Page 45 of Ruthless Rustanovs

Here was all Sam wanted by the time she got home to her cozy two-bedroom cottage (conveniently located directly behind Ruth’s House Indiana): lots of love from her dog, who she could already hear on the other side of the door, panting in excitement over Sam’s arrival.

She’d let the sweet girl get in a few licks before she settled down with the next two things on her list: a HUGE glass of wine and an old episode of Veronica Mars.

She’d recently splurged, downloading all three seasons to the Apple TV device Josie bought her for Christmas, and she’d been enjoying re-watching her favorite television show from back in the day—this time without any commercial interruptions.

Maybe tonight she’d watch the one where Veronica kisses the good guy cop (who eventually went on to play Schmidt in New Girl) at the school dance after taking down members of the Russian mafia.

Sam thought of Marco, the real life good guy cop she was sort of, kind of, maybe seeing a little bit.

He’d also kissed her. A few days ago on the their third takeout date after work.

And it had been nice. Really nice. It hadn’t set her on fire like the kiss with Mount Nik, but in all fairness, she’d been wearing her jacket and distracted by the prospect of having to get up early to lead a Mindfulness Class at Ruth’s House.

She put her key into the lock. Yeah, that episode of Veronica Mars would help her put what happened with that super intense Russian hockey player in perspective.

But just as she was about to turn the lock, her phone went off, the screen lighting up with a 3-1-7 number.

“Hello?” she said tentatively, thinking the Russian might have tracked her down somehow, despite not knowing her name.

“Sam from the party, is that you?”

It was a child’s voice. A boy’s voice. The one she’d met earlier. And he sounded scared.

“Hi!” she said, trying to hide her alarm. “Is everything okay?”

“No!” he answered. “Some bad men are here. Knocking on the door. Telling Papa to let them in.”

Sam’s heart went tight with fear for the boy. “And is he…?”

“No, he’s yelling for them to go away! But I don’t think they’re going away. They’re yelling about some money for drugs. I think he was supposed to sell them but he used them instead. They are Russian, like us.”

She hadn’t known the little boy was Russian.

Just like Nikolai Rustanov, she thought to herself.

But he’d claimed not to know any children when she’d asked him about it.

Had he been lying or was this a case of coincidence?

Like how all black people didn’t know each other, and neither did all Russians?

It didn’t matter, Sam decided. There was a way bigger matter at hand.

“Okay, listen to me carefully…” She paused realizing she still didn’t know his name, even though he knew hers.

“Pavel,” he supplied on the other side of the line. “My name’s Pavel.”

Wow, he hadn’t been kidding about the Russian stuff.

“Okay, Pavel, I need you to go somewhere and hide. Somewhere good, not under a bed or in a closet. Like in a cabinet if there’s one you can fit into. Stay there until I come for you.”

There came the sound of a lot of shuffling, and then Pavel whispered, “Okay, I’m hiding.”

“Good, good, Pavel,” she said, allowing herself a little breath of relief. “Now just give me your address and I’ll get there as quickly as I can.”

“Just you. No police!” Pavel said. “Papa will be very angry if you bring police.”

“Fine, no police,” Sam lied, knowing full well she was going to be calling Marco as soon as she got off the phone. But she didn’t want Pavel to freak out about the possibility of police coming to his home, especially before he let her know where he was.

“Pavel, I need your address. I can’t help you if I don’t have it.”

Silence, and in the background she heard the muffled sounds of a door crashing open and angry voices, speaking in a hard language she guessed to be Russian.

“They’re here,” Pavel whispered. “They’re inside.”

Sam knew it would be bad even before she decided to go in on her own.

The house she was now parked in front of looked even more neglected than Pavel, with peeling paint and boarded up windows, all telling Sam that the little boy’s current residence might not exactly be “on the books,” with a proper lease agreement and all that.

It also explained why Pavel didn’t seem to have much access to water for a bath or a shower.

No, Citizens Energy Group wasn’t running water through this place for sure.

A shiver of fear ran down her back as she took in the dilapidated building.

A home invasion had obviously taken place.

The door at the top of the cracked, grey cement steps was standing halfway open, despite the fact that it was deeply cold outside and the house wasn’t in one of Indiana’s best neighborhoods.

She should know… it was just a few blocks from Ruth’s House, and she’d purposefully chosen the downtown Indianapolis location for its proximity to both upper and lower class neighborhoods.

This one definitely qualified as the latter.

Sam got out of her car anyway. She couldn’t just not go in.

Poor Pavel was in there somewhere and Marco still hadn’t returned any of the messages she’d left him on the way over, even though this was technically one of the neighborhoods he was supposed to be serving.

She’d also put in a call to the local police department, but they hadn’t seemed all that excited about the prospect of coming out to one of Indianapolis’ worst neighborhoods based on a phone call she’d gotten from a kid she’d just met at a party.

No, she had to go in there herself. But Sam wasn’t a complete idiot. She wouldn’t go in without Back Up.

She came around the car to the sidewalk and whistled, “Hey, Back Up! Come with me, girl!”

Her dark, grey Staffordshire Bull Terrier immediately leapt through the open passenger window of Sam’s Prius. She bent down to scratch behind her ears. “Good girl,” she said. “But try to look a little more menacing, okay?”

Back Up just smiled up at her, tongue lolling out, not realizing she was giving Sam the exact opposite of what she’d asked for.

Thanks to a lot of misinformation and idiot breeders, rescue dogs that looked like Back Up had a bad reputation as far as the media and the general populace was concerned.

But after being impregnated several times as an incubator dog for a dog fighting ring, then left out on the street still bleeding from her last pregnancy—thank God a rescue org had found her—Back Up now seemed way more interested in meeting new friends she could lick than tearing anyone limb from limb.

If she had any blood thirst in her whatsoever, she was doing a good job of hiding it behind a perma-grin and an eager-to-please attitude.

But with her wide, square face, she looked mean enough from far away which meant she got the intimidation job done in a pinch. Sam led her to the house’s front door, hoping if anyone was inside, they’d run as soon as they saw Back Up.

“Hello? Is anybody home?” she said as she came through the door. “This is Sam McKinley from the Indiana Police Department and I have a very dangerous, completely rabid dog with me—”

Sam stopped short. There was a blue-eyed white man with blond hair and a long-sleeved Indiana Polar t-shirt, sitting on the couch—no, strike that—there was a body sitting on the couch in an Indiana Polar t-shirt. Slightly slumped over to the side with a hole in its head.

Bad teeth, crazy hair, hollow eyes. Meth was written all over the scene.

An addict and possibly a dealer, judging from the professional holes in his body.

There were two of them, she realized upon closer inspection, one in his head and one in his chest, right above the image of a mean-looking polar bear with a hockey stick.

A rap lyric about never getting high on your own supply floated through Sam’s head, even as her stomach flipped over on itself.

She might have stayed there, rooted to the spot in horror, if Back Up hadn’t chosen that moment to rush past her, nose down, probably searching the house for any incriminating food she might get into. She did have her priorities.

And Sam was grateful for the distraction as she turned her face from the scene, wishing like heck she could just run out of there like any sane person would upon getting hit with the sight of a dead body.

This scene was triggering all sorts of bad memories for her.

But she’d told Pavel she would come for him.

Sam shook off a major case of the willies.

Pavel had sounded so scared on the phone. She couldn’t let him down.

But where was he?

As if in answer, a whimpering sound came from the kitchen.

Sam could see Back Up sniffing around a set of cabinets, below what would have been the kitchen sink before someone pulled it out completely.

But the cabinets still remained, and Back Up had obviously caught the scent of something… or someone.

Someone small enough to fit inside a cabinet.

Sam knew she wouldn’t be able to keep her composure if Pavel was dead, his small body stuffed inside the cabinet underneath the sink, but she headed towards where Back Up was sniffing anyway.

She took a deep breath and bent down to open the cabinet door… then let out a huge sigh of relief when she found Pavel inside, staring at her wide eyed, a burner phone clutched tightly in his small hands.

“Pavel! Thank God!”

This time when she reached for him, Pavel seemed more than eager to come to her. But then Back Up ruined the moment by charging straight at the little boy, her mouth open wide.

Pavel shrank back into the confines of the cabinet, his eyes squeezing shut with fear. “Don’t let it eat me!”

“Sit, girl,” Sam commanded, pointing to a spot behind her.

Back Up whimpered piteously, but did as commanded.