Ruth stood next to the window and looked down at Fifth Avenue, watching the heat rolling off the pavement in waves. The television newscaster said the heat index would reach almost one-hundred ten degrees today. It was much too hot to spend any time on the street surface. However, standing in an overly-air-conditioned hotel room, trapped inside, she longed to be down there on that burning hot street. She couldn’t even take Major outside. A Federal Marshal came three times a day to walk him for her.

She’d spent the last three days fasting and praying. Despite what happened to her sister, she knew she had made the right decision and remained determined to testify. However, now that she had come to the moment, now that she was back in the city of her birth among friends she could never call, she deeply mourned the loss of her life.

She contemplated the dynamics of Victor’s family. She thought back to the one time she’d had dinner with his parents. His mother, Zhanna, a strikingly beautiful blonde woman who looked young enough to be Victor’s sister, didn’t speak a lot of English but doted on Ruth. She cooked for them and hovered around them, continually touching Victor’s hair or his shoulder.

Antoly, the father, came home minutes before the meal was served. He was cooler toward Ruth than his wife, but still somewhat welcoming. She watched the family interact, curious about how Zhanna and Victor did not seek Antoly out to engage him, yet pleasantly conversed with him when he initiated the conversation. She wondered about that because he seemed like a nice man.

After that evening, another four months went by before she even saw his parents again. In hindsight, she could see that Victor shielded her from his real life.

She curled her lip in anger and self-loathing. If only she’d thought to warn Esther before she went to the police station. Esther had died because of her, because of her bringing the son of a Russian mafia boss into their lives. The guilt weighed her down. She just wished she’d had some information that would help incriminate Victor as well.

A tapping at the door startled her. She checked her watch. The agent coming to walk Major was a full twenty minutes early.

Marshal Brown palmed his sidearm and looked through the door’s peephole. He looked back at her, eyes wide, and motioned for her to get down while he drew his gun. Heart thumping, she knelt on the ground, and Major placed himself between her and the door, pushing up against her as if shielding her with his body.

Brown grabbed his ringing phone. Andrew looked at her as he spoke on the phone. “Yes, sir… Yes, sir… Understood.” He straightened and lowered but did not re-holster his weapon. He opened the door, and a woman with teased brown hair wearing a silver bodysuit that stopped high on her thigh stepped into the hotel room.

“The Kovalevs know where you are,” she said in a heavy Russian accent. Using her finger, she drew an oval in the air in front of her face. “Facial recognition software. I can help you get around the cameras. You have about five minutes before they’re here.”

Marshal Brown gestured with his head and held the door wide. “Let’s go.”

“How do we know we can trust her?” she demanded as she took a step backward, bumping into the window sill.

The young woman, who couldn’t have been older than eighteen, put a hand on her hip. “They wouldn’t send me to warn you. They’d have just shown up. You can trust me or not. I’m out of here. No way will I be caught with you when they get here.”

Marshal Brown rushed toward her. “Let’s go. I have orders to trust her.” He held up his gun. “Cautiously.”

After clipping Major’s leash to his collar, she followed them out. In the hall, the woman said, “Keep your heads down. Step where I step and do what I do.”

She ducked her head and sprinted toward the stairwell at the end of the hall. They took the stairs two at a time until they reached the ground level. With her hand on the exit door, the girl said, “Do not look to your left. Keep your head and face pointed to the right and hug to the building.”

Sandwiched between the girl and the Marshal, she brushed against the building as they rushed down the alley. Thirty seconds later, they ducked into an alcove.

If Major hadn’t lunged forward and if Marshal Brown hadn’t been so close behind her, she would have turned and fled when she saw Victor inside the alcove. “Thanks, Nina,” he said, handing her a folded bill. Fear gripped her, paralyzed her.

“Anything for you, Mr. Kovalev,” she said, winking and taking the money. Without even looking at Ruth, she ducked out of the alcove and ran down the alley.

Victor looked at her and held both hands up. “I’m here as a friend. My cousin Marco, the family’s hacker, got into the TSA system and found Ruth in the JFK terminal through facial recognition. For the last couple of days, he’s been hacking the city’s camera system, and they tracked her to this hotel.”

Marshal Brown looked at Ruth, then Victor. “My people can’t get here in time.”

“You aren’t going to trust him, are you?” Ruth demanded, finding her voice. “He killed my sister. His father is who I’m testifying against.”

“He’s good, according to my supervisor.” He put a large hand on her shoulder. “No one wants to risk your life.”

Victor shook his head. “Please, Ruth. You can fight with me later, but right now, you have to listen to me. I know the path around the cameras.” He held out two baseball caps and sunglasses. “Put these on. And stick close to me.”

Andrew checked the street, then Victor gestured, and they ran across the street and into the doorway of a boutique.

“No pets!” the salesclerk barked.

“Service animal,” Ruth replied. She followed the men through the store, through the back storeroom, and out into the alley behind the building.

Victor and Andrew looked up and down the alley. The kitchen door of an Indian restaurant across the alley sat propped open with a box, so they crossed over and dashed into the kitchen. They raced through, amid the protests of the staff, through the dining room, and out onto the street.

A couple blocks sat between them and the hotel. Ruth put her hands on her hips and looked at Victor. Sweat poured down the side of her face. “What now?”

“We should go to the closest police station,” Andrew said, looking at his phone.

“We’re in Kovalev territory now, Marshal,” Victor replied. “Ninety-nine percent of the cops are perfectly upstanding citizens. Unfortunately, it just takes one phone call.” He put a hand on Major’s head. “Stay with me. I’ll get you somewhere safe until you can make other arrangements.”

Victor looked around the corner of his building and spotted the girl in the short denim shorts and cropped tank top. She stood with her hand on one hip and casually blew a pink bubble with her gum. He knew she was fifteen, but her handler had put makeup on her to make her look a few years older. He gave a short whistle. Without turning to look at him, she casually waved at a passing cab, their signal that she hadn’t noticed any of Boris’ men nearby.

“All clear,” he said, crouching down near Andrew, who peered around the corner of the building. “Go into that building, and immediately on the left, there’s a stairwell. Third floor. Apartment 3-C.”

Marshal Brown nodded and looked at Ruth. “Ready?”

She had barely looked at Victor unless she absolutely had to. Keeping one shoulder turned away from him, she nodded.

“Let the Marshal take Major,” Victor said, reaching out and grabbing Major’s leash, “then wait until he goes into the building and follow him.”

When she turned to look at him, the vehemence in her eyes gave him pause. She did not answer him, simply jerked the leash from his hands, and held it out to the Marshal. Knowing she would soon know what he’d done, he let it go. She’d had no outlet for her pain for six months. It would seem that, for now, he would receive the full brunt of it. He had broad shoulders. He could take it.

As the marshal straightened and walked around the corner of the building to cross the street, Victor said to Ruth, “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” she spat.

“I have some work to do,” he replied almost absently, watching the door shut behind Andrew. He tapped the brick wall with his hand. “Go. Don’t look around. Just walk natural.” As Ruth walked toward his apartment, he couldn’t help but admire her strength. It took everything inside him to keep from pulling her to him and wrapping his arms around her, from promising her safety and security for the rest of her life. Obviously, he couldn’t provide that. Everything he did from here on out would only protect her long enough until she could get away from him for good.

As soon as he heard the metal clang of the door shutting behind her, he straightened and walked into the street. He walked up to the girl who had given him the signal and slipped a hundred-dollar bill into the back pocket of her shorts. She never even glanced his way. He walked three blocks in the blistering heat to his uncle’s gym.

By the time he went through the doors into the air conditioning, sweat had soaked through his shirt. Making a detour to the locker room, he whipped it off his head and changed into a fresh shirt. Twenty minutes later, he finished his third phone call and downed a protein shake as Marco came into the office and slammed the door shut.

“Someone tipped them off,” he said in Russian. “The city, too. Their firewall just got a thousand times harder to crack.” He narrowed his eyes at his cousin. “Where have you been for the last hour?”

Victor gestured at the whiteboard on the wall. “I’ve been arranging fights. We still have to operate a legitimate business, I have no idea where your father is, and with father’s trial this week, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else to do it. I’m doing my father’s job and your father’s job, too, it would seem.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“No?” Victor threw the whiteboard marker at him like a dart, nailing him in the forehead. “Then, you do it. See if it’s as easy and mindless as you imply.”

Before he could react, Marco had him by the shirt front and pinned him up against the board. His eyes flared, a tell of a coming punch, and Victor waited until the last second to duck.

Marco’s fist crashed into the whiteboard, cracking a dent in it right behind the spot Victor’s face had occupied just a second before. Spinning, he grabbed his cousin’s arm and jerked it high up on his back, pinning his face to the board. “You can’t fight me and win, Marco. We both know that. I don’t care how smart you are. You’re physically weaker than me and always have been. You need me to break this arm for you?”

Marco fought against Victor’s hold but couldn’t break free. Finally, Victor pushed away. “I’m going to get some lunch. Stay out of my way.”

He left the gym having sufficiently established his alibi. Worried, wanting to make sure Ruth was okay, he rushed back to his apartment. His lookout gave him a good signal, so he went into the doors and bounded up the stairwell. He heard Ruth’s murmured voice giving Major a command as he put his key into the lock.

“Why are we here?" Ruth demanded, spinning in a circle in the middle of the living room. She imagined Daniel must have felt like this when he entered the lions’ den. Only, this den, this apartment, belonged to the man in front of her.

“No one will think to look for you here,” Victor said, slipping into the apartment. He looked like he’d just run miles through a sauna. “I tipped off the city’s IT department about the hacking, so for now, Marco is locked out, and I doubt he’ll be able to get back in before tomorrow’s trial.”

Marshal Brown disconnected his call and slipped his phone into his pocket. “We’ll have another location within the hour. For now, just relax.”

“This is like a bad dream,” she muttered, perching on the edge of the couch. “It’s like you don’t even realize who this man is.”

Victor shook his head. “I was never that. Never. My mother made my father promise to keep me out of the family business. The closest thing I got to it was boxing, but I never even threw a match.”

Ruth stared at him, her hands cold, her heart rate still a little higher than she liked. “I don’t believe you.”

He stood by the door. She could see the hurt in his eyes, but she didn’t trust it. “I can’t control that. That is your choice. Hopefully, by the time the trial is over, you will.”

“Isn’t that the whole point of the business?” she asked, nearly spitting out the word. “The family connection? Loyalty?”

He shrugged almost nonchalantly. “Possibly. Maybe there was a time when family loyalty might have swayed me.” He walked toward her, and she resisted the urge to get up and move away from him. “When I met you, you introduced me to Christ. Accepting Him into my life knowing how much He loves me and sacrificed for me… I couldn’t betray Him by having anything to do with my father’s business dealings.”

Her jaw clenched so tightly her back teeth ached. She purposefully loosened her muscles. “You were supposed to be there that night. At that gym where those men were killed. It happened where you worked, where you did your business.”

Nodding, Victor said, “I was there. I was in Joe’s office. I took a bad punch and was out of sorts. He sent me in there to rest and see if I needed to go to the hospital. I never knew—”

Marshal Brown’s phone chirped. Ruth watched as he nodded. “Got it.” He disconnected the call and stood. “We have a place.” Looking at Victor, he said, “Good luck this week. What you’re going to do won’t be easy, despite all of the circumstances.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that.” He looked at Ruth. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Ignoring him, she gave Major a hand command, and they followed the marshal out of the apartment. Two blocks away, a dark Suburban waited for them. She climbed into the back seat and pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. Closing her eyes, she prayed for strength for the next few days.