Mr. Match (Mister #5)

by JA Huss

  I have so many things I could say to that, but I decide to shut my mouth. I don’t care how nice this guy is, I know what he is. And I will not fall for it.

  “Do you believe me?” he says.

  I shrug. “Sure. Why not.”

  “But you do not think I am good guy.”

  “Not even close.”

  “Well.” He chuckles a little. “You have very good instincts, then, Katya. I am not good guy. Not on most days. But today I be good guy for one last time. For you, Katya. To make it even between us. I give you choice right now.”

  He holds out the tablet so I can see it.

  “Who is this?” he asks, thumbing to another picture.

  It’s Mrs. Conrad talking to Lily. Lily is wearing the white dress, the last thing I saw her in. They are chatting and smiling and drinking.

  “That was last night,” the Russian says. “They were celebrating Lily’s initiation. They are not celebrating now.”

  I look up at him. “What have you done with her?”

  “Me?” He laughs. “She’s not with me. She’s with them.”

  There is no mistaking who ‘them’ is once he really starts showing me the pictures. Lily is with Mrs. Conrad in places I had no idea she was visiting. Places like Greece, and Paris, and London, and Stockholm.

  “How did she afford that?” I ask, genuinely bewildered.

  “She used the money you sent her school for tuition.”

  I sit up straight. “Then how did she go to school?”

  “They have been taking care of your sister for a very, very long time, Katya. I’m sorry to tell you this, but I lost interest in her many, many years ago. She is a rat. She is a liar. She cannot be trusted. And right now she is about to lie her way back into your life. They are plotting, Katya. The Silver Society, the Antimony Association—call them whatever you want. They are hiding out here,” he says. And then he tabs the screen again and it’s a live night-vision feed of a house on the side of a mountain.

  “Where is that?” I ask, pointing to the tablet.

  “Not far enough away to be safe from me.”

  His threat sends a chill down my spine.

  “You are right about me too, Katya. I am not good. I am just as bad. But today I am on your side.” He smiles. “They are liars too,” he says. “But they hide in plain sight. They run for political offices, and get law degrees, and run cities, and states, and sometimes, every now and then, one of their husbands makes it to the White House. But don’t be fooled, child. They are just like me.”

  I stare at him. I know everything he’s telling me is true. The part about Lily, the part about my parents, the part about the Silver Society and the Antimony girls. “They recruited Lily when she was little,” I say. It’s not a question.

  “While Lucio Gori Senior was cutting your throat, your baby sister was having tea with Mrs. Conrad.”

  “She was seven,” I say.

  “She was seven,” he whispers back. “This is an old feud, Katya. One that has nothing at all to do with you. It is between Mariel Hawthorne—who left the Silver Society when she figured out what they were thirty-five years ago—and the Conrads, who never got over the fact that she did not marry who they told her to. That she got pregnant with that movie star’s child. That she would so thoroughly dismiss them and live to tell about it.”

  “The attack on the Misters?” I say. “That was about… Paxton?”

  “Paxton,” he says. “And the others too,” he says, shrugging with his hands. “No matter how innocent they think their families are, there are always skeletons coming back to life.”

  I just sit and think about that for a little bit.

  The Russian slaps his knees with both hands. “And now we are back to the choice.”

  “What choice?” I ask, feeling numb all over.

  “Your sister. Do you want her to live, Katya? We have agents ready to raid that mountain house. But you have to know, she is one of them. Now and forever. Her loyalty is to them. You barely qualify as an afterthought. She invited you to the Antimony House because Gori was there yesterday. He was supposed to take you then.” These words come out as a whisper. Like it’s a secret he really doesn’t want to tell.

  I want to throw up.

  “We can raid the house, but they will get away. Maybe not tonight. And they will not get away without bruises. But they will get away.”

  “So what do you want from me?” I ask.

  “Thumbs up she lives,” he says. “But there is another, better solution.”

  “Thumbs down,” I say, looking at my feet. “You want me to decide if these people go free and live to ruin more lives. Or if they die tonight.”

  “If you want to have that choice, I give it to you. Do you want to save your sister, Katya?”

  “I want to go home,” I say.

  “Of course,” he says, leaning forward to knock on the window behind me.

  The car begins to move and I sink lower in my seat. I feel lower than ever. Like I just lost. There is no success in my life. Not one ounce of it exists. There is nothing but lies, and failure, and—

  “Do you know why I like Oliver?” the Russian says.

  “Oliver?” I ask. “What about Oliver?”

  “I hired him. That day out on the bench, he was told to save you from your grand money-making ideas. I know it’s not rational, Katya. But I have always liked you. And he had that marketplace. God, such a stupid boy.” The Russian laughs. “But he was easy to find, and in the perfect place. So I guess that’s good, right?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I say, sitting up taller. “Oliver worked for you?”

  “He was quite infatuated with you that summer. Which wasn’t good, since you had to leave and I wouldn’t need him anymore. He even bought a piece of your art.”

  “What?” I say. “Is my whole world falling down right now?”

  “I had to yell at him like a son that time. I told him he could keep it, but he was to never contact you again. You would be back, I said. One day. But until then, he should hide that photograph and put you out of his mind.”

  “Oliver,” I say, suddenly so very, very sad. “I thought he was one of the good guys.”

  “Yeah.” The Russian sighs. “Your instincts are impressive.”

  “What are you talking about?” I snap, suddenly angry. “If he works for you, then he’s bad.”

  “They set him up too. Not his fault. He’s not one of them. I would advise second chance, Katya Kalashova. Or better yet, never speak of it.”

  The car stops and I hold my breath as the driver gets out and walks around the back of the car, and opens the door.

  “This is it?” I ask.

  “The end,” the Russian says. “Get out, Katya.” I start to slide over but he grabs my wrist. “Oh, you almost got away.” But then he lets go of my wrist and taps a finger on his tablet. To the live drone feed over the house on the mountain.

  Jesus fuck. Make this day go away.

  “I need your choice. Thumbs up or thumbs down. You know what my choice will be.”

  I scoot over the rest of the way and get out of the car. There are motorcycles everywhere. And people dressed up like zombies. It’s probably close to morning and today is the day the Zombie Run rides through Downtown Fort Collins.

  I lean in the car and look him in the eye. “Well, I’m gonna leave it up to you then. I think you have a better understanding of the situation. Goodbye, Mr. Russian.”

  He smiles, almost as if he’s proud of me. “Goodbye, Miss Kalashova. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  I step back from the curb and watch the driver close the door and walk back around the car. I can see the light from the tablet inside the car, even though the very dark tinted windows. I think he taps the screen, but what that means, I have no idea.

  So I just turn… and come face to face with Oliver Shrike sitting on the bus stop bench across the street from his house.

  “Hey,” he
says with a long breath of air. He looks tired, and cold, and ready for something good to happen. Kinda like me. “Would you like to stay for breakfast? Start this whole thing over again?”

  I have a whole life’s worth of things to say to him right now. Everything is inside me. Stacking up into a tall, tall tower of sadness, and shame, and regret. I want to scream at him for lying. I want to hug him hard for being here on this stupid fucking bench just when I need him most.

  I want to send him away and hold him close at the same time.

  And everything plays out in my head. Every possible ending to this day. Or is this the beginning of a new morning? I hear all the words come streaming from my mouth, and then I feel myself suck them right back in and swallow them down.

  Maybe I will hold these words in forever? Or maybe I will spit them out next week, or next month, or next year?

  All I know is that right now is not the time to say things I can’t take back tomorrow.

  Because maybe he’s not a good guy. But he’s definitely better than most.

  “Yeah,” I say, “I’d like that.” My voice is strong and steady, and for once in my life, it’s not afraid. When Oliver takes my hand and walks me across the street to the gated fortress he built while I was gone, I don’t look over my shoulder.

  And when we go inside, he doesn’t even bother to arm the security system.

  He knows, I realize. He knows the Russian gave me that choice. And he knows what’s gonna happen next. So he cooks me comfort food for breakfast. Grilled cheese and tomato soup. And we watch it all happen live on the news.

  “I think it’s over,” I say, hours later when everything is still happening and the reporters are still exhilarated watching the mansion burn down after the massive explosion.

  “Maybe,” Oliver says through a yawn. “But something tells me there’s one more loose end to tie up.”

  We don’t wait for it. Oliver takes me upstairs, undresses me slowly, and then writes one more thing on my body. Right over the top of the silver-white scar on my throat.

  I think I found what I’m looking for.

  Gimme more… gimme more… gimme more…

  Epilogue - OLVIER

  Apparently some jerk-off snapped a picture of Weston Conrad filling in for a sick actor at Sparrow’s haunted house the other night and then tricked a reporter into declaring him dead yesterday morning. Some people really need to get their facts straight. Weston is threatening to sue unless they all run a retraction.

  Which might happen.

  The explosion at my father’s shooting range was verifiably linked to two East Coast criminals who were targeted by another, as yet unnamed, organized crime ring.

  The last surprise surfaces late afternoon when the reports come in about an FBI raid on the Antimony House after the huge explosion up in the mountains that took out more than fifty people.

  Fifty. It’s a big, big number. And one of them is Lily Kalashova.

  Kat sleeps late, sleeps right through the live report on the TV. Or maybe she doesn’t. The bedroom is a loft, after all. Regardless, she doesn’t come down until evening. And she looks refreshed and clean, her pale skin a little bit red from the hot shower she just took.

  Most of the writing I’ve done on her body is still there. Some of it faded, some of it still bright. But it’s the one across her neck that I stare at.

  “What happened?” Kat says, motioning to the TV where the news is on mute. It’s footage of the Antimony House.

  “Turns out,” I say, sipping some coffee, “that the Antimony girls were up to some no-good shit. The rumor is, that’s why that mansion they own up in Estes Park was bombed last night.”

  Katya raises one eyebrow at me.

  “Dark web marketplace,” I say, before taking another sip of coffee and gauging her reaction over the top of my mug. I swallow and then ask, “You ever heard of that kind of thing? I guess they were like, selling drugs and hitmen. Some really nasty shit on there, Kat. You’d have been sick over it.”

  I cashed in a huge favor with the Russian. Once I learned that Antimony House used ShrikeSafe, I had Cindy go in through the back door and, yeah, we cracked their wifi code in like thirty minutes and got into their computers. None of us Shrike kids are good enough to fuck with that code they put on my system eleven years ago to make me their scapegoat, but the Russian has teams of people on the same level as Five. And since Mysterious really could buy a cop off the dark market, they exchanged my server for the one inside the Antimony House while they were raiding it this morning.

  Hook-Me-Up has been offline ever since, but who cares. The Russian is gonna buy it. He says he can fix it and it’s good for data-mining.

  But that’s not how I convinced them to help me last night. I had one more ace in the hole to offer up. Or rather, Weston Conrad did.

  His treasure. That stupid fucking treasure was the root of all our problems.

  Liam spilled about why all this happened and it really did all come back to that gold on the bottom of the ocean out off the coast of Nantucket. Turns out that a ship carrying six very important people—the original Silver Society members, in fact—and a whole lot of coin, was hit by another ship back in 1909, causing it to sink.

  Apparently these six people were up to some pretty sneaky shit with that gold. Trying to steal it, I think. Wikipedia says it was originally supposed to be either a loan to Russia, or some kind of relief aid for a town hit by an earthquake in Italy, or the payroll for the US Navy’s Great White Fleet. The RMS Republic really did collide with the SS Florida. Six people died. They current estimation for the value of the missing gold is in the billions, just like Weston said. And the Russians were involved. My secret sources say it really was a loan to Russia and they even had to pay it back.

  You can’t make this shit up.

  If someone really does find that gold it would be the largest recovery treasure of all time. Liam’s salvage company had filed a claim on the ship. But the treasure had moved. Maybe someone moved it? Maybe it drifted into that cave where seven-year-old Weston found it? Who knows how it ended up where it was. Maybe it was just fate?

  So the Conrads… what a bunch of filthy assholes they were. They always knew there was more gold than Weston told them about. And when Liam couldn’t beat it out of him, they took him home. They were patient, I’ll give them that. But everyone’s patience runs out after a while. And by the time Weston was in his senior year at Brown, they’d had enough. They devised that rape charge to pressure him into spilling his secrets. Did we all get taken along for the ride? Maybe. Maybe not.

  God they make me sick.

  Weston was all too happy to wash his hands of the whole thing so when I offered it up to the Russians to pay for their help in setting up the Antimony Association house, he was ready.

  It was also a bribe to stay far, far away from my Katya.

  Katya’s other eyebrow goes up. “Well,” she says. “Imagine that. And nope, I have no idea what you’re talking about right now, Mr. Match.”

  “Me either,” I say, handing her a cup of coffee too. “But speaking of Mr. Match, another totally funny thing happened while you were sleeping.”

  She doesn’t bother cocking her eyebrow this time. “Really?” She laughs. “There’s more?”

  “Yeah, what do you think about me selling Hook-Me-Up?”

  “You’re selling Hook-Me-Up? I feel like Rip Van Winkle. How long was I asleep?”

  “Some Russian called up Ariel last night and offered her seventeen million dollars for it.”

  Katya literally spits out her coffee. “What the fuck did you say?”

  “Seventeen million is a lot of money, you know?” I wait, practically holding my breath. I wonder if she’ll ask, or demand to know my part in all this. Demand to know if anything between us was fake.

  But then her hand goes to her throat and her face relaxes. The tension and doubts fall away. “Wow,” she says. “You could do a lot with that kind of money. Leave town, if
you wanted.”

  “Hit the open road,” I say, trying not to get too excited. “On a bike, or in a car, or a fucking RV. I really don’t care, Katya Kalashova.” I walk over and take her hand. Hold it up to my lips and give it a kiss. “I give you my love more precious than money. Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?”

  She lets me fuck her six ways to Sunday after that little bit of romance.

  I mean every bit of it, even though everything is still confusing.

  I think they wanted us. Those Silver people. I think they wanted Mysterious to get even with Mariel. I think they wanted Perfect because he knew I was covering for Allen. I think they wanted Romantic because his mother dissed them and they already had Claudette. I think they got me by mistake, and they really wanted Allen. But maybe that’s just my inner snowflake talking? Maybe they wanted me because my sister, dead or alive, she got away too. Just like Mariel.

  The only one I can’t figure out is Corporate. And both his parents are dead now. His mother hanged herself in jail last night—so they say—and his father went up in flames out on that mountain with Katya’s sister.

  Maybe he was never anything but collateral to them. But I’m not gonna say that to his face. Regardless of what they did, they were his only family. Same goes for Kat. I know she will mourn Lily for years to come. That yesterday will forever be the day she lost everything… again.

  But I also know that today will forever be the day she got it all back.

  I’m gonna give her a home and make her a mother. I’m gonna grow old with that girl, and the tree in our house will get old with us.

  She got me, and my sisters, and my friends. I told Romantic earlier today that he should let his fucking managers deal with that resort. What kind of rich dude actually lives at his resort? Maybe before his dad died he needed to worry about money. But now? I’m betting he moves down near Perfect in the Denver Tech Center and Ivy and Ellie will be BFFs forever and ever.

  Cindy has pretty much decided to live in my dad’s condo. Mysterious doesn’t give a fuck where he puts his head at night, as long as my sister’s there next to him.