Nick woke to see Diana pacing his kitchen and fighting something imaginary.
She seemed determined and angry. She seemed a bit too good at it.
Maybe he was still dreaming. He thought he’d seen Reese doing exactly the same thing a while ago, thought he’d woken up for a moment and fallen back asleep. Surely he only imagined it.
Diana pivoted to face him, and her fighting form simply disappeared. She stood with her arms crossed as he frowned up at her.
“Morning, sleepyhead.” The words were sweet, but her tone and expression were flat. “Did your meds wear off?”
“Don’t know. . . . Are you really fighting imaginary opponents?”
Her eyebrows went up and her eyes wide. “Not sure what you’re talking about. Should we get more Percocet in you?”
He shook his head no, although the pain of the movement led him to think that, yes, he should get more Percocet. That hurt like a bitch. Ignoring it as best he could, he asked, “Where’s Reese?”
“Sleeping.” Diana was in the bathroom now, going through the cabinet.
“No Percocet!” Damn. He shouldn’t have yelled that.
“Tylenol.” She returned, holding out the white pills along with a cup of water he’d heard her pouring from the sink. He had filtered water in the fridge. He didn’t have it all together to tell her so. Nick swallowed all of it and looked around. The daylight wasn’t right . . . as in, it shouldn’t be there. “Did I barely sleep?”
No, that couldn’t be it. If he’d barely slept, she wouldn’t offer him more meds so soon, and it should be dark.
Diana smiled. “I took shift, then Reese, now me again. You’ve been out like a light for a while. I’ll get Reese.”
“Don’t.” He reached out to grab at her wrist. For some reason that made the stitches on his head throb. “Let her sleep.”
“Her shift is almost up.”
He didn’t let go. The fog was beginning to clear from his brain, and he started to put a few things together. “Then it’s been twelve hours and you’ve been on watch twice. So you only slept for four.”
“I’m fine on it.”
Reese walked into the room just then, smiling at Diana, and if Nick wasn’t mistaken, there was something else there. Something he couldn’t quite decipher passed between them, and in his fuddled brain it played out with Reese silently asking Diana, “Do we tell him?” and Diana responding, “No.” Not that he had a freakin’ clue what “it” was or why they wouldn’t tell him.
He was just about to chalk it up to a good Percocet paranoia when Reese smiled right at him. “Morning, sleepyhead.”
What the fuck?
He must have said it out loud, because Reese frowned at him. “You just woke up; no one’s even had time to piss in your cornflakes. What’s your issue?”
He wanted to shake it off but that would hurt. He wanted to go back to sleep, but he wasn’t sure that his grandfather wouldn’t hunt him down and kill him, and he wanted to interrogate both women, but he clearly wasn’t all there. So he sat still, head in his hands, and hoped the Tylenol did the trick.
A handful of minutes later a bowl of oatmeal appeared in front of him. It smelled like maple-brown sugar; they must have made up the packs he had in the pantry. Grateful, he cradled the bowl and suddenly realized he was starving. He contemplated his hunger, the food choice, and the light and reached the conclusion it was still morning. A new day. A new chance to come clean.
He set down his already empty bowl, surprised that both women had barely touched theirs. In turn, they seemed equally shocked that he’d inhaled his. He shrugged. “I grew up with lots of people at the table. Eat fast or don’t eat.” He didn’t add that he wasn’t really welcome at the table. Sure he had a seat and all, but his food had always been served up with an extra side of pity.
Reese chuckled. “I’ve seen you do that plenty before. It shouldn’t amaze me like that, but it always does.”
Time for business. He was done eating, but they had oatmeal in hand. It ought to stick their mouths shut enough that their manners would allow him to control most of the situation. He went right for the heart of it. “Clearly, I’m in charge of Vasilescu now. Not Emilian.”
Though it was the first time he’d said it out loud, it wasn’t news to any of them, and the women kept on eating, waiting for something interesting. “My grandfather shot me, with intent to kill, I’m pretty sure. I’m glad he’s a bad shot or the change of hands would not have happened.”
“So it was a hostile takeover?” Reese asked before taking another dainty bite of oatmeal.
“Definitely. I had most of his men converted to my side before I made any moves.” He was speaking carefully, weighing every word for necessity before he spoke it. There was a tightrope in front of him, and he needed to stay on it. He trusted that they weren’t recording him. Diana couldn’t afford to turn him in; he knew too much about her past. But Reese . . . Reese was an open option here. Normally straight and narrow, she was hanging in because Diana was her friend, and maybe because she still felt something for him. He’d felt something for her, too, but he’d shut it completely down the moment he saw things going south in Vasilescu. She couldn’t be along for that ride. It had been the right thing to do as he’d been shot by his own grandfather.
“So are you leaving the force?” She asked.
Diana stayed silent, her eyes bouncing from one to the other. Nick had no doubt she was taking in every word, flipping it around, putting together a much larger picture from tiny parts of pieces.
“No.”
“How can you stay?” Reese seemed personally affronted by that. “You can’t run Vasilescu and be a cop.”
“Why not?”
She was standing now, and he didn’t have the energy or the balance to get up and go face-to-face with her. “Because it makes you the dirtiest cop ever!”
“Hardly.”
That just illustrated another good reason for breaking things off with her. To have shoved any thoughts he had as far back in his mind as he could. It hurt that she was so affronted. It could have wounded him mortally were he tangled up in her, in love with her.
She didn’t speak, though by her silence she seemed more offended than Diana. Diana seemed to have grasped that people did things for different reasons. Reese was still much more bound to the rules.
“Do you remember Rickson? I took him down. He was dirty.” Rickson had abused his power, pulled his baton with even the slightest excuse, and enjoyed using it. He was also a racist asshole. “I curbed a few others along the way. I’m not straight and narrow, but I take issue with the dirt you think is mine.”
He saw Diana sit back and watch while Reese railed. “You can’t run a mafia organization and think you’re clean!”
“Listen sister, you aren’t all shiny and squeaky anymore yourself!” She was here with him and Diana and now their secrets were getting all twisted up. Just because Reese was the least dirty didn’t make her clean either. “Vasilescu ran crack and guns and heroine—”
“And you’re going to change all that?” Her gesture was stilted by the bowl in her hand, but her anger wasn’t. Her sarcasm came through loud and clear.
“Yes! I am!” His head felt like it already cracked in two, but it didn’t really matter. For some reason he needed her to see. He wasn’t the bad guy here. “You know what kind of gang violence there is out there. You know what having guns on the street and drugs like that does to a community. Those people don’t feel safe in or out of their own homes. . . . It has to be me.”
“Why does it have to be you? Get out, Nick. You still can.”
“No, I can’t!”
“Why not?” She set the bowl down at some point in the last moment and he stood up. Why were they yelling?
“Because, if it’s not me, it will be run by some greedy bastard who doesn’t care how he makes his money. And if I completely shut them down something worse will come up in its place.” He sat back on the couch gingerly. He wanted to flop, to give up, but he didn’t dare.
“He’s right.” Diana’s voice startled him. She’d been a bystander in what was looking more and more like a lover’s spat. But she was engaged now, and Nick could only watch as she commanded the conversation and Reese’s attention. “Look at what happened with the Kurevs.”
For some reason, that seemed to work and Diana kept going. “The Kurevs got taken down. Cut off at the knees. All the big guns went away. Kolya even died while he was an inmate. And look at them now. Chicago once again has a strong mafia presence. Their hit men are now more skilled than they were in the past. They’re branching out to other cities.” Diana looked to him. “We’re much safer with Nick in charge or else we’ll have the Kurevs here, or another BMF. We can’t afford it.”
His brain felt tight and he finally pulled the term “Black Mafia Family” out of the far recesses of his memory. Atlanta PD had worked hard to shut them down. Emilian had worked to move into that territory, and the Kurevs seemed to be operating under the same idea.
“No.” Reese looked like she was ready to stomp her foot. “APD has made inroads. White Oak especially. We took up initiatives. We’re reducing gang activity! Gun violence is dropping. This isn’t necessary, Nick.”
“I think it is, Reese.” He was mad now and didn’t care that his head hurt. “Who supported those initiatives? Who helped write them? Oh yeah, that was me! My crews are lowering the violence. They’re out making friends in the neighborhood, making people feel safer, working with my cops. Why do you think I have so many gang collars?” He took a moment to breathe.
“Are you serious?” Her voice was low, stunned, shocked.
“The new Vasilescu will deal in pot and some coke. No meth. No heroine. Zero tolerance for crack. If I can make it work, Atlanta will slowly strangle most of its own crack trade. I don’t think we’ll ever be able to make it go away. But we can slow it the fuck down. Both sides have to exist. There’s no way to have a free city, not this size, and you want me in there running the organization, not one of these sociopathic bastards . . . not like Kolya, not like my grandfather.”
Her eyes rolled; her mouth twisted at him. “I’m sorry, but I don’t buy this shit you’re selling. You’re the best bad guy? You’re going to get rich on street drugs and I should help you do it?”
“I don’t fucking know, Reese. But I’m your best option when it comes down to it.”
“There’s missing evidence, Nick. I’ve been tracing it, and it all points to you.”
“Then turn me in! Be done with it!” He was mad and hurt, but that had been a stupid thing to say. Maybe he could blame the Percocet that probably hadn’t worn off yet. Maybe he should simply be glad that Reese was just dirty enough herself now to need to keep her own mouth shut.
“You know I can’t do that.” She crossed her arms and then turned to Diana. “Do you want to sleep? It’s my turn to take watch.”
“No, I’m good.” Diana didn’t appear ready to be done with the conversation. She’d hung back, and now she was ready to jump in fresh and pick a new fight. “Reese, you don’t have to like it, but there is logic to what Nick says. I’ve seen it. You can’t win. At best you can take down everything, but you’ll leave a vacuum and something more horrible will fill it.”
She turned to Nick. “If you can make your little dream kingdom happen the way you have it planned, then more power to you. You’ve got a lot of old Vasilescu crap to clean up, and the Kurevs are moving pink meth into the area. That has to go. I just don’t know how you would even do it all . . .” She trailed off but wasn’t done. “Right now we have more pressing problems. The Kurevs are after us. And Churkin is vicious and deadly. Why didn’t she kill you in Chicago, Nick?”
He sighed. He really enjoyed working with smart people. And he really hated it, too.
“I told Kaspar something in Chicago, something I thought would keep the brothers off my back. I think it may have actually made them go the opposite way and send Churkin down to take me out of the equation all together.” Just like his grandfather had tried to do. Well, he’d known it wouldn’t be easy. And it sure as hell wasn’t.
Neither woman spoke, shocking him. “Seriously? I thought one or both of you would have figured it out by now.”
Still, neither looked anything other than confused. Well, hell. Maybe he shouldn’t have given this one away. But his brain wasn’t running at full capacity and he didn’t have anything suitable to substitute. “My mother had an affair with a rival family’s heir. I’m the result of that.”
Diana broke in. “So you know who your father is? It’s not in any of your records.”
Of course Diana knew what was in his records. Why wouldn’t she? Still, she didn’t know what wasn’t in his records. He was about to tell them both. “That man was Kolya Kurev.”
Diana’s eyes went wide, her poker face all but blown to hell. “How long have you known?”
He shrugged. It wasn’t his favorite topic. “Almost a decade.” Since he’d overheard his mother and Bun fighting about it. Not the best thing to learn and not the best way to learn it, either.
Diana’s hands came up to her mouth, crossing over it as though to keep the words in. The words came out anyway. “So Ivan Kurev was your brother?”
“They all are.” Nick virtually ignored Reese. From the corner of his eye, he could see her with her palms on her knees, her face open, soaking it in like a sponge. But Diana . . . Diana’s reaction was far more interesting.
She quit speaking and her thoughts turned to somewhere inside her head, making Nick begin to wonder if she knew something
more . . .
It should have been a ten-hour trip, but with the route he was taking it was going to take almost two days. Will pulled onto 65 South out of Gary at four a.m., but by six he was at a motel outside Lafayette, sleeping off the long night.
His side hurt, but Todd had warned him not to put pressure on it and limited him to Advil and Tylenol. He was rotating them, taking quantities that might damage his liver but save his life.
Dog tired and literally drained, he spent his usual half hour setting up the room with all his safety precautions. It took another fifteen minutes to block the light without having anything look weird from the outside. He was ground floor this time, something he didn’t like, but right now the stairs disliked him even more than he disliked the exposure.
In more ways than Will could count, Todd had been a huge help. His brother had donated two button-down shirts from a stash he kept in his office. That way Will didn’t have to head out with cut and bloodied clothing, a sure sign of trouble to anyone at a drive-through, a motel, or a gas station.
He told Will to lie back and sleep there on the uncomfortable bed. Supremely confident that he wouldn’t be able to catch any rest on the hard, small surface, Will had immediately passed out and slept like the dead for about three hours.
Hands on his arm woke him just before four. Todd was checking his blood pressure and pulse. Said he’d done it every thirty minutes. He shoved yet another bottle at Will, this time some kind of sports drink. Todd helped him sit up slowly but couldn’t stem Will’s surprise that the room was cleaned spotlessly.
“Bleach,” was all his brother had to say about that and then handed him a nice leather duffel bag—Todd’s own certainly.
Opening it, Will found his gun, the one he’d carried in bloody and wet, now cleaned and ready. It rested, innocuous, on top of the spare shirt, a change of pants, his wallet, a cold sports drink wrapped in a plastic bag, and a handful of energy bars. The bag also held a makeshift medical kit with bandages, tape, scissors, and instructions typed and printed. His brother was smart enough not to use office letterhead or his own handwriting. Will almost said, “Thanks, Mom,” but he wasn’t willing to open that can of worms.
Todd smiled, “Chase Linden?”
It was the name on the ID Will was using around Chicago. All valid and such, from the great state of New Mexico. “It was what the guy had.” He paused and reached out to grab Todd’s arm as his brother turned to do something else. Even that small movement made his side feel like it was ripping, but he had faith in his brother’s work. “Are you the only one who figured it out?”
Todd nodded, then rescinded. “Well, if they have, they haven’t told me. I didn’t say anything to anyone.”
“How did you put it together?” He had to know what clues he had mistakenly left behind.
“I didn’t. Not until you showed up here, shot.” Todd sat on the stool, a good foot lower than Will’s perch on the end of the bed. Somehow Todd had even managed to clean up most of that while Will slept, leaving only a spot or two directly under where Will had lain.
Todd looked away. “You’re my brother. I remember when we were kids, I never crossed you, because I knew you would get revenge. You always seemed to believe that anything I did was worth ten times the return.”
“I did that?” Will had no memory of being a mean brother and had always thought his reaction to Sam and Bethy’s deaths had been the reflection of some new element in him.
“You don’t remember the lunch box incident? I never fucked with you again. If you felt screwed, you put things in their place and you did it hard, which was odd, because you were always otherwise a peaceful person. It faded as you got older, too.” Todd smiled. “So when you died, and there was no body, I wanted to believe you were still out there. I knew you’d get revenge if you could. Then someone did. And someone did it against exactly the people who were speculated to have taken out your family.” He shrugged. “Honestly, it was all a fantasy to keep my brother alive . . . until you showed up here tonight in a leather jacket, wearing three guns and stucco siding and saying you’d been shot.”
Will didn’t know what to say.
He had known he’d hurt his remaining family by leaving—dying—the way he had. He’d committed this fraud on the heels of them losing Sam and Bethy, too. It had been the worst possible thing he could do to them, but it had been the only thing he could do. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. You’re here now. And—thanks to me—you’re alive.” He held up a hand. “Unless you want me to take you home and declare you among the living again, you have to get going. It’ll be daylight soon, and you’ll want to be as far away as possible.”
Will nodded and picked up the bag Todd packed for him. Shifting the strap from one hand to another, he tried to find a way to hold it comfortably, but a position lacking searing pain eluded him.
Todd walked him only to the back door, Will not wanting him to get out into the view of security cameras even though he was relatively confident no one was looking for him.
His hand was on the doorknob when he heard Todd’s voice one last time.
“I know you can’t be my brother again. I know there aren’t any more Thanksgivings or Christmases in the future, but . . . send me a sign sometimes, will you? I need that.”
Will nodded and for a moment he broke.
He wasn’t going to do it. It wasn’t good. But he did it anyway.
Turning, and without looking, he embraced his brother in a deep hug for probably the last time ever. Then he was out the door to find out that it didn’t matter that Todd hadn’t walked him to the car; his brother had already come out and cleaned out the vehicle.
There were a few, barely noticeable, stains on the floor, and someone who wanted to could get a DNA sample from it, but there was nothing obvious. He wouldn’t draw any attention when he got out to fill up the tank or use the restroom at some stop along the way.
He drove off, realizing he’d given his brother a lot, but he’d never given Todd the name he went by now. Todd had no clue about Will Kincaid. Will pushed the gas pedal and put some necessary space between them.
A quick detour around the back neighborhoods just outside Gary yielded a car identical to his in all but model year. Will made short work in the shadows, switching out the two plates. He’d like a new car, but he was low on energy and lower on stealth and speed. Chances were this car would be sunk into a lake—all evidence washed away—before anyone even noticed the change on the other car. Most people didn’t know their own license number.
Everything was in place except him. The car was as clean as it could be, so were his clothes. He tucked his gun back into the waistband of his pants and covered it with the untucked chambray button-down his brother had helped him put on. All he had to do was remain upright and fight the urge to press his hand against his flank each time he moved.
No one looked at him sideways when he walked into the motel lobby and asked for a room around back. He hoped Lafayette was out of the way enough that no one would come for him. He checked the car for trackers and found nothing. So they had either hidden it well enough that he couldn’t find it and they’d show up any minute, or he was as safe as he could be. Will’s bet was for the latter—if they could find him, they should have gotten to him at his brother’s clinic. He’d been there for hours, a sitting duck, already wounded.
He texted Diana before lying down.
Long way home. Be there in 1 or 2 days.
The beep of the phone woke him, her text coming in. It had been four hours since he’d lain down, according to the readout on the phone. Time to get going, even though he didn’t feel rested yet. Time to eat and swallow some more painkillers.
Stay safe. Text before you get here. Will give directions.
She wasn’t at home. Probably a good thing. Seeing Todd again only made it that much more important that he get back to Diana. He was going home injured—he was going to be as much burden as help—but he’d done a complete 180 during his trip. He needed to be with Diana. They needed to be a united front.
He still thought it would end badly. He’d always believed that somewhere deep. But this time, he understood, they would end badly together.