Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Alissa

Isurfaced from deep dreams of lying in Gregor’s arms to discover that he was gone, the apartment dark. The cat was sleeping on Gregor’s pillow and lifted its head to blink at me as my phone kept buzzing.

I didn’t recognize the number. I hesitated, but finally connected the call, in case it was something urgent and Gregor had had to call on an unfamiliar phone. “Who is this?”

“Hi, baby.”

I immediately felt like throwing up. It was Alan again.

For a moment I considered hanging up, but I was angry now. Having Gregor at my side, and getting Michelle back, had made me braver.

“I’m not your baby, you sick piece of shit. My investigator told me everything. Stalking my house with a rape kit? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I-I didn’t do any of that,” he stammered. This damn lunatic never seemed to know how to take it when I stopped being nice. “Your guy lied to you.”

“Bullshit.” Tears brimmed in my eyes, but my voice was only shaking from one emotion, rage. “You want to kidnap, rape, and kill me. You got caught in the act and warned out of town. And instead, your dumb, crazy ass is harassing me again. I swear to God, if you show up again, I will shoot you myself.” I might have to borrow a gun to do it, but I sure as hell would.

“Jesus! Would you listen to yourself?” he complained, like I was the nutcase in this situation. “I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“Another lie. Just give it up, damn it!” I hung up.

He called over and over until I picked up again.

“What the hell do you think this is going to accomplish, Alan? It’s not like I’ll ever go back to you after what you’ve done!”

“I know, I know, we broke up and you’re salty and want to make me work for a reconciliation.” His tone was so condescending it was all I could do not to scream at him.

“No, I’m saying you fucked things up so badly, and continue to fuck up, and because of that I am never going back to you. Ever. You don’t act like a cop or a good man, you act like the fucking criminals you’re supposed to put away. I’m sure you took a goddamn bribe from the Ivanovs to keep from actually doing what was needed to find and rescue my baby. You know how I know that? Because you took almost a year pretending to look and then gave up. Then, a goddamn private investigator was able to find her in two fucking days.”

He was breathing heavily now, like he was running a race. Adrenaline. “You’re lying.”

“She’s sleeping thirty feet away from me. No thanks to you. All thanks goes to the man who actually did the job. So stop deluding yourself into thinking we will ever be an item again. You may not be scared of legal consequences, but I can still expose you.”

There was a long silence. Hang up, I begged silently. Give up. Leave us alone. You’ve done enough damage.

But Alan wasn’t done yet. Instead, he started laughing. It was a low, dry, rattling sound, strangely ugly. It frightened and enraged me all at once. I was about to hang up again when he said, “You could try to ruin my reputation. You could do that. I doubt anyone would believe you, because you’re just some single mom and I’m a decorated cop.”

“Not for long,” I cut in. But he just plowed on.

“Let me tell you a little something. First off, yeah. The kidnappers are mob connected, and that makes them off limits to us or anyone outside of their organization. But your investigator? The one who supposedly got your kid back? He’s on the same fucking payroll as the guys who took her.”

Everything screeched to a halt inside of me.

He chuckled mockingly at my silence. “You had no idea, did you? No idea at all. Well, here’s the truth. Gregor Dimitri Makarov is a hitter for the fucking Russian mob. That’s how he was able to get your kid back. He’s more connected than the Ivanovs. He’s a goddamn made man, or whatever those fucking Russians call it.”

“This is bullshit. You’re making all of this up because you don’t even begin to measure up to him. This is all a lie you’re telling to try to mess with my head. But I know better than to trust you now! Did you forget that?” Keeping my voice low took every ounce of my self-control.

“Oh, come on, think about it. Use your little girly brain for once in your life.” His voice was dripping with disdain. “How could anyone have possibly found where they were keeping your kid in just a few days if they weren’t connected?”

“How the hell do you even know all this?” I demanded.

He laughed. “After our confrontation, I looked the guy up on the system at work. We’ve never gotten enough on him to bring him in, but he’s connected to over a dozen murders and disappearances throughout the city. And that’s just in the last ten years.”

I was cold. I had to clench my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering. How could he be talking about Gregor? The man who had saved my daughter? The man who had saved me? The only man I wanted and the source of my safety. How could this be true? How?

“Nothing to say?” he mocked.

I drew in a breath as quietly as I could, afraid of sobbing. “This can’t be true. You’re just…” I trailed off, and he chuckled nastily. He could tell he’d gotten to me. But mocking me more was a mistake. I suddenly found my anger again. “What the hell is the point of telling me this?”

“Just wanting to protect you from him. I mean, apparently, you’ve got an idea that this guy’s some kind of hero. But he didn’t threaten me with internal affairs or a lawsuit when he ran into me outside your house that night. No. He straight up threatened my life.”

“Only because you were threatening mine.”

“Hey.” He tried to sound condescending again but there was a touch of wheedling in it. “You really need to stop trying to make me sound like the bad guy here. All I did was try and get you back.”

“With a knife and chloroform?”

He plowed on again, pretending he didn’t hear me. “This guy’s an actual killer. He’s dangerous, he’s a criminal, and he’s a million times worse than me. So if you’re about to go to the press and make this guy into a hero, you should know you’re playing right into the mob’s hands. And endangering yourself and that stupid fucking kid of yours in the process.”

Hearing him talk about my daughter was like a splash of cold water to the face.

“I don’t have time for this,” I snapped, but he just chuckled again. “Gregor’s already proven himself to be a better man than you. I can’t imagine for a moment that he’s actually a mobster.”

But then again, it had taken me four months to realize that Alan was a bad cop and a shitty boyfriend. And how had Gregor succeeded so fast in finding Michelle?

“Yeah, you can be stupid and not believe me. Go into denial about your new bodyguard. Or is he your lover?” His tone was a sharp whipcrack of anger.

“So that’s what this is really about,” I breathed in a moment of terrible clarity. Alan had already gone full stalker on me. Of course he was now jealous of any man who got anywhere near me. “You’re jealous of a guy I’ve known for a couple of weeks.”

“Did you fuck him?” he demanded suddenly.

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Did you fuck him?” His scream stung my ears and I jumped.

But then I got ahold of myself and got even more pissed. “Yeah, I fucked him. And my neighbor, and the mailman, and my three in-town clients since we broke up. I’m just one giant whoring machine. I’m so damn horny I can barely resist spreading my legs for everyone on the planet who isn’t you.”

“Fuck you,” he muttered, his rage losing steam almost immediately.

“No, thank you.”

He hung up, and I sagged with relief. But it was short-lived. The doubts he had planted in my head weren’t going away. And whenever Gregor got back from his weird past-midnight activities, he and I had to talk.

I wasn’t looking forward to it.

***

It was almost dawn by the time I heard a key in the lock and the beeps of the security system being turned off. I stiffened in my seat on the couch, my stomach jumping around. I hadn’t been able to sleep in his absence. I hadn’t been able to do anything besides sit and wait and fear what would happen when Gregor finally got home.

And now he was home, and my heart started beating so fast it made me dizzy. Please let Alan be wrong. Please let there be another explanation.

But then I heard pained grunts as he rustled out of his coat. The safe he kept in his coat closet clicked open, then shut again after a few moments. I started trembling, my eyes blurring with the tears I was barely keeping back.

When he walked into view, my eyes widened and I stood up from the couch, suddenly distracted by a sight I hadn’t expected. Gregor looked battered and bruised, with smudges and cuts on his face. He smelled faintly of smoke. His lip was cut and slightly swollen, and his eyes had a tired, desperate look that scared me as much in its own way as Alan’s words had.

When he saw me standing there, a mix of relief, shame, and worry flicked across his craggy face. “Alissa,” he muttered, and crossed the room quickly, folding me into an embrace.

Of course it was all a lie. It had to be. I hugged him back tightly, hands slipping around his ribcage under his suit jacket. But then, unexpectedly, my fingers found a strap across his back.

I followed it with my fingers as we drew apart again, and they caught briefly on an empty holster. I froze. The safe in the closet. It was a gun safe.

He was a private investigator. It wasn’t that strange that he would carry a concealed weapon. But as I looked up into his exhausted face, I was still worried. “What happened?” I asked softly. “You were gone when I woke up.”

“I’m sorry. I was following up on the Ivanovs. And something happened. Something that has me thinking I should get you and Michelle out of town for a while.”

“What? Why?” Not without you, I wanted to say, because after everything, even hearing Alan’s claims, Gregor had become my safe space. And he was still Michelle’s father.

“It’ll be on the news anyway, so I may as well tell you. Someone rigged the house behind the daycare to explode, they’d turned on the gas and set up a trigger linked to the door. I tried to slip in to find more information on the Ivanovs after I’d checked out the daycare center and set off a goddamn trap.” He collapsed onto the couch, his weight shaking the whole thing slightly. I settled next to him tentatively, worry and suspicion mixing inside me.

“They…blew up the house?”

“Yeah. Which means one of my contacts betrayed me. The Ivanovs knew I was coming, and they decided they’d rather do that than face me.” He saw my expression and looked away. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to worry you. But I can’t risk having these bastards cause you even more harm.”

“Gregor…” I hesitated, but I had to make a stand. “I don’t want you taking any more risks like this. I hired you to find my baby, not punish those responsible. I know we can’t rely on the cops, but there are other ways of getting the Ivanovs. We can sue the hell out of them. We can go to the press—”

“No.” His tone was flat. “Doing any of that would make you a target. There’s more to this than I thought. One of my sources has ratted me out, and that means—”

“Gregor,” I said quietly. “Look, I’ll go into hiding out of town if you think it’s the right call. But what about you? I don’t want you to be in danger.”

He smiled tightly. “That’s very sweet, Alissa, but danger is a large part of my job. It has been since I was a very young man. I promise that I can handle myself.”

“This isn’t about your competence or your courage,” I mumbled, knowing I was getting off track but desperate for him to understand. “You just came home after nearly being blown up. Of course I’m gonna worry.”

His smile softened a little, but then faded. “Look, Alissa, some of my contacts are part of the local Russian mob, all right? They’re the last people I would have expected to betray me, but here we are. If they’ve turned on me, I absolutely have to keep you away from them. They’re too dangerous.”

I stared at him. I wanted to just love him and be grateful. I wanted to spend another wonderful, comforting night in his arms and make us both feel better. But Alan’s mocking words kept echoing in my head. “Gregor?”

I felt him tense slightly beside me. “What is it?”

“Why do you have Russian mobsters as contacts?”

He went very quiet. I sat waiting, bracing myself, every second that ticked by making my heart beat harder.

“It’s a long story. Why do you ask?”

I stared at him for a few seconds, watching the discomfort deepen on his face. “Alan called while you were gone.”

His face fell. “Jesus. He’s still harassing you?”

“He’s trying. He keeps changing phone numbers. I try not to pick up if I don’t know the number, but you were out, and I thought it might have been you. And he—”

His eyes flashed. “Did he threaten you?”

“Not this time. He said…” I rubbed my face, suddenly very nervous and ashamed that I had even talked to Alan again, let alone listened to him. Why had I ever taken him seriously?

Except too much of what he had said made sense for me to ignore it all.

“After you confronted him at my place, he looked you up on the police computers.” I swallowed, then met his gaze, seeing the growing trouble and resignation in them. “He said you’re part of the Russian mob. That you’re a hitter.” The word sounded really weird coming from me.

He let out a low sigh. Had his face paled, or had he looked this haggard coming in? I didn’t understand his resigned expression, or the sadness in his eyes.

“I was hoping this wouldn’t happen. I guess that was stupid of me.” He muttered something under his breath in Russian that I didn’t catch. “I should have told you from the beginning, but I didn’t want to scare you away.”

I was trembling, but I stood my ground, staring into his eyes. “I want the whole truth, Gregor.”

“Alan told you part of the truth, but not all of it,” he said in a rush. It felt like being slapped in the heart, but I nodded, and he went on. “I was taken in by the mob when I was a young boy. I have always lived that life. It is why I don’t get involved with women long term. It’s why I never expected to have a child, or anything like a normal life. The Ivanovs were handling what was supposed to be a normal porn operation for my boss. Instead, he must have found out what they were doing, because he sent me to the house where they had their studio to kill everyone present and burn the place down.”

I felt sick as I stared at him. Desperation flickered into his gaze as he stared back.

“But as I was going through the place to try to figure out what the hell they had been up to, I stumbled on Michelle. Just this scared little girl caught in the middle of all of this. I had no fucking idea who she was or what was going on, but I don’t hurt kids or leave them in danger. I got her the hell out of there, hid it from my boss, and went looking for her parents.”

I blinked. “You mean you had her this whole time and didn’t tell me?”

“That’s only half right. Yes, I should have told you sooner. But telling you sooner might have endangered both of you. There’s more going on here than even I know and—”

“I can’t take this.” I jumped up, buzzing with adrenaline, walking in a tight circle with my hands in my air. “You’re a mobster? You kill for a living? You had my daughter for days and lied about it?”

“Alissa—”

“No,” I snapped, stepping back as he reached for me. “I trusted you. I trusted you with my daughter. How could you do this? How could you be with me and make love to me and promise us safety when your own people are way more of a danger than Alan ever dreamed of being?”

“I will keep my word to you,” he snapped back. “I won’t let anyone hurt you or Michelle. My feelings for you are real. My actions are real. My integrity is real. And I’ve never wished I was someone else, a better man, someone whose job doesn’t scare you, than I do around you and Michelle. But I am what I am.”

I gulped, tears starting to roll down my face. It embarrassed me, shamed me, but the tears wouldn’t stop. “How did you think this was going to turn out?”

“I had no idea. I was worried you’d run when you needed me most. That no explanation would ever be good enough. In this circumstance, with who had Michelle, with what it took to get her back, only someone in my position could have rescued her. I was hoping you would understand.”

I pressed my lips together to keep the sobs in, but my chest hitched painfully with them. He was a criminal. A killer. The love of my life, the father of my child, was a goddamn assassin.

And yet, he had treated us like gold.

“Gregor…this is a lot…” My voice was low and strained.

“I know. I know. I am sorry. I’m not going to apologize for what I am or what I do, but you deserve better than how I’ve handled telling you. How I’ve handled all of it.” He seemed to be bracing himself for something. Maybe for me grabbing Michelle and running. But where could I go? How could I keep people like Alan and the Ivanovs off me without this big, tough, badass mobster around to keep us safe?

Torn, I stared at him helplessly. But before I could say or do anything further, we were both startled by the sound of a key in the lock.

Gregor stood up in shock, but it was too late. The door opened, the alarm started beeping, and half a dozen men with guns poured in through the door.