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He looks up when I lean on the doorframe, and trails his gaze over me in a slow evaluation that ends in a frown. “Why don’t you take a nap?”
He’s observant. And as dangerous and cruel as he can be, he’s not always unkind. Sometimes, like now, he seems almost considerate.
I walk over and sit down next to him, folding one leg under myself. “How did you get into this business?” At his raised eyebrows, I clarify, “Killing people.”
He smiles. “How did you?”
“I told you in Colombia.”
“Tell me more.”
He’s not going to give me anything unless I give him something first. “When I left the military, I needed money. An old comrade told me about a job that involved taking out a drug dealer. I didn’t pull the trigger, but I was part of the operation. It kind of set the ball rolling.”
His lips twitch. “It kind of set the ball rolling, huh? As simple as that?”
“Something like that.”
“Who was your first kill?”
I tell him honestly, “The men who murdered my parents. They were never convicted. Lack of evidence. Shortly after I joined the military, I tracked them down and popped them.”
He regards me curiously. “And how did it feel?”
“Fantastic.” When he says nothing, my defensive hackles rise. “Do you think less of me now?” Horrible. Evil. Sociopathic. That’s what society would call me. Emotionally dysfunctional would be a more suitable term. Not that what he thinks matters.
His lips curve in a peculiarly warm smile. “No, not at all, princess.” His gaze shifts to my side. “Is that who they are, Adéla and Johan? Your parents?”
My ribcage tightens, constricting my lungs. It’s a relief to be honest with someone for once, but my parents are off limits. I can’t even talk about them to Hanna.
“In aeternum vivi,” he says when I don’t reply. “Forever alive.”
I blink at him, briefly startled out of my memory-induced funk. “You know Latin?”
“Some phrases.”
He doesn’t seem inclined to elaborate, so I decide to change the subject. “I told you about my first. It’s only fair you do the same.”
He stares at me, then says evenly, “The man who killed my uncle.”
My breath catches, a dark curiosity gnawing at me. “How did you do it?”
“Knife. I was sixteen. I didn’t have enough money for a gun—not that I would’ve wasted a bullet on that scum.”
Of course. Admiration, dark and perverse, rises within me. I know normal people would deem it wrong, utterly deviant, to cheer on a sixteen-year-old in his quest for bloody vengeance, but I’m not normal, haven’t been since I was six. I’m proud of Yan for doing this, even as something inside me squeezes at the pain he must’ve felt at the loss of his family—pain that I’m only too intimately familiar with. “Were you and your uncle close?”
To my surprise, he chuckles. “Not remotely. He was a drunk and an abusive bastard.”
“Then why avenge him?”
“He was family.” He says it like it makes perfect sense, and it does.
Even bad blood runs thicker than water.
I want to know more, want to hear all the gruesome details about that first hit of his, but that can wait. There are other things I’m more curious about.
He’s turned his attention back to his laptop, so I nudge him with a touch of my knee. “Your turn.”
He looks up. “For what?”
“For telling me how you got into the business.”
He hesitates, then closes the laptop. “We enlisted in the army, then were recruited into Spetsnaz.”
“You and Ilya?”
“Yes.”
“How old were you when you enlisted?”
“Seventeen. We lied about our age.”
So a year after his uncle’s murder. I study him, cataloguing his thick dark hair and the hard, symmetrical lines of his face. “How old are you now?”
He smirks. “Does it matter?”
“Just curious.”
“Too much for your own good.”
“I’d say…” I can’t help my grin. “About forty-five? Fifty?”
He gives me a narrow-eyed look. “Thirty-three.”
“Ah. Who could’ve guessed?” I fake surprise, but he doesn’t smile at my joke. “How did you end up working with Sokolov?”
“He headed the anti-terrorism unit of Spetsnaz, which we joined later. When he went rogue after his wife and son were killed in a bombing, we followed.”
“I’m assuming you’re no longer a team.” Not after Yan disobeyed Peter’s order to kill me.
“I’m the leader now.” His voice hardens a little. “Peter’s out.”
“Does that bother him?”
“He left the team of his own volition, so I assume not. But even if he wanted back in, it’s too late. It’s my team now. My business.”
Tilting my head, I study him. “It sounds as if you didn’t get on.”
“We had our philosophical differences, but it had nothing to do with not getting on. I’ve just never been good at taking orders.”
“Then why did you follow him in the first place?”
He gives me a level look. “Why do you think?”
“Money.”
Yes, of course. Everyone needs money. Some love it. Some love it more than others, splurging on flashy cars or designer houses. Yan has under-floor heating—which he uses even in the summer, so his feet won’t be cold walking from his bed to his bathroom—and Egyptian cotton. He doesn’t use his money to show off with a Porsche or a flashy house, but to buy the luxury of comfort. As adults, we tend to compensate for what we didn’t have as children.
