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“She got sick.”
His eyes go wide. “That’s bad luck.”
Funnily enough, that’s exactly how I felt when Ziva was diagnosed. Of all the people on this planet, why didshehave to get cancer? At sixteen! How is that possible? How is that fair?
It felt like the most incredible, awful, unbelievable bad luck.
“I know. It was bad luck. Just like what happened to you and your parents. Do you… remember the accident?”
He flinches and I immediately regret the question, but he answers anyway. “I only remember one thing.”
I don’t press him to continue. I figure if he just wants to leave this conversation here, I’ll let it go.
But then, after a very long silence, he continues. “Mama’s eyes. Hazel eyes with small brown spots in them. They were open. They were staring at me. But she wasn’t talking or blinking or smiling. She was just staring at me. For hours.”
My stomach curls. She died with her eyes open.
“Lev, can I take your hand?”
He considers it for a moment.
Then he nods.
49
URI
It feels good to set things on fire.
Watching things burn is the best way to temper rage. And I have enough rage in me to ignite a thousand different blazes.
The screams of Sobakin’s men keep piercing the skies, tinging the orange plumes of smoke with their pain. It’s fucking music to my ears. It’s also helping to crowd out all the other unwelcome thoughts I’ve been grappling with the last few days.
“Boss?”
I look towards Artem, who’s got blood splattered across his shirt. He’s also got a Sobakin man by the collar. The bastard is bleeding from the gut, his hands desperately trying to holding together the gaping gash that will take his life sooner rather than later. “Do you want any alive?”
The man’s eyes go wide. “No, please! Please don’t. I have a family—”
“Don’t we all,” I snarl without the slightest bit of feeling. “I want information, Artem. If they have none to give, then what good are they?”
In one swift move, Artem slices the knife in his hand across the man’s throat like he’s carving meat. More blood spills, mingling with all the rest, as one screaming voice silences itself forever.
This is the third of Sobakin’s safehouses we’ve come down on like a plague in the last three days. It’s the clearest message I can think of to send.
I’m not playing around anymore.
More screams surround me as I walk through the burning house, hot embers biting at my skin. Another few minutes and we’ll need to move out. I can already smell cooking meat. You’d think that human flesh would have a distinctive smell, but no. It smells like anything else.
It just goes to show—at the end of the day, we’re all animals.
I notice a small pile of bodies in the corner. The pile is moving slightly and from underneath emerges a small man, trying to crawl his way out of his fate by playing dead.
He should have played dead a little longer.
He doesn’t see me coming until I’m standing right over him with my gun pointed at his head. He lets out a tiny, terrified gasp and the smell of piss fills my nostrils.
Smoke and ash quickly swallow up the acrid tang. “Where do you think you’re going, friend?” I rumble.
