Cashdriveslikeamaniac across town.1A minute after I found that photo, he was stuffing it into his pocket, grabbing one of Beth’s empty purses off the bed, and dragging me out of the apartment. His eyes glow like coals, zeroed in on the road. I grip the door handle each time he races a yellow light, bracing for impact.
We pull up in front of a laundromat and he double parks in the middle of the road. He gets out in a blur, slamming his car door and walking around to the trunk. He throws me the empty purse and then takes a gun out of the trunk.
I jump back when he slams a magazine in and thrusts the grip into my hand. “Put it in your purse,” he snaps. I swallow deeply and gently set the loaded weapon in the bag around my shoulder.
He pulls out another magazine and lifts up his shirt to reveal an appendix holster, pistol already secured, and slides the extra mag into a slot of the holster as well. I feel like I’m in a war movie as he continues to pull another pistol out. But this one he just racks the slide, encircling the grip with his steady hand and gruffly barks, “Let’s go.”
He takes one heavy breath before storming through the laundromat doors, shoulders back and proud, jaw gritted tight. “Get the fuck out,” he yells to the terrified customers as he shoots out a surveillance camera in the corner.
People scramble and scream, and my palms start to sweat as I remember the last time customers fled scared. I can smell the Den’s orange-scented wood polish coming off the bar. A woman’s eyes widen in terror as she clutches her child’s head to her bosom while sprinting out. There’s a pleading in her eyes, pleading for her life and her child’s life, and it rips at something in my chest.
I hate to be the one causing the pain, but not knowing what else to do, I follow Cash, feeling slightly sick.
He reaches a door in the back and grips his gun with both hands before kicking it open. There’s yelling and shouting on the other side, accompanied by the sound of chairs scraping against the floor.
I follow behind him into a back room that smells like roast meat instead of the artificial floral detergent in the front room. There’s a handful of white men circled around a card table, a game in process.
Cash points the gun at the man across the table I recognize to be Ivan Koslov. “You and me, we need to talk.” Out of the corner of his eye, Cash must spot a younger man reaching for something under the table and he fires right over his shoulder. “Reach for a weapon, and the next bullet won’t miss.”
I watch the man’s Adam's apple bob up and down his throat as he brings his hands to lay flat on the table in front of him.
“The fuck you want, Fox?” Ivan growls, his lip twitching.
Cash throws the photo of young Beth and Doug on the green-felted card table. “Who is he?” His tone is bitter and acidic, full of authority and mania—a terrifying combination.
My heart hasn’t slowed since he set the gun in my hand, and now waiting to hear Doug’s identity from Ivan is making it race to toxic levels.
“No one important.”
Cash slams his hand on the table, making half the people in the room startle as he shoves the gun more pointedly at Ivan. “I’d say the man who killed your littleprincess”—the way he disrespectfully sneers the word disturbs me—“and framedmefor it is pretty damn important. Now, answer my goddamn question before I start taking fingers for every time I have to ask.” The image makes my stomach churn. I’m not particularly squeamish around blood, but I’m pretty sure I’d faint if I had to witness a finger being cut off.
Ivan leans forward, toward the gun aimed at his head, with a surly look on his face as he rests his forearms on the table.
The next thing I know, a man next to Cash is screaming as a bullet tears out the back of his calf. “Now,Koslov.”
Is that chunks of muscle on the ground? Fuck, I think I can see the bone. Yep, definitely feeling a bit faint.
I grip the handle of the purse over my shoulder like it can hold me up. The man remains seated, face blanching as if he knows trying to get help or tend to his injury will just cause more problems.
Jesus Christ, that’s a lot of blood.
I try to breathe through the images of swimming blood.Yellow. Red. Red. Red. Black. Pink turned red.
Ivan starts talking, and I latch onto his words to pull me out before I start to spiral. “Alexander Koslov. He’s my cousin’s son. His father was excommunicated fifteen years ago, been in Russia since. Didn’t know he was in the country until after Beth died. He came crying to us about how he thought he was to blame for her being in that parking lot.”
“Keep talking,” Cash spits when he trails off, Koslov obviously begrudging having to give us this information.
“Apparently, he is some hacker-genius kid.” Ivan scoffs. “And went to Beth thinking that she could get him back in, but—”
“She had nothing to do with the Bratva.” I surprise myself by talking. Ivan looks at me curiously, like he only just now realized I am here.
“Da, she had loved her family but wanted nothing to do with the business.”
“So why go to her?” Cash asks.
“You think I know the mind of an idiot?” I watch as Cash’s shoulders tense at the retort. But he collects himself.
“And he came to you after she died? Why?”