THE DEVIL’S BRIDE Read online

  If she didn’t get a minute to herself, she was going to flip the fuck out. Her brother had really pushed the limits this time. She had to help him, though. If she didn’t, he would be dead within a week. There was no way he would be able to come up with ten grand on his own.

  Fiona poured herself another glass, reasoning that tonight had been incredibly stressful and that she was entitled to an extra glass of wine or three. Taking a deep breath, she reentered the living room and immediately saw Niko was white as a sheet.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed. She rushed to his side.

  “Well, I’m glad we hung out at your house tonight. Paul said Alexei put someone on my place, to make sure I don’t run,” Niko explained, seemingly in shock. “He also said every day I don’t come up with the money, he’s going to add ten percent interest. I, uh, I guess it’s normally twenty percent, but, um, Paul said Alexei gave me the employee discount.” Niko broke into a crazed, uncontrollable laughter that quickly subsided into heaving sobs. “He wants me to fail, Fi!” he screamed. “He wants me to fail so he can kill me and pretend it was my own fault; that’s what he does!”

  Fiona flinched, more at his tone than his volume. She had never heard the sound of pure terror before. It was particularly horrifying knowing that its source was her little brother. “We’ll think of something,” she finally said, sounding more confident than she felt.

  “Like what?” Niko asked skeptically.

  Fiona stood up. “Let’s just figure out tonight first, okay? You can’t go back home, obviously. You’ll stay here and we’ll work out a plan first thing tomorrow morning.” She forced a smile onto her face and went to grab a pillow and blanket for the couch.

  Niko caught sight of the look on Fiona’s face just before she plastered that awful “everything is fine” grin across it. It was a look that said for once, she had no idea what to do. Niko took the bedding from Fiona, setting it next to him on the couch.

  “Good night, Fi,” he said, flashing a quick smile at her. “I think I’m gonna watch some TV before I go to sleep. I’m feeling pretty wired, y’know?”

  Fiona didn’t move. Niko gave her a look. “I’d ask you if you wanted to watch with me, but at this hour it’s just going to be infomercials and I know you hate late night TV.”

  “I’m really sorry, Niko,” Fiona said quietly. “But I need you to turn out your pockets.”

  Niko stared at his sister, a confused look artfully constructed on his face. “What? Why?”

  “You know why, Niko. Please don’t turn this into a thing,” Fiona said flatly, her blue eyes aimed squarely at his shoes.

  Niko began to puff his chest up, ready to stir up a dramatic outrage against his sister’s terrible insinuations, but one look at his big sister, a woman who had spent half of her childhood and all of her adult life taking care of him, and the tank of prideful hot air whooshed out of him in one big rush.

  He stuck his hand into the small watch pocket of his jeans and pulled out a small baggie of cocaine, carefully, almost lovingly, rolling it between his tan, bony fingers.

  “Can I trust you to do it?” Fiona asked quietly, interrupting his reverie. “Or do you need me to?”

  “No,” Niko said firmly, strength filling his voice. “I can do it.”

  He walked to the bathroom quickly, almost running, desperately trying to make it before he lost all the willpower his sister had imbued him with. The toilet flushed and Niko came back to the living room. He sat on the couch, rested his elbows on his knees, and then buried his head in his arms.

  “I love you, Niko. Goodnight.” Fiona kissed the top of her little brother’s head and turned out the light, as she had done a million times before.

  The next couple of days had the Brown siblings in high spirits. Fiona had found a potential buyer for her car that was willing to pay three hundred over the asking price, and Paul had said his cousin would help kick in two grand in thanks for keeping Paul safe. Between the money Paul promised to bring by, and the cash Fiona had made from selling a few other things, they were only eight hundred dollars away from saving Niko’s life.

  Fiona woke up to the sounds of songbirds outside her window and the soft thud of the morning paper hitting her front door. She got up and went into the kitchen, passing her snoring brother on the couch. Starting the coffee machine, Fiona went about making breakfast, not caring to be quiet. Niko slept like a dead horse. The only way to wake him up was with an air horn or a cold bucket of water.

  Testing this theory, she gave him a sharp prod in the shoulder where she knew he was uninjured. Nothing. Shrugging, Fiona walked to the front door to retrieve the paper. Her neighbor, Mrs. Montgomery, was walking by and waved hello. Fiona waved back as she bent down to grab the paper, not paying attention to what it was she was reaching for.

  At the last second, she looked down, and saw her fingertips inches from a dead, brutally dismembered dove. Fiona shrieked and fell back, scrambling on her hands to get away from the bloody creature.

  Niko’s head popped up, his brown hair pointing in all directions. “What is it?” he cried, pulling himself over the couch as fast as his sleep-laden limbs would allow him.

  Fiona’s trembling fingers reached for the dove once again, using her thumb and forefinger to gingerly pluck a small, folded piece of paper from the bird’s beak. “A warning,” she said, the paper falling from her hands.

  TIME’S UP.

  Chapter 2

  It was only once Fiona put on two pairs of kitchen gloves and a bandana around her nose and mouth that she was able to carefully place the dead bird into a shoebox. Niko was gagging too much to be any help at all, so Fiona put the box in the garage, resolving to bury it once she had some time.

  “What the fuck is a dead bird doing on my doorstep, Niko?” she demanded, washing her hands for the third time. “I thought you had another four days!”

  Niko sat on the couch, staring dully at his feet. “I guess Alexei doesn’t want to wait any longer. If I don’t pay him by tonight…that’s it. Game over.”

  Fiona stopped in the middle of the living room, hands on her hips. “Then I guess you won’t be here tonight,” she said finally.

  “What are you talking about?” Niko tiredly raised his head to give her a confused look.

  “We still need eight hundred dollars to pay him off, Niko,” she explained. “Can you guarantee that we’re going to be able to get that by tonight? Because I can’t.”

  “So, what?” Niko said blankly. “You want us to run?”

  “Not us,” Fiona said, looking down at her feet. She raised her head to look her little brother square in the eye. “Just you.”

  “If you think I’m going to leave you behind, you’re fucking crazy,” Niko said with a small, disbelieving laugh.

  “Don’t argue with me, and don’t swear,” Fiona scolded him. “They’re only after you, Niko. You only have to leave for a couple of days, until I can manage to pull some more money together.”

  He scoffed. “Yeah? And how are you going to do that? Are you going to hit up the Tooth Fairy? We’ve tapped every resource available to us, Fi.”

  Fiona bit her lip. If she told Niko who she was planning on asking for the money, then he would really worry, and they didn’t have time for that right now. “Don’t worry about it. I have it under control.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where you plan on getting almost a thousand dollars in a day’s notice,” Niko insisted, folding his arms.

  Fiona rolled her eyes. “You’re insufferable, you know that?” she said angrily. Her brother merely shrugged. “Fine,” she spat. “I was going to ask Dad. Happy now?”

  Niko looked at her incredulously. “Dad? You were going to ask Dad?”

  “Well, we don’t exactly have a lot of options, Niko!” she cried. “It’s either ask Dad or a bunch of scary men come to the house, kidnap, and murder you!” He looked at the ceiling, shaking his head. “You know he’ll have the money,” Fiona quie
tly added.

  Their family had never been wealthy growing up, but their father, Nathan, had kept a decent paying job, despite his rampant alcoholism. A few years after Niko was born, Nathan’s two or three beers with dinner turned into a six-pack. And then into whiskey-Cokes. And then just whiskey.

  He had managed to keep up appearances at work, confining his abusive, drunken outbursts to his home, where he could direct them at his wife and children. Their mother had put up with it for five years before, one day, she finally packed up all of her clothes and left while Fiona and Niko were at school, and Nathan at work.

  The thing that had bothered Fiona the most about their mother abandoning them was that there had been no letter, not even a note. She had simply left. Fiona tried very hard to understand what would make a mother desert her children like that, but it was difficult not to resent her for the way she had handled things.

  Once their mother left their father, he became withdrawn. He stopped yelling at his kids, and instead began to ignore them altogether. He would get up, go to work, come home, and drink until he passed out. Fiona would have to get up in the middle of the night to turn off whatever infomercial was playing on TV and throw a blanket over her unconscious father.

  Fiona had left home as soon as she could, but stuck close for Niko, who often spent the night at her dorm instead of at home. Nathan had plenty of money, and as far as Fiona was concerned, he owed them.

  “So it’s settled,” Fiona said, firmly closing the discussion. “You’ll take my car, and I’ll get the money from Dad. In a day or two I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come back.” It would take her the better part of a day to get to their father’s place in Des Moines, especially since she had to take a bus. Niko would need the freedom of a car if he were to have any hope of getting out of here alive.

  Niko hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t like leaving you here by yourself! They know where you live, Fiona, obviously! What’s to stop them from hurting you to get at me?” he protested.

  “I’m not going to be in town for the majority of the time,” she reminded him. “Also, how are they going to get any money at all if they hurt me? If you’re gone, I’m the only one who will be able to pay.”

  “No, I’m not doing it,” he said stubbornly, folding his arms. “We’ll just have to figure out something else. You don’t understand what these people are like, Fiona!” Niko snapped suddenly, his eyes wild with fear. “This guy Alexei is seriously bad news. I don’t just mean ‘beat and murder me’ bad. He’s got a black hole for a heart, Fi, and he and his boys hunt people down like wolves, methodically, without mercy. He buys himself a piece of bling after every job he completes.” He shivered, staring dead ahead, not seeing anything around him. “Alexei’s not half as bad as some of his men, though. Vlad’s a special treat. That rat bastard is a true psychopath, and he loves his work. He looks like a king, but he does all the dirty work behind the scenes.”

  “Well, Niko, if you have a suggestion, I’m all ears,” Fiona said, rapidly losing her patience as her heart began to fill with panic. “But as you told me not too long ago, we can’t call the police! Remind me why that is again?” When Fiona had first mentioned getting help, Niko had freaked and told her that calling the police was absolutely out of the question.

  “Alexei has a guy on the inside,” he told her, sighing. “Probably more than one.”

  “And you know this how?” Fiona asked.

  “There’s a guy—William. I’m not sure if he’s related to Alexei or what, but he comes around all the time. He’s on the force. He comes in wearing his uniform. Lets Alexei know when things are starting to get hot,” he told her. “If we breathe even a word about Alexei to the cops, William is going to hear about it, which means Alexei will hear about it, which means you, me, and everyone we know will be killed.”

  “Okay, no cops, I get it,” Fiona said, holding her hands up defensively. “I’m still not hearing you come up with a better plan than what we have.”

  Niko bit his lip and plucked at the hem of Paul ’s t-shirt; when he dropped off the money, he had also given Niko some spare clothes to wear. Niko was a little taller, a little lankier than Paul’s stocky figure, so the shirt hung wide and short on him.

  Fiona carefully scrutinized her little brother’s face, but he wouldn’t look at her. He was hiding something. “Out with it,” she commanded. “Whatever it is that you’re holding back, now is the time to bring it to the table.”

  “It’s a long shot,” Niko began. “There’s literally no reason I can think of that he would help us, which is why I didn’t mention him before, but he’s the only person I know who Alexei is even a little bit scared of.”

  “So, who is it?”

  “His name is Ace Connor, but I don’t think that’s his real name. He’s the leader of one of the last motorcycle gangs around here, The Hell Brothers.” Seeing Fiona’s confused face, he continued. “It used to be that the gangs ran things around here, with their own territories. When the Chicago branch of the Russian mob came to town, they made quick work of most of the gangs. There are a couple gangs still clinging to life, but The Hell Brothers is the only one that’s managing to stay afloat. Mostly because Ace seems to be able to outsmart Alexei at every turn.”

  “How do you figure Ace is going to even be able to help us?” Fiona asked skeptically. “I mean, if he can barely keep his own gang from getting destroyed, what hope do we have with him?”

  “He does more than keep The Hell Brothers from getting destroyed. More than once Ace has sold drugs in Alexei’s territory and gotten away with it,” Niko pointed out. “He could be trying to draw Alexei out into an all-out gang war. If he is, maybe our situation could be the exact thing Ace needs to push Alexei over the edge.”

  “That’s what you’re going with? We just walk up and ask him?” Fiona said.

  “As you once said to me, I’m all ears for new ideas,” Niko replied drily.

  “I have an idea!” Fiona cried, frustrated. “You leave town. I leave town. I get the money. I come back. I give Alexei the money. You come back. We all live happily ever after.”

  “Where am I gonna go, Fiona? I can’t sleep in the car—I’m too out in the open. And I can’t stay in a hotel because all of our money is going to Alexei! I should stay here,” he insisted.

  Fiona thought quickly. “You can go stay with Uncle Leon. He lives in Massachusetts. That should be far enough away.”

  “We haven’t seen Uncle Leon in ten years, almost as long as Mom’s been gone. He’s not going to let me stay at his place.”

  “Goddammit, Niko!” Fiona screamed, snapping. “I will fucking call Uncle Leon, okay? I will figure out something to tell him and I will call him. Just promise me you won’t say anything if he calls you by Mom’s maiden name, Carver. You know how he feels about Dad.”

  Niko opened his mouth, but Fiona cut him off. “That’s the end of the conversation, Niko. Go pack. Now.” Almost the entire day had passed. The sun was just beginning to set, and her brother needed to be on his way.

  His shoulders dropped, and he knew he was beat. “I just think—”

  Niko was cut off once again by the sharp tinkling of broken glass. A harsh buzz flew by him, followed by a loud thud coming from the wall behind him. He and Fiona stared at each other for a second, then simultaneously turned to look at the wall they had heard the noise come from.

  There was a small, bullet-sized hole in it. Niko confusedly looked at the window, which was now broken. Fiona’s eyes grew wide as she realized what had happened, what was happening. She grabbed her brother by the collar and yanked him down right as another bullet pierced a second windowpane, burying itself into the drywall right where Niko’s lungs had been.

  They huddled behind the couch, hands over their heads as they listened to multiple shooters send what seemed like an endless hail of bullets, even though from the first to last shot it had probably only been ten seconds. A minute later, they heard someone yell at them f
rom outside.

  “Niko!” the man shouted in a deep, strong voice. “Niko, get out here! It’s time to take your medicine!”

  “That’s Alexei,” Niko whispered, his own voice shaking.

  “I know you’re in there,” the voice called.

  “You have to get out somehow,” Fiona whispered back. “We need to create a diversion.”

  “When did you turn into fucking Rambo?” Niko hissed. “A diversion? What exactly would you suggest?”

  “One second.” Fiona took a quick peek over the couch and crawled on her belly to the kitchen, which had managed to avoid most of the damage. She stuck one hand up and grabbed a cupboard door. Niko heard the sound of glass and flinched, thinking the mob had begun shooting again.

  “How about this?” she asked when she came back, grinning wickedly. Fiona had grabbed every bottle she had in her booze cabinet. Even the non-alcoholic mixers.