“A girl,” I confessed quickly.
The brothers shared another look. “Did this girl have a name?” Aleksander asked.
I licked dry lips and contemplated how to answer. “There were two girls there. It was the one with short hair.” I felt proud of myself for not giving away her name. If the Russians were like the Irish, they had a dozen or so nameless street kids working for them. The bosses wouldn’t know who they were. And I wouldn’t be expected to remember one of them after meeting them only once.
Only I did remember her. I remembered everything about her.
The brothers lapsed into Russian, their expressions growing stern and serious. They seemed to be arguing about something, pointing to me and the window behind them. And then they said her name. Caroline Valero. And I knew I’d turned her in.
Shit.
I swallowed and tried to pick up the repeated phrases or words so I could go to the library tomorrow and look them up, but it was impossible to understand them. I didn’t know any Russian and they were speaking way too fast for me to memorize anything substantial.
Roman had the last say and the other brothers closed their mouths, even though they didn’t look happy about it. He focused on me once again, more sinister than ever. I couldn’t pinpoint it for a second, but I realized he reminded me of a cartoon cat with a mouse dangling from his fingertips. He had something he wanted.
And I was just now comprehending that something was me.
“I want you to tell me about the guns, Sayer Wesley. If your information proves accurate and if my men procure the weapons, you will be bratva. Not a six, like you’ve insisted, but a brother. We will blood you so that you will no longer be Irish, but Russian. We will tattoo you so that everyone in this city knows who you belong to, so your ties with the Irish mob will forever be severed. And we will treat you as one of us. We will give you a place to live and you will work for us for the rest of your life. Is that what you want?”
The promise was too much to resist. My voice shook with dangerous hope as I answered, “That is what I want.”
“There will be one more task for you to complete. If you can give us the Irish and we make you bratva, you must do one more thing.”
Reality sliced through me and I realized I had walked into the spider’s web. Willingly. It was one thing to become Russian. It was another thing entirely to owe them a favor.
“What thing?”
Roman hesitated long enough that I thought he might not tell me, that he might make me wait until after I was bratva to demand his pound of flesh. At last he said, “You must give us Caroline Valero.”
My heart kicked at my chest and I pushed up onto the balls of my feet, readying to run. “What do you mean?”
“I want her,” Roman explained. Before I could fly across the table and murder him, he added. “In the brotherhood. She has… a special set of skills I only see improving. I want to own her talent. I want her to be bratva.”
“She’s already a six—”
“She works begrudgingly, obliged by her father’s involvement,” Roman explained. “She has no intentions of getting marked. My niece tells me she has plans to go to university and leave the life completely.” His nose wrinkled in distaste. “Not only do I refuse to lose her talent, she has a certain influence over my niece that I will not abide. She must be bratva. Do you understand?”
From the second I saw Caroline, I knew she was different. This information didn’t surprise me at all. She didn’t look Russian. And she didn’t look like she belonged in the back alley that day. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen and if she hadn’t talked to me, I wouldn’t have believed she was real. Of course she wanted to go to college. She didn’t belong with these lowlifes. She didn’t belong to this world. “You want me to convince her to not go to college?”
Roman stretched his neck impatiently. “I want you to give her a reason to stay. A reason she cannot leave.”
I shook my head. “I don’t follow.”
Roman said what sounded like a curse word in Russian and leaned forward, stretching his folded hands in front of him on the sleek table. “I want you to give me a reason to make her bratva. I want you to prove you belong here by securing her future with me.”
My heart pounded and adrenaline rushed through me as I realized what I was being asked. There were two ways to enter a life like this one. The first was to walk willingly into it like I was trying to do. The second was to do something that trapped you inside—usually a sin of some kind, a bargain with the devil that could not be broken. They were asking me to give them an opportunity to trap Caroline in the bratva.
“How much time do I have?” I asked, my tongue heavy and stiff in my mouth.
“You have until she tries to leave,” Roman answered, his lips twisting with a small smile. “She will work for us as long as she lives here and her father is working for our organization. I need her choice to be taken away from her. I need her loyalty. You have until she graduates high school. But sooner would be preferable.”
The tumultuous feelings inside of me started to become clearer. I realized I wasn’t afraid or upset on her behalf. I was excited. Thrilled. Happy.
It turned out that Roman and I wanted the same thing—my angel in the alley. His task was in complete alignment with what I had set out to do.
My dad was a horrible man. He’d beaten me from birth, locked me in the basement as often as he could, starved me, hurt me, ruined me, and fucked me up royally overall. He’d done the same to my mom.
He said he treated us that way because he loved us, because he wanted us to know how much he loved us.
He loved us so much it hurt. He loved me so much starving on the streets felt like fucking freedom. He loved my mom so much she killed herself to get away from him. He was the devil incarnate in my life until he followed my mom to the grave. And I hated him for it.
But he always said there was one woman out there for every man, he said that it was the man’s job to find her, to take care of her, to be the man she needed and deserved. He’d been too sick in the head to be that man for my mom. He’d taken something beautiful and destroyed it, a lovely, caring, kind woman and crushed her and crushed her until she shattered.
I wasn’t him. I would never be him.
And I had always known that when I found the girl meant for me, I would do everything in my power to do better than my old man. When I found her, I would give her what she needed and treat her the way she deserved. When I found her, I would do whatever it took to make her happy and safe and loved.
Two months ago, I met her.
“Your price is Caroline Valero?” I asked when I started to doubt what I’d heard. Could I want this so badly I had just imagined it?
“Make her bratva,” Roman ordered. “And you will always belong to this brotherhood.”
“Okay,” I told him knowing that it was a lie. Knowing that Caroline would never be his. But I would do what he asked to make her mine. I would figure out how to make her bratva not so she wouldn’t leave the Russians, but so she wouldn’t leave me.
I spent the rest of the night explaining the shipment of guns I knew was on the way. I gave all the details of how many Irish would be there to accept the shipment and exactly where the guns would go. I showed them the fax for the port details and what time they could expect the ship to dock. After they had everything they needed, they called the bookkeeper over and arranged a place for me to stay, sending me home with him.
He gave me a place to stay, a shower, a hot meal and a comfortable bed. I fell asleep knowing my future was secure, knowing my place in the brotherhood was as good as finalized, knowing I would get Roman everything he’d asked for, because it was everything I wanted.
Caroline Valero had saved my life the first day I met her and given me the future I’d always wanted but didn’t know how to get on my own. She hadn’t just gotten me a hot meal that day, she’d given me hope and security and revenge on the goddamn Irish for turning
my dad into the monster he was. And I just knew that if she was my girl, she would be the one that saved my soul too, saved me from myself and the man I could become if I let the brotherhood twist me with evil deeds and darkness.
I would do anything to make her mine. Even if that meant making her bratva with me.
Chapter Two
Caroline
Present Day
Someone took my daughter.
Someone took Juliet.
My brain transmitted the words, but couldn’t seem to comprehend them. My synapses were firing, but the spark wasn’t catching anywhere. I fisted my freezing hands until they were white in my lap. They were all I could see, all that made sense. Everything else was wrong… broken. A macabre nightmare I wished to wake up from.
Sayer reached over and covered my left hand with his, wrapping it in warmth and strength, providing me something solid to latch onto. “We will get her back, Caro.” His voice was steely, unbreakable iron.
My gaze traveled over his hand, following his long fingers to the masculine bone of his wrist, over his dress shirt, to the curve of his broad shoulder. His neck. His jawline. His face. Pieces of him that made sense. Things I could see. The rest of the world, beyond him, was nothing but abstract, unknowable things. Dark and ambiguous and pretend.
“Who took her?”
His jaw ticked, but his shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I have a theory.” His jaw ticked again. “But I don’t know for sure. I’ve made a lot of enemies in my life.”
I jerked my focus to the windshield, staring at the darkened road ahead. “We’ve made a lot of enemies.”
His fingers slid through mine, squeezing tightly. The gesture was meant to be comforting, but it had the opposite effect on me.
This was why I had run in the first place. This was why I’d left the man I loved and the future we’d planned. When I found out I was pregnant five years ago, I had no other option. The life we lived in the Russian bratva was too dangerous for a child, for my child. I knew her life would always be at risk. I knew the constant peril would force sinister hands into her life and try to take her from me.
Maybe I hadn’t foreseen this exact scenario, but I’d imagined a thousand similar ones. To ensure her safety, to keep her free of this god-awful world, I’d escaped. Only I hadn’t gone far enough.
And my shortsighted decision had led Sayer back to me. And now the DC underworld had followed him.
I didn’t blame Sayer. At least not yet. But it was hard to separate the two circumstances. Sayer showed back up in my life and suddenly Juliet is taken. The events were undoubtedly linked.
Doubt, suspicion, and ugly, ferocious blame brewed inside me.
I looked down to where our hands were still clasped in my lap and repressed an ominous shiver.
With his gaze out the window and one hand on the steering wheel, he said in a low tone, “We should talk about what happened.”
Sucking in a steadying breath, I quickly shook my head. He meant having sex. He meant talk about how we’d just had sex in his downstairs office at his restaurant, the DC Initiative. The one he’d recently opened in town to be near me after his five-year stint in prison.
I still smelled like him. My lips were still swollen from his kisses, my hair disheveled and tangled. “Not now,” I pleaded. “I… I can’t talk about it now.”
He could sense the panic in my voice, the reedy desperation. “Caroline…” he murmured.
“God, Sayer, I can’t right now.” Not when I should have been the one picking up Juliet from daycare. I should have been there to take her home. I should have never gotten distracted by old love and renewed lust and consistent stupidity. This man made me stupid. He was every bad decision and hasty regret. He was all my wrong choices and abandoned dreams.
And now Juliet had been kidnapped and I had nobody to blame but myself.
Same old shit, different day.
I couldn’t think about that now. I had to find Juliet. She was my priority. My stomach roiled and if I’d eaten anything today I would have puked it all over Sayer’s Jeep. A desperate tear slipped from the corner of my eye and I gasped a heavy sob.
“We’re going to get her back,” Sayer growled, slamming the car into a parallel parking spot in front of the daycare Juliet attended. Squad cars were everywhere, cops littering the yard in front of the building, walking wide-eyed parents and terrified children to their vehicles.
I ripped my hand away from Sayer without acknowledging his promise. I didn’t know if I believed him yet. I didn’t know if I needed to. I would get my daughter back no matter what, no matter what I had to do or pay or promise. I would get her back. It helped that Sayer was here to support me, but I didn’t need him.
They couldn’t keep her from me. I would move fucking heaven and hell to get her back.
I saw Frankie standing on the sidewalk and took off running for her. A uniform stepped in front of me and I slammed to a stop.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” she ground out, signaling for another officer to join her.
The officer must have noticed the wild look in my eyes or my frantic state. She rested her hand on her sidearm and moved with me when I tried to step around her.
“I-I’m the mom,” I gasped, doing my best to hold back a flood of tears. I couldn’t let them escape. If I gave into the emotion, I would drown in it. I would be useless and weepy and a prisoner to despair. Right now, I was desperate but furious. A lifetime of working with high adrenaline made me feel ready for battle, primed for the fight of my life.
“She’s the mom!” Frankie shouted from where she stood when she noticed me. “She’s Caroline Baker!”
“I’m Caroline Baker,” I confirmed.
The officer dropped her gaze to my boots and worked her way up, assessing my threat level. It was at fucking hazardous, but she didn’t need to know that. “Can I see some ID?”
I patted my pockets and reached for the nonexistent purse on my shoulder. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I growled. My purse was packed with stolen items sitting in the basement office at DC Initiative.
“Ma’am?” The officer’s eyebrows rose.
“I forgot my purse,” I told her, swallowing my fury and impatience. Fighting with the police would get me nowhere. “I panicked. We just left. I didn’t even think to grab it.”
“We?”
I opened my mouth to tell her my relationship with Sayer, but my tongue tripped over convoluted explanations. Or how to explain it to the cop fast enough to push past this bullshit and get her to give me details. “My, er—”
A hand thrust past me and reached for the officer’s, saving me from answering. “Sayer Smith. I’m Juliet’s father.”
Holy shit. Her father. I dumped an imaginary bucket of ice water over my head to get my brain to focus again. It was that… he said it so effortlessly, so smoothly. Her father, like he’d said it a thousand times. And even though he’d used his alias, the blow was just as effective at knocking the wind out of me.
The officer was visibly charmed by him. Her guard lowered a little and the suspicion melted from her furrowed brow. “Smith?” To me, she asked, “Baker?”
“We’re not married,” Sayer explained just as easily as he’d said father. “Actually, Juliet hasn’t even met me yet. Unplanned pregnancy.” He paused, letting the cop fill in the blanks. “I moved to the area to have a relationship with my daughter. Caroline and I are working on how to tell her.”
The officer’s voice dropped. “Oh.”
My tongue went numb as I tried to retain all those little details I would need to regurgitate to the police on the hour, every hour until we found her. Or as often as they asked me to explain, knowing that would be often.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Sayer said soothingly. “We’re still trying to figure out the logistics ourselves.” He turned his head and our gazes collided, the hard look in his eyes telling me we really would have to talk about what happened. And soon.
I felt
lightheaded. There was too much going on. I needed to get Juliet back. The rest could wait. I knew that. Logically, I knew that. But, goddamn, someone would pay after this was over.
The officer stuttered over what to say next while Miss Beth and Miss Harmony from the daycare joined us. “Caroline,” Harmony whispered, pulling me into a hug. “I’m so, so sorry.”
A gust of wind rustled my clothes, drawing attention to my cold, wet shoulder. Harmony was crying all over me. I took a step back and settled my hands on her shoulders, keeping her at a distance. New Caroline would have hugged her back and offered comfort. Old Caroline blamed her for handing my daughter over to a stranger. Old Caroline hated her. Old Caroline wanted to strangle this woman.
“What happened?” I hoped my tone would sober her up a bit.
She sucked in a struggling breath, shaking through her sobs. “We were at rest time,” she sniffled. “The fire alarm went off. It was mayhem with all the littles ones. And the babies were sleeping.” She dropped her face into her hands and tried to compose herself. Her voice pitched high as she spoke through her sobs. “In the rush to exit the building, th-there was a man waiting outside. H-he was hiding. We had our hands full. Each teacher is responsible for a certain number of children, but we accounted for Juliet before we left the building. When we went to do our final count at our safe spot, she wasn’t there.”
Fury bubbled in my blood, turning my skin hot despite the icy wind blowing down from the mountains. “You didn’t even know she was gone?”
Sayer stepped in front of me, breaking the crushing grip I had on Harmony and didn’t realize until I released her. “How do you know a man took her if you didn’t even know she was gone?”
“The security tapes,” she hiccupped. “The fire department searched the building and when they couldn’t find her we watched the tapes to figure out what happened.”
Sayer turned to the local PD that had gathered around us. “We need to see those tapes.”
The original officer shared a look with an older male officer next to her. “Of course.”