Page 89 of Unorthodox
Motherfucker.
I keep my head against the door, not speaking.
“Make sure she looks her best next weekend,” the man says, and I feel my finger twitching on the trigger of my gun. If he knew what I did to her last night. How she lookedher beston the fucking floor beneath me… My stomach twists into knots. If he knew, I might never see Ollie again. “I understand you’re a little…rough.”He laughs, and the sound grates on my nerves. “Bruises are fine. Marks from whips. But things like broken bones, permanent disfigurement? Don’t cross any lines, Max.”
I still don’t speak. I don’tcrosslines. Iliveon the other side of them. But I know this man does too.
And I know who’s on the receiving end of his lines.
“One more thing,” he says in the wake of my silence. “We won’t be meeting in Mexico. Too risky. The DEA works too closely with our neighbors to the south to make that worth the trip, not to mention the…unresthere.”
I grit my teeth as I ask, “Then where the fuck—"
“St. Petersburg.Russia.You’ll want to stay a while. Bring a companion.” A pause. “Or buy one.” I can practically see the man shrugging. “It won’t be safe for you to stay where you are now after the transaction is complete. Not for a while yet.”
“How do you know all of this?” I have no plans to get on a flight to fucking Russia without proof of what this bastard is saying. Proof that Ollie will be on that flight too.
Next to my brother’s safe return, the Sinaloa were my main concern in breaking any arrangement with this man. I know the Russians can be far more ruthless, but I saw known members of the cartel when I met with Elliot. I’ve yet to see any Bratva thugs.
“Let’s just say I’m close to the family,” the man says softly. “But not close enough to save Christopher from a life in prison.”
I think of the burns on Addison’s body. The scars on her hip. Her implants.
Christopher London deserves to rot in jail. Then again, so do I. It’s not my place to put him there or keep him out. But if this man is telling the truth, St. Petersburg might not be so bad. I have contacts there from my father’s business dealings. If worst came to worst, Oliver and I can go back to South Africa on a flight from Russia. Harder to track that way.
But I’m not folding all of my cards for him. I won’t have him make me beg. “I’ll think about it.” Before Addison’s buyer can say another word, I end the call. I dress in black jogging pants, a black shirt. When I’m ready and have my gun in hand, I open the door, and find Evora standing right where I left her.
Her eyes widen and she opens her mouth to speak.
I beat her to it. “I’m going for a run. Don’t leave this room.” I walk past her, heading to the hallway, down the stairs, toward Addison’s room. I want to know ifsheknows anything about her brother being a goddamn narc.
After that, I meant what I told Evora.
I need to run.
I need to get the image of Dante’s blood on that forest floor out of my head.
His words to me.“Tell him it gets better.”
Ollie’s soft whimpers when my father took a baseball bat to his head for sneaking out of his room in the night to get a cup of water after we’d been confined to our room for two days for some minor infraction.
I need to stop thinking about how Ollie had one good year. One good fucking year with me and Mom, then, because of a goddamn speech therapy appointment when he stayed home from school, his life got worse.
I need to stop thinking about him.
I need to stop thinking about Dante.
To stop thinking about what hetook from her.
About how good it was to have her underneath me last night.
I need to stop fucking thinking.
Halfway to Addison’s room, as I walk past my office, I hear soft footsteps behind me and turn, finger on the trigger of my gun.
Mamie is standing in front of me, the dim hallway lights—motion activated—illuminating the soft lines of her face, and the way her blue eyes are…swollen. Red. I glance at her right hand, see a tissue balled tight in her fist.
Keeping the gun by my side, I force myself to wait for her to speak even though I don’t really want to know what’s wrong.
