“It means ‘little magpie’ in Russian,” he says, a faint smile on his unfairly handsome face.
“Oh. That’s nice. The rest of this, though, is so completely fucked up in every possible way,” I say, fingers mindlessly circling the thin skin at my temples. “This shit just does not happen.”
“It did happen to you, and I'm sorry,” Dmitri almost sounds sincere, this man who saved my life, who is a criminal, but brought me to his mother's clinic to heal me, though now might just be planning to kill me to keep me quiet because who knows at this point?
I grab my water and take a long drink, focusing on my shaking fingers, and the condensation rolling down the outside of the glass. “Are you going to let me go?”
“Not right now,” he says. Oddly, I appreciate his honesty even as I'm wondering if I could knock him out with the IV stand the way that addict did with me in the ER. “Your life is at risk,” he says leaning closer. He smells like pine, and sea salt. A little bit like wood smoke. “You can help us identify these people. We might use you as bait.”
Water splashes over the edge of the glass and I realize my hand is shaking so I carefully put it down on the table. “Go on.”
“But I can promise that I won't let you get hurt again,” he says, squeezing my chilly fingers. “We will keep you safe until you can go back to your normal life.”
Another shrill giggle breaks loose from me. “Define normal.”
He smiles wryly, “Any life other than this one.”
***
Chertov idiot -Russian for “fucking idiot”
Chapter Twelve
In which Dmitri reminds everyone - yet again - that is Ava is not his girlfriend.
Dmitri…
“How did Ava take it?” It’s early evening and my mother is walking down the clinic hall with me.
“Better than you might think,” I admit. “I thought she’d lose it, but she might be storing it up for later when it hits her. Or she’s playing it cool so she can try to knock me out and escape.”
“You’re looking tired enough that she might be able to get away with it,” Mother says, eyeing my stubble and wrinkled shirt.
“I appreciate your faith in me,” I say dryly. “If you think she’s healthy enough to release her, I want to move her out tonight.”
“You can always put her at our house,” she says. “We have better security than Fort Knox.” She’s eyeing me shrewdly because she knows perfectly well that I’m not letting Ava out of my sight, but she wants to force me to admit it.
A sympathetic nurse helped Ava shower and dress in clean clothes. She brightens when she sees Mother again, immediately launching into a torrent of questions that my mother seems just as happy to answer. I take this moment of bonding via medical terminology to tackle the most uncomfortable part of my day.
Calling my father.
His phone rings only twice before he picks up. “Dmitri.” His deep voice is just as chilly as I feel. “I understand you've been busy."
I give him the quickest possible rundown without leaving out any important facts, or letting him think I'm hiding something from him. My growing feelings for Ava would definitely be in that category, but even thePakhandoesn't need to know everything.
"It's brilliant,” he says thoughtfully. “Sell an apartment and a girl as a package deal. Wiring the unit to keep her in." It sounds cruel, but I know my father is simply thinking out loud, assembling the details into a tidy bundle. “This doesn't follow any known patterns that we've been tracking,” he says.
“Exactly,” I agree. “There could be units all over the city like this, fuck, all over the world wherever there's too much real estate and too little oversight.”
"And richublyudkito pay for it,” he sighs. “You said you had rescued a victim.”
“Yes, Ava Blue. She's a physician's assistant at Bellevue Hospital. She and Mother have been swapping stories about gruesome ER patients.”
“I'm sure your mother is in heaven,” he says dryly. “Where are you keeping her?”
There it is.
“At my place.”
