I nod, check the gun tucked into my waistband, and step out of the car into the night.
I slide down the sidewalk on quiet feet. The garage looms up, huge like an open gullet. I step in and it swallows me whole. My footsteps echo off the oil-stained concrete. Each one returns to me like a reminder that Zeke was probably right.
Stupid man.
Reckless fool.
Walking right into the slaughter like the hard-headed idiot you are.
I climb stairs toward the third level. That’s where Harold is supposed to be waiting with a briefcase full of evidence. A briefcase that could buy my family a future, if I play my cards right.
It’s mostly dark up here. Only one light at the far end of the floor works. Most of the cars look like they’ve been parked in place for a while. All of them are black-glassed, impossible to see inside.
They could be hiding anything. They probably fucking are.
When I get halfway across the floor, equidistant from the stairwells on either side, Harold steps out from behind a concrete pillar. He’s clutching a black leather briefcase to his chest. Even in the dim light, I can see the sweat beading on his forehead.
“Harold,” I intone.
“Bastian.”
I close the distance between us. Harold shrinks back until his shoulder blades hit the pillar behind him. “Is that it?” I nod at the briefcase.
“Everything.” He swallows hard enough that I can hear the click in his throat. “Enough to bury him ten times over.”
I reach for the briefcase, but Harold pulls it back. “Not so fast.” There’s something in his voice I don’t like. Something that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. “I need guarantees first. Real ones. You promised me witness protection, a new identity, enough money to disappear properly?—”
“We’ve been over this, Harold. I thought it wasn’t the kind of conversation you’d forget.”
He licks his lips. “You don’t understand, Bastian. The things Aleksei has done... the people he has in his pocket...” Harold’s eyes dart toward the shadows behind me. “I need something real.Needed,rather.”
An eerie chill settles in my gut. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I had to pick a side. And unfortunately… it wasn’t yours.”
My face blanches white as a bone. “Harold, what the fuck are you?—”
“Hello, Semyon.”
I spin toward the sound, hand flying to my waistband, but I’m already too late.
Men emerge from behind parked cars like roaches scattering from light, except these roaches are movingtowardthe threat instead of away from it. Four, five, six, twelve of them, all armed and wearing the blank expressions of soldiers who’ve done this a thousand times before and will do it a thousand times again. Their faces hold nothing, neither malice nor mercy. They might as well be carved from rock.
Aleksei himself steps out of the shadows last. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?” He lights a cigarette and the scent of menthol mingles with the engine oil and sweat in the air. “That I wouldn’t know the moment you crawled out of whatever hole you’ve been hiding in?” He jerks his chin towards his men. “Bring my brother. It’s time for us to have a chat.”
That’s when they descend on me.
40
ELIANA
no-show /no SHo/: noun
1: a reservation that never arrives.
2: the bed that stays cold, the phone that stays silent, the door that never opens.
I wait.
