Our neighborhood is as safe as it gets. Always has been. But Mom always, always keeps her door locked. “Can’t be too safe,” she said whenever anyone asked for as long as I can remember. She’d drive twenty minutes back home if she thought she might’ve forgotten to throw the deadbolt.
I step inside as foreboding fills my veins like acid.
Everything looks right: picture frames in their place on the entryway table, keys hanging from the silver hooks on the wall.
But nothing feels right.
The house is too quiet. Something acrid like burnt sugar fills the air. Mom’s love language is baked goods in every shape and form, but the woman is religious about her kitchen timers. She never burns anything.
“Mom?” I call again, quieter this time. “Mia?”
I hear a chair in the other room scrape slowly across the hardwood floor. The hair on the back of my neck stands up.
No one in our house is a chair scraper. Dad ranted and raved about us scratching the hardwood floors to the point that we all learned to lift our chairs when we moved them. It’s ingrained. An unconscious habit that even him passing couldn’t extinguish.
I move towards the living room, and the thought idly crosses my mind that I should look for a weapon. But disbelief keeps my arms pinned to my sides, keeps my feet moving forward.
When I turn right into the sitting room, I stop short. A gasp lodges in my throat.
They’re all there.
Mom.
Mia.
Rob.
But tape covers their mouths, and their hands and legs are tied with thick rope to the dining room chairs.
Mia and Mom look terrified, though otherwise unharmed. But Rob… there’s a trickle of blood running down the side of his face from his forehead. His eyes are dazed, but behind that daze is fury.
I stay rooted in place and blink and blink and blink like it’ll change what I’m seeing. It doesn’t. Finally, I let out a ragged cry and take one step towards the last loved ones I have left.
Only to be stopped in my tracks by a deep, commanding voice.
“Hello again, Olivia,” the voice rumbles. “Nice of you to join us.”
I recognize that voice, but I don’t want to believe it.
It can’t be.
It simply cannot fucking be.
I catch his shadow first, thrown long across the floor because of the light from the kitchen. Then his smell, rich and seductive.
Then he turns the corner and I nearly drop to my knees.
“Aleks…”
7
ALEKS
“What the hell is going on?” Olivia blurts. Behind her, her family struggles feebly against their restraints.
I ignore both them and her question. “I’m glad you ditched the sweater,” I remark. “It was hideous.”
She doesn’t immediately answer. She’s still trying to process the scene before her. Her eyes keep flitting between her mother and siblings.
She’s terrified, of course, but none of that fear is for herself. She’s only concerned about them. It’s admirable, quite honestly. Misplaced, but admirable.
“A sweat—what? No. Hell no. Tell me who you are and what the fuck you are doing in my house?!” Her voice rises to a keening screech.
“You’re getting worked up,” I inform her. “That’s counterproductive.”
“I’m not particularly interested in being ‘productive’ right now!”
I move forward and she backs up immediately. She’s tense, anticipating an attack. What she doesn’t know is that the attack is already over. Everything that happens next has been in the works for a long time now. It cannot be changed.
I lean back against the kitchen counter to help put her at ease. We have so much left to do here. I can’t have her getting hysterical on me just yet.
I glance at the others just to be sure everything is as it should be. Her mother is sagging in the chair. Fatigue has begun to replace her fear. A body can only run on adrenaline for so long, particularly in a woman of her age.
The other two still look furious and ready to fight. I’m impressed by their determination. It’s hard to muster up that kind of attitude when you’re bound and gagged. I expected it from Rob, but not from the sister.
“Why don’t you take a seat, Olivia?” I suggest.
“I’d rather stand, thanks. Why don’t you stop bossing me around my own goddamn house and tell me what’s happening?”
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “Very well.” I pull the gun from the back of my pants and set it on the kitchen counter, then sink into a seat on one of the barstools. Her eyes bulge at the sight of the weapon.
Never looking away from her, I raise my hand and beckon. My men step in from the shadows.
Olivia turns on the spot, eyes going wide as she counts the number of strangers in her house. It doesn’t take a genius to see she doesn’t have a chance.
She does a full, stunned three-sixty and then stares at me. “Who are you?” she whispers.
“Sit down,” I say, “and maybe I’ll tell you.”
She looks at her family. Her lower lip trembles. “Please let them go.”
“If you want me to listen to you, you have to listen to me first.”
Left with no choice, she pulls up a chair and sits down. I give a subtle signal to my men and they melt once again into the background.
Olivia releases a shaky breath. “Is your name even Aleks?”
I notice Rob flinch, clearly rattled by the fact that I seem to have an established rapport with his sister. But then, that was all part of my plan.
“It is,” I confirm. “But my last name is the one you need to remember. I’m Aleksandr Makarova.”
“What do you want with me?” she asks desperately, unable to stop herself from looking over at her family.
“Oh, Olivia,” I say with a menacing smile, “you misunderstand me. I’m not here for you. I’m here for him.”
She follows my gaze to her brother. “What do you want with Rob?”
“Would you like to tell her, Robert?” I ask coldly. “Or should I?”
The man growls, but the sound is muffled by the duct tape over his mouth. I stand and walk over to him.
“Here, let me help you with that.” I rip it off in one vicious tug.
“You motherfucker!” he screams as soon as he can. “You cocksucking fucking piece of—”
I sit back down and eye him wearily. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“Let them go!” he snarls. “They don’t have fuck-all to do with this!”
“Rob!” Olivia cries. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”
He ignores her questions entirely. “How do you know this motherfucker, Liv?”
Olivia gets quiet. Guilt washes over her face.
“Liv!” Rob presses.
“He… he was on my flight,” she stammers. “We were on the same flight and it got delayed. We got to talking—”
“He’s a fucking criminal, Liv!” Rob practically yells. “He’s a mobster and a murderer.”
The color drains from her face. Olivia turns to me, her eyes begging me to deny it. Pleading, hoping that surely there must be some mistake, some mix-up, that this cannot possibly be right…