Page 3 of Toxic Attraction
"There's a staffing agency called Elite Domestics. Marina Petrov runs it, and she has just informed me Volkov has sent in a request." He stands, adjusting his cuffs with precise movements. "Your application will be processed tomorrow. Background check will come back clean. You'll be placed in Volkov's household within the week."
"I don't know how to—" My voice breaks completely. "I don't know how to spy."
"Then learn quickly." One of his men tosses something that lands in the blood beside my knee. A flip phone, now smeared red. "Memorize the number. Answer when I call. Report everything you learn."
The bastard obviously came prepared to kill my father and have me replace him.
He turns to leave, then pauses. Looks back over his shoulder.
"If you run, I start with your brother's fingers. If you tell anyone, I start with your mother's teeth. If you warn Volkov?" That empty smile returns. "I'll make it last weeks."
And then he's gone. Just like that. The door closes behind him and his men with barely a sound, and we're alone with the body.
With Dad.
With what's left of Dad.
Mom slides off the couch onto her hands and knees, crawling through the blood to reach him. She pulls his head into her lap—what's left of it—and rocks back and forth, keening. That's the only word for it. Keening. A sound I didn't know humans could make.
Ethan's still on the couch, staring at his shaking hands.
And I'm kneeling in my father's blood with a stranger's phone clutched in my red fingers, and I can't stop shaking, can't stop the sobs tearing out of my chest, can't stop seeing the way his head snapped back, the spray of red, the sound—
Oh God, the sound.
The phone in my pocket—my real phone—buzzes.
I pull it out with trembling, blood-slick hands. The screen is smeared red, but I can still read the message.
TASH: home yet??? we still on for drinks tomorrow?
Tash.
My best friend. The only person who might understand what just happened here. After all, her father is Dmitri Markov, and everyone in our community knows what that means, even if Tash never talks about it. She grew up in this world—the same world my father was apparently part of, the same world that just killed him.
I dial her number. It takes three tries because my hands won't stop shaking.
She answers on the second ring. "Val! I was starting to think—"
"A man called Patrick just shot my father in the head." The words come out flat and dead. "In our living room. He says I have to replace Dad as an informant inside Lev Volkov's organization, or he'll torture my mom and Ethan to death."
Silence.
Not shocked silence. Calculating silence.
“A man called Patrick? Patrick O'Rourke?”
“I don’t know, Tash. I don’t know anyone. I don’t even know what is going on.” I’m shaking now, my legs, my hands, my whole body shaking uncontrollably.
I hear a rumble on the other end of the phone. “What does he look like? Give me anything.” Tash's voice has changed completely. It's the first time I’m hearing her sound like that; it’s almost like she has stopped being my chaotic best friend and has become something else.
“He’s a few feet taller than me. Dark blond hair with… I don’t know, it could be a tattoo or a scar. It’s across his mouth. An ugly scar.” I try to recall the ugly man without throwing up again.
"That’s definitely Patrick O'Rourke. How long ago?"
"Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. The cops aren't here yet, I need to—"
"Listen to me carefully." She's using that calm, deadly tone that makes my spine straighten despite everything. "When the cops get there, you tell them it was a robbery. Your dad fought back. Nothing else. Do you understand?"
