Page 61 of Vile Bastards
In reality, I don’t know anything about the family or their enterprises. My papa only told me enough so that I’d have context for his warnings. Both he and my mother did their utmost to keep me separate from it, including by withholding the Borisov name.
I know what I am to my father’s relatives and business connections: a fucking joke.
The knowledge infuriates me, infects me, contaminates me. I want to scrub it off in a bathtub of their blood. The one positive of the family is that they look out for one another, keep each other safe … provided nobody breaks the rules. But Papa? He broke no rules. He was nothing if not the so-called ‘Mr. Clean’ of their organization.
He only asked for one favor ever: protect me and my mother.
Of course, even an organized crime syndicate can’t fight a virus.
“I’ll call back again in forty-eight hours.” I hang up the phone and tuck it into my pocket, pausing at the sound of footsteps.
It is, as always, Scarlett Force intruding on my boundaries.
“Anything interesting happen?” she asks, but nothing did. Nothing unexpected anyway. I choose not to answer, turning back to look at the creek. She does the same and then we’re both standing there, staring at the ice-cold water and, oddly enough, shivering at about the same time.
“No matter what you say, Alexei Grove. No matter what you do, I’ll always know that you could’ve saved yourself and that you chose to save me instead. That you laid down and went to sleep after I was rescued; you thought Bohnes and Widow and Ash…pen were going to leave you there to die. But …” And here she moves past me, squatting down beside the creek and, after wetting her lips, reaching out to touch the cool water. Scarlett sweeps her fingers over it, dipping them in and then drawing them out again. “It’s not the water that’s freakin’ me out, so what is it? It’s not actually the river, though that’s part of it.” She whispers this mostly to herself before standing up and turning back toward me again.
She flicks her fingers out and spatters me with water, and that hot rage inside of me flares up. I take a step forward and snatch her wrist before I can stop myself, body trembling. How clean is this water? Are there amoebas in it? Bacteria? Chemicals? All of the above?
“But?” I snap, because she trailed off and, despite myself, I want to know what she was going to say. We came through something terrible and emerged on the other side together and goddamn it, but I can’t stop myself from wanting to touch her.
My stomach roils, but I don’t let go of Scarlett’s wrist.
I’m hyperaware of each water droplet she spattered me with, the way one runs down the side of my face and catches on the edge of my scowling lips. Scarlett leans in toward me, lifting up on her toes, and then she flicks her devil tongue against that same drop.
No. Yes. I relish and despise it; I crave and detest it. Do it again. For the love of Christ, do it again, Scarlett.
“You knew you were going to die, but … you didn’t care, did you? Saving me was your first priority.”
“I owe you for dragging you into this mess.” It sounds reasonable. For an honorable person, it is reasonable. It makes sense. It sounds absurdly heroic, dripping with hubris and a misplaced sense of honor. But that it isn’t why I did it. I know it; Scarlett knows it.
I just cannot allow her to know that I know it.
“Liar.” She breathes the word out against my mouth, and my eyes go half-lidded. When her hand reaches down to cup me through my slacks, I grab her, but I don’t push her back.
Then, that goddamn phone rings, and I’m snapped from the strange carnal stupor in an instant. I release Scarlett like she’s pure poison (she is) and then yank the phone from my pocket.
I answer it, but I don’t give a greeting of any sort.
“We’ll find you; make yourself visible.” There’s a rustling sound on the other end of the line, as if the caller is about to hang up. I can’t place the voice. It’s smooth, utterly unaccented English, male, on the younger end perhaps but still an adult.
“I’m being hunted. And my hunters don’t want to talk. They’ll shoot me in a drive-by if given the chance.”
The caller doesn’t respond, hanging up as I curse in Russian and squeeze the phone in my gloved hand.
“Any luck?” Bohnes asks, striding over to us with his hands in his pockets. Widow is close by, leaning his back against a tree, eyes closed. I owe them—and Ash Kelly—my life. It’s a fact that I despise but force myself to accept with genteel grace.
