The operation to retrieve her father came close to failing. Iker moved him before we arrived. The location we had earlier was empty, meaning Iker knew it could happen. What followed was a hunt through territory I had no interest in crossing. I built a messier plan that left marks and started conversations between men who communicate exclusively through violence.
Going out as Luigi carried its own logic. That name had a reputation I shaped over the years, a signature that announceditself without apology. Luigi doesn’t slip in and out; he arrives, takes what he came for, and leaves evidence. Evidence was the message. I left marks scattered behind me to redirect Iker’s attention toward a ghost while I moved in the opposite direction.
It always worked.
But as I walked out with one bullet, Inna’s father absorbed more bullets than a man his age could survive. He was unconscious, and here was Inna taking care of a small wound. If she knew the shape her father was in, she wouldn’t be treating me like I was at the edge.
She didn’t have to know about her father yet. Not until I knew whether or not he would survive.
I noticed her head drop as she finally surrendered to sleep. Her chin dipped toward her chest and came to rest against the edge of the mattress. Her fingers curled around my injured hand. She always argues about everything, including sleep.
I watched her for a moment. The furrow between her brows was gone, and the hair she was always pushing back fell across her cheek.
Shifting to sit up, Inna jumped awake.
“What happened?” Her hands moved toward my face.
I leaned back against the headboard and watched her. She reached for the cloth and rinsed it. Her hand moved toward my forehead, but I caught her wrist.
“That’s enough.”
She looked at me. “What?”
I nodded toward the empty side of the bed. “Get in bed.”
Her brows drew together. “What if you need something?” I pulled her wrist toward the mattress. “Fine,” she muttered. “Only because you insist.”
She climbed beside me and settled against the headboard in a sitting position. She stared forward as if she expected a signal before she could lie down.
After a moment, she turned her head toward me, eyelids heavy, losing the fight completely. “Are you feeling better?”
I lifted the edge of the blanket and gestured toward the pillow. “You look like the one dying. Lie down.”
She groaned but obeyed, sliding down until her head met the pillow. Even then, she kept her eyes on me with a stubborn vigilance.
“I still think you should see a doctor,” she murmured. “And whoever attacked you, shouldn’t you report it?”
“Sleep.”
I reached for my phone, and the movement dragged a dull, specific ache through my shoulder and down into my arm.
“Don’t you care about your body? This is serious, you should—”
“Inna.”
She looked at me. “Hm.”
A sharp response sat on my tongue, a final one that would end the conversation without ceremony. I had the words, but when I looked down at her face, I didn’t use them. There was nothing in her eyes except pure concern. She was simply worried.
I set the phone down and reached over to pull the blanket higher around her shoulders.
“Enough talking,” I said. “Sleep.”
Her eyelids dragged lower.
“We’re still talking when I wake up,” she murmured, the words softening and blurring at the edges as sleep moved through her.
Talk? There wasn’t going to be any talking. What was going to happen was attending Iker’s event. I would show up at that event as though nothing had happened. He invited Dmitri Konstantinov, and that was who would show up.
