A violent man who killed my sister is awful enough.
The head of an actual criminal outfit? That’s leagues worse.
I thought, when I first bound myself to this vengeance mission at Giana’s funeral, that it would be over soon. If you’d told me then that her killer would still be breathing five years later, I wouldn’t have believed you and alsogo to fucking hell.
Not only is he still alive, though, and not only is his death proving to be more complicated than ever, but I’ve also foundmyselfmore compromised than I ever planned on being.
Matvei is my only way out. If he doesn’t come good on his promises… I am, to put it plainly, fucked.
They’ll keep you and use you as leverage… Or worse.
A hostage to a shadowy criminal syndicate, in a country where the law is whatever the richest man in the room says it is… Apregnanthostage, no less…
Once upon a time, before that double pink line, I used to think that if it was just my life at risk, I could afford to be reckless. I could throw myself at this whole thing with both hands and not care if I got my fingers chewed off. I’d sworn to Giana over her closed casket that I’d get him, and I’d meant it, and if I died trying, well, I’d see her on the other side and we’d have a nice long yap about it.
I still feel that way about my life, mostly.Mylife can burn. Fine. I’ve made peace with that.
But it’s not justmylife anymore.
There’s a person in there. A barely-there, blueberry-sized person who didn’t sign up for any of this, who is currently sharing my bloodstream with four years of cortisol. Six weeks from now, that teeny-tiny fruit will be on a plane to the Caymans, the hidden carry-on luggage stashed inside a woman who is being shepherded into a room full of men who would think nothing of putting a bullet in her if it gets them one inch closer to whatever it is they want.
I hear the clank and gurgle of the pipes above me as Raymond starts his shower. The flush of a toilet follows a moment later. The biological reality of him is as unchanged as ever. He’s a man, just a man, soft and hungover and killable.
And yet.
And yet.
I know in the marrow of my bones what he’s capable of. If I get on that plane, I am not getting off it. Not really. Not as me. Maybe my body comes home to JFK, but the rest of me—and the small thing inside me—will not.
One blue-eyed bastard is the difference between which of those fates comes to pass.
I don’t feel sick about how much I have to trust Matvei. I don’t feel scared, even. I feel something a lot meaner and a lot steadier than that, something I haven’t felt since I stood over Giana’s casket and made my promise to a closed lid.
I feelangry.
Mama Bear, it turns out, has teeth. And now, she has a friend.
Will that be enough?
15
MAT
My office has felt like a tomb since the day I first stepped through the doors of Snyder & Oglethorpe.
Today, it feels more like that than ever.
The cleaners have come and gone, so I’m all alone. The lights on the floor are still set to the motion sensors. Every time I shift in my chair, the overheads click on and blind me. Every time I sit still long enough to think, they wink off again, and I’m plunged into darkness.
I’ve been here since five. I couldn’t sleep. I drove home from the Mandarin around two, walked into my apartment, took off my jacket, hung it up, then put it right back on and walked out again. There was no point pretending I was going to close my eyes.
So now, I’m at my desk with a folder open in front of me, the same folder Afon dropped in my lap three weeks ago.
I’m supposed to be planning. The devil’s in the details, they say, and that’s where I belong: planning, scheming, plotting, preparing.
I’m supposed to be deciding which night, which window, which gun. I’m supposed to be thinking about the little plastic bag of residue that goes on Cass’s fingers and the way I’ll arrange her hand on the grip so the ballistics make sense.
Instead, I keep thinking about her tiny, scared, defiant voice ringing out in the darkness.
