He puts the car in park and sits back in his seat. We’re both quiet a minute. “She was doing shit on the side. I don’t know if it was for her dad, or someone else in the mafia, or someone outside of it. But she was on edge. Acting really intense. Up to her birthday, she was barely talking to me. I think she thought I was digging. Then, right after she turned twenty-five—gone. Without a trace.”
“Is Artur worried?” I’d grown up calling Maya’s dad ‘Uncle’ like Nik had, but I hadn’t seen the man in years. That is, until a week and a half ago—when he stood imperiously by as I was beaten into submission and sold into marriage. “Has he been looking for her?”
Nik takes off his glasses and studies me. “If you fuck up or step out of line, it won’t matter that you’re my wife now. My father will have you killed.”
“Looking into Maya is stepping out of line?” Interesting. But I’d be lying if I said his words didn’t instill a little fear in me. “So, her dadhasn’tbeen looking for her. Presumably no one has. But why? You know, she’d have done a way better job than you, leading the family business.” This last bit I punctuate with a playful, sharp smile.
One Nik, surprisingly, returns. “You know, you look like an artist, but you’re still a mafia kid underneath.”
I’d deny it, but I know he’s right. And I’m already back in this world—there’s nothing keeping me from looking for Maya now. “I want to know what happened to her.”
“So do I. That doesn’t mean we can just start poking around. We’re already fucking with Lebedev. You want to fuck with our dads too? No. Leave it, Zane. Whatever Maya got herself into is her shit.”
I take his measure, then dare to push his button. “You would never have said that when we were kids.”
“We’re not kids anymore, Zane. The gloves are off.” And with that, he gets out.
After a minute, I follow him.
5
Nik
Her place is nice.
Mundane and sunlit, a little messy. No—lived in. That’s what my mom would have called it. It doesn’t escape my notice that the plants in the corners and on the windowsill are still alive, despite her having been gone over a week and a half. I watch Zane make quick rounds around the studio apartment, gathering clothes, toiletries, and electronics.
“I thought you said you and your boyfriend were broken up.”
She gives me a furtive look over one shoulder. “We are. But we were still living together.”
That hits me like a sucker punch. I shouldn’t care. Zane and I weren’t in touch, and our marriage is, while binding, total bullshit. Purely economic. Still, to be in this space where another man lived, and loved, and touched her—it makes me bristle.
“Huh. Would you look at that? I admit I didn’t think you were the jealous type.” Her smile is wildly familiar—for a second she looks like the girl I knew as a kid. The one who was a few years younger than me, but always quicker, cooler, more dangerous than anyone guessed. “Relax. I’m pretty much positive you’re the superior lover.”
Heat burns into my face. Zane notices. She’s kneeling by her suitcase, but stands suddenly, grinning at me.
“You,” she says, almost disbelieving, “are blushing.”
I grit my teeth. “Finish up. We’ve already been here too long.”
“Isn’t that the point? To lure out Lebedev?” She crosses her arms over her chest and closes the distance between us, still smiling, her eyes narrowed. “The longer we’re out of the cabin and your dad’s protection, the better, right? Maybe we should find a way to kill some more time.”
I glare at her. “This isn’t a game.”
“I mean, it kind of is, actually. We’re on one side, Lebedev’s on the other. Someone is going to win, and someone is going to die.” Zane touches her fingers to my chest. “The bed’s right there, Nik. Why don’t we stall?”
I swallow the somewhat startling urge to smile. This is more in line with the young, tenacious, playful, trouble-starting Zane from my memory. Some bitter part of me is deeply satisfied she’s still in there somewhere.
But most of me is genuinely scared for her. She doesn’t know how badly my dad wants hers to pay—not even after the marriage. She doesn’t know how easily he’d dispense with her life for Lebedev’s murder.
I’m not ready,I realize. I’m not ready to let her be the bait. And as confident as she seems and as desperate as she is to free her father, she has to be scared too. Coming into the city was a good way to get Lebedev’s eyes on us. It might even be beneficial for them to know we’re staying at the lake. It’ll be easier to lure them into a fight and get our hands on their men. It’ll be a shortcut to the answers and retaliation my father wants.
But being at her place like we are now, lingering here—it’s inviting an easy shootout. One we probably won’t get out of alive.
“We’ve stalled enough,” I tell Zane, taking her hands off my chest. The bare touch sends a jolt of electricity through me. “And you can play cool all you want. I know that deep down, you’re scared.”
Her smile falters slightly. “Of course I am. That doesn’t mean I should just reduce myself to a sniveling, helpless little girl. If I might die, I want to live a little too.”
