Chapter 7 - Boris

"You've never even met Mr. Allard, have you?" Fiona asks, her voice high as we drive through the city. At this time of night, Vegas is bright and busy, the lights shining through the night, bright enough to see from space. Tourists and locals crowd the streets, many of them wearing Vegas Golden Knights jerseys. My brothers and I have been meaning to make it to a game, but it's just difficult when there's so much going on with the family.

"Have you ever met Hitler?" I return, glancing over at her.

"Oh my god," she says, "that is so tired. Do you not know a single other bad guy from history?"

"Fine," I mutter, "Mussolini, Stalin, then,"

"Just more dictators—and all dudes from WWII. Boring."

"What—okay, Fiona, what about Thomas Jefferson? Saddam Hussein? Alfred Hitchcock?"

"Alfred Hitchcock? He was a bad guy?"

"Are you kidding?" I ask, turning to look at her. "He was—you know what? That's not the point. The point is that you don't have to have met someone to know they're evil."

"Now you're saying Mr. Allard is evil. Are you forgetting that I'm literally talking to the man who kidnapped me right now?"

"That's different."

"Oh, yes, I can't wait to see what it is that Mr. Allard does that's so bad."

The car comes to a stop on the hill overlooking the dock. I turned the headlights off half a mile back to make sure we wouldn't be spotted, so now all I have to do is pull the binoculars out of the glove box and hand them to Fiona, who takes them, rolling her eyes as she does.

We watch together as men hurry around, loading crates onto the dock.

"Drugs," I say, "opioids, more than likely. Feeding into the epidemic of drug addiction in this country. You wouldn't call that evil?"

"And you ferry cocaine and heroin," she says, pulling the binoculars away from her face. "Drug addiction is a terrible thing—but ultimately, you're not taking away someone's choice by making drugs available. We, as a society, are actually the evil in the situation by outcasting people struggling with a disease."

I stare at her for a moment. How did she know—so specifically—which drugs our organization handles? She's been busy gathering information, apparently. But that doesn't matter.

"Opioids are different," I mutter, putting my binoculars to my face again. "And Allard's stuff is almost never pure—never safe. There's often a lot of other chemicals that cause complications for the poor addicts you seem to care so much about."

"That's terrible," she says, looking through her binoculars again. "But is it evil? That's to be—"

She cuts off when we see what I really came here to show her. A line of women, chained together, ushered onto the ship. Many of them were crying. One of the men laughs as he "pats" them down, taking liberties. Fiona pulls the binoculars away from her face, letting out a breath.

"So, there's human trafficking in the world," she says. "That doesn't mean that—"

To my absolute delight, Mr. James Allard walks out onto the ship, his hands clasped behind his back. He's wearing one of his ridiculous suits—a fashion statement with a dark green lining. Like by not wearing a black suit, like the rest of us, he's somehow better.

When the truth is that, to gain the upper hand amongst local organized crime, Allard has stooped to the lowest form of trading.

Human trafficking.

The thought makes bile rise in my throat. It's one thing to sell weapons, guns, to launder money and avoid taxes. That's all crime, sure, but it's crime that I've made my peace with. But to take these people—these women, some of them girls—from their lives, and subjugate them to a life of nothing more than pain and torture? Of being treated as an object, rather than as a person?

The mere thought of the Bratva engaging in something like that would make my father turn in his grave. To him, honor was the most important thing. Sure, our code of honor may differ from the rules of the law. My father may not have found it pertinent to spare lives or pay his taxes, but he would have never laid a hand on a woman or child. He never would have killed an innocent, no matter how much good it did the family. And that's the code I carry with me.

That's part of what makes Allard's actions so disgusting to me. There are many people who join the family, seek out this way of life, because they want the benefits afforded to them. Those people are making the choice readily, understanding what they're getting themselves into.

I glance over at Fiona, realizing that by taking her, I've engaged in some of the behavior my father would have turned his nose at. But, in all fairness, I thought I was kidnapping Olive Allard—a woman in this world. A woman who has accepted the risks associated with the riches you get from being a mafia princess.

And now I have Fiona here, this crazy, off-kilter woman who can get out of any binding. And I'm not sure what to do with her.

"Jesus," she breathes, when she sees Allard kick one of the women, then laugh, before they're shuffled down under the deck of the boat.

Before I know what's happening, Fiona has unlocked the car door and is falling out onto the gravel. I frantically whisper after her.

"Hey," I say, scrambling to get out of my seat, hurrying toward her side of the car. She's making her way to the slope of the hill, like she might walk all the way to the ship and stop this herself.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I ask, grabbing her bicep. For the first time since I took her from the office building, she looks truly angry at my touch.

"What am I doing?" she breathes. "I'm going down there to demand that he stop. That he let those women go. Or maybe I'll just free them myself."

"Okay," I say, putting my hands up. "You might have a way with knives, but that doesn't mean you're going to be able to take on dozens of highly trained men yourself, Fiona."

"Someone has to do something," she hisses. I am not going to just stand here and watch as another woman has her liberty taken from her. And quite frankly, I'm disgusted with any person who can do that."

"He will shoot you in the face , Fiona. He won't hesitate. They'll put your body in a refrigerator box, fill it with concrete, and haul you over the side of the ship when it's out in neutral waters."

"You don't—"

"I do know that! Because my brothers and I have been following Allard since he—" I stop myself, realizing I'm just about to reveal to her that Allard managed to get weapons out from under our noses. "It doesn't matter," I say, taking a breath. "What matters is that he's a bad guy. He's worse than any person in the Bratva, Fiona. My brothers—they gathered intel that one of the women trafficked on his boat gave birth. And he threw the baby overboard. To lower costs."

Fiona sucks in a breath, her hand going to her mouth, a look of horror gracing her face. Since taking her from the office, she's been nothing but strength and resilience, and now she finally looks like what I expected from her in the first place.

A scared woman.

The worst part is that I've only known her for a few days. And yet here I am, feeling pissed off at Allard for letting her down.

"I'm sorry, Fiona—" I start, but she cuts me off.

"So, we're just going to stand here and do nothing while those women are shipped out of the country? Is that what you're telling me? What if I call the cops?"

"No," I say, putting a hand out before realizing she has no phone. She grins and lifts her hand, flashing my own phone to me. When did she have the chance to get my phone? I add pickpocket to the list of things that she's capable of, then snatch it back from her. She almost grins, her smile watery and her eyes distant. I tuck my phone into my suit jacket's inside pocket, hoping that it deters her from slipping it out again.

"Listen, Fiona," I say, taking a deep breath and putting my hands on her shoulders, guiding her back to the car. "I realize it's painful to watch this and do nothing, but we're working on a plan to stop this. The first part of the plan was getting Olive—"

"Olive doesn't know a thing about this," Fiona insists when I get into the driver's seat next to her. "She would have told me if—if—"

"No, I believe it," I say, shaking my head. "I don't think she knows about the mafia either, and if she does, I don't think she knows about the lengths her father takes to make his money and fight for an upper hand. But do you see how I can't let you go now that I've brought you into this?"

"I—" Fiona laughs, pushing her hands over her face and letting out a frustrated scream. "I just can't believe that you can sit here, knowing every single one of those women is about to drop off the face of the planet. If we don't help them now, they're done. What if it was your sister down there? Would you have the same cavalier attitude about waiting to hatch your plan? Or would the fact that she exists to you as a human being spur you to action?"

I stare at her, mouth open. How did she know about Anya? And also, why is her question actually making me second-guess my actions?

If it were Anya, my brothers and I would tear up that boat to get to her. I would do everything I could to ensure the ship didn't leave the dock. I would trace her to the ends of the earth to find her.

I take a deep breath.

"If we try to help those women, and we fail, we would just be alerting Allard that we know—"

"I don't need to hear anything else," Fiona says, her eyes going hard. She crosses her arms and turns away from me.

I barely know this woman, but for some reason, her scorn cuts me to the bone. It's an impossible situation, but of course, I would rescue my sister because she's my family. I don't think it makes me a bad person to prioritize my family above other random women I barely know.

But Fiona refuses to look at me as we drive home. As I turn onto the road leading up to the house, she unlocks the door again and rolls out onto the road, racing through the woods.

I know she can't get far because there's nowhere to go out here, but it still takes me half an hour to find her hiding behind a tree. I had to bind her wrists again, gag her and put her in the trunk of the car after she tried to choke me with her bound wrists.

This is what it's like when Fiona is truly trying to get away, I realize when it takes six of my men to carry her up the stairs and get her into the room. She won't stop until she escapes, or I eventually have no choice but to kill her.

I tie her to the armchair again, this time handcuffing her and doubling down with duct tape to make sure she can't get up. The entire time, she stares at me with those hardened eyes, like I'm turning into a man she hates.

"Listen," I say when I come out of the shower, and she's still in the chair, giving me hateful eyes. "I know the right thing to do, in that moment, would have been to save those people. But if we had tried, we would have failed. We wouldn't have saved them, and we wouldn't save anyone in the future either. And you're right—if it were my sister on that boat, I would have gone to the ends of the earth to get her back. But that's the wrong choice . Love makes us stupid. That's the whole point of love—it makes us value a single person's life more than that of ten, which isn't fair and right. By letting that boat go tonight, we're giving ourselves the chance to save hundreds of women from this experience in the future."

Fiona is still staring at me with those hard eyes, not even trying to speak through her gag, which is now duct-taped to her mouth. I continue pacing for a moment, and then, finally, I drop down onto the couch, lying back and trying to fall asleep.

If I'm going to make her sleep in that chair, there's no way in hell I'm taking the bed.

My brain wars between drifting to sleep and listening for the sounds of her potential escape, but eventually, when she makes no noise, I start to sleep lightly.

When I hear a rustling to my left, I turn my head and find myself at the end of Fiona's knife, which is right at my throat.

I could swipe her hand away. I could easily physically overpower her. But I won't. I wait, with bated breath, to see what she's going to do.

With her standing over me like this, her knife to my throat, I feel myself starting to get hard again.

"Swear to me," she says, her voice rough from the gag. "That you aren't going to let that happen again."

I take a breath, feeling the tip of her blade digging into my throat but not breaking the skin. I should be wondering where she got that blade. I should be worried about my life hanging in the balance here, but instead, it's like I'm paralyzed, staring up at her like there's not a single place in the universe I'd rather be.

"I swear," I say, my voice rough, too, knowing I'll keep this promise if it means sacrificing a hundred of my men. My sentiment from earlier echoes through my head Love makes us stupid.

But this is a woman I met a few days ago. Not love. I shake the thought from my head, just as Fiona drops the knife, her body draping over mine.

I must be dreaming—I must be imagining the way her legs feel on either side of my hips, imagining the way her hand runs over my head, her lips dipping to meet mine.

The kiss from the chapel rushes through my head, and I rise to meet her, and this time, I'm the one to slip my tongue into her mouth. She lets out a moan against me, and I grip her hips tightly, wishing I could turn her around and get her on her back.

But this is Fiona, and she likes to have the power.

When she grinds her hips against me, I realize that if I don't stop this now, I might not stop it at all. I push her away, sitting up. We stare at each other, our chests heaving for a moment before I get to my feet and rush out of the room, slamming the door behind me.