Free One Wrong Move by Shannon McKenna Page A

again. It had been stimulating, in a kinky, masochistic sort of way. She had a pretty voice. Low, husky. Feminine.
    Hell, after hours of staring at brake lights, he was actually getting curious about the damn thing. Desperate for something else to think about. Anything else. Even something suck-ass.
    He pulled Nina’s number up from the call log, on impulse, and hit “call.” Was alarmed at his own action. What, was he going to apologize? Yikes. Dangerous. He didn’t know the choreography of an apology.
    No problem, though. She’d blocked his number. She didn’t want no stinkin’ apology from him. She’d given him the digital finger. Ka-pow.
    Aww. He’d made a new little friend. His very special talent.
    He was vaguely surprised to find himself grinning. His facial muscles weren’t used to that kind of exercise. They were creaky.
    The last bit of resistance in him shifted into something like resignation. OK, already. He’d listen to the recording, then he’d call up Bruno, and give him the gist of it. Bruno could call the woman back. Safer that way, with a nice, thick Bruno buffer to protect him from random, pissed-off female wierdness.
    But Bruno called him, just as he was about to call. He hit
    “talk.”
    “I surrender,” he said. “I’ll listen to the fucking file, already, OK? Just leave me alone for a few while I do it.”
    “Never mind the tape!” Bruno yelled. “Go to Nina’s house!
    Now!”
    Aaro was confused. “House? Isn’t she at the hospital?”
    “She left the hospital! She’s at her house, and the bad guys are inside with her! Lily called the cops, but you’re closer. Take Flatbush right now, and floor it!”
    Aaro gaped. “How do you know where I am? You sneaky son of a bitch, did you tag my phone?”
    “Take it up with Davy. He gave me the frequency. That’s not the point! Move it, Aaro! She’s hiding in an upstairs bedroom closet!”
    “Oh, fuck me,” Aaro moaned, muscling himself into the turn lane amid blaring horns. So the dismissal from Nina Christie was not the conclusion to this episode, but just a foretaste of pain and annoyance to come. To say nothing of the possible bullets.
    “You armed?” Bruno asked.
    Aaro grunted his assent. Understatement. Going anywhere within five hundred miles of the Arbatov family made him nervous.
    “Nina texted that there’s three, maybe more. Speaking Russian, she thinks. Go up Flatbush, left onto Avenue U, and then right on Ramsey. If you hit Quentin Road, you’ve gone too far, so don’t. Three blocks up, third house on the right, five fifty-four.
    Move your ass!”
    The car surged forward. Here was his chance to redeem himself for the colossal fuck-up six months ago, if he chose to accept it.
    Bedroom closet? How did this shit fall to him? Did he have a note pinned on his shirt that he didn’t know about? He’d spent a lifetime deliberately not giving a shit about anybody’s business but his own, unless he was paid big bucks to do so. Stone cold, out for himself. Taught by the best. And yet, here he was. Speeding down that exit ramp.
    He picked up inappropriate speed. Horns blared. Bruno yakked away at him from the phone that lay on the passenger seat. Aaro ignored him. He’d do this his way, whatever that way might be. He didn’t have a clue yet, but something would come to him. He hoped.
    In fewer than five minutes, he sped past Nina’s house. A bland brick row house among other unremarkable row houses. Unbroken line of cars parked in front. He jerked to a stop around the corner, snapped open the case for the folding stock Saiga. He’d considered himself a lunatic, bringing the shotgun along, to say nothing of the special loaded mags he’d prepared; sintered metal breaching round up top for blasting out a lock, then alternating buckshot shells and one-ounce slugs.
    He slid in the mag, racked the bolt, and loped toward her house.
    No good way to sneak up on a row house. No time to go around the block to slither in from the