The Gage I was beginning to get to know seemed to live by a moral code of sorts. Certainly helping him out would have meant something to him. The Gage I knew was kind and trustworthy underneath his rough exterior. Surely he would’ve shown Dimitri mercy for helping him find Ivan and put an end to all of this.
Then again, what did I know? I’d just met the man. I hadn’t seen how he treated rivals other than what he was doing to Dimitri, and his treatment of the Russian seemed pretty mild compared to what it could have been. I just didn’t know what to expect from him, to be honest with myself.
“You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” the Russian asked me.
I just stared at him. I was thinking about what I knew would happen no matter what, and I had no answers to the question of whether or not he’d let Dimitri go free if he offered up Ivan. Well, I was starting to come to a conclusion that I didn’t like, that it didn’t matter what Dimitri did, that he was right and he would end up dead either way.
“You know I’m right, don’t you?” he said, calmly. “I can see it in your eyes. You’re figuring it out.”
“Just shut up,” I snapped. “Shut the hell up. You just keep running your mouth, and you’re not helping your case any. So just shut up.” I got up, disappointed that I’d allowed him to shake my resolve like that, and I walked to the door without saying another word.
Dimitri sat quietly behind me. I figured he’d achieved his goal of disrupting me, so he had nothing left to say at the moment. He’d certainly given me something to think about, though.
I pushed open the steel door. It wasn’t locked, but Gage stood outside waiting on me.
“Did you get anything good?”
I shook my head and sighed. “No.”
He closed and locked the door behind me. “Nothing?”
“He asked me to help him escape and said that he’s going to try it anyway,” I told him. It was amazing to me how exhausted I felt after that session. When I started talking to Gage in English, I realized how long I’d been sitting in that room speaking in Russian. It always felt like a culture shock to switch languages like that.
“Well, I’d like to see him make it through here.” Gage patted the door. He started to walk away from the room and put an arm across my tired shoulders. “Come on. Let’s get you a drink and maybe call it a night. What do you say?”
I nodded. “I’d like that. I’m definitely done for the day.” I reached up and held his hand on my shoulder.
Chapter 8
Gage
“Let’s run by your place and pick some of your things up so you have overnight clothes,” I said to Julia as I let go of her shoulder at the bottom of the stairs.
“That sounds good,” she said as she trudged up the stairs ahead of me.
She looked defeated. I had noticed as soon as she walked out of the room with Dimitri that she seemed worn down, exhausted. I wanted to ask her how it went, but I wanted to give her time to recover from it as well first. I didn’t want to bombard her with questions right away. She’d told me the gist of what he’d said already, and it was enough to make me want to send someone down to remind him of where he was, but I was saving all of that for later. I wanted to give her a chance to get information out of him before roughing him up.
I left Julia standing just inside the shop as I ducked into the office to see who was at the desk, just in case we had any official business come in. It was Chase, one of the brothers who’d taken down Dimitri in the first place.
He was sitting behind the metal desk in the corner, kicked back in the small office chair and watching something on his phone. “Hey, Chase,” I called abruptly, catching him off guard.
He grabbed the desk as the chair threatened to come out from underneath him. “Shit, Gage! What’s up?”
“Heading out with our translator for the night. While I’m keeping an eye on her, make sure somebody’s watching your boy downstairs.”
He nodded. “Will do. I’ll probably hang out here all night, so I’ll go down and check on him in a bit.”
“Be sure you do. And no funny business. He needs to be able to talk when we get back tomorrow,” I cautioned him.
“Got it.” He didn’t look back up from his phone, but I knew I could count on him to take care of business for us.
“Alright, let’s go.” I put my hand on the small of Julia’s back and walked her to the Suburban. Touching her sent shockwaves through my fingers, tingling all the way up my arm. I wanted to do horrible things to her, but when she was awake enough to enjoy them. She trudged with me to the car, barely picking up her feet, her shoulders slumped over.