Page 83 of Vasily the Hammer

It’s enough that I nearly make up some other reason for calling her and force another conference call on the Sedona crew, but then it dawns on me that I’ve probably kept secrets from her. Not even for good reasons either. I was probably too embarrassed to admit Dima stole Vasily’s credit card to pay my utilities. And what Tony just did? Telling her about that would have amounted to one more person to fight me about making a sacrificial lamb of myself.

“Tony sold me to sex traffickers,” I blurt out.

“Gino!” Camilla screeches at the top of her lungs. “We’re putting a hit out on Tony the Bitch!”

“Stop!” I cry out, failing to hold back my laugh. “We’re not quite there yet. But I need your help, Cartwheel.”

If she was going to fight at all, calling her by her old nickname is enough to get a teary “You remembered?” and agreement to everything I ask for.

Planning may be a challenge, but execution is easy. Artom and I return to Tony’s, where we wait for him to come home and share with me the biggest news of the day. Of all the things I’ve remembered, the craziest thing is the combination to the family safe, which I check for anything I might want to take with me— and make an interesting find. And then Artom and I have a quiet dinner, and as we’re cleaning up, Tony comes home, tells Artom to go to bed, and shares his devastating news with me.

Vasily is dead.

What? No. That’s impossible. He was fine a couple days ago. An overdose? He said he was clean. He was taking all those pills though.

I know I should hate him, but he’s the father of my child.

I hate him. I loved him.

How could this have happened.

You’re right. I should go lie down.

But I don’t. I use the next couple hours to applaud my own performance— I cried, I fought, I did my best to pull myself together— and draft several notes, each one making its way to my waste bin until I reach perfection.

I do the same with outfits, genuinely hating all my options because I’m an adult with my own business and responsibilities and a preferred treadmill at the gym I hardly ever go to, and these are the clothes of a smaller, younger, more conservative but desperate to be trendy college girl.

I ultimately go with the most expensive items in my closet that I know would do well on a reseller site. Just out of spite. It’s all going to get ruined, but if Tony decides to sell off all my belongings tomorrow to recoup his losses from my escape from the sex traffickers, he won’t get the Chanel tweed jacket, the Hermès scarf, or the Manolo Blahnik heels.

Hey, the Manolos might even survive this.

I tuck my finding from the family safe into the pocket of my jacket, and then I wait some more, listening closely for the sign.

It’s a knock at nine at night. The house is quiet enough that I can hear Maria’s voice at the front door, telling Tony she needs to see me urgently. That’s the cue right there, but I’m temporarily thrown off when Tony says, “Oh, I told her already. She’s fine. But I need to talk to you about securing my piece of his empire. Kostya’s promised me a cut, but you know you can’t trust those Russians.”

That’s it. That’s the last bit of incriminating evidence. I already got everything I needed, but it’s good to know they were in on it together.

I grab the gun Maria gave me, aim it at my chest, and pull the trigger.

The explosion is deafening, but the blood packet mostly just stings as it ruins the Chanel tweed jacket. I fall back, landing hard enough the blood packet taped to my back bursts, soaking through immediately and leaking up to my neck, ruining the Hermès scarf.

Maria rushes in several seconds before Tony, as expected, and she checks my pulse and closes my eyes dramatically.

In the hallway, Artom says, “Mama? Mama, what was that sound?”

Oh yeah, he takes after me.

I’ve already said goodbye to him, but it hurts knowing that when Maria hisses, “You have to call Camilla and tell her to get over here right now,” it’s because Camilla’s going to be taking care of him until we get everything figured out.

Maria calls 911, but not really. I’m lifted onto a stretcher and zipped into a bag by two EMTs, but not really, and I’m driven away in an ambulance that doesn’t bother to turn its lights on, since I’m already dead. I don’t even know if it has lights, being that it’s an ATF decoy manned by ATF agents. She didn’t tell Vasily that was how she had access to a fake ambulance, but she told me.

In the back of the ambulance is Alex, ready to take me to the rendezvous point.

I wait until we’ve already transferred to a late model Kia and been given fake licenses before pulling my find from my pocket.

“What’s that?” Alex asks.

“It’s the cross my father bought me for my confirmation,” I tell him as I clasp it around my neck and rub the stones, the ridges every bit as soothing as I suspected they’d be. “I was wearing it the night I was kidnapped by those sex traffickers and got amnesia. I just found it in the family safe. Tony must have been there that night, and he stole my necklace.”

---