Page 56 of Collin: Episodes 13-15
“And wasted the potatoes. And here I thought you’d at least make some vodka out of him.”
“Alice take child. Where Alice go?”
Collin struggled back up on his knees. “Alice will run. Someplace she’s never been before. People she doesn’t know. No police. She knows you used to know them.”
Mikhail growled and paced up and down between Collin and Émeric. Mikhail’s team stayed far away, lingering on the perimeter of the building.
“Try the mother.”
“That’s Dr. Ryker to you,” Collin snapped. “She’s not just a cow you trade around. And no, Alice won’t go there.”
“Why not?”
“Because Mom doesn’t know you killed Dad.”
Mikhail’s eyes narrowed. “She not know?”
Collin spat blood and snot onto the machinery dust. “No. Your daughter was dying of fucking cancer, and you were planning to teach Alice how to kill and seduce men. Why the fuck would I tell her that her dad murdered her husband and was going to make murderers out of her children? You think I wanted her to give up on life?”
Mikhail took a second look at Collin. “Always too sensitive. Like father.”
Collin cackled. “Thanks. That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me. I always wanted to be like my dad. And for the record, Alice doesn’t know there is a record. So, leave her out of this.”
“Can’t. She take child. Need child.”
“Why?”
Mikhail shot Collin a dirty look. “No stupid.” He walked away.
Collin shook his head and raised his eyes again. Émeric was staring straight at him. He forced a smile for his sir, and Émeric smiled back.
Live, Émeric mouthed.
Collin dropped his eyes. Living didn’t really seem to be in the cards. But he could probably get Émeric back out, and then Richard and Émeric would have…each other.
And Damian.
But…
Collin raised his eyes again. Enzo.
A burning sensation grabbed Collin’s chest. It had taken his sir six years to find the pieces of himself that he thought had died when Enzo was taken from him. Collin bowed his head. Even if he had long since resigned himself to death if Mikhail ever came back, he was not resigned to knowing what it would do to Émeric.
Tears gathered in his eyes. Tears he couldn’t brush away. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. He hasn’t known me long. He blinked hard and raised his head.
Émeric was staring at him with all the intensity that could be contained inside a human gaze. Live, he mouthed the words again.
No, it probably would be that bad. What he and Émeric had was real even if young and tender.
Collin forced a wobbly smile and nodded. Yes, sir.
The movies didn’t show the long wait. They didn’t show the slow onset of pain that then became almost unbearable but could not be relieved. The edges of the zip ties dug into Collin’s skin. He gave up kneeling and sat on his rear. His suit was ruined anyway. At least Richard and Émeric had already ordered new ones—if he survived. The drawn-out silence drained the adrenaline from his system, leaving him cold. He bent his head, eyes squeezed closed, shivering. There was no way to suppress it. He’d tried. The pain on Émeric’s face, watching him suffer from the cold, hurt. But his body wouldn’t let him hide that he was slowly freezing in the November weather in nothing more than his shirt, undershirt, and suit.
Mihail paced back and forth, sometimes on the phone, sometimes not. He came back and kicked at Collin.
“Alice gone. She kill lawyer. Poof. Disappear.”
Collin mustered half a sardonic smile. “You taught her.”
