“How is it wasteful?” the second man asked, shaking his head. “One we send to Rostakova, and the other we send to the Englisher’s family.”
“Who is he? Does his family have any money? Do you know the answer to these questions? I do not, and I do not think it is smart to take a second finger without knowing the answers. Where will we keep the extra finger? I don’t want it. You know how I am about blood.”
“I like my fingers,” I said, wiggling all ten of them and feeling a bit woozy in the head region. I leaned back against Paulie and allowed her to stroke my forehead, wondering idly what she’d think of living in England. “I like Paulie’s fingers more.”
“You’re a bit wonky, aren’t you, love?” She pressed a gentle kiss to my cheek.
I turned my head carefully to look at her. “You missed my mouth.”
She smiled. “I’ll kiss it later, OK? Once you’re back to normal.”
“With or without all my fingers?”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” she said, and then whispered into my ear, “These men are speaking in English.”
“I know,” I whispered back. “I speak English, too.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd? For Russian mobsters, that is, in the middle of Russia?”
I turned to consider the two men, who were now arguing over the proper method of storing severed fingers so as to ensure freshness. “That is odd.”
“Quiet, you,” the man with the gruff voice said, and pulled out a large hunting knife, which he waved at us. “We discuss how to send the ransom note.”
“In English,” I said, my eyes narrowing on them. “Rather convenient that, don’t you think?”
The man looked confused.
I glanced at Paulie. She was watching me with concern. “Help me up,” I told her, and got awkwardly (and painfully) to my feet.
The two men watched us in apparent amazement.
“Right,” I said, tugging down the waistcoat that rode up on my chest and making an effort to not wince at the waves of pain that rippled across my brain. “I think we’d better get a few things straight. One, there will be no cutting off of fingers, either from Paulie or from me. Two, you may tell Mr. Rostakova that we are not intimidated, nor will we allow him to jeopardize our position in the race. And three, you both need to go to acting school if you wish to present yourselves as actual thugs capable of cutting off ransomable fingers.”
“Um.” Paulie tugged at my sleeve, and said quietly, “I think they reallyarethugs, Dixon, but you are dead right with the other assessments.”
“And with that, we will ask you to leave,” I said, striding to the door and opening it. “Now that you’ve woken us up, we have things to do and miles to race. Good day.”
“What’s this?” the gun toter asked, jumping up and shoving me away from the door.
“Uh... Dixon...”
“On your knees!” the other man said, his lip curling a little as he leaped to his feet.
“Give it up,” I said, bored with their playacting. I made a mental note to have a word with Paulie about her father’s actions and a discussion about what was, and what wasn’t, appropriate in parental behavior. I attempted to retake the door, but the gunman suddenly lunged at me. Something in my head snapped, and I was back fifteen years to a martial arts class I’d taken my youngest brothers to and which I’d halfheartedly participated in. I kicked the gun from the man’s hand, whirling around to slam him in the back of the head, which sent him staggering forward into his knife-bearing friend. The gunman screamed and threw himself to the side in order to avoid being gutted.
Paulie, with more gumption than I would have thought possible, snatched up a chair and brought it down over his head. He collapsed to the floor with a grunt of pain.
The knife-wielding thug snarled something that I was fairly certain was obscene, and hesitated for a second between Paulie and me. When he turned fractionally toward her, I leaped forward, slamming my fist into his nose, while punching out blindly with the other hand. Luckily, it missed the knife and landed on his collarbone, a nasty cracking noise resulting. The man screamed and dropped to his knees, making a halfhearted slash toward me with the knife before dropping it to clutch his shoulder.
“Let’s get out of here!” Paulie shouted, snatching up our phones from the nightstand and leaping over the downed man. She grabbed my arm and spun me around, half dragging me to the door.
“We can’t leave. Not until we call the police and a medic unit,” I said, stopping her.
The look she turned on me told me she thought I was nigh on mad. “Are you freaking insane?” she asked,confirming my suspicion. “We have to get out of here right now. Thank god we were too tired after dropping off Vitale to bring in our luggage.”
I’ll give her this: she had more strength than it appeared. She had me out the door and midway down the hall before I managed to stop her a second time. “Paulie, we can’t leave your father’s men lying on the floor. We must call the police to report the attack—even if it was a sham—and get them some medical aid.”
“Gah!” she said, slapping her thighs in annoyance. “They aren’t my father’s men, don’t you see? Yeah, he must be behind this attempt to try to scare me so I’ll sit at home and do nothing with the rest of my life, but I can assure you they are just hired goons and have no further allegiance to him, and therefore to me. And now you’ve hurt them.”
