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I press a forearm over my nose and lean forward to see exactly the kind of thing I expected: three severed heads sitting on a bloodstained cushion like artifacts in a history museum.
Konstantin pulls the collar of his shirt over his nose. But even with half his face covered, I can see the sickly gray pallor of his skin. “That’s quite the statement.”
“It’ll be answered in kind.” The threat is growled, vibrating through every bone in my body. “Start picking off his men one by one. Drop them off at his personal properties, his remaining businesses, his mistresses’ houses. Make it fucking rain blood. Don’t let up until we flush him out.”
I step out of the security shack and take a deep breath of fresh air. My fists are knotted tight at my sides and my pulse is a pounding drumbeat at my temples.
Konstantin follows me out. “And if he still doesn’t show?”
“He’ll show. No one can stay hidden forever.”
“Did you tell Paige about the delivery?”
“No.” I turn to him to fix him with a harsh stare. “And she’s not going to find out, either. Addressing the package to her was a cheap attempt at riling me up.” I grimace. “Have the men bury the heads. Make sure we can trust them all to keep this thing quiet.”
“That’s going to be hard to do.” Konstantin glances back at the guards warily.
“She only needs to stay in the dark for a short time. Until I figure out our next move.”
“The Babai—”
“The Babai have been silent for far too long. Your mother’s bedtime ghost stories notwithstanding, it’s starting to make me question going to them in the first place.” I shake my head in disgust. “I’m going to go shower. The smell of blood always takes forever to rinse off. Let me know when the corpses are disposed of.”
I take the back stairs to my office. Paige is in the nursery with my mother, and I don’t want to risk running into her before I’ve washed the stink off my body.
When I walk into my office, the window next to my desk has been pushed open. Last time I tried to wedge it open, the hinges were so rusted they wouldn’t budge.
I scan the room, but nothing else is out of place. There’s no other sign of anyone having been here.
Then I turn to my desk and see the note.
It’s sitting in the center of my chair, out of sight from the doorway, but obvious once I come around the desk. Written in cursive with thick black ink. The paper itself is thick and pristinely white.
It will take time. Have patience. The Babai never fail.
“Fucking hell,” I breathe.
How the fuck did they get in here undetected?
I spend the next hour checking my security feed again and again. All I find is a minute and eleven seconds of static and dead air. When the feed comes back on again, the window is open and the note is where I found it.
“Fuck,” I mutter again.
Konstantin may be right about his old wives’ tales.
39
MISHA
Days pass without any more packages. I’m returning from work, head lost in thought, but as I pass through the gates, I notice a flashy black convertible purring out front of the mansion.
Konstantin notices it, too. He leans forward and whistles. “There are only three cars like that in the world. And one of them belongs to—”
“Klim,” we say together.
Konstantin smirks and drops back into the passenger seat. “The old man is paying you a house call. Must be important.”
I park behind Klim’s showboat and get out, then take the stairs three at a time until I burst into the foyer.
