Otherwise Unharmed

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” she said.

  “Don’t give me that shit.”

  “In light of everything else, I’ve decided not to complain about your smoking,” Lia informed me.

  “I don’t usually do it.”

  “You’ve had a cigarette in your hand pretty much the whole time since the last time you made that statement.”

  “I’m trying to remember what it’s like.” I gave her a goofy smile, and she shook her head again.

  Lia was quiet while I smoked, glared at the gang-bangers as they went in and out of the store for cheap liquor, and waited for the cab to show up.

  “I was thinking I might retire,” I said.

  “What does that mean?” Lia asked.

  “You know—like you were saying before. You asked what we were going to do after all this. When I was in jail, I thought maybe…well, maybe I’d just see if you wanted to...um….”

  Shit, I sounded like a fucking idiot.

  “I was thinking maybe you and I could leave Chicago, you know—together. Go someplace where no one is likely to try to track me down. I have to take care of all this other shit first because Trent will definitely be on my ass until it’s done, but afterwards, we could just leave. I’ve got plenty of money to get us by for a while.”

  “What? Someplace like that cabin where I first met you?”

  “Something like that, yeah.”

  “And do what?”

  I gave her a half smile and a raised eyebrow.

  “Alternate between taking you up against a wall and taking you from behind. We could throw in a few other variations, of course. Those are just my top picks.”

  She didn’t seem amused.

  “I’ve missed a whole year of school tracking you down,” she said. “I still have two years left before I get my degree.”

  I was struck again with how little I knew about her. I hadn’t even been aware she was in school.

  “What are you studying?” I asked.

  “Nursing,” Lia replied tersely. “Don’t change the subject.”

  There was a sudden burst of a memory from a couple Christmases ago when Rinaldo’s wife got ticked off at him for sneaking cookies from a tray she was preparing. She had shaken her finger at him as she yelled, and all his attempts at diverting the topic had been unsuccessful.

  I smiled.

  “Is this funny?” Lia snapped.

  “No,” I said, but I couldn’t stop the grin on my face. “Would you hit me if I said you were beautiful when you’re angry?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I won’t say it, then.”

  “Good call.”

  I leaned in to kiss her, and she let me though she didn’t open her mouth or push for more. I stopped after just a couple of light touches to her lips and then leaned back a little to look at her.

  “You wouldn’t have to go to school,” I told her. “I can take care of you.”

  “I want to go to school,” Lia said.

  Her tone left no room for discussion even if I was a little inclined to try to persuade her to try the easy life. She would never have to work as long as she was with me, and the places we were likely to end up weren’t likely to have a lot of universities in the area.

  “Can’t we work out the details later?”

  “If you are saying that when all is said and done, we’re not going to stay here, and you aren’t going to continue with your current occupation, then yes, the details can wait.”

  I nodded, hoping the gesture looked sincere. I wasn’t completely sure if I could live up to the whole idea—there were too many uncertainties. I didn’t even know if I’d survive this little endeavor into Greco’s organization, and even if I did, there was no way to know if Rinaldo would just let me walk away afterwards.

  Lia didn’t need to know that though. If she did—if she even suspected it—she might change her mind and walk out. I still wasn’t sure how politely I was going to respond to that, and I needed to stop it from happening.

  “You’re not going to leave?” I needed the confirmation. I needed to hear it.

  “Do you want me to?” she asked.

  “God, no,” I said with a sharp breath. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I don’t want you to go anywhere. I want you to stay with me.”

  “But after all of this,” Lia said as she waved a hand around in the air, “all this shit with the federal agent and all—after all of that is done, we leave, right? Just take Odin and head to wherever you want to go. Then we’ll figure the rest of it out when we get there.”

  “Yeah,” I said with a nod as I stared straight into her eyes. “We’ll leave—just you and me and Odin.”

  Nothing was going to stop me from making good on that statement.

  Chapter 12—Developing Plan

  We spent the next three days just moving around the city. I hadn’t gotten any grand ideas on how I was supposed to home in on Greco, and I hadn’t heard anything from Trent or Rinaldo. Of course, I didn’t have a phone anyone could use to reach me, and I’d left at home the new laptop I had bought in the rush, but if either of them knew where I was, they’d definitely find a way to reach me.

  So at the very least, I was staying a step ahead of them. I just wasn’t sure what that was accomplishing besides buying me a little more time.

  Make that time with Lia.

  As soon as we stopped at each motel where we stayed, I was on her and in her as quickly as possible. It was like sex with her was centering me—giving me the focus and purpose I hadn’t felt since I was first deployed to the Middle East. She seemed to either understand how badly I needed it, or maybe she needed it just as much as I did. Whichever it was, she never complained about anything other than being a little sore.

  I bought lube, and she stopped complaining after that.

  Without any other brilliant ideas on my part, we ended up returning to my Audi behind the goth-themed nightclub in Lincoln Park and then went back to my apartment. I knew we couldn’t stay in such an obvious place long, but there were things I needed. I also wanted to see Odin, so we picked him up at the doggie hotel on the way back to my building.

  He was pretty excited to be back and spent about as much time bringing his bone back to Lia to throw for him as he did trying to lick my face and arms. I sat on the couch and watched her play with him for a few minutes before she decided she had played fetch enough for one night. Odin curled up in his doggie bed by the door to the balcony and watched us.

  “It’s late,” Lia observed.

  “You tired?”

  “Yeah, I am.”

  She looked it, too. All the running around was already getting to her, and it had only been a few days. I took her into the bedroom and let her get settled without jumping her bones for once. She was out almost as soon as she laid her head on the pillow.

  While Lia slept in my bed—a sight I found insanely distracting—I started going through all my lists of people in Greco’s organization as well as contacts that might have some other connection to his organization. I was pretty much coming up with nothing after a couple of hours and was about to throw my laptop across the room when a thought occurred to me.

  Nick Wolfe.

  Nick might have been Rinaldo’s flesh and blood, but right before I had my little breakdown, he had started seeing a girl. Her name was Milena, and she was related to Andrey Severinov who was the figurehead in Chicago for a crime group along with Rurik Dytalov. They’d moved from Moscow to Azerbaijan several years ago to take a piece of the caviar trade, but they were small suppliers compared to Moretti’s outfit. I’d taken out Rurik’s cousin a few months ago when they tried to home in on Rinaldo’s caviar customers, but as far as I knew, Rurik didn’t know I was the one who pulled the trigger.

  Milena had a brother, Micah. We’d met once when he was giving Nick some shit at a bar, and I put myself in the middle of it. I might have taken him out that night, but Nick didn’t want me to go after him. Ou
t of respect, I didn’t, but he was still on my kill roll. I had planned to discuss it with Rinaldo before taking any further action but hadn’t gotten around to it before I went off the deep end. If I couldn’t get into Greco’s organization directly, maybe I could get in through the Russians.

  It was the best option I had at the moment.

  I picked up my phone and selected one of the contacts.

  “Yeah?”

  “Hey, Eddie-boy,” I said, “it’s Arden.”

  “Hey, LT,” a sleepy Eddie-boy replied. “You know it’s three in the morning, right?”

  “Yeah, sorry about that.”

  “No you aren’t,” he replied. “What can I do ya for?”

  “Micah Severinov. I need contact info.”

  Eddie-boy, the communications expert deployed with me in Iraq, was my key information guy outside of Rinaldo’s organization. He had come in handy on several occasions. He was military-loyal through and through, though he didn’t have much love for the law or the government. As his former commanding officer, he would have done anything for me.

  “In Chicago?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No problem.”

  He called back just a few minutes later with an address and cell phone number, and I wired him some cash.

  “Hey, LT—you doin’ all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “Oh.” There was a long pause. “I just heard…well, I heard you had a little trouble.”

  “All a misunderstanding,” I told him. “Now the guys across the street know not to have such a loud fucking garage door.”

  Eddie-boy laughed and hung up.

  Now I had to figure out how to approach the guy and what to do with Lia while I was taking care of business. Unlike Odin, I didn’t think she’d be too happy with the idea of going to a boarding facility.

  I snickered to myself at the thought.

  Still, she needed to be close to me but not too close. Trent still knew exactly where I was, and I was going to have to change our living space for a lot of reasons. Rinaldo owned the building I lived in, and once he got wind of what I was doing, the apartment I’d lived in for the last couple of years was going to become a warzone.

  I switched from looking at people’s information to looking at apartments for rent. There were actually a few decent options with nice, open balconies with good, tactical views of the surrounding area. I also checked into those that would have a good view for Lia because she wasn’t going to be able to go out much—too dangerous. I wrote down a couple addresses to check out the next day.

  Odin snuffed and sneezed all over my boot then looked up at me expectantly. As soon as I started going toward the leash, he started running around in a circle by the door. I paused for a minute, not sure if leaving Lia asleep and alone was the best of ideas, but Odin hadn’t been out for a while, and I didn’t want to wake her. I’d only be in the park behind the building.

  I snapped the leash onto Odin’s collar and quietly closed the door. I made sure it was bolted before heading to the elevator and down to Lake Shore East Park.

  As soon as I walked into the green area, I glanced around a little to see if anyone was nearby. It was the middle of the night and no one was out, but I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone would recognize me as the guy who shot up the place a month ago if they did see me. There weren’t any other people or dogs in the dog run, so at least I wasn’t going to meet up with the woman with the terrier I tried to shoot.

  I took off Odin’s leash and watched him run around, sniff, and water the trees. He took a big dump right in the middle of the place, which I cleaned up with one of the plastic baggies from a dispenser on the fence before I sat back on the bench and lit a cigarette. I cradled the glowing tip against my palm to keep it less visible.

  Being in the same area where I’d lost my shit not all that long ago felt odd, to say the least. My nerves were frayed, and I kept glancing all around me like I was waiting for enemies to pop out from behind one of the bushes and start firing. It was similar to the way I felt before the doctors at the military hospital put me on medication, and I didn’t like it at all.

  I pulled my gun out of my shoulder holster and checked that there was a bullet in the firing chamber before putting it back.

  “Whassup, brotha?” a familiar voice called out. “When did you start smokin’ again?”

  I didn’t startle, but I was no less caught off guard as Jonathan Ferris walked around the edge of the fence and opened the dual gate of the dog park. He flipped his hair out of his eyes as he walked over and sat down next to me.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Your phone ain’t workin’,” Jonathan responded.

  “I think the cops still have it,” I replied. “Took my Barrett, too.”

  “That sucks.”

  I looked down toward the ground and took another drag of my cigarette. It occurred to me that the action made me look nervous, and I started to straighten up and get myself in check but changed my mind. It would be better at this point to be considered nervous in front of Jonathan, considering his source of income was the same as mine.

  Jonathan was Rinaldo Moretti’s chief information man. He had been your typical bored and brilliant teen with a propensity for hacking into various computer systems around the world just to show that it could be done. Now he did the same for our boss, either to find out the things Rinaldo wanted to know, break into banking systems to help out with a little money laundering, or sometimes just to use his phone to get a seat at a busy restaurant without having to wait.

  He was also about the only person in the world I would consider a friend.

  Deceiving him wasn’t an easy thing to do, but I was going to have to try. Jonathan was a perceptive guy though most people’s first impressions dismissed him as a backwoods hick. He sounded like one, but behind the thick accent was an exceptional mind. I needed him to believe I was still pretty much off my game so he could report the same back to Rinaldo.

  I kept my eyes down, blinked a few times, and took another drag without saying a word.

  “I didn’t really think I’d find ya here,” Jonathan said. “I figgered you’d go back to your apartment, but not come out here.”

  I moved my head slowly to look up at him.

  “Don’t have much of anyplace else to go,” I commented quietly before looking back to my shoes.

  “How ya feelin’?”

  I thought about it and decided to answer him honestly.

  “Like I’m waiting to start seeing shit again,” I said. “I’ll know it isn’t real, but I’m still waiting to see it, you know?”

  Jonathan nodded. He’d been with me at the shooting range once when I started seeing images of insurgents coming out from behind the targets. I’d just stopped taking the meds the military doctors had given me, and I wasn’t completely prepared for the consequences.

  “Did you see shit out here?” he asked as he nodded his head around the park. “I mean, when you decided to blow the place up?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I was hearing a lot of stuff, and that fucking garage door kept going off and sounding like a perimeter alarm. There was already so much other shit in my head. I hadn’t slept, and I just…I dunno.”

  “Cracked.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “It’s all right, brotha,” he assured me. “Shit happens. Rinaldo understands, even if he is kinda being a dick about you.”

  “How so?” I asked. I looked up at him because I had no idea what he was talking about.

  Jonathan shrugged and shifted his position on the bench to bring one foot up on the seat. He took out another smoke, patted Odin’s head as he came by, and leaned back.

  “He’s pissed you didn’t come to him first,” Jonathan said. “I told him it don’t work like that, but ya know—he feels bad he didn’t see it was coming that quick.”

  “Feels bad?” I laughed.

  “He does,” Jonathan said
with a nod. “He’d take you over Nick right now, that’s for sure, with him datin’ that Russian bitch.”

  I wasn’t expecting him to bring up Nick, and since I had just been thinking about him and his girlfriend’s connection to the Russians associated with Greco, I took the opportunity to plant a little more information in Jonathan’s head, assuming he’d take it back to Rinaldo.

  “Yeah, I hadn’t gotten around to telling him about that night at Sweetwater. I could’ve taken her brother out then, but Nick asked me not to. He was already on my list, and I should have done it. The Russians are gaining too much control around here.”

  “True dat, but you had other shit on your mind.”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  We sat in silence for a minute while Jonathan finished his smoke, and I lit another one.

  “You sure did leave a disaster at the office,” he said quietly.

  I didn’t have to ask what he meant. Killing Terry and Bridgett in the storage room at the bottom of Rinaldo’s office wasn’t so bad, but leaving the bodies behind instead of cleaning up my mess—that was a fairly serious faux pas.

  “Is that new girl ya got a hooker, too?”

  I flinched and turned to glare at him.

  “She’s not a fucking hooker,” I growled.

  “Easy.” Jonathan put his hands up in the air in a surrender gesture. “Just askin’.”

  “Well, she ain’t.” Fuck, I was already picking up that stupid, contagious accent of his again.

  I knew he was just posing the question, but the idea that anyone would think of Lia in such a way pissed me off. I went back to my smoke and hoped he would go away soon, but of course, he didn’t.

  “You gonna treat this one better than the last one?”

  “Fuck you!” I snapped as I stood up. He stood as well, and towered over my six-foot-two frame by a couple of inches. “She was feeding information to Greco!”

  “Yeah, I ain’t talkin’ about takin’ her out—that needed to happen. Kinda surprised you did it yourself, but it still had to happen. I just meant in general. You treated her like shit and then took her around so everyone knew she was with ya. Might as well have just painted her with a fuckin’ bull’s-eye in case Terry didn’t get the hint.”