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I try not to look at the snow globe. Most days, I make a studied effort to look anywhere else but at it. Today, though, I’m drawn to it like it’s the only thing in the room.
It’s easy to remember things when I watch those snowflakes meander through the painted gray sky. I can almost smell the mountains again. Fresh bark. Pine-scented moss.
I told myself when we fled the Diamond like two thieves in the night that I’d leave the past behind me. I’d shut the door on my old life and burn the memories to ashes. What good would they serve me in the future? The answer is none. Not at all. So let them die, right? Let them wither away and disappear.
But that’s the thing about old memories.
They’re awfully hard to kill.
2
ILARION
“Kill me if you have to, sir. But don’t judge me for closing my eyes. I’ve never wanted to see death coming.”
I look down at the sorry bastard at my feet. His face is turned up toward me, but true to his words, his eyes are squeezed closed.
“You shouldwantto see death coming, Osip,” I scold softly. “How else can you ever hope to avoid it?”
The man trembles as his eyelids flicker open. Fear has washed the murky blue into a mottled gray. “Some things can’t be avoided, sir. Death comes for us all.”
He’s a poetic little fuck. I’m in no mood for it, though. “Get to your feet. You’re not dying today.”
The man’s eyes widen. “S-Sir?”
“On your feet. Now.”
He glances to my left and then to my right. But neither Mila nor Dima, standing at my sides, offer any indication of whether I’m actually sparing him or if I’m just playing with my prey before I slaughter it.
“B-but the warehouse,” he stammers. “It burned down on my watch. Carelessness…It was my fault…”
I look behind him at the scorched skeleton of the warehouse. Black cinders coat every surface. The metal I-beams are twisted into grotesque shapes by the heat, though the fires have long since been put out. And in every corner, hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of merchandise has been torched to a crisp. A total loss.
“You were careless. You were negligent,” I agree. “But I’m not about to pin the entirety of the blame on you.”
Osip gulps. “Sir…?”
“The fire wasn’t an accident,” I tell him. “It was arson. Benedict Bellasio may have only rats at his beck and call, but they do the job well enough. They can slip in and out without being heard or seen. Long enough to do damage. Enough damage to fuck with me.”
I’m not really talking to Osip anymore. I’m more just thinking out loud, grappling with this shadow war that’s never quite taken off. Benedict has spent five years nibbling at the edges of my empire. A theft here, a fire there, a corpse turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It’s maddening.
“Osip.”
The man’s eyes snap to mine, scared all over again.
“You get one more chance. Mostly because Celine likes you,” I growl. “And she’d be annoyed if I killed you. But if you falter on the job again, I will kill you. And I’ll make you welcome death withopeneyes.” He gulps and nods at the same time. I nod back. “I’m glad you understand. Now, get out of my sight.”
He lunges to his feet and scurries away. When the door slams shut behind him, Mila and Dima walk around to face me. They’ve been doing that a lot lately—moving in perfect harmony, each a mirror image of the other. It’s eerie. I don’t like it at all.
“That was unusually romantic of you,” Mila observes with a raised brow. “Ilarion the Merciful.”
I nudge a burnt chunk of rock at my feet. It immediately crumbles to ashes as soon as I touch it.
Everything is a fucking metaphor these days.
I glance up to see Dima with that about-to-piss-his-pants look he gets when there’s something he wants to share. “Spit it out, man,” I bark at him.
