Consequence

by Rachel Higginson

  The long game. I’d been working long cons since before I knew what they were. Laying the foundation, assembling my team, luring the mark, reaping the payday. It was all I knew how to do.

  To Gus’s point, I didn’t think of Caro and our relationship as a con. It was real to me. As real as anything could be.

  However, I couldn’t deny that I’d approached attaining her in the same way. And it had worked. That was all that mattered.

  The walk back to the club felt faster, but moving toward something familiar always felt quicker than walking toward an unknown. And even though we’d been meeting for five years, Luca and Conlan were still very much unknowns.

  The club was even busier than when I left, packed with people wall to wall. They were all mostly people I knew from the brotherhood, but the occasional unsalted tourist had found their way inside too. Some of them because they were in search of girls, drugs or danger. And some because they truly had no fucking clue.

  That was how the world worked. You were either searching out something dangerous and illegal or you were inhabiting the same space as something dangerous and illegal, you were likely too dumb or too willfully ignorant to notice.

  Organized crime happened all across the country. We moved girls, guns, and drugs in broad daylight because the population as a whole was too stupid to know what to look for. Or they saw something suspicious and turned the other cheek, reasoning away the instinct to tell someone.

  “Where have you been?” Atticus stood in the dark hallway at the back of the building, the door I had first knocked on to join the bratva. Bear, the usual bouncer, was nowhere to be seen.

  “What does it matter to you?” I tried to push past him, but he moved to stand in my way. I let out a sigh and gave him my full attention. Maybe if I gave him what he wanted, he’d leave me alone.

  “I’m just trying to figure out where you went, kid. Breath of fresh air? Out for a walk? Down a dark, secretive alley?”

  Shit, had he followed me? Maybe. But he didn’t know anything. If he did I’d already be dead. “Yeah, all of those things. Again, what does it matter to you?”

  Anger flashed in his eyes. He was annoyed I was honest with him. He wanted my lies so he could run back to the bosses with my disloyalty. He switched tactics, his eyes narrowing noticeably and his shoulders lowering and smoothing out to indicate that he wasn’t as mad now.

  The thing about Atticus was that he lacked finesse. He didn’t have the grace it took to pull off real cons. Exactly why he played the muscle. He didn’t break into buildings and meticulously extract what we needed. He rode along on jobs in case we ran into the inevitable hiccup.

  And he knew it.

  For the most part I thought he was okay with his lot in life, the role he played. But ever since we were kids, he’d been carrying around the suspicion that he was the dumb meathead we kept around in case of a fight.

  Five years ago, I’d used him to move Caro’s bratva destiny along and I knew he suspected me of that night. He didn’t get that it wasn’t about him. That night had been all about her. Sure, he was a casualty, but like I said earlier, the long game was all I knew.

  I was a con. From start to finish, I only knew how to lie, steal, and manipulate.

  “Caro’s looking fine tonight.” He licked his lips, letting his slow grin imply reasons he wanted me to punch him in the face. “Do you think she’s still a virgin? I heard a rumor once she had sex with a security guard to keep from getting arrested. She’s wound tight though. It’s hard for me to imagine her stripping down in the middle of a bank.” He let out a dark chuckle. “I shouldn’t say it’s hard for me to imagine…”

  I struggled to grab hold of my fury. “Shut up if you know what’s good for you.”

  He was too stupid to listen. “I should probably test her out for myself. You know, see if the rumors are true.”

  He was backed against the wall with my forearm pressed against his throat in the next second. His smile didn’t disappear, and it was enough for me to push harder against his trachea. “Keep talking, asshole. Give me a reason to fuck you up.”

  His voice was distorted because of the pressure of my arm, but he managed to get clear words out. “Did I hit a nerve?”

  “She’s with me,” I growled, struggling to maintain my logic and reason. “She’s mine. If I ever catch you looking at her like that again I will end you.”

  “Fuck you, Wesley.”

  “Hey, what’s going on back there?” Bear called from the bar.

  I needed to walk away before I did something I regretted, but the temptation to beat the ever-living shit out of Atticus was almost too much to resist. “Stay away from her, Atticus, and I might just let you live.” I backed up a step and pulled my arm away from his reddened neck. “If I’m feeling generous.”

  He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and slumped over. “I’m going to find out why you’re always sneaking off. And I’m going to go to the pakhan with it so they can tie you up by the balls and cut out your tongue.” His pointer finger swung to the main room where Caro was still hanging out. “And then I’m going to take your little piece and introduce her to a real man.”

  I’d seen what Atticus did to the girls he dated. I’d gone to the pakhan about it, but they were spineless when it came to him. Or ignorant. They saw him as the loyal, clever, unapologetic sociopath that might occasionally go too far, but would always do what was best for the bratva.

  But he was so much worse than that. He wasn’t a sociopath, he was a psychopath.

  “You okay?” Bear asked when I passed him in the hallway.

  “Fucking fine.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “If you let him get to you, he’s won.”

  Sound advice from the guy that introduced me to the pakhan once upon a time. “You’re right.”

  “He’s just running his mouth. Every brother knows she’s untouchable.”

  “We’ve only been together for a few weeks—”

  Bear chuckled. “Not because she’s with you, dummy. Because of the bosses. Atticus doesn’t give two shits what you think, but he’ll stop because he’s been ordered to stop. Get it?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I grumbled, my mood sinking to darker depths. “I get it.”

  “Good. Now go to your girl and thank the fucking gods of providence that they let you go anywhere near her.”

  They didn’t have a choice. I was there the day they planned to bring her into the brotherhood. I was the reason they had access to her at all. And although we’d rarely spoken about it since then, I understood that I’d earned the right to date her.

  A right I did not take for granted, but also a right I’d never give up.

  I pushed past Bear and walked toward the bar. Caro was still with Frankie in their corner. Gus had joined them and they were laughing now. Unable to resist her gravitational pull, I made my way over to them. Her head lifted at my nearness and our gazes collided, crashing into each other.

  She was so beautiful, so completely stunning. Her short hair framed her face and her big brown eyes seemed to drink in the sight of me.

  Atticus couldn’t touch her. The bratva couldn’t fucking have her. She was mine.

  Without speaking a word, I pulled her to her feet, took her seat and then tugged her back onto my lap. Much better. She soothed some feral part of me that no one else could. She tamed the beast inside me, lulled the dragon to sleep.

  “Where have you been?” she asked, her voice just loud enough so I alone could hear her.

  “I had dumb shit to handle.”

  Her thumb brushed over my bottom lip and I knew she was asking for a kiss. But before she claimed one, she said, “We should find a different occupation then. That way you don’t have to keep dealing with dumb shit.”

  Her lips pressed against mine, shy, tentative, so slow I couldn’t help but respond immediately. My arms wrapped around her waist and I pulled her into me, greedily accepting all the kisses she wanted to giv
e me.

  The whole time I kept thinking that she was wrong, that I would always have to deal with dumb shit. Because as much as I liked to call her mine, they weren’t going to let her go. They weren’t going to give her up and let her have her independent life. She belonged just as much to them as she did to me.

  And if I wanted to keep her, if I wanted us to be forever, then we would both have to be bratva forever. There was no escaping this life, even if I planned to take over one day. There was no leaving DC behind. Not if we wanted to survive.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Caroline

  Present Day

  Seven hours later, I’d left Juliet with Frankie again. I’d put her to bed like everything was normal and hoped the East Coast time zone didn’t mess with her too much. Although she didn’t fight more than usual so I knew she was still exhausted from her twenty-four hours of terror.

  Francesca had been happy to stay with her, but I could feel her mounting anxiety. Her uncles hadn’t summoned her to see them yet. In fact, nobody from the brotherhood had reached out to her. That would have been good news if she wasn’t the heiress to the Volkov legacy.

  I suggested she go to them first, a sign of goodwill. But we didn’t know how to see them if they didn’t initiate the meeting, since Central Detention didn’t normally allow visitors. Instead, we’d left Cage with Francesca and Juliet, advising him to shoot anyone that wasn’t us on sight.

  Hopefully, both Mason and Atticus showed up for a surprise visit.

  Sayer had been quiet about tonight’s plans. He’d said it had something to do with our goal to overthrow the Volkov, but as far as what we were doing and where we were going, it was anyone’s guess.

  I’d dressed in faux leather leggings, a scoop neck black tunic that showed off my tattoo, a sheer black cardi and my motorcycle boots. Sexy? Hell yes, but also very practical should we need to break into anywhere or rob a bank or go to a funeral on the fly.

  I looked like the boho version of Cat Woman if she lost the tail and the ears.

  And worked for the Russian mob.

  At street level, I counted at least four surveillance cars. Two of them were clearly FBI. The other two were probably Russian? Maybe somebody else. It was impossible to tell after being out of the city for so long.

  I looked up, to Sayer’s floor. Were they safe enough up there? It wasn’t exactly a secret where we were staying, so I wasn’t surprised to find that we were being watched. That didn’t make me feel less uncomfortable leaving Juliet behind.

  “Just a sec,” I told Sayer and Gus. I walked across the street toward a nondescript white, windowless van. The tire covers were rusting, and the front bumper seemed to be barely hanging on.

  Knocking on the back door, I suppressed a smile at the frantic movement inside the van. “I only want to talk,” I called out when nobody seemed willing to expose their presence.

  Finally, the back door swung open, revealing Mason and two other agents squished together in the middle of surveillance equipment. They blinked at me.

  I smiled brightly and waved. “Hi there.”

  “Caro?” Mason asked with his eyebrows scrunched together over his hawkish nose.

  “How many different factions are watching the apartment?”

  “I, we weren’t…”

  Rolling my eyes, I tossed out a gritty, “Oh, you just happened to be in the neighborhood? Spare me.”

  “Seven that we’ve counted,” he admitted. “We have two vans. Local PD is here. Russians have two cars. Ukranians are here. And we think the Lambo belongs to the Cubans.”

  Holy shit.

  I took a step closer to Mason. “I need to step out for a minute. I have a dentist appointment.” Mason didn’t even flinch at my obvious lie. Dropping my voice to a whisper, I said, “I’m leaving Juliet with Frankie. Will you keep an eye on both of them?”

  “Are we exchanging favors?” Mason asked, opportunity flashing in his eyes.

  “Are you willing to let a little girl get kidnapped right under your nose?”

  His expression hardened. “This is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.”

  He was only saying things I already knew. “I’ll let you interrogate me tomorrow.” He perked up at my bargain. “I’ll even come down to the office for you. You can lock me up for hours. Days even. Whatever it takes for you to get your answers.”

  “Maybe I’ll just arrest you now.”

  I couldn’t resist a small, insignificant, teeny, tiny smug smile. “You don’t have any cause.”

  “I have years of cause,” he countered.

  Stepping closer, I dropped a hand on my hip. “Bought and paid for, remember?”

  His angry expression turned into a fuming glower and I was surprised when steam didn’t start gushing from his ears. “How about because you’re starting to piss me off?”

  “I promise to make it worth your while,” I said, sweetening the pot. “I’ll even bring Augustus with me.” And Juliet. Because that was one place I did trust to keep her safe while I was preoccupied. I pointed at the building behind him. “Make sure nobody makes a move on my girl. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  He quickly added his demand. “First tell me where you’re going.”

  Feeling the most optimistic I had in weeks, I winked at him just to drive him crazy. “To finish what you started.”

  He hesitated, trying to make sense of my statement. “You better be there by noon tomorrow,” he ordered, his voice deep but also a little manic. He was stressed.

  I saluted him, but it turned into a one-finger point. “Do your job, agent. Keep them safe.”

  Letting out a harassed sigh, he dipped his head. “You don’t have to worry about a thing. We make excellent babysitters.”

  He was wrong. I had to worry about everything, but I appreciated his presence right now. “That’s why I asked.”

  “I’m still sending a car to follow you.”

  Turning around, I couldn’t help but get the last word in. “I hope they can keep up.”

  When I rejoined Sayer and Gus they were both wearing identical masks of confusion. “What?” I asked innocently.

  “It’s like you never disappeared,” Gus finally said. “It’s like you just picked up right where you left off.”

  His comment made me frown and I realized I had been smiling until then. I hated this life, didn’t I? I’d run away as fast as I could as soon as I’d been given the opportunity, right? So why did being back here feel like home again? Why did jumping back in the game feel so damn good?

  I should loathe every second of this. I should definitely turn myself over to WITSEC tomorrow when I went to visit Mason.

  And yet… I couldn’t do either. This con was too important. This game wouldn’t end until I finished it. Not somebody else, not Roman and the remaining bratva, not Mason and his long list of arrests, not even Sayer with his secret deals and secret conversations and secret thoughts. It was only me. And I planned to make every last one of them suffer.

  “It’s all part of the plan,” I lied. I was lying about lying, the layers of my manipulation made my head spin.

  Sayer’s intense gaze seemed to see straight through me. “Like riding a bike, yeah?”

  I looked away. “Something like that.”

  “We’ll take the subway,” Sayer instructed, leading us the right direction. “Traffic is a bitch tonight.”

  Taking the subway would also make it easier to see who was following us, but he didn’t need to say that part out loud.

  I still didn’t know where we were going until we crawled out of the underground in a familiar, but foreign area of town.

  As a child, even as an adult, I had been forbidden to go to this side of downtown— NoMa. The Irish side of town.

  What had once been a rough Irish neighborhood had been rebranded and updated in the last ten years. There were rumors that the Irish were behind it. They’d made deals with the city council and pushed for a more civilian-friendly section of to
wn.

  And obviously the inflated construction bids weren’t bad either.

  Now this affluent area of town north of Massachusetts Avenue was bustling with life and shiny steel and four-leaf clovers.

  I wished I’d packed a side piece.

  “Why are we here, Sayer?”

  He shrugged, leading us deeper into the heart of Irish controlled DC. “We’re going to talk to an old friend of mine.”

  “An old Irish friend?” I asked carefully, sharing a confused look with Gus. He seemed to know less about this than even me.

  I felt like everyone was staring at us as we caught a cab in the business district. I knew it was in my head, that most of the people moving about this part of the city at this time of night were civilians and tourists, not Irish mafia.

  Telling myself to be calm, I crawled into the car that Sayer had flagged down and practiced breathing evenly. My nerves had almost settled when Sayer gave the address to our destination—an affluent Irish neighborhood I knew for a fact was the epicenter of their organization.

  “Sayer, where are we going?” My eyes were pleading as I practically begged him to tell me what was up.

  He simply inclined his head subtly to the driver. “Relax, Six. I have a friend on this side of town.”

  I didn’t believe him. True, I knew he wasn’t lying. He’d definitely acted more suspicious about other pieces of information lately, but this was too far.

  The Irish were going to shoot us in the face.

  Or put black bags over our heads, drag us to some dungeon of a basement and try to blackmail the bratva for our safe return.

  Unfortunately for them, they would get zero dollars. The Russians would probably send them a thank you note for taking care of their problem. Again, that would encourage them to shoot us.

  I saw no way out of this scenario that didn’t end with a bullet in my head.

  “Gus, what’s going on?” I asked in a whisper.

  “I wish I could tell you,” he murmured back.

  The driver continued plodding the cab along through the crowded streets. Instantly, I missed Frisco where the worst traffic I’d ever faced was not making the first turn arrow. The traffic here was a greedy beast that never let up.