AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Didn’t you just say I’ve made myself clear? You know my conditions.”
“I also know, as much as you want to strangle me right now, you won’t. You know me, Pol, which means you know I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have a compelling offer.”
Her shrewd gaze fixes on me. “What is it?”
“I’m offering you the chance to trust me. You can come back and?—”
“And forget what you did? How you hurt the people who loved you?” she all but spits at me. “I won’t. Not even for you, Arsen.”
Maybe Dominik was right—I work alone now. I could tell Polina what I have planned, but I have no desire to. If she doesn’t trust me after the years we’ve lived and worked together, then I don’t want her back at the house. I’ll make sure she can live comfortably in this little shack, and she’ll never have to speak to me again.
But part of me—the same part that ate the apple cinnamon cakes Polina made every birthday, the part that watched her face grow lined and papery—wants her to trust me. I want her to come back.
“You always said I was my mother’s son, Polina.” I push to my feet with a sigh. “Come back and let me prove it.”
I’m out the porch and halfway down the drive when I hear the front door open. “I’ll be packed in an hour,” she calls after me. “Are you going to send a car for me or do I have to take the bus?”
3
LAILA
“Work with me here, baby girl,” I beg as Nina babbles at me.
I imagine she’s saying something along the lines of,Where are we going at two in the morning, Mama? And why are you wearing those weird clothes?
She might have a point. To my infant’s credit, I should’ve gone for jeans and a t-shirt, but I was trying to embrace the cat burglar,Ocean’s Elevenvibe. Thus, I’m in pocketless black leggings with a wad of cash shoved into my black sports bra.
Cargo pants might’ve been a smarter choice.
“I explained the plan to you days ago,” I whisper. “Gedeon should be deep in his REM cycle by now, so we have to move.”
She gurgles a little louder, and I press a gentle finger over her lips. Nina just giggles.
I lower her into the baby carrier strapped to my chest and reach under her crib for the small black duffel I stashed there earlier in the afternoon.
At least some things are going to plan.
What’s not going to plan is Nina being awake right now. My master scheme relied on her sleeping soundly for the next four hours, but she woke up five minutes before I set things in motion, so I’ve been forced to improvise.
That mostly means singingTwinkle Twinkle Little Staron repeat as I slink out of the apartment we’ve called home for the last three months and make my way to the ground floor.
The rental car I hired should be parked down the road in front of the bakery. Massimo’s cooperation and silence cost me an extra two hundred bucks, but hey, I have money to spare these days.
That’s another thing I learned about the art of stealth missions: anything is possible when you have cash to throw at the problem.
Feeling pretty damn good—or as good as you can feel with a baby strapped to your chest and cold wind slicing through your too-thin leggings—I make my way to the end of the deserted street.
The car is sitting right where it should be. I say a silent prayer of thanks to Massimo as I place my duffel on the trunk of the car and dig for the keys.
After a full minute of rooting around in the side pocket, the panic starts to set in.
Did I drop them on the stairs? Did I leave them in my room?
Nina’s mood is starting to turn, but all of the words to every lullaby I know have winked out of my mind as I contemplate sneaking back into the building I just escaped from.
“I know I put them in here,” I mutter. “Where in the hell are they?”
Then I hear the jingle of keys right behind me. “Looking for these?”
