Chapter Five

Then.

The first rule was to never develop feelings.

Not for the toys.

Not for the food that was served.

Certainly not for people.

When Mr. Moruzzi adopted us, it all looked so promising. He had a big house and a wife who was a therapist, and had a nice, airy room with a lot of plants and framed inspirational quotes by notable people.

When I was dropped there, many months ago—I couldn’t count because I was still too young—I’d thought it would be a game-changer. I was going to have a warm room, with toys, and clothes, and food.

And for the first month, that’s exactly what happened. I wasn’t the only kid. There was Tom, too. He was three years older than me. And Lawrence—or Law, to his friends. He was two years older than me.

Their lives seemed different from mine. They weren’t there when I got home from school. They came in the evenings, looking dirty and beaten up. Mr. Moruzzi would let them eat a huge plate of whatever Mrs. Moruzzi made that day—mainly pasta or lasagna or pizza. Then the kids would go to bed. I didn’t know if I should envy or pity Tom and Law for their lives. They seemed much closer to Mr. Moruzzi than I was—but I soon learned it came with a hefty price.

A month after I got there, Mr. Moruzzi came to sit on the edge of my bed. It was nighttime. I was already half-asleep.

“Tomorrow, after you finish school, Tom’ll wait for you. He’ll teach you how to do the work.”

“Work?” I asked groggily.

Six-year-olds weren’t supposed to work. Even I knew that.

“You’ll see. The Moruzzi family has a business. A very profitable one.”

Mafia, Tom would explain to me later on. Mr. Moruzzi was the ringleader of a small Italian mafia that had a century-long beef with the Russians.

“Disappoint me, and you won’t get your toys, your meals, your nice, comfy bed. Tell CPS—and you’ll be back in the system, where nothing good ever happens.”

The next day, Tom waited for me after my first class.

“I’m Tom.”

“Ransom.” I didn’t shake the hand he offered me, though. It seemed weird. We were supposed to be foster brothers or whatever.

“Cool name.”

I didn’t answer that.

“Did they pick that out for you, or did your parents call you that?”

“Don’t have any parents,” I answered dryly, my stomach clenching painfully. “You here to talk or to teach me?” I wanted to get it over with.

Tom smirked, pleased. “Ever pickpocketed?”

“No?” I wasn’t even sure what it meant.

“Well, you’re about to learn from the best.”

I downed an entire bottle of water before raising my head from the pillow, slam-dunking the bottle into the trashcan on the other side of my brothel-themed bedroom. I’d noticed that Brat sneaked into my room to sift through my trash, but I’d soon realized it was more to do with her recycling obsession than to try to get intel about me.

Last night’s encounter had gone fine. Better than fine. Good. With my brand of kink, anything short of disaster was a godsend. But it didn’t take the edge off. I was still feeling restless. Uncertain. I knew I was treating Brat like crap, but I didn’t know how else to rein her in.

I’d lied to her. Said I didn’t have a conscience. Truth was, I wasn’t feeling too hot about how I’d treated this kid. But what other option did I have? The only way I knew how to play was to cheat the game.

And breaking her spirit was the easiest, fastest way to get to my goal and deliver the goods to President Thorne.

She’s just a kid, and you’re treating her inhumanely.

But she pushed back every step of the way, making it impossible to give her breathing room.

Anyway, I was now paying for drinking my weight in whiskey last night at a random hole in the wall. My hangover was hell. At least Max told me she’d behaved throughout the evening.

Scraping my miserable ass off the bed, I hopped into the shower, brushed my teeth for ten minutes (when Brat had said I smelled of cherry lipstick, I almost vomited in her pretty little face), then hit the kitchen for some coffee, eggs, and bacon.

Brat was probably still admiring her perfect pout in her bedroom mirror. If yesterday proved one thing, it was that the Thorne Princess wasn’t aiming high for herself. Those friends of hers had the combined IQ of a pickle. And she knew it.

Not that Brat had a Stephen Hawkins-level brilliant mind, but at least a decent education and cut-glass vowels made sure she didn’t sound as dumb as a brick.

I scowled out the kitchen window, calculating how many shifts I could transfer to Max without making him Hallie Thorne’s primary nanny, when an armored, bright green Lamborghini pulled to a screeching stop in front of the entryway, knocking over an exotic plant in the driveway.

The driver flung the door open. I put my coffee cup down by the kitchen sink. What in the ever-loving shit was happening?

“What’s going on?” Brat echoed my thoughts, tornadoing down the stairs in a pink kimono dress. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her nipples were straining against the thin fabric. My dick nodded her good morning. The rest of me wanted to file a restraining order against it. Stupidity was an unfortunate side effect of desire. Yet the interesting part was that my body responded to her at all. Normally, physical traits didn’t do anything for me. I was more turned on by situations. The more salacious—the better.

“Who’s the asshole in the Lamborghini?” she demanded.

The doorbell chimed on cue. Rather than answering her, I opened the front door.

Tom stood on the other side, wearing a checked suit and his good guy smile. A smile only I and one other person in the world knew was disingenuous.

Behind him, I spotted Lisa and the kids in the car, all waving at me. I scowled, as if he’d dumped a bag of flaming shit between us on the threshold.

“What are you doing here, Whitfield?”

“Why, howdy, partner!” Tom clapped my shoulder cheerily, winking at Brat, who stood behind me.

“Wifey and I were in the neighborhood and I thought I’d pop in and check on how y’all are doing before I start my new post in Chicago.”

He lived five states away. The ‘in the neighborhood’ excuse was as believable as a Vegas stripper’s tits. He obviously wanted to check and ensure my new client was still in a favorable mental state. Side note: the world would be a slightly better place if men would stop calling their spouses wifey.

“Are you the Whitfield in Lockwood and Whitfield?” Princess Thorne inquired behind my back.

“Yes, ma’am. And you must be Hallie!”

“The one and only.” Brat shouldered past me, prancing about in her ridiculous robe to shake his hand. Tom took her palm in his and squeezed firmly. I waited for them to get it over with so I could slam the door in his face.

“You know your car was voted Most Polluting by most car magazines last year? Your Lamborghini burns a gallon of gasoline for every eighteen miles traveled. And it can’t be family-friendly.”

Tom shot me a look. I shook my head. “She’s a tree hugger.”

“The Lamborghini is a rental.” He turned to her.

“Promise to return it to the agency and get a Tesla and I’ll welcome you in.”

“You got yourself a deal.” Tom laughed.

Brat opened the door invitingly, offering him a little bow. “My kingdom is yours then, Mr. Whitfield.”

His laugh intensified. What the hell was happening?

“Actually, I’m with the family. We’re just passing by, see. I promised my kids I’d take them to Disneyland.”

Disney World was closer to Chicago.

“Traffic to Anaheim is insane this time of the day. Your car will singlehandedly cause a volcano to erupt. Come on in, all of you.” Brat opened the door wider, ignoring me. “We’ve got pastries. I’ll make smoothies for the kids. It’ll be fun.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Tom turned around and signaled Lisa to get out and bring the two terrors with her.

“Uncle Ramb-son!” one exclaimed. One of them was named Silas, the other Saint.

I’d never heard more white bread names in my life.

The twins ran, tackling my legs and hugging them firmly. I had no idea why. I’d never made any effort to be nice to them. I didn’t actively scowl when they came around—a refreshing change from my usual behavior toward humans—but that was the extent of my relationship with them. I did buy them birthday presents. Mainly because they were born on April Fool’s, so it was easy to remember the date.

I could see Brat was looking at me with a fresh expression, one full of curiosity and delight. I imagined she was having a Beauty and the Beast moment, where the ugly-ass beast feeds the birds in the snow. Little did she know, if I had birds in my palm, they’d be rotisserie chicken before the stupid song was over.

“Ransom, it is good to see you again.” Lisa rose on her toes to kiss both my cheeks.

Lisa was a decent woman. But she also constantly tried to coerce me into family dinners, blind dates, and other social functions.

I turned around to face Tom. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He bumped his shoulder against mine, dropping his voice. “We need to take a little trip.”

I rolled my shoulders. He’d kept it vague for a reason. “I’ll grab my stuff.”

“Grab your kit, too. I’ve a feeling we’re dealing with some serious shit.”

I went upstairs to get my gun (I always carried, and it was always hot), cell phone, and bag. When I got back down, I found Brat handing the little monsters two pink smoothies while having a heated conversation with Lisa about curling irons. I’d always detested the human need to fill silence with mundane small talk, but I especially hated how the Thorne Princess was seemingly winning over the small handful of people in my life.

“…and so,” Brat concluded to Lisa, who stared at her, eyes like two full moons, “the real secret to perfect waves is to curl each section in the opposite direction. Like—” She lifted her hands and took pieces of Lisa’s blonde hair to demonstrate. “If I curl this part inward, I’ll curl the one next to it outward. And you have to keep them tight until you’re completely done, then set them with hairspray before gently brushing. Do you have, like, twenty minutes? I can show you.”

“She does,” I said grimly, motioning to Tom to get his ass up from the stool and join me at the door. “We’re leaving. Lisa will keep an eye on you.”

“Leaving? Really?” Brat perked up. The sparkle in her eyes was telling. She loathed me.

I smirked cruelly. “Don’t look so sad. It’s only for a couple hours.”

“A girl can dream.”

“Can she? Creativity is not your strong suit,” I volleyed back.

“And you know this conclusively about me from what, an impression based on these last couple days?” She parked a hand over her waist, cocking up an eyebrow.

“I know because you can’t seem to read anything over two paragraphs long if the text isn’t accompanied by pictures.”

All this while Tom and Lisa’s eyes ping-ponged between us.

The last jab seemed to do the trick, because Brat looked thoroughly wounded. She didn’t like to be told she was stupid. I made a mental note not to do it anymore. No part of me wanted to see her banged up emotionally. I just wanted to survive this damn assignment.

“Uncle Ran-wrom said a potty word!” One of the twins—the smaller one—raised his head from his smoothie, his face smeared with pink.

“Very true. Uncle Ransom will now have to give each of you one dollar as an apology,” Tom said primly, like he didn’t grow up like me, in the guts of Chicago’s whorehouses and drug dens.

Huffing, I took out my wallet and slapped a fifty-dollar bill in front of each twin. “Here,” I groaned. “Since I know I’m about to rack up a bill here.”

Finally, Tom and I left in his Lamborghini. I wasn’t feeling completely confident in Brat’s ability not to screw it up while I was gone, but Lisa was levelheaded, and I had every reason to believe she’d call us if Brat did something stupid, like flash the neighbors or invite domestic terrorists for a pool party.

“Where are we headed?” I asked, checking my Ruger LC9 to make sure it was fully loaded. I had zero trust in people. But I did trust my weapon to always function when I needed it. It was a good rule of thumb, and one I’d adopted the hard way.

“Huntington Beach.”

“I’m going to need more than that.”

By my calculations, Tom was supposed to start his work with Mayor Ferns on Monday. It was unlike him to make a trip to the West Coast so close to an assignment. We both had that poor boy complex, where we were eager to prove we were worth our salt.

“Ian’s not been answering me.”

“Ian Holmes?” I asked, removing invisible lint from my dress pants. Holmes was a fellow counterintelligence agent from our previous lives. He was much older than us and worked as a chief operating officer by the time we’d left. Which basically meant he ran the show and was our boss the last two years of our employment. Tom kept in touch with him.

“Yeah. Haven’t heard from him in a week.”

“So? Are you two having an affair?” My eyebrows shot up. “Why would you be talking to this random ass person more than you talk to your mom?”

“I don’t have a mom, and you damn well know that,” Tom muttered. “Ian and I talk pretty regularly. He’s got a lot of insight. Has been in this business for decades. Speaking of affairs…” Tom scrubbed the stubble on the front of his throat, grinning. “Nice banter you had there with Miss Thorne.”

“Don’t go there,” I warned. The image of her smoothing my dress shirt last night with that lopsided, siren smirk assaulted my memory every half hour or so.

“I’m not suggesting you’re having an affair with her,” Tom explained. “But…if she wasn’t business, would you?”

“Absolutely not.”

Tom had no idea about my sexual life, how depraved it was. But even if he had, he seemed to think even the biggest fuck-up could be reformed. He said he was living proof of that. He was wrong. I was ten times more damaged.

“She’s not your type,” Tom mused, unimpressed by the death glare I was sending him.

“Naturally.” I rolled my window down. “My favorite type is without a pulse.”

“Bet that sounded more warped than you intended it to.” Tom tapped the steering wheel, flashing a shit-eating smile at nobody at all as we passed by palm trees and half-naked people. “You usually go for women you wouldn’t ever bring home for a family dinner or a double date with Lisa and me. Which begs the question, do you still use call girls?”

“Jesus. No,” I murmured, scowling at the view. That was so far back in our past. And not something I’d done by choice. I had no way of avoiding it. Avoiding them. Why would he bring it up now? “In case you haven’t noticed, the girl’s an airhead.”

“Nah.” Tom shrugged, and I could see in my periphery that his smile was widening. “She just has a big attitude, and it’s all L.A. But once you strip that down…well, I think there is someone interesting behind the persona. She just called me out on my ride…pretty impressive.”

“You mean rude.” I flicked my Aviators on. “Good thing I’m the one vetting personnel in our company. You are always off when it comes to reading people.”

The rest of the drive, Tom caught me up to speed about Ian Holmes. Apparently, Ian and he had been real close the past couple years, ever since Ian had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

“It’s just not like him not to answer,” Tom explained. “Usually, if he’s busy, he’d text back.”

He pulled in front of a white, Spanish villa in a sleepy cul-de-sac in Huntington Beach, a stone’s throw from the ocean. “He has a pretty strict routine, especially since his wife passed away.”

We both got out of the car and made our way to Ian’s front door. Only two more immaculately taken care of houses lined the cul-de-sac. Upscale neighborhood, for sure.

Ian’s front door had three days’ worth of rolled up newspapers in front of it. The first telltale of trouble.

Tom frowned and picked one of them up. “Not a good sign.”

“Does he have any living relatives?” I peered around, craning my neck past his garden’s gate.

“One daughter. She lives in Modesto, up north. She calls him once a week. Rarely visits. Some daughter she is.”

Tom didn’t always have a judgmental attitude, but fatherhood did that to him.

“Hey. Some parents don’t deserve the respect. Maybe he went to visit her?”

He shook his head. “He’d have gotten one of his neighbors to take care of the newspapers. He’s no rookie.”

I checked my watch. I did not like the idea of leaving Brat without proper supervision. Even though my main job was to scare her off from pulling any stupid shit, I still took it seriously. For all I knew she could be filming a sex tape right this second.

With whom, ass-face? Lisa?

“Problem is, we can’t just break into the place,” Tom murmured somewhere to my right.

Couldn’t we? Why not? If anything, we’d be helping the old man. He was obviously not doing too hot if he hadn’t picked up his newspaper in three days. Elderly people—especially sick ones—told people when they left town. Ian never did.

I took out a bobby pin from my lockpicking kit and bent it to a ninety-degree angle, tampering with the door lock. I pushed it open in less than twelve seconds.

“Problem solved, I guess,” Tom deadpanned. “You like skirting the edges of right and wrong, don’t you?”

I shot him a look, shouldering past him inside. I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

We saw no obvious break-in signs. The house looked relatively neat—considering it belonged to a retiree widower, anyway—and it didn’t appear ransacked—as if someone had been looking for something to steal. The place was modestly decorated, but even the belongings worth a dime or two were intact. Vases, paintings, an especially hideous decorative golden bowl. Nothing was out of place.

I ran a finger over the fireplace. No dust. “Been cleaned recently.”

Tom threw the fridge door open. “That may be, but half the food in here is expired. I’m going upstairs to the bedrooms.”

I nodded. “I’ll check the garage and backyard.”

Tom took the stairs while I opened the garage. An old school black Jeep was parked inside. Wherever Ian went, he hadn’t taken his car.

I strolled along the garage, which was jam-packed with hardware, including weapons. Everything appeared untouched. This was not your run-of-the-mill burglary case. If someone hurt or took this man, they didn’t want anything that belonged to him, just the guy himself.

“Coast is clear upstairs. All the rooms are empty,” Tom shouted from the second floor.

I ambled from the garage to the balcony doors. I stopped cold when I noticed what should have stood out to me from the beginning—a slight gap in the glass door. It was open. Rather than using the handle and fucking up potential fingerprints, I curled the fabric of my sleeve over my fingers as I pushed the door gently open. The garden’s layout was simple. It was a square space with a patch of grass and some outdoor furniture arranged randomly on one side.

And smack in the middle of the garden, arms and feet poked out of the ground.

I repeat—human feet.

Well, shit.

“Tom,” I barked, “Don’t come out here. And don’t touch anything on your way down.”

He knew the drill and it was unlikely that he would, but I wanted to err on the safe side. I flicked my phone, about to call 911. And Tom, who never was very good at taking orders, stood beside me five seconds later, his face screwed in repulsion and agony as the horror show in front of us became clear to him.

“I told you not to come here,” I hissed out. No part of me desired to see him emotionally destroyed by this.

“And you thought I’d listen? I wanted to see wha… Oh, shit.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

There was a long beat in which he digested what had happened.

“They half-assed the burial.” He swallowed.

“Or deliberately botched it.”

Tom took his phone out and called 911, and our local FBI friend, Chris. This was definitely retaliation.

The arms and legs were purple and blue—and unmistakably those of an elderly male. Ian had been this way for over twenty-four hours.

“Feds and the police are on their way,” Tom announced, turning around and bracing his hands on his knees. He sounded faraway. Deep in thought. I imagined it was hard for him. I liked Ian, too. But it was never a difficulty for me to say goodbye to people. I’d done it more times than I could count. Moving between foster homes, institutes, units. Death, specifically, did not faze me in the least. It was just another station in life. The last one, to be exact.

Tom could still make connections. Even friendships.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Tom asked. I felt his shoulder brush against mine as he joined me near the shallow grave. He seemed to be alternating between wanting to throw up to wanting to do something about what we’d just discovered.

“Too soon to tell,” I ground out, shoving my hands into my front pockets. “But the initial signs are there. The burial method is haphazard. Whoever did this wanted to send a message, not conceal a body. And unless we find strangulation or bullet wounds…well, he could’ve been buried alive.”

Chechen burial.

Parts of the body were visible for all to see—on purpose. The person was normally buried alive, for extra torture. This was something I was familiar with, as I had worked in the Los Angeles area with Ian himself before retiring, and the local Bratva was fond of getting rid of people that way.

I also knew this from my days in Chicago, when the Italians and Russians tried to slaughter one another on a weekly basis.

“This is bullshit,” I gritted out. “I’m sorry. I know you were close.”

I was sorry. I just wasn’t sure what that meant.

“You want to tell me it stirs nothing in you?” Tom pushed my chest suddenly, baring his teeth. He was angry. He needed to redirect that anger at someone. And right now, that someone was me.

I didn’t know what else there was to be said. I had not wished death upon Ian Holmes. I didn’t wish death upon most people, despite my misanthropic tendencies.

“That’s it?” Tom spat out.

I stared at him levelly. “I wasn’t the one who killed him, all right? Lay off.”

He pushed at my chest again, harder this time. I let myself stumble a couple of steps.

“You don’t give two shits, do you? He was our boss. He mentored us. We worked together. He treated you like a son.”

“I’m no one’s son,” I replied tersely.

“Yes, and you are just so fucking eager to never forget it!” Tom barked out a bitter laugh. “You really love the whole tortured screw-up persona. Makes you feel important, doesn’t it?”

I was getting tired of getting bitched about for something I hadn’t done. Sure, Holmes was one of ours, but I did not consider anyone family. Not even Tom himself. Family was a liability other people had. I had acquaintances.

“Look, this is not constructive.” I sighed.

“You know what’s not constructive?” Tom balled my collar in his fist. “The fact that you don’t have a damn heart.”

“No heart is better than too big a heart. Remember where you came from. Life ain’t pretty.”

He let me go suddenly, and I had the good grace to pretend to stumble back from the impact.

Two minutes later, a few police cars and a black sedan pulled in front of Ian’s front door. We gave them our statements, then our business cards. We weighed in with what we thought had happened. Who we thought could be behind this.

“Kozlov,” we kept saying. “His name is Kozlov.”

Like they didn’t know. Like they weren’t busting their asses trying to catch him this very minute. That is, if they weren’t in his pocket and under his payroll.

They sent us on our way and asked us to give them a call if we remembered anything more. Standard protocol.

During the drive back to Brat’s house, I considered telling Tom I was sorry for his loss, but then remembered he would just use it as a way to club me for not feeling as shitty as he did.

Tom was the first to break the silence. It happened when we glided onto Interstate 5 and got stuck in one of the longest traffic jams known to mankind.

“You know it’s the Russians.” His jaw ticked. He wore sunglasses, so I couldn’t see his expression, but I had a feeling he was misty-eyed.

“Logic dictates.”

“They’re ruthless,” he said animatedly.

“Most people are. But they’re also fearless. Not a good combo.”

Shortly before I’d handed in my resignation and went private, I was involved in a bloody operation against the Bratva in Los Angeles. These were tough-as-nails criminals who came here after the Soviet Union fell and muscled the Italian mafia out of Los Angeles in less than three years, leaving rivers of blood in their wake. The FBI would probably have been perfectly content with letting the two gangs kill each other off, but during my service, the Russians had gotten sloppy—power drunk—and often claimed civilian casualties.

Mistaken identities, assassinations gone wrong, gun fights in broad daylight forced us to step in. And in we stepped. Only we didn’t deal with amateurs. Soon, these people had our names, our addresses, a list of our loved ones. Tom and I, especially, were on their shit list. They knew about us from their friends in Chicago. How we worked with the Italians. Kozlov’d had a bullet with my name on it before I’d even known of his existence.

The Russians fought back. In the end, we’d managed to throw some of them in the can, but not nearly as many as we wanted to.

And not the main villain—Vasily Kozlov.

Ian Holmes had been in charge of that operation. He was no doubt a target for them. And what do you know? They’d decided his time was up.

“They’re clapping back.” Tom stroked his jawline. “Years later.”

“Technically, didn’t Holmes retire last year?” I asked. “He’d been on their case for a lot longer than we were. And they don’t exactly play nice.”

“Now, here is where it gets sticky for me.” Tom cleared his throat, shooting me an uncertain look. “You’re here, in Los Angeles. They have your name, your affiliation to Moruzzi. That makes you a target.”

I’d been trying to tell him as much back when he asked me to take the post.

“I can take care of myself,” I said flatly.

“I don’t doubt that. But then, you’d be putting Hallie at risk, too.”

He wasn’t wrong, but I also wasn’t going to let a bunch of lowlifes mess with my plans, my aspirations, my career.

“I would like to see them try to get to her.”

“I’m not kidding,” Tom said, looking gloomy as shit.

He’d really taken Ian Holmes’ death hard. I imagined he was going to call the daughter next, maybe help arrange for his service. That was the kind of man Tom was. Broken, but glued together, somehow, into something whole.

“You’re going to be putting her at risk instead of eliminating risks that could put her in danger.”

“I’m well aware, all right?” I barked, staring out the window. “If anything, it would add some spice to this job. All this woman does is shop and take pictures with her friends.”

“You can’t be serious right now.”

I was, in fact, being serious. I wasn’t going to let a bunch of assholes run my life. For starters, I had no reason to believe they knew I was in Los Angeles. For another, I left here years ago. Tom was making a mountain out of a goddamn molehill.

“All I’m saying is—”

“You wanted me here, and now I am. I’ll keep an eye out for the Bratva.”

Tom let out a short breath. “How do I tell Lisa that Ian is dead?” he asked finally. “She’s going to be devastated.”

Grief was something I had no concept of, so I kept my mouth shut for the remainder of the ride.