Page 26 of Refrain

And, of course, he’ll fail.

“How did you meet her?”

Evasive, for once, he stares beyond my head. “In an alley. Vlad made her sleep near the dumpsters as punishment one night. I gave her some food. She gave me a hell of a lot more. After that, she made a habit of pissing them off in order to sleep on the street. I did what I could to help her out.”

“Forinformation,” I clarify. Someone risking their life to help another for their own gain is a lot easier to stomach than the alternative.

“Yep.” He breaks the tension by fishing a cell phone from his pocket to check the time. “An hour, you said? The pigs always seem to be overachievers. Let’s go now.”

I wind up following him out of simple, burning curiosity. A lone man plans to grab a girl from Piotr Petrov’s watch. I hope he isn’t that stupid. I’m amused enough to ask.

“Do you have a plan?”

He shakes his head, but when he glances back at me, he’s smiling. The slight quirk to his mouth ignites burning sparks beneath my skin. Once again, the only adjective I can use to describe one of his expressions isbeautiful. It’s not a compliment. I know firsthand what beauty means against a man like Piotr.

It’s weakness.

“Think if I ask nicely they’ll let her walk away?” He poses the question to the sky as he tucks his hands into his pockets, his stroll leisurely.

I’m almost fooled. Almost. But he’s scanning the road, hunting the face of every pedestrian who rushes past.

“I think you’re going to get yourself killed,” I tell him truthfully.What a waste.That angelic face will be mutilated by the blow from some thug’s fist—if he’s not lucky enough to get a bullet to the head.

“Oh, I already know that.” He stares me down head on, and a slight tilt renders his pretty smile a little less innocent. “That doesn’t mean it has to happentodaythough.”

“W-wait—”

I’m left reeling as he picks up speed before slowing down as we near the precinct. He decides to cross the street toward a bodega. Then he cuts through an alley, and we linger near the mouth of it, assaulted by the stench of rotting garbage wafting from a row of trash cans a few yards down.

He surveys the front of the police station, and I copy him. Vagrants and detectives alike go in and out. I recognize some of them, though distantly. It’s like I’m viewing a slideshow of someone else’s life. Maybe I read the summary somewhere, but I forgot the context. Wholesome rookie cop transfers from a Podunk town in Montana—only she’s not so wholesome, and Newtown was never her home.

“There she is,” Espisido whispers.

A woman exits the front of the station, her dark hair a ratty mess, her blue eyes bloodshot. The man beside me tenses up, but he doesn’t start forward. He merely whistles.

I don’t know how the sharp sound manages to cut over the bustle of early morning traffic, but the woman flinches, her gaze flitting in our direction. Another whistle and she takes off, descending the curb and cutting through traffic. She’s fast, butwhen a man climbs out of a dark van parked a block away, my heart lurches ominously.

“Shit.” Espisido hisses through his teeth. This must have been his plan after all—hope that he could beat them to her. “Get back.”

We move deeper into the alley, but he doesn’t take his gaze off the girl once. The brute on her tail is all muscle. He cracks his knuckles with every step he takes, his eyes narrowed over his prey.

A terrifying realization hits me like a punch to the stomach—She won’t be fast enough. Maybe Espisido knows that too, because he’s inching backward until we’re out of sight, tucked around where the alley turns.

The girl falters just beyond the bodega. Another low whistle draws her closer. By then, it’s already too fucking late.

“No.” A hand descends over my shoulder before I even register moving. Espisido. “It’s okay,” he says.

But all he does is whistle again.

The sound lures the girl a few steps closer. She’s nearly halfway into the alley by the time the thug catches up. His size alone blocks the entrance, rendering our direction as her only exit—not that she makes it that far. With the ease of a hand swatting a fly, the man snatches her wrist and hauls her backward. I’m close enough to make out the words he snarls to her in Russian.

“Where the hell were you going? Get to the van!”

“No!” She tries in vain to push him off, but the bastard’s already forming a fist, aiming it at her chest.

“Wait here,” Espisido speaks directly into my ear this time.

The next moment, I’m staring at the back of his head. He’s drawn his hood low, his gait unsteady. One of his hands pulls something from his pocket. It’s small, cylindrical. A syringe? If I didn’t know any better, I’d assume he was a druggie, too damn high to even notice the scene unfolding in front of him.

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