Page 117 of Shades of Grey & Gold

I shift to look.

Nico leans against the doorframe, one ankle crossed over the other. His sleeves are rolled up, and he has a rag between his hands, rubbing at red stains on his knuckles. His face is composed, even giddy. He looks like he always does: completely fine.

He stares at me for a moment and sighs.

“She’s alive,” he says first, before anything else, leading with the only thing that matters. “She’s alive and she’s being held in a restaurant in Red Hook. Old place, been shut down for a few years. Dmitri said they used to make the best stroganoff, which is a bummer because I actually quite enjoy a good stroganoff…” His eyes light briefly. “Anyway, Volkovs own the building through a shell company we didn’t know about, that’s why we couldn’t find it when we looked for buildings.”

He reaches into his pocket and sets a folded piece of paper on the dirty counter between us.

I look at the paper, stained with Dmitri’s blood, then glance back up at my brother.

“Address.” He lifts his brows in the direction of the counter, but there’s something on his face, a tiredness, that I didn’t notice before.

“You didn’t have to take over, I would’ve—” I start.

“Yeah,” he straightens with a low laugh rumbling out of him. “I did have to take over.”

He throws the rag on the ground and starts rolling a sleeve back down, buttoning the cuff before continuing, “That’s what I’m here for, Cal. You hold your lines. I’ll cross them when they need crossing. I know what it did to you last time and you know it doesn’t bother me. I got it.”

I nod, appreciation for him written across my face. He’s always been ready and willing to cross every line—and I’m more grateful for that now than I ever thought I would be.

He watches me as I pick up the paper and claps his hands together, the look of glee returning to his face.

“Let’s go get your girl, brother.”

Chapter Forty-One

Max

Greaselivesinthisroom. I can smell it as the crusty cloth tied behind my head slides down the side of my face, revealing the old commercial kitchen we are in. I turn my ankles slightly feeling my bare feet slide against the floor. I grimace at the grease smell, again.

It slicks the tiles, ghosts the air, turns the old fryer hoods into sleeping animals that breathe when the wind kicks down through the roof fan. Myhead lolls to one side.

I’m not sure how long it’s been. I keep drifting in and out. There are no windows in here and this is the first time I’ve opened my eyes since feeling the car moving under me after the man grabbed me.

I tried keeping track of turns, like people do in movies sometimes. But after what felt like hours lying on the floor of the car blindfolded, I gave up trying to remember. It got colder and the light around the edges of the blindfold faded. I tried sitting up, wiggling my hands, everything.

Then they came back. And brought me here.

Where I’ve been kept in this chair for who the fuck knows how long. When we got here, a woman’s voice met my ears, and she took me to a bathroom. I begrudgingly went with her and used it.

That moment gave me hope though. If they were going to kill me, they wouldn’t care if I peed on myself or if the men saw me with my skirt pulled up. That gave me hope that I was leverage. And I’ve been holding onto that hope as I drift in and out of sleep.

With the blindfold around my neck, I can see three men with two guns out, and one bored voice rings out from across the space littered with boxes, metal prep tables and other old, rusty kitchen equipment: “He’s not coming. Bosses don’t bleed for side pieces.”

“Side pieces,” the thick-necked one snorts and shakes his head in disagreement, his accent thick. “She’s his. Property.”

They are saying it for my benefit and I know it. Because the entire drive here they were speaking a foreign language. Something eastern European, maybe Russian.

I laugh, ugly and small, giving them a reaction against my better judgment. “Whose property areyou?”

One of the men closes the distance between us.

The slap is quick. Not the worst I’ve had. It spins the room and drops me sideways; out of the chair they had me in. I’m almost grateful to not be upright anymore.

The tile kisses my cheek—cold, grimy, old-onion sour smell. I can’t wipe the tears that creep out of my eyes and fall down the bridge of my nose because my wrists are plastic-bitten behind me. The wet drops fall anyway, and I follow the hot tracks plopping through kitchen dust.

He’ll come.