Page 73 of Savage Boss
“We go to war!” It is said with joy and a sadistic hunger echoed in the shouts across the room. Then Nikolai holds out the glass to me. “To the old days and the old ways,moy pakhan.”
I hold up my own glass to receive the toast and throw back the vodka, just like Nikolai. It is cheap and burns all the way down.
But I welcome the burning, just as I welcome the inferno that is my anger and my desire for revenge, my desperate need to protect Clara and our child. It burns away everything in me, until all that is left is the devil my father created to rule the Smirnov Bratva.
34
CLARA
I'm still standing at the window, staring down at the grid of Manhattan where life is moving, free and noisy, as snow begins tosiftdown from the dark, heavy clouds. But up here, on the thirty-fifth floor of Dmitri's private hotel, everything is silent and suffocating. I might as well be stuck in the low clouds, watching the flakes pass as they make their way down.
It's been a full day since Dmitri left, since he kissed me goodbye and told me he would come for me when everything was over. But I have no idea when that will be. Will it be hours? Days? Months? The guards outside my room have been less than helpful when I ask. I don't even know whether they speak English, because they won't answer me at all.
I might be safe, but this hotel room might as well be a panic room with a spectacular view. The point is, I can't leave, I can’t call anyone, I can't get a hold of Dmitri, and I don't know when any of this will end.
But it has given me a lot of time to think—too muchtime.
Is it worth being locked up in a tower like some fantasyprincess just to feel secure? I feel so entirely out of my depth, like I'm actually in a fairy tale, myprinceoff fighting a war while I'm stuck here. But I'm not a princess, and I'm not helpless. I've picked up the phone multiple times to tell Emily to trigger that FBI safe house she was talking about, only to place it back down without making the call.
I know that Dmitri's world doesn't operate the way the rest of ours does, and Andrey certainly doesn't operate the way most of us do. The majority of us abide by laws that define our lives, create barriers between what we can and can't do. Barriers don't exist for men like them—they are simply annoyances to get around.
Andrey's specter hovers every time I reach for my phone to call Emily. What wouldn't he do to get to me? How far do his connections run? He's already tried to kill me three times, and just like Dmitri said, I know he won't stop. Can the FBI really protect me against that? Is every agent so immune to the promise of money and power that I wouldn't be in danger?
Is there any place I can run that he can't find me?
Whenever Dmitri returns—I ignore the small voice that saysifhe returns—we're going to have a stern talk about locking me away like this. But I don't want to leave the safety he's built for me either.
I don't have a death wish, and I'm desperate to protect my baby.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t hate being locked up. I get Dmitri’s logic—I really do. I still feel the trauma of the white-hot terror in the moments after the bomb went off, of knowing someone really is trying to kill me. But logic doesn’t calm the shaking ofmy hands, and it doesn’t make me feel any less powerless or alone.
I’ve already learned how many footsteps it takes to cross the living room: ten across the cold marble floor, another ten across the silky Persian rug, five to the window, and then back. I’ve run my hands over the gold-plated fixtures in the bathrooms and the crystal decanters of liquor on the wet bar that I can’t partake in, looked in the fully stocked fridge, and sat in the enormous bathtub that sits beside the glass enclosed shower with so many heads, I can’t even find them all.
I’m climbing the freaking walls.
I’ve tried calling Dmitri, but it always goes straight to voicemail. I wonder what he’s doing out there.
What happens if Dmitri dies? What happens to me and the baby?
If Dmitri is dead, I’m dead. And I don’t know if there’s anywhere I can hide that Andrey won’t find us.
I welcome the noise of the television because I’m desperate for distraction, for some kind of connection to the world outside this fortress.
Unfortunately, the program that pops up first is the evening newscast. The solemn face of one of the news anchors fills the screen.
“Foul play is suspected in the death of Mark Palmer. Palmer, a twenty-three-year-oldparalegalat Smirnov Corporation, died late last night in an apartment fire in TriBeCa, which authorities now believe was intentionally set. Palmer wasreportedly assisting a police investigation related to a local organized crime syndicate…”
The remote slips from my numb fingers, falling silently onto the thick rug beneath my feet.
Mark Palmer.
I stare at the image of the burned-out apartment building, a cold certainty settling deep in my chest, then sinking like stones to my stomach, heavy and sickening.
Died in a fire.
Mark didn’t just die in a fire. He wassilenced. He was shown what happens when someone crosses the Smirnov Bratva. He was a warning to anyone else who might think they can follow in Mark’s footsteps. The fire wasn’t an accident—it was a consequence.
Dmitri told me he wouldtry. He told me he would do his best to try it my way, even though that was not the bratva way.
