Page 105 of Atlas
“Please don’t hurt me. It will only get you in more trouble, and I’m not worth it. You don’t want to go to jail for life. Here, take my wallet. I won’t tell anyone that you were here if you leave now.
Hissing to Velna, Niklavs motioned to my outstretched hand with my wallet. “Take it. We’ll need money to get away.”
I focused on what I’d learned about deescalating a situation.Talk to him. Find something to ask him.
“How come you speak English to Velna? I thought you were both from Latvia.” It was the only thing I could think of to ask.
“No. I’m from Latvia. She’s from Estonia.”
He’s answering. That’s good!
“Are the languages very different?”
He frowned.
“What about the weather? I’ve never been to Eastern Europe, but I heard it’s pretty.”
Niklavs snorted. “It’s shit! Enough with this chit-chat.”
“How did you get the gun?” I asked.
Niklavs groaned and used the gun to wave me away from the door to the offices.
“Did you buy the gun today?”
“No.” His sideways glance at Velna made chills run down my spine. If I was reading him right, Velna hadn’t just given him my contact information and bailed him out; she had also supplied him with the gun. I had known she was a broken woman, but I hadn’t taken her for stupid. I stared at her with anger and disappointment. “You gave him a gun?”
Velna didn’t respond.
My eyes were blinking as I processed the new information. She had gone out of her way to warn me about Niklavs, so why was she now teaming up with him?
Holding up both palms, I spoke to both of them in a placating tone. “Niklavs, I understand that you’re upset. Trust me; no one wants to separate a child from his parents. I was following the law.”
“It’s a shit law,” Niklavs exclaimed with such force that spit sprayed from his mouth.
“Maybe, but Benjamin was malnourished, and he couldn’t concentrate in school because he was always hungry.”
“I never starved my son.” Niklavs gave another sideways glance at Velna as if she was the villain. It provoked me. The stress of being backed up against the wall with a gun pointed at me made me lash out at him. “Benjamin told me that you beat him.” The minute I said it, I knew it was a mistake. A verbal attack like that would escalate the situation, which was the opposite of what I was trying to do.
Niklavs narrowed his eyes and tensed his jaw. “Don’t you fucking dare. You soft Americans don’t understand our culture. I might have slapped him around a little, but my dad did that to me, and it only made me stronger.”
I bit my tongue, not wanting to enrage him further by pointing out that Niklavs’ short temper and violent tendencies didn’t make him a great role model for any child. I needed to find common ground with him. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t understand. So why don’t you explain it to me? Were you trying to help Benjamin?”
“Yes.”
“Enough with the talking,” Velna said from the corner, her tone full of impatience.
I turned my face in surprise, and suddenly, it was like a veil had lifted from my eyes. Taking a step to the side, I took a better look at Velna’s body language. Her shoulders didn’t hang like they had when she came in here looking like a drowned mouse. She stood straight with a hard expression on her face, and nothing in her demeanor hinted at fear of Niklavs or remorse for letting him in here.
My eyes darted between them as she muttered to Niklavs, “What are you waiting for?”
She played me!
The realization made me tighten my hands into fists. Velna had told me she feared for her life, and yet, she had flown from California to Chicago to get him out of jail, and she had given Niklavs a gun and helped him into my office.
“You’re behind this.” There was raw disbelief in my tone as I stared at her.
“Niklavs,” Velna said his name like a command, and he reacted by stepping forward.
