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Aleksander
The rest of the day feels like the slowest progression of events I’ve ever experienced in my life. I wait for hours, pacing the house up and down until I can see tracks in the carpet along the living room. I can’t even distract myself well enough to be productive about anything else. This situation needs to consume me until it’s been dealt with.
It takes a few hours, but eventually I receive a call from Anthony.
“Hey, I know it’s late, but we figured out where Grisha is. Brace yourself, you aren’t going to like it,” he says in an uncharacteristically cautious voice.
“Fuck, is it that bad? Could it be any worse than it already is?” I reply, exasperated.
He sighs heavily, which is always a bad sign coming from him. “Come on, don’t put that shit out into the ether. We don’t need it to get even worse.”
“Anthony, just fucking tell me what the issue is. No more stalling,” I command.
“Fine, so we found out that Grisha left for Tokyo as soon as he heard that two of his men were murdered. We don’t know if he’s there on business or if he’s just escaping from the cops for now, but that’s where he is.”
I lean my head against the wall, my mind spinning with frustration and uncertainty. Tokyo?! He couldn’t have just gone back to Russia where I can speak the language? Goddamn him. I know it’s stupid to expect that he’s done all of this to antagonize me rather than as an act of self-preservation. Still, I’m irritated beyond belief. I’m fully anticipating one of my blood vessels to burst soon from the stress of it all.
“Alright, so we’re going to Tokyo then. Not everyone, but at least you and three others. It’s your lucky day. You get to pick who comes with,” I reply as a headache begins to form behind my left eye.
He pauses before answering, and I’m pretty sure he’s uncertain whether I’m joking. I’ve never put him in charge of choosing men for a mission, but now that I have Faye to worry about, I need him to step up.
“Okay, uh, I’ll get some guys together and I’ll make sure we’re ready to leave. When do you want us to depart?”
“As soon as humanly possible. I have to charter a plane last-minute, so we might at least have until the morning to prepare. No matter what, I need you guys to be ready to leave within minutes,” I reply.
Even the silence of the house is deafening as my inner monologue crescendos throughout my head. I have ten different voices screaming entirely contradicting orders at me. All of them represent mentors from my past who would fight to the death if they had to coordinate a mission this huge on such short notice.
I wish I could just talk to my dad.
“Alright, just let me know as soon as you know.”
We exchange our goodbyes and hang up, but my mind doesn’t stop racing after the call is done. I’m about to jump headfirst into the most complicated, high-risk mission I’ve ever seen with no guidance at all.
Not only that, but I still have to bring Faye with me. Bringing a combined hostage-fugitive over the border into a foreign country will add so much time to my sentence if I’m caught, but letting her go could cause even more issues for me. I still don’t trust her, even though she presents as less of a threat to me now. She might be a bit girly and annoying, but I can’t underestimate her.
I send my assistant to purchase a small capsule wardrobe for Faye, with preferences for what I’d like to see her dressed in throughout the trip. I don’t consult her at all because I’m convinced that she has questionable taste based on what I’ve seen her wear. If I must have her with me, I want to have a nicely packaged ass to look at when I walk behind her.
It takes a few hours, but I’m so wrapped up in trying to charter a plane that I don’t even realize that the time has gone by. After three hours of enraging phone calls and being hung up on, I find someone who can fly us out first thing in the morning. It’s early, and I know I’ll be in a piss-poor mood the entire time, but the time difference will be too unforgiving for us to allow any delays.
My assistant sends me a few photos of dresses she’s chosen, and some of them are absolutely gorgeous. I’m sure Faye’s curves will look fantastic in them, even if she’s not used to showing so much skin otherwise. Whatever, she needs to learn to love herself a little more. Nobody who looks like her should be limited to business casual.
Once my assistant has returned, I bring the clothes upstairs to the guest bedroom, where I find Fay napping. She’s probably been like that all day, and I can’t blame her. If she can sleep the whole day away while I panic to mitigate this situation, more power to her.
She’s sleepy when I wake her up, and her expression is confused and a little agitated when I turn the light on.
“I feel like you’re about to interrogate me about something,” she says, blinking slowly as her eyes adjust to the light.
“Yeah, well, I’m not. I’m here to bring you some new clothes,” I say, tossing shopping bags on the bed for her to look through.
“What? I mean, why are you buying me clothes? There’s no way I’m going to let you keep me here long enough for me to need new clothes. This is not my home and never will be,” she says, pouting.
“Jesus, just look through the bags and see what you like. The least you could do is say thank you,” I reply, annoyed and ready to lose my mind.
“I didn’t ask you to do this for me! Why would I thank you? For giving me a nice place to sleep after you kidnapped me? I have my own bed and clothes, so thanks for nothing,” she replies, and she grabs one of the bags from the foot of the bed.
She examines the paper bag, her eyes widening as she realizes where the clothes have come from. “Wait, all of this stuff is incredibly expensive. Why did you do this? How are you expecting me to repay this?”
I sigh, rubbing the spot on my head where my headache has spread. “It’s a gift. I can more than afford it. And you need the clothes because we’re going to Tokyo. There, are you happy?”
