I never would have taken her if I’d known she’d be this much trouble.
She’s upended everything. My entire life has been turned upside down by a tiny demon waif with a mouth as big as her balls.
She isn’t afraid of me.
She thinks I’m her friend.
She thanks me for everything, when she should be screaming at me in rage or terror.
I don’t understand any of it.
I stare down at her sleeping form. She’s curled up in bed on her side with her hands folded under her cheek, looking deceptively angelic.
I know that’s a ruse. That sweet, innocent exterior hides a 600-pound gorilla with an iron will.
With the exception of my snub nose Beretta, I’ve never known anything so small that was also so fierce.
I walk silently out of the bedroom and close the door, resisting the urge to leave a note for her telling her when I’ll be back.
Three hours later, I’m at the Lenin Hotel in Moscow, watching Spider at the bar.
He’s staring down into his drink, ignoring the buxom woman to his left who keeps trying to get his attention. Several other women at nearby tables keep glancing in his direction as well, but he seems oblivious to them all.
He’s preoccupied. Swirling his whiskey. Lost in thought.
I know what he’s thinking about.
Rather, who.
The demon waif has an annoying way of holding a man’s attention hostage.
I take the stool to his right. He glances at me, does a double take, then jolts to his feet, snarling.
“Pull the trigger, and you’ll never find her,” I say calmly to the gun he thrusts in my face.
The woman to his left screams and stumbles off her bar stool. The other patrons follow her as she runs out. Then it’s only me, Spider, and the bartender, who pours me a double vodka.
He sets it in front of me and shakes his head at the two security guards who are just coming in, alerted to trouble by the swift exodus of the crowd.
They take one look at me and turn around and walk back out.
Sometimes it’s good to be a gangster.
“Have a seat, Spider.”
Livid, he shouts, “Where the fuck is she?”
“Someplace safe. Have a seat.”
I see the instant he decides to shoot me in the leg instead of the face. Before he can, I’m on my feet with the barrel of my gun shoved under his chin.
Unfortunately, his reflexes are good. He doesn’t drop his weapon, stumble back, or make any other tactical error.
He simply responds in kind, shoving the muzzle of his Glock under my jaw.
We stand like that, elbows locked, weapons loaded, ready to blow each other’s head off, until he says through gritted teeth, “She’s alive?”
“Yes. No thanks to you.”
“Where are you keeping her?”
“Don’t waste my time with stupid questions.”
“I should fucking kill you!”
“Probably. But if you do, she’ll starve to death. Alone. Is that really what you want?”
He curses violently in Gaelic. It’s obviously taking every ounce of his self-control not to pull the trigger.
“She likes you, you know.”
Taken off guard by that, Spider blinks. “What?”
“It’s the only reason you’re not dead right now. She asked me not to kill you. Even after you put a bullet in her gut, she still said you were her friend. It’s really something else, when you think about it. Personally, if I’d lost a kidney, a spleen, and two liters of blood, my mood would be a little less forgiving.”
He licks his lips and adjusts his weight from foot to foot. His voice gruff, he says, “Let me take her home.”
“She is home. She’s mine.”
His eyes flare with rage at all the terrible things he’s imagining I’ve done to her. “You sick fuck!”
“Come on, now. You’ll hurt my feelings.”
“She doesn’t deserve this! She’s innocent!”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Then let her go!”
I stare into his eyes, already knowing the answer before I ask the question. “Would you let her go if you had her?”
He clenches his jaw. His face turns red. He curses at me again, this time in English, using creatively colorful language.
“That’s what I thought. Tell me, did your boss send you, or was this little rescue mission your idea? I can’t imagine Declan embarking on such a desperate, destined-to-fail endeavor.”
“Where. The fuck. Is she.”
“This is getting tedious. Is there anything you want me to tell her before I go?”
He digs the muzzle of his gun deeper into my neck and snaps, “You’re not going anywhere.”
Stubborn as a bloodstain, this Irishman. Despite my inclination to hate him, I find myself admiring his resolve.
“Last chance. No apology you want me to pass along?”
“Give her to me. She’s nothing to you!”
“No sincere words about how sorry you are that you almost killed her?”
“It was an accident! It should’ve been you!”
“But it wasn’t. You shot her. Now she’s mine. I can see you’re having a hard time with both those things, which is good. You deserve to suffer. And I applaud your tenacity, but if you don’t leave Moscow within twelve hours, you’ll be buried here.”
I allow myself a small, humorless smile. “My promise that I’d spare you doesn’t extend to the rest of the Bratva.”
He’s about to override his good sense and pull the trigger to end me, when his eyes go hazy. He blinks and shakes his head, trying to focus, but his pupils won’t cooperate.
When he sways on his feet, I grab his gun from him and shove it under my belt.
He staggers against the bar, gripping it for balance, blinking as he tries to clear his vision.
“What have you done to me?” he rasps.
“Nothing permanent. You’ll have a nasty headache when you wake up. Get something for it at the airport. And you really shouldn’t accept a drink from strangers in a foreign country. You never know what might be in it. Or who paid them to put it there.”
He’s still cursing me as he goes down.
I watch him for a moment, out cold on his back on the floor.
Then I hand the bartender a folded wad of cash, down my vodka, and head back home.
