by J. A. Huss
“So,” she says.
“So,” I say back.
“Don’t bullshit me, Katya Kalashova. Give me the bad news. Where is he?”
I consider asking her who she’s referring to. And then I consider lying, but Victoria just shakes her head.
“Don’t bother. I know why you’re here and I know you’re here for me. I remember you, Kat. I was given to Gori Junior and you were given to Gori Senior. So I know he’s here to either kill me, take me, kidnap my kid, torture me—you name it, he’s capable. And he’s here, so don’t lie.”
“He’s here,” I say, feeling a little defeated. “And he knows we’re both in here, because he’s watching everything I do.”
She swallows hard. I get it, I really do. I don’t know what kind of horrible things happened to her while she was involved with the Gori family, but it doesn’t take much to imagine it. I lived it as well. “And now what?” Tori asks.
I shrug. “We wait.”
“For what?” she snaps. “What exactly is the plan.
“I don’t have the plan. I was sent here to—”
“I sent her here.”
Tori and I both look up at the sound of Mariel’s voice. She gives us both a warm smile as she takes a seat in the empty chair next to me.
“Why didn’t you tell us the plan yesterday, Mariel?” Tori asks.
“Because I didn’t know if it would work.” Mariel looks at me. “But it did, right, Katya?”
I nod. “Yeah, it definitely seems to be working all right. But she’s not the only one who sent me here, Victoria. I’m working for all of them. Liam, Gori Senior, and Mariel.”
I take a deep breath as I wait for Tori to catch up to what I just said. “Why?” she finally asks after several seconds of silence. “Why did you bring them here?”
“She didn’t bring them, Victoria. She’s just the bait. You understand that, right? You understand when you love someone so much—perhaps a father who saved you, or a sister, who you desperately want to save”—she looks at me for that last part—“you will go to extreme lengths to make things right.”
Victoria has a pained expression on her face. Probably thinking about her father. “I was there that night your father died,” I say. “I wanted to be saved by the Misters too. I saw Oliver—just this one little glimpse while all that shit was going down—and I wanted more than anything to walk up to him and beg for help.”
“Why didn’t you?” Tori asks. “He would’ve, you know. He would’ve taken care of things. We’d have known more if you did. Instead you come here, dragging bombs behind you, hoping that it will all turn out right. It’s bullshit, Katya. It’s selfish and you know it.”
“They have her sister, Victoria.”
“What?” I say, turning quickly to Mariel. “Since when? I just saw her yesterday. She—”
“They got to her years ago, Katya. Think,” Mariel says, tapping me on the head with one finger. “Put the pieces together, darling. They have had her since before you came here. Before you ran. She is the one who ratted out your parents.”
“What are you talking about?” I stand up so fast, my chair falls backwards. “That’s a lie.”
“Sit down.” Mariel snaps, looking warily around the coffee shop. “Now.”
I do as I’m told. I sit down, but my mind is racing with all the mistakes I might’ve made and my heart is galloping with fear. They cannot have Lily. It can’t be—
“Katya,” Mariel says, taking my hand. Her palm is warm. It feels very soothing on my icy fingers. “We can still save her if”—she stares hard into my eyes, holding my gaze until she’s sure she has my attention—“if we do this right. She’s away right now. Those Antimony girls have left that house. She’s with them.”
“Where did they take her?” I ask.
“It’s not important. What is important is that she’s not at the house right now. And a letter with her name on it was delivered to her dorm yesterday. The letter states she was not accepted as an initiate into the Antimony Association.”
“She wasn’t?” I’m so confused. “But they seemed to love her—”
“Katya,” Mariel says. “Stick with me here, sweetie. We’re laying traps, right? If she was accepted she might be implicated in what’s about to happen.”
I take a deep, deep breath. “What’s about to happen?” I ask, my words barely a whisper.
Victoria’s phone buzzes on the table, just as mine buzzes in my pocket.
We both have the same panicked look on our faces.
“Read them,” Mariel says.
We pick up our phones and read our texts.
“‘Come to the Antimony House,’” I say. “It’s from Lily.”
“It’s not from Lily,” Mariel says, looking at Victoria. “I already told you, they took her out of the city. What does yours say?”
Victoria lets out a deep sigh of relief. “It’s West. He says to stay right where I am and he’ll be here in thirty minutes.” Her happiness fades quickly as she realizes what Mariel just said about the sender of my text. “It’s not West either?”
“It’s West,” Mariel says. “You stay here and do what you’re told for once. Do you understand me, Victoria? If you want your son to be safe, then you will stay here. Katya, on the other hand, is leaving.”
Outside there is an explosion.
People start screaming, hysterical. Frantic to get out of the coffee shop at first, then they realize it might be safer in here and begin to push towards the back.
“What’s happening?” I ask.
Tori is already across the room, grabbing up Ethan from the Christmas card table and hugging him to her chest.
Seconds later, like they knew it was coming, police sirens are everywhere. The screaming of fire trucks follow shortly after.
“What the fuck was that?” Tori asks, making her way back to Mariel and I, who are both still sitting at the table, staring at each other. I guess Tori isn’t so concerned about her language at this point, since she is clutching little Ethan to her chest when she says it.
“That,” Mariel says, “means it’s time to go.” She passes me a bulging yellow envelope one might use for inter-office mail at work, and then stands up, adjusts her coat, and says, “I’ll see you shortly, Katya,” before turning away and walking out the back door.
Phase four, I think, tucking the yellow envelope into my coat.
Phase four starts now.
Chapter Forty-Five - OLIVER
“Shit,” I say, staring at the fire pouring out of the shooting range roof. “You might’ve overdone it with the explosives.”
Pax scoffs as he tries to get a better look from the window in my office.
“Ya think?” West says. “When doesn’t he fucking overdo it?” He’s pacing the old wooden floor behind us. The creaking is driving me crazy.
“Hey,” Pax says. “Are you the expert in disappearing shit? Huh? Because if so, the next time we need to kill two people to save your ass and then blow up most of the evidence, you’re welcome to take the lead on that, brother.”
West says nothing.
“Now what?” I say. “My dad is gonna freak out.”
“As he well should,” Pax says. “I’d be pissed off too if a couple of East Coast crime assholes came into my town and started blowing up my establishments. That shooting range office was on the east side of the building. I set the charges just outside, so it totally looks like they were trying to blow up Shrike Bikes. But I directed the explosion towards the shooting range, so your dad’s shop should be OK once they put the fire out.”
I scrub both hands over my face. Aside from his potential drinking problem, and the fact that there’s a ninety-nine percent chance this maniac will be my brother-in-law very soon, I sometimes worry that Pax believes his own lies.
“The bodies will burn though,” Pax continues. “Forensics will find the guns and casings, and they might even know that they were shot before the explosion happened, but I’m telling y
ou, you really can buy cops on your dark market.”
“It’s not my fucking market.” God, how many times do I have to tell him that?
“Any evidence they do find will mysteriously go missing in exactly three days.” Pax looks at me. “Ya know, I really wish I knew about your little illegal site before I gave up fixing shit. It’s a goddamned gold mine.”
I throw my hands in the air, giving up. “Now what?” I ask.
“Now we wait for Gori to show up.”
“And my parents?” West asks. “What’s gonna happen to them?”
“It depends,” Pax says. And I’m sorta surprised that he says it in a sympathetic way.
“On what?” West asks, stopping his pacing to look at Pax.
“On whether or not they try to kill my mother.”
Chapter Forty-Six - KATYA
I walk down College and then cut over towards the west side of campus once I get closer to the Antimony House. I didn’t want to drive and potentially get stuck there in a car when I could easily slip outside the back way and stay out of sight.
I opened the package Mariel gave me, stuffing the contents into my pockets and throwing the envelope away in a random trashcan on the curb. The cold steel is comforting and by the time I am a few driveways down from the house, it’s also warm.
This… is it. The final phase of my long-planned revenge.
I walk up to the house, ready to knock on the door, but find it slightly ajar. I push it open, the hinges creaking, and peer inside.
The first thing I realize is that no one is here. Mariel was right. Those girls have left. I really hope she has a plan to get my sister back, because all of this is worthless if Lily doesn’t make it out with me.
“Lily?” I call, keeping up the ruse that she is the one who texted me. “It’s me,” I say. “Katya. Are you here?”
I don’t want to step inside. I really don’t want to step inside. But it’s unavoidable. I only have two choices. Finish this off right now or run away and never stop running.
I’m done running.
I squeeze the steel in my palm and cross the threshold.
Chapter Forty-Seven - OLIVER
The phone rings on my desk.
All three of us look at each other.
“Answer it,” Pax says.
I walk over to the desk and pick up the receiver. “Hook-Me-Up. Oliver speaking.”
“You have made a serious mistake,” the woman says on the other side of the line.
“Who is this?” I say.
“Where is my son?”
I nod to Pax and West. “He’s dead, Mrs. Conrad—”
“He is not dead. Do you think I’m a fool?”
West sits down on the couch, head in his hands. I know he was holding out, but all hope is gone now.
“I’m sure you thought you were clever when Liam believed you, but take my word on this, Mr. Shrike, I am not Liam Henry.”
“No,” I say, regaining my composure as I realize what she really is. “You’re a fucking monster, that’s what you are. We know all about you. We know who you really are, what you’ve been doing all these years, and even though West is dead, and he deserved it, the rest of us aren’t. And we’re gonna make you pay, bitch. We’re gonna make you pay for setting us up eleven years ago.”
“Put him on the phone,” she snaps. “Now.”
“I can’t put a dead man on the phone. I’m sorry, Mrs. Conrad. We killed him just like we’re gonna kill you. We shot that motherfucker in the head for lying to us. For covering up who you are and what you did.”
“You’re lying.” But she doesn’t sound so sure of herself.
“I can tell you where the body is, if that will help you come to terms with it. He’s rotting,” I say. “His body is decomposing as we speak. Not that you care, since you’re the one who put the hit on him.”
West looks up at me, desperate for this not to be happening.
“Should I tell you what I know?” I ask, when she stays silent. “Hmm? Liam talked,” I say. “He sang like a motherfucking canary in the end.”
When I get a dial tone I hold the phone away from my ear and point to Ariel, who came out of the SCIF room when the phone rang.
“I got it,” she says. “She’s at a house on West Laurel. Right across the street from the campus.”
“What the fuck is over there?” West asks.
“Those Antimony Association people,” Cindy says, coming up behind Ariel. “Katya is there too,” she says, holding up a tablet that’s tracking Kat’s phone through the app I put on it last night. “I would’ve told you sooner, but she took a weird route, down a bunch of side streets. And I didn’t realize where she was going. Then the phone rang.”
I look at West. “You’re on, let’s go.”
Pax is already jumping down the stairs. And I don’t care how big of a dick he is. I don’t care if he drinks vodka, or bourbon, or those stupid mint juleps for breakfast every goddamned morning. I don’t even care if he kills ten more people today. He’s always been there for me. He has always had my back, and I’ve never once had to ask.
“Stay here,” I yell at my sisters. “Finish what you’re doing,” I call out behind me as I jump down the stairs after Paxton.
Chapter Forty-Eight - KATYA
The first thing I notice is that the Smilde original is no longer hanging on the wall. The second thing I notice is beeping next to my ear. I turn to look for the source and see nothing but red lights on a ShrikeSafe Security panel.
Disarmed. The red lights mean it’s disarmed.
I don’t know what to make of that.
“Lily?” I ask again, but a little less confident this time.
A shadow moves off to my right in the kitchen. And it takes every ounce of self-control not to take my weapon out of my pocket.
“Hello?” I ask, moving forward. “Lily?”
The smack of a door closing in the back of the house is all the answer I get.
I have to close my eyes for a minute to gather my strength. Because I have only one option. I need to go outside and face my past.
This is it. This is where I make my stand against Lucio Gori.
I walk through the kitchen and open the door, looking out at the back yard. The off-white tents are still there, flaps waving in the cold autumn wind.
Which one is he hiding in? There are so many.
“Lily?” I call out. But I get nothing but the sound of falling leaves. I’m going to have to look in each one of them if he doesn’t make a move.
I take a deep breath and slowly walk down the stairs that lead to the brown grass. My feet crunch on it, the dew from last night frozen on the dormant blades. The flap of the closest tent is blown open, and there is no one inside. Not even the tables or chairs that were there yesterday. It’s like the caterers came and took everything but the tents.
I move on to the next tent. This flap isn’t blown open, and I really want to pull out the weapon in my pocket. But I don’t want him to know I came ready. I can’t. The surprise is all I have left.
“Miss Kalashova.”
I whirl around and face him. The man I have hated for more than half my life. Lucio Gori Senior is sitting in a chair in the largest tent like he is a king.
“Come sit on my lap, sweetheart.”
That motherfucker. How many times has me made me sit on his lap since that night he cut my throat? How many times did I get that sick feeling in my gut when his hands would find their way to my legs, or my belly, or my neck?
“Come here,” he says again. “Don’t you want your reward? Let me give it to you for being such a good little girl.”
I hesitate, looking back at the house. Who else is here?
“Don’t worry about her,” Gori says. “Play first, baby. Then we’ll sort out the business end of this, OK?”
His sweet voice is laced with poison. But who is he talking about? Who else is here?
I fight the urge to look again, and instead concentrate on
walking towards the tent.
He smiles bigger. Even laughs a little. “You like it, don’t you?”
I smile a little too. Even make myself blush the way I’ve practiced over the years. Being underestimated is a survival skill in my line of work. “I do like it,” I say, slowly walking towards him.
“Don’t move,” a woman calls just as the back door of the house slams closed. I’m already inside the tent, so I have to lean out and peek, just to see who that is.
“Mrs. Conrad?” I ask in my most innocent voice.
“Don’t touch her,” Mrs. Conrad calls. “It’s a trap, Lucio.”
“Nonsense. Get over here, girl.”
I don’t wait for another invitation. I practically scurry towards him. His arms are outstretched as I come closer. Mrs. Conrad appears in the open flap just as he wraps them around my body and pulls me on to his lap.
“Stop!” she calls. “Don’t let her—”
But I have the scalpel out. I have it against his throat. I have it pressing against his jugular. And by the time the last of her warning is out of her mouth, I have opened him up. The sick smell of blood floods my nose. The hot sticky mess covers my hand and washes away every minute of torture I’ve endured to get to this moment.
Mrs. Conrad is clawing me off him, screaming and yelling. Her fists pound my face and her fingernails claw at my eyes.
But I don’t care. I just laugh, and laugh, and laugh as I fight back, kicking her and getting a punch or two as I wallow in her rage.
Nothing else matters now.
In this moment, nothing matters but what I’ve done and how I feel about it.
Because now, we are even.
And Lucio Gori will never get his hands on my sister, or anyone else, ever again.
Chapter Forty-Nine - OLIVER
The front door of the house is open when we pull up in my car. Pax jumps out and he’s running up the steps before I even get the Camaro in park. West and I follow a few seconds behind. Pax is in the living room, gun out, pointing it at each hallway and corner, like he’s clearing a war zone.