In For the Kill (19 page)

“Let's not even start,” Sam said grimly. “That's a classic dead-end conversation if I ever heard of one.”

“Fine,” she said crisply. “Sasha and I have an e-mail account. We leave messages for each other in the drafts folder. No one else knows.”

“How do you know? Someone could be logging his keystrokes! What exactly have you told him?”

“Sam, please. Calm down. I didn't tell him—”

“Do you have any idea how easily what you do online can be monitored? Every last tiny fucking thing!”

“Don't yell at me! I haven't written anything tonight except a message to Hazlett's assistant, Nadine! I was only checking Sasha's account because I was expecting a message from him!”

“Yeah?” He tried to slow down his breathing. “Why is that?”

“Because I sent him my TED talk ten days ago! We had a big fight about it, months ago, when I was preparing the lecture.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“He said I was crazy to drag that old stuff up and trot it around. He got kind of hysterical about it, actually. It was weird.”

“Huh. So he has some sense. More than you do, that's for sure.”

Sveti's mouth was tight. “I told him that burying the past doesn't help you rise above it. I promised I'd come see him, when I got to Rome, first thing. Before going to San Anselmo.”

“You did
what?
” he bellowed. “Holy fucking
shit!
”

Her hands whipped up to cover her ears. “God, Sam, don't do that! It's not his fault, what happened to him, or whose son he is! No one gets to pick! I trust Sasha with my life! And I love him!”

“Love him?” He was breathing heavily, as if he were running a race. “Define ‘love,' Sveti.”

Her gaze flickered away. “Not that way. Like a brother, I mean.”

He could breathe again. “So did he answer you? Where's the rendezvous point with this soul brother of yours? Did he answer you?”

She hesitated, not meeting his eyes. Staring down at the tablet. “Yes,” she said. “He said, please come as soon as possible. That he needs me. And he asked about my flight info. That's all he said.”

He braced himself. “And you gave it to him?”

She shook her head. “I haven't responded yet. It seemed . . . odd. He didn't mention the lecture, or scold me for going through with it.”

“Does he scold you a lot?”

“Not as much as you do,” she said tartly. “But it doesn't matter. I'll just go to the house in Rome and talk to him directly.”

“Ah. Okay. How about we just write our obituaries right now, and save our families the trouble?”

“I've been there before, Sam,” she said wearily. “Three years ago, with Tam and Val. I left in one piece. Pavel Cherchenko has no issues with me. All I ever did was be his son's friend. Sasha even visited me for a couple of months in the States, before Mama died. I was hoping he'd stay, but his father made him go back when they went to Italy.”

“Sveti, why don't you just call the guy?” he demanded. “Ask him how the fuck he is and be done with it!”

“Sasha can't talk into the phone,” she explained. “He stopped speaking while we were locked up, and it never really came back. Even now, it's very difficult for him. He can only talk easily to me in person, or to his brother, Misha. He loves that kid. Says he's a genius with computers.”

Oh, that was just fucking great. So the guy was a mute, too. Sam fought to keep his voice even. “How the hell did you communicate with him back then, if he couldn't talk?”

She shrugged. “I don't know, but we did. Sign language, eye contact, mind reading. When I saw him in Rome . . .” She shook her head. “He was like a ghost. Like when we were locked up. It's so hard, Sam, to come back to the real world. He never really made it back.”

“You came back,” Sam pointed out. “I've never heard you blaming anybody, or taking drugs because of the pain.”

“I made it most of the way,” she said quietly. “I was luckier. I had my friends to show me how to be strong. Sasha was all on his own.”

Sam reached down and spun the tablet around to look at the message, still open in the e-mail account. Just two lines of Cyrillic.

“Don't go to Italy,” he said, though he knew it wasn't any use. “I won't think any less of you for it. And your family would weep for joy.”

She looked up at him. “And do what, Sam?”

“Hide,” he said promptly. “I'll help you. I'll hide with you. I'll stick to you like airplane glue. Don't go.”

Sveti closed the tab on the browser. “I'm not being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn,” she said. “I see your point, and I know it's valid. But I know something else, too. If I let them put me on the run, I'll run until they kill me. It's like running from an angry dog. The dog has no choice but to pursue. It's his nature to chase and maul you.”

“Not if the dog doesn't find you,” he said.

“And live my life hiding from angry dogs? Letting them define my existence, my actions, my choices?” She let her twisted hands fall open. “That's prison, Sam. I've been in prison. I won't go back. I'd rather die.”

That jolted him, nastily. “Don't say that.”

“I'm going to find Sasha,” she went on. “I'm going to find Renato, to ask about Mama. I'm going to speak at the banquet and receive my award. I'm going to run at this thing head-on, screaming and waving my arms. I'm following my instincts. They've kept me alive so far.”

“Actually, no,” he said. “The other day, it was not your instincts that kept you alive, Sveti. It was me.”

“Yes,” Sveti said. “It was you. And thank you.”

“I wasn't fishing for thanks,” he said. “I was making a point.”

“Point taken. But I still have to go. Sasha's my responsibility. Don't feel compelled to go with me, if you can't support my—”

“Stop,” he said. “Hold it right there. Don't even say it. There are no circumstances under which I would let you go to Italy alone, and you know that perfectly well. You know how I feel about you, and you are exploiting it. You are jerking me around, Sveti. Without mercy.”

“Oh, God, Sam.” Her shoulders slumped in a rare moment of weariness. “That's not true. But I'm so sorry you see it that way.”

“It's weird,” he went on. “You're so brave about everything else. You'll run straight at this, waving your arms, here I come, you pussy motherfuckers. But you won't take that kind of crazy chance on us.”

Her eyes were wide, and trapped looking. “Sam, I—”

“I want you to run at me like that. No retreat, no excuses, no prisoners. Bowl me over, mow me down, blow my mind. Why do only bad guys get that turbo-charged mojo from you? Where's my share?”

“I don't understand how to be what you want!” she wailed.

“You've got a mistaken idea of how it's supposed to feel,” he said. “What, you think you're not supposed to feel scared? It's the human condition! It's not specific to you! We all feel it, unless we medicate it. You're afraid of pain and loss and death? Get over it! Join the club! If you wait until you don't feel scared, you'll wait into your grave!”

She looked up, eyes hot. “Do not tell me how to feel, Sam.”

“I'm not telling you. I'll show you. Take off your clothes.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Give me a break.”

“Really. Your body knows what you want. Let it show you.”

“No,” she said sharply. “You are so arrogant.”

“Not arrogant,” he corrected. “Purposeful. Focused. You know damn well I'll make it good for you.”

They stared at each other. “Come on, Sveti,” he coaxed. “Put my arrogant ass right back in its place. If you have the nerve.”

She gave him a long, appraising look and shook her head. “You're too angry right now. At me, your father. Everyone.”

The red fog intensified. His hands fisted. “You're afraid of me?”

“Not at all,” she said. “But the answer is still no.”

Fuck it. He would never understand how that chick's mind worked. He yanked his clothes off. Slid into the bed, turning his back.

Sveti puttered around for a few minutes, then flipped off the light and slipped into the bed beside him. She cuddled against his back. The contact refreshed his long-suffering boner right back up to full salute.

“What happened to your mother, Sam?” she asked softly.

“Lymphoma,” he said. “I was fifteen.”

She was quiet for a moment. “I'm so sorry.”

He nodded. “It was bad. My dad's been under constant attack ever since her funeral, being one of the richest eligible widowers on the planet. But he stays true to her memory. He was so angry when she got sick. Her cancer didn't care how much money he had, or who he knew. It made him frantic. It was the first time in his life that he ran into something that he couldn't control.”

“Not the last time, though,” Sveti said. “He can't control you.”

“Yeah, right,” he snorted. “Me and cancer. We're par.”

“You and your father are very similar,” she said. “So intense.”

He laughed, harsh and mirthless. “Not. I could have been the high king of world finance, they like to say. Like him, only more so. Bet they told you that when I stepped out of the dining room, right?”

“Yes, actually,” she admitted. “They said something like that.”

“They've got this family myth about my tragic lost potential. Carrying on about my wasted prospects makes them feel better. But it's all crap. I'm not like him. Not at all.”

“No? Then why did you change your major? Why not become the high king of finance? Did you hate it?”

Sam closed his eyes, groping for buried memories. It felt as if he were talking about another person, not himself. “No,” he said. “I didn't hate it. It was kind of great, actually. So was the attention I got for it. Pull a bunch of money out of your ass, and the whole world wants to suck your dick. It was hard to resist, particularly after Mom died. It was a hell of a distraction. And we were all so fucking miserable at home.”

“But you did resist, in the end,” she said. “Why?”

He lay there, pondering the question. He'd never actually analyzed the motives for his choices before. He preferred action to reflection, at least when it came to his own life. But he didn't want to bat Sveti away.

She deserved better than that, whether he had it to give or not.

“It was the summer before senior year,” he said. “I went to a party off-campus. There was a girl, Elaine. A friend of mine. Funny, smart. She got drunk, or someone slipped something into her beer, which is more likely, because she claimed she only drank one beer. Some guys carried her upstairs and raped her while she was unconscious.”

Sveti made a pained, wordless sound.

“They wrote demeaning comments on her body with felt-tip pens. Insert breast implants here, do liposuction there. That kind of thing.”

“Oh, God,” Sveti whispered. “How awful.”

“Yeah, she had to leave school. Spent some time in the psych ward. Tried to kill herself. It was bad. The police did what they could, but she'd been out cold, so no witnesses.” He paused as he pulled it from his memory. “I was so angry. I couldn't go to class, or work on my thesis. I just obsessed about who could have done it. I went around talking to everyone who'd been at that party, their roommates and friends. I recorded what they said, what they didn't say. Spent my nights staring at the ceiling, hashing it over, until it started organizing itself. I targeted the likeliest assholes. Got them to my apartment. We weren't friends, but I spoke their language. I got them drunk and stoned. Led them on. One of them started boasting. I caught it all on my recorder. He named the other two.”

“Wow,” she said softly. “Your very first criminal investigation.”

“Didn't help Elaine much. She appreciated the effort, but she still lives at home with her folks. No love life, no job. But it sure helped me.”

She dug her fingers into his shoulders and tugged until he finally turned around to face her. The look in her eyes made his face go warm.

“That was a great thing to have done,” she said.

He was abashed. “It felt real. More real than money games, or economic theory. For the first time in my life, I really gave a shit. It was a whole new level of being connected. I saw my future self, stuck inside my own swelled head, in a penthouse apartment. Fancy cars, expensive girlfriends, getting my ass kissed. I compared that to how I felt when I watched the police cuff those dickheads in front of their own frat house. There was just no comparison. At all.”

“Did you ever tell your father this?” she asked.

“I think I tried, but he never made it to the punch line. He just saw it as rebellion. But it was more like . . . redemption.”

The space Sveti opened up with her smiling, radiant silence felt safe, protected, giving rise to thoughts he usually would not let himself think, and then to even deeper ones, spiraling up and surprising him.

“I heard this old song once,” he said. “How you've got to serve somebody. Good or evil, you have to choose. Whatever you do is always in the service of something. I didn't know whose service I was in when I played with money, but I knew who I served when I nailed the assholes who hurt Elaine. It felt more right than anything ever had. Until now.”

Her eyes went wide and wary. “What's now?”

“You,” he said.