Page 77 of In Her Blood
“You can help by spreading the word to your crew,” Lina continued, utterly ignoring his response. “About Grisha being a goddamn Morozov mole, and also not to let down their guard with anyone from Grigoriy’s crew. Also, if anyone gets word on Pavel, forward it along. His disappearance is not helping me try to trust that jackass.”
Artem grunted. “When did you say the last time was you had contact with him?”
“About five minutes before Grigoriy tried to strangle me.”
Otto ground his teeth at the memory and barely remembered to flip on his blinker. He wasn’t used to letting himself be followed, but it made sense the De Salvos would bring along the cars they’d arrived in. He was surprised even one had volunteered to ride backseat with them. But it hadn’t seemed to bother Lina, and so far, they showed no signs of being less than genuine with their intent.
He hoped that meant good things for her. Hoped that she’d get to meet her aunt in the near future and develop a relationship with a better branch of family.
He hoped he wasn’t about to lose his own father.
“I still want to know how that fucking happened,” Artem grumbled.
“I let my guard down,” Lina replied. “We’re about here, so I have to let you go. If you get in touch with Pavel and he gives you some bullshit about how I told him to spread the word about Grisha, remind him I never told him to ignore my calls.”
“Understood.”
Lina dropped the phone back to her lap and slumped in her chair.
From the backseat, Mikey asked, “I take it Artem is one you’ll want to keep?”
“Otetshad four brigadiers,” Lina said. She stretched out her arm so their ride-along could watch her count them off and proceeded to name and summarize their recent experiences with each.
“Then your choice to start fresh is sound,” Mikey said when she finished.
Otto caught sight of the man swiping at a screen when he glanced reflexively into his rearview mirror. “Updating your brothers?” It arguably wasn’t his place to ask, but if it had the slightest bit to do with Lina’s safety, it was justifiable. And if she was rebuilding, he figured maybe he could redefine his boundaries a little, too.
Mikey didn’t even glance up. “I already have a conference open with them, so not the way you mean.” He paused, then stretched forward with the device—a tablet—and said to Lina, “Is this the Pavel you were talking about?”
She shifted in her seat, stared at the screen for a second, and said, “Um, yeah. How did you…?”
“I hacked into your father’s records and scanned known associates,” Mikey replied, resettling in his seat. “With your manpower being limited, it’ll go faster if I upload his face to our servers and we search facial recognition.”
Otto slowed as the house came into view.
“How does that work?” Lina asked.
“Private satellites.”
“Private satellites,” Lina repeated. “Did you hear that, Otto?Plural.”
“I’d have been terrified of you learning that information seven years ago.” His knuckles went white with tension at the sight of the empty driveway. “We’re here.”
Lina straightened. “I’ll let that go, on account of the immediate situation.” She reached over as he swung into the drive and gave his thigh a squeeze. “He’ll be okay, Otto. We’ll make sure he’s okay.”
He didn’t ask her how she planned to keep that promise, because he knew the truth. She was just trying to comfort him the best she could.
They lingered in tense silence for another minute while Dante’s and Romeo’s vehicles positioned themselves in staggered places on the street, doubling as convenient lookouts and less obvious backup. When Mikey gave the signal, Otto led the way from the drive to the front door, each forward step generating a new droplet of sweat on his skin.
He couldn’t remember a time he’d been more anxious about opening the damn door. It’d been hard coming back to the house after his mother had passed, but not because he’d feared what he would find. The idea of how he might find the man who’d accepted him so completely that he’d adopted Otto and legally had Otto’s name changed to embrace their relationship had nausea twisting Otto’s stomach.
Lina laid her hand on his arm. “Otto, if you need to sit this one out—”
He shoved the fear as low as he could. “Not happening,” he grunted, and yanked the door open.
It was jarring how silent, and how initially thesame, the house was. It seemed exactly as it should have as Otto guided them down the hall. He kept Lina at his back, his preferred gun already in-hand, and forced himself to call out for his father.
Only the subtle, ceaseless, steadytick-tick-tickof an old wall-mounted clock answered him.
