by M. R. Noble
“I have an idea of who our ride will be.”
The cab stopped in front of us. I yanked open the door and sat down in the backseat. “Hi-ya, Nick.”
He let out a gruff snort. “Where to, kid?” He had spoken to me, but his gaze was stuck on the mirror, watching Roman get in the backseat.
Ottawa’s lights ahead looked the spitting image of the night I left. Memorizing every twinkle seemed a necessary, but impossible task, since at the time I thought I would never see my home city again. I was wrong, and my memory was closer than I thought.
“This address.” I took a page out of my package from the Grand Hotel and handed it to Nick. “And Roman will be heading to his place about an hour and a bit north of the city.”
“You’re not coming home?”
“It’s gone, Ro, burnt down.”
“You know what I mean. My parents will be worried sick. I thought you would at least be staying with us. Maybe see some of our friends?”
I hugged my package against my chest. Not bearing to go through it at the time, I still had to read the thick stack of papers and prepare for my new occupation. My first mission could be tomorrow for all I knew. Miruna depended on me, and she didn’t even know it. Moreover, there wasn’t much for me in my hometown anymore. Mama was gone, the home we built was gone, and I wasn’t ready to face it yet.
“Most of our friends are in Ottawa for school. I have to read the syllabus for my courses and enroll in a few more. Plus, I need to see where I’m going to live now.”
I didn’t blame him for wanting me to come home and be with his family. I would too, if I were in his position. I leaned my head against his shoulder. It was my way of telling him there was more to the way I felt, but I wouldn’t be sharing it. My old life was gone. Every breath I took from the moment I gave up the book was under the heavy weight of extortion. I just hadn’t known it until now.
Until I found a way to escape this, I had to live with my secret. The more people who got involved in this conflict, the greater the risk of them getting hurt. Loukin had a talent for winning wars with words and a pen, and I was living proof.
“Yeah, I guess the commute would be too long.” He looked at me, and his face reflected the sadness I felt. “I miss your mom too.”
He credited my sorrow to Mama’s death.
I almost broke the bargain I just struck with myself and told him, but I noted this was just temporary. He could know the truth after I made advances with my position under Loukin’s governance. I produced a phone shaped like a silver brick from the package and handed it over. “Here, key in your number. I’ll call when I get things sorted out.”
He took it from me and flipped it open to punch in his number, not commenting on how outdated my new phone was. A true saint. He kissed me on the top of my head when he handed it back to me.
It felt good to have a phone and an address again, like I had rejoined society. The cabbie stopped at a condo building in downtown Ottawa on Sussex Street. The modern glass building shined like a totem against the classic architecture of old Ottawa. The green copper peaks of the government buildings stood tall on their acreage beside my new home. Convenient. Everything must have been planned long before I was blackmailed.
“Here you are, kid,” Nick said and handed me back the sheet.
We wheeled up to the curb with a bump, the car stopped outside the building. A few droplets of rain hit the windshield. I turned to say goodbye to Roman, but my gaze soaked up his face instead. “See you around.”
He leaned toward me, but I took the door handle first. As I climbed out, the rain poured down, soaking my sorry ass before I made it under the covered entrance. Fitting. One last kick to the gut from Mother Nature.
I handed the piece of paper to the woman behind the marble counter.
“Ownership documentation, please.” She spoke between the smacks of her chewing gum.
I opened the package and skimmed the next document in line. It was indeed an ownership. Curious. Renting would give Loukin more control over me. Whether one was a prostitute assigned to Johns or an agent owned by the underground, the business was always about control. My soaked fingers made little water marks as I handed it to her.
She skimmed it and gave it back to me without looking up. “What are you, seventeen? Must be nice.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a real sugar daddy.”
She handed me a set of keys from the drawer. My pack weighed on my soggy, aching shoulders as I stepped inside the elevator. My fingers trailed over the keyring marked PH3. I tapped the PH2/PH3 button and realized there was half a floor dedicated to my new condo.
I told myself not to get too excited. I was still in a cage, no matter how much Loukin dressed it up. But when I opened the door, the allure of my new home was almost bewitching.
The place was huge, covered with glossy red mahogany. The floors reflected the chrome lighting which sparkled throughout, giving it the feeling that the floors themselves glowed. Floor to ceiling windows showcased the view of the heart of Ottawa, right beside Parliament. The panorama continued out sliding glass doors which led to a big wraparound balcony.
The door swung closed behind me as I dropped my bag. A kitchen with white marble counters and matching wood cupboards revealed itself, while a chrome stairway twirled upstairs. I kicked off my boots mid-step not wanting to dirty the floors any more than I already had. I passed the first bedroom and ascended the staircase.
A modern study led into the master bedroom and ensuite, but the balcony opposite the bed caught my attention. I walked out into the brisk air and faced the Gothic rooftops of parliament. If I called up my vampiric hearing, I’d hear every word spoken in parliament near an unlatched window. This is what it had been about all along. The moment the thought entered my head, the night air carried whispers from a few floors down.
I turned inside and saw a white envelope on the dresser. Written across the envelope was Karolina. The handwriting was very sharp, impatient for the gothic style. An unusual style of handwriting, which I saw scattered across Loukin’s desk in Kislovodsk. I opened it.
Dear Karolina,
I hope you are enjoying your new place. I wanted it to be as comfortable as possible.
Please review your package and be ready to receive word on your first mission. Things will start slowly to give you time to catch up to the others. I do wish we could have left things on a better note. Lexi and Leonid give their hellos.
Warm regards,
Uncle Loukin.
I crumpled the note. This was not a happy ending. Scribbling a few warm words and dangling an idea of family wasn’t going to soften the blow. This was what giving me property had been about—to give me a semblance of independence. Loukin made the decision to blackmail me, and he would face the consequences. He started a war for my freedom, and I was determined to win it back.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dark Eyes
I tore through the whole apartment over the next few hours: every cranny, every light, and under every surface. I even had half a mind to rip open the pillowcases. I found a few spy cams, but they had been set up on the balconies and the perimeter of the front door, allowing me some privacy.
Next were the black boxes called frequency busters. They had been placed on the ceiling of the condo, scattered inside the lights. I hadn’t read the package by then and smashed them the moment I found them. Unfortunately, as I read, they were there for my benefit.
The busters scrambled any type of mass surveillance frequencies—IMSI devices—that were sent in my condo’s direction. Which meant any text, phone calls, or any electronic forms of communication were blocked from getting picked up. The busters effectively made my condo a protection zone for data. Only one had survived mass extinction at the hands of Karolina.
I carefully placed it back into the center of my living room, hoping the one remaining box would protect me. I would have to use the landline now or stand directly under the buster.
The next
piece of equipment my package explained was the eighties style answering machine which looked like it’d sputter and die at any moment. It had a buster built into it and it functioned on an encrypted hardline which ran signals directly to and from Russia. The purpose of the encrypted line was to redirect the primary source to a mundane location. In my case, it was programmed for tracing to Carleton University.
My answering machine could be accessed through direct contact only, which meant I had to meet ‘code check in’ prior to accessing any messages, and I had to damn well ensure the environment was secure. This was the main source of communication for my assignments. When the light on the bottom blinked red, it was the ominous sign my slaveholders had given me an order. For the moment the light was just unlit clear glass, but every few seconds I’d eye it like it would detonate.
The rest of the package explained my new resources. My new cell phone also had a buster in it, which is why it was an incredibly old model. There was a firearm located under the desk in the study and under the sink in the kitchen. I couldn’t help but scoff. If Loukin’s staff didn’t catch the firearm pun, he was employing idiots. As I finished reading about tools, I neared the end of the package. At the bottom of each page there was fine print which read, Burn after reading. It felt good to defy the little voice that belonged to the paper. I flipped to the next page.
My father’s inheritance was held in trust, true to what Loukin had indicated. I now had full access through a debit card and account opened in my name. The card was placed in a pocket inside the package with my birth certificate and passport. A balance sheet was printed, and the eight-figured number written across the page stood out like a broadcast message. I slowly slid off the couch and plunked to the floor.
Sixteen million. It had been dumped into my account in less than forty-eight hours.
Everything I had now manifested out of thin air—and could disappear just as quickly. All of this had been given to me in the blink of an eye, and though many would be overjoyed, I couldn’t shake off the hands of fear that had seized me. They could reduce me back to nothing as fast as it appeared. Maybe they could make me disappear entirely, with a vampire like Andre. What had Ina called them? The Ispolniteli. The ones who hunt their own.
Andre had said it the day I met Loukin. When you made me hunt my own. The other vampire agents hated him for it. It was clear through the bond and the look on his face he hated it. It made it easier to forgive him, the first time. Now, his role had changed. He may no longer be an Ispolniteli. If it were the case, surely another would take his place.
I wondered how much I could fall out of line before I truly exhausted Loukin’s patience. But he’d strong-armed me for a reason. Loukin had spies already. He needed me especially for a certain task. I had to find out what it was long before his plans materialized. For my strategy to be feasible, I would have to get out of his control before he realized I knew and secure Miruna’s safety. To succeed, I would need money and a way out. Surely, they’d be watching the massive account they’d given me. The account could be a test, to see if I’d run. I could stash away small amounts of money at a time, in an account they couldn’t trace or touch. But I’d have to find out if both even existed first.
Another item on my list of tasks.
I found myself pacing. I walked over to a metal waste pail in the corner, seized the pail, and tossed it down beside the coffee table. For a moment, my mind drew a blank. It was overloaded. I shuffled the papers into the bin and walked to the refrigerator. The door was one of the fancy ones which lit up when you touched it. Inside there were two lonely bottles sitting on the shelves. The minions who set up my condo had the graceful courtesy of leaving a few beers behind.
I popped the cap off and took a swig. The bubbly liquid rolled over my tongue, and the familiarity of one thing from my past felt good. Beer was still beer, the sun would still rise and set, and I was still here.
I walked to the papers in the garbage and held out my hand. I released my control and flames jetted from my skin onto the papers. It didn’t fume up to the ceiling like it had when I lit a fire with Mama. Gerel had taught me well, and his lessons along with the warning about my necklace wouldn’t be forgotten.
The amber flames traveled in a line across the paper. I rested the bottle against my lips. The dance of flames huffing to life reminded me of the ninjas from the movies I watched as a kid, almost like two lovers entwined in a battle neither would win, until the flames reduced the pile to ash.
A knock on the door made my body jerk and I spilled my beer on the couch. I roused my vampiric agility to walk silently to the door and looked through the peephole.
It was Roman.
I threw the door open. “Ro? What are you doing here?” It was a quarter past five, a little over two hours since I was dropped off. He must have left home the moment he got in and checked on his parents.
He stepped through the threshold and blustered past me, and it reminded me for anyone but Roman and Ina, I would want a ward in place. I followed him as he traipsed into the kitchen and the door clicked closed behind us. He opened the fridge and helped himself to the remaining beer. His hands shook as he popped it open, and the cap rattled to the counter. Only after he drank half his beer, did he turn to face me.
“Bit early for a bonfire isn’t it? At least when we had them, they had been outside.”
My gaze darted to the can and smoke which had billowed up against the ceiling.
“Shit.”
I ran to the glass sliding door, picking up the can along the way and chucked it onto the balcony. The smoke sucked out the doorway, as the smoke alarm silently blinked. Maybe the alarm was a pretense? Loukin’s lackeys must have known I was a fire user. If they didn’t, they weren’t worth the money.
Roman downed the rest of his drink.
I slipped in front of him and leaned against the kitchen island. “What’s up, Ro?”
He looked down at me, eyes warm and bright enough to glow. The wolf beneath the surface stirred underneath his golden baby browns.
“I need to know something,” he said.
“Wha—”
“Do you trust me?”
“Sure, Ro.”
“What were you burning?”
Even the smile on my face felt wrong. I must learn how to lie but lying to Roman seemed like skipping university and training, and joining the Special Investigations Unit. I needed more time, just a couple more weeks of my old life with him. I felt so brittle I could break, and when I looked up into his eyes, so fierce with the heat of deception, my façade was breaking.
“There are things about my…new life that I can’t tell you yet.”
“Oh?” he mocked. “But you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?” He leaned in. “But you can’t tell me. You have me key in my number. Tell me you’ll call me later. So, what? I’m dismissed. What am I? Your pet? You want me to go away until you need me again?”
“No.” My hands shot to his chest. I wanted to tell him I’d never do that, that I respected him too much, that it wasn’t true. But again, he was right. It was exactly how I treated him.
His expression changed like he’d read my mind. For a second, fire flared inside of him, not like mine, but the fire of a man about to lose control.
“Don’t lie to me, Karo!”
His muscles rippled under my hands and I should have feared him, but the memory of how this situation began made me fight back.
“Is not telling you everything lying, Ro?”
“Yes!”
“Then now you know how it feels. You know how it feels when there is no one on your side but you. When you are the last person to know because no one trusts you. When you can’t be trusted to even know how to control your own power! When you hurt people because of the ignorance you’re trying to be rid of!” Tears I didn’t want to acknowledge started to flow. “I have to learn to trust myself. I have to be better, smarter. I have to deal with the situation I’v
e created. I’m doing this on my own. Because I know I can, and because I have to.”
His arms moved with the primal grace of his predatory form, but the human side of Roman trembled. The usual warmth of his hands wasn’t there. They chilled my skin as they slipped to my waist, and I realized he was scared.
“I can help. You don’t have to do it alone,” he said.
I wanted to hold him and tell him the thought of never seeing him again in Russia had torn me apart. I wanted to tell him I was trying to fix my circumstance, but I needed him to hang on.
“But I do,” I said. “The more people involved, the worse it’s going to be. For me and for you. You have to trust me, Roman. I can fix this without hurting anyone.” Part of being a woman made me want to protect the people I loved, but what I said was a veil over a much deeper truth. I wanted to do it on my own.
Roman saw it too and dove for the jugular.
“What? You think I don’t realize Daddy’s inheritance had a price tag? You think I don’t know what Loukin’s operation is? Or how vamps run their matters in the underground? You think I’m just some wolf pup who has no weight in my own community?” His smooth skin rippled again, threatening to release the wolf. “To even think that is an insult to the name Lupei—”
“I’m not involving you!” My hands smacked against his chest. “I have a choice! I get to decide! I’m not some China doll. I have sovereignty! I’m a Dalca, an Albesuc, and Nabokov—and I have a right to choose how I handle my business.”
“But you involved him.”
I deflated. There it was. The real reason why he’d shown up. The reason he was so angry. The reason he trembled before me. Like he’d exposed a raw wound, he turned his face from mine, and collapsed into me resting his forehead against my cheek.
“Do you want me?” he whispered.
It was a simple but loaded question. The answer, like it could remove all anguish from the past few weeks, stood out in my head. Yes.
“I followed you, I protected you, and everything I have done was for you. Do you want me? Or him?”