but if things get hot, Viktor and I need to run the show. Our fucked-up talents as criminals know no bounds.
Viktor’s lieutenant, Mischa, pulls out in front of us in the flashy sports car. If there’s someone out there, Mischa’ll draw that person away while we get the van full of files out of sight.
By now, Bloody Lazarus and the rest of Nikolla’s crew will know there’s been an attack, but they won’t know who we are or why we came. People will be focusing on the house, combing it for Aldo Nikolla’s remains, trying to figure things out, buying us time.
Only Mira and her dad know what’s going on, and they won’t be talking.
But no plan is foolproof.
“Got something to say?” I ask as I pull out.
“No, brat .”
Yeah, right.
We drive in silence.
In books, the feeling of being followed is always a tingle down the spine or your hair standing up on the back of the neck. But for me, it’s more of a buzzing in the awareness. So faint you don’t notice unless you tune into it.
Getting out of there, that’s how I feel—awareness buzzing, even though I turn one way and then another and I can see, technically, that nobody is following us, but there’s that buzzing, and I have the sense of eyes on the streets. Could they be after us already? Guessing our purpose? Nikolla didn’t get to where he was by surrounding himself with stupid people.
Viktor scowls, but he doesn’t question my maneuvers. He just scowls. He’s always ready for something to be worse than expected. He was pulled from the orphanage at an early age and raised the way really sick assholes raise kids. I don’t know whether he even feels his kills anymore.
When I’m confident we’re not being followed, I pull the van into a wasteland area at the edge of the tracks and park in the shadow of some junky abandoned strip mall. A daycare and a bakery used to be here, long closed, but the payday loan shop down the block is still going full blast. We’ve used this area before. The sightlines and escape routes are killer. Another of our vehicles pulls up.
I hop out and send a few guys to the nearby corners, and then I go around and open up the back.
Tito jumps out. Mira stays huddled in a far corner, glaring, squinting, long dark hair pushed all around to one side, so that it hangs off one shoulder like an onyx waterfall, glinting in the streetlight.
“Everything go okay?” I ask Tito.
“Yep.”
I climb into the back and pull out a few files, feeling her eyes on me.
She feels too familiar, like gears clicking into place.
She still looks at me like I’m that kid she knew—I see it in her eyes. Fucking Rangermaster. She even remembered Rangermaster. And yeah, it was stupid to give her the English toffee because God, the way she looked at me.
When she looks at me like that, I want to shake her, because that’s a road to a whole lot of fucking pain for her.
I don’t need her looking at me like that. Saving Kiro might mean hurting Mira. Bad.
Tito and few other guys and me are in the back with her. I’ve put myself across from her, far away as possible and separated by boxes of files and stacks of papers, like a signal to myself that she’s not mine.
She glares. The glare is good. It’s right. Hell, she had the right idea with the spitting, reckless as it was.
A black SUV rolls up with two of my book-smartest guys. They back up and open the tailgate, and between the back of the van and the back of the SUV, we’ve got a bit of a work area between the six of us guys.
The problem becomes evident pretty fast—all the names of the kids are blacked out. The names of the families, too. File after file has blacked-out information. There are codes and numbers at the top of a lot of them that don’t mean much. We trade files, comparing.
“This is bullshit,” Viktor says. “If the old man thought we were serious, we’d have a fucking address. He’s playing for time.”
“Can you uncuff me, please?” she says. “The edges
Viktor’s lieutenant, Mischa, pulls out in front of us in the flashy sports car. If there’s someone out there, Mischa’ll draw that person away while we get the van full of files out of sight.
By now, Bloody Lazarus and the rest of Nikolla’s crew will know there’s been an attack, but they won’t know who we are or why we came. People will be focusing on the house, combing it for Aldo Nikolla’s remains, trying to figure things out, buying us time.
Only Mira and her dad know what’s going on, and they won’t be talking.
But no plan is foolproof.
“Got something to say?” I ask as I pull out.
“No, brat .”
Yeah, right.
We drive in silence.
In books, the feeling of being followed is always a tingle down the spine or your hair standing up on the back of the neck. But for me, it’s more of a buzzing in the awareness. So faint you don’t notice unless you tune into it.
Getting out of there, that’s how I feel—awareness buzzing, even though I turn one way and then another and I can see, technically, that nobody is following us, but there’s that buzzing, and I have the sense of eyes on the streets. Could they be after us already? Guessing our purpose? Nikolla didn’t get to where he was by surrounding himself with stupid people.
Viktor scowls, but he doesn’t question my maneuvers. He just scowls. He’s always ready for something to be worse than expected. He was pulled from the orphanage at an early age and raised the way really sick assholes raise kids. I don’t know whether he even feels his kills anymore.
When I’m confident we’re not being followed, I pull the van into a wasteland area at the edge of the tracks and park in the shadow of some junky abandoned strip mall. A daycare and a bakery used to be here, long closed, but the payday loan shop down the block is still going full blast. We’ve used this area before. The sightlines and escape routes are killer. Another of our vehicles pulls up.
I hop out and send a few guys to the nearby corners, and then I go around and open up the back.
Tito jumps out. Mira stays huddled in a far corner, glaring, squinting, long dark hair pushed all around to one side, so that it hangs off one shoulder like an onyx waterfall, glinting in the streetlight.
“Everything go okay?” I ask Tito.
“Yep.”
I climb into the back and pull out a few files, feeling her eyes on me.
She feels too familiar, like gears clicking into place.
She still looks at me like I’m that kid she knew—I see it in her eyes. Fucking Rangermaster. She even remembered Rangermaster. And yeah, it was stupid to give her the English toffee because God, the way she looked at me.
When she looks at me like that, I want to shake her, because that’s a road to a whole lot of fucking pain for her.
I don’t need her looking at me like that. Saving Kiro might mean hurting Mira. Bad.
Tito and few other guys and me are in the back with her. I’ve put myself across from her, far away as possible and separated by boxes of files and stacks of papers, like a signal to myself that she’s not mine.
She glares. The glare is good. It’s right. Hell, she had the right idea with the spitting, reckless as it was.
A black SUV rolls up with two of my book-smartest guys. They back up and open the tailgate, and between the back of the van and the back of the SUV, we’ve got a bit of a work area between the six of us guys.
The problem becomes evident pretty fast—all the names of the kids are blacked out. The names of the families, too. File after file has blacked-out information. There are codes and numbers at the top of a lot of them that don’t mean much. We trade files, comparing.
“This is bullshit,” Viktor says. “If the old man thought we were serious, we’d have a fucking address. He’s playing for time.”
“Can you uncuff me, please?” she says. “The edges
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