Page 97 of Ballistic

In a few hours, I’d be off to meet my fate, to face off with my greatest enemy. Perhaps the one to commission Nicoleta’s murder—something that still remained a complete mystery. With all the revelations I’d had over the last couple days, unraveling the trail of secrets she’d left behind, I still hadn’t figured out the connection between her and Tesarik.

Of course, he wasn’t the only reason I planned to be there. I’d become so desperate to see her again, I was willing to throw myself into what could end up being a bloodbath.

Mind spinning, I exited the bathroom to the bedroom, coming to a stop in the middle of the floor, and rolled my shoulders. Dropping to a plank position, I braced myself on outstretched arms and stared down at the cracks in the wood floor. I lowered myself, inhaling on the way down, and took in a sharp exhales on the way up, marking the pace of each pushup that followed. The exercise helped clear my head, kept me focused on what the fuck I planned to do. I’d been so hell-bent on finding Nicoleta, I hadn’t bothered to consider how the confrontation with Tesarik would go down.

Maybe he’d gotten his hands on Nicoleta, in which case there’d be fucking war.

Gritting my teeth, I upped the pace, each breath exploding out of me with anger and frustration, imagining his hands on her again. I visualized each pushup ticking off the number of seconds I’d throttle his neck for, and when I finally reached one hundred, sweat trickled down my temple. Still, I kept going. My muscles burned, face red, head dizzy with the cold rush of adrenaline pumping through me.

I’d kill him.

Fucking end him in the worst possible way, if he hurt her again.

At a flash of Nicoleta’s bloodstained face, my arms buckled beneath me. I collapsed onto the floor, breathing hard through my nose, and palmed my face. Someone was going to die by night’s end, and if I didn’t get her out of my head, I might very well end up the stupid bastard to whom it happened.

37

Nicoleta

The clock on the wall told me it was midday outside, but the darkness of the room made it feel like midnight. Heavy drapes hung from the window of the motel, where I’d hidden for nearly a week. I lifted the phone to my ear with an odd calm settling over me.

Tesarik answered on the third ring. “Who is this?”

“Meet me at the Belle Isle Boat House tonight. Eight o’clock.”

“What have you done?” Rage carried on his voice, sending a rush of satisfaction through me, as I listened to his harsh breaths that carried through the phone. “You will be sorry if you fail to show.”

“As will you.” I hung up the line and set the phone down on the table beside me. It vibrated with the number I’d just called. I ignored it.

Two minutes later, it vibrated again. Same number.

For the next half hour, I continued to ignore Tesarik’s desperate attempts to talk to me, each time merely watching the phone rattle against the worn wooden tabletop. Couldn’t blame him, really. Earlier in the day, I’d carried out my mission, the final piece of it: deleting the three private keys I’d memorized while trapped in his home. One hundred million in Bitcoins gone by simply removing a file. All done on one of the borrowed computers at the public library. That, of course, was after I’d transferred ten million to a wallet that would systematically move small increments to a clean wallet over the next couple of months—a trick I’d learned from Dmitry.

Sad thing about digital money: once deleted, it was as if it’d never existed in the first place.

Every night I’d gone to bed whispering the private keys inside my head, so as not to forget them, until they were as simple as rattling off a social security number. I’d waited patiently until two days before, when he’d finalized the deal with another buyer from overseas—one that’d netted him an added ten million. One he’d bragged about while fucking me in front of his guard. More money to the pot I’d set aflame and laughed as it burned.

Tesarik’s empire was about to crumble, and I’d be there to smile as it fell.

The phone eventually quieted, and once again, I sat alone with my thoughts. That was what I’d grown to hate most—the moments of silence, when memories of Dax would start out small inside my head, then blossom into monstrous bouts of obsession, where every thought drudged up more memories and musings. Wondering what he was doing. Where he was. Who he was with.

They struck worse at night, just before I’d fall asleep and wake to those phantom sensations of his hands on my skin, his warm whiskey breath in my ear. My body mourned him in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Ways I’d never mourned another in my life. I’d told him I loved him the night before I’d left, but how weak was love if I could just up and walk out on him like that? Maybe I hadn’t been in love with him, at all. Perhaps I’d mistaken it for something else. After all, I didn’t know a damned thing about it, had never grown up knowing the feelings that were supposed to be attached to such a simple word. Love was something only found in the suburban homes, not the ratted-out, forgotten trailer parks where I’d come from.

As promised, I’d provided him the location where I’d planned to meet Tesarik, but had given him a different time to avoid running into him. I had a sense he could talk me out of just about anything, with those stern and resolute brown eyes, and seeing him there might destroy everything—including me. I couldn’t afford that.

If all happened to go according to plan, he’d get some closure. If not, perhaps he’d still find some closure.

* * *

I sat on the edge of the stage in the ballroom of the Belle Isle Boathouse, twirling a blade between my fingers, and listened.

A sitting duck.

Rowboats hung from the rafters of the room, which’d remained in decent condition, considering the outside had a weathered, unkempt appearance where it’s white paint had chipped away to patches of red brick beneath. Dusty wooden floors still carried a dull shine in the moonlight streaming through the windows that stretched ceiling-high.

I tried to imagine what the place might’ve been like before the Detroit Boat Club had relocated. The fancy events they’d have held, and the couples who didn’t have a care in the world, dining and dancing all evening. A world as foreign to me as the idea that I could ever live so freely.

A slam from somewhere in the building piqued my attention, but I didn’t hide. I didn’t move, at all. I wanted Tesarik to find me.