In For the Kill (McClouds & Friends #11)(66)

“Damn right, you should have.” He was perversely irritated at her for having apologized too quickly, since he wasn’t done being scared and pissed yet. “I hope you’re not tweeting about your trip. It’s a good bet your would-be killers are following your Twitter feed.”

“I’m not an idiot, Sam. I just sent the message to Nadine, and checked the account where Sasha and I message each other. That’s all.”

“Sasha?” He was bewildered. “You mean Alex Aaro? He messages you?”

Sveti snorted at the mention of one of the McCloud Crowd’s most prickly and reclusive companions in adventure. “God, no. I would never presume to call Aaro by a nickname. Only Nina can do that. And Tam, when she’s being provocative.”

“Which is always,” he commented.

Sveti’s lips twitched. “I’m talking about my friend Sasha. The one who was imprisoned with me and Rachel by the organ traffickers.”

Sam’s lungs froze. “Oh, f*ck me. Aleksandr Cherchenko? The son of Pavel Cherchenko, the head of the Ukrainian crime syndicate?”

She frowned. “Yes, the very one.”

“You’re chatting, online, with the son of a mafiya vor?” His voice had risen to a hoarse bellow. “Do you have a death wish?”

“Calm down!” she snapped back. “Sasha is my closest friend! We went through hell together! We trust each other absolutely!”

“Is he smart enough to cover his tracks? Doesn’t he shoot up heroin? Val said he’s a junkie! You think he’s completely on top of it?”

Sveti’s lips tightened. “Val should not talk about that. Sasha’s had problems with drugs, yes. Who could blame him, after what happened?”

“Let’s not even start,” Sam said grimly. “That’s a classic dead-end conversation if I ever heard of one.”

“Fine,” she said crisply. “Sasha and I have an e-mail account. We leave messages for each other in the drafts folder. No one else knows.”

“How do you know? Someone could be logging his keystrokes! What exactly have you told him?”

“Sam, please. Calm down. I didn’t tell him—”

“Do you have any idea how easily what you do online can be monitored? Every last tiny f*cking thing!”

“Don’t yell at me! I haven’t written anything tonight except a message to Hazlett’s assistant, Nadine! I was only checking Sasha’s account because I was expecting a message from him!”

“Yeah?” He tried to slow down his breathing. “Why is that?”

“Because I sent him my TED talk ten days ago! We had a big fight about it, months ago, when I was preparing the lecture.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“He said I was crazy to drag that old stuff up and trot it around. He got kind of hysterical about it, actually. It was weird.”

“Huh. So he has some sense. More than you do, that’s for sure.”

Sveti’s mouth was tight. “I told him that burying the past doesn’t help you rise above it. I promised I’d come see him, when I got to Rome, first thing. Before going to San Anselmo.”

“You did what?” he bellowed. “Holy f*cking shit!”

Her hands whipped up to cover her ears. “God, Sam, don’t do that! It’s not his fault, what happened to him, or whose son he is! No one gets to pick! I trust Sasha with my life! And I love him!”

“Love him?” He was breathing heavily, as if he were running a race. “Define ‘love,’ Sveti.”

Her gaze flickered away. “Not that way. Like a brother, I mean.”

He could breathe again. “So did he answer you? Where’s the rendezvous point with this soul brother of yours? Did he answer you?”

She hesitated, not meeting his eyes. Staring down at the tablet. “Yes,” she said. “He said, please come as soon as possible. That he needs me. And he asked about my flight info. That’s all he said.”

He braced himself. “And you gave it to him?”

She shook her head. “I haven’t responded yet. It seemed . . . odd. He didn’t mention the lecture, or scold me for going through with it.”

“Does he scold you a lot?”

“Not as much as you do,” she said tartly. “But it doesn’t matter. I’ll just go to the house in Rome and talk to him directly.”

“Ah. Okay. How about we just write our obituaries right now, and save our families the trouble?”

“I’ve been there before, Sam,” she said wearily. “Three years ago, with Tam and Val. I left in one piece. Pavel Cherchenko has no issues with me. All I ever did was be his son’s friend. Sasha even visited me for a couple of months in the States, before Mama died. I was hoping he’d stay, but his father made him go back when they went to Italy.”

“Sveti, why don’t you just call the guy?” he demanded. “Ask him how the f*ck he is and be done with it!”

“Sasha can’t talk into the phone,” she explained. “He stopped speaking while we were locked up, and it never really came back. Even now, it’s very difficult for him. He can only talk easily to me in person, or to his brother, Misha. He loves that kid. Says he’s a genius with computers.”