I swear under my breath, glance at my watch for the hundredth time, and redial Layla’s number.
It’s Layla. Try again soon, but don’t leave a message. I won’t listen.
The flight schedule on Moscow’s airport website claims that the plane with Julij, Anatolij, and Layla on board landed twenty-five minutes ago, but none of them have switched their phones on yet. Considering Anatolij’s position in Russia, the passport control should’ve taken all but ten minutes.
It’s Layla. Try again soon, but don’t leave a message. I won’t listen.
“Stop it. She’ll call when she can,” Spades snaps from where he leans against the bar in my living room, a glass of water in hand. “Your hands are shaking as if you’ve been drinking for a week.”
“She landed half an hour ago.”
He shakes his head, treating the ceiling with a surly glance as if begging God for patience, then pushes away from the bar to cross the room. “She’ll call. Don’t fucking panic. We have a lot to discuss. Nate will be here with Cai and Jackson in a minute. Sending Layla away was supposed to help you focus on closing the hit, but you still got hay here.” He taps the back of my head with his finger.
“Once I know she’s there, and okay, I’ll focus.”
“Yeah, right. I’m not saying sending her to Moscow was a bad idea, but there’s no way you’ll focus when she gets there. You won’t fucking focus until Julij flies back.” He crosses his arms over his chest, a vein throbbing at his temple. “He won’t touch her.”
“I know he won’t.”
If he did, he’d die a slow, painful death, and he’s well aware of that fact.
It’s Layla. Try again soon, but don’t leave a message. I won’t listen.
Layla’s absence is a challenge to my overworked psyche. The excess of problems I pushed into the background while she was by my side knocked me off my feet when she boarded the plane. Everything I tried to keep in check resurfaced to keep my head occupied. The hit, Anatolij, Julij’s feelings, Chief Jeremy Smith, screaming his head off over the phone every time I report another dead hitman, Morte, Johnny, the business that still operates despite the undeniable disorder. It’s tiring. That’s without adding worrying about Layla to the mix.
While she’s within my reach, I control the anxiety residing in me since I learned about the bounty on her head, but now that she’s gone, I’m a ticking bomb. There’s a lot to do, but in the disarray of my own thoughts, I can’t find a direction; I’m blind to a way out of the mayhem. I have a hard time prioritizing the tasks. What do I do first? Where do I go? Who do I kill, and who do I bribe?
I try to outsmart Morte, not worry about Layla, trust Anatolij that he knows what he’s doing hiding her in Moscow, and at the same time, I try to believe that she’s safer away from me.
I shake my head to refocus on the matter, taking a cigarette packet from my pocket. Spades is right. My hands shake as if AA meetings are in my weekly schedule.
“So? What are we doing? Looking for Morte? Paying the big players a visit? Countering the bounty? What’s the plan?”
Countering the bounty by ordering a hit on Morte did cross my mind. Five million could tempt many people, but few would take the risk. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bushes. Layla’s an easy target. The probability of killing her versus Morte is fifty to one. Ninety percent of killers will prefer to look for my girl than chase the ghost that Morte is—always one step ahead.
Under normal circumstances, i.e., if I were a random guy trying to find and kill the fucker, it’d be mission impossible. Good thing I’m not a random guy. Morte and I fell from the same apple tree. We both worked under Dino. We were both mentored by Frank. We spent six years side by side. If anyone can kill the son-of-a-bitch, it’s me.
“We come at it from all sides,” I say. “Cover all the bases. Jackson’s looking for Morte. Until he finds him, we’ll be paying off everyone willing to be paid off and disposing of those who aren’t. Security stays in place. I didn’t make Layla’s relocation such a fucking secret for no reason. The longer the information stays buried, the better.”
“You want to kill Morte? That’s a shitty plan. It’ll work, sure. No money equals no takers, but it’ll take weeks, if not months, before the news reaches all the daredevils. I’m sure you don’t plan to keep Layla away that long.”
True. Good thing killing the bastard is only a plan B in case plan A: forcing him to call off the hit fails.
“What if Morte has a second-in-command?”
“You’re overthinking this.” I butt the cigarette in the sink and turn to grab a bottle of water from the fridge.
I haven’t poured anything alcoholic down my throat for over three weeks. From the moment I found out about the hit, I refused to numb my mind with booze. Layla’s safety depends on my ability to think straight.
“Frank hired Morte because he’s the best., but he also has a major flaw. He’s arrogant. He thinks he’s invincible.”
The alarm clicks once, announcing the arrival of someone who knows the code to disarm it. A clatter of a few pairs of elegant shoes resonates in the corridor, and a moment later, Nate, Cai, and Jackson appear in the doorway.
“Where’s Rookie?”
“He’ll be here in fifteen minutes. He’s running late coming back from Milwaukee. He doesn’t want Jane here when it gets too hot, so he took her to stay with his parents.”
“It’s not her they’re after, am I right?” Jackson smirks, elbowing Nate.
It earns him a whack to the back of the head.
“Better safe than sorry, jackass. I packed Bianca and shipped her off to my mother’s house last night. Luna flew out to see her brother. We’ve got a shitload to do. It’ll be better if the girls aren’t here for it. They won’t get in the way, and we won’t worry.”
I press the phone to my ear again, ignoring Spades, who nudges Cai, pointing his chin at me.
“You won’t, but he’s nowhere near done overreacting.”
“Hey,” Layla answers softly
“Finally.” I exhale, no longer brimming with tension, when I step out of the kitchen onto the terrace, sliding the door shut behind me. “You landed forty-five minutes ago, Star. What took so long? How was the flight?”
“It was okay,” she sniffs. “I slept through most of it.”
My palms ball into fists on their own accord. It’s a fucking reflex by now. A tic. My tell of sorts. I hang my head low because thousands of miles away, on the back seat of some Russian car, Layla’s plastering her tear-stained cheek to the window. The image of her sad face flashing in my head feels like a punch to the gut. “You promised not to cry.”
“I know, I’m sorry. Somehow, it just sunk in that I’m alone, and you’re so far away.”
I still can’t believe I dared to entrust the safety of everything I hold dear to a man I know so fucking little about. Well, I know he’ll put his life on the line to protect her, and that’s all I can ask for in the grand scheme of things.
“It won’t take long, Star.”
A cloud of smoke surrounds me when I light another cigarette, giving her a moment to pull herself together. As always, she doesn’t fail me, rising above her anxiety.
“The security guy was an ass. He didn’t speak English, so I’m not sure what the problem was, but Anatolij took care of it. It took a while, though. Do you know how cold it is here? It’s eight degrees outside! Eight! My breath freezes as it comes out of my lips.”
I chuckle at her irritated tone. She’s okay. She’s got this, and she’s going to be just fine. Not that I have any reason to think otherwise, but I can’t help the protectiveness squeezing my heart as if it’s a sponge. God, I’m so fucking whipped.
“You’ll find another manilla envelope in your bag. A bank card is in there, the pin number saved in your phone under your new name. I opened a Swiss account for you. There’s more than enough to pay for a few furs so you can stay nice and warm.”
“You said I won’t be here too long. I think I’ll manage for now without wearing dead animals.”
“You won’t stay there any longer than necessary. Tell Julij to call me when he has a moment.”
“I love you,” she says, and the line goes dead.
I shove the phone into my pocket, throwing the cigarette butt over the railing.
Time to face the fucking music…
I have no sense of right and wrong left in me.
