Page 92 of Under Control

“I’m fine,” Arsen grunts. He’s clearly notokay;his face is swollen and puffy, and his nose is bloody and bent sideways. But he’s alive.

“I’m coming for you. Do you hear me, boy? I’m coming.”

“Well, there’s the first surprise of the day,” Arsen says.

My eyebrows raise, and Aram flinches. His jaw works and he leans closer to the phone. “Just keep your mouth shut,” he snarls.

I pull the screen away. “Karine?”

Arsen’s face disappears, replaced by my beautiful wife. “You okay?”

“All good. Thank you.”

“Happy to help.”

I cut the connection and shove it back into my pocket. Aram’s sitting back, brooding down at the table. I’m not sure what that moment was, but there’s clearly some tension between father and son.

“Your turn,” I tell him.

We go through a similar dance. Miriam’s face appears, still unconscious, still in a hospital bed. The man on the other end of the call says he’s a doctor, and he claims that he’s taking perfectly adequate care of Karine’s mother.

Aram cuts off the connection.

“She’s alive, and she’ll be fine. Don’t say I don’t take care of my own.”

“When do we make the swap?”

“Five days. We come here, same time.”

“We’ll draw a lot of attention.”

“Maybe you’ll fucking behave then.” Aram looks rattled as he stands. I get to my feet, facing him. “You know, there was a time when I thought Russian and Armenian interests might align. I had hoped we could find common cause and grow our organizations together. Instead, your father decided to throw it all away.”

I can’t even argue with that. If his story’s true, and I believe it, my father almost deserved what he got.

But that doesn’t change a damn thing.

“I’ll see you in five days.” I turn my back to him. “And don’t try anything. We’ll be prepared. If Miriam dies in the meantime, Arsen dies too.”

“If you hurt my son?—”

“Don’t pretend like you really care.” I walk away from him. I can tell that pissed him off, and that’s exactly what I wanted. I need Aram rattled and emotional and out of control.

I can’t react anymore—it’s time to take action.

Miriam is family. She never wanted to be and even ran away from home to make sure she’d never get tied down to my father, but I won’t abandon her.

I only have to hope that Karine understands that I’m not my father when she finds out the truth.

Chapter 34

Karine

Igive Arsen some water and let him eat a little bit. I have to feed him, which is weird, but he doesn’t seem to mind. If anything, he’s almost a little too grateful.

“You end up tied to a chair in a basement often in your line of work?” I ask him, studiously ignoring the table with bloodied torture tools lined up like someone’s preparing a particularly nasty surgery.

“Only once in a while,” he says with a crooked smile. “How about you? I’m guessing this whole thing is a new experience.”

---