Page 90 of Tamed Enemy
I don’t answer because I don’t actually enjoy lying to my grandmother. Instead, I lean forward just a little, as if the design in the rug is worth all of my attention.
“Time flies, doesn’t it?” Granny asks, starting to plait my hair. “Who would’ve thought thirty days could go by so fast?”
I freeze. I don’t brush the carpet. I don’t trace the pattern. I try to remember what I’ve said to Granny about the task force, the con.
“But it’s not thirty yet, is it?” she asks, as if I haven’t turned to stone. “You have until Wednesday for that. Four more days, before your marriage is ended.”
I whirl quickly, yanking my half-braided braid free. “How do you know about that?”
Granny’s lips purse. “Helen heard from Anna who learned it from Nilsson.”
“Nilsson!” I’m so shocked the man has a human capacity for gossip that I choke on his name.
Granny tuts and pulls me back into place at her feet. I remember this position. This is how we spent long hours in our cottage in County Donegal. It was always easier to talk when I didn’t need to watch Granny’s face, when I could stare at the wall or the fire or the dark screen of the telly and pretend no one was listening to the horrors I needed to share.
This time, though, Granny speaks first. “You love him.”
“I do.”
“And he loves you.”
“He does.”
“But you filed the petition.”
“There’s no other way.”
Her fingers stall at the tips of my braid. “You could leave before Wednesday.”
We could do. Leave Granny. Leave America. Hide somewhere—in the Middle East maybe, or on an island in the South Pacific. If we choose a place without extradition, Cole and I could live like kings for the rest of our lives. He’d never have to worry about paying off the IRS.
But Tarasov’s another story. He’d send out his thieves, and eventually he would find us. He’d drag us back to his web—or show up in person—just to prove he could. Cole and I would never, ever be safe.
Besides… “I don’t want to leave you,” I say.
She makes an old-fashioned sound, something like, “Pshaw.” And then she says, “I’m an old woman. I won’t be here forever. And you shouldn’t be here now. Not with the bratva sniffing around.”
My grandmother knows far more than I thought she did. But she was a mob princess herself, decades before Mam and Daever thought of bringing me into the world. She’s watched and she’s listened and she’s studied the Canton Crew for decades.
When I turn to face her, my braid twitches like a cat’s tail. I take her hands in mine and say, “Cole and I have a plan.”
“A plan?”
“Something that can make us all safe. You. Cole and me. Breagha. Even Da.”
I don’t sayMam. I’m not sure there’s any way my mother can ever be safe again, not if we succeed in taking down Nikolai Tarasov.
“That doesn’t sound easy,” Granny says.
“It isn’t,” I say. “It’s dangerous. If we make a mistake…”
If we make a mistake, Tarasov escapes. And once the divorce decree becomes final on Wednesday, he comes after me with everything he has. He’ll use all his men. Deploy the weapons his mob sell to Russia. He won’t care how many bodies he leaves in his wake, so long as he has mine at the end.
Not even Sawgrass can defend against that.
Granny brushes the backs of her fingers against my cheek. “But you think you have a good chance.”
“I do. Cole does too. We think we can do this together.”
