“She’s here, in the city,” he said as snot rolled down his lips. “Please don’t make me tell you more.”
“Where in the city?”
He sobbed harder. I waited.
“She’s in hiding. She has safe houses. I don’t know which one she’s in right now. She moves around.”
“Can you give my men a list?”
“Don’t make me.”
I stepped forward. Another knuckle would suffice.
But he moaned and nodded his head. “Okay. Okay. I’ll give them a list.”
“Right now.” I snapped at Michaels. He called for one of his soldiers who came in with a phone. He began to record. “Start talking.”
My prisoner began to list addresses through his tears while Michaels and his man got it all on video.
I left the freezer then. It was cold as shit. I shoved the knife back into the sheath at my hip and covered it with my jacket. I hated doing that—but sometimes it was necessary.
For the greater good.
As I moved back through the pizza place and toward my car, Michaels called out my name. He hurried to meet me on the sidewalk. He looked uncomfortable.
“Something wrong with his confession?”
“No, sir, he’s singing like a bird. We’ll find Maeve with his information in the next day or two. It’s something else.”
I gestured impatiently. “Yes? Go ahead.”
“There were men here that shouldn’t have been here.”
I watched him carefully, trying to parse out what he meant, and decided to take him literally. “Explain.”
“Well, sir, Maeve mostly employs local contractors. You know, Americans with good credentials. But there were two Ukrainian guys. I think they were from the Patrenko family.”
I let that sink in before pacing away. The Patrenko family was controlled by Darren—by the freaking Servants. If he had two of his gangsters hanging around with Maeve’s men, that meant they’d already combined forces. This could be bad.
“Call Erin. Get her here.”
“All right, sir. I’ll try.”
“Don’t try. Do it.” I turned away and went back to the car. I climbed in and slammed the door. “Back to the hotel,” I told the driver.
He pulled out and I stared at the window while we wound our way through the city.
24
Penny
Present Day
Chicago
Kaspar didn’t tell me where we were going. He stormed into my room, demanded that I put on clothes, then dragged me outside.
“You don’t have to be an asshole just because you got what you wanted from me already,” I said between my teeth as he hustled me into the car.
He paused and looked surprised. I almost felt bad, but shoved it away.
I remembered the look on Alice’s face as she died. It was strange—part bliss, part terror. Her eyes met mine and wouldn’t turn away.
I remember screaming. I screamed and screamed at Kaspar, and he tried to explain, but I couldn’t understand back then. People came in and it was chaos, everyone freaking out. Alice was dead, and Kaspar killed her.
The police came. Kaspar disappeared. He tried to talk to me but there were too many people hovering around and I was only half-conscious.
But I knew what I saw.
Kaspar’s hands around Alice’s throat.
Alice dying. Her heart stopping.
No more Alice.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head back. Kaspar’s family cleaned up the mess and my family helped. Nobody wanted a scandal. Kaspar finished his degree remotely and I drifted through the rest of my time at Blackwoods like a ghost.
Alice haunted me. She was the ghoul in my closet.
There were rumors. People said Kaspar killed her in a jealous rage. They said I helped. They said it was some freaky sex thing gone wrong.
I never did learn why he did it.
Months later, he tried to contact me. He showed up on campus and begged to talk. I slammed my door in his face and called my brother.
Kaspar never came back after that. I figured our families made some kind of deal.
He reappeared as the head of the Baskin fortune. He took his place as an Oligarch and that boy I knew was gone, replaced by a man of stone.
I thought of the night we had often. It was the best night of my life.
We drove in silence. Kaspar radiated anger. I wished I could jump out of the window and swim down the polluted river. I didn’t even remember what it was called.
“Why would Maeve want to kill me?” I asked quietly, and Kaspar leaned closer like he hadn’t heard. I didn’t repeat myself. I couldn’t work up the nerve to say it again.
It was the one question that bothered me since he confessed to what happened.
“She wants power,” he said as if that explained anything at all.
“But why me?”
“You were a convenient target. You’re young and a woman and you were attending Blackwoods. Maeve happened to have a ward around your age. The stars aligned.”
“But why me? Just because it made sense?”
He shook his head. “Your family is strong, but not that strong. Not at that point, anyway. She must’ve thought picking a fight with the Servant family would be easy. Take down your house, grow her empire.”