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My head whips around to find Pavel strolling into my office, an envelope in hand.
“Something like that,” I say, lifting my glass of vodka.
Pavel holds up the manila envelope and places it onto my desk. "I've brought you something you’ll want to see."
Abandoning my drink to the windowsill, I sink back behind my desk and snatch up the envelope. “Why don’t you give me the Coles Notes version. I take it this is about Masha?”
When I was in New York, I asked Pavel to look into Kira’s aunt’s death because he’s one of the few people in this world I trust implicitly. He hasn’t bothered to hide the fact that he thinks I’m balls-on crazy for digging into something that is far in the past. Under normal circumstances, I would agree—we have enough important shit to focus on—except, when it comes to Kira, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do.
Maybe that makes me weak. I've spent most of my life keeping people at arm's length. Just this once, I'll bend my own rules. Knowing it's temporary. It can't be anything more.
Pavel fixes me with that intense dark stare of his, rolling his shoulders back. Dressed in a starched white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he could pass for an accountant off to crunch numbers in a boardroom, especially wearing those glasses he reserves for office work. It’s the snaking tattoos underneath his suit that reveal a different side of him. And the fact that he’s unhinged. He’s as straight as an arrow, deeply disciplined, untilhe’s pushed too far like a taut string that has no more give. Then, he turns into a total psychopath.
“Very well.” He sits down in the chair across from me. “The monogrammed Zippo Irina gifted to you on your second wedding anniversary was somehow at the scene where Masha was killed.”
I furrow my brow. "How is this possible?" I eradicated every item tied to Irina’s memory in the aftermath. That lighter should be lying at the bottom of some landfill, never to see the light of day again.
He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’d like to know that too.”
I tear the envelope open. Inside it, there are a series of glossy photos. The first few are of Masha, her lifeless eyes staring blankly, crimson staining the concrete beneath her mutilated body. Each subsequent image reveals more gruesome details of her torture and murder—the handiwork of a trained killer.
My stomach twists. Scenes like this don’t sicken me—I’ve done much worse to people before—but to know that these are the same pictures sent to Kira after her aunt’s murder is what burns. These are the images that haunt her nightmares.
There, amid the chaos of the scene but almost out of frame, lies my Zippo, or at least a damn good replica. I remember every intricate detail of its design—the way it felt heavy in my palm, the unique etchings of thorns and roses that Irina had custom-engraved with my initials.
I look up at Pavel, clenching the photographs so hard that the edges crumple in my grip. "Someone tried to frame me. There is no other reasonable explanation.”
He shrugs. “If so, they didn’t do a very good job of it. No one’s come for you. You haven’t been arrested, not that the police got wind of this murder. But we didn’t even know about the rumorsbefore Kira blabbed about her encounter with Boris. I’m just saying if someone tried to frame you, they pretty much failed.”
I rub the back of my neck. “It doesn’t mean we can ignore this. If anything, it could help us figure out who's really behind Masha’s death.”
“I agree.” Pavel stands and collects the photos off my desk, organizes them into a neat pile, and places them back into the envelope. “But let this be my worry. I’ll figure it out. You have bigger things to focus on.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “You think I don’t know that? It’s been days, and we haven't gotten Leung to talk. I can fucking feel the Black Company breathing down my neck.”
“This can wait.” Pavel holds up the envelope to make his point. “Shit with the Black Company can’t.”
I shake my head. To Kira, Masha's death was far from insignificant. It's a wound that's never healed, a rawness she carries every day. I hate that, for the last four years, she’s been tortured by the endless nights of grief and unanswered questions.
“I promised my wife,” I say simply. “This is as much a priority as the Black Company.”
Another thought occurs to me. Kira's hungry for something meaningful. She’s a force in her own right, and it's time I acknowledged that.
“We haven’t been able to break Leung yet. Our methods aren’t working. I want to give Kira a chance to question him.”
“Are you serious?” Pavel bangs his hand on the table. “You’re going to trust a wild card like Kira? We barely know where her loyalties lie.”
I shoot out of my seat. "You are confused about where her loyalties lie. I'm as clear as day." Pavel didn't trust Kira from the start, and in all fairness, his instincts were right. She did have an ulterior motive for our marriage. But things have changed."When I first married her, you told me not to underestimate Kira. I'm asking the same of you now."
He scoffs. "I meant, don't underestimate her capability to murder you, not involve her in our syndicate's business. You're losing focus on what's important, and we can't afford any screw-ups right now." He shakes his head, not bothering to hide his frustration. "What's your endgame here? A real marriage? Kids? A life together? After Irina—after everything—you want to go down that same path?"
“I don’t know what I fucking want!” I growl and hurtle a lamp from my desk across the room. My chest heaves as the truth of my words settles in my veins.
All I know is that I can’t stay away from Kira. Not since she bared her soul and fell apart in my arms. If I’m truthful, the moment I laid eyes on her, my world spun on its axis and it hasn’t yet righted. But it doesn't mean we can make this real.
Emptiness gnaws at me at the thought of letting her go, but Pavel is right. Sometime soon, the terms of our arrangement will be satisfied, and then what? Walking away from her will damn well hurt, but how can I keep her? Because you can’t love someone when you no longer have a heart beating in your chest.
Pavel runs a thumb down the centerline of his lips. “Well, you better figure it out because we don’t have time to waste.”
