Teddy didn’t give Carmine the chance to answer. “You know damn well what he did to me! He set me up!” she shouted.
“Tut-tut, dirty cop,” Stas chided Carmine, using the toe of his pointed boot. And then he called out another order over his shoulder. “Check her.”
Three of the men were up on their feet in no time flat, but she was prepared for this. They wanted to see if she had some kind of recording device on her before Stas spoke to her.
Teddy whipped the gun upward and pointed it at Andre’s ugly mug. “Not him! He’s the asshole who rammed a knife in my gut because he was too much of a dick to take a beating from a woman. And his breath smells like toxic waste.”
The men all began to howl with laughter, jamming their fists into Andre’s ribs and razzing him while he scowled.
Stas snapped his fingers, eliminating all sound. He swished a finger at the biggest of the lot. “Bogdan. You. Go.”
Bogdan approached her with caution, his youthful face leery until she held her arms up. “If you go anywhere you shouldn’t on my body, I splatter your face all over this bar.”
Cormac coughed, likely reminding her she was taking her method acting too far.
As he patted her down, Stas eyed her, his gaze never straying from her face. When Bogdan nodded to show she was clean, he approached, totally unaffected by the gun in her hand.
He stood toe to toe with her, his arms crossed over his chest, oozing charm and sniffing the air around her. “You are like us?”
Teddy moved the gun between them and sniffed back. She couldn’t tell what breed he was, but he was bear shifter, just as she’d thought. With that, she prayed he hadn’t scented Marty or Cormac. Nina had covered them in something that was supposed to disguise their scents. The last thing they wanted was for Stas to discover Cormac and Marty were worthy opponents.
There was no use denying what she was, so Teddy gave him a curt nod. “I am. Coincidence, right?”
His eyebrow rose upward. “So what is it you want in return from Stas, eh? Tell me details, malutka.”
Now that he was this close, her heart began to clang in her chest again. But she barreled ahead into step seven.
Close the deal.
“I want you to let me go, free and clear. I had nothing to do with any of this. Your goon dragged me into it by setting me up with his bullshit bounty story. You should be paying me for finding this douchebag Vitali for you. I didn’t even know you existed until all this went down. I’ve heard the whole story about how you killed some guy, who I bet was chicken-shit’s partner, Mauricio, and Vitali’s sister saw you, then you kidnapped her and her brother, blah-blah-blah. But here’s the thing. I don’t care! I just want to get the hell away from you and them, and I want your assurance you’ll leave me alone. Have Carmine fix what he did by plastering my face all over the news and let me go. Forever.”
Stas looked at her a long time, the wheels of his mind turning with diabolic plots, no doubt. Then suddenly his face was wreathed in a wide smile, lighting up when his gaze strayed to the corner of the room where Cormac and Marty sat.
“Of course! How could I forget about my Antonia? It’s been so long since we saw each other. Where have you been? Come to me, my dove,” he said, holding out his hand.
Cue Cormac and his acting debut.
He shielded Marty from Stas, keeping her body behind him. “You leave her the fuck alone, Vasilyev!”
Stas sighed as though bored, his shoulders sagging as he turned to face Cormac. “You,” he said with a freakishly fond look of pride in his eyes and a stab in the air of his index finger. “You are strong, like bull. No crying or whining the whole time we keep you in cellar. We chop your finger off and you hardly make sound. Brave boy, dah?”
“You son of a bitch, you didn’t just hack off my finger. You ruined my goddamn life!”
“What?” He gave Cormac a look of utter astonishment. “You don’t like Colorado? It is much like my home. Beautiful snow, animals everywhere. I did you favor!”
“You killed a man, held me hostage, and I had to hide like the criminal. How the fuck is that doing me a favor?”
Stas clucked his tongue and stroked the fringe on his red scarf. “Your sister, she talks too much. Just like woman, yes? Always with the gab-gab-gab. It’s a pity she must die. She is so pretty. Pretty girls should live forever.”
Marty whimpered; for effect or as a signal, Teddy couldn’t be sure. One thing she could be sure of, Cormac wasn’t acting. His rage, pent up for so long, was seeping out.
But Stas still hadn’t admitted to killing Carmine’s partner.
Stas made a move toward Cormac and Marty, but Teddy waved him away with the gun. “I didn’t hear you say we had a deal. Them in exchange for my freedom.”
“Shh, shh, shh, Poopsie. I’m thinking.” He tapped a finger to the side of his head.