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“Are you ordering me around now?” he scoffs.
“It’s about the Bratva. It’s important.”
He’ll come if he thinks it has something to do with work. He’s always felt more like my boss than my father.
Maybe that’s for a good reason.
Maybe it’s because healready had a son.
100
TIMOFEY
I stop pacing across the kitchen when I hear the front door open.
“Well?” Sergey calls. His voice echoes through the rooms that feel emptier now than ever before. I never noticed it before Piper—how abandoned the place feels without her. She brought warmth with her when she lived here. Now, it’s cold and lifeless.
It doesn’t help that I have no fucking idea who I can trust.
“In here.” I move to the kitchen doorway.
Sergey walks past me, claiming a seat at the new island. “What’s so important it couldn’t wait until the morning?”
“It’s about Emily.”
The moment the words are out of my mouth, he shakes his head and stands right back up. “Not this again, Timofey.”
“I told you I was going to look into her murder.”
“And I told you to let sleeping dogs lie!”
“Emily’s murder never made any sense to me,” I continue coolly. “Why would someone go after her and not me or you? The only person who ever made sense as her killer was Rodion.”
“Who was in Russia at the time,” he finishes, waving a hand in the air. “I’m leaving. We’ve talked about all of this endlessly.”
“But we haven’t talked about why you’ve been defending him so fiercely.”
“Because he was in Russia,” he repeats. “Rodion is a good hitman, but even he can’t take a sniper shot from half a world away.”
“He could have hired someone to do it for him,” I offer up.
“He didn’t.”
I nod. “You’re probably right.”
Sergey looks over his shoulder at me. “Is this you finally seeing reason?”
“I think I finally am. I mean, why would Rodion hire a hitman to take Emily out the day he was set to return from Russia? If he wanted to make sure he was in the clear, he would have done it in the middle of his trip. He wouldn’t have waited until the last minute. It’s almost like someone wanted to make sure Emily was dead before he could come back and talk to her.”
My adopted father goes perfectly still. Apparently, I’m not seeing the reason he hoped.
After a few seconds, he shrugs. “Maybe. But we’ve looked into it, Timofey.”
“Rodion has tortured countless Albanians in search of her killer. I’ve kicked down the doors of all of our enemies. None of the usual suspects seem to be at fault.”
“Because there is nothing to be found.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” I walk through the connected sitting room and move into the entryway, blocking Sergey’s path to the exit. “The problem is that I’ve been kicking down doors… when the killer was in my house all along.”
