Page 42 of Roma Queen
“Great. Then you’ll believe me when I tell you that I’m going to fuckinghurtyou if you don’t explain why you’re lurking in my girlfriend’s living room like the ghost of Christmas past.”
Zara folds her arms across her chest.
“Well. I’m afraid this is a complicated situation. I have to confess, I did worse than have someone break into your apartment, Zara. The gift I gave to you was a trojan horse, in a way. There was a device sewn into the lining.”
Zara goes pale. “What do you mean,a device? A tracking device?”
Shaking his head, Yuri sighs. Seems like he’s bored by having to explain himself. “It was far more important that I heard your conversations. My associates thought that perhaps you might say something to incriminate yourself. If you did…”
“If I did?”
“We would have come for you.” He admits this easily, without the slightest hint of shame. I hate him for it, but then again, in his shoes, would I have balked at scooping up a woman and torturing the whereabouts of my missing, kidnapped child out of her? Hell no, I would not.
“Putting it in the coat seems pretty stupid,” Zara says, crossing her arms. “It would have made more sense to plant the device in my apartment, surely?”
Yuri looks repentant as he slips his hand into his pocket and takes something out. When he extends his hand, his fingers splaying open, a small, clear disc sits in his palm, rimmed red around its edge, with two tiny wires snaking out of it, one black and one red. “We’ve had cause to do this a number of times before, Ms. Llewelyn. We are not amateurs. The coat was a secondary device. A contingency, for when you left the house.”
Zara looks like she’s about to boil over; her face has taken on a hot-tempered shade of crimson. My own anger levels are almost scraping the ceiling, too. This bastard bugged Zara’s apartment. He’s been listening to her in her own home for days. The Petrovs must have been listening when we came back here, warmed and loosened by tequila, and fucked on the very couch Yuri is sitting on.
I…am…going…to…fucking…kill…him.
“I’m sure you were disappointed when you realized I didn’t plan on keeping your bribe,” Zara grinds out.
For a fleeting moment, a mirthless glint of amusement brightens Yuri’s eyes. “You could say that. Maybe I’m a little…out of touch with the younger generation. Back in my day, there were very few women who could resist a beautiful fur coat. But you, Zara…you gave it away.”
“So sorry to have disappointed you.”
Slowly, Yuri Petrov sighs, leans forward, braces his hands against the edge of the couch, and heaves himself up out of the chair. He doesn’t react when I make a show of tighten my grip on the baseball bat. In fact, he ignores me altogether as he steps toward Zara. “Your apology is disingenuous. I can understand why. Mine, however, is not. I’m sorry for doubting your motives. I’m sorry for intruding into your private life so egregiously. In a way, I am glad that I did, though, Zara. If I hadn’t, my associates wouldn’t have heard what happened here three nights ago. They wouldn’t have heard—”
“Oh my god!” Zara cups her hands over her mouth. Her eyes are twice their normal size, the whites showing. She looks stunned. I realize why a second later. Back in her kitchen, when she’d told me about her suspension from work, she’d also told me about her first run-in with Petrov and the gift he’d left for her in her apartment. And then she’d told me she’d given the coat…to Sarah.
“She was wearing it? When he took her?” Zara whispers behind her hands.
Yuri Petrov nods. “They. She was wearing it whentheytook her.”
Nineteen
ZARA
I’m under water.
I don’t know which way is up.
My eyes are filled with starbursts of light that leave my vision patchy and disjointed. My apartment spins around me as the head of Spokane’s Russian mafia walks into my hallway and carefully slides his feet into his shoes.
Pasha watches the man like a hawk as he stoops, failing to hide a spasm of back pain as he ties one set of laces and then another. When Yuri straightens, he looks suddenly ill. A decade older than he did five minutes ago. “For what it’s worth, I hope the information is of use to you. If you find these men before we do, bring them to me. For my son, I will make sure that they don’t die slowly. You have my word.”
The apartment echoes with silence once he’s gone. Pasha and I stand on either side of the kitchen table, staring down at the Dictaphone Yuri placed in my hand after he told me his people had transferred the audio of Sarah’s kidnapping onto a tape. The slim, silver recorder is an unexploded bomb. It’s innocuous enough, sitting there on my kitchen table, but it has the potential to devastate at at a moment’s notice. I don’t think I have it in me to purposefully set it off.
“Will you do it?” I ask softly.
Pasha nods. His hair is a mass of dark waves as he bows his head and leans over the Dictaphone, hitting the play button.
A crackling static fills the cramped kitchen. Then, the sound of a car passing, tires rumbling against a wet road. The rustling sound of movement, theclip, clip, clipof heels. I hear steady, even breathing, too; they must have sewn the bug into the collar of the coat or something.
Suddenly, the clipping of Sarah’s heels stops, and she laughs. “Well, hello! That looks new. Did you borrow it?”
I can’t hear what’s said back to her. My ears are ringing. God, it’s only been a short time, but I’ve missed the sound of Sarah’s voice. There’s a chance I might never hear it again in person, and that makes it even harder to hear now, like this.
