Page 79 of Honey Cut
Family.
Ease.
Ease. All this time, I thought he’d been asking me to make sure his family was comfortable, taken care of, but what if that hadn’t been it at all? What if he’d been trying to tell me something completely different?
“I think he tried to tell me,” I say numbly. “I thought he was saying something else, but he was sayingYs.He wanted me to know.”
Family. Ys.
And then it comes together—the timeline, Cara’s sporadic calls, her exhaustion. “Cara, are you in any danger now? From Ys?”
I hear the click of a lighter and the burn of paper. A long exhale. “Yeah,” she says finally. “Not Chloe or Mom because they didn’t know. They still don’t. But somehow they found out that Aaron told me. At first, I just got a few threatening phone calls, smashed windshields, that kind of thing. I’m used to that shit, so it didn’t scare me. Much. That’s when I decided to come see you, to see if you knew anything about Ys too. Some place you work at, by the way.”
“Yeah.” I laugh, a little uncomfortably. “It is.”
“But after that, shit got worse. My apartment caught on fire. I was getting followed home from the place I was bartending at. I worried that if I told Mom or Chloe, they’d be attacked too, so I just…ran.” A dry chuckle. “I’m good at running.”
“Cara, let me help. Come to Lyonesse—even if I’m not there, you can stay in my apartment. You’ll be safe there, I swear.”
“And then what? I hide there forever?”
“You can’t run forever either,” I coax, as gently as I can. “Aaron would want you to be as safe as possible. Please. I owe you this.”
A pause. And then, “I’ll think about it.”
“Please do. And call anytime.”
“Okay.”
“I wish I knew more about Ys,” I say. “They came up in a meeting a few weeks back, but all anyone knew was that they move weapons around.”
“I think there’s got to be something else to it,” Cara says. “Arms smuggling isn’t that special.”
“But it’s lucrative.”
“I guess.” She takes a breath. “Thank you. For listening. And not thinking I’m crazy.”
“I would never think that.”
“Thank you anyway. I’ll call again if I can…and I’ll think about your offer.”
We hang up, and I wander into the building, pressing the button for the elevator with my brain whirring. I’d been wrong about Sims, although not as wrong as I could have been. He’d been bribed to a point, led into venal, petty misdeeds, and then the rest had been a combination of shame and threats. Of the very real fear that something might happen to his family.
Fuck. I hope Cara takes me up on my offer. And Mark might be able to help too. Surely, he knows people who could help her get set up with a new identity…or something. However that kind of thing works.
The balcony door is open inside the penthouse, and I hear the low, sweet murmur of Isolde’s voice on the wind. She’s on the roof, I think, talking on the phone. There’s a scatter of folders and documents on the dining room table where she’s been working, all stuff about export laws and this goddamn bowl, and I’m about to look away when a name pops out at me.
Jakub Kulov.
I recognize it immediately. It’s the name of Drobny’s security lead. We had a meeting with him right before the attack on the club.
Peering closer, I see Kulov’s on a short list of names—potential buyers, the list is labeled.
I shake my head and step back. Cara’s call has me suspicious of mundane things now. We’re in Europe. Slovakia is just a short train ride or flight away. There are probably Kulovs all over the place.
“Oh hey,” Isolde says, coming down the stairs. She’s changed into a soft, slouchy sweater and linen pants, but her cheeks are still pink from the run. There’s something else too, something tense about the way she holds herself, but it could also be that she’s spent or sore from this morning. “Everything okay?”
Kulov forgotten, I turn fully toward her. “Can I tell you something?” I ask.
