Christopher Golden - Sons of Anarchy - Bratva

Oleg and Feliks emerged from the car a few seconds behind her. Gavril waited behind the wheel, right hand no doubt on the ignition. They had no key, but getting the engine running would take the man half a second. He’d done this once or twice before.

Carney stepped out of his pickup and put his hands to the small of his back the way aging men always did. He stretched and then ambled toward them, more cowboy now than the Irish boy he’d been raised.

“Miss Dunphy,” he said.

She wanted to tell him her real name, but she could not. Oleg might decide that information was worth killing him for.

“I ought to tell you now,” Carney went on, “I’m not real comfortable with this.”

Feliks dropped his hand back a bit, the better to reach for the gun tucked into his rear waistband if he had the need.

Oleg seemed about to open his mouth and reveal his accent, but Trinity shot him a look that made him as silent as Feliks.

“There’s nothin’ for you to be uncomfortable about, Mr. Carney,” she said. “You’re introducin’ an old friend to a new one, that’s all. If you’d rather not stick around after the introductions are made, nobody here will hold it against you.”

Carney shifted awkwardly and glanced up at the house. “Oscar might.”

The friend in Belfast who’d given her Carney’s name had told her that the man had been on the straight and narrow path for many years. His discomfort at being involved with anything outside the law seemed genuine enough, but he’d agreed to bring them here, and once involved, it wasn’t the sort of thing he could easily walk away from.

Carney seemed to recognize this truth a second or two after Trinity had. He sighed with a let’s-get-on-with-it expression and headed for the sprawling ranch house’s front door with Trinity, Oleg, and Feliks in tow. Gavril remained behind the wheel of the Mercedes until the door opened and a bearded man in a rust-colored sport coat beckoned for them to come inside.

At the door, Carney greeted the bearded man whose name seemed to be Aaron. Aaron Something didn’t bother to introduce himself to his employer’s guests. Trinity would have taken him for a fool with his crisp new blue jeans and unscuffed, pointed-toe cowboy boots, but she saw the slight bulge of a weapon beneath his sport coat and a dark intelligence that glittered in his eyes like tiny burning coals. This man was more than a thug.

Aaron led them into a foyer and gestured toward a small table beneath a coat rack. “Leave your guns right here. They’ll be waiting for you on the way out.”

A ripple of unease went through them all. Trinity shot Oleg a dark look and he nodded, watching Aaron carefully as he drew the pistol out of his rear waistband and set it on the table. Gavril and Feliks followed suit.

“What about you?” the man asked, turning to Trinity.

“I’m just here to talk,” she said. “I don’t even like guns.”

He studied her a moment, taking in her jeans and boots and the thin cotton sweater she wore. Aaron was trying to figure her out, what she might be doing with these men, and Trinity could tell he hadn’t managed it yet. Neither had she.

“Strange company you keep, if that’s the case,” he said.

“No argument from me.”

He gestured for them to move deeper into the house. “Mr. Temple is waiting for you in the kitchen.”

“The kitchen?” Trinity echoed.

No one said a word. Carney followed Aaron, and she and her Russian boys were obliged to go along. At first it seemed odd to her that the man would welcome them in his kitchen instead of a study or sitting room, but of course the kitchen was more intimate, more personal… and somehow more hospitable. Meant to create the illusion that they were all friends and could speak their minds.

They found Oscar Temple chopping vegetables at the granite-topped center island. He wore a big Colt pistol on his hip like a marshal in the Old West, the leather belt and holster as oiled and supple as a young boy’s precious baseball mitt. A pot simmered on the fancy stove, and Trinity’s stomach growled at the wonderful aroma that filled the room.

“Hello, John,” Temple said warmly. “And hello to your friends.”

“Evening, Oscar,” Carney replied.

Temple glanced at the window over the sink. “Is it evening already? Well, she sure snuck up on us, didn’t she?”

On a second cutting board was a whole chicken that he’d stripped, the meat stacked on a plate. Once he’d put the meat and vegetables back into the spicy broth that simmered on the stove, he’d have quite a stew.

“Smells good, doesn’t it, Miss…,” Temple said, glancing her way.

“Dunphy,” Trinity said. “Caitlin Dunphy.”

Temple wiped his hands on a dishrag and greeted her with a handshake. He’d zeroed in on her—maybe Carney had told him up front that she’d do the talking—and he didn’t bother to offer his hand to any of her companions. Trinity had a moment of total panic as she realized that, instead of being just Oleg’s girlfriend, she had taken part in a criminal endeavor, working with the Russian Mafia.

Lord, what am I doing? she thought, unable to take a breath.

Then she glanced at Oleg and remembered the answer. Staying alive. Keeping Oleg alive. This was her family now.

Light footsteps came from another corridor at the far side of the kitchen, and they all glanced over to see a brunette woman step in. Tanned and weathered, she wore her own variation on Aaron’s sport coat, complete with the bulge of a handgun. How many were there? Trinity wondered.

“Antoinette, there you are!” Temple said happily. “Could you give Miss Dunphy a pat-down, please? When you’re done, Aaron can do the same for her friends.”

“They left their guns at the door,” Trinity said. “And I’m not armed.”

“Could be that’s true,” Temple said. “But Antoinette is searching you for cameras or listening devices…”

He paused, studying Oleg before moving on to Gavril.

“Though, judging by your companions, I’m certain you’re on the up-and-up. Our federal friends are never quite this convincing,” he said, finishing with Feliks. “Russian, aren’t you?”

Trinity had told them to keep quiet, and they heeded her advice, saying nothing.

Temple glanced at her, reached up, and tapped the back of his own neck. “The tattoos, my dear.”

She glanced at Oleg, thinking of the crude images in the flesh at the back of his neck, remembering the times she had stroked that skin.

“Russian gulag is the only place you get something like that,” Temple said. “Do they still call them that, gulags? Or are they just prisons now?”

Gavril inched toward him, menace rolling off him in waves. “Do you have issue with Russians? A rule, maybe? You don’t do business with us?”

Trinity wanted to cuff him around the head but didn’t let her irritation show.

Oscar Temple held his hands wide to show they were all friends. “Not at all, tovarisch . Politics ain’t my game. I’m a businessman. Anyone willing to pay me in U.S. currency is American enough for me.”

Gavril nodded, perhaps reconsidering his decision to speak up. He glanced at Oleg and Trinity. Feliks had hung back, staying as close to Temple’s mustachioed bodyguard as possible.

“Go on and pat me down, then, Antoinette,” Trinity said, hoping she sounded friendlier than she felt.

The woman went about the task thoroughly enough that Trinity figured it qualified as her first girl-on-girl experience. When Antoinette finished, she retreated into the hallway from which she’d appeared, and it was Aaron’s turn to pat down the Russians. Oleg and the boys shifted uncomfortably as Aaron took his time.