We gather up our things and the wheels in my brain start turning. Could Ember be someone I could seriously be with? In a strange kind of way, she’s shaping out to be the perfect woman for me. Beautiful, intelligent, sincere, and honest…andSasha likes her. That last one might be the most important thing.
As soon as the idea pops into my head, I dismiss it. She’s entirely too straight. I can’t imagine coming home late one night and having to explain blood in my clothes, or a hidden stash of money or drugs. She wouldn’t understand how important my relationships are within the Bratva.
She is, as my father would have put it, amuzhik. He wouldn’t have approved of her even being manager at the club.
I suppose he might have been right. If something ever happened there…
“Dad?”
I glance over at Sasha. She’s standing with her bag slung over one shoulder. “Yes?”
“Can we do this again next week?”
“Of course, kiddo.”
We leave. My mind wanders. This dinner is just business and no matter how attracted I am to her, she’s right. It needs to stay that way.
We walk outside and immediately, everything stops around me the moment I see my car. It’s sitting out front and it’s far too low to the ground. The tires are flattened completely.
“Oh, my God. Is that our car?” Sasha asks.
“Stay here,” I tell Sasha. I step off the curb and jog over to my car. All four tires have been slashed. I glance around the lot for anyone looking suspicious. No one does.
“Dad?” Sasha says in a scared, shaky voice.
“Just stay there.” I walk back over to her and pull my phone out of my pocket.
“Who are you calling?” she asks.
“Your uncle,” I tell her, and that’s all I say. When I find the guy who did this, I’m going to slit him from end to end.
13
EMBER
Ispent a good chunk of this morning thinking over what I’m going to tell Agent Rastelli when she calls on me again. So far, there’s not a lot to tell. Just as I told her before, Roman has been keeping his business out of the club. It worries me. What happens if there is nothing to tell? I committed to sticking around the club for three months. What if Rastelli decides to move against him anyway? Will she tell him I was the one who gave him up?
It’s unnerving. There’s this pit of regret sitting just behind my chest that I don’t even fully understand, and it only got worse when I met his daughter the other day. She’s a beautiful, polite, and perfectly normal teenager. There’s nothing about her that even suggests that she knows what her father does. What happens to her when they come for him?
Is snitching on him the right thing? My father would think so. He’d tell me that whatever happened to him or his family was a consequence of choices he made and we shouldn’t think too hard about it. I guess that’s easy for him to say. He never fucked any of the people he arrested.
That’s a decision I really wish I hadn’t made. I imagine it would make things a little easier. I’ve been dreaming about him lately. Dreaming about his arms around me, his tongue in my mouth and my legs around his waist… It’s made for some restless nights. Maybe I’ll talk to my doctor about prescribing me some sleeping pills so I can at least get a good night’s rest.
Today, they’re not watching me. At least I don’t think so. I’ve almost made it to the coffee shop around the corner and I didn’t see any strange people sitting in cars or aimlessly hanging out by the streetlights.
I guess there’s no reason to watch me now. I’m working for them.
My phone buzzes as I round the corner to where the shop is. It’s Natasha.
“Hey,” I say. “What are you doing up? It’s not even noon yet.”
“Hey, listen… I got a little problem. Kind of hoping that you can talk to your boss about it.”
That sounds suspicious. “You can’t ask him yourself?”
“No. I mean, I guess I could, but he likes you. It might be better if you talked to him.”
Oh, boy. This sounds bad. “What’s wrong?”
