Page 36 of Dressed to Kill
He kept the muzzle at my temple while he took stock. His man with the broken nose lay bleeding into the carpet, breathing wrong. The other was on his knees, spitting teeth.
"You're going to give me trouble," he said. "Aren't you?"
"Aye."
"Good." He nodded at the rifleman with the broken nose. "Hood."
The rifleman fumbled in his coat. The hood came down over my head. It was made of rough cloth and smelled of somebody else's sweat. Hands twisted my arms behind my back and plastic bit my wrists. The poker dropped out of my hand. Somebody kicked it across the floor.
The older man's voice came through the hood.
"My name is Pavel. Aleksi knows me. He just hasn't figured out yet that I'm the one he should have been afraid of."
A needle went into my thigh.
The cloth of the hood went soft against my mouth. My knees gave next. Somebody caught me under the arms before I hit the floor. The room tipped sideways, then further, and the carpet was at my ear.
The last thing in my head before the dark came was that I'd left the bedroom door open, and the bed unmade.
He'd come home, and he'd see that and he'd know I'd been in there.
I wanted him to know.
I'd been chewing theinside of my cheek since the church, and the iron taste was the only thing keeping my hands off the steering wheel from the back seat.
Pavel. Of all the men in this fucking organization. Pavel, who'd stood at Pop's grave with his hand on my back. Pavel, who'd been in my kitchen three days ago drinking my vodka and showing me pictures of his kid at OSU while Fin was down the hall pretending to sleep. I'd poured the man a second glass and asked him what she was studying. The whole time he'd had a wire transfer from Dario Kastelani sitting in a bank account on the south side.
"Boss," Gregori said.
"What?" I snapped.
"You're going to chew through your face."
He kept driving. I kept grinding.
Fin was at my dining table right now with the loupe pressed to his eye, working Pop's jacket like he did every morning, the cuffs loose on his wrists because the little shit picked them everynight and put them back on every morning before I came out for coffee. He'd be on his second cup of tea by now. Three sugars. Irina was supposed to be at her sister's today, but she'd been losing sleep over him for a week,Aleksi, the boy doesn't eat enough,so it was even money she'd changed her mind and gone to the apartment to make him soup. I'd get home tonight and the place would smell like dill, and I'd sit at the table while he ate, and I'd figure out what to say. There was something at the bottom of my chest I hadn't put a word to yet. The back of a car on the way to my boss with a folder full of betrayal was not where I was going to put one to it. But it was there, and it had Fin's name on it, and I was going to handle it tonight.
My phone rang. Andrei. The second-shift guard at my door.
"Andrei."
"Boss, boss, fuck, I just got here, the door's gone, Volodya—Volodya's on the floor, boss, he's not breathing, the package is gone, the apartment is empty, what do I— "
Fin. The word landed in my chest like a kick. Fin, Fin, they had Fin. Volodya was dead on my floor and they had Fin. They'd walked into my apartment in broad fucking daylight and they had Fin. My hand closed on the seat next to me hard enough to creak the leather. The rain on the window roared, then dropped to nothing. I came back clenching my teeth.
"Pull the footage," I said. "Lobby, hallway, service stairs. Send it to my phone. Now."
"Yes, boss."
"And Andrei. Don't call anybody else. Don't touch anything. Stand in that hall with the door and wait for me to call you back. You hearing me?"
"Yes, boss."
I hung up.
Gregori had already eased the car onto the shoulder. He'd heard enough through the line.
"What?" he said.
