Page 48 of Waters that Drown Us
“Ilya was right,” I start, another round of vomiting from the man himself punctuating my confession. “The Costas, my family, are the central core of an enterprise known as The Syndicate of Fate. We work within and through other criminal enterprises to carry out our mission. It’s a complicated family history, but we currently are trying to cut off some of the larger international human trafficking operations. We don’t work within existing legal channels, but I feelsanctimoniouswas a little harsh.”
Neither Alice nor Bea laughs at my joke, which hangs in the air like the heavy stench of puke. Brilliant.
“I assume my father was on your hit list,” she guesses, not seeming particularly perturbed by the concept.
“Only recently,” Bea cuts in, still aiming her gun at Alice. “Years ago, we tried to form a partnership. He’s a savvy and charismatic man, and we knew he would climb the ranks and find a following in the world of weapons trade and transfer. We’d hoped he could be persuaded to use his expanding network to help monitor human trafficking operations through the ports he had influence over, and in exchange, we would ensure he faced little competition regionally from other gun runners.”
“What superheroes,” Alice says sarcastically, her cutting gaze flicking to me before returning to Bea and the threat she wields.
“I told you, we’re not altruistic. We have a goal, and we use whatever avenues are open to us to achieve it,” I argue, earning an eye roll, which is rich coming from the girl who used to wear diamonds bought with blood-soaked rubles.
“Konstantin was uninterested in such a partnership,” Bea continues, like there was no interruption at all. “He wanted more out of The Syndicate than we were willing to offer, and saw better opportunities for increasing his power and influence by joining the forces we were trying to fight. Negotiations fell apart pretty quickly.”
“So he tried to kill your leader.” It’s not a question. Alice says it like it's a predictable outcome of interacting with her father.
“Not until about two years ago,” I say, earning a glare from Bea. But I no longer care. I refuse to lie to Alice about anything anymore. “You had already been assumed dead for almost three years, and your father had expanded his operations significantly in that time. Our Matriarch focused more pointedly on curtailing his influence, turning his operatives to our side or killing the ones who refused.”
We’re all quiet for a moment as Alice processes what she’s learning, her brow furrowed over the horizon of the metal in her hand.
“How did you know I was alive?” she asks, more curious than accusatory.
“We’re very good at our jobs,” Bea says, cryptic as fuck for no reason.
“We learned that Konstantin had Mikhail killed, and followed Ilya’s movements for a few weeks before realizing what he was looking for,” I explain more thoroughly. “Bea had heard the rumors that you had been smuggled out, and we put the pieces together until we found you.”
“And what exactly were you going to do with me, after you stalked me and fucked me and kidnapped me?” Alice demands, her voice much less neutral than it was a moment ago. Bea’s lips twitch into the shadow of a smile before she covers it.
“Emily will answer that question when you explainthat,” Bea negotiates, waving her gun at Ilya’s frame. His back is still rising and falling, and every once in a while a muffled groan slips from his lips, so he’s still alive.
“Rattlesnake venom,” Alice responds with a shrug, opening her mouth wide in our direction. “A capsule hidden in a loose cap.”
“And why aren’t you half dead on the ground?” I ask, stupified by the fact that Alice just happened to have a capsule of fuckingsnake venomin her mouth when?—
“Mithridatism,” Bea answers on her behalf, clearly and begrudgingly impressed. “Clever, if unpredictable."
“Wait a minute, is that why you wouldn’t let me kiss you? You had that fucking thing in your mouth the whole time?” I whip my head back and forth between Alice and my cousin, slightly annoyed that they seem to be sizing each other up while I’m tied to the ground next to the nearly-dead guy. “You planned this. You knew he was coming and you prepared!”
“Oh, I think you’ll find that Alice did more than predict Ilya’s arrival. She ensured it.”
Now Bea seemsunabashedlyimpressed. And I’m thoroughly irritated.
“It wasn’t enough to kill him quickly,” Alice explains, glancing over her shoulder at Ilya’s limp, curled up frame. “But I’d prefer he die slowly, if possible.”
“I’d prefer to be cut free from this fucking rope, if possible,” I grumble, especiallly perturbed when Bea and Alice both replynoat the same time.
“So what comes next?”
I'm surprised the question comes from Bea, not Alice. It’s like my cousin is testing her, seeing if she is able to move her own pieces on this chessboard, rather than be a pawn in the game.
Alice stares at me like she wishes she could ask a hundred questions at once. She doesn’t lie to me anymore either, and the pain and betrayal I see in her eyes makes me feel worse than I would if I were in Ilya’s shoes right now.
“I suppose it’s time to figure out how valuable I am to you.”
Chapter 21
Alice
An hour later, Beatrice—whose name I learned only after we agreed to holster our weapons—and I had made quite a bit of progress. We moved Ilya and propped him up against the wall of the warehouse so he didn’t choke on his own puke, found the switch to turn on more lights, and even filled the bucket a few times over so we could wash his putrid vomit down a nearby drain.