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Get the fuck out of Dodge…
And take Benjamin with me.
40
TIMOFEY
Sergey leans back on the sofa with a groan. When he meets my eyes again, he rolls his own. “Don’t look at me like that. I made it here, didn’t I?”
I gesture towards the setting sun. “Barely.”
“I had more important things to do.”
More important than this?What kind of father has more important shit than this?I want to ask. But that’s whathewants. That’s who he is to me right now—just “Sergey.” Not my father.
I learned early on that the father who adopted me and the man who once ran the Viktorov Bratva are not one and the same. Sergey has sides to him, masks he puts on and takes off as it pleases him.
“We need to talk about how to handle the investigation,” I say, shifting to the matter at hand.
“No, we don’t,” Sergey counters. “They don’t have anything.”
“We don’t know that.”
He levels his gaze at me. There are more wrinkles around his eyes and across his forehead than there used to be. Age has dragged down his jawline and turned his ever-present frown into an unintentional droop. But I still recognize the stubborn set of his mouth.
“Rodion didn’t kill Emily.”
I grimace. “You know damn well that—”
“He has slaughtered plenty of people,” Sergey interrupts. “You know his signs as well as I do. His cutesy little calling cards. Emily was a clean kill.”
“Nothing about that was clean,” I grit out.
Scenes flash before my eyes. Blood. Screams. Nightmare fuel.
“Pah! You know what I mean. Whoever did it didn’t delight in death the way Rodion does.”
I do know what he means, as much as I wish I didn’t. I’ve killed people; it comes with the job. I don’t feel guilty about it, either. But the thought that Rodion genuinely enjoys the slaughter will never not skeeze me the fuck out.
I drag a hand through my hair. “So he didn’t string up her bowels like streamers. That doesn’t mean he isn’t guilty. He knows we’d expect something like that from him.”
“He wasn’t even in the country, for fuck’s sake,” Sergey snaps. “He was in Russia. You know this.”
I do. That doesn’t make it any easier to believe. Very few people could have killed someone close to me and gotten away without leaving a trace.
Rodion is one of those few.
Sergey leans forward, elbows resting on his knees. “You need to let this go, son.”
“Lethergo, you mean.”
Sergey takes a deep breath and nods. “If that’s what it takes, then yes. You are alive. Do what you need to do to keep it that way.”
“Is that a threat, Otets?”
“You aren’t a child anymore,” Sergey says by way of an answer. “I don’t need to threaten you to get you to comply. You know I’m right.”
“I know youthinkyou’re right.”
