"He couldn't be in Paris enough. He couldn't be in Ohio enough. He could not pick. He made her wait, and she waited, and she died waiting. That was your father."
She died at her sewing machine. Don't say sewing machine, Nikita. Don't fucking say it.
"She was sick before he started Paris," I said. The words came out before I knew I was going to say them. "She had a heart thing. Pop didn't put her in the ground."
"Aleksi."
"He didn't kill her. People want to make it that simple, but it isn't."
"Aleksi. Listen to yourself."
I shut up. I'd been about to defend my father. Across the desk from the man who'd known him longer than I had. Known him in rooms I'd never been in. I'd walked in here ready to be dressed down about a leak and instead I was defending Sacha Laskin like a teenager.Real convincing, Aleksi.
"I loved Sacha. He was Yuri's brother. I would have buried anyone for him. But he was a coward in the one place a man cannot afford to be cowardly."
I shot to my feet, fists balled. If Nikita were any other man, I'd have punched him, and he knew it. The fucker knew what he was saying, and what it cost me to sit and listen to it, and he said it anyway.
"Just say what you need to say," I spat. "And leave the dead out of this. You got a problem with me? Fucking say it to my face,Nikita. We’ve known each other long enough you owe me that much."
He sighed. "I don't have a problem with you. That is not what this is. I'm trying to offer you advice. Learn from your father's mistakes. Whatever you're going to do, do it all the way. No half measures, da?"
"Nikita —"
He held up a finger, cutting me off. "And as for the job, you're going to walk out of here and find Mr. K's leak. You'll have Pavel's three names, and you'll watch them, and you'll bring me a name in seventy-two hours."
"Understood."
"I'm not finished, Aleksi." He leaned forward. "If in seventy-two hours you have not brought me a name, I have to assume the leak came out of your apartment. So if you do not give me a name by Friday morning, I will pull the boy. Gregori will collect him. I will hand him to Pavel, and Pavel will find out everything he knows. And then what's left will go to Yuri and his boys to dispose of. Do we understand one another?"
Fucking hell. He was a fucking prisoner. Why the fuck was I freaking out? I shouldn't care what happened to him. But I found myself blurting, "And what about my father's jacket?"
His brow furrowed. "It's just a jacket, Aleksi."
Except it wasn't. Not to me.
"Look, if it's a problem, let me solve it." He put his glass down next to mine. "I can have your Scotsman moved to a safe house. He can fix your jacket and—"
"No," I said too quickly. I cleared my throat. "I mean… No. It's fine. I've got him handled. He's slippery. We have an agreement in place. If he were in someone else's care—"
"You don't have to explain it to me, Aleksi." He patted my shoulder on the way past me to pull open the door. "Go home. Do what you need to do. I'll call you later, da?"
"Sure," I said and walked through the open door.
In the hallway I stood for a second with my hand against the wall.
The interview room at the back of the floor had gone quiet. Pavel's morning was wrapping up, and somewhere in this building there was a body or a man who wished he was a body, and that was the room Fin would be in on Friday morning if I didn't bring Nikita a name.
But that wasn't even the biggest problem I had. Not anymore.
"Fuck," I said to no one and pushed off the wall.
Aleksi had come homeat four and gone straight into the kitchen without looking at me. Ten minutes of cupboard doors slamming and cutlery noise later, the flat smelled like mustard and cheap ham. He hadn't offered me anything. I'd have taken it. I've been telling myself I wouldn't for two hours.
I'd been bent over the jacket since dawn, long past the satisfying stage of the work and into the stage where restoration became patience and chemistry. It was a gamble whether your spine gave out before the adhesive did. The hide was pinned open under the lamp, and I'd cut compatible backing pieces wafer-thin. The resin was curing in slow, tacky layers that wanted exactly what they wanted and punished you for improvising.
Unfamiliar tweezers sat beside my hand.
I missed my granddad's set. My da had given the leatherworking tools to me when I turned eighteen. But they were gone now — in that bastard's hands, an ocean from where they belonged.
