by Roxie Rivera
He pulled into a parking space along Ruiz Street and nonchalantly checked his surroundings before leaving the car. He entered the building through the employee door of Sunrise Sunset Delivery Service, the legitimate courier service that Sunny operated from the warehouse. He covered his finger with the sleeve of his jacket and punched in the code to unlock the rear door. Bypassing the break room and employee lockers, he unlocked another door that led to a cramped hallway with a dark stairwell at the end. He took the stairs two at a time to the upper floor.
When he entered the warehouse space on the top floor, he spotted Max scowling from her perch on one of the long stainless-steel worktables. Suddenly, he regretted coming here. Her dark hair fanned around her face like angry flames, her blue eyes and bright red lipstick giving her a fierceness he wasn’t at all prepared to face this morning. Her pale skin seemed even whiter against the black tight-fitting skirt and blouse and the dangerously red high heels she wore.
Shutting the door, he surveyed the rest of the room quickly and noticed Sunny eating a cup of yogurt while balanced cross-legged on a swiveling barstool. She’d staked out a seat that gave her a perfect view of the argument that was about to erupt. The wild pink tint to her short mohawk and the piercings in her face and ears glinted in the sunlight streaming in through the oversized windows behind her. Holding his gaze, she mouthed silently, “You’re fucked.”
Sighing, he leaned back against the door and crossed his arms. “Go ahead, Max.”
Her eyes blazed as she asked, “What the fuck were you thinking taking Lobo on your job last night? How fucking dare you put her at risk like that! She’s just a baby, K. She’s our baby,” she gestured toward Sunny, “and you almost got her killed! Did you see her face? Did you see what that asshole did to her? What the fuck do you have to say for yourself?”
A stab of guilt tore through his chest. She was right, of course. About all of it. Years earlier, he had entrusted Lobo’s care to Max’s mother, a dancer at one of the clubs he co-owned with Besian. A few faked papers, and the little girl was officially part of their small family. When Tracy died, Max had taken over as her guardian, working and going to college full-time and still finding the time to play mother.
“I didn’t expect her to get hurt. She was just supposed to babysit, Holly. That’s it.”
“Yeah, well, that didn’t work out so well, did it?” Jaw clenched with anger, she snarled, “She could have been killed, Kostya!”
“I know,” he said gravely.
“I know,” she mimicked. “Seriously? That’s all you have to say?”
“What the hell do you want me to say, Maxine? Huh?” he shouted as he shoved off the door. “What the fuck more do you want me to do?”
Max hopped off the table and stormed toward him, smacking him hard in the chest with both fists. The impact knocked him back a step. “I want you to stop using her like this. She’s a child, Kostya. She’s not a fucking assassin. She’s not FSB or GRU. She’s not a soldier or an operative. She’s just a kid.”
His chest was on fire, probably marked with an imprint of her knuckles. Staring down at her, he said, “Lobo made her choice. She wants to learn. She wants—”
“She doesn’t fucking know what she wants! She’s just a kid!”
“She’s old enough to make her own decisions, Max. You need to stop coddling her!”
“That’s my job! You made it my job when you gave her to my mom. She’s my baby sister, and I love her. I do not want her going down the same fucked up path that you’ve lived. She deserves better!”
Stung by her words, he was about to unleash a torrent of mean words that he would probably regret when the door behind them swung open and Fox burst inside the room. Panting from exertion, she apologized loudly, “Sorry! Sorry, I’m late.” Slamming the door and sagging against it, she asked, “So, did I miss all of the fireworks? Did you make him cry yet?”
“I don’t fucking cry,” Kostya growled.
“I would cry if Max yelled at me,” Fox replied. “She’s got that disappointed mom glare thing that makes me feel like I’m five again.”
“Fox, I’ve seen you cry at commercials,” Sunny interjected before licking her spoon clean.
Fox rolled her eyes. “One time! And I was flying on those edibles Nate gave me.”
“Can we get back to the issue at hand?” Max asked, her voice filled with irritation.
“You were just telling K what a monstrous fuck up he is,” Sunny reminded ever so helpfully.
“Thank you, Sunny,” he intoned drily. Not breaking his stare off with Max, he said, “I made a mistake bringing Lobo on the job. I own that fuck up.”
“And?” Max asked, her brow arched as she waited for him to say something more meaningful.
“And that’s it,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’m not going to stop training Lobo if she wants to learn.”
“You’re making a mistake.” Max held his gaze, her face hardened with that disappointed look that Fox had just described. She was right. He did feel like a five-year-old kid again. “I think that someday you’re going to regret all of this shit.” Exhaling sadly, she said, “I can’t stop her from doing work for you, not when you’ve got me and Sunny and Fox wrapped up in your web. But,” she poked him right in the chest, her sharp stiletto nail digging into him, “I don’t want her doing anything else on this case. She’s done with this shit. You can use Fox, Sunny, me or the new girl for this Holly mess, but you leave Lobo alone.”
“Fine,” he agreed sharply. “I’ll keep her out of the loop on this.”
Max didn’t miss the qualifier he had added to his agreement. As if sensing he might be wounded from her earlier verbal slash about his fucked-up life, she went right for the kill. “Can you please act like the father she seems to think you are?”
Sunny’s sharp intake of breath echoed in the room. Fox was still in his line of sight, and she tensed, her nervous gaze darting between him and Max. He wanted to slash back at Max, to say something shitty about her own deadbeat father, but he didn’t. Deep down inside, down where it was painfully raw, he knew that she was right.
“I don’t know how to be a father, Max,” he admitted finally. “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing half the time. When it comes to you girls, I’m just stumbling along, hoping I do the right thing and if I don’t, that I don’t screw you up for life. And…,” he exhaled loudly, “and when it comes to Lobo, I’m trying to give her the skills she’s going to need someday.” He hesitated before confessing, “There are things about Lobo that none of you know. About her parents,” he clarified. “Someday, that’s all going to catch up to her, and she needs to know how to protect herself.”
“Well, she’s not going to need to know how to protect herself as an adult if you get her killed when she’s just a kid,” Max retorted angrily.
Certain this fight would go on for hours if he didn’t surrender, he said, “You’re right, Max.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re just saying that so I’ll leave.”
“Is it working?”
She checked her watch and grimaced. “Only because I have to get to a class that I’m covering for Vuong.”
“Take this,” he said, stopping her as he reached into his jacket and withdrew the labeled DNA kits he’d collected. “I need them done as soon as possible.”
Frowning, Max took them. “I’m super busy this week with lecturing and lab work and my research. I don’t have time to rush this for you.”
“You’ll find time if you want your expenses covered,” he warned. “That’s our quid pro quo.”
She rolled her eyes. “A better quid pro quo would be you getting me a meeting with some of those wealthy Russians you have in your pockets.”
“You don’t want money from any of those men.” He had told her this a thousand times, but it didn’t stop her from asking. “There are better ways—safer ways—to get the funds you need to get your work noticed.”
“Yeah, well, I’m running o
ut of time to get noticed and find that easy money.” Heading for the door, she paused and glanced back at Sunny. “Don’t forget to pick up groceries. It’s your turn this week.”
“Yes, Mommy,” Sunny answered with a roll of her eyes.
Ignoring Sunny, Max turned to Fox. “Did you schedule your visit with your asthma doc yet?”
Fox made a face. “I forgot.”
“You’re almost out of your nebulizer meds and your inhaler is on its last refill. Ragweed is supposed to be a bitch this weekend, and you know how bad you get when it’s high. I’m not waking up at four in the morning to drive you to the ER for a breathing treatment because you forgot to make a phone call.”
“I’m calling now,” Fox said, waving her phone to prove it.
Her mothering done, Max left, and Fox walked off to a corner of the room to call her doctor’s office.
After the door closed, Sunny eyed him carefully. “You know she’s not going to stop asking for an intro to those loaded Russians, right?”
“I know.” He strode toward the whiteboards covered in Sunny’s scribbling and hastily slapped up photos. She had been working some leads for him, tracking down various members of the cartel and the Albanian syndicate he wanted to keep tabs on at all times. Glancing at the box on the worktable nearest him, he asked, “What’s this?”
“A gift,” she said, finishing off her snack and shooting the empty cup into the trashcan with ease.
He opened the flaps on the dented box and stared at the surprise inside. “Where the hell did you get these?”
“Sorry,” she said, rising to her feet and walking to the table. “The first thing you ever taught me about informants and contacts is to never share them with anyone, not even you.”
He carefully reached inside and sifted through the sealed evidence bags. They held spent rounds and shell casings, discarded weapons and blood-stained clothing. “What made you think I’d want any of this evidence from last night?”
“Call it a hunch. I figured we might need to apply some pressure in the future, maybe blackmail some of the shooters last night.”
“It was a good hunch.” He smiled at her. “You’re always two steps ahead of me.”
Ego stroked, she grinned right back at him. “Since the day we met.”
The memories of that night were still crystal clear. He had been outside Racks, one of the strip clubs he owned with Besian, smoking a cigarette in the shadows, when he’d spotted her slipping along the perimeter of the parking lot, moving like a jungle cat stalking prey. At first, he’d figured her for a thief about to roll a drunk for his wallet and watch, but then he had zeroed in on the asp baton in her hand. With one quick flick of her wrist, she had a fully expanded weapon capable of causing serious damage.
He probably should have stopped her as she crept up on the customer who had just left the club and was standing next to his car. At the time, he hadn’t known if her mark was innocent or guilty. But he’d remained rooted to the spot and had watched from the shadows as she had applied a beating unlike any he had ever witnessed. It had been quick and fierce, her blows perfectly placed to cause serious damage, and surprisingly quiet.
Only when she was done, when she stood over the bleeding, dying man, did Kostya realize she was so shocked by the violence she had committed that she couldn’t move. He had acted on impulse then, rushing out to grab her and the weapon and dragging her to his vehicle. It hadn’t taken him long to get the full story from her.
After her young niece had been sexually assaulted and left for dead by a pedophile neighbor, Sunny had traced the bastard from New Orleans to Biloxi, Biloxi to Mobile, Mobile to Memphis, Memphis to Tulsa, Tulsa to Dallas and finally Dallas all the way to Houston. She’d caught up with him in the parking lot of Racks. At the time, Kostya had marveled at the way she had so easily tracked the man across seven states when the police hadn’t been able to locate or arrest him.
He’d seen something in her. A gift for skip tracing. Something useful that he could nurture and use. So, he’d offered her a choice: stay in Houston and learn a new skill or take an envelope of cash and disappear. Four years later, she was still here, learning and practicing and quietly working in the city’s shadows.
As for the man she had beaten? Before he could regain consciousness in the hospital, Kostya had taken care of the problem on the man’s first night in the ICU. He and Sunny never spoke about what he’d done, but the truth had been acknowledged with a single look when the news of that pig’s death had hit the papers. If anything, he had forever secured her loyalty with that one act of protection—and vengeance.
“I’ve got to jet,” Sunny said, grabbing up her backpack and a package. “I promised to get this delivered for Zec before lunch.”
Kostya decided the less he knew about the package’s contents the better. The Albanian had a soft spot for Sunny and often sent business her way. She had proven herself trustworthy enough that even the Professionals used her as their main courier. He worried about her getting into trouble acting as the middle man for those types of illicit transactions, but at some point, he had to let his little spiders leave his web and spin their own.
“Can you get a message to the Liquidator?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said, sliding her arms through the straps of her backpack. “What message?”
“Nikolai wants a meeting. Not for a contract, but to get some information about Lana.”
She made a little face. “I’ll pass along the message, but I wouldn’t get his hopes up. You know what they’re like. I’ve run courier jobs for them for years, and I’ve never once seen their faces.”
“Ask. If he declines, Nikolai will have to deal.”
When Sunny was gone, he closed the box of stolen evidence and reached for a roll of packing tape from a shelf underneath the table. As he ripped off a long strip of tape, Fox finished her phone call and slipped her phone into her pocket. Joining him at the table, she said, “You know I have.”
“You have what?”
“Seen their faces. The Professionals,” she clarified. “Well, one of them.”
He couldn’t believe the way she said it so nonchalantly, mentioning it as if she’d seen the most ordinary thing in the world. “How? When?”
“A few months ago.” She walked over to the whiteboard and studied it. “I was meeting Nate for a drink. You know, just sitting at the bar, waiting. I heard this voice.” She glanced at him. “It was like an electric shock right up my spine. I’ve heard that voice only once before, on a phone call when you needed me to farm out some work. I knew who it was immediately. It was him. The Cleaner.”
He didn’t doubt what she had seen or heard. Fox had always had a strange knack for remembering things—faces, voices, obscenely long strings of numbers and data. “Did you make eye contact with him?”
“Do I look fucking stupid?”
“He didn’t see you at all?”
She shook her head. “I took a selfie and managed to get enough of him in it to piece together an image later.”
“And?”
“I have it somewhere safe. Encrypted. Do you want it?”
“Yes. Did you tell Nate? Or anyone else about it?”
“No. You’re the only one who knows.”
“Keep it that way,” he warned. “Those guys have stayed anonymous for a reason.”
“I know.” She reached for the dry erase board and gave it a little push, flipping the board upside down to reveal the back. There were diagrams and family trees mapping out the various syndicates in town and how they were all connected to each other. “Sunny had Lobo work on this last night. She was trying to calm her down, I think. Get her out of that fucked up head space she was in after…well…you know.”
“I know,” he murmured guiltily. “Where is she today?”
“She was playing video games in my room when I left the house. I promised I’d bring her some tacos when I get back.”
“How is she handling it all?”
&
nbsp; Fox looked at him as if he might be the stupidest man she’d ever seen. “She’s fucked up, K. Honestly, you’re lucky Max didn’t kill you this morning. For your own safety, I wouldn’t eat or drink anything she gives you for at least the next twelve months. She’s probably cooking up an undetectable poison in her lab right now.”
Not wanting to get into that argument again, he nodded. “I’ll take that under advisement.”
“You need to talk to her. Lobo,” she clarified. “Sunny talked to her last night. You know, about how it feels to kill someone and what it’s like after it happens. I think it helped a little, but you should sit down with her. Talk it through. Be the good dad Lobo needs.”
“I will.” He hesitated before asking, “What about you? Did you tell her about your experience?”
Fox’s shoulders stiffened. Voice tight and clipped, she said, “No.”
He didn’t push. It had been seven years since the night she stabbed Cory to death. Seven years since she called him for help, answering her door covered in blood, her body bruised from Cory’s fist and teeth. Seven years since she had discovered her longtime boyfriend was a serial rapist who had been terrorizing Houston for more than a year…
Fox turned away and headed for the backpack she’d hastily dropped near the door earlier. Hefting it up, she brought it over the worktable and opened it. She pulled out the thick dossier given to Vivian by her cousin, Eric Santos. Eric, a Houston detective, had received the file from an unknown Russian female not long after Vivian had been shot.
“I went through this like you asked. Scanned everything so I can start breaking it down for you.”
“Be careful with it.” The file was filled with detailed information about Nikolai, Ivan, Artyom and a few other captains in the family. They’d immigrated with scrubbed backgrounds and clean records, but that dossier included all the secrets they had tried to leave behind.
“I’m always careful with these types of things.” She turned around and faced the white board. Picking up a green dry erase marker, she uncapped it and drew a rectangle. Inside, she scribbled krisha.