Page 36 of The Umarova Crime Family

“Who are you talking about?” I ask her, and she stares at me like I actually know. Her eyes go wide, and she shakes against Danill’s grip.

“Don’t act stupid! Where’s Carter? Why hasn’t he given me my money! That was the deal! He was supposed to give me money for what I did. He wasn’t at that damn motel either.”

Ruslan takes a step forward and stands beside me. “What motel would that be?”

“The yellow one with the red sign right off the interstate. It’s next to the taco place. He’s been staying there for a couple months, but he wasn’t in his room! I went looking too. He said he’d give me my money, but he didn’t. He’s a no good, lying, dirty bastard! After all that work too. I gave him everything he needed, and he didn’t pay me! I want my money, Amelia! I want my money! You need to tell me where he is right now ’cause I’m gonna shake him down, and he’s gonna give me my money.” My mom screams at the top of her lungs, and then out of nowhere, she stops, collects herself, and looks at me. “Can I borrow forty bucks, Amelia bug? I’ll pay you back. I just need to get something really quick. I need my medication.”

Medication? More like her drugs. I shake my head and stand firm with her. “I don’t know where the fuck Carter is, but just like you, I’d like to know. And no, I’m not giving you forty bucks so you can shoot that junk into your veins. Look at yourself, Mom. God, Dad would be so disappointed.”

My mother manages to wriggle free from Danill’s grasp and tries to strike me, but Ruslan steps in front of me. My mother ends up hitting him, and Ruslan grabs her by the wrists and pins her up against the wall. “Don’t you ever try and hurt Amelia again. If you do, it’ll be the last thing you ever do. Mother or not, I don’t care. No one hurts her.”

“Amelia! This crazy bastard is trying to hurt me!” my mother repeatedly screams, like I’m going to save her, but I won’t.

Danill walks over to where Ruslan is and takes over, holding my mother against the wall. Ruslan comes back over to me, and I scan over his body and make sure he’s okay. There’s a slight tinge of redness, but nothing more than that.

“You want me to help you? Tell me what Carter owes you money for.” She’s delirious enough that she might just do it.

“Okay, yeah, yeah, I can do that. That nasty boyfriend of yours owes me money ’cause I helped him. I helped him real good. I got him some information so he could make some quick money!”

I blink a couple of times and know I need more information. “What kind of quick money, Mom?”

“Oh, you know, the kind for credit cards and stuff. He said he was going to get you out of here and build a new life for you. All he said he needed was some information like where you were born, your social, and your first pet’s name. There was some other stuff, too, but I gave Carter everything you needed to start that life. He said he was gonna pay me real good for what I gave him, but he never did, and now I’m out of money. I can’t survive out there, Amelia. I’m sleeping in a tent, and I really need forty dollars. Please, can I have forty bucks?”

Looking at my mother, I feel a mixture of betrayal, hurt, anger, and disappointment. She’s how Carter got all the information to properly steal my identity. He saw her for what she was, a desperate woman who needed money and used that to his advantage. She’s standing here in dirty, torn clothes, looking like she hasn’t brushed her hair in weeks. She needs more than forty dollars. She needs a lot more than that to even make some sort of decent dent in her life, but I’d never ask Ruslan to help her like this.

Not after I found out that she’s how Carter gained access to all my personal information. Here I thought he picked the lock to my box with my social, birth certificate, and bank information. Lo and behold, it was my mother.

“Mom, I don’t know why you came here with a gun and tried to steal from me, but I’m calling the police right now,” I say, and my mother starts screaming in the background. I pull my cell out of my pocket and call the non-emergency line, then explain what I said to my mother a few moments ago.

I don’t want the police to think she showed up with a gun in an attempt to shake me down. I’m going to make them think she’s high as a kite, and she tried to steal from me to feed her habit. She had my poor cousin as a hostage until we got there and were able to get the gun from her grasp.

Within ten minutes, two officers show up, take statements from the four of us, and then put my mother in the back of their squad car. She wants to scream and shout about Carter owing her money, but the officers don’t know who Carter is. When they ask me, I tell him he’s an ex-boyfriend who hasn’t been in my life in a long time and that my mother’s habit’s gotten out of control.

The officers tell me because of the extent of her crime, she’ll likely be doing jail time, and the judge probably won’t let her go to rehab. As cold as it might sound, I want her to go to jail. It’s what she deserves.

Then I get to thinking about it, and she deserves far, much worse than jail time. She’s lucky I have a conscience.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ruslan

This afternoon took a very unexpected turn when Amelia’s mother confessed to playing a role in Amelia’s identity theft case. Throughout the entire scenario, I was blown away by how Amelia handled herself. She did what she had to do, even though I knew there was a part of her that probably wanted to ask me if we could send her to rehab.

I have no doubt Amelia loves her mother, but when someone so close to you betrays you like that… you can’t help but want them to pay for what they’ve done.

Her mother did give us some good information about where to look for Carter, so I sent Nal and Danill out on the streets to see what they could find out. Nal decided to have somewhat of a stakeout, and he was right in doing so. As a newer person on my team, he’s quick on his feet and has a good head on his shoulders. There aren’t too many people I’d keep on my team for life, but Nal has potential, as Danill did back in the day. I asked Danill his thoughts on Nal, and he has the same opinion of him: he’s young, smart, and quick.

Nal ended up figuring out Carter was staying at the same motel, but at some point, he switched rooms. My guess is he knew Amelia’s mother was looking for him, and he still wanted to keep a low profile, so he asked to change his room to one on the other side of the motel. Amelia’s mother might not have even looked on the other side. She probably thought he just up and vanished, but I know that isn’t the case.

When Nal and I saw Carter a couple weeks ago, he was at a house, not at this motel. It made me curious if Amelia’s mother was right or if she was merely a desperate woman looking for her next fix. Sure enough, I arrived at the motel with Danill while Nal was watching Carter’s room. He’s been in the room since around five, and it’s seven now. I found out from a lovely lady at the front desk that Carter has, in fact, rented this room for a few weeks, so Amelia’s mother wasn’t talking out of her ass.

I’m still in the motel’s office with Danill, speaking to Sherry, the woman working at the front desk. “Is there anything else you can tell me about what Jack’s been up to?” Carter gave them a fake name because, of course, he would. He didn’t want to get caught, and he did a decent job of it.

“Yeah, there are some people who show up late at night. They always have bags. I don’t know what’s in them, but some of his neighbors have come up here complaining they don’t want to be anywhere near a drug dealer.” Shirley raises both of her brows and seems a bit concerned. “But you know, I can’t control what kind of people come to the likes of this place. It’s not exactly the nicest joint in town, ya know?”

“Of course. I’ll take a look into it for you, and in the meantime, you go out and spoil yourself a little bit.” I dig into my pocket and pull out five hundred dollars for Sherry, then slide them over to her.

“Are you sure, Mr. Kilgore?” I also gave Sherry a fake name because in the event people go looking for Carter, I’m not going to take the fall for it. I’ll do whatever I need to protect myself and the people who love me.

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