64

Oleg
I climb in the back of Maxim’s Tesla.
“Give him your phone,” Maxim barks and Pavel.
Pavel hands me his phone, and Maxim hands his to Pavel as he puts the car in drive and pulls out.
“Who was it?” Maxim demands.
My head throbs, and I still feel raw and rough from upsetting Story back there. Fuck. I definitely didn’t mean to offend her by having Maxim give her money. I just expected him to do and say the right things because I can’t say them myself. I wanted to take care of her. And I’m sure she could use the money. I did the math in my head. She can’t bring in more than eight hundred a week giving guitar lessons. So it’s not terrible money, but it’s not like she’s rich or anything. And Maxim is. He was smooth as fuck, too-saying all the right things, and it still pissed her off.
She didn’t want him talking for me.
I’m still rocked to the core by that. Like torn down the center of the chest, heart exposed where it beats. I’ve never felt so vulnerable in my life.
And I still don’t know what I’m going to tell Ravil and the guys about this. I want to ignore Maxim, but I know that’s not going to fly, so I type in the details in Russian.
Three guys. Spoke Russian. I fought them and got away. I don’t tell him that they wanted me alive.
That I know why.
Pavel reads my brief text out loud for Maxim. For me, it’s not brief. It’s about the longest I usually get with any communique.
“It’s the three guys Dima tracked into the country.” Maxim smacks the dash. “Call Dima and tell him to text the photos to my phone.”
I remember now that Maxim had Dima set up tracking software to flag any persons of interest from all incoming Russian flights because he feared someone from the Moscow bratva would try to kill Sasha for her millions. If those meatheads who tried to capture me Saturday came over recently, Dima would’ve noted it. They weren’t bratva, but they still might’ve raised flags.
Pavel makes the call, and a few moments later Ravil’s phone buzzes with the incoming texts. I open them, then nod at Pavel. Maxim catches it in the rearview mirror.
“Fuck!” Maxim explodes. “I knew they were trouble. Did they ask anything? Say anything?”
I shake my throbbing head. My pulse races. Maxim believes this is about Sasha. I shouldn’t let him. I should come clean about my past.
But then, I should’ve done that two years ago when Ravil brought me into the fold. I can’t do it now without them all feeling my betrayal.
“Did all three walk away?” Pavel asks. Which really means, did I do any real harm to them? Sadly, no.
I shrug and nod.
And thankfully, that ends my interrogation. The guys are so used to me offering nothing that they don’t push. Maxim heard what he needed to hear. He will guard his bride and put systems in place to locate these guys. To eliminate the threat.
Which works in my favor, of course. Until whoever is after me sends another crew.
Maxim’s phone rings, and Dima’s name comes on the screen. Dima is our hacker. There’s nothing the guy can’t hack or program.
I hand the phone back to Maxim since I obviously can’t answer. “Those were the guys,” Maxim confirms.
“I have a location,” Dima clips, all business. Ravil’s organization is smooth and orderly-efficient. Pavel was in the Russian military. Ravil and Maxim are genius-level strategists. Nikolai, Dima’s twin, is a bookie. I’m the muscle. The enforcer. But we’re a team-the spokes of a wheel.
“Text it to me.” Maxim twists around to look at me. “You okay with a detour? You don’t have to come in.”
I’m not. I will need to hurl as soon as the Denali stops, and I’m pretty desperate for a painkiller, but of course, I nod. Killing these fuckers is top priority. How I’m feeling is totally irrelevant.
Maxim navigates through traffic. I open the door at a red light to puke, and he curses in Russian.
“Maybe we should take him back first,” Pavel says. His gun is on his lap, silencer already screwed on.
I pull my head back in the vehicle and slam the door then wave my hand impatiently with a frown.
Pavel shrugs. “Okay. He wants to go.”
It’s not a long drive. We get to a hotel, and Maxim parks. He twists to look at me, screwing a silencer on his own piece. “We’ll be back in ten, okay, O?”
I nod.
“I’ll make them pay for what they did to you.”
I don’t answer. I don’t really give a shit if they suffer or don’t. They were just doing a job. My real concern is who’s behind them.
The guys are back in seven minutes. Maxim checks the mirror and cleans a few splatters of blood from his face before stowing the piece under the seat and taking off.
Pavel sits quietly for a few minutes before he asks, “Don’t you think we should’ve found out who sent them before we killed them?”
A muscle ticks in Maxim’s face. He’s crazy-protective when it comes to Sasha. It affected his decision-making on this one. “They were waiting for us. If we hadn’t fired first, we’d be dead now. Besides, we’re sending a fucking message. Anyone who comes near my wife will meet a swift death.”
Pavel shoots me a glance to see if I’m with him on this one.
Of course, I’m thankful they didn’t get anything out of them. If they had, I might find one of those guns pointing at my head now, so I just shrug.
It worked for me. I needed those assholes out of the picture and away from Story.
The rest of the shit, I can deal with later.
Story
I tune my electric guitar then run through chord changes in fast succession to warm my fingers up. It’s Friday afternoon, and the Storytellers are at the Lounge for weekly practice. If it wasn’t for Rue letting us practice here during the days for free, there would be no Storytellers. Which is why Rue’s Lounge will always be our home base. People ask me sometimes why we don’t try to branch out-get gigs at other places, rotate where we play.
We could. We might even make more money. Maybe we’d build a bigger following. But Rue’s launched us. We grew our base of support here. We’re as loyal to the owner as she is to us.
“Where’s the set list?” Flynn asks me.
People think it’s my band because of the name, but it’s actually Flynn’s. Flynn and his friends got together after high school, formed a band, and then needed a lead singer. They thought a female would make them way cooler than an all-boy band. Of course, my name fit easily for a band name.
Maybe it is my band. I mean, I’m the older sister and creative lead. But I don’t ever think of it that way. I believe strongly in collaboration. That’s where the magic happens. With the Storytellers, I often feel like I’m just along for the ride.
“So what happened with Silent Boris Saturday night?” Flynn asks.
I whip my head around and glare at him, uncharacteristically on edge. “Don’t call him that.”
“Seriously, dude. That guy looks like he could kill a man with his bare hands and not break a sweat,” Lake says.
“I kind of think he has,” Ty agrees. “If I hadn’t seen the way he looks at Story, I would be scared to death of him.”
Flynn’s watching me, though. His mouth stretches into a wide grin. “So you finally sealed the deal with your Russian bodyguard, huh?” He has that sing-song congratulatory tone that makes me bristle even more.
“Shut up. Don’t be an idiot.” Now I really don’t sound like myself. Dang it.
The guys all gawk at me with interest. It’s not like me to get worked up over things. I’m as flighty, follow the energy, and laid back as they come. But the past four days since Oleg’s friends came and collected him have been torture. Endlessly long. Filled with questions. Empty. I’ve worried about Oleg. But more than that, having Oleg at my place changed something in me.
I missed him. Crave more time with him.
All of those things are so unlike me.
Which makes me desperately want to go back to the way things were before. To floating through life without giving two fucks about anything. Especially not a guy.
“Wait.” Flynn suddenly sobers, studying me with concern. “Did something bad happen?”
Now the asshole asks. It’s a fine time to suddenly be concerned about my well-being, when he’s the guy who left with two girls and told me to get Oleg to drive.
“No!” I throw my guitar pick at him.
He dodges it, his pirate grin stretching across his face. “Oh my God… you really like this guy!”
“No,” I scoff. I’m definitely not doing that. Not the relationship boomerang our mom subjected us to as kids. Falling in love. Breaking up. Grieving. Plunging into depression. Checking herself into mental institutions. It was an endless cycle of full and broken hearts. She and my dad separated and got back together nine times when I was little. When she finally divorced him because he was a cheating bastard, we thought things would calm down, but they didn’t. She recreated the same drama with a string of new men.
I’m not like her. I’m the opposite. I hang out with a guy. We hook up. Things get weird. I experience this inner nudge, this restlessness that tells me to cut things off before they go any further.
Flynn is a total man-whore. I’m not like that. I’m not just out for sex. I do crave real connection. I need to like the guy, to feel the spark, to find him entertaining and smart. But I don’t know, after a few months, I get itchy and feel penned in. I always find something that makes me want to end it.
Dahlia, our baby sister, is the only one of the three of us who seems to know how to be in a lasting relationship. She and her high school boyfriend went to college together in Wisconsin and are still going strong.
“Wait, so did something happen?” Flynn just won’t let it die. I seriously want to shove my boot up his butt right now.
All three of my bandmates stare at me expectantly. They’re not going to let me dodge this question.
“Yes!”
They all grin at me like goofballs.
“And?” Lake prompts. I’m pretty sure he and Ty have always wanted to hook up with me but know that I have no interest and also that Flynn would kick their asses all the way to Tokyo.
“Why are you guys being such girls right now?” I demand. “Since when do I share my sex life with you?”
“We’re being guys. This is locker room talk. You’re the one who hangs with guys, Story,” Flynn reminds me.
It’s true. Just by default of the amount of time spent together, these guys have become my best friends.
I really need to get out more.
And that thought instantly produces more thoughts of Oleg. Because he’s the one who changed up my rhythm. Threw me off my game. He left a sense of emptiness and longing in his wake that I’m having a hard time recovering from.
I did start to write a song, though. A hot, push me up against the wall kind of song. But I’m not ready to reveal it yet.
“It was hot,” I admit.
“No shit.” Ty tries to sound casual, but there’s a warble in his voice like he’s disappointed to hear it.
“Blister in the Sun,” I say to put the topic to bed and start rehearsal. I pick the start of the Violent Femmes song on my guitar.
“Hang on.” Ty scrambles for his drum sticks, almost missing the cue.
And then we’re into it. The music. The thing we all adore. It’s our addiction and our lives.
I don’t know why suddenly it doesn’t feel like enough.