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“I want to keep you alive more than I want to avoid the Babai,” he snaps. “Though it’s getting pretty close. Regardless—I’m coming with you.”
“You’re staying in the car. And that’s a fucking order, Konstantin.”
His jaw drops. I rarely use the don card on him out of respect for our familial bonds, but there are some days when it’s a necessity.
“It took eleven nights and three dead bodies before I managed to get their location and their names,” he grumbles, as if I needed the reminder. “No, not their names—because they don’t have fucking names anymore. Just titles.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m sure they’re extremely intimidating. Let me guess, Tweedledee, Tweedledoo, and Tweedledumbass? No, wait—Eenie, Miney, and Moe. Or—”
“The Bear. The Tiger. The Wolf,” Konstantin intones ominously.
I resist the urge to laugh in his face, because he’s actually sweating now. He runs his palms up and down the legs of his pants in a nervous tic.
“Catchy.”
“Don’t make light,” Konstantin spits. “This is no laughing matter. These are men who are capable of doing unspeakable things.”
“So am I.”
Konstantin falls silent as we turn down a deserted road. Derelict buildings rise up on either side like rotten teeth. “I forgot how depressing this place is.” He leans forward to look through the windshield, his lip curled.
I park along the cracked curb in front of The Alley Cat. The greased-over windows and fading neon lights are appropriately grim.
“What am I supposed to do?” Konstantin demands as I kill the engine. “Just sit here and wait for you like a trained poodle?”
“Exactly.”
He grits his teeth. “Misha.”
“I just gave you an order, Konstantin.”
He falls silent, his body tense. I clap him on the shoulder and get out of the car.
Three older babushkas are standing out front of a salon on the opposite side of the street. None of them bother to hide that they’re gawking. Even when I make eye contact, they don’t stop.
I forget all about the women when I step into The Alley Cat. The musty room is shrouded in shadows. The walls are a burgundy red, faded to black in sporadic places after years of cigarette smoke. It’s no wonder that most of the tables in here remain empty.
“Charming,” I mutter. I walk over to the bar to deliver the line Konstantin was instructed to use.
The bartender has the sallow skin and yellow-tinted teeth of a lifelong smoker. In Russian, I tell him “Ishchu okhotnika.”
I’m looking for a hunter.
The bartender drags his bloodshot eyes up to mine as if the effort required pains him. He takes me in for a long moment and then jerks his head towards a curtained door in the corner.
Unknowable sticky substances pull at my shoes as I cross the creaky floor. The curtain is the same red as the walls, but it’s moth-eaten. When I pull it back, a cloud of dust rises into the air.
The back room is much smaller than the main bar, but just as dingy. A single light hangs over a grimy, circular table. The kind of place where evil men play high-stakes card games for prizes that would turn your stomach.
It’s not that far off, I decide. The stakes are indeed high.
I’ll need to watch my back. At least until an arrangement has been struck.
If there’s one thing the Babai have, it’s a reputation. Once they’ve struck a deal with someone, they must honor it. If they don’t, the remaining Babai are honor-bound to kill the brother who breaks the pact.
The four chairs around the table are empty. It would seem I’m the only person in the room. But I can sense eyes on me from the shadows.
If this is a waiting game, I’m prepared to play. I sit down at the table and relax. Showing fear is a good way to get yourself killed.
