay,” she said.
“Home?”
“Home,” Yana said.
A minute later, she and Marta and Yana were riding with Thorne and Richard—on the way to get Benny and Kara. More family. They were a family!
And they were going home. It was like a dream. She thought of all the things they could do. Play with Benny. Have dinner on the porch—whatever food Yana and Marta wanted. Talk into the night. See more pictures.
Nadia made a quick call to Kara to let her know they were on the way. She’d be relieved that the saga was over.
No answer.
Nadia hung up, telling herself that maybe Kara was giving Benny a bath. Or changing diapers. Maybe she didn’t hear. She didn’t like it, though.
The Radisson stood tall and beautiful against the vibrant blue sky, but Nadia regarded the sight with dread, verging on panic. Kara hadn’t answered her phone in the entire forty minutes it took to get there through rush hour traffic.
“I’ll go in first,” Thorne said, slamming into a parking place. Thorne drew his gun and pulled the slide back a hair, making sure he had a round chambered.
“I’m backing you up,” Richard said.
“I’m coming, too,” Nadia said. She turned back to her mother and Marta. “Sorry.”
“Go,” Yana said. Yana got it. She got it more than most.
Nadia grabbed her cane and they went in. She barely noticed her leg pain now. She and Richard took the elevator while Thorne took the stairs.
He was in the room by the time they arrived. The place was a mess. That didn’t mean anything. But then she spotted Kara’s bejeweled cell phone.
“No!” Nadia picked it up in a daze of panic. She felt as if the world had turned into a slow-motion horror film.
All of her calls to Kara showed. All unanswered. She looked up to meet Thorne’s burning blue eyes. “Kara’s?”
“Kara’s,” she said. “She’d never leave it behind!”
Richard swore.
Thorne took the phone from her and scrolled through the calls. Then he tossed it onto the bed.
“She’d never leave without it. Ever.” Then she spotted the baby bag. “Oh, my God!” She went to it and looked inside. All of Benny’s things. She pulled out his stuffed duck. “He can’t be without this in a car.” She held it to her chest, feeling like a hole had been punched through her soul. She looked around. The mess of the room wasn’t right; she could see that now. It wasn’t a Benny and Kara mess; it was a violence mess.
She felt more than saw Thorne come to her. He pulled her to him. She felt cold. And sick, sick, sick with panic.
“We’re going to find them,” he vowed. But all she could think about was her boy out there, terrified. And Kara, trying to protect them. Kara would die for that boy, the same as she would.
“He’s out there. Because of me.”
“Nadia. Listen. Look at me.”
She couldn’t face him. “I left my baby.”
He held her at arm’s length, forcing her to look into his eyes. He looked scared, too. “We’re getting him back.”
She shook her head.
He gave her a shake. “Do you see any dead bodies here?”
She widened her eyes.
“It’s good. That’s a good thing. Somebody took them; that’s what I’m seeing here. You know what that means? It means that somebody wants something. They’re alive.”
“Why? Who would take Benny and Kara? What do they want? If it’s retaliation for the co-op pirates…” she trailed off, not wanting to say it.
“Hold on.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket.
“What?” she asked.
He scrolled.
“What?” she demanded.
He stopped scrolling.
“What?!”
He’d found a message, and he wouldn’t let her see it.
“What?” she demanded again. “Tell me!”
He just stared. Shaken.
She grabbed his arm as he clicked off his phone. “It’s me they want,” he said, “in trade for Benny. I’m to show up tonight under the Geo Taylor Bridge at ten, and they’ll release him. I show up at ten and they let him and Kara go.”
Confusion froze her mind. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s Hangman. Wanting to pull me in. Jerrod.”
“Why? How?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “They think I’ll come, and I will.”
Ten p.m. That was five hours away.
“Maybe we should call the cops.”
“This is Hangman, baby,” he said. “Cops don’t work.”
“They’ll kill my baby. And Kara.”
“No, listen—” He grabbed her shoulders. “Criminal kidnappings are different from civilian ones, okay? In civilian kidnappings, yeah, the people end up dead no matter what. But when gangs do it, the victims are almost always releas
ed unharmed, as long as the terms are satisfied.”
“Why? Why would it be different?”
“Because if you don’t stick by your word, kidnappings like this stop working. They just invite a bloody attack. Like if a restaurant wouldn’t give you the food that you paid for. Would you go to a restaurant like that?”
“Huh?”
“Think about it, would you? Benny and Kara will survive this as long as I show up.”
“I don’t get it. They’re your group. They don’t have to kidnap Benny to get you to show up.”
“I’m AWOL,” he said. “But it’s not just that. It’s the power struggles and politics I was talking about. And maybe I made a bad decision on who to trust. Jerrod connected us. That’s all I can say for sure.”
The air felt fuzzy. Was this her nightmare coming true? What if Thorne’s enemies had figured out who Benny was?
“Jerrod has been looking for an excuse to go at me. Maybe he found one.” He went to the window and checked the parking lot. “Bottom line—I’ll get your boy and your sister back.”
“They want to kill you.”
“I don’t mean to let them, okay? And Benny has Kara there. They’re together, and they’ll be okay.”
“Okay,” she whispered, not believing it.
“What can I do? I need to be in on this,” Richard said. “I need a shot at this guy.”
“He’s mine,” Thorne said. “These are my people—you have to let me handle it.”
Richard frowned. “What do you need me to do?”
“I need you to be with Nadia for the exchange. They’ll release Benny and Kara to her, and I need you there.” He scooped up a set of keys from the top of the TV. “These Kara’s?”
Nadia nodded.
He handed them to Richard. “Take Kara’s vehicle and pull together weapons and radios. Whatever you think. I don’t know where it goes down—your guess is as good as mine.”
Richard put a hand on Nadia’s shoulder. “I’ll grab some gear and circle back with you.” He took off.
“Come on. We have to find somewhere new for you and your mother and aunt.”
“Wait!” She grabbed Benny’s bag and Kara’s cellphone.
A minute later, she was hobbling across the parking lot next to Thorne; the second she locked eyes with her mother, she began to cry. Because she knew that her mother knew.
Into the Shadows Page 26