Free Keep: The Wedding: Romanian Mob Chronicles by Kaye Blue

and driven for forty-two minutes if the clock on the dashboard was to be believed. We’d gone south, and now he exited, headed for one of the suburbs I never went to. It occurred to me then he was making no effort to hide anything, his face, where we were going, the time, nothing.
    My stomach dropped.
    He didn’t need to hide if he didn’t plan to let me go.
    When he turned into a parking lot and got out of the car, I sent up a silent, fervent prayer, but by the time he opened the back passenger door, I had again calmed. Nothing would be gained by letting him see my fear, so I’d do what I always had, stay quiet, comply, and pray it would be over soon.
    I hated that, wished that I was stronger, braver, more like Vasile, but I wasn’t, and I wouldn’t risk the chance to see my family again trying to prove I was something I wasn’t.
    The officer threw a jacket over my hands and led me down the covered walkway toward a door at the end of the small shopping center. I looked down at my hands and wondered why he had bothered. Without the jacket, I might have looked normal, but with it, I looked like someone who was handcuffed. Dressed in her best for a socialite’s lunch, but handcuffed nonetheless.
    This was so fucked, I was so fucked, and when the officer pulled open the door and led me inside of a small storefront, that feeling intensified. It was empty, but appeared to have been an office of some kind before. There were dusty desks, a few ancient computer monitors, and a file cabinet in one corner.
    The officer—I really needed to stop thinking of him as that. I didn’t even know if he was a cop, and if he was, none of this was protocol—led me down a hall. I slowed, digging my heels in almost on instinct. At least in the vehicle and in the main area, there was some semblance of protection, but my apprehension spiked at the thought of going into a back room with him, uncertain about what might await me.
    “None of that, now,” he said, voice neither gruff nor friendly.
    He tugged my arm and I reluctantly began to move. When we reached the back office, he pushed me down into a chair and then stood above me, looming. I met his gaze, not willing to cower. He gave me an easy smile.
    “Don’t be so tense. My friend just wants to have a word with you,” he said.
    “What friend?” I asked, my voice starting out weak but growing stronger.
    “Me.”
    I jumped and then turned toward the sound, but the man who spoke never stepped out of the shadows.

Eight
    V asile
----
    “ W ho wants cookies !” Esther asked.
    Fast as lightning, two tiny arms went up into the air, and Esther laughed.
    “Okay, but you have to help me make them,” she said.
    Then she shooed the kids toward the kitchen, but not before she stopped and gave me a lingering look. She’d been back for a little over two hours, and had taken the lead in keeping the kids entertained.
    Once I came back to my senses, if I came back to my senses, I would thank her. But right now, it was all I could do to stay inside my skin.
    A moment later, Sorin came in.
    “What did you find?” I asked, trying to keep my voice low, but the urgency in it enough for anyone listening to hear.
    “Her car was there,” he said.
    “Did you see anything else?”
    He shook his head. “We tossed it and didn’t find anything. I checked myself and there was nothing. Now it’s off to be chopped and burned.”
    “Good. They may have planted some kind of tracking device on the car, or could have done anything else, so it needs to be destroyed. And Anton?” I asked.
    “He’s agreed to meet.”
    “Good.”
    “Priest?” he asked.
    “I’ll deal with him,” I said.
    “We have everyone out looking for her, Vasile. We’ll find her,” he said.
    “What if we’re too late?” I asked.
    I should have kept quiet, but I had to give voice to the thought. It was that or go insane and start killing everything in my path.
    “We won’t be,” Sorin said.
    My brother sounded confident,