He knows better than anyone what my dear mother turned Berna and me into. He knows about the dozens of times I vomited from everything she made me do until I became immune. He knows the punishments I received if I didn't carry out an order.
Who the hell puts skin peeled from a corpse on their own child?
Even now, I can feel that soft, sticky texture, reeking of copper, on my cheeks, my neck, everywhere she pressed it against me, forcing me to sit with it for hours to "learn my lesson."
"I already know the answer, but I still have to ask. Is she worth risking everything for?" Vasili's voice pulls me back, and a smile appears on my face involuntarily.
He knows what I was likebefore. He knows I never truly smiled until her. And he was the first to hear me tell a joke, just to make him laugh when my mother had forced him to burn a traitorous soldier alive.
Taking Vasili with me when I escaped her clutches was the best decision I ever made. If only Berna had listened to me…
I tear myself from the memory and answer him.
"Yes. Every single day. If it ever comes down to it, she's the priority, Vasili. Not me."
I see the conflict in his gaze. His life's purpose has been to keep me safe though I've mostly made his job harder by diving in headfirst.
"I want you to put together a small team, our best men, to guard her. And I need to get my hands on that bastard. Now."
"What about the grenade shipment?" he asks, and I close my eyes. I'd almost forgotten.
"I'll handle it."
I look at my hand and notice a slight tremor. Between Roxanne's situation, the Council breathing down my neck, and all my responsibilities to the organization, I feel my fuse burning shorter and shorter. And nobody wants to see what happens when it runs out.
This part of the city smells of ash and wet earth. It's my favorite place because, here, violence is encouraged. It's a necessity for survival. When I first came here from Warsaw, with the help of a friend of my father's, I had nothing. Just eighty dollars in my pocket and a burning desire to destroy the infection that had spread through the place I called home.
Sarin, my father's friend, was the one who supported me in the Council when I took power, but the final vote was written in blood.
Day and night, I did whatever the Council wanted. I stole, I cheated, I beat, I killed. All to prove I deserved this position, to showherthat one day I would come for her and not even the walls she'd built around herself could stop me.
Because my mother has many qualities, but perhaps the most dangerous is the ease with which she coaxes secrets out of men between the sheets.
That's how she survived. By wielding secrets that would have destroyed men who were far too influential.
Back then, Sarin made me swear I would spare her, that I would leave her alone as long as she didn't come after me, but this suffocating rage demands to be released.
I let the last drag of smoke from my cigarette fill my lungs when a commotion erupts behind me.
When I turn, Filip, the guy handling the grenade shipment, is getting out of a clunky delivery van with two of his men. Filip is also Polish, one of the few of my countrymen in America involved in arms trafficking, which is why I chose to work with him.
I’ll never understand how anyone can drive these jalopies. Looking at my Ducati, I realize not everyone is born with a sense of aesthetics.
"Damien, I thought Roman would be here too," he says, and the way he relaxes at my friend's absence annoys me.
I know why they all fear Roman. He has the precise charisma of an important businessman you don't want to piss off. Me? I look like the kind of guy who'd take you out for beers and show you a good time. They just don't understand that this image is forher. This relaxed, joking attitude that seems like I don't have a care in the world.
I let out a laugh and look at him.
"I'm in a hurry, Filip. Let's count those grenades so you can get back to eating yourGolabkiand I can get my beautiful bike out of this shithole."
He gestures toward the back of the van, and that's when I notice one of his men's fingers tapping nervously. The back door opens with an irritating squeal, and Filip pulls the first crate toward us.
We don't even get to twenty grenades before I hear a rustle behind me, and my mind goes perfectly still.
If there's one thing I can thank my mother for, it's that she taught me to listen, to always know what's moving in every direction. And that rustle is the spark that ignites the lava burning in my veins. My elbow smashes into Filip’s jaw, and he collapses backward, caught by surprise. In the next second, I spin, whip out the blade I always keep tucked in the back of my jeans, and, without hesitation, plunge it straight into the soldier's carotid artery. The whispers in my head tell me to keep him alive for some fun later, but I know it's a pointless risk. There will be time for games.
I feel a sharp sting on my left side, where a blade nearly found its way into my flesh. My spleen breathes a silent sigh of relief.
