Page 30 of Silent Ties (Ruling Love #1)

Russet

M usic plays softly. I hum along as I ice cupcakes.

Max is at work and Jane, Olga’s replacement, is off dusting.

Even when she’s in the kitchen I don’t mind it.

There’s an easiness between us, unlike Olga’s grating presence.

I don’t worry about spying and I don’t mind when she calls her husband to check in.

Last week she left early to do something with her grandkids without any problems. It’s a professional relationship built out of mutual respect.

I lick icing off my finger when my phone rings. Daisy.

The last time I shirked her phone call we could barely legally drink. I’d been tired and humiliated after finding my boyfriend in a bathroom stall with another woman at the bar I worked at. I’d screened her phone call, not in the mood to deal with my friend right at that moment.

A similar feeling runs down me now, except I don’t have a good reason to dodge her call. Just because Max provides for me, doesn’t mean I get to gain an ego.

“Hello.” I squeeze the phone between my ear and shoulder, messing with the cupcakes.

Indistinct noises filter through. The line crackles.

“Hello?” I say again. “Daisy.”

The crack sparks, the line dying.

I call back. Voicemail.

It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. A pocket dial.

The phone lights up again and I answer.

“Daisy? I can’t hear you.”

“She needs help.”

The line cracks. Or maybe it’s my heart. “What?”

Another voice softly speaks. “S-she needs help, Daisy.”

“What’s happened?”

The prolonged pause takes me out as much as the eerie whispers.

“Sh-she um,” the first voice stutters. “She whored her out.”

Everything stops.

“She what?” I can’t remember my skin ever crawling like this.

A burning, pricking sensation heats my skin, but the inside. . . it’s frozen. My chest moves, the beat of my heart in my ears. I’m just a cavity. A vessel for this tsunami of emotion threatening to detonate.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Movement in the background drowns out their whispers. I think the call will end only before a rushed voice says, “One of Marissa’s clients has a thing. . . He paid double, said he’d make it a good time.”

No nightmare can rival how sick this is.

“But. . . ”

The voices talk on the other side, a conversation of some sort.

“She’s. . . she’s not. . .”

“Where the fuck are you?”

I can almost feel them startle back from the phone.

“Is the baby?” My feet begin to move .

“We don’t. . . just. . . she needs. . .”

“Marissa’s not gonna help her,” one of the voices quickly says. “Please just do something.”

The line drops dead.

Untethered. That’s what I am. It’s why my feet work on their own accord and it’s not until I’m standing in the perfectly organized closet before I pause.

My hand slaps a button, a drawer pulling out. Max keeps a collection of guns. I doubt it’s the only stash in the house but it’ll do.

Or will it?

Make a fucking bomb if you have to. The words taste bitter, but Nancy’s advice has never rung truer.

I should’ve asked the girls when it happened. How long has Daisy been hurt? If they’re at Marissa’s bar, it’s hard enough for the girls to get a phone to call. I’m lucky she had my number saved.

I argue with myself.

Call Max.

No.

The cold seeps away at the heat prickling my skin until it’s completely gone. I thought rage was always hot, but this is something entirely else.

This has nothing to do with the Zimins.

It’s no longer about a spat between the different criminal factions.

It’s me and Marissa. And I swear to God it only ends one way.

Once again it’s Nancy Mulligan’s voice in my head. Be smart, be cool.

As much as I’m ready to put a bullet in Marissa’s head, I’m currently standing in the closet of a penthouse in Manhattan.

First thing’s first I need to get to Daisy.

Cozy clothes get switched out for jeans. Slippers for closed-toed shoes. It’s early autumn so I won’t look too out of place in a black trench coat.

I pick my gun of choice, then another, and conceal both.

“I’ll be back,” I lie to Jane.

Sergei meets me outside, catching me heading to the lobby thanks to the cameras.

“The car ma’am?” he asks.

“No, I’m going to walk. You stay here.”

He falls into step with me.

This conversation isn’t out of the ordinary. Max insists on a guard at all times, though, I try to push it.

We walk in silence, Sergei giving me space. Max’s favorite bookstore looms in the distance, a type of beacon.

Sergei’s the one who told me about it and I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.

I point across the street at a coffee shop. “I don’t suppose you’ll get us some coffee.”

He quirks a brow. Normally, I go before or after I peruse the bookstore. If he’s perturbed at the request to make a coffee run he doesn’t show it. And worse, he trusts that I’ll be okay in the time it takes him to order my caramel macchiato.

He always was such a great bodyguard.

Shouldering his way into an overflowing coffee shop, I know the line will take him ages. His eyes remain on me as I enter the bookstore. I take the stairs and go up, letting Sergei think I’m slipping away to the cookbooks.

I ignore a sign that reads employee only, barging into the dark. There’s a fire exit that doesn’t trigger an alarm, a convenient spot for employees to duck out to an outside stairwell for a cigarette break.

Marching down the metal stairs, I dip into the alley before appearing on the streets. Buses and traffic camouflage me.

I dial the number without thinking.

“Well, hello, Russet. To what do I owe this fav?— ”

I list off ten digits. “If you want to make up for all the trouble you caused with pizza night, do yourself a favor and call this number.”

I can’t do it myself. I can’t spend time arguing on the phone about what I’m about to do. I’m counting on Elijah’s clinical ruthlessness to get the job done.

“And what should I say, when I call this number?” he asks.

“That I asked you to call.”

Elijah’s stunned silence is all I hear.

“And hey… do me a favor and look after Max, yeah?”

I flag down a cab.

“Call the number,” I order Elijah before turning my phone off. It’s all but useless now.

The cab driver drops me a block away and wishes me a good day as I pay in cash.

My strides remain purposeful. Until my back slams against a brick wall.

The only rule Marissa lives by is everyone comes in through the front door of her bar. From around the corner I peek at the large, black door. One guard stands to attention, albeit nonchalantly considering it’s midafternoon.

He’ll be the first to go.

This time of day, Marissa’s will be empty, except for one bartender. He has no idea what’s about to come his way.

But he’ll still have time to trigger the alarm. If I’m lucky, there will only be five people, the minimum always stationed here. If I’m not. . . then there will be a hell of a lot more guns to deal with.

One thing I can guarantee, since it’s a Thursday, Gloria will be here. I’m rather looking forward to it.

The girls will be asleep because of the amount of drugs forced on them. The only risk I run is if they’ve changed which locked doors they keep them behind .

Marissa will be in her office. Either counting money or figuring out how to make it.

Know every exit, every door, every window.

The eerie calm doesn’t leave me. The hesitation isn’t because I’m scared.

Well, let’s be clear on that front. I am scared shitless.

It doesn’t matter, though. This thing is bigger than me. It always was, always has. It’s not my fault I’m the one deciding to end it.

My hand toys with the gun in my coat pocket.

Scenarios run through my head over and over.

Guard outside, man behind the bar. Alarm triggered. Gloria with the shotgun. Guards down the stairs. Locked doors on the main floor. Locked doors on the second floor. Girls need to be rescued.

Cover my back against the right corner when I go up the stairs. Expect Rodrigo, Marissa’s personal bodyguard when I turn left.

Marissa will hole herself up in the office.

Exits. Doors. Windows. People shooting back at me. All accounted for.

Stepping out from behind the brick wall, I stride forward.

I smile at the guard, getting closer. He’s a new one. Marissa never could find loyal men. He thinks I’m a girl looking for a drink.

“We’re closed,” he gruffly states.

I shoot him directly in his heart and step over the slumped body.

Marissa had me get on my hands and knees when I begged to take on Daisy’s debt.

“Davison,” I greet the man behind the bar.

I’ve never told anyone this, but Davison reminds me of my last stepfather. Blonde, thinks he’s too good-looking, completely full of himself, and fucking handsy .

He comes around the bar, hands up.

“What are you doing, Russ?” he calmly asks, almost bored. How many times has he seen a woman and thought she’s just unhinged. That it’ll all blow over.

I shoot his dick off.

The blast isn’t as loud as his screams. He hits the ground, where he’ll have the unfortunate realization that it won’t be a fatal wound if he manages to pick himself up.

See, death would be too easy for a guy like him.

Fucking Marissa is questionable enough, but to stand there and let his girlfriend pimp Daisy out while she’s pregnant?

It’ll be a kindness when he finally gets to hell.

Running feet drowns out the music.

Three make it down the stairs. Or at least their bodies do.

Shooting is easy, Nancy used to tell me. Aim and pull the trigger.

It’s all about the nerves. That’s the difference between a random person with a gun and a triggerman. And there wasn’t a better triggerman in this city than Nancy Mulligan.

And she taught me everything she knew.