Chapter 22

Chapter 22OliviaWhat were the stages of grief again?I didn’t quite remember, but I knew I was cycling through them. It wasn’t an easy progression, though. Guilt came way before anger, leaving me quietly sobbing on my couch while Michael had his afternoon nap. I should have voiced my concerns about Luis’s friend to Viktor earlier.Now he might never know his father. Not because I had done anything wrong, but because of something beyond my control. How was I to know that my lifelong friends were entangled with a criminal organization? That didn’t bear thinking about, that Anna might have been lying to me all these years too. I was certain that even Anna hadn’t known, but Viktor didn’t believe me.He had talked about it like he was just trying to make sure. He had avoided accusing, avoided yelling. But his coldness had stabbed me right in the heart regardless.The worst part of all of it was that I could understand his reasoning. Right now, things looked very bad for me. I had connections to the people who were trying to kill him. I had just barely learned about that after knowing these people my whole life. Of course it sounded improbable.But he had also abandoned me just as I had already been pulled into his world, like it or not. If anything happened to me or to Michael because of this crazy mess I was caught in the middle of, he wouldn’t be there to protect us.So there’s that promise out the window.That’s when the anger hit. That son of a bitch. I was telling him the truth! All I’ve ever tried to do was do right by him, Michael, and my friends. I had no idea how he and Luis ended up at odds, any more than I knew how Luis became a crime lord or even when he did.This was so stupid. Luis and Viktor were playing wargames in the streets over what? Territory? Business? Who got to run which type of contraband? Who got to own the police?And meanwhile, their loved ones were put in danger by all of it, sometimes without even knowing it.I should have stayed out of his life except to handle the estate auctions. I shouldn’t have gone back to his bed. I shouldn’t have kept talking to him outside of keeping it strictly business. And I sure as hell shouldn’t have let him find out about Michael.But that was done now. No taking any of it back. No way forward but to deal with the consequences.I called Anna. I didn’t know who else to call.“What’s wrong?” she asked as soon as she got on the phone.“Viktor left me. And…oh God, Anna, it’s all just crazy. I don’t know where to begin.” Or how much was safe to tell.“It’s got to be less crazy than the conversation I had with my brother last night,” she said.“I wouldn’t bet money on that.”She stayed quiet for a few seconds, then said, “Okay. We’ll take turns. You go first.”Once I started talking, it all spilled out. Finding out that Viktor was in with the Russian mob. Finding out I was going to have a son by him. Raising Michael while not even trying to look for his criminal father. Running into Viktor again and having him find out about Michael. Rekindling our relationship. Starting to get serious, starting to make plans about things like co-parenting Michael. And then the attack at the auction. Nearly being killed. I left out the part about Viktor killing people because I was still wrapping my brain around it. Working together with Viktor to escape, only to learn, hours later, that Luis was somehow involved in the attack. And after that, Viktor learning I was lifelong friends with the family of someone who had ordered his death.“But Luis wouldn’t do that!” Anna broke in. I had to wrestle with my anger for a second and let her go on. “He told me everything, Olivia. Running the local Pueblo, tension with the Russians, trying to avoid a war.”“But Viktor says the war was his idea in the first place!” I couldn’t help it, my voice broke.“Luis says the same thing about Viktor. But the attack at the auction house…he swears it wasn’t him. One of his lieutenants, Miguel, called some guys together and did it on his own. Now he’s in the doghouse with Luis. And Luis is in the doghouse with me for doing all this stuff behind my back and then bringing some of his guys around us and our kids. I am so pissed at him.”I had to know. “Tell me the truth Anna, did you know about any of this? Did you know your brother was involved in the Pueblo?”She shook her head. “I had no idea, honestly. He kept it from us all, I knew some of his childhood friends were involved in shady stuff, but Luis stopped hanging out with them after college.”Well, that was something, at least she hadn’t been lying to me. Thinking back to what she’d just said I was stuck back on the idea that Luis hadn’t planned the attack on the auction house. “So it wasn’t Luis? It was someone else? But why would they do that?”“I don’t know. Luis says that Miguel’s disappeared and taken some of his guys with him. He also found out that Miguel’s been speaking against him with the other guys. But that’s all I know. He says he tried to protect me by keeping me in the dark.”“Viktor’s said similar things to me. But I ended up pulled in anyway.”“Me too, I guess. What are we going to do?”“Stick together,” I started, before a sound distracted me.I heard a faint noise in the back of the apartment, like a wine glass being dropped. It sounded like it had come from Michael’s bedroom. I frowned and stood, wondering if I had woken him up. “Hold on a second, I heard a noise in Michael’s room.”“Be careful, honey,” she said, but I was already moving, praying it wasn’t anything to worry about.I opened Michael’s bedroom door and my stomach dropped in horror.The huge man who had been drunk at the auction was standing in Michael’s bedroom. He had Michael out of bed, one meaty hand clamped over his mouth, and the muzzle of a gun pressed to his temple.I dropped the phone, my eyes locking with Michael’s terrified ones.“You will cooperate with me, or I will kill your son in front of you,” he said in his deep, accented voice. I nodded, wide-eyed, my lips as numb as snow.“Boris, wasn’t it?” I tried to appeal to him, also praying that I had his name right. “You work for Viktor. Why are you doing this?”“Not anymore I don’t,” he replied disdainfully. “Viktor is a fool. The boy is proof enough of that.”He shifted and I saw the window was wide open behind him, its screen cut away and a glass-cutter circle piercing it. He’d cut the window glass and reached in to unlatch and open it.“Please give me my son,” I said as softly and calmly as I could.“No. You come with me now. No more talking.”***They had one of those black sedans with tinted windows waiting outside. Boris carried Michael, pressing the gun into my child’s side. Michael was frozen in fear, not even able to reach out for me. He was old enough to understand the danger of a gun and of a strange man.Once I got in and slid over, he pushed Michael into my arms and slammed the door. I noticed a heavy plexiglass partition between the front and back seats, a second before my boy was in my arms, burrowing into my chest and shaking.“Shh, shh,” I soothed him as Boris got into the passenger seat. A shorter, darker man was driving. “It’ll be okay.”But I knew it wasn’t. Either Viktor was playing some horrible game with us, or Boris was planning to use us against him. Either way, I had no way to call for help, my phone was on Michael’s bedroom floor where I’d dropped it.“Please tell me what you want,” I asked once we were underway. I didn’t like that we weren’t blindfolded. It meant they didn’t care if we saw where we were going. And the only reason they would do that is if they knew they could guarantee my silence. Probably with a bullet.“What do I want?” Boris chuckled, and the man beside him snickered. “I want Boston, little girl. I want control of the Bratva and the territory. And you and your little bastard son are going to help me get it.”I had my hands over Michael’s ears. “What do you mean?”He flashed a grin over his shoulder at me. “You’ll figure it out once we get where we’re going.”Something about his wide, cruel smile made me hate him even more than when he was pointing a gun at my son. I held Michael, silently praying for a stroke of luck as we drove on.If he wanted the Bratva it meant he wanted Viktor dead. Did he plan to use us as bait?I mulled everything I knew. Miguel rebelling against Luis. Boris turning traitor against Viktor. A war each group’s leader claimed not to want—but encouraged by the actions of others.What was I missing here?Michael was clinging to me with his arms and legs like a baby koala. His face was hidden against me, but he wasn’t trembling and weeping anymore. I didn’t know if he had calmed down or simply worn himself out. I cuddled him, making comforting noises while I watched us heading into central Boston.We finally slowed in front of a small hotel in mid-renovation, its entire facade hidden behind scaffolding and plastic safety netting. They turned onto the garage ramp, and we disappeared underground. The sudden darkness made Michael flinch. I stroked his hair, doing my best to help him keep calm.If we were going to die, or be forced to run for our lives somehow, if everything was going to be so scary that I didn’t even know how to handle it, I was still going to be a mother to my little boy and protect him from what was going to happen. I would spend my last breath trying to provide him with safety and comfort, even if I failed. It was all I could do.I sat there numbly while the two men got out and started speaking to each other. But something was strange—they weren’t speaking English or Russian. They were speaking Spanish, Puerto Rican Spanish.“Run up and tell Miguel that we got them. Now all we have to do is finish the frame-up and wait for Viktor to lose his mind.”“You sure this is going to work?”“Of course. If he thinks Luis killed his son and the boy’s mother, he’ll stop at nothing until Luis is dead.”I clapped a hand over my mouth, horror rising in my throat like bile. They planned to use us to drive Viktor into a frenzy and start an all-out war.“Thinking about it…it’s better than that,” the other snickered, and I suddenly recognized the voice. Paco! That bastard who had fought with Luis and scared the kids.“If Luis thinks Viktor killed his sister’s best friend and her son in a fit of rage, he’ll stop at nothing too. They’ll get rid of each other!”Boris chuckled and waved Paco on. “I’ll be up with them in a few minutes.”So that was their plan. Frame Luis and Viktor both for our murders, set them at each other’s throats, and then arrange to kill them during the resulting war.At which point, Miguel and Boris would take over their respective groups and set up a truce.How long had they been working together? How long had they been plotting against their own bosses, who trusted them?Probably a long time. Long enough that if I wasn’t conveniently here, they would have found another way. Anything to satisfy their own lust for power.I tried to plead with Boris again as he opened the door and forced us out, but he simply looked at Michael meaningfully and touched his holstered pistol. I shut up, picked up Michael, and walked obediently to the elevator.The hotel renovation was mostly done inside, enough that the new carpets were laid, the new doors hung, the recessed lights and plaster molding installed. We went up to the top floor, the fifth, and came out into a lobby space where several men lounged, chatting in a mix of Spanish and Russian.One of them was Puerto Rican and almost as handsome as Viktor, in an elegant and broody-eyed way, with a killer mustache I wouldn’t soon forget. But as our eyes met, I noticed how empty his smile was, and shivered.“So, you got them,” the man I assumed must be Miguel, said grandly to Boris. “Good. Go get yourself a drink. I think the lady is smart enough not to try to run with so many of our men around.” He stared me in the eyes.I swallowed and nodded.Miguel cocked his head. “Is your little boy sleeping?”“No, he’s terrified. We got dragged over here at gunpoint.” I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice.“I see.” He sniffed and exchanged glances with Boris, who was pouring himself three fingers of Scotch from the elegantly appointed bar. “So, you have something to say for yourself?”“Yes. Look, I’m guessing you either want me as bait for Victor, or you want to hurt us and have Viktor blame Luis for that.”“Or Luis blame Viktor. Whatever gets them fighting properly.” His smile showed all his teeth. “You have some better idea, perhaps? Something that might save your lives?”“You do whatever you want to me. But let my little boy go. Killing me is insult enough, and my son hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s just a little boy. You don’t need both of us. Please…please, let him go. You don’t need him.”“Ah, but you see, I can’t do that.” Miguel sounded almost genuinely regretful. “We need your son to goad Viktor into action properly. He’s too calm, he thinks too fucking much. How do I know how much he cares about some puta? But his son, his heir… Now that will guarantee action.”“Yes, and I’m saying he doesn’t care enough about either of us to be goaded into anything. The man dumped me this morning!”This didn’t seem to concern Miguel so much as make him thoughtful. “I see. So you believe this is an indication that he does not care what happens to you or his son.”“He sure doesn’t seem to,” I said.He nodded slowly, then looked at Boris again as the big man came over to sit on a nearby couch. I still stood there awkwardly, the two men lounging and watching us.“That’s really too bad. However, I know for a fact that no man genuinely turns off his emotions when he breaks up with his woman. And he’ll certainly concern himself about the fate of his son.”I winced. Well, it was worth a try.Michael had his head tucked under my chin and was crying silently, his tears leaking through my shirt. Miguel was staring at me, amused. He turned to comment to Boris, who was drinking down his booze like he didn’t want to be sober for putting a bullet in my head.Boris’s phone rang.He checked it and scowled. “I need to take this. Don’t do anything until I get back.”He walked away before picking up, robbing me of the chance to yell for help. Not that I had any idea who was on the other end of that call. But I had to think of something.My little boy was depending on me to figure out a way for us to survive this. But right now, all I could do was think of Viktor, and wish he was here again to stand steadfast between me and danger.