Page 11 of Collin, Episodes 13-15 (The Residency Boys #5)

“Everyone has a price,” Richard said. “I’ll bring the item. It will take…at least an hour to retrieve. Tell me where and when.”

Mikhail turned the phone back toward himself. “I’ll tell you where in one hour. We meet in ninety minutes.”

“I want proof émeric is alive and well. Let me hear him.”

“Fine, fine. You can’t trace this call.”

“I’m not trying to. You surprised us.”

Mikhail stomped over to émeric and ripped the gag out of his mouth and the blindfold off.

As soon as he could speak, émeric snarled something in French.

Mikhail backhanded him just as he had Collin. “English. Only. No tricks.”

“English, peaglish,” émeric growled. “I’m alive, Richard. Green as grass.”

Mikhail laughed. “You have your proof. I will call you in one hour.” He hung up and walked away.

Collin met émeric’s eyes. There was a good twelve feet separating them. It felt farther.

Mikhail’s phone rang. He answered and listened, then snarled, cursing in a mix of English and Russian, and stormed back toward Collin.

“Your sister is a—-.” Collin understood less than half of what Mikhail said because so many of the insults were in Russian. Mikhail kicked him in the stomach. Collin doubled over. Another kick sent him rolling onto his back. His lips and cheek were well and truly split now.

He laughed through the blood. “What, did Alice mess with your plan?”

“You know. You know about this?” Mikhail’s nostrils flared. “Where she go? What she do? How you know?”

Oh, Ash. Stay safe. Collin smiled. “You taught her to shoot. One. Two. Three.”

Mikhail howled. “Should not have taught unloyal swine. Drown you in tub. Put in garden. Make ’tatoes.”

“Yeah, like you did with Dad.”

“Did not drown. Just shoot.”

“And wasted the potatoes. And here I thought you’d at least make some vodka out of him.”

“Alice take child. Where Alice go?”

Collin struggled back up on his knees. “Alice will run. Someplace she’s never been before. People she doesn’t know. No police. She knows you used to know them.”

Mikhail growled and paced up and down between Collin and émeric. Mikhail’s team stayed far away, lingering on the perimeter of the building.

“Try the mother.”

“That’s Dr. Ryker to you,” Collin snapped. “She’s not just a cow you trade around. And no, Alice won’t go there.”

“Why not?”

“Because Mom doesn’t know you killed Dad.”

Mikhail’s eyes narrowed. “She not know?”

Collin spat blood and snot onto the machinery dust. “No. Your daughter was dying of fucking cancer, and you were planning to teach Alice how to kill and seduce men. Why the fuck would I tell her that her dad murdered her husband and was going to make murderers out of her children? You think I wanted her to give up on life?”

Mikhail took a second look at Collin. “Always too sensitive. Like father.”

Collin cackled. “Thanks. That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me. I always wanted to be like my dad. And for the record, Alice doesn’t know there is a record. So, leave her out of this.”

“Can’t. She take child. Need child.”

“Why?”

Mikhail shot Collin a dirty look. “No stupid.” He walked away.

Collin shook his head and raised his eyes again. émeric was staring straight at him. He forced a smile for his sir, and émeric smiled back.

Live , émeric mouthed.

Collin dropped his eyes. Living didn’t really seem to be in the cards. But he could probably get émeric back out, and then Richard and émeric would have…each other.

And Damian.

But…

Collin raised his eyes again. Enzo .

A burning sensation grabbed Collin’s chest. It had taken his sir six years to find the pieces of himself that he thought had died when Enzo was taken from him.

Collin bowed his head. Even if he had long since resigned himself to death if Mikhail ever came back, he was not resigned to knowing what it would do to émeric.

Tears gathered in his eyes. Tears he couldn’t brush away. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. He hasn’t known me long. He blinked hard and raised his head.

émeric was staring at him with all the intensity that could be contained inside a human gaze. Live, he mouthed the words again.

No, it probably would be that bad. What he and émeric had was real even if young and tender.

Collin forced a wobbly smile and nodded. Yes, sir.

The movies didn’t show the long wait. They didn’t show the slow onset of pain that then became almost unbearable but could not be relieved.

The edges of the zip ties dug into Collin’s skin.

He gave up kneeling and sat on his rear.

His suit was ruined anyway. At least Richard and émeric had already ordered new ones—if he survived.

The drawn-out silence drained the adrenaline from his system, leaving him cold.

He bent his head, eyes squeezed closed, shivering.

There was no way to suppress it. He’d tried.

The pain on émeric’s face, watching him suffer from the cold, hurt.

But his body wouldn’t let him hide that he was slowly freezing in the November weather in nothing more than his shirt, undershirt, and suit.

Mihail paced back and forth, sometimes on the phone, sometimes not. He came back and kicked at Collin.

“Alice gone. She kill lawyer. Poof. Disappear.”

Collin mustered half a sardonic smile. “You taught her.”

Mikhail snorted. “You no worry?”

“Alice is smarter than you. And she’s a woman.”

“What this mean?”

Collin laughed. “No one sees her coming until she wants them to. And they don’t expect her.”

If he knew Ash and his sister, she’d already have changed her hair color as well as Dana’s, probably cut Dana’s hair, put her in boy clothes, plus found another car.

With Ash on the other end of the phone and not on Mikhail’s radar for at least the next few hours, they had all the money they needed.

Ash had nothing but cash from the last six months of hefty paychecks and almost nothing to spend it on.

Alice would head inland, away from the coast and Mikhail’s old stomping grounds where she knew he had had friends.

With a judge’s order for producing Dana, Damian and Ash would be able to get her into protective custody.

And Ash had the entire killing on video including Barker’s threat to unalive Alice herself before she pulled the trigger on him.

There might be a trial, but she was well within her rights of self-defense.

Alice would be safe. And with Mikhail out of the woodwork here, the story would come out, and she could be protected from him too. She’d have people looking after her. Even if he died, Richard and Linda would look after her for him.

Collin wrapped that knowledge around his chest.

The challenge in front of him right now was living. émeric had made it an order. One he didn’t know how to follow.

He looked back toward émeric. What he wouldn’t give for the man’s heat against his skin right now. His bones hurt beneath his skin and sinew.

“Mikhail,” émeric snapped. “You know what happens if the boy stops shivering?”

Mikhail’s nostrils flared. “Yes.”

“Find him a coat.”

“No.”

“You want him dead?”

“ Da .”

“You at least need him until the exchange. What if Reevesworth can’t find the record?”

“I cut off your finger; tell him I keep cutting till he find.”

émeric controlled himself with a deep breath. “There must be something we have that you want. Collin represents a significant investment to my husband and I.”

“Yes. I certain. Many loads. Much spunk.”

A tick showed in émeric’s jaw, but he visibly calmed himself. “More than that. This operation here must have required significant capital.”

“ Nyet . Not my money. Barker’s money, some others.”

“Have you been paid?”

“ Da . And record will pay more.”

“Something else, then.”

Mikhail laughed. “You not afraid he offer to take the boy instead of you? Two hostages, one bribe.”

“You don’t know Richard.”

“No.” Mikhail crouched down in front of émeric. “But I know whoever I give him back still hostage. Richard will answer to me forever. No more train. No more projects ’cept what Bernstein say. All the money I want.” Mikhail rubbed his thumb and first two fingers together, grinning.

“You can’t control Richard like that.”

“Why?”

“Richard believes in his own creed.”

“What’s that?”

“Live true.”

Mikhail narrowed his eyes. “This mean what now?”

Collin raised his voice. He knew this answer, and he could say it in words his grandfather understood. “Richard would rather die. He’ll pay. He’ll bargain. But he won’t accept a yoke. He only bends to give a gift, never because of fear.”

Mikhail threw Collin a dirty look. “What would his whore know?”

Collin laughed. A sense of unhinged sanity tinged Collin’s thoughts. “Whores know everything. Men like you only release their mask on those they think are less than them.”

“I can’t wait for you to die, boy.”

Collin’s lips peeled back in a crazed smile. He opened his mouth to snap back.

“Collin!” émeric’s voice cracked across the space. “Hold your tongue.”

Collin’s cheeks pricked. He dropped his eyes. “Yes, sir.”

Mikhail laughed, lewd and dark. “Oh, so that’s how it is.”

Collin said nothing. He kept his eyes on the ground.

“How did you train him?” Mikhail said.

“Not information for outsiders,” émeric retorted calmly.

Mikhail crossed over to Collin and stuck a finger under Collin’s shirt. “Shock collar? Chip?”

“Nothing so crude,” émeric said. “It’s not necessary. Now warm the boy before he’s useless to both of us.”

“He not die so soon.”

“You can’t make Richard choose between me and a senseless body. How will he know the boy’s alive?”

“He not so delicate.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention. He’s been in the hospital twice this past month.”

“Oh. That new intel.” Mikhail went to the van. He came back with a heavy packing blanket and threw it around Collin.

Collin shivered under the blanket, but at least now, the shivering seemed to be doing some good. Mikhail’s phone buzzed, and he stalked off, answering in Russian.

“How are you doing, boy?” émeric whispered.