The Hacker by Renee Rose
18
Natasha
Anxiety takes hold during the night, and I can barely focus in the morning.
I don’t know what it’s about—not the meeting with Alex, who texted back and named a nearby cafe for this afternoon.
It’s more like a pressure building inside me. The sense of something being very wrong. It’s separation anxiety. Like I made the wrong choice leaving Dima, and I need to fix it. Except I have no intention of doing that.
I’m a glutton for abuse, but I’ve taken enough. I have to muster some sense of pride and not look back.
I can’t get any food down for breakfast. I go to the gym to try to work off some of the energy, but it doesn’t help.
When I get back, I go through the neat stack of mail on the breakfast bar. Someone has taken good care of things while I was gone. The kitty litter is clean. The trash was emptied. The dishes I’d left in the sink for later were washed and put away. I think it’s possible someone even dusted and vacuumed.
Which is good, because my mom is due back tomorrow.
I can’t focus on the mail, but I attempt it anyway. I slide my thumb under the flaps of envelopes and pry them open, flattening their contents into a big stack.
Then I see it. Paid in full—a release from my student loan. I frown and make myself read the print. The entirety of my student loans—all four of them—has been paid off.
Oh God. What is this crap? Ravil and his microloans. Only this one isn’t micro. It’s huge. And the last person I want to be in debt to is Ravil. My mother will literally kill me.
Wrapping indignation around me like a cloak, I pick up my phone and dial Ravil’s number. I’ve never called him before, and it seems inappropriate, like calling up the President of the United States or something, but I do it anyway.
“Natasha,” he answers in that cool, mild tone of his.
“I didn’t ask for a loan,” I snap. I’m not usually rude, but I’ve been pushed too far.
“Pardon me?”
“I never asked you to pay off my student loans. I appreciate the gesture, but I don’t want to be in debt to you. I could handle paying those on my own.”
“Mm,” he says. “You think I paid off your loans? That wasn’t me, Natasha.”
I open my mouth then close it when I realize what he just said.
“I’m guessing Dima took care of those for you.”
“Took care of,” I repeat hollowly. Just hearing his name shatters my heart like glass. “Took care of, how?”
“You’ll have to ask him that, Natasha. Did you make arrangements with your friend?”
“He’s not a friend,” I insist. “And yes. We’re meeting at the Starbucks on James Street at 3:30 pm.”
“Good. We’ll prep you before you go.”
“Who’s we? Not Dima,” I tell him. I don’t care if I sound like a third-grader. Or a jilted lover. I can’t handle seeing Dima right now.
“All right, Natasha,” Ravil says in that ever-patient way he speaks.
I end the call and stare at the loan release again. Did Dima hack his way into their system? Or did he actually pay for my loans? Either way, I don’t like it.
I hate it.
Because I can’t stop the tears streaming down my face.
Dima
I pace back and forth in Ravil’s office.
I fucking hate everything about sending Natasha to meet Alex.
“He’s an FBI agent,” Maxim reminds me. “He’s not going to hurt her. The worst he can do is bring her in for questioning, and if he does, Lucy will make such a racket, they’ll let her go immediately. Don’t forget the video we have of him shooting Nikolai.”
“I still don’t see why this is necessary. He’s not going to tell her anything I haven’t already ferreted out. I don’t want him near her.”
“You can shadow her if you want, just to make sure she’s safe,” Maxim reminds me.
As if I needed his permission. Of course, I’m going to fucking shadow her.
Ravil remains silent, but I know his mind is already made up.
“I just want to hear what he has to say about what happened, and he offered to give her an explanation. We’d be foolish to turn it down,” Maxim reasons.
“So what do we want her to know going in?” Ravil asks. “What questions we want her to ask, what warnings about what she can and can’t say?”
I fold my arms across my chest and look to Maxim. He’s our Fixer. This is his strategy.
“She can tell him Nikolai pulled through, no thanks to him. Obviously, no information about the cabin or who or how he was treated. She should ask him what he was after and why he fired on Nikolai. Just basics. I just want to hear what he’ll say.”
“You want her to wear a wire?” I ask. I don’t like it.
“No. We’re not collecting evidence. Unless you don’t trust Natasha to tell us everything he says?” He raises his brows at me.
I trust Natasha. I was foolish to doubt her in the first place. But I can’t vouch for how cooperative she’ll be. She didn’t want to do this in the first place, and we didn’t part on good terms.
Since I’m hating this plan anyway, I simply shrug.
“Right. She’s pissed at you, no?” Maxim asks. “You want to tell us what happened?”
“No.” My arms tighten over my chest.
“You break her heart?”
I stare at Maxim, feeling punched in the gut by the question. Finally I nod, unable to speak.
“You plan on fixing that mess?”
I do plan on fixing things, but I haven’t figured out how, yet. I didn’t call or text her last night when we got back. It felt too soon. This morning my gut said she still needed time. And I needed to get my shit together first.
“I’m going to try.” My voice cracks like I’m a teenager.
Ravil pins me with a sharp look. “She’s not broken enough to roll over on us, is she?”
I hesitate but then shake my head. I may have doubted Natasha before, but I was wrong. She wouldn’t do that. She’s not mean or vindictive, even when angry at me.
He nods at Maxim. “All right. You talk to Natasha—she wants no part of Dima right now.”
Even though I knew that, having Ravil say it out loud guts me.
I go to my room, unwilling to hang out in the living room with the living. But once I’m there, I don’t know what to do with myself. It feels like so long ago that I was cyberstalking Natasha’s on the building security feed.
She was just a fantasy then. An obsession, but nothing I’d ever act on.
Now I know her. I’ve tasted her. Held her. Kissed her and laughed with her. Now she feels like mine. And yet nothing could be further from the truth.
The place on my finger where I wore Alyona’s ring marks the change in me. Everything’s different and rearranged inside, but was it too late?
I sure as hell hope not.
Natasha
I order a drink at Starbucks and look around. Alex isn’t here yet. He was totally punctual the other times we met up, but I don’t read too much into it.
I feel both hollow and heavy at the same time. Sort of like I’ve been filled with sand. I don’t want to be here.
Interacting with any other human would be painful at the moment, but I especially don’t want to talk to Alex. He’s another one who used me. I wasn’t even his fall-back friend. I was just a target he used to get to my friends.
And yes, I do still consider them my friends even if I’ve had it with all of them. They’re still my community. My people.
But maybe he did really care about me. I read all the texts he sent over the last week. The ones Dima intercepted and replied to. He apologized. Said he felt bad for involving me and that he knew I wasn’t a part of the bratva. He said he liked me, and he hadn’t been faking the good times he had on our dates.
I’ll bet that one drove Dima particularly nuts.
I sit down and wait. Time crawls. Five minutes goes by then ten.
Seriously? What. The. Fuck? Alex is standing me up now?
Well, screw this. I did my part. I’m not going to waste any more time here. Not when I just spent the last week as a pseudo-prisoner in the forest for the bratva. I stand and walk out.
“Natasha!”
I turn in the direction of my name to see Alex in his car at the curb. He gives me a wave. “Sorry I’m late.”
I walk toward his car.
“You already had coffee?” He glances at the cup in my hand.
“Um, yeah.” I turn and look over my shoulder at the Starbucks. I really don’t want to go back in. I’d already thought I was off the hook.
“I couldn’t find a place to park. Why don’t you hop in? I’ll drive you back, and we can chat in the car.”
The Kremlin is only a few blocks away but whatever. I was supposed to get some answers from this guy.
I pull open the door and climb in. He pulls away from the curb and maneuvers into traffic. “Did they put you up to this?” he asks casually.
I should have been prepared for the question, but my brain has been too occupied with not thinking about Dima that it makes me choke on air for a moment. “What makes you think that?”
“You said you wanted nothing to do with me but then here you are. What made you change your mind?”
I muster the anger I have for him and wave it like a sword. “I don’t know, maybe I wanted to tell you off in person. I didn’t appreciate being used, Alex. Do you know how stupid I felt when I found out you’d only asked me out to get to the bratva? And do you have any idea the position you put me in with them? Those are my friends, Alex. I live in their building and rely on their good will! I’m incredibly lucky my mom and I didn’t get kicked out.”
Alex’s friendly mask slides away. “You think they’re the good guys?” he demands with more anger than I would expect from a federal agent.
That’s when I realize he hasn’t circled back toward the Kremlin. Which means… I don’t have a clue where he’s taking me.
“You live with criminals. Murderers. Accepting the goodwill of an organized crime brotherhood is pretty, twisted, Natasha.”
“Where are we going?” I demand, gripping the door handle. Maybe I can jump out at the next light.
But that’s when he jabs a giant needle right into the top of my thigh and depresses the plunger.
I grab his wrist to pull it out, but he’s already finished.
“Let me tell you a story about your friends. Their pakhan is the reason I grew up without a father.”
“What?” I rub the place where he injected me. “What did you do to me?”
All friendliness has left his face. Alex looks ten years older than when I saw him last and every bit as deadly as my bratva neighbors. “It’s just a muscle relaxant,” he says, all business now. “You’ll be fine.”
“But… what are you doing?” I ask, my head already feeling too heavy for my neck. I let it loll against the backrest.
“I’m using you, Natasha. You seem important to Ravil, so I’m going to see if I can make a trade. Your life for his.”
I can’t move my legs. Can’t make my neck work. As the world spins and swoops around me all I can hear is his voice on repeat: I’m using you, Natasha.
Just like everybody else in my life.
Dima
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“Right here!” I shout into the phone as I pound the pavement to the corner. I dive into the passenger side of Nikolai’s car.
“Where are they?”
“Silver Nissan, turning left,” I bark. “You see it? Up there!” I point.
“On it.” Nikolai’s foot slams down on the accelerator, and he cuts in front of the car beside us to get ahead. “What happened?”
Alarm bells shriek in my head.
“He showed up in his car and said he’d drive her home.”
Nikolai says nothing, focused on threading his way through the thick traffic of downtown Chicago.
“You think he’s taking her somewhere?”
“Blyad’— I don’t know! This might be nothing. But it feels all wrong to me.”
“He’s not headed toward our building.”
The brick I swallowed sinks to my belly. Nikolai’s right. He’s headed in the wrong direction. Everything about this is wrong.
And it is all my fault.
I made her meet with this guy. I put her in this position. I will never, ever forgive myself if she gets hurt.
“What was that?” Nikolai asks when Alex throws something out of his window. The object breaks into pieces on the pavement.
I twist to get a look at it. “Fuck!” I flick my phone up to look for the marker showing Natasha’s location. “It was her phone.”
“Definitely not taking her home, then,” Nikolai says grimly.
“Nope.” I text Ravil the update and when I look up, the silver Nissan has disappeared. “Blyad’! Where did he go?”
“I’ve got him,” Nikolai says grimly, cutting into a high-rise parking garage.
“Are you sure?” I’m out of my mind right now. “You saw him go in here?”
“I saw him.”
“What are you doing?” I shout when Nikolai slows instead of gunning it.
“You want to get made?”
“No.” I will my heart rate to slow, take deep breaths through my nose.
When we reach the next parking level, Nikolai flips a bitch and heads back down the ramp.
“What are you doing?” I crane my neck to look over my shoulder in the direction the Nissan disappeared.
“I’m going to park down here by the exit. He won’t be able to leave without me seeing him. You go on foot to find the fucker.”
Right. Thank God Nikolai is thinking better than I am. “Tell Ravil.”
“On it.” He already had his phone in his palm, his thumb tracing over the screen.
I palm my Glock and jog for the elevators. I take the floors, one by one, getting off and looking around.
On the top floor, I spot the car, parked right by the edge of the railing.
My heart stops beating for a moment, then reverses direction. What is this guy doing? Is he going to threaten to throw her off?
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I check the text from Maxim to me and Nikolai.
Alex just called Ravil and told him to come to the top of a parking garage at 7th and Wood, or he’d kill Natasha.
I nearly puke. Alex is off the rails. He may be with the FBI, but this crazy operation of his isn’t sanctioned. Just like shooting Nikolai wasn’t procedure.
The guy wants Ravil and Ravil alone.
Sounds like… a vendetta.
We’re at the garage. I’m going in,I reply.
Wait for backup, Maxim orders.
I ignore it and shove the phone in my pocket. I don’t have an action plan, but I can't stand around and do nothing. Not when Natasha is in that car near the edge of a ten-story parking garage with a dangerous and possibly unhinged federal agent.
I skirt around the outer edge of the parking garage, trying to stay behind pillars and in the shadows as I get closer.
When I hear Natasha’s voice, a fresh jolt of adrenaline shoots through my veins. I jog around another pillar and—
“Drop your gun, or she’s dead.”
Natasha
I scream as Alex holds me at the railing, a gun pointed at my head. I can’t make my limbs move well enough to fight him. He clamps a hand over my mouth and spins me to face out from the terrifying ledge. My vision swims at the height, and I suck in oxygen through my nose suddenly feeling like I can’t breathe.
Even before I spot Dima, I know it will be him. The knowledge comes neither with warmth nor rancor. Just certainty. Dima and I can’t help but orbit around each other, even after we’ve agreed we don’t want to.
“Okay, okay.” Dima immediately spreads his arms out to the side, his fingers lifted away from the gun as he slowly bends his knees and lowers it to the ground. He keeps his eyes glued to Alex.
“Kick it this way,” Alex orders.
I try to jerk my face away from Alex’s hand. His palm smells like sweat and metal. My legs barely hold me, so I’m slumped heavily against Alex’s body for support. Maybe that’s a good thing if it will keep him off-balance. I make myself heavier, tottering against him.
Dima complies with the order, gingerly kicking the gun in our direction. It skids across the asphalt, spinning to a stop halfway between us. “Let her go.” He slowly lowers to his knees with his hands behind his head like he’s under arrest.
My stomach sinks as I realize he’s surrendering to Alex—for me.
“I asked for Ravil,” Alex snarls.
“Ravil’s on his way,” Dima promises. “I followed from Starbucks. Listen to me—you want Ravil, no? Take me instead. Let Natasha go. She’s not part of this.”
Alex’s hold on my jaw tightens, wrenching at my neck. “No, she stays right where she is.”
Dima shakes his head. He’s twenty-five yards away, but even from here, I see he’s pale and sweating—afraid for me. “She is nothing to Ravil. Just girl in building.” His accent’s thick with fear. “I am bratva brother to him. Take me instead. Just… let her go.” He inches forward on his knees.
“Stay where you are!” Alex yells.
Dima freezes. “Let her go. Please—pozhaluysta.” He’s begging for me now.
Yesterday—a lifetime ago—I would’ve been moved to see the depth of Dima’s fear for me. Right now, though, I register it with only pain. I’ve shut the door to my feelings for Dima. Nothing will make me open it back up.
Dima shifts on his knees. No, he’s creeping forward again.
“You move another fucking inch, and Natasha gets hurt. Understand?”
I note that Alex says hurt, not killed. Maybe I’m loony, but I don’t believe he’d actually shoot me. Of course, I thought he liked me, and I didn’t believe he was using me to get to the brava, either.
Dima’s lips peel back from his teeth in rage, but I watch as he sucks his fury back down. When he speaks, he makes his voice conciliatory. Pleading, even. “Alex, you don’t want to hurt her—I know you don’t. You didn’t mean to shoot Nikolai, either, did you? Put the safety back on the gun. We don’t want another accident.”
Something he says must get through to Alex because he eases the butt of the gun from my head. It’s still pointed at me, but the metal isn’t pressed to my scalp anymore.
Dima’s careful to keep his eyes on Alex, only flicking to me for milliseconds. “What’s wrong with her?” he demands now.
“She’s all right. I gave her a muscle relaxant.”
Yes, and it’s made me a confused stew of uselessness. Sluggish heartbeats hit my ribs with sickening thuds of fear.
“Please. I won’t move. Let her come to me. Then you can put gun on both of us at the same time.” He spares a quick glance at me. “Can you walk, Natasha?”
Alex pulls my body in front of him as a shield. “She’s not going anywhere,” he snarls. “Where is Ravil?”
The elevator dings and Alex swivels to face it, keeping me in front of him as a human shield. The doors open revealing Ravil with his hands in the air. He’s in khakis and a dress shirt, open at the throat. His body language is relaxed, despite the hostage situation playing out in front of him. He steps out and walks toward us, his pace neither slow nor fast, his bearing one of unflappable calm—even ease.
“You’re looking for me?” His mild-mannered question seems to irritate Alex, who brings the butt of the gun against my temple again.
I whimper.
Dima inches forward on his knees in the direction of his gun. I catch the movement of shadows emerging from the ramp area. The bratva is here.
Ravil stops, perhaps recognizing that his advance was antagonizing Alex. “This is personal, no? What have I done to invoke your wrath?”
“You killed my father,” Alex spits.
Ravil’s brows lower. “Oh? It’s possible. Who is your father?”
“Sergei Litvin. Do you remember him? Your bratva cell killed him.”
“Sergei Litvin?” Ravil scoffs. “Your father is not dead.”
Alex splutters, shaking me like I’m the one telling him lies. “He was killed in 1998 in Russia—Moscow.”
Ravil walks forward at that same leisurely pace. “Sergei is my bratva brother. He is alive and well in Moscow. Who told you I killed him?”
Alex is breathing hard through his nose, but his hold on me loosens. The gun drifts away from my head.
Dima’s crept closer now, and I sense someone behind us, but I don’t dare look to tip Alex off.
“My mother. She told me he was killed by the Moscow bratva. The cell you were with before you moved here.”
“Ah.” Ravil tips his head back in understanding, stopping ten feet away. “Maybe she believes that, but I assure you, your father is alive and well.”
Alex shakes his head. “Nyet. The bratva killed him, and you were part of it.”
“How much have you studied the bratva? Not enough, I fear. You should know when a man joins the brotherhood, he vows to leave all family behind. To the rest of the world, he must be dead.”
Alex lets out a ragged exhale.
“I assure you, your father is alive. I will prove it to you. I can call him right now. It is midnight in Moscow, but he will pick up. As I said, we are brothers.”
The gun drops to Alex’s side, and his grip on me loosens.
“Natasha, come to me.” Dima’s low urgent tone beckons me. He’s on his feet, holding his arms out. I launch myself forward, trying to walk on jelly-like legs, but Alex yanks me back.
“I don’t believe you. Prove it, then.”
Ravil nods. “I’m reaching for my phone,” he says, his hand hovering above his pocket, like he’s waiting for permission.
“Slowly.”Alex’s breath rasps heavily against my ear. The gun trembles. One startled move, and that trigger could go off.
Ravil gingerly pulls his phone out and dials a number on speaker phone.
A man’s voice comes on, clogged with sleep. “What the fuck do you want, Ravil? It’s the middle of the night here,” he demands in Russian.
Ravil keeps his gaze glued to Alex’s face as he speaks in Russian. “That woman you were with back in the late 90s, what was her name? Was it Volkov?”
The other man hesitates before he speaks. “Why do you ask?”
“Did you have a son with her?”
“With Yulia Volkov? Nyet, why do you ask this?”
“There’s a young man here who wants to kill me. He claims to be your son.”
After too long of a pause, Sergei says, “Send him away. Yulia and I had no child together. She wanted nothing to do with me or the bratva.”
“Liar!” Alex explodes, shoving me aside and lunging for the phone.
Oleg, Adrian, Maykl and Maxim spring from the shadows. Oleg knocks his gun from his hand, and they take him down to the asphalt, while he yells, “give me the phone! Let me talk to that piece of shit!”
Dima lunges to catch me, wrapping me so tight I can hardly breathe.
Ravil ends the call and watches dispassionately as the guys deliver several well-placed punches and kicks, then he intervenes with the mild order, “Don’t kill him.”
Ravil’s phone starts ringing, but he ignores it. Alex pants, staring up through a rapidly swelling eye as the guys check him for additional weapons, removing a knife and a magazine of bullets from his pockets.
Ravil holds Alex’s gaze and nods at him. “He was lying,” he agrees, like he’s soothing a tantruming child. “He forgets I have a son now myself. I’m not going to kill another man’s progeny just because families aren’t allowed in the bratva.”
Dima hasn’t released me. He kisses the top of my head, his arms like steel bands around me.
Ravil’s phone starts ringing again. He checks it. “It’s your father.” He holds his phone up in front of his face and answers a video call. “Sergei,” he says. “I have your son.” Ravil turns the phone around to show Sergei Alex’s now-bloodied face.
“Alex,” the other man croaks.
Ravil looks at Alex. “You see? He knows you.”
“You’ve made a mess, Sergei. Your son works for the FBI—it’s like the Investigative Committee in Russia. He thought the bratva killed you, so he came after me.”
“Son...” Sergei croaks in Russian. Ravil turns the phone back around and his tune changes, “Ravil, don’t hurt him. Let him go—he doesn’t know. His mother told him I was dead. You know the rules.”
“I know them,” Ravil agrees. “You come here and deal with him, or I will.”
“I will come. Chicago, right? I will come at once. Let my son go.”
“Call me when you get here.” Ravil ends the call without waiting for the other man’s response.
He tucks the phone in his pocket and considers Alex. “You see? Your father is my brother. That makes me your uncle, no? We’re family now.”
Alex leans up on his elbows and spits blood from his mouth. He’s subdued, maybe he’s sorry, it’s hard to tell.
“It’s good. I was hoping for a contact within the FBI.” He glances at Oleg. “Help him to his car.”
Oleg hauls the beaten agent to his feet and deposits him in the driver’s seat of his car.
Ravil walks over and stands in the open door. “We’ll be in touch, nephew.” He smirks when Alex’s face morphs to one of utter dismay as he absorbs the fact that his vendetta led him to being in bed with the bratva he so hated.
Ravil shuts the door and taps the top of the car.
“Natasha,” Dima croaks, finally loosening his grip on me.”Are you okay? Are you hurt?” With one arm still around my back, he pulls away to examine my face. When he strokes my hair, I jerk back, tears burning my eyes.
“Don’t.”
“Please, Natasha.” Regret washes over Dima’s expression. “I’m so sorry—for everything. Can we talk?”
I take a step back, my legs starting to feel more sturdy. “No. I’m done, Dima.” I don’t feel angry any more. Just so damn tired.
I can’t get on the rollercoaster with him again.
Never again.
He blinks, his face pale.
“I’m not going to let myself be used anymore, and I can’t be your fall-back friend. Please respect my wishes and leave me alone.”
“You’re not my fall-back, Natasha. Listen—”
“No,” I say firmly, putting my hands on his chest and giving it a shove. “I can’t do this.” I’m fighting tears, and I really don’t want the whole gang seeing me cry over Dima. How pathetic can I get?
“Nikolai will take you home.” He touches my elbow then pulls his hand back like he’s afraid to touch me.
It feels wrong even though it’s what I just asked for.
“Thank you,” I whisper. The two words encompass so much—gratitude for what we shared and goodbye.
He shakes his head like he’s not accepting it, but Nikolai pulls up the ramp like he knew the plan, and Dima walks to the passenger side and opens the door for me.
I get in without a word.
Leaving the cabin felt like a test, but this time, it’s really over.
