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I have to deal with Zakharov, too. He’s gone to ground, but I know he’s still here in Moscow. Waiting to jump out and bite my ankle like the old viper he is.
The night I gave Sabrina that diamond collar, I really believed I could have it all. At the height of my love for her, I even thought I could be a good man.
Now I know that’s impossible.
I’m not a good man. I’m not a good partner.
I can’t even be a boss like Ivan. He did what had to be done—he never enjoyed it.
I’m full of so much frustration and darkness, Iwantto hurt someone. I want to rip and tear and destroy anything and anybody who crosses me.
I enjoyed killing Krystiyan.
And I’ll enjoy killing Zakharov. Cujo too, if he’s stupid enough to get in my way.
* * *
43
SABRINA
Krystiyan’s lab is located in Nemchinovka, Yakim Dimka’s restaurant on one side, and a laundromat on the other.
From the front, it looks like an office space—simple and nondescript. The hours are posted on the door, though that door is always locked. I enter through the back, leaving my bike parked in the alleyway.
The lab looks as pristine and organized as ever, lights off, drawers tightly closed. I don’t think anyone’s been in here.
Even though this place is professionally outfitted with proper vent hoods, double sinks, and a six-burner stove, plus an industrial-sized refrigerator for all the perishable ingredients, I never really liked it. The lights have an ugly greenish cast, and all the stainless steel reflects bits and pieces of my face back at me.
I miss the raw brick of the brewery, the high windows that sent shafts of light down like a church, and the smell of hops. The whistle that would blow when the shift changed at the purse factory next door, and the way Hakim would perk up, saying, “Almost time for Shake Burger …” his voice muffled behind his respirator.
I wish I hadn’t burned it all.
I drop my backpack on the counter and unzip it, planning to stuff it with as much product as I can carry.
I take the flat packs ofMolniyafrom the cabinet, already pressed into lightning bolt pills and vacuumed-sealed in packs of a hundred. These were supposed to go to Krystiyan’s dealers, but they’re mine now.
I’ve been making the product in batches. There’s noEliksirorOpusat the moment. What I have here is still worth a small fortune.
I pull open the fridge, wondering if I should take any of the raw materials along with me—at least the ones that are hardest to source. The refrigerator is double normal size, with one of those hefty metal handles that clicks and unlocks like an old appliance from the ’50s. The pale fluorescent light bathes my face as I rummage through the various bins and jars within, each labeled with Sharpie in my own writing, messy but easy for me to read.
My head is deep in the fridge, the containers clinking and clattering as I shove aside what I don’t need. No Ilsa keeps watch for me. So I have no warning of my unwanted visitors until I stand upright and realize I’m no longer alone.
Two men stand on the opposite side of the room, firmly situated between me and the exit. One is tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a royal blue tracksuit with a gold medallion around his beefy neck. His traps are so thick that his head hunches forward, his small eyes looking up from under a heavy shelf of brow. His swollen fists hang at the end of gorilla-like arms, the nose of a Beretta poking out from the right hand. This is the former boxer, the Olympian-turned-enforcer they call Cujo.
Which means the older man next to him is Zakharov.
Zakharov doesn’t resemble his son. He’s smaller, leaner, as brown and wizened as an apple core left to dry in the sun. His eyes are almost colorless behind the round lenses of his rimless spectacles. He’s wearing a plain brown suit that looks thirty years out of date, though well preserved. His shoes are likewise old, carefully brushed and polished.
When he speaks, his voice rasps from some place deep in his chest.
“Where is Krystiyan?”
Slowly, I step back from the fridge, leaving the door open.
I look from Zakharov to Cujo to the doorway behind them.
The lab is long and narrow, like a bowling alley. Cujo fills almost the entire width of the room. I’m as trapped as a ship in a bottle—no way past.
