Achilles swirled his glass and laughed. "You think so? Why? Because you built some programs for the Pantheon? That doesn’t make you better. You’re still a coward. You still ran. You’ve spent the last decade hiding like a rat. But here’s the thing about rats, brother. They can die. You just need to find the right bait.”
I glanced out the window and then at the clock on the dash in the front seat. Diego would be past the first turn by now, halfway to the next town. He’d be safe.
Achilles took the vodka glass from me, refilled it, and sat it next to him. "So the question is… What’s the right bait to catch you? I’ve been turning it over in my head for a while now. I thought for a while it might be the Spaniard."
I brought the cigarette to my mouth and held the smoke longer than was comfortable.
"You are fucking him, yes?" Achilles settled back in his seat. "The smuggler. No judgment here, brother. Zeus always said you had a thing for people who made the first move." He refilled his glass. "Your mother. Nadia. Now this guy. I don’t blame you, I suppose. But after Nadia… I mean, my sister was a real beauty. Your Spaniard is…" He stuck out his hand and waved it. “Meh.”
I stubbed out the cigarette on the armrest and lit a fresh one. The lighter stung cold from the AC. Still the AC's fault, obviously.
"If you touch Diego Reyes," I said in Russian, low and flat and stripped down to the studs, "and I'll remove the hand. You look at him and I'll take your eyes and piss where they used to be. Then I'll package up what's left and ship it back to Zeus with a note saying send someone who knows what they're doing."
The car went completely silent for three solid seconds.
Then Achilles laughed, a real belly laugh. He slapped the seat, pointed at me, and looked at Patroklos like I'd just performed a magic trick. "There it is! Three minutes of stone-cold nothing,and then I mention the smuggler once." He wiped his eye with his knuckle. "You get that you just gave me everything, right?"
He was right. Diego was leverage now because I'd made him leverage myself. I'd kept distance for two years, held the line for two months in a shrinking kitchen, and blown it all in under ten seconds because Achilles said his name and I couldn't keep my fucking mouth shut.
Koschei's whole survival strategy was that nobody knew where the needle was. That was the only thing that kept him alive. And I'd just drawn Achilles a map to the exact island.
"And after I'm done with him," Achilles said, grin still up but the party completely gone now, "I'll visit his grandmother. His cousins. Every single person in that network, until there's nothing left of his world for you to crawl into." He poured more vodka. "Not because I need to. Just because it's entertaining."
Patroklos stayed in his corner, palms flat on his thighs, the scar at his mouth pulled tight.
"Or," Achilles dropped his voice lower. "Maybe I take the girl. Your daughter. Does she know, brother? Who you are to her? What you did to her mother?"
I glared at him.
He shrugged. “My father wants her, but the bitch means nothing to me. In fact, she’s more of an obstacle. Might be better for everyone if I just killed you all. Then I’d be my father’s heir instead of that brat.”
The cigarette dropped from my fingers.
I launched across the space, got both hands around his throat, and slammed him into the seat back hard enough to crack the headrest. The vodka went flying. I drove his head into the window. The glass spiderwebbed. I did it again, and blood erupted from his scalp. A growl tore out of my throat that I didn't recognize, raw, continuous. I freed a hand and drove it into hisnose once, twice, three times, before something cold pressed against my throat.
Cold metal closed around my throat, and I froze.
Achilles laughed. "There she is." He pointed at me with a bloody finger. "The smuggler was good, entertaining even, but this." He gestured at his own wrecked face. "This is the truth."
“If you fucking touch her—”
“You’ll what?” He pulled a handkerchief from his jacket and pressed it to his nose. “Kill me? You can try, brother. But you’ll fail. Because unlike you, I don’t have any weaknesses.”
Patroklos’ blade bit deeper. Heat opened along my throat where the edge found skin.
I thought about Eight on her step stool, arms crossed, evaluating breakfast. I thought about her wedged in the corner by the fridge with her knees up, and standing in every doorway, tracking me the way she tracked everything she'd decided was worth keeping alive.
“Fine,” I growled. “You want to kill me? Then, fucking kill me. Do it. What are you waiting for?”
Achilles poured fresh vodka and one for me, slid it across the console, and settled back with his hand on Patroklos's thigh. Blood was still running from his nose into his mouth, and the window was cracked from his own skull, but he sat there like the last two minutes had happened in a different dimension.
Patroklos released me, and I caught a flash of a curved metal blade before he hid it away again.
"Because killing you isn't enough," Achilles said eventually. "Dead is simple. Dead is finished. I want more than finished. I want you to suffer. I want everyone to look at what happened to you and think twice before they cross me. So… I’m letting you go. But don’t think of it as mercy, brother. I know you’re running to the Kalderash. You'll stand in front of your smuggler's people and plead, and they'll reject you because you brought a war totheir doorstep. You'll see his face when he realizes what you cost him." He leaned in. "Then the exits close. Allies, resources, piece by piece, until all you have left is your daughter and nowhere safe to take her. And when you're on your knees begging for it to end..." He paused. The grin widened. "That's when I come for you. And you'll be grateful."
The SUV pulled over on gravel. Achilles reached across me and opened the door. Warm night air rolled in, carrying dust and dry grass.
"It’s been good catching up," he said. "But I believe we both have places to be, no?"
