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“So, he’s still here, after all,” I say, ponderously, handing Yuri back his binoculars. Behind us, one of the SUVs is parked, surrounded by six of my men. Now might seem like a good chance to invade. If not to ambush and slaughter these men, then at very least to give them a good scare. But I happen to know that the house before us has more men in it than I do at my back. And I can’t say I favor the odds. “Well? What do you think his game is?”
“I think he’s playing with you now. And it will lull us into a false sense of security, or at least boredom.” He turns and spits, dragging the back of one gloved hand across his mouth. “And the minute we do that, I think he will kill Kat.”
I look at Yuri, a little surprised. “You do.”
He nods once. “I foresee some kind of situation where he forces hers or your hand—maybe he takes the kid hostage, or the mother. I’ve only spoken with her once, but I sense your girl is a little more foolhardy than you’d like to think.”
I don’t disagree. “She’d sacrifice herself,” I confirm. “In an instant. In a heartbeat.”
“Then you need to leave. Take the girl.” Yuri turns to face me head-on. “Let me kill him. Let me hunt him for you.”
I sigh, looking down the hill, through the trees, at my enemy and his men. “It’s not that simple, Yuri.”
“It can be that simple.” His voice is hard again, that voice of the soldier that has proven for so many years to be an aid. “We have the men. We have the contacts, the money, the resources. We could make him, and all of his men disappear.”
I watch Konstantin down the hill, the way he moves and speaks. Arrogance, a cocky showiness, pervades his every movement: the tilt of his head, the flick of his wrist. He was born into this world much more than I was, and given everything from his first breath. Silver spoon, a charmed life. I never hated him for that. I’m of the belief it’s a disservice, in the end, to begiven everything you’ve ever got. Now I do, though. Because it empowers him to behave like this, to dig through the graveyard of my past for jewels. Not to steal, but to crush under an expensive Italian shoe.
To kill Konstantin would be to incite war. And as much as I don’t want to admit it, my mother and uncle are right. My feud with him was once more talk than anything. It was political, financial. Now it’s blood. Now it’s personal. And with that foothold, he might well be able to destroy us. A marriage could save the bratva. The right marriage could.
But marriage could also…
The thought, as it enters my mind, turns the rainy world around me very still. Wind halts in the trees. The fog traipsing over and between the hills slows and stops.Marriage could also save a life.More than one.
“What?” asks Yuri, looking at me strangely. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing. Keep an eye on them. Closely. Closer than before. I want eyes on Konstantin at every minute of every day.”
“Every day?” When I turn toward my truck, parked among the trees beside the SUV, Yuri follows. “I thought we were only remaining one day more.”
“Change of plans.”
“Aleks—”
“Post men back at Kat’s house. And I want double at her mother’s, to watch the kid. I have a sense they’re the bigger targets here, like you said. She’d do anything for them, and Konstantin might have already guessed that.”
Yuri gives me a hard look, but seals his lips and nods once.
“Also.” I pause when I reach the driver’s side door of the truck, my hand on the handle. I lower my voice, locking eyes with Yuri. “In the end, it will be him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He may not like getting his hands dirty,” I say. “Konstantin. But this time, he won’t be letting anyone else take care of it.”
Yuri’s expression becomes grim. He nods once. “I understand.”
“So, you keep him in your sights,” I repeat, more firmly. “Because when the time comes, God forbid—he’ll kill her himself. No one else will even be allowed near her.” And he will do it slowly, and painfully, and messily. Because this is all about sending a message.
But murder isn’t the only way to send a message.
In the right circumstances, between the right people—marriage can send one just as strong.
***
When I get back to the house, it’s afternoon, grey and drizzly. I don’t find Kat in the house, though I am carrying all the right keys to get in now. When I call her, she doesn’t answer.
And the panic, instantly, begins to set in.
Where the fuck is she? Why didn’t she text me, or call me, or God forbid—leave a damn note?I move from room to room, Glock now armed and leveled, checking my sightlines, my corners. But there is no sight of her.
