I take in another breath, then another, and the shivers start to subside.Get yourself together. Viktor’s right. We’re going to have to have cool heads if we’re going to get out of this mess.
I go to the sink and set the book down on the edge while I run the water to wash my face. I pause and look at myself in the mirror. My mascara has run, making me look like a racoon. My hair is falling out of the neat little bun I had it in. And one of my cheeksis red and a little sore. Did he hit me? I don’t remember in all the madness. Just looking at myself makes me start to cry again.
What a fucking mess this is. I’m so upset and scared, and I legitimately don’t know what we’re going to do. I hope Viktor has a plan of action. Or, at least, that he has been working on one. I go to reach for the tissue box sitting on top of the toilet when the journal falls off the edge of the sink and lands just under the toilet tank.
“Dammit,” I whisper to myself as I kneel down to retrieve it. I grab the book and my eye catches something shiny. I look over to see something peeking out from behind a loose tile. It occurs to me that I should leave it… but something tells me to get a better look at it.
I reach out and pull the tile free from the wall. A key tumbles out and clinks on the floor. I pick it up, turning it over in my hand. It’s strange looking, brass with a rounded top and a flat, blocky tang. It almost looks like a fake key.
Oh, wait. I’ve seen one of these before. I think this is to a safety deposit box.
At least that’s what it looks like. I stand up and hold it up to the light. That’s definitely what this looks like…
The feeling that I’m intruding comes over me and I go to put it back, then I stop.
Marla was walking out of a bank when she was shot. At least that’s what witnesses said. I turn the key around in the light again and spot little speckles of brown along the edge.
Blood?
My heart drops. It can’t be Marla’s… can it? Why would Viktor have it?
I look at the door and slowly, it all clicks into place. The raw fact of it is that he works for my father. His entire job involves hurting and killing people who threaten my father’s interests.
“I’m thinking about going to the Feds with this.”That day we had lunch, she’d said it. If anyone from my father’s camp knew about it… If Yanov found out and told my father…
Fuck me.
I turn off the water in the sink with shaking hands.How could he do this?After everything, after…
I’m moving before I even finish the thought. He’s walking from the kitchen with a glass of water for me, but I don’t let him speak. I hold up the key.
“Tell me this isn’t Marla’s,” I say to him. “Please tell me this isn’t hers.”
He looks at the key, then at me. “It’s hers.”
A sharp pain hits me in my chest and a sob catches in my throat. I cover my mouth and turn away from him.
“It’s not what you think, Tati.”
“It’s not…” My voice sounds twisted with rage and sorrow. I have to stop and take a breath. “He told you to kill her, didn’t he? All this time, you’ve been walking around pretending like you didn’t have anything to do with her death, and now here I find out that you were in league with him all along.”
He stands as still as a statue, his eyes tracking me as I start to pace the floor.
“God, I can’t believe I fell for your bullshit. I should have known better than to trust you. That’s the Bratva way, right? Trust no one.”
“It’s not as simple as you think.”
“It’s not? Please enlighten me. Because she was my best fucking friend, Viktor. You knew that. She was the love of my brother’s life?—”
“Which is why you have to believe me when I say that I would never betray him like that,” he says to me. “I wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger, Tati. You have to believe me.”
“Then who was it? You’re my father’s enforcer.”
“I don’t know who was responsible.”
I stare at him, trying to read his stone-faced expression to find the truth. “Did my father send you to do it?”
“He did. I didn’t go through with it, though.”
