Page 98 of Tamed Enemy
If I kill him, this can all be over. We can all go home.
But I want revenge. Tarasov has to suffer more than Kate and I have ever done. All I need is patience. All I need is control.
And I am a master of control.
At Kate’s suggestion, the interrogators leave the boardroom door open for the afternoon. Megan sends a quick message to every team member on the floor:Ignore all boardroom activity.
Not one person breaks character. They type. They answer phone calls. They gossip over the tops of their cubicles.
And not one of them acknowledges in any way the man who is being hounded in the boardroom.
Tarasov shouts, trying to get someone’s attention. “I am being held against my will! This is a violation of my constitutional rights!” And then, when no one responds, “I will sue every one of you! You will regret the day you penned me like a dog. My bratva will?—”
He catches himself before he completes the threat, an explicit description of criminal activity that would get the attention of any genuine task force with any legitimate powers of law enforcement. But his tirade proves our game is finally working. The pakhan’s frozen facade has shown a hairline crack.
He retreats into silence for the rest of the afternoon. Bennett works through his entire list of questions for the third time, leaning hard on crimes against women.
At 5:00 everyone goes home.
The door is still open. “Do not leave me here!” Tarasov shouts. “I am guarded by animals! You are good people! Do not go! Do not leave?—”
Megan turns off the lights before she heads for the elevator.
Tarasov sits at his table, holding his head in his chained hands. His shoulders heave, and it’s difficult to tell from the observation room whether he’s sobbing or just fighting for breath.
The guards come in. The routine is the same as last night—a bottle of water, a sandwich as dry as the Sahara, a frog-march to the john, and back to the table. As one guy produces the hood, Tarasov starts to babble. “You do not need to do that. You have chained me here. I cannot escape. Just give me one hour of peace. All right, all right. You put on the hood. Just do not?—”
He wails when they clap on the headphones.
The men stop by on their way to the break room. “He’s starting to soften up,” the senior guy says. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” I echo, but I can’t look at Kate as I say it.
Tomorrow, our divorce decree becomes final.
41
KATE
The second night is harder than the first.
Cole brings back pizza, but I barely manage to choke down a slice. Cole eats two, and we give the rest to the Sawgrass men in the break room.
Mam has called half a dozen times, leaving increasingly unhinged messages. At first, she claims to fear the Dogfight will start again, that the Canton Crew will be blamed for Tarasov’s kidnapping in broad daylight. By the end of this second day, though, she’s telling her own truth: “I’m getting a migraine, I’m so worried about Niki.”
Nothing about Da. Nothing about the Canton Crew. Certainly nothing about me.
When I hear her confession, I go online, searching for a website for the Forge and Anchor, the pub Robbie Malloy is said to visit in Donegal. I find one, but it looks like it was last updated twenty years ago. An Irish jig starts playing through my speakersas the single page loads. An Eircom email address is printed at the bottom of the page, bright green text on a dark green background.
I can’t believe the address is still good. But the letter I posted to Malloy has gone unanswered. It can’t hurt to try reaching him online. I send an email, short and to the point:
I urgently need to reach Robbie Malloy about a matter that may cost Lynch men their lives.
With Mam lost, the Irish enforcer might be my only hope of saving my clan.
After I send the email, I try to get comfortable in my chair, using my fleece blanket as a pillow. When that doesn’t work, I shove keyboards aside and lean forward on the table. An hour later, I give up and sit on the floor, back against the wall, resting my head on my knees.
Sometime after midnight, Cole sits beside me. He wedges his back in the corner of the room and pulls me onto his lap. It’s still not an easy position—neither one of us is close to sleeping—but I take comfort in the steady thump of his heartbeat beneath my cheek. His chin rests on the crown of my head.
