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Trinity shivered as she ran the soap over her body, hurrying as best she could. Gooseflesh prickled her skin.
Feliks had been a good man, but in her experience the death of good men had always been one of life’s few guarantees.
Not Oleg, she thought. She would not lose him. Oleg was a good man. Trinity feared that he might need to become a bad man to survive, but if that was what it took for her to be able to keep him, then so be it.
“Well, well,” he said, stepping into the bathroom as if summoned by her thoughts.
Trinity glanced out through the dirty glass door. “What do you think you’re doin’?” she asked, teeth chattering.
“I thought I might join you.”
“You add one more second to how long this takes, and I’ll have your guts for garters.”
Oleg laughed and leaned against the wall. Trinity hung her head and let the cold water soak her hair, shuddering as she reached for the shampoo. Stepping back from the stream, she worked her hair into a lather, but all the while Oleg stayed there, hands jammed into his pockets, back against the wall.
“Enjoyin’ the show?” she asked.
“Such beauty deserves an audience,” he said, his accent thicker than usual.
Teeth chattering, she smiled nevertheless. She hadn’t met every Bratva thug in the world, but she doubted many were eloquent, particularly in a language not their own.
“But somethin’ else is on your mind,” she said, before she braced herself and plunged her head into the frigid shower’s cascade.
“We have weapons now,” Oleg said. “With luck, soon we will learn where Lagoshin has been staying. Once that happens, we will have to attack, to kill Lagoshin and his lieutenants, or it will only be a matter of time before they find and kill us.”
Trinity stepped back, squeezing excess water from her hair.
“None of this is news to me, love. It’s why we’re hidin’ in a hotel near a haunted kiddie park… why we killed Temple and his bodyguards. You think I don’t—”
Oleg cleared his throat. “I want you to leave, kotyonok. You being here… it makes me afraid, and I can’t do what I need to do if I am afraid for you.”
Trinity shut off the water, freezing water sluicing from her body, dripping from her breasts. She gritted her jaw, but not from the cold.
Sliding the door open, she stepped out onto the mat, her whole body crying out from the cold. A towel hung on a plastic bar within arm’s length, but she did not reach for it, only stood and stared at Oleg as tiny rivulets of water ran down her naked flesh.
“Kotyonok—” he began, moving toward her, reaching for her hands.
“I’m not your fuckin’ kitten,” she snarled. “In bed, you can call me whatever you like. But this is somethin’ else, so don’t you dare be tender to me now. You listen. I love you, ya bastard. I’m not goin’ anywhere. So don’t tell me about your fears or how I’m your weakness. I should be your goddamn strength. I should be the iron in your blood. That’s what love is! I don’t know what kind of woman you thought you were gettin’ when you asked me to leave my home and come with you, but I’ll tell you this much… we survive together, or we might as well already be dead. You understand me?”
Trinity fumed, inhaling and exhaling loudly, face so flushed with her temper that she no longer felt cold. She saw the emotions raging on Oleg’s face, anger and embarrassment and love and doubt.
Then he gri
“What in God’s name are you smilin’ about?” she snapped.
Oleg roguishly arched an eyebrow. “You get angry like this, and you breathe very hard. Watching your tits move up and down… it is like I’m being hypnotized. Or put under a magic spell.”
She gaped incredulously at him, and he laughed.
Trinity punched him again, this time in the arm and not so hard.
“Don’t bring up the idea of me leavin’ again,” she said.
He took her and kissed her, the water on her damp skin soaking through his clothes.
“I promise, kotyonok,” he whispered.
Kitten. Again. The bastard.
This time, though, she didn’t hit him. Instead, she reached for his belt buckle.
* * *
On the phone’s first ring, Maureen Ashby only glanced up from the leftover stew she’d been heating up on the stove. The phone had fallen silent again, and for half a second she wondered if the ring had been her hopeful imagination. A cat yowled out in the alley behind her place, and she heard one of the neighborhood kids laughing loudly, a cruel sound followed by the shattering of glass and a much more frightened, irritated screech from the cat.
The phone kept ringing.
Poor thing, she thought, on the surface of her mind. She ought to open a window and give those kids hell for tormenting the animal. That Ke
Underneath that, though, a voice was screaming at her to answer the phone. When it rang again, Maureen felt as if an electric shock had jolted her. She dropped the wooden spoon from her hand and launched herself toward the phone. Almost nobody called her on this line—her friends used her mobile—so unless it was a sales call… but no, there it was, the international code.
America. Please be Trinity.
“Hello?”
“It’s Jax. You alone?”
Good news, she wondered, or the unthinkable?
“Tell me you found her, Jax. My thoughts are strayin’ into very dark corners these days.”
Crackling on the phone. At least there was only a little delay. Only a little.
“—Nevada,” Jax was saying.
“Wait, what? Sorry, start again.”
“We’re in Nevada,” he repeated. “No sign of Trinity yet, but I wanted to touch base because I don’t know how long it’ll be before I can call again.”
Her heart sank, but she forced herself to buck up. No news might not be good news, but it was better than the nightmare of the phone call that she dreaded so desperately.
“If we have a chance of finding her, it’s go
She could hear the dark accusation in his voice, that of course if Trinity had been in trouble she ought to have called her brother. Maureen agreed, but given the issues SAMCRO had with both the RIRA and the Russians, she also understood why her daughter might have hesitated to introduce her half-brother to the new man in her life.
“Let me think on it,” Maureen said.
Jax read her off a number. “You’ve got the cell number I gave you last time. I’ve still got that burner on me. But if you can’t reach me, you can call here. It’s a bar, but if you ask for me, they’ll take a message.”
Maureen exhaled. Somehow, despite her fears, Jax had managed to soothe her. Perhaps it was the gruff confidence in his voice, that rumble that reminded her so much of his father.
There was still that other conversation they needed to have—about the letters she’d put in his duffel just before he left Belfast, hoping he’d read them when he got home. He deserved to know that part of his father’s life. Of course he’d have read them by now, but Jax hadn’t brought it up when they’d talked before—maybe because Gemma had interrupted the call—and that was just fine with Maureen. If Jax felt like talking about those letters there’d be time for it later. Right now, Trinity was her only concern.
“Jax,” she said, her voice firm. “Your sister—“
“I’ll find her.”
“More than find her. You’ll send her home.”
“I can’t promise that, Maureen. Trinity’s not some kid. I can’t make her—”
“She’s fallen in love with a Russian gangster. I knew there’d be danger when she went off with him, but she didn’t give me a choice. Now it’s happened already, just a handful of months later, and I can’t allow her any more choice than she gave me. You didn’t grow up as brother and sister, Jackson, but she’s your flesh and blood, and you care for her. I know you do. Just like I know you understand the danger loving this bastard is puttin’ her in. So, yes, I expect you to promise me, to swear on your father’s soul, that you will send her home to me.”