A car pulled into the area ahead of us from a different entrance. It stopped, still a distance off, and faced us. Its headlights blinked twice. Then three more cars joined it.
I kept my voice steady. “Nyet,” I confided. “Sometimes there is only one girl.”
He glanced at me. But only briefly. “I thought this was to be a small meeting.” He motioned with his chin to the waiting cars.
I flicked our lights off and on, answering their summons, as my stomach roiled. “A small meeting about a big deal,” I muttered. “It’s not every day the Mafia gets exactly what it’s been wanting.” There were more cars than even I’d anticipated.
“Then let’s give it to them. Get this over with. Let’s make this deal.”
I nodded. “Follow my lead and stay cool.” Opening my door, I slid out of the car.
Briefly blinded by the glare of headlights, I realized if this didn’t go just right it meant the end of the both of us. Quickly. And without us the Mafia would feel even less reason to pause in going for Max and Cat.… A kidnapping would be quieter without the threat of an alpha in the house.
There were things I hadn’t dared tell Pietr. He needed to be as natural as possible. If I’d told him how I expected this to go down he’d have overanalyzed things. And one moment free of pure instinct—a heartbeat’s worth of thought—of recalling what you’d believed was the right decision when you ran the scenario through your mind: It became the difference between life and death.
Pietr mustn’t hesitate when it came down to it.
My contact, Ivan, according to the name he most frequently used, met us in the intersection of the awkward spotlight the cars’ headlights cast, his face dripping with shadow. I put my game face on. “Where’s Dmitri?”
“In the car. He wants to see your boy before he bothers getting out.”
“Pietr.” I snapped my fingers.
Pietr snarled at the insult, but came around from behind me, eyes glowing and jaw set grimly.
Ivan looked him up and down.
Pietr spread his arms wide and threw his head back. Slowly, as a testament to his easy animal grace, he took a turn, showcasing his long lines—all muscle and sinew held together by a nearly perfect bone structure. In the stark light he was a young god emblazoned by the headlights cutting through the cold and dark. He stopped, cocked his head, and glowered at the much shorter Ivan. “I don’t do pirouettes.”
I heard a door open. Someone clapped.
Other doors opened and my heart sped, knowing what came next. We would both be tested. I managed to keep my hand from instinctively going to the gun hanging in my jacket pocket. I’d seen the drama played out before—been one of the players once.
Proving my loyalty.
“Impressive, but I need to see more. The form is splendid, but form without function? Nothing but dead meat. Perhaps something more directly applicable to your unique skill set?” The clapping man, Dmitri, if my guess was right, stepped into the circle of light, keeping his face to us so his most telling features fell into hard shadow. I could make out short-cropped hair, a lean, medium build, but if I ever needed to identify him in daylight I would surely fail.
Not Pietr, though, I knew.
Pietr had his scent.
Pietr turned, hearing what I knew was inevitable. Someone was at our car. Our headlights flicked off.
Pietr snarled and he widened his stance, lowering his center of gravity.
I stayed perfectly still, tamping down my fear. Panic did no good, gained us no advantage. And this was all about advantage and bluff—there would be no fair play.
All but one set of headlights blinked off.
We knew they wanted his stealth, his speed and strength, but those came in his human form as much as any other. But what else they wanted to see, I wasn’t sure of. I could only guess.
I stepped back, mirroring Dmitri, and Pietr drew up to his full height, peering into the surrounding darkness, eyes catching fire as he heard the whisper of footsteps circling.
They came at him slowly at first, two at a time.
Shadowy figures slipped in and out of the headlight’s glare, taking swipes at him, pulling his attention different directions as they tried to get the advantage, to get him unbalanced and judge his raw potential, his natural state as a fighter.
Dmitri ringed the action until he stood beside me. “He’s holding back,” he muttered, disgusted. “That will get him killed.” He slapped his hands together. More mafiosos joined in.
I saw the flash of a knife and heard Pietr’s snarl of surprise.
“I have no use for men who hold back. What did you bring me, Alexi? An oborot, or a boy trying to be an oborot? Faster!” Dmitri yelled. “Don’t you dare hold back. He’s no boy—he’s a beast! A monster! Remind him of what he is!”
More men dove for him, more knives flashed, and Pietr’s snarl deepened and thickened and though he no longer faced me, I knew his eyes were bright as fresh blood—the beast readying to rip free.
They ringed him now, knives flicking out, taunting and tearing at his human-looking flesh, an attack on every side meant to take him down a piece at a time and break his control. To force the change he seemed determined to hold back.
There was a rrrip, a startled howl. His clothes hung in tatters, and his flesh became a pin cushion.
Pacing off a slow circle they dodged in and out, each contact eliciting a snarl or a snap from Pietr. And still, he did not change.
Dmitri looked at me. “Cigarette?” he asked, looking meaningfully at the lump in my shirt pocket.
“Of course,” I replied, pulling out the box instead of the gun I so desperately wanted. I kept my hands steady as I shook a cigarette free, ignoring my brother’s sudden yelp of pain.
“You could still find a home with us, Alexi. Light.”
As I pulled the lighter loose, Nadezhda’s letter tumbled out, her picture fluttering free.
Dmitri plucked it from midair and took my lighter. In the yellow glow the lighter sparked he examined the photo a moment. He lit his cigarette. “She has not forgotten you, either,” he mentioned, letting the picture fall between us.
He said it as if Nadezhda’s remembering me was far worse than her forgetting me.
And I knew it was.
I watched the photo hit the ground, roll across the dirt of the junkyard, and I didn’t reach for it, didn’t dare. No distractions. No connections. So instead I watched Nadezhda’s image stolen away by the chilling breeze and returned my gaze to a sight that tore at me almost as much as it tore at him—Pietr’s proving.
Dmitri’s attention refocused, too. His boredom obvious, he snapped, “Finish it!”
The last headlights blinked out and all of the men rushed Pietr at once.
Above us a spotlight flashed on, dangling from a wrecking ball and illuminating the writhing hell a hundred feet below it.
Pietr was gone, a mound of men punching, slicing, and kicking weighing him down. I heard his strangled cry and reached for the gun, my eyes on Dmitri, fear a distant memory. This was suicide. I didn’t have the ammunition to kill them all. Maybe not even enough to save Pietr.
But if I could get some of them off him—scatter them so he had a second chance … a chance to run … a way to know I hadn’t just mutely watched him die.…
It would be worth death. My hand closed around the gun’s cool grip.
Then, as fast as Pietr had fallen, men began flying back.
And Pietr, furred in his wolfskin, clambered to his hind legs, flinging men back with the best of his inhuman strength and all of his uninhibited animal rage. Mobsters screamed as they flew. And as each of them crashed into the rubble of the junkyard with sickening crunches, Pietr stood taller.
Fought fiercer.
Dmitri smiled as my gut twisted and I released the gun again.
Suddenly it was just Pietr, bathed in blood with glowing red eyes under the spotlight like some beast from the most brutal of Russia’s ancient myths. His fu
rred hand, half-turned, clutched his remaining attacker, twisting his head at such an angle.… One stroke of Pietr’s claws and the man’s neck would open, spilling blood; one snap of Pietr’s wrist and his neck would break.
Dmitri clapped, thrilled to see his soldier so close to a sudden end.
Pietr, his face far more wolf than man, growled at Dmitri, his lips pulled back to reveal his massive line of teeth.
“Bravo, Pietr!” Dmitri commended. “Now release him.”
Pietr tossed his head and howled his defiance.
“Release him.”
I nodded at Pietr, but high on the adrenaline rush that came from surviving—and, I shuddered, realizing, high on the bloodlust—he growled at me, too, muscles quivering with something between rage and thrill.
Pietr released the man, letting him slide limply in to the dust and dirt at his feet. Muscles and tendons yanking at bone and jerking his limbs, his body spasmed as Pietr resettled into his more familiar human form.
Covered in grime and bleeding from dozens of knife wounds, Pietr crouched, his eyes still glowing hot and red.
“You have potential,” Dmitri admitted as Pietr panted before him. “Your fighting is sloppy. You have trouble committing to action. You overthink.” He shook his head. “You’d need time to be trained for what we want.” He looked at his own bedraggled and beaten soldiers. “And from what I understand, time is a commodity you do not have.”
“What?” Pietr popped to his feet, his muscles still quivering from stress and exertion. “Are you—are you rejecting my offer?”
“Da, bratàn. I am,” Dmitri said, reaching a hand out to shake Pietr’s.
“I almost kill your men—because you want me to prove something—and then you say no? Do not call me bratàn if you reject what I am willing to give. We are certainly not brothers.” Pietr smacked Dmitri’s hand away and the older man bristled. “I offer you my services and you turn me down because I’m raw? Untrained?”
“Pietr,” I warned.
“Stop now, boy, before you say something you’ll regret.” Again Dmitri stuck out his hand.
Pietr looked at me.
My jaw stiffened. I nodded.
Reluctantly Pietr took Dmitri’s hand. Something subtle about the light in his eyes changed. His fingers stayed curled as his hand dropped back to his side. He held something Dmitri wanted him to have.
Something I shouldn’t know about.
I looked away.
“Come, Pietr,” I said, clipping my tone. “There might yet be another way.”
“Alexi,” Dmitri said as I turned to the car and was blinded briefly when all the other headlights flared back on. “Remember what I said.”
Nodding, I opened the car’s door and climbed in, starting the engine and wondering if he meant I should remember what he said about Nadezhda or finding a home with the mob.
With my bleeding brother nearby, I thought it didn’t matter either way. Some bridges needed to be burned.
“Here.” I tossed Pietr a pair of jeans.
He looked at me—in that moment realizing I’d known they’d force him to change into the very thing he regretted being, that they’d make him a monster, tear him down bit by bit until that was all he could be.
He knew I’d held back from telling him everything.
Again.
He winced, getting into the jeans, and fell into the seat beside me. He seemed not to notice he was bleeding all over the car’s expensive leather interior.
Or perhaps he longer cared.
Alexi
The weekend’s arrival meant very little in a household consumed with thoughts of betrayal and impending battle. I wanted guns and ammunition far more than the fluffy pancakes—the American version of our Russian blini—and bacon Amy served up and Max greedily devoured. I poked at my food, still sickened by what I’d allowed the night before.
I needed to make a shopping list.
Feeling eyes drilling into me, I peered across the table at Cat. She too merely moved the things on her plate around, only pensively nibbling a bit here and there. Her eyes darted from Amy to me and back again. She needed to talk, but it concerned something Amy should not hear.
Even in our own house we were liars. Cat trailed me into the kitchen and when she was sure Amy was nowhere to overhear, she asked me about Pietr’s whereabouts.
“He’s not sleeping in?”
“Nyet. His bed’s still made up.”
I was more astonished by the fact that at his age he made his bed every morning than hearing what I’d feared was inevitable. “Bags?”
“One’s gone—and a lot of clothing—a mix of things.”
A mix of things. Da. It took more than a tracksuit to be a member of the modern Mafia.
“Shhh. Shhh,” I soothed, running my hand slowly across her back. “He is not stupid.” Perhaps not stupid, but dangerously ignorant. “He is probably taking time to think.” More likely taking time to have his ass handed to him by the Mafia. “He’ll be in contact soon.”
“You are lying.” Tears trembled at the edges of her thick eyelashes. “Alexi,” she wheezed, pushing herself into the shelter of my arms, “where has my brother gone?”
I gave her a squeeze, my lips brushing her forehead. “Where has our brother gone?” I corrected her, shaking her gently. “I am not sure, Ekaterina. But we will know soon—of that, I am certain.”
With a sniffle she pulled out of my grasp and bounded up the stairs and to her room. She cranked her music so that Linkin Park echoed through the Queen Anne.
Alone in the kitchen, I remembered introducing my baby brother to the mob. I had not seen the note Dmitri slipped Pietr during their reluctant handshake, but I was sure there had been one. I’d expected another test, but the amount and variety of missing clothing spoke of a more permanent arrangement.
Alexi
On the second day of Pietr’s absence, Amy had to swallow a new lie. I left its construction to Cat. I was so deep in lies I could barely keep them straight anymore. The steady stream of vodka didn’t help.
My shopping list of weapons and ammunition was only half-finished. We were all going to die eventually, anyhow.
Cat somehow threw Amy a red herring—leading her off the strange trail of clues that, if put together correctly, would show Jessie in an asylum, Pietr with the Mafia, and Max as a werewolf. After Amy seemed satisfied, Cat found me.
“I don’t know where he is, Ekaterina,” I insisted. Technically true. “All I know is, he’s not captured and not dead. Yet.”
She wrestled with a box of some sort of supposedly idiot-proof food. “Damn it, Alexi. Pietr’s disappeared and you act as if it’s no big deal!”
“I don’t know what you want me to do. Track him? Oh. Wait. I’m not an oborot, remember?” I slugged back the shot of vodka that sat before me on the table. “And, come to think of it, neither are you. If you want someone to trail him, ask Max.” I rolled the empty glass between my hands and contemplated the bottle. “I don’t know what you expect me to do.”
She grabbed the bottle before my fingers could close around its slender neck and slammed it into the sink, shattering it. “I expect you to stop whatever this self-destructive bent is and find a way to find our brother.”
“Your brother, you mean?” I had grown tired of fighting just to prove I had a right to a family I had worked so hard to keep together.
“Nyet,” she whispered, leaning so close the sting of alcohol on my breath made her nose scrunch up. “I meant what I said. Our brother. Mine. Max’s. And yours,” she snapped before slamming down a piece of paper and pen. “And you know I’d prefer a Glock,” she noted, drawing a line through one of the items on the list. “Sober up. We need you sharp.” And she turned on her heel and left, assured I’d obey.
It seemed everyone in the family had a bit of alpha in them.
Alexi
The phone woke me and I knocked the cup of water off my nightstand reaching for it. “Who the hell is this??
??
I recognized immediately the voice crackling across the airways, though the phone number was new. I leaped to my feet in the dark, demanding, “Pietr?! Where the hell are you?”
Ignoring my question, he replied, “I need the benefit of your expertise. There’s a situation…” His voice trailed off, leaving me wondering if he was being listened to. So I filled in the blanks.
“A situation you cannot handle?” I flipped on a lamp and stared at the knickknacks spread across my bureau that had all been bits and pieces of my years of cover-up. The specially designed cologne that made my scent a close match to theirs. The red dye I used to highlight my plain dark brown hair so it was comparable to their natural color. The vitamins and minerals that helped increase my strength and stamina. The things that made me a weak imitation of what they naturally were.
What situation could an alpha oborot not handle? What expertise did I have…?
It hit me like a sock full of nickels.
“Vwee pohnehmytyuh menya?”
“Shit. Da, yah pohnemyoo.” Of course I understood. “But I cut those ties when they came for you and your siblings. I have avoided the darker side of commerce ever since.”
“Otkrojte dveri snova. Sdelajte eto eshhe raz.”
“Opening that door again could get someone killed—”
“I’m in too deep, Alexi,” he admitted.
I fell back onto my bed. For him to admit he was in over his head—my brilliant little brother—it was like Max asking me for advice about girls. Unheard of.
“It’s hard to explain. It’d all be Greek to you.”
Jesus. It was never good when we needed to speak Greek to cover our tracks. It meant only one thing: The people Pietr was keeping secrets from were Russian. And the only other Russians we’d ever known were Mafia. He’d been with the mob less than three days and already he needed help circumventing them.
This was not a conversation to have over the phone, so I suggested, “Den boroume na meelahme ap toe teelefono.” Maybe if I knew where he was, we could meet. “Pooh eese?”
“Den pyrazee afto.”