"Oh fuck. Oh fuck."
My sister. My pregnant sister. She's in danger because of me.
"Anton!" I yell, bursting out of the bedroom. "I need to go to Providence! Now!"
Chapter 17
For Mother
The Forger:
I stare at the open stainless-steel freezer. Inside lies my most recent inconvenience.
"Fuck, this is the problem with fucking emotions."
I can't have her accidentally opening that door. Can't have her seeing the doctor's dismembered body when she'll already be terrified about her sister's medical emergency. The body has begun to develop ice crystals along the eyelashes and beard.
Three months of freezing does that. Enough time to ensure I had all the bio markers needed. Aesthetically interesting, if one appreciates such things. I don't.
Three months of this impromptu deviation from my plan. Fee started as collateral damage, but that changed when I saw her whole beauty. Now I need to get rid of this body, soon, preferably before she gets here.
The occasion calls for flowers, not a corpse.
Killing three doctors wasn't part of my initial plan. The OB/GYN just got into a car accident, rushing to the Carlucci's mansion, caused by a traffic light malfunction I engineered. No mess to clean. Lorenzo's personal physician's heart condition was easy to manipulate into a heart attack. The hospital cleaned that body up.
Closing the freezer door, I start moving through the apartment, stripping off the latex gloves I wore to handle the freezer. I throw them in the trash, which I will also have to dispose of.
The place still holds the lingering scent of its former occupant, Doctor Alessandro Esposito. I can smell his cologne and coffee. It's not my taste, but I've learned to inhabit other men's spaces, to wear their lives like borrowed suits.
Dr. Esposito was perfect, born to an Italian father and Russian mother, a stroke of luck that made vocal inflections easier to manage.
New to Providence, which meant fewer established relationships to navigate. The Cosa Nostra vetted him thoroughly before allowing him near Lorenzo and his pregnant wife. They checkededucation records, practice history, patient reviews. All doctored perfectly by me.
The Cosa Nostra's vetting process was thorough but ultimately futile. They never anticipated that someone had already become him. Someone who survived the torture of a Russian prison without spilling a word.
That experience left its mark on Aleh in ways that perfectly serve our purpose. His torture-damaged voice actually helped. It makes him seem more experienced, weathered. Patients trusted the gravelly authority in his tone.
Aleh's military background gives him the bearing of a combat-trained physician who could operate in a foxhole or a mansion with equal competence.
I walk toward the office and sit in front of my screens, which flicker with live feeds from traffic cams and a bank of monitors tracking Fee's digital footprint.
In my peripheral vision, the bathroom door opens. Aleh emerges, his transformation complete—the perfect doppelgänger of Dr. Esposito. His damaged left hand is carefully hidden in his suit pocket, his posture conveying medical authority.
"Send the signal the minute Fee arrives." I swivel my chair to face him.
"Mrs. Carlucci's blood pressure has been rising steadily. The licorice root extract I added to her supplements has been effective," Aleh says.
My jaw clenches. "And the baby? No danger?"
"Not yet. Keeping measurements precise. Baby is healthy."
"Make sure it stays that way. Mrs. Carlucci must stay safe, and so does the baby."
If something happens to Moira or her baby, Fee will never forgive me. Fee will never trust me. Fee will never love me.
"I will ensure their safety," Aleh assures me. His phone chimes. "Lorenzo called five minutes ago and just texted. I'll administer a medication to lower her blood pressure as soon as I arrive. It should minimize the danger to the mother and the child."
I turn back. "The moment Fee arrives, send the signal."
