Chapter
One
CHAPTER 1
Petal St.Clare
The garage-style door of storage bay C-17 squeaks on its hinges when I heave it high enough to slip under it. Pallid yellow light from the nearby security lamp illuminates the concrete in front of me for an instant before the panels slam to the ground at my back and throw the space into darkness once more. My ears ring from the flimsy metal clanging and rattling along the poorly oiled track, but by now, the noise is familiar enough I barely flinch. Instead, I stand as still as stone. Waiting. Listening.
Stillness reclaims the space, my own breaths so slow and measured even the air around me is motionless. I count the beats of my heart as I inventory the undisturbed aura around me. I’m alone. I’m safe. I’m home.
After a mental count to five hundred, I finally allow myself to trust no one lies in wait in the darkness. For three months, I’ve secretly lived in this storage garage. I’m sure there are rules against it, but the alternative is sleeping in doorways and on park benches. Been there. Done that. The risk of being followed by the storage lot manager and kicked out is scary, but not nearly as terrifying as sleeping rough has been.
Eventually, I’m confident enough time has passed that I can trust I wasn’t seen by management when I slipped through the gate after hours. I pat my hand against the metal wall until I locate the light switch. Casting my gaze around my meager piles of possessions, it’s a relief to see nothing has been disturbed while I’ve been out. The next order of business is tucking a tattered blanket against the doorway to make sure no light seeps out and alerts passersby to my presence. I fasten the padlock through the handle that opens the bay and relax for the first time in nearly ten hours.
Secure for the night, the weight of my life feels the tiniest bit softer. More manageable. Today’s been a good day. Honestly, every day since I had the brilliant idea to rent this storage bay and use it as a home base has been pretty damn good. Way better than sticking around to be Jordan’s punching bag. Way better than being constantly reminded my only value was being on my back for him and his drugged-out buddies. Way better than watching him and those same buddies skim drugs from the men they were supposed to be dealing for. I knew they’d be found out eventually and punished along with anyone stupid enough to be caught in the fallout. And I hadn’t been down with being collateral damage in that mess.
Is this the life I envisioned when I snuck out of my mother’s house at seventeen, sick of being leered at by her husband and his creepy sons? Of course not. But I have a locked door between me and the night, and there’s nobody knocking me around or taking what’s not freely given. So I’m not mad about it. And one day soon, I’ll have enough saved to get a real place of my own. Somewhere I can decide what happens and when.
My backpack’s stuffed with the laundry I just finished washing at the laundromat and a bag of trail mix from the vending machine that spits out dryer sheets and snacks. I shake out the retro pinup-style dress I wear to the diner I’ve worked at for a few days and try to tug out any wrinkles. Landing a job atPete’s Pastriesis my ticket to stability, and I’ll be damned if I let a wrinkled uniform stand in my way. I’m as careful as a prom queen with her gown when I drape it over the collapsible wagon I’ve used to tow everything I own around town with me.
Exhaustion pulls at me, and I lie down on the pallet of blankets I had the foresight to grab as I fled Jordan’s apartment for the last time. It might have been as hot as the surface of the sun when I escaped in July, but I’ve lived around here long enough to know I’d regret not having warm clothes come winter. I thought I’d be on my feet before fall. Still, here I am, grateful for summer me’s cynicism. Because it’s nearly October, and on most days, it feels as if I’ll never be back on solid ground.Sleep edges closer and closer as I work through a mental budget in an attempt to figure out how soon I might be able to scrounge up the deposit on an apartment.
Four a.m. is going to come real quick. I’ll need to be up and headed to work by then, if I want to catch fat tips from theearly professional crowd when their breakfasts are served hot and fast. Every dime of every dollar gets me closer to my goals. George, the grizzly old man who ownsPete’s, says if I prove my worth, he’ll let me pick up double shifts starting next week.
Hope unfurls in my chest, swelling and filling the space occupied by my empty stomach. Sure, I could eat that trail mix now and buy a muffin at work tomorrow. They’re fluffy and nearly as big as my hand, and every time I bring one to a table, it’s a fight not to bury face into it like a starving maniac. But they’re also nearly six dollars. Which is five dollars and thirty cents more than the bag of trail mix I’ve got tucked away to eat tomorrow. So, instead of ripping open the bag of peanuts, raisins, and chocolate chips, I let the nourishment of hope sustain me.
I’ve got a roof and four walls around me, a job with the promise of all the hours I can possibly work, and a plan.
Petal St. Clare is a survivor. And survivors survive.
Chapter
Two
CHAPTER 2
ZinovyBayev
“You have your orders. Find him. Make an example of him. Gleb Kuzmin is a betrayer. On your watch,Avtorityet. I remind you of that only one time.” Anatoly Balakin, myPakhan, speaks so softly the words are almost unhearable. I am not a man prone to being intimidated, but were any man alive capable of doing so, it is him.
“Understood,Pakhan.” I say no more, and no more would be accepted. Still, I make no move to leave the home office of the man who runs the Vor for the entire Americas. He will tell me when he’s ready for me to go, and a lifetime of allegiance and service to him demands I show him deference.
“Then go. And Zinovy?” He pauses, his frozen blue eyes cataloguing every twitch and flex of my muscles beneath the bespoke suit I wear. I chew the inside of my cheek and stand still as stone. Awaiting his directive.
“Bleed the traitor. Until even his vocal chords become so drained he can no longer cry for mercy.” Anatoly takes his seat behind the massive oak desk, a throne despite the American insistence they have no king. The command to show no leniency wasn’t needed, but I take it for the dismissal it’s meant to be.
There’s a clock now ticking above me. One that demands swift results or my head will be next on the chopping block. Gleb was hand-selected by aboyevikwho reports directly to me. Unfortunately, that means his mistakes are mine. I do not care for mistakes.
The door of Anatoly’s office feels heavier than ever as I take my leave, the weight of what I have to do hardening my resolve. One of only twoavtorityetsin Balakin’s Vor, I’m no stranger to violence or following orders. It could be said I’m actually more comfortable elbows deep in gore than any other situation. It’s not the impending torture and demise of a man I’ve known for years that bothers me. It’s reflecting on the fact that Ididknow him for years and failed to see this coming. What else am I missing?
“What do you have on Kuzmin?” I ask the greatest tech man I know the moment my car door closes behind me.
Rurik Tarasov is more than just tech, though. He’s thePakhan’ssecond. Though I’d never say it to Anatoly’s face, I think Rurik knows more about what goes on in the Vor than even thePakhan. He’s probably been tracking Gleb’s every step already. It says everything of how Anatoly feels about my fuck up allowing Gleb enough leeway to become a problem that he’s tasking me and not allowing Rurik to handle it. Because that bloodthirsty motherfucker is a certifiable lunatic.
I’ll just drain Gleb’s blood, but it wouldn’t shock me in the slightest to learn Rurik had drained it, painted it over his naked body, and pulled the bones from the carcass to build a skin tent. And not only would thePakhanallow it, but he’d likely pat Rurik on the head like a spoiled hunting hound and pad his bank account with a fresh stack. This is the world I live in, the one I was born into and the one I wouldn’t know how to exist outside of.
“Cell’s dead. Last ping was close to tower 13829304 a little after two this morning.” Rurik relays the information as if I have a fuckin’ clue what tower number number number is.
