Page 47 of Bound By Sin
"I'm serious. Do you know why the cops showed up?"
His hand grips mine harder and he scowls. "I'm not sure. I think someone called in a tip about the fight, and well…" He says the next part with a lot of frustration in his tone. "What I do isn't exactly legal."
"Do you know who called it in?" I don’t bat an eyelash at him because I already knew that. My chest is just ready to explode wondering if he knows it was my brothers. If he knows it might've been my fault. I feel this compulsive need to tell him the truth, and that it should come from my lips, not someone else’s.
"No." He checks his mirrors and changes lanes. "But whoever it was knew exactly when I left the building. Those cops showing up while I was gone? Not a coincidence."
"Could it be the same people who've been messing with your phone?" I chew the inside of my cheek, trying not to let him know I'm anxious. My palms are so sweaty. I don't want him to hate me. I want him to love me, and after this, I don't think he'll even want to look at me.
"That's what Timur thinks." He rubs his jaw with one hand. "The phone thing, the American, and now this. It's all connected, but we can't see the thread."
"I'm sorry I made you leave tonight," I say. This guilt is swallowing me alive. I know the thread he can't find because I'm the thread. Bogdan's little scheme has worked out for him better than he could ever have imagined, and I got caught in the middle of it.
"Don't apologize for that." He brings my hand to his lips and kisses it again. "You were scared and I came to get you. I'd do it again. Besides." He chuckles. "If I were there, I'd have been arrested for sure. You saved me from being locked up tonight.”
The car grows quiet for a minute and I know now is the time. I have to tell him the truth and help him try to see my side. I was forced to play along with their game long after I wascomfortable. And if I tell him about the baby, maybe he won't be so mad. Maybe he can look past how stupid I've been. I open my mouth, ready to tell him the truth, when his phone rings through the car speakers. He glances at the screen and uses the buttons on his steering wheel to answer.
"Stepan," he says.
"Where are you right now?" Stepan's tone’s clipped. He's pissed off and he has every right to be. It makes me wince and pull my hand away from him in shame. The mood is broken and I can't tell him now.
"Heading home. I've got Zora with me. Her apartment got broken into tonight." He turns, and the momentum pushes me against the door and I wish I could fly out into the street and vanish into thin air. Even when I want to do the right thing, I get interrupted.
"Jesus. Is she okay?"
"She's fine. I told you she's with me." Kazimir squeezes my hand. "So you have details on what happened at the club?"
Despite feeling guilty enough to drown in my own sorrow, my ears perk up. My morbid curiosity has me devouring every detail. I figure it's how medical examiners feel when they dissect a body to find out how a person died.
"It's bad, Kaz." Stepan exhales into the phone. "Timur got out before they could grab him, but it was close. He went out the back when the detectives started asking for names. Arsen took the hit at the front door. He's been cooperative but they're holding him for questioning."
"What about the fighters?"
"Three of them got picked up on immigration charges. Paperwork issues, expired visas, the kind of stuff that was never a problem before because nobody was looking. Now they're looking."
"Which three?"
Stepan gives him the names and Kazimir punches the steering wheel angrily. I wince and hug my arms over my chest. It's too much for me. I feel like the worse this gets, the less of a chance I even have with him at all.
"The building's done too," Stepan continues. "Now that the cops know what we've been doing there, they'll be watching it. Even the police general says we have to back off." I'm curious what that means at first, but Kazimir fills that in for me.
"What the fuck do we pay him for, then? Can't we talk to him?"
"I already tried. He wouldn't even answer the call." Stepan pauses. "Kaz, there's more. I've been getting calls from people in the community—fighters, trainers, guys who've been with us for years. They all think this was your fault…"
"What do they blame me for?" He runs a hand through his hair and I watch the speedometer climb a little. He's so upset, he's driving erratically.
"I guess Federov told them he warned you and you did nothing… Is that true?" The line crackles. Kazimir doesn't respond for a long time. His jaw is clenched so hard, I can see the muscles tighten under his skin. His eyes are fixed on the road but they're not seeing the road. They're seeing something behind it, something crumbling—his life on the verge of flatlining.
"I need to stop at the office," he growls.
"Yeah… You should," Stepan says. "We all should." Stepan hangs up and Kazimir's phone screen goes black, and my opening to end my part in this has closed. He doesn't have to explain to me how the loss of their venue will affect them. I already know.
"I have to make a stop, Z," he says to me, reaching for my hand. I let him take it.
"Now?"
"Timur's there. I need to see him in person."
