Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91149 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91149 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
The room has cleared, and now there is only one final item on our agenda. The most important item we have yet to discuss. I down my drink and reach for the bottle, helping myself to another.
Viktor lights a cigar and leans back to study me. “Your Valentini girl is a snitch, and I want her dead.”
I’d be lying if the thought hadn’t occurred to me. Every day, I’ve waited for the feds to show up at my door and arrest me. She had every opportunity to give them the ammunition they needed. I’d been careless during our time together, exposing too much of myself and the things that I do. I put my brotherhood at risk, but I believed in her loyalty. Perhaps it was falsely given, or perhaps this is what I deserve.
“I can see how this might present a problem for you.” Viktor flicks his ashes onto the floor. “Given your lovesick condition.”
“I can’t allow you to kill her.” It’s a bold statement, considering the circumstances, but Viktor humors me nonetheless.
“She ran out on you. She betrayed you, yet you would still protect her?”
“She snitched on Manuel,” I answer. “Not me.”
“It speaks to her character,” he says. “A rat is a rat. And I wouldn’t hedge your bets just yet. You don’t know what she’s told them.”
It’s true, but I still don’t believe she betrayed me. Not like that.
“I know her character. She is loyal to those who deserve it. Manuel did not.”
Viktor is quiet, and I worry that I’m too late. There’s no telling if he knows her location. If he already has men watching her. His resources are vast, and mine are not. I have left no stone unturned, but it does me little good if she’s in witness protection. She has a new name, a new life, and it isn’t with me.
Viktor sighs and stubs out his cigar, leaning forward onto his elbows. “I don’t think you deserve such kindness from me, Kol’ka, but if you are determined to save her life, there is one other option.”
I nod, anxious for the answer. “What is it?”
“It’s a last resort,” he utters. “And in truth, you must be prepared to accept that she will not like it.”
“Have you found anything?”
Mischa grunts a useless response from the computer. “I can’t find anything when you are constantly hovering. The answer is no. They fucked up your entire surveillance system. Everything’s been destroyed.”
I swallow two more painkillers and wash them down with vodka. It still doesn’t make sense. “How long would that take for a novice, you think?”
He snorts. “It wasn’t a novice. They knew what they were doing.”
“Nonna said they took her in a matter of minutes.”
Mischa looks up from the computer, glancing toward the hall.
“She’s not here,” I tell him. “She went to visit her sister.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“What?”
“When did Nonna leave to visit her sister?” he asks.
I try to recall, but everything has been blurry lately. “I don’t know. A while ago.”
“Around the time you killed Sergei?”
The implication makes my gut churn, but there is only one way to know for sure. I retrieve the calendar and look for the last note Nonna left with my messages. It was dated two weeks ago. The day after Sergei’s death.
I want to believe it’s a coincidence, but now that Mischa has pointed it out, I can’t.
“What she told you is physically impossible,” he says. “This would have taken them an hour to destroy, bare minimum. How can you be sure that she wasn’t working with Sergei? And the guard too? It’s difficult to know who he swayed. If he could get Katya to plant cameras in Alexei’s house, there’s no telling what else he did.”
“Fuck.” I kick the bottom of the desk and fall back into the chair. He’s right. Everything he said is right, and I was too blind to see it for myself. “If it’s true, she’ll be in the wind by now.”
Mischa shrugs. “Still couldn’t hurt to put the word out.”
My phone chimes, signaling an incoming text message from Alexei. Mischa yammers on about Nonna, but I’m not listening. My eyes are fixated on the message. I read it three times over to make sure I’m not mistaken.
“What is it?” Mischa asks.
I hand him the phone. “What does it say?”
He reads it silently before looking up, his face pale. “It says Talia is alive.”
Mischa meets me outside the hospital room, his eyes cutting in front of me. “What is that?”
“What?” I look down at the gift in my hands.
“Did you bring an Aston Martin Stroller?”
“He’s a Vor.” I shrug. “He should be riding in style.”
Mischa wiggles the stuffed teddy bear in his own hands. “You make my gift look pathetic.”
“That’s because it is pathetic.” I slap him on the shoulder.
“I’ll get him a stripper and some vodka for his eighteenth birthday to make up for it,” he says.