Chapter 109
-Hailey-
“Is that yours?” Stella asked. Her voice was still rough. She was rubbing her raw wrists, and her eyes were darting between me and the dead man like he might get up and start breakdancing.
I just stared at her as my mind sluggishly processed the question.
My phone.
My phone was buzzing.
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“Yeah,” I managed. My voice came out a dry croak. My hand moved to my pocket on autopilot, but I hesitated as my fingers landed on the vibrating fabric.
A sick, cold feeling was starting to uncoil in my gut.
Stella’s eyes went wide. “They took my phone,” she said again, and the words landed like a boulder on ice. “The boss. He put it in his pocket before they left.”
My heart didn’t just skip a beat. It felt like it stopped beating entirely. My gaze dropped to my pocket, and a wave of nausea washed over me so violently I had to put a hand on the table to steady myself.
Slowly, with dread pumping through my veins like icy sludge, I pulled the phone out. The screen glowed brightly in the dim room.
And Stella’s name glared back at me.
A choked sound escaped my throat, something between a gasp and a whimper.
“Who is it?” Talon’s voice was a low rumble from across the room. He had finished his methodical search of the dead guy’s pockets, and he was watching me. His green eyes were narrowed to slits.
All three of them were staring at me, and the weight of it pressed in on me from all directions.
I looked from the phone to Stella, then back to the screen.
My fingers were clumsy and numb. I couldn’t form words to answer Talon. I could only shake my head – a tiny, frantic motion as my thumb slid across the glowing green answer icon and I raised my phone to my
ear.
The voice that came through the speaker was smooth, cultured, and carried a deep accent that made the hairs on my arms stand up. “Ms. Conway,” it said, and my knees gave out.
I sank slowly into the wooden chair Stella had just vacated. It was still warm from her body. The world narrowed to the plastic shell of the phone pressed against my ear and the voice slithering into my brain.
“I told you to come alone.”
11:45 Fri, Jan 23
Chapter 109
The accusation was delivered not with anger, but with a tone of mild, almost paternal disappointment. It was worse than any shout. My throat was sandpaper. I worked moisture into my mouth and swallowed hard.
“Anatoly,” I breathed. The name felt like a curse on my tongue.
A soft, dry chuckle answered me. The sound of a man thoroughly enjoying himself. “You are as perceptive as you are determined. I knew you would not listen, of course. I knew before you even left the city.
A memory flickered behind my eyes then. The man we’d driven past, walking his dog through the city. I was half joking at the time, but had he actually been a fucking Russian spy?
Anatoly had turned my whole world into a set, and every person in it was a potential actor in his sick play.
“Luckily… for you,” he continued. His voice was a silky purr. “And for your spirited friend, my intentions were never to cause her harm. Though, I must admit, she is quite beautiful in her ferocity. A rare quality. I was… tempted to keep her for myself.”
My free hand clenched into a fist on my thigh, nails digging into my palm. I could feel everyone’s stares. They were all waiting for a clue. Some reaction they could read.
“What do you want, asshole?” I growled. For a second, I regretted my tone. Until Anatoly continued talking-
“Sergei, however,” Anatoly said. I could almost see him gesturing dismissively toward the body cooling just feet from me, “was disloyal. A small thing, but in my business, small things become large problems. He was a dead man the moment he considered betrayal. I merely found a more… illustrative use for his expiration. A test, as you see.”
A test. The clinical detachment in his voice made my stomach flip.
“And you passed!” The approval in his tone was somehow more terrifying than anger would have been. “Oh, not the part about coming alone. That was a given. I wanted to see if you would come at all. And more importantly, I wanted to see if you would come without your king. Logan.”
He let the name hang in the dead air between us.
“You did not tell him,” he stated, a fact, not a question. “You mobilized the club’s resources — its vice president, its prodigal son – and you made them lie to him. For you. That is an interesting kind of power, Ms. Conway. A subtle power.”
I still couldn’t bring myself to say anything, but he was more than happy to continue prattling on. “Logan… he is a hammer. A blunt instrument. Predictable. Emotional. He sees a nail, he strikes. It is why he will lose.”
I wanted to scoff. I wanted to scream that Logan hid his emotions behind a wall of concrete, that his violence was a calculated language. But it died in my throat.
Because Anatoly wasn’t entirely wrong.
“This was a lesson,” he said. His voice dropped even lower. “A demonstration of cause and effect. Of my reach. And of your value. The next time I require your attention, I will not be so…. theatrical. I will not use one of my own. I will take something that truly belongs to you. And your blunt instrument will not survive the attempt to get it back.”
11:45 Fri, Jan 23
Chapter 109
He let the threat settle into the silence. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears.
“Now you
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will go home, Hailey,” he commanded softly. “You did very well today. And you will not tell Logan we have spoken. Any of this. Because if you do…”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence. The image was already there, seared into my mind. Not Stella. Not this time. It was my mother’s face. Abby’s. But he finished it anyway.
“I will take something else from you.”
The line went dead.
The silence after he hung up was heavier than the corpse across the table from me.
I lowered the phone and looked at the three faces watching me. Their expressions were a blend of confusion, concern, and grim anticipation. They’d heard my side, the name I’d spoken. They knew.
Talon broke the spell. He moved with a sudden sense of purpose that was jarring after the psychic stillness.
He snatched the dead man’s wallet from the table where he’d laid it, tucking it into the inner pocket of his cut without a word. His jaw was set, and his eyes avoided mine.
“Let’s go,” he grunted.
Nobody argued.
We filed out of the dining room. River took point, with his hand resting on the gun at his hip. His head was on a swivel as we moved back through the dark hallway. Stella followed close behind him with her arms wrapped around herself.
Talon and I brought up the rear. My legs were moving on autopilot.
Stepping outside was a shock. The sun was down now, and the air was colder.
Talon climbed into the driver’s seat of his truck without a word. I moved to the passenger door, sliding across the worn bench seat into the middle. My thigh pressed against Talon’s, my shoulder against Stella’s as she climbed in beside me.
The cab of the truck was suddenly very small.
River threw the duffel bags into the bed with a dull thud and then hopped in after them. A silent guardian riding in the open air. The engine turned over with a growl, and Talon put the truck in reverse.
We pulled out onto Oakmoss Lane and the silence stretched, expanding to fill the entire cab. I could feel the questions bubbling under the surface from both of them. What did he say? What does he want? What do we do now?
But they didn’t ask. Talon’s focus was on the road. Stella stared out her window at the passing trees, but I could see the reflection of her troubled eyes in the glass.
My mind was a fucking hamster on a wheel.
11:45 Fri, Jan 23
Chapter 109
*Don’t tell Logan.*
:0
Anatoly’s final command played on a loop. The threat behind it was a cold knot in my stomach. But how could I not tell him? This was entirely about him. About us.
Keeping this secret would build yet another wall between us. But revealing it… that was lighting a fuse on a bomb aimed directly at everyone I loved.
God, Logan.
The anxiety was eating me alive, but half of it was because I knew exactly what I was heading home to.
The relief of having Stella safe was completely obliterated now, replaced by the daunting, terrifying prospect of facing Logan. I could practically feel his rage from here, and I was about to step straight into it.
Holding a secret that would only make it worse.
The headlights finally found the two bikes, where we’d left them on the gravel shoulder at the mouth of Oakmoss Lane. Talon pulled over and threw it in park.
The easy part was done.
Now we had to go home.
