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He shakes his head. “Grandpa tells it better.”
I flinch. “I’ll try to tell the story like he does, okay?”
Adam shakes his head again and burrows deeper into my arms. The gaunt man gets behind the wheel and, without a word, steers us away.
God only knows where we’re going.
* * *
Half an hour later, we pull into the parking lot of a crumbling motel on the outskirts of the city. I can only imagine what is currently happening to the Lexus we left behind. It’s probably swarming with Zakharov men and corrupt cops on the Bratva payroll, combing through the seats in search of clues like hunting dogs.
The gaunt man opens my door. He hoists Adam out before I can tell him to keep his hands to himself. He offers to help me down to my feet, but I ignore him and step out on my own.
My skin is crawling. Invisible ants crisscrossing over the back of my neck and knees. This place just feels wrong. Ugly and trash-strewn and anonymous. People die here and no one bats an eye.
Wemight die here and no one would bat an eye.
But Celine seems confident. Even as a man peels himself off a shadowy stretch of wall and saunters over to where we’re standing in the blazing sun, she doesn’t waver. Her chin is high and proud.
“My apologies about the unfortunate location, ladies,” the new man croons. “It’s the best I could do under short notice.”
He steps out of the blind spot and I see him properly for the first time. It takes me a long time to recognize him because he’s changed so much since we last met. He was thin and handsome then; now, he’s got a taut beer belly, a salt-and-pepper beard, and a patchwork quilt of wrinkles marring his face.
“Hello, Benedict,” Celine says. “It’s been a long time.”
61
ILARION
“We need to get our stories straight before we speak to Taylor and Celine,” Mila warns.
The three of us are standing around the spot where Archie died. The chair has collapsed on the floor, its broken leg sticking out at an odd angle.
Archie’s body has been moved into one of the vehicles. I want to prepare it before either Celine or Taylor happen to see it. He’s going to look as content as it’s possible to be in death before I let either one of his daughters near him.
“There will be no story,” I growl. “I’ll tell them the truth.”
Dima’s eyebrows hit the top of his forehead. “That sounds like a suicide mission.”
“Give them more credit,” I snap. “Both women are aware of the lengths that Benedict is capable of going to just to survive.”
“Except, what was the point here?” Mila fires back, her brow wrinkling with skepticism. “I mean, all this just serves to piss you off. And really, for all he knows, he did you a favor. Why would he bother?”
That’s been troubling me, too. From the moment the quiet settled in after Archie’s heart stopped beating, I’ve been turning the question over and over again in my head.
Why?
“The point could have been Archie’s death,” Dima suggests. “The old man betrayed him by giving you his safehouse location. It’s the reason he lost his brother.”
“No. No, we’re missing something.”
Mila starts walking around the factory floor. Her footsteps echo against the walls. Rats and cockroaches skitter away from her in fear.
“Look around,” I instruct Dima. “There was a trap here. We just haven’t—"
I break off when I notice a thin wire at the far corner wall, arcing just over one of the windows. “Get me something to stand on,” I order nobody in particular. “A chair, a box, anything.”
My men procure a wooden crate and drag it over in front of the tall window. I climb up and follow the path of the wire. It winds along the mortar channels between bricks. Up, up, into a layer of shadows out of my reach. But where the rest of the wall is dusty, my fingertip comes away clean when I drag it down the wire.
