25

Ravil
“Zdravstvuyte, Maykl,” Lucy greets my doorman brightly when we return from our morning walk the next day.
“Zdravstvuyte, Ms. Lawrence,” he answers, smiling. She’s already won over everyone she’s met with her continued attempts to speak Russian. I love the fact that she didn’t stop learning after I allowed others to speak English to her.
“There’s a bit of a situation in the elevator.” Maykl jerks his thumb toward the bank of elevators.
Frowning, I walk over to find Adrian and Nadia, his sister, camped out in one, Adrian’s foot stuck in the door to keep it open. Nadia’s facing the wall, crying, gripping the handrail for dear life as Adrian attempts to coax her out.
I hold the elevator door open with my shoulder. Lucy’s hand gets tight in mine, her eyes wide. “What’s going on?” she asks nervously. “Does she need help?”
Adrian twists to look over his shoulder at her with irritability, but seeing it’s us, fully faces us. “I can’t get her out of the building,” he says to me in Russian.
“In English,” I tell him. I’m long over making everyone speak Russian in front of Lucy. It’s far more important that Adrian and Nadia learn to speak English.
“Sorry,” he says to Lucy. “My sister has some… phobias. She doesn’t want to leave the elevator.”
“This is your sister?”
Nadia sniffs and looks over her shoulder at us.
“Da. Nadia.”
“Nadia, you’re safe here,” I say gently in Russian because she doesn’t speak English yet. “No one will hurt you,” I say in English, for Lucy’s benefit.
“Did someone hurt her?” Lucy’s alarmed. Her hand’s clammy and stiff in mine, and I can sense her mind spinning. “What happened, Adrian?”
Adrian shoots a look at me.
I nod.
“Yes, she was hurt. Badly. Now she’s too afraid to go outside.” He throws his hands in the air in frustration.
“We should get her some counseling, Adrian,” I say.
Adrian shrugs helplessly. “If you know one who speaks Russian, I will drag her there.”
“Maybe telecall,” I say, thinking of how Lucy conducts all her business seamlessly from my room. “I’ll arrange something.”
“Was this why you set the fire?” Lucy asks.
I blink, surprised at how quickly she put it together.
Adrian frowns, darting a glance at his sister. He neither confirms nor denies.
“Was she hurt at the sofa factory?” Lucy gasps, putting the rest of it together. “She was a sex slave?” Tears fill her eyes.
As if reminded of the horror his sister went through, Adrian loses his irritation with Nadia and the situation. He steps forward and wraps his arms around his sister. “Another day,” he murmurs in Russian. “We’ll try another day.”
I pull Lucy in, and we hit the button to go up.
“So the fire was for revenge? Or was it part of a rescue?”
“Revenge,” Adrian says coldly. When he turns, there’s still murder in his eyes. “I freed them all the week before.”
Lucy nods a tear skidding down her cheek. “Well, that makes a great defense.”
Adrian eyes her. He’s brave, but I know he’s afraid. Mostly afraid of leaving his sister here alone if he ends up in prison. I’ve already pledged to take care of her if that happens.
“No promises, but I don’t believe we’ll need it. I think I can get the evidence suppressed on a technicality. We’ll find out tomorrow at the prelim.”
Relief makes Adrian slouch against the elevator wall. He brings the heels of his hands to his forehead. “That would be great. Thank you. Thank you, that would be great.”
“I’ll do my best,” Lucy promises.
After we leave them on their floor, she turns to me, a line between her brows. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she accuses.
“I told you. It wasn’t my story to tell.”
“It’s horrible.”
“I know. She was kidnapped in Russia by Ukranian slavers. Adrian is lucky to have found her alive.”
“Did he come here just to find her? Or was he already here?”
“He came to find her. He’s been here eight months, but he only found her last month.”
Another tear slips from Lucy’s eye. She swipes at it. “Damn hormones. I cry at everything.”
“Nadia is worth your tears,” I say.
She nods. “Yes.” She lifts her gaze to mine. “You helped him,” she says. “You helped him find her, and you bailed him out of jail.”
“Of course. But I did not set the fire, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“It’s not. I’m just starting to understand the whole picture.”
“If I had set the fire, Leon Poval would be dead, and no one would’ve been caught,” I say.
Lucy goes still a moment, and I realize I said too much. She doesn’t like my violent ways. But then she gives me a single nod. “I’m sure you would’ve done it right,” she says.
I wrap my arm around her back and escort her off the elevator, drawing her close to me, so I can kiss the top of her head. “Do you really think you can get him off?”
“There’s a good chance. We’ll find out tomorrow.”
Lucy
“The preliminary hearing is like a mini-trial,” I explain to Adrian and Ravil as we sit on the long wooden bench outside the courtroom. “The prosecution will call witnesses and introduce evidence, and then I can cross-examine witnesses. It gives us a chance to see what they have and intend to use against you. From what I can tell, their case is pretty flimsy and hinges on evidence they found at your apartment, which they searched without a proper warrant.”
My phone dings, and I check the text. It’s from Sarah.
I told her I would go to court for Adrian’s preliminary hearing despite my bed rest. She asked a ton of questions, the answers to which I’m sure she rushed to share with Dick.
She’s supposed to meet me here with the documents I had her prepare, as well as the entire file for the case, but she sends me a last minute text saying she’s sending a courier instead.
“I don’t like it,” I mutter aloud when I read it.
“What?”
“I don’t know. I think our summer associate is sleeping with one of the partners. The one who wants me out. And now she says she’s not coming with the paperwork I need but is sending it by courier.”
Ravil’s eyes narrow.
“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”
His brows pop up. “You can’t know what I”m thinking.”
“Was it doing something evil to protect me from the assholes at my law firm?”
“All right, you do know,” he concedes, his lips twisted in a grin. “I will think of something only semi-evil, then.”
I can’t stop the smile that tickles my lips. I tap my lips with my finger, trying to punch down my anxiety over not having my files. I hate feeling unprepared. Damn, Sarah.
She probably did this on purpose to make me look bad.
I flip open the folder I brought. I can bluff with it.
My phone rings-it’s Gretchen. I slide it to decline.
As I feared, we get called into the courtroom before any courier arrives. I shoot Sarah a text. The Motion to Suppress did not arrive. You’re fired.
I probably don’t have the authority to fire her, and she will surely go running to suck Dick’s dick and make sure it doesn’t stick, but I sincerely hope she sweats it.
We go inside and take our places. I try to push the Motion out of my mind. I can bluff through this. Pretend I have the motion in my briefcase and demand they drop the case.
I can do this without the actual paperwork.
Brett Wilson, a prosecuting attorney I have tangled with many times before, gets up and presents his evidence. I start to slow my breath. Good. As I suspected, they have nothing but the illegally obtained evidence.
I get up to cross-examine the arresting officers and ask about the warrant. The officer gives me his reasons for not needing one, but I cut through his arguments.
“Your honor, I brought with me today a Motion to Suppress the evidence as it was obtained illegally.” I swivel to face the district attorney. “And without that evidence, I don’t believe you have a case. Do you still want to keep this thing going?”
“Adrian Turgenev had a beef with his employer and torched the place.”
“You have nothing to prove that.”
Wilson opens his mouth, but the judge shoots him with a look that says he’s not buying it.
“Fine.” Brett Wilson sighs and closes his eyes. “Prosecution moves to dismiss the case without prejudice, your honor.”
Yes!
Thank you, baby Jesus.
We stand, and Ravil beams at me. I can tell he wants to embrace me but knows it would look strange.
I shake both his and Adrian’s hands like we’re nothing more than attorney and client.
And then I have to pee again.
Gretchen calls again while I’m in the bathroom. I decline again-I don’t have time to talk now-and head out.
Ravil takes the three of us out to lunch at a pizza place where I definitely eat enough for two.
Gretchen calls again as we approach the Kremlin. I don’t take it, but I text her, Can I call you later?
She texts back, No!
But it doesn’t matter because as we pull into the Kremlin’s parking garage, we’re suddenly surrounded by cop cars. “Stop the car and get out with your hands up,” they say over a loudspeaker.
I look around to find cop cars swarming the garage. Dima, Nikolai, Pavel and Oleg are in handcuffs, being put into the backs of them.
Ravil twists around to glare at me, the betrayal in his eyes nearly burning me alive.
I want to deny it. Tell him I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I can’t find my voice, and the cops are dragging open the doors, guns pointed, everyone yelling.
I’m dragged out and hustled into the back of a car.
Adrian and Ravil are put face down on the filthy concrete, their hands cuffed behind their backs.
“No,” I finally manage to say. “Wait. This is a mistake. What’s happening?”
My phone rings again.
Gretchen.
Fuck!
With a trembling hand, I bring the phone to my ear. “What’s happening?” I warble into the mouthpiece.
“Lucy! Where are you? Can you talk?”
A sob wells up and lets loose. “Gretchen,” choke on the next breath I can manage. “You made a mistake.”