It was true enough that I could be testing him as easily as he might be testing me. The whole world we lived in was based on who was loyal and who wasn’t. Those who weren’t tended to have shorter lives if they weren’t cautious.
I wore shorts and a t-shirt, my feet were bare. I held out my hands. “Do you see anywhere I could hide a knife?” He snickered but remained steely. “And do you really think I would go against my one family for Gavril Bocharov or the Collective?”
“I don’t know, you two seem awfully close.”
I didn’t deign to reply to that, and we stared at one another for a tense moment that seemed to drag on forever. “Were you serious about your offer last night?” I asked.
“I was serious when I said I believed your family would win this,” he said, holding up an ominous finger. “But there will be heavy casualties if it goes down the way it’s planned.”
“Let me warn them,” I pleaded. “Just let me make one phone call.”
He shook his head. “Not here. I can’t risk it.”
I nodded, thinking it through. The second my family heard my voice and learned what was going on, they’d go on the defensive, sending their contacts here in Miami to rescue me. Gavril would be aware that he had a mole in his midst within half an hour. Reuben would be dead shortly after that.
The prospect of being swept away from Gavril gave me mixed feelings, so I shoved those thoughts away. I wasn’t in any danger. My cousins were. All I wanted to do was warn them.
“Then we need to leave,” I said.
The guard’s eyes narrowed, but he quickly determined how utterly serious I was. “Get some shoes on, don’t bring more than you can carry in one hand, and meet me back here in ten minutes,” he said, pointing down the beach where a treacherous line of rocks jutted out of the sand and led into the water. “There’s a blind spot on the cameras over there. We’ll need to get in the water and swim for a bit.”
I shuddered, thinking about the ocean’s heavy hands grabbing me once more, and no Gavril to pull me out this time. But my family needed me. My warning might be the only thing that saved them.
“Can you handle this?” Reuben asked roughly.
Just one thought of my sister’s face, wracked with pain caused by a torturer’s tools, was enough to steady me. This wasn’t just about my freedom; it was about their lives. I pulled myself together, ignoring my fears and shoving down the ache that kept cropping up, squeezing the breath out of me.
“I can handle this,” I told him, and turned to get ready to escape, once and for all.
Chapter 34 - Gavril
A drive in the early morning fresh air did nothing to cool me off. In fact, it only made things worse. When I was able to pull over and speak freely without fear that Lilia would wake and overhear anything that might upset her, my first call was to Luigi.
In the absence of being able to wring his neck, I would have to wheel and deal. As soon as he answered, it was nothing but lies. He pretended not to know where I was getting my information. His men had supposedly been to Mexico for nothing more than a routine check on a factory there.
“I’d really like to go back to bed now,” he said, the three-hour time difference not in his favor. “The only thing I have planned for today is lunch at the golf course.”
He gave off the air of someone who’d been doing next to nothing the last few days and had the audacity to ask me where I was.
“Enjoying yourself?” he asked, then got in a dig. “If you’re so concerned about what’s going on here in LA, you should be in LA.”
“I’m sure you’ve been missing my presence,” I said sarcastically.
“I don’t know how you think anything can get done without the boss’s final say,” he answered.
“More like you keep getting found out.” I paused to let that sink in. “Stay in your house and don’t speak to anyone until I return. I’ll be there by the end of the day.”
He huffed and puffed and made no promises. If he did, I wouldn’t have believed him anyway. The next call was to get anupdate on what was happening on the other side of the ocean. My Russian men were getting ready to leave as soon as they could arrange the flights.
“Faster is better,” I said. “Spare no expense.”
Then I tried to update Benedikt and see if anything new had passed in the half an hour or so since I had been arguing with Luigi. I couldn’t reach my right-hand man; his phone was completely turned off.
Probably a meeting that required his full concentration, but it still irked me. I was out of the loop, being so far away. My pilot assured me we could take off within the next couple of hours, which would get me back in my own city by late afternoon. That was the only weight off my shoulders, because every minute counted.
If I believed Luigi was currently sitting on his hands and waiting patiently for me to return to give him further orders, I might as well have been born yesterday. I had been patient and level-headed long enough. Luigi and his followers had to go. Not back to their own countries, not off in the shadows where they could gather and rise against me again. They were done.
Back at the borrowed mansion, I paused to take in the vast white structure against the clear blue Miami sky. The sun made everything gleam, and I raised my hand to shade my eyes. This had been a fun interlude, but it was over now.
