Page 123 of Immaculate Deception (Romanoff Bratva)

44

Arya

Ernestine’s Trailer

Ernestine doesn’t move from in front of me, even after I tell her it’s okay.

“I don’t want him to shoot you. June needs you,” I whisper to her, but Ernestine is undeterred.

Thankfully, it doesn’t matter. Tommy decides his best option is to guard the house from the outside, so he forces June to gather up all of the cell phones in the house. He puts them all in a bag, ties the bag to the leg of a kitchen chair, then orders us to take seats on the couch. He positions himself in a chair in front of the main door.

Time ticks past.

June is shaking and crying intermittently, terrified for herself and her grandmother.

And Ernestine seems to be growing more and more ill by the second. Her face is pale, her hands are trembling, and she keeps taking deep, ragged breaths.

“What the fuck is wrong with you now?” Tommy asks, a whiskey bottle in his hand. One of his first priorities after holding us hostage was to find the liquor cabinet.

“She needs to eat,” June pleads. “She gets shaky when her blood sugar is too low.”

“Find her a snack, but you can’t turn on the stove. If you think I’m going to let you dump boiling water on me or burn this camper up, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Honestly, it’s not a bad idea. I wish I’d thought of it first.

June gets Ernestine some fruit and crackers and cheese, but the woman barely nibbles on it.

“Please, Grandma,” June whispers. “We have to stay strong. Please.”

I can tell Ernestine is trying, but she’s growing more and more slumped by the second. The emotional turmoil and stress of the situation is too much for her to handle.

I’m trying to stay calm, but I’m looking at being the only capable adult with, effectively, three dependents to take care of.

How can I keep everyone safe? How can I get us out of this?

And where the hell is Dima?

The longer we sit in the camper, the sky growing darker and Tommy growing drunker, the more I realize I can’t let anything bad happen to them.

Not after everything they’ve done for me.

Not after I got them into this mess in the first place.

Yes, Tommy came to the house to talk with Ernestine, but he never would have held them hostage and threatened their lives if the reward Zotov placed on my head hadn’t been so alluring.

Now, greed is overriding any ounce of parental compassion Tommy may have had.

So I decide to beg. To try and appeal to him, person to person.

“Your daughter is scared, Tommy,” I say, getting as close to the man as I dare. I’m ten feet away from him, but I’m still sitting on a chair, looking him in the eyes. “She thinks you’re going to kill her and her grandmother.”

Tommy takes a swig of the whiskey. Even from this distance, I can smell it on him. “I fucking will, too. If they don’t cooperate.”

“Your own flesh and blood?”

He nods confidently. “Hell fuckin’ right. Blood doesn’t mean nothin’ out in the real world. It’s all about green. Money, money, money. Rose took everything from me when she left me. She’s the reason I got locked up in the first place. So they owe this to me.”

“How much is the reward?”

---