Coffee will help. A strong, dark brew helps settle the world.
It’s too early for Kit to get up, so I make myself a pour over cup, strong as jet fuel.
Feeling almost human again, I open my laptop at the dining table.
Work.All the work I’ve been too distracted to focus on recently.
That’ll keep me busy, and then I won’t have to think about Cleo and her future. Won’t have to dwell on passing on her invitation last night, an offer to merge lives that will never make sense.
I wonder how long this can go on, the silence between us filled with a thousand words.
I bet she’s telling Margot all about it, the whole dumb situation.
Up until now, I never understood what the kids meant when they saidsituationship.I’ve decided I don’t like it.
Chugging my coffee, I drag a hand through my hair and open my emails. There’s a new one from Fairfax withURGENTin the subject line.
“Shit,” I whisper.
I tap the message.
Fairfax’s style is short and succinct.
He says he’s identified a PhD student of a Russian professor he contacted in Hungary. Apparently, that student has ties to the Black Talon Group. The professor swears he never leaked a word about the Hera Egg.
However, it’s possible the student had unauthorized access to the professor’s files, either through the professor’s own negligence or the student hacking.
How fucking convenient.
Fairfax promises to follow up and find out, and I want to believe him.
Black Talon?
Fuck me.
I don’t even need to dig to know they’re infamous. They’ve been the tip of the spear in several black-market related ops and hits in Africa, Syria, Ukraine.
Guns for hire. Pirates. Often employed by rogue governments when they aren’t willing to strike out on their own for plunder.
Still, I leave no stone unturned, refreshing my memory as I flick through articles online. I pay close attention to their organizational structure, their logistics, studying how they work.
There’s a boatload of recent speculation about their involvement in several big heists involving priceless artifacts. Ancient church relics in Damascus, Sumerian pieces from northern Iraq, even an unsolved precision robbery in Tuscany that knocked off some rare Etruscan art.
A man with a black beard and blacker eyes at the head, Viktor Guchkov. He wears the same kind of expression I’ve only ever seen on terroristic fucks during my service.
The kind of man who traded another piece of his soul, his humanity, with every throat he slashed.
The kind of monster who wouldn’t think twice about inventing new, horrific tortures if it means another paycheck.
Convenient. Again.
With Fairfax working in this field, he should’ve known the security risks—probably better than I do.
But he’ll have contacts protecting his ass. Not to mention his connections, a few degrees removed from the Russian underworld.
I shake my head, snarling at Guchkov’s ugly, dead-eyed photo on the screen.
Is it a ruse or is Fairfax helping us?
