Page 93 of Frozen Heart
“You’re a woman,” spat Spartak. “And your only place in the Bratva is on your back with your legs open.” He put his face close to mine. “You think you’re so fucking smart. But you’re a stupid littleshlyukha.”
He’s right.I was too big, too uncool, with a body that couldn’t even handle fuckingwalkingsome of the time and a bookstore I couldn’t make profitable: my big new idea, that had seemed so great that morning, was probably another failure waiting to happen. I stared up at him through eyes swimming with hot tears.
Spartak sneered at me and turned to one of his men. “Ona yeshche boleye zhalkaya, chem moy brat.” And after all that time with the language app and watching Russian movies, my brain automatically translated:She’s even more pathetic than my brother.
I stared at him in shock as the meaning sank in.It was an act.All of his grieving and raging for his beloved, dead brother.He hated him. But he kept up the act because…My mind spun.Because…
“You had him killed,” I thought out loud. “It wasyou. Youmade the deep fake phone call.”
He blinked at me, shocked that I’d understood the Russian. But he couldn’t stop himself grinning in pride.
“Youwanteda war,” I said, stunned. Now I knew why the attacks over the last few days had been so perfectly thought out. This whole thing had been planned from the beginning, so that Spartak could wipe us out. “That video from the hidden camera in your brother’s apartment: you had it from the start!You put the camera there!You were hoping the police would point the finger at Radimir on their own, but they didn’t get there, even after you pressed them to re-examine the scene. The video was your backup plan.” I stared at him. The funeral. All that time he’d played the grieving sibling, desperate for vengeance. “You tricked us into killing your ownbrother,”I whispered. “Just so you’d have an excuse to go to war with us.”
“Borislav was getting ideas,” Spartak told me. “Just like you’ve been getting ideas. He thoughtheshould be running things.”
I felt my jaw fall open. His plan let him eliminate his brotherandthe Aristovs.
Spartak smiled at my expression. “You see how things work now. You don’t belong in our world. You never did.”
He gave me a savage shove. I went stumbling backwards, tripped over my own feet and went down hard on my ass. Without my hands to catch me, I couldn’t control my fall, and I rocked back and cracked my head against the wall. Fresh tears sprang to my eyes, and I lay there, head throbbing, utterly defeated.
66
ALEXEI
The doorman stared suspiciouslyat me. I lifted an eyebrow and stared back at him. Maybe he thought—correctly—that I looked Russian. But there were lots of Russians in this part of Chicago. And my clothes matched all the other guys in the line: shirt and jeans. Plus, a drunk blonde in a tight red dress who’d lost her friends and kept calling meBorishad surgically attached herself to me in the line and was doing a good job of distracting him. Eventually he sighed and waved both of us forward. He made sure I went through the metal detectorandgave me a pat down, just to be sure, but he didn’t find anything because I was unarmed. He gave me a last frown and nodded for us to go in.
Inside, I made sure the blonde found the friends she’d lost and then made an excuse and slipped away.
I made my way up to the men’s bathroom on the third floor, which I figured would be the quietest, and into the last stall on the right. The extractor fan was right where it had been on the blueprint, a big ugly white box built into the center of a windowpane.
I climbed up onto the toilet and then put my hands on the tops of the stall walls and heaved myself up like a gymnast on theparallel bars. I bent my legs and kicked the fan as hard as I could. Nothing happened. I kicked it again. Again.This better work.Because otherwise I was unarmed and not much good to anyone. I grunted and kicked again?—
There was a cracking sound and the sealant holding the fan in place gave way. The extractor fan disappeared into the darkness and a few seconds later there was a distant crash as it hit the ground three floors below, barely audible over the thumping music.
Panting, I lowered myself down until I was standing on the toilet. Then I took off my bracelet: one of those outdoorsy, survival ones, fifty feet or so of parachute cord woven into a thick band. I unraveled it and dropped the end out of the hole in the window.
A moment later, I felt a tug on the cord. That meant Gabriella, who’d been waiting in the alley, had done her job. I hauled the cord all the way back up. Tied to the end was a black bag of guns.
I jumped down into the stall and started hiding the guns under my jacket. When I was done, I threw the bag and cord out of the window and stepped out of the stall. I caught my reflection in the mirror and stopped for a second, straightening my collar. “Vse yeshche ponyal,” I muttered with pride.Still got it.
Then I went to find a place to hide.
67
RADIMIR
Midnight.
I pulled up right outside Spartak’s club, in the middle of a no parking zone. If by some miracle I survived the night, I’d happily pay for the parking ticket.
Spartak’s men were waiting for me and pounced immediately, dragging me over to the metal detector and pushing me through it. They seemed a little disappointed that I wasn’t trying to smuggle a gun or a knife in, and patted me down twice just to be sure. Then they walked me inside. Two of them had their hands on my shoulders, each with a gun pressed into my back. They weren’t taking any chances.
My eyes swept the crowd as they walked. Had Alexei made it in? For all I knew, he was still stuck in the line outside. And if that was the case, we were screwed.
We wound our way up through the club until we came to a glass-walled room right in the rafters. Spartak was waiting for us, along with four of his men. Liliya, Spartak’s wife, was standing nervously next to him. But where was?—
Then I saw her, lying on the floor, a sticky, glossy patch of blood next to her head. For a second, I thought she was dead and I just…collapsedinside. I wanted to fall to my knees and sob.