His (Ties That Bind 2)

Opening the vodka, he hands it to me.

I take it as he opens one of the whiskey bottles and drinks straight from it like I do mine.

“You already had a couple.” He gestures to the empties on the desk. “That’s not like you.”

“I was worried. I am worried.”

“I know. But it’s going to be okay. We’re going to get through this and have a life, Kat. You, me, and Josh.”

“What kind of life? Running from hotel to hotel?”

He shakes his head, finishes the first bottle, and then opens the second. “No. I’ll face Vasily head-on. He owes me some answers, and I owe him a bullet. And I won’t tuck tail and hide. What we’re doing now is to keep you and Josh safe and give me time to gather some ammunition. Get something on my uncle that’ll end this.”

“Like what?”

He finishes his second bottle. “I found the man I was looking for today.”

“Who? I didn’t know you were looking for someone.”

“His name is Maxim Sobol. He used to work for Vasily.”

“Lev, do you think that’s safe or even smart?”

Josh mumbles something and rolls over to his other side. We’ve been talking in whispers, but I realize my whisper just got pretty loud.

“Relax, sweetheart.” Lev tucks me against his chest and kisses the top of my head. “I think I may have something. In fact, you’re going to meet him tomorrow.”

* * *

We leave early the next morning. I’m anxious as we head out, glancing at every closed door of the hotel, wondering who is inside, peering into each car in the parking lot, and still thinking about those men from last night when we pass the still-closed Dairy Queen. On the sidewalk, I see the bag I dropped that had the leftover ice cream. Josh is busy with one of the new toy trucks Lev bought him, and I’m grateful he doesn’t mention our trip.

“So, you really think it was my mom on that list?” Lev’s cousin had figured out that the name Kieran March on the list was actually my mother, Ciara March. March not being an uncommon name, I had paused when I’d seen it myself on the file, but not for long since Kieran is a man’s name, and my mother had no connection to Vasily or anyone like him that I could imagine.

“Let’s hear Maxim out. Let him tell it.”

I meet his eyes. “So, we’re about to meet a man who knew my mother.”

Lev told me who Maxim was last night. Well, he gave me a brief history of his time together with him in Vasily’s organization and told me that Vasily thinks Maxim is dead.

He also told me he’d been the hitman hired by Vasily to kill my mother.

“She’d dyed her hair like mine. I know that’s a memory and not something I’m making up,” I tell Lev again. “You really think she did it because she was running from Vasily?”

“Running from Vasily Stanislov or Gleb Mikhailov or maybe both.”

“And Gleb is Vasily’s boss.”

“In a way, yes.”

“I don’t understand any of this.” I slide down a little in my seat and look out the window.

“I have to go potty, Mommy,” Josh’s little voice says from the back seat.

I turn to look back at him. “You just went at the hotel, remember?”

“I have to go again.”

I look at Lev. “There’s an exit in about ten minutes. You think you can hold it until then, buddy?”

He nods and returns to playing with his truck.

“It’s fine,” Lev says. “I need to fill the tank anyway. Why are you so uneasy?”

“I think it’s understandable, isn’t it?”

He squeezes my knee, then keeps his hand there. “I promise nothing is going to happen to you or Josh.”

“And what about you? What if something happens to you?”

He holds my gaze, then turns his out the window. “There’s one more bit of news you should know.”

“What?”

He glances in the rearview mirror, then turns to me. “Andrei isn’t dead,” he says quietly enough that Josh won’t hear.

“What?” I feel the blood drain from my face.

“I’m pretty sure he’s badly injured, and I’m going to take care of it, but I wanted you to know.”

“How? And…oh my God. He’s going to come after us too.”

“Mommy?”

“Stay calm, Kat. It’s going to be okay,” Lev tells me. “Do it for Josh.”

I press the heels of my hands into my eyes then turn to Josh.

“I really need to go.”

“Almost there, baby.”

Lev picks up speed, and we’re turning off the exit not ten minutes later. He drives right up to the service area.

“I’ll fill up the tank and come back for you. You stay inside until you see me.”

I nod, climb out, then get Josh out. He’s got Wally in one hand and the toy truck in the other.

“Should we leave those in the car?”

“No,” he says and waves at Lev with the truck-hand.