But Cat was right. They needed me sharp.
Alexi
The wonderful thing about the black market—if anyone dared string such a phrase together—was that the black market was never where most people expected it to be. People working in the shadows also indulged themselves in bright lights and odd comforts.
The contact I needed to tap for information and supplies was rumored to have a love of carriage rides through big city parks. So I took the money I had squirreled away thanks to hustling an occasional pool game and understanding American football better than most other Americans, drove a distance, and hunted down the correct horse and carriage at the appointed time.
After, of course, I had delivered Derek’s message to Pietr.
Waiting in a line with others, the carriage nearly disappeared against the growing evening oozing across the rolling park’s cobblestone paths. Its dark horse stomped impatiently, nearly as black as the carriage it was hooked to.
The convertible black top up, it shielded my contact from view. Whereas most of the carriages had low doors, if doors at all, my appointed carriage had doors that rose high enough no one from the outside could see what bargains were made within.
A small and mean-looking driver examined both me and the case I carried. “Strasvoytcha.” I waved. He nodded and reached behind him to open the door.
I stepped up into the carriage, its interior even darker than the falling night outside.
Before my vision had cleared and my ass had even hit the seat, there was a gun to my head.
She reached around me, tugging the door shut, her perfume like flowers blooming in Russia’s wild forests. “Sit,” she commanded, kicking the seat ahead of her.
The carriage jolted forward and I sat.
Even holding a gun to my head, Nadezhda was undeniably hot. God. I needed to get out more. I sank into the seat, holding the case to my chest.
“You’re not Boris,” I mentioned, peering openly at her. My eyes traveled the length of her sleek form. She was so definitely not Boris.
No black catsuit for this Russian femme fatale, Nadezhda sat straight and stiff beside me, dressed in the finest European fashions, her long blond hair wrapped elegantly up and away from her slender neck.
I gave her a look—but the same look that landed Max invitations to flats from Moscow to Paris to New York City played differently across my sharper features and could potentially get me slapped with a harassment complaint.
She was a princess, not a mobster, I thought. Hoped.
But something seemed wrong—something was just a bit off.
“Do not look at me,” she snapped. “You have no right to look at me after what you’ve done.”
This was going badly.
I looked straight ahead and rested the case on my lap. I needed to think of anything other than the beautiful woman seated beside me. Da. Like the reason I was here.
“You promised to return for me. And then—what? What, Alexi? You drop off the face of the planet. You disappear into the backend of the American nowhere.” The gun’s muzzle jabbed my temple as the carriage turned.
Down an even more isolated pathway.
“I—”
“Shut up! Did I ask you a question?”
“Actually—”
“Shut up!” She drew down a deep breath. The gun poked me again. “You turned on the family,” she murmured. She sniffed, pouting. “Alexi, I understand why you did what you did. There is no good life with this family—it is so splintered, so filthy, as bad as the CIA and common street gangs.”
I couldn’t help it: At her mention of the CIA, I blinked.
She sighed, stretching the sound out. “You did what you did out of love, Alexi. Yah pohnemyoo.”
“Da. It is good you understand.”
“Then why did you not finish things? Out of love? Why did you not come for me?” she asked softly. “Did you not love me?”
I sat as still as the jostling carriage allowed, my spine fused.
“Tell me the truth, Alexi.”
“Uh…”
“Oh.” She set the gun down between us. “The truth.”
So I turned in the seat and told her everything that had happened since I’d left Moscow. That I still wanted her. And that a declaration of love seemed ill-timed when she might question the authenticity of the emotion, wondering if the sentiment had been influenced by the presence of a gun.
She chuckled.
“And you, White Crow,” I whispered, finding it hard to believe I was smiling at her and she was smiling at me, “why are you here?”
“I needed to know,” she said. “And I thought I might kill you for sport.”
“Is honesty not wonderful?”
“I wish I could be completely honest with you. But so much has changed. I made some hard decisions.” She ran her tongue across her lips and my mind drifted to a much warmer place and time.
In Moscow.
In Nadezhda’s room.
No matter how many ways I took apart her expression, measured the aspects and points creating her face, I couldn’t break it down far enough to forget that this woman was the one I still loved.
“We all make bargains, da?” she confided. “Little moves to secure our own happiness—and safety. And sometimes we make big moves. Betray those closest.” She shook her head and straightened in her seat. “But this is not all pleasure. You came for business. There are things you requested. There is information you need.”
“And you?”
“—are what we shall call an enabler.” She smiled.
Oddly, the least amount of time spent in that carriage was spent on guns, passports, and getting the name of places to purchase pigs’ blood.
“Oh. Alexi, be careful. We have news there is someone in your area who may be getting ready to make a big move of his own. He wants an oborot for a captain.”
My heart dropped into my gut.
“Watch out for him.”
I nodded. “Da. And you,” I whispered, stepping out of the carriage. “Watch out for you.”
She smiled and pulled the door closed, but not before I got one more glimpse of her shoes. The red soles were unmistakable. But so was the amount of wear on them.
Nadezhda had been doing far more than walking comfortable red carpets and hanging with the trendy friends who used to take up most of her time.
The carriage took off, leaving me to find my way back to the more brightly lit areas of the park and transportation home.