Dark Mafia Prince: A Dangerous Royals romance (7 page)

A black SUV rolls up with two of my book-smartest guys. They back up and open the tailgate, and between the back of the van and the back of the SUV, we’ve got a bit of a work area between the six of us guys.

The problem becomes evident pretty fast—all the names of the kids are blacked out. The names of the families, too. File after file has blacked-out information. There are codes and numbers at the top of a lot of them that don’t mean much. We trade files, comparing.

“This is bullshit,” Viktor says. “If the old man thought we were serious, we’d have a fucking address. He’s playing for time.”

“Can you uncuff me, please?” she says. “The edges are biting into my wrists—”

“You’re lucky they’re cuffed in front of you,” I growl.

“I could help.”

“No.”

I don’t look at her, don’t meet her eyes. I wish I still had the mirrored sunglasses on. My nowhere-to-run, nowhere-to-hide bit at the gas station definitely backfired. I don’t know what I was thinking, pressing her against that pillar, watching the fear in her eyes like there might be a little bit of lust in there. It was fucked up that I let myself think that.

Mira is everything I can never have. I’m here for one purpose only—Kiro.

And then I put on that boyfriend act for the civilians, pressing my hand to her cheek like that. I thought I’d combust—literally. The moment I touched her, all the people around there could’ve decided to rush at me all at once and I would’ve been no good for stopping them, being that my world had shrunken to the silky space between the curve of her cheekbone and the drumbeat of her pulse in her neck.

I imagined pressing my face there and feeling that drumbeat with my lips, like it was the most erotic fucking thing. She would’ve let me, too. Not out of desire, but because she didn’t want to embroil innocent bystanders in a firefight. Because unlike me, she’s apparently still a decent person.

I remember Konstantin and me doing a lot of reading in the run-down hideouts we’d move between. Usually he’d only want me to read shit like
The Art of War
, being that I was to grow up to be a capable killer and all, but sometimes I’d get my hands on regular stories.

I remember reading this one crusty old one—
The Picture of Dorian Gray
by Oscar Wilde. This guy stayed forever young while the painting of him aged.

I would feel like that, looking at the photos that had Mira in them. Like she stayed safe and happy in that mansion or in the Chicago penthouse, while I got hammered into something dark and deadly. Two sides of a coin.

Nothing’s on any of the computer files, like we feared.

We go through more paper files. The dead ends have me feeling angry and fucked-up. “What the fuck good are files if everything’s blacked out? There have to be the names and addresses somewhere, or why keep files?”

Finally we find some actual names and addresses, but they don’t help. They all seem to have a number, more codes. Hundreds of codes, maybe thousands.

We decide we have to start matching things up, and then I catch sight of Mira, following our progress with interest. Like she understands something we don’t. She knows. She’s listening. Tracking.

“You got some insight here? Something for the class?”

“You want to let my father and me go free?” she asks.

I grab the next sheet. I tell myself it’s stupid to think that a mafia princess who’s spent the past few years on international shopping trips could help.

Kiro is out there, and as soon as somebody figures out we’re going for him, he’s fucked.

“Illegal adoption agency,” Tito says. “Maybe they didn’t keep real records.”

“No, there have to be records,” I bite out. “The answer is in here.”

We go through each file, one reading off numbers, and the other guys hunting. It’s like matching serial numbers on dollar bills or something.

We send a guy for pizza.

I can’t shake the idea that she could help, that she’s not as stupid as she acts in that blog. When the pizza comes, I join Mira on the far end and offer her a slice.

She takes it with both her hands, cuffed together as they are, and thanks me.

“If you can help, you should,” I say.

“And I should help you why?”

“Because if this doesn’t work, we go to plan B.”

She doesn’t react. She had to know something would come. She chews, staring thoughtfully out the window. Does she have an idea of what plan B is? I follow the direction of her gaze.

“What are you looking at?” I ask.

“The cartoons of laughing baby animals. Side of that building.”

I spot the shitty mural on the side of the old daycare. Smiling cartoon animals half-peeled off in the distance beyond a wasteland of rubble and trash.

“Ugh.”

“I like it. It’s sweet. Something nice in all this decrepitude.”

My face goes hot. Mira Nikolla with her dresses and parties on the boat and sunny smiles. “That’s because you never look at them,” I say. “If you stare at them too long, happy baby animal cartoons start to look maniacal. Don’t you see it? You look at them too long, and all you see is death.”

I can feel her eyes on me. “That’s nice,” she says. “You ruin cartoon baby animals for me? Thanks. Is there anything else you’d like to ruin?”

I’m glad she’s annoyed, because I said too much, and I would hate if she gave me sympathy on top of everything else. I take her cuffed hands and turn them over, ignoring the zing of electricity between us. I inspect her fingers and spot a jagged scar on the pinky. “This is a very distinctive scar,” I say. “We’ll start with this one. Or maybe the one with the ring.”

She goes white and tries to take her hand back, but I don’t let her. “What?”

“Send it to your father.”

“You can’t.” She tries to pull her hand away.

“This is a very recognizable ring. You think he’d recognize it?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“If we find Kiro, we won’t have to.”

She looks over at the files. “If I help you find Kiro, will you let my father and me go?”

“If your help gets us Kiro,” I say, “we’ll let you go.”

“What about my father?”

“Let’s put it this way—a lot of people are going to start hunting Kiro. And if somebody gets to Kiro first and manages to kill him? And your father was holding out? If you love him, you don’t want to know what we’ll do to him then.”

“Unlock me.”

I unlock her cuffs, trying to handle her as an enemy, but the feel of her skin sends a white-hot flash of desire through me.

She rubs her wrists and motions for a box. I slide it over. She pulls out a folder and opens it, studying the papers inside. She pulls one out. “These parts that are blacked out? That’s done as part of a process known as de-identification. These files are de-identified. Anonymized.” She stuffs it back in and riffles though.

How the hell does the spoiled mafia princess know this?

She examines a paper. “I don’t know what Illinois law was twenty years ago, but there would’ve been protocols in place to make it hard for people like you to trace these kinds of things. And that’s how they did it. They still do stuff like this today, but with computers. They make it so you could never identify families and children from just the files. There’s a probably a key to the code offsite, or maybe on a computer. Some trustworthy person holds it. You need both pieces—the key to the code and the file—if you’re going to read it.”

“Like a fucking armored car?” Tito asks. “Like that? Where you need the two keys?”

“Exactly,” she says.

“Who would have the key to the code?” I ask.

“I don’t know. Somebody who worked there at the time. Somebody who needed to access the files. Probably not the lowliest person, but probably not the highest, either.”

“We don’t have time to find people who worked there two decades ago,” I say.

“Hmm.” She twists her lips, and in a flash I’m back with her in the shade of the fort, watching her draw her horses, lips twisting this way and that. Concentrating.

“I have a man,” Viktor says. “His father was a KGB code breaker. He could get his father to look at this.”

I turn immediately to Mira, to see what she’ll say. Her lips quirk. “A KGB code breaker, you say.” She tips her head. “Well…if that’s all you got…”

Viktor scowls. “They are masters at code breaking, the KGB—”

“She’s kidding,” I say. “Let’s do it. Quick.”

She smiles at me, and I come to my senses and look away. Our connection is too alive suddenly, and it fucking burns. It burns worse than Konstantin’s cigarette.

We send a group to make copies of the files and get a set of them to the guy, keeping the other set for us. I send another guy to book a suite of rooms at one of the waterfront hotels. It’s not safe for her to know where any of us live, and we need to stay mobile and central to snatch up Kiro.

It’s night by the time we reach the hotel, one of many in a row of glittering lakefront establishments. “I’ve missed Chicago,” she says.

“What, Paris and Milan don’t measure up?”

“Well, they’re not home.”

Mira walks through the hotel lobby with me, behaving perfectly, thanks to the gun in my suit jacket pocket. She’ll make a break for it soon, but not in a way that will endanger the public. She’s a woman with a code, too. She always was. I tell myself it’s easy to have a code when it doesn’t cost you anything. When your code doesn’t push you places you don’t want to go.

The first time Konstantin made me kill a guy, I was twelve and shaking like a motherfucker, and I didn’t get him square between the eyes with the first shot like I should’ve; I got him in the shoulder and then the gut, and he was on the ground fucking begging for his life, pleading. He was a killer who deserved to die ten times over, but you don’t know what it’s like to have a man plead, arms stretched out like you’re either God or the devil.

I raised the Glock, dropped out from inside myself—like I wasn’t even home—and blew his head off.

Just do it. That’s how you do the hard things—you just do them.

The six of us set up in the central suite, which is a kind of generic living room with a great view of Lake Michigan, now appearing as a dark expanse dotted by lights, the moon a crescent with a corresponding streak in the waves.

Stupidly picturesque. Like somebody else’s view.

We split up names and start going through Facebook pages, looking at photos. Like we’ll get lucky and recognize Kiro. It’s stupid, worse than a needle in a haystack, but this is what desperate people do.

Mira wants to help, but there’s no way I’m giving her an internet connection. So she sits across the room in an overstuffed chair looking out at the view. Is she looking for a way out? I’d be. If she got a weapon off of one of us now, would she use it? Mira was anti-gun as a kid. But people who are threatened will do a lot of surprising things.

We send guys out to run down leads. It’s not looking good. Mira thinks we should try to get the Worland employment records from the year Kiro was adopted out. “We can get the key to the code that way—I’m sure of it.”

Yeah, it’s the way we’d go if we had all the time in the world. But we don’t.

It’s just her and Viktor and me when the call comes in. Viktor’s man can’t crack the thing—something about the code being one-to-one.

My heart sinks.

This means we have to go at Aldo Nikolla with everything. Because Kiro is in some serious danger, and that asshole knows where he is. Even Mira has to know he was holding back.

I look over at her, and she goes pale. Yeah, she knows. Because this is a woman who listens and observes, something the surveillance photos never showed. Something those plastic smiles never revealed.

I click off the call.

She stands. “Dad wouldn’t gamble me like that. Play chicken like that.” It’s more a wish than something she actually believes. I hear it in her voice.

“Kitchen stores won’t be open this time of night, but restaurants are.” Viktor’s talking about getting a knife. A cleaver, probably. He grabs his jacket. Unlocks the door.

She flies for it, but I’m ready. I catch her, fit my hand over her mouth, and pull her onto the couch, keeping her head against my chest, mouth sealed nice and tight. I pull out my piece and put it to her temple. She needs to see I’m serious. “Are you going to scream?”

She shakes her head.

“Go,” I say to Viktor.

Viktor leaves. I let up off Mira’s mouth, but I keep her there.

“Please,” she whispers, looking up at me with those large brown eyes. “You’re not a bad person.”

She’s wrong, but it feels good in a way that’s painful, her believing that. Like a good feeling I don’t get to have.

“You’re a decent person.”

“No, baby. Not anymore.”

“He told you all he knows.”

“I doubt it,” I say. “If he has more, this’ll jar his memory.”

“Jar his memory? Sending him his daughter’s bloody finger? All you’ll do is kill him.”

It’s a risk we have to take. Once Lazarus hears that the Worland Agency got hit, he could put it all together about us going for Kiro. He could be closing in on Kiro this very minute.

“Please—he can’t handle it. His heart is really bad. Please. Let’s just try my way. To find the person with the key. Dad can’t handle it if he thinks I’m being hurt. If he gets my finger…he can’t handle it.”

Right about here I realize she’s more concerned about her dad seeing her severed finger than about actually having it
chopped off her hand.
I can’t believe she’s protecting that scumbag. It blows me the fuck away. He doesn’t deserve her.

“You’re thinking about it,” she says hopefully.

“That’s not what I’m thinking about.” I stand and set my piece aside. The handkerchief I tied over my burn has long since come loose. I pull it out of my sleeve, stuff it in my pocket, and take off my suit jacket, setting it carefully over the back of the couch.

She watches me wildly.

“You want some booze?”

“Fuck you.”

“It’ll go easier if you’re drunk.” I roll up my sleeves.

“Oh my God. You don’t want to get your nice coat bloody,” she says. “Is that why you took it off?”

I don’t answer. The truth is that I can’t imagine cutting off her finger.