“Which people are after you?” Nikolai asks.
“Am I to understand that the men Maxim dispatched last week weren’t after Sasha?” Ravil’s tone is dangerous.
I nod.
“When were you going to tell me?” Ravil wants to know.
I go blank-faced-my usual default when I don’t want to engage. Being mute normally makes it easy to dodge questions.
“Who waited at Rue’s?” Ravil turns his quiet authority on Story.
“Some guys. Russian. They seemed like they were waiting for me,” Story says. “Out the back door, in the parking lot. Oleg…” -her throat works as she swallows- “um, Oleg took care of them.”
Maxim sends me a grim look. To Story, he says gently, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
Ravil pins me with an assessing gaze. After a moment of charged silence, he says, “Story, I need to have a word alone with Oleg.”
“No.” Story steps closer to me. I tuck her into my side. “I’m a part of this now, and I need to know what it is,” Story asserts.
Maxim shakes his head. “No, doll. Everything you hear puts you more in danger. We’ll help you two communicate, but-”
“I’m a part of it.” My shalun’ya lifts her chin in challenge.
“Oleg?” Ravil asks me.
Fuck. Of course, I don’t want her to hear any of it. But as she pointed out, she’s already a part of it. And I’m incapable of denying her much of anything. She said we were in a fight because I hadn’t told her what was going on.
I nod.
“All right.” He waves an arm toward the office. “Max.” Ravil orders Maxim to follow, and the four of us troop into Ravil’s office, where he closes the door and takes a seat behind his desk. Maxim sinks into the chair in the corner. I yank a chair over beside mine for Story, but she drops into my lap instead. My arms band around her, pulling her in close as I adjust my wounded leg away from her weight. It’s a hot, throbbing point of pain at the moment, making it hard to stay focused.
Ravil considers me for a moment. “In the two years since you’ve been with me, you’ve never talked about your past.”
I don’t move.
“I know you spent twelve years in a Siberian prison on a drug charge. I believed you were with the bratva before that, and they had cut out your tongue, but now I’m not so sure. I do know that while on the inside, you acted as enforcer for bratva members. Timofey Gurin wrote your introduction to me.”
I make no movement. There wasn’t a question, and I can’t speak to fill silences. Story toys with my fingers where they lie on her thigh, squeezing my thumb.
“I assumed you were running from something or you wouldn’t have left Russia. I’d thought it was your old cell. The introduction would’ve worked just as easily in Moscow. Or St. Petersburg. Or Kazan. But you came here to a country where you didn’t know the language. To work for me, a pakhan you’d never met.”
Another pause for silence to settle.
“You refused to say who cut out your tongue.”
It’s true. He asked me point-blank at least three times when I first arrived, and I stonewalled him, like I stonewall everyone.
“Either it was cut out as punishment for something you already told, or it was to keep you from talking in the future.”
When I remain passive, he snaps, “Tell me which.”
I scramble to pull out my phone and text him.
He reads the text aloud. “Future. That was my guess. So now someone’s come around to get your secrets out of you, is that it?”
I nod.
“And they figured out that Story is leverage.”
I drop my forehead against her shoulder, the pain of my situation flowing fresh again.
There’s a long pause, then Ravil asks, “Who cut out your tongue, Oleg?”
I don’t move to answer him. I need his help. His protection. If he throws me out, Story and I will be sitting ducks. I may excel at killing, but even the simplest things are difficult for me without being able to communicate. But my answer will also damn me. He may get rid of me anyway.
There’s a huge bounty on Skal’pel’. Clearly on me now, too. People must think I know how to get to Skal’pel’. Or know the new identities of his past clients. Maybe someone is looking for a particular client-who knows why I’m suddenly on the radar.
Story watches me even more closely than Ravil.
“It was an interesting choice, cutting your tongue out. Did they frame you for the drug charge, too?”
I jerk with surprise at the question, giving Ravil the answer he sought.
“You see, to me, it shows a certain affection. Why not simply kill you? Unless this was a person adverse to murder. But considering your training and skill with all manner of weapons, not just your fists, I doubt that was the case. You didn’t learn what you know in prison.”
My heart thuds painfully in my chest. I tighten my hold on Story, who attempts to soothe me by lightly trailing her fingernails across my inked forearm.
“Am I right? There was love between you. He opted to silence you rather than kill you. And so you keep his secrets.”
I let out a shaky breath. Is that true?
Blyad’. I don’t know. Maybe it is. I came from nothing. I was nothing. Skal’pel’ gave me a home and a job when I was still an eager-to-please youth. He made me feel like a man when I was just teetering on the edge of adulthood. He was a father figure when I had none. In return, I was loyal as hell.
I’d thought that loyalty died when he ruined me, but maybe some of it is still there.
No.
I shake my head.
“No, you’re not keeping his secrets?”