Page 41 of Roma Queen
“Ms. Llewelyn? I heard the door close. Please. Do not be alarmed.”
The voice comes from the living room. A male voice clipped by an Eastern-European shortening of the vowels.
I haven’t noticed until now: Zara’s hand is resting on the pommel of a baseball bat. It must have been propped up against the wall behind the door or something. There’s a fierce determination on her face that even the scattering of freckles pinpricked across the bridge of her nose can’t diminish. Fuck, this girl is going to be the end of me. She’s planning on charging into the living room with that bat hefted over her fucking head, and I’m not going to be able to stop her, because the woman’s about to give me a goddamn heart attack.
I snatch the bat out of her hands, sending her a reproachful look. The look she sends back is a middle finger in scowl-form. She can be mad at me all she likes. I’ll deal with her anger later if I have to. At the moment, all I care about is keeping her safe, and if that means I have to piss her off by disarming her so I can handle the situation, then so fucking be it.
Shoulders back, bat in hand, I step into the living room, first noting the guy dressed in a suit sitting on the couch before quickly scanning the corners of the room, looking for a second and a third intruder. There are no other guys, though. Just the lone man sitting on the couch. I turn my attention back to him, noting the finer details of him now: slightly balding; mid-forties; narrow face; weak blue eyes, watery, that still seem to command respect. His pin-striped suit and his gnarled hands stacked on top of one another in his lap give him the air of a nineteen-twenties gangster. A prohibitionist. He’d cut a far more threatening figure if he wasn’t sitting here in a pair of black and grey Argyle socks.
There are two questions any smart person would ask in this situation. Firstly,who the fuck are you, asshole?Secondly,what the fuck do you want?These questions aren’t important, though. This motherfucker, whoever he is, broke in to Zara’s apartment. She doesnotlook pleased to see him. There’s only one thing I have to say to this guy, and it won’t cost me more than three syllables. I lift the bat over my head and release a low growl from the back of my throat. “Run, Motherfucker.”
“Pasha, wait!” Zara’s hand lands on my shoulder. My instinct is to follow through with the swing, bringing the bat down in an arc so the maple wood connects with the bastard’s temple, solving this problem in a quick and very permanent way. But the pressure from Zara’s fingers increases, digging into the top of my shoulder, and I hesitate.
Throughout all of this, the guy on the couch hasn’t even flinched. He looks up at me with his watery blue eyes, as if he’s merely curious about what is going to happen next. Huffing, I lower the bat and stick the end of it in his face. “Explain.Quickly.”
The man’s lips part. He unfolds his hands and brushes his palms along the length of his thighs, as if sweeping away imaginary lint. He turns and gives his attention to Zara. “I’m a suspicious man, Ms. Llewelyn. I think you know this about me.”
Zara’s eyes are almost black, her pupils so blown and wide as she meets the stranger’s inscrutable gaze. “Yes, Mr. Petrov. I think I gathered that after our last meeting.”
Petrov.
At once familiar. Immediately worrying. This is the dead child’s father. He’s also one of the most influential, powerful men in Spokane, and for all the wrong reasons. When I was a kid, there were no Russians in Spokane. They arrived one year while I was away at boarding school, and when I returned here for Christmas break, they were all anyone was talking about. They’d taken over the city and didn’t like the Rivins being here. A series of scuffles had followed, where the Petrovs had tried to coerce the clan, encouraging us to move on, and a number of the clan’s men had gone out to pay them a visit with knives tucked up their sleeves. When they’d returned, they were two men down, the blades of their knifes were bright red, and an accord had been struck: we wouldn’t interfere with the Russians, and they wouldn’t interfere with us. Simple.
I’ve had numerous run-ins with the Russians at the flower markets. There’s big money in the fights, and, like everyone else, the Petrovs have their stake in the blood and sweat that hits the canvas. I’ve never met the head of the Petrov organization, though. Descending into the hellish realm below the flower market is both literally and figuratively below a man of Yuri Petrov’s standing.
The man has the look of a cold, dead fish that’s been discarded on a quayside. I’ve come to the firm decision that I do not fucking like him, and I definitely don’t like the way he’s staring at Zara. “I apologize for violating your privacy, both now and the last time one of my men came here, to your apartment,” he says. “You were so interested in my son’s fate. You were the one who took his call. The police detective said you were asking a lot of questions. It appeared that you might be involved in Corey’s disappearance. I was merely…making sure your motives were…honest.”
“I’m sorry that my general concern over a missing five-year-old looked nefarious to you, Mr. Petrov. I was simply doing my job,” Zara says coldly. She’s nervous, I can feel it radiating off her, but she’s standing tall. Defiant. If she only knew how many hardened criminals the man sitting on her couch had flayed alive and dispatched from this world, screaming like babies, she might not be wearing such a challenging look in her eyes.
Then again…
The second I run the scenario through in my head, replaying it once more, with Zara fully aware of every dark and sinister crime that stains Yuri Petrov’s soul, I know that her back would still be straight. She’d still be ready to defend herself and wouldn’t for one second allow herself to be cowed by the man.
I’m sure, for most guys, the realization that they’re in love with someone comes to them during the hazy, sleepy, honeyed moments after sex, with the girl of their dreams curled tightly against their body, their skin slick with sweat and endorphins.
For me, it comes in a dimly lit, book-filled living room, as a woman with hair the color of embers and burning coals faces down a mass murderer and does not blink.
She’s the picture of composure as she addresses the man. “I’m so sorry. About Corey. I saw the newspapers this morning. I’d hoped…”
Yuri Petrov quickly turns his head to look out of the window. He swallows. “Yes. Well. I’m afraid I lied to you the last time we met. The video of Corey I showed to you was real, but the threat was far from over. I wanted to see what you would do. I wanted to see how you’d react. If you had anything to do with his kidnapping, then I had convinced myself I would see it in your face. When you drove out of that parking lot, I knew you were innocent. It was already too late, though. My colleague had already been here and left my gift to you.”
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Zara agrees. “You invaded my privacy. You made me feel unsafe in my own home. Much like you’re doing right now.”
Slowly, Petrov turns away from the window, as if he’s seen enough of the rooftops on the other side of the street. His attention falls to me, not Zara. His words are clearly meant for her, though. “I’m sorry to have robbed you of the illusion that you were safe here. But I came unarmed, and you have your protector here to defend you. I promise you won’t have need of him.” His eyes narrow as he picks me over, his assessment of me stony and mildly disinterested. “I know you,” he says. “You’re the Roma boy. You broke my trainer’s nose a few weeks ago.”
It comes back to me—the fight with the paunchy, slow bastard the night Patrin came to find me for the first time. The trainer that had tried to tell me to go down in my fight. He’d laid his hands on me, which I hadn’t appreciated, and I’d let him fucking know it. His words ring clear in my head now. “You got no fucking sense at all, you fucking moron? Have you any idea what the fuck you’ve just done?”The trainer’s words had been a warning; the slab of meat I’d just tenderized was one of Petrov’s men. I should have guessed.
“Your trainer was stupid. A man shouldn’t step foot inside a cage unless he knows how to fight his way out,” I inform him.
Yuri adopts a stunted smile. It looks uncomfortable on him; he probably hasn’t executed the maneuver in quite some time. “I told him the same thing. He wasn’t happy. He wanted something done about you.”
“And?”
Yuri’s smile deepens, softening his face a little. It looks like he’s growing accustomed to the feel of it now. “I told him that I’m a business man. If I disposed of every man willing to step into a cage with one of my fighters, they’d quickly run out of opponents, wouldn’t they?”
“Very practical of you.”
“You refused to throw the fight. You have honor. It’s a foolish personality trait to possess. Most men have it beaten out of them pretty quickly in my experience.” He squints at me, then adds, “But I admire it. It means you can trust a man at his word, no matter what.”
