I say quietly.“Before my brothers and I emptied our guns into the motherfucker, Dracul told us he wasn’t the top of the food chain.Then, you found out about the power play happening in the Bratva.After the whole fucking shit your uncle Gregor pulled off.”
Nikolai’s face turns red.Not embarrassment.Pure rage.“Fucking asshole.”
“And you thought you’d find answers we needed in that warehouse.”
He shakes his head.“The intel seemed solid.”
“It was compromised.Someone knew we were coming.”
“Someone with reach.”Nikolai sits back.“I will get to the bottom of this.But you’re in no condition to help me.”
“I came here to solve my mother’s murder,” I grunt.
“Yeah.Instead, you froze, and kids died.That’s not closure, Shelby.That’s penance.”
I hold his gaze for a couple of beats, unwilling to accept the truth in his words.I make a final plea, “Give me until the end of our plan.I need to see this through.For my family For myself.”
“Six months here will get you killed,” Nikolai interrupts.“Or worse, it’ll get my men killed because they’ll be waiting for you to freeze again instead of focusing on the mission.”
It’s harsh but fair.I don’t argue further.
“There’s something broken in you,” Nikolai continues, his Russian accent thickening as he speaks.“Something that happened before you came to Russia.Something that’s making you see ghosts.”He leans forward.“You need to go home and fix it.”
I stare back at him.I’ve got a million different things going through my mind.None of them is nice enough that I can share with an important Syndicate ally such as Nikolai.
I press my lips into a thin line and hold his gaze.
“I’m not talking about bullet wounds,” Nikolai adds, a ghost of a smile crossing his face at my evident frustration.“I’m talking about whatever you’re running from.Whatever’s making you willing to throw your life away in a foreign warehouse chasing ghosts instead of going home to your family, your real life.”
My jaw tightens.I don’t like being read this easily.
“I’ve seen the way you avoid talking about home.The way you go rigid when your brothers mention the Syndicate developments.There’s something there.”
“There’s nothing?—“
“Fix it or don’t,” Nikolai says, standing up.“But you’re not staying in Russia.You’re a liability now, and I won’t have you bringing my men down with you.”
I want to protest.I want to promise to redeem myself in some other warehouse, save kids, and stop Dracul’s associates.I want it with a desperation that feels almost pathological.
But Nikolai is right.I froze.People died.And if I stay, more people will die.
“The intel we gathered,” I say quietly.“What you found.It’s critical.The trafficking routes, the operations, the connections to Dracul.But we still need more to get the whole picture.”
“I’ll handle it,” Nikolai says.“That’s my world.My war.Remember, it was my fucking uncle who sold us to these people.This is my mess to fix.You have your own war waiting in Boston.I’ll find more information that will lead to whoever ordered your mother’s killing.You know I will.”He moves toward the door, then pauses.“Go home, Shelby Boyle.Fix whatever’s broken.And then maybe you’ll be human again instead of a ghost walking around in a dead man’s skin.”
The door closes behind him, leaving me alone with the white ceiling and the burning in my shoulder and the images of two children I couldn’t save overlaid with memories of a woman I couldn’t protect in Syria and all the other ghosts that haunt me in the dark.
I shut my eyes tightly, throwing an arm over my face.
Three months in Russia.Three months of chasing Dracul’s boss.Three months of running from Boston and everything waiting there.
It’s time to go home.
1
Shelby
Present Day
