I wondered briefly what I would be doing if the ADA had been anyone else. Truth was, if it weren’t Sadie I probably would have killed her myself and moved on with my life. I would have continued to support Vadik, continued to move through the ranks of the mafia. Now, though, that seemed so absurd and stupid. I didn’t know what the fuck I was thinking keeping myself allied with people that asked me to kill and maim for them without giving me enough in return. I had a decent life, but they were willing to turn on me in a second if I disagreed with their plans.
They asked everything of me, all of my loyalty, but didn’t give nearly enough in return.
“I have an idea,” Sadie said suddenly.
“What is it?”
“I know some people,” she said slowly. “Back in Seattle. Journalists and bloggers and people in law enforcement. Maybe they can help us.”
I frowned. “They’re too far away.”
“Maybe. But they can get us in touch with someone closer.”
“No. We can’t trust anyone around here.”
“But what about my research?” she asked. “I found something that Vadik is willing to pay a lot of money for. That means we have leverage.”
I nodded. “I thought of that too.”
“We can figure out whatever that is and use it against them.”
“That’s what I want to do, too. But I don’t trust anyone on your side of the law.”
“My side of the law is the law.”
I smirked at her. “No, your side of the law pretends it runs things while my side of the law bribes and kills and murders.”
“What do you suggest?”
“I don’t know right now,” I said. “Do you have all of your papers?”
“No,” she said. “I have a lot of it on my laptop, and some important files, but not all of it.”
“We need all of it.”
“Some is at the office. Some is in my apartment.”
“Shit,” I said. “Those are basically the two places we can never go back to.”
“But the key might be there.”
“Or a bunch of dangerous men with guns.”
“I think we have to take the chance.”
“No. Not yet.”
“Gage.”
“No,” I said more firmly. “We’re not doing, not yet. The Petrov family has enemies, some of them pretty strong. We have other options.”
“I know this is the best one. This is what they really want. If we can somehow trade it for our freedom, we might be able to go back to living normal lives.”
I looked at her for a second and it suddenly dawned on me.
She thought that this was going to end and that she’d have a normal life again.
I sighed, shaking my head. I didn’t want to tell her this, but I had to say it. I had to say it her for own damn sake.
“That’s never going to happen,” I said simply.
“It won’t be easy, but we can make it work.”
“No,” I said more forcefully. “Listen to me, Sadie. We’ll never have a normal life again, not in Ashertown, and probably not anywhere near here.”
She was quiet for a second then nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“No, you don’t. When this is over, you won’t be able to practice law. Maybe you can go back to Seattle, but you should probably change your name and distance yourself from your old life as much as possible.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because we will always be in danger, even if they let us go.”
“Then what’s the point of all this? We might as well turn ourselves in.”
“We’re not finished,” I said. “We’ll be able to have lives, just not the one that you’ve known. Things will be different.”
She went quiet for a while as I continued to drive. I didn’t know how she was feeling about this, but I didn’t want to push her too far. I just dropped a huge bomb on her and she was probably only now coming to grips with what her future looked like.
Maybe I was being too hard on her. Maybe she had already thought of all this stuff. She was stronger than I realized, much stronger, and I was constantly surprised by her resilience. That she was still going after everything that had happened was basically a fucking miracle.
No matter what, we were doing this thing together. I wasn’t backing down and I wasn’t going to let her falter. We were going to find a way to stand up to Vadik and his fucking assholes one way or another, and ultimately we were going to win. I had to believe that, otherwise this was all for nothing.
I continued driving, my mind trying to wrap itself around the hundreds of problems laying ahead of us. As I made a right and started heading west, I noticed a car still trailing behind us.