The Hollow (Preacher Brothers 4)

She’d been able to fill me in on what happened, or at least what she heard through the rumor mill.

Talk was my father had been working on a play to overthrow part of the bratva regime in order to elevate his status. It wasn’t hard to believe. My father was a narcissist, thought the world revolved around him. He wasn’t a patient man, didn’t want to climb the ranks organically. So him taking out other high-ranking officials made sense. But what didn’t make sense was that Maximillian was the one who’d been ordered to take the hit out on my father.

Had the order come down from above?

Had Maximillian gone rogue?

Either way, that was a dangerous option, and one I wouldn’t think the bratva or Maximillian would let me go unscathed for. Maximillian either wanted me dead, or worse. And the things he used to say to me, the possessive look in his eyes, told me it was the latter.

I’d stayed in that safehouse for months, too afraid to even breathe let alone leave the house. And once Marina and the people she knew secured me a passport under a new identity, legal documentation in order for me to leave the country, and enough money to survive for a short while once I was in America, only then did I leave.

I changed my name, completely altered my look, and prayed like hell enough time had passed that Maximillian and the bratva’s interest in me would’ve become nonexistent.

Once I made it out of Russia, I settled down in New York temporarily. It was safer to hide out for a while after arriving, not making constant moves, keeping my carbon footprint down. So for the last month, I’d been staying in this shitty-ass motel, looking at the stranger in the mirror day in and day out. The takeout was getting old, the delivery pizza stale. With only five channels on the outdated TV in front of the bed, I was getting well acquainted with the public access soap operas. And all the while, all I could think about was Frankie.

I wanted to reach out to him so badly, not even sure if the number I had—his from five years prior—was even still registered to him.

I’d picked up the off-yellow landline on the chipped and scarred bedside table more times than I could count, started dialing his number, but then quickly hung up the phone. I needed to wait, bide my time. I needed to make sure I was safe as I could be, given the circumstances, before I reached out. I didn’t even know if he lived in the same area, the same house, but it was the only starting point I had, so that’s where I was ultimately headed.

I sat on the bed, the frame creaking, the springs from the mattress digging into my ass. This place was a shithole, but it was obscure. I looked at my small bag filled with a change of clothes, my money, passport, and anything else worth a damn that was set by the motel room door. Although I’d been here for the last month, I was always ready to leave at the drop of a hat. Fear did that to a person.

Before I left Russia, Vlad, the man who’d been helping me at the safehouse, had given me a slip of paper that had a phone number on it. He told me when I was secure enough, felt safe, that I could reach out to Marina. But he said it was a one-off, that the number was for a burner, and that after that one call had been made, the phone would be thrown away and that was that.

I wanted to call that number so many times, to check in on her. Although I knew Marina could handle herself, that she’d survived many things, I couldn’t help but worry. So much worrying.

She’d become like a mother figure to me. That staple in my life, that strength I felt from her, was what I desperately wanted and needed right now. But it wasn’t safe. I didn’t feel like it was anyway. Maybe I never would. Maybe I’d never call that number.

I pulled my knees up to my chest, resting my head back on the wall, staring at the TV, which was currently off. I was lonely, not just in the general sense because I was here by myself, but deep down, in the pit of my stomach, in the very heart of my soul.

If I were being honest with myself, I could admit I’d been lonely for the last five years, the moment my father ripped me away from Frankie, took away my future, tried to force me into something that would never make me happy. I had no emotions that he was dead—not happiness, not sadness… nothing. I just felt that everything was different now.