Sweet Collateral

“Bargain what?”

“You have a port…”

“Yes.”

“Offer him the use of it. Getting arms over the southern border is the easiest access point into America, but the cartels won’t allow the Russians any foothold.”

I say nothing, my thoughts racing through my mind at a hundred miles an hour. “That would cause problems,” I murmur, even knowing that there is nothing that I would not do for Anna.

She glances nervously towards the top of the stairs. “Look, it won’t be for long. Anyway, Nicholai is not one to break his word. I think he’ll let her go.”

I don’t think he’ll let her go. I wouldn’t if I had that kind of collateral. “You are his favored pet, Angel. And you have proven unruly. He has the means to control you. Do not think that he will give that up easily.”

A strange sense of guilt niggles at me, not for any kind of moral obligation but simply because I know Anna would hate this. She’d hate me for letting Una do this. “Go. I did not see you.”

“Thank you.”

“And Una…”

“Yes?”

I glance at her rounded stomach. “Be safe.”

She walks out of the room, and I hear the muted ding of the elevator before I push to my feet, stubbing the cigar out in the ashtray. Sooner or later someone will realize she’s missing. I’m not sure how she slipped away without Nero noticing in the first place. I’m not sure I want to know.

I ascend the stairs to the second level where Nero allocated us guest rooms. My head is swimming with whiskey, but still I can’t drown out my own thoughts. Like a swarm of furious bees, they black out everything, stinging me over and over with vile possibilities and what ifs. What if I can’t get her back? What if Una can’t get her back? What if Nicholai keeps her? What if he kills her? And most of all, what if I do get her back, only to have lost not only her sister, but also an innocent child? Will she hate me?

I fall back on the bed and clutch at my head. In times of war, we do what we must. My father used to say that to me to justify the blood and death that I would bathe in for him. This is war, isn’t it? The Russian and I, we are standing on two sides of a board with opposing wants. In essence, I should have no fight with him, no cause for offense. Anna should never have been worthy of any such cause, and yet she is.

A great man once said that wars are fought for many reasons, so why not love? Isn’t that the greatest cause of all? Or perhaps it just blinds us so absolutely that rational men become wild.

To love is pure, but the loss of love…well, that will corrupt a man’s soul entirely.

38

Rafael

I wake up to a pounding on the door. “Rafe!”

Sitting up, I swipe a hand over my face. Fuck. My head is pounding, and my stomach feels like a cement mixer. There’s a moment, one blissful moment where all I think about is my hangover, and then everything rushes back in like a flood. Anna. Like a clap of thunder, she tears through my thoughts in an instant. “Rafe!” There’s another rap on the door.

“Yeah?”

The door opens, and Samuel walks in, his nose now well and truly bruised, courtesy of Una yesterday. His eyes flick over me briefly, taking in my clothes from yesterday. “Una left.”

I rub a hand over the back of my neck. “I know.”

He glances over his shoulder nervously before stepping inside and closing the door. “What do you mean you know?”

“I saw her last night.”

He drags both hands through his hair and releases an aggravated breath. “Please do not tell the Italians that. She drugged Nero to get away.”

I push to my feet and fight the wave of dizziness. “I have no intention of telling Nero.”

“She went for Anna?”

“Yeah. It’s not like I could have stopped her, but even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

“She’s pregnant, Rafe.” I don’t miss his silent judgement.

“I know that, but it’s Anna. I trust that Una wouldn’t just hand herself over in some suicide mission. It’s not how she operates.”

“You trust the Russian?”

“I trust that she loves her sister.” I drag my shirt over my head and wince at my aching muscles. The pounding in my skull is getting louder. I need coffee.

“You look like shit,” Sam says, eyeing me up and down. “I’ll be downstairs.” The door clicks shut behind him

I glance at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Dark circles linger beneath my eyes, and the left side of my face has turned an ugly purple from Una’s right hook yesterday. He’s right. I look like shit.

When I get downstairs, it’s sheer chaos. The tension in the penthouse could be cut with a knife. Nero paces the length of the kitchen, his hair sticking up everywhere as though he’s been running his fingers through it non-stop. A red mark is very clearly visible on the side of his neck, and I guess that’s where Una drugged him.