Trust Me, I'm Trouble (34 page)

Dani deepens the kiss. Not too much, but my body starts to protest anyway. I ignore it. I slide my good hand around her neck to draw her closer. She wraps her arms around my waist and pulls me up, supporting me like she always has since before we even met.

The kiss lasts forever and is over in a flash. Time moves funny when we’re this focused on each other. “Say it in English this time,” I whisper, closing my eyes, ignoring my pain.

“I love you,
milaya,
” she says. “I have loved you my whole life. I just didn’t know it.”

I sigh happily, a drop sliding down my cheek as I beam up at her. “Then none of it matters. We made it. We’re here.”

Her smile fades as cares pile back on her shoulders. I could kick myself for reminding her, but it had to happen sometime. At least we can face the fallout together. I’m probably still trouble, but she will always be Dani. She will always have my back. And I can do anything as long as she’s with me.

I let go of her neck to take her hand. “I’m sorry about the Chevelle,” I say.

She lifts my hand up to her lips and kisses it softly before pulling it to her chest. “You should have left me,” she says quietly. “You could have died trying to save me.”

“Don’t be dumb. I would have died anyway without you. Just slower.”

“Don’t say that,” she says, her voice rough. “You have the Ramirezes, your friends. You would be fine without me.”

She’s rubbing my hand, working up to something. The drugs can’t mask the alarm climbing my spine. I almost ask her not to tell me. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to handle whatever’s causing that look on her face. But bad things only get worse when you hide from them.

“Why does it sound like you’re trying to say good-bye?” I say, panic edging my voice.

She opens her mouth, but it’s not her who answers.

“Because she is,” Petrov says as he saunters into the doorway of my room and leans casually against the frame.

A machine next to me starts beeping faster.

“Petrov.” My fingers fumble for the nurse’s call button.

“By all means, send for help. Unfortunately for you, I haven’t broken any laws since I was released from prison three days ago.”

“You were
released
?” I gape at him. How is this possible? He was supposed to be incarcerated for the rest of his natural life.

He straightens, adjusting his jacket lapels and fiddling with his left shirt cuff. “I found the long hours of idleness in prison didn’t agree with me. And I still have a friend or two in high places.”

“It would have taken a presidential pardon…” But even as I say it, I know it’s not true. I grifted my way into an off-limits area of a high-security facility with almost no effort. Getting out would be tougher, but not impossible for someone with Petrov’s connections.

“You’d be surprised who owes whom favors,” he says.

I scramble for an angle, my normal grifter instincts dulled and slow from the drugs. “We’re in a public place. You can’t just—”

“Calm your pretty head, Ms. Dupree. I’m not here to kill you. Dani and I have come to an arrangement.”

Oh, god. The deal.

“Whatever she promised you, I will double it if you leave us alone.”

He laughs. “You forget. I’m familiar with your negotiation strategy—you overpromise and underdeliver. Besides, Dani’s giving me exactly what I want. You can’t double that.”

“What are you giving him?” I ask her.

She looks miserable but resolute. I remember what Han said about her mulishness. I’m not going to be able to talk Dani out of this. But that doesn’t mean I won’t try.

“I promised to go with him. To work for him again,” she says.

“What?” I turn back to Petrov. “But why would you want that? She betrayed you. She shot you. She hates you.”

“Exactly,” he says, his triumphant smirk making me sick. “What I want is revenge. I can be persuaded not to kill you, as long as the price is right. And today, my price is your suffering. I thought, what better way to make you suffer than to take someone you care about away from you? And forcing Dani to work for me, the person she loathes most in the world, well…that’s two for one.”

“You can’t do this, Dani,” I say, pleading with my entire being. “We can beat him like we did before. You don’t need to protect me from him.”

“Yes, I do. This was the bargain I struck for the name of the first contractor, and for Petrov’s assurance that he would not come after you when he was released.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I accuse, though I don’t have the right to be angry. I guessed at the time that she wasn’t giving me the whole truth. I should have forced it out of her then. “I can’t let you do this. I need you too much, Dani.” It kills me that we’re having this conversation in front of Petrov, but at this point, I’d do anything to keep her from leaving.

“My duty has always been to protect you.” The
even from me
hangs between us, and I want to tear the words to shreds.

“
Please,
don’t do this,” I whisper, hopeless tears staining my face. “Please stay.”

She rests her forehead against mine, then kisses me lightly, lingeringly. “Do not look for me,” she says. “Just live your life. Be happy.”

I swallow hard. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”

“At least try,” she says, smiling weakly.

“You’re really doing this?”

She squeezes my hand. “Good-bye,
milaya.
”

Then she follows Petrov through the door and out of my life.

“K
eep your eye on the lady.”

I show the Queen of Hearts to Lily, and then start juggling the cards on the rolling bedside table between us. The concrete bed is starting to feel more like a pile of boulders the longer I stay here. I get to check out tomorrow, a week after checking in. And I’ll never again be so happy to see Mike’s guest room.

Though
happy
is not really a word I’d use to describe my general state of being. It had taken Angela one look at my wrecked face after Dani’s departure to realize something was desperately wrong. She’d called in reinforcements, but there was nothing we could do. Petrov had told me the truth: he’d been legally released and was free to come and go as he pleased.

“I don’t get how this works,” Lily says, drawing my attention back to the game. “It seems like the player should win every time.”

It does seem like that, doesn’t it? It seems like I should win every time. I am the best grifter in Chicago, after all. I should have seen through Joseph’s ruse. I should have seen Petrov coming.

“Where’s the lady?” I say, pushing back my hurt. She points to a card and I flip it over. Jack of Spades.

“What?” she says, incredulous. “I was watching really closely that time. I swear you put the queen there.”

“It’s a trick,” I explain. “When I’m juggling the cards, I pick up two cards in one hand. Like this.” I show her the correct hand position with one card directly on top of the other. “When I’m moving fast, I can drop either the bottom card or the top card in that hand, and it’s impossible for you to tell which one I dropped. Like this.” I slow down the move for her. “And even if you happened to pick the right card by accident, I can switch it without you realizing it and show you the wrong card.”

“It’s like magic,” Lily says, impressed.

I shake my head. “The magic part is hooking the mark. If you’re good, you can get a mark to believe he can win even when he knows it’s a scam.”

I shuffle the cards into the deck and ache for Dani. I remember how it felt when she kissed me. Pain steals my breath, and not for the first time I regret a whole host of choices. I don’t know what I was thinking. I stupidly believed I could love, even when I know love’s not in my cards.

I deal out a hand of Go Fish for something to do. If I don’t keep busy, I’ll go crazy.

“Got any sevens?” I ask, arranging my cards into chaos.

“Go fish,” Lily says.

Lily seems to have made it through okay. She’s staying with a nearby aunt temporarily. She has to testify against her own mother, which makes me want to throw up every time I think about it. Girl must have nerves of steel, though I’ve seen her pale out of nowhere sometimes, and I imagine it’s a stray thought about what’s ahead for her.

Another day, another orphan. Both parents in prison. Brother dead. I wish I could tell her it’ll be all right, that I’ll make sure she gets to choose her living situation. But I don’t have that kind of power. I can rescue a hundred Ukrainian immigrants, but I can’t save this one friend. Of course, what fun’s a cause if it’s not hopeless?

“Got any threes?” Lily says.

I pass her two threes.

“Can I ask you something?” I say.

“Go fish,” she says, smirking.

“Cute. Look, I haven’t really talked about this with the Ramirezes yet, but if staying with relatives doesn’t work out long term, would you want to maybe—”

“Yes! I mean, yes,” Lily says, smiling. “I’d love to.” She looks down at her cards. She might still hate me for Tyler’s death. She might even also hate me for taking her mother away. But it doesn’t feel like it. At least, not all the time.

“What are you going to do now?” she asks.

“I don’t know. Try to find Dani. Try to find my mom. Do that silly Brillion internship. It’s already set up, and I’m still in the hospital, for Pete’s sake.”

Lily lays down three aces. “I meant about where you’re going to live.”

“It’s up to the Ramirezes, I guess,” I say, shrugging. “I cost them a crapload of money. I put them in danger. I’m a liar and thief and I never hang up my towel.” I scrape at a pen mark on the rolling table with my thumbnail. “They don’t have to keep me if they don’t want to.”

“Keep you from what?” Mike says as he maneuvers through the door, arms laden with packages of varied size, shape, and type—balloons, flowers, baskets, chocolate, bags of gourmet coffee.

“What the hell is that?” I ask. “I’m leaving in a couple of hours, not a couple of years.”

“It’s all the stuff my interns had to comb through to make sure there were no explosives, poisons, wiretaps, booby traps, and nasty notes.”

“This is all for me?” I look at the stuff Mike has strewn on the bed, picking up a book called
How to Survive Just About Anything
and putting it down again. “Where did it come from?”

“Your fans,” he says as if it’s obvious.

“What fans?” I say in horror. Oh, god. I may never be able to work in this town again.

“She’s decent,” Mike calls out into the hallway. Three respectable-looking young men plus Sam, Murphy, and Bryn walk in bearing, impossibly, even more stuff. Well, except for Bryn. She’s carrying her purse.

“That’s debatable,” Sam says as he unloads on the upholstered chair Lily vacated for a spot on the bed.

“Can I keep the Best Buy gift card?” Murphy says. “Bessie needs an infrared upgrade.”

Bryn crosses her arms. “My glasses-cam upgrade is a much higher priority than your dumb van’s night goggles. It way stretches the bounds of credibility that I would ever wear something so 2013.”

“This is insane,” I say, staring woefully at a balloon that says
GET BETTER SOON, TIGER
with the word
Tiger
crossed out and
Grifter
written in Sharpie next to it. “Send it back.”

“Oh, no. I’m getting something out of all of this,” Mike says, snagging a candy bar from a gift basket. “I chased that contract killer all the way to Texas.”

And he did. Personally. But Spade managed to escape the trap they’d laid for her. Mike finally returned at Angela’s request to help with all the hospital stuff. I assume the FBI is still hunting her, but there are only so many resources they can put on a lowly contract killer. Besides, now that Mrs. Richland has been arrested and all her funds seized, there’s no possibility of Spade getting paid. The contract is officially off.

“What the hell is going on in here?” Angela says as she walks in, looking as horrified as I did.

“I know, right?” I say, gesturing at all the stuff. “Tell them we’re not keeping it.”

She ignores me and turns her disgruntled look on Mike. “She’s supposed to be resting. Not entertaining hordes of people. Out. Everybody. Out. That includes you, Lily.”

Lily sighs and follows Sam out into the hallway.

“And don’t come back until it’s time to check out,” Angela says sternly as she shuts the door. Then she turns back to me, a completely serene version of herself, and leans a hip against my bed. “How are you feeling?” she asks.

I take a deep breath, assessing. “Tired,” I say. “Sad.”

“You miss her,” she says.

“Part of me is just gone,” I say, gripping the covers. I don’t want to cry anymore.

Angela places her hand on mine. I turn my hand over to let her hold it. She’s more my mom than my mom is. I wonder if she knows that.

As if reading my mind, she says, “We need to talk about what’s next for you.”

I nod, dreading the topic. “Do you want me to move out?”

“We don’t want you to move out,” she says, squeezing my hand. “We want you to be happy.”

I close my eyes. “Even after everything that’s happened? Putting you guys in danger all the time and staying out too late and the medical bills and holding your plumber at gunpoint?”