"Call Richard," I tell him.
He nods curtly and leaves the office to make the call.
Richard Winthorpe is the best lawyer in this country and, to my delight, the most corrupt. The man has lost one case in his life. Since then, he's sunk his teeth into every case that's crossed his path. Often they don’t even make it to trial because he ensures evidence, witnesses, and justice bend his way.
Any legal problem we've had that couldn't be resolved with a favor from some senator or politician, we've gone to him. For the right amount of money, the problem disappears.
My phone rings in my pocket, and I answer instantly when I see the caller's name.
"Yeah, old man," I say to Sarin.
"Damien, there's someone outside the house, and the guards aren't answering."
My blood freezes at his words. Because I already know they're dead. And from his voice, he knows it too.
How the hell did she find him?
His house location is known to only a few Council members, which means someone talked, and talked wrong.
You're weak, you always have been, you always will be, and that's why everyone you care about will end up at the tip of my blade.
"Sarin," I say through gritted teeth, ignoring her voice in my mind. "Pick up that gun and put a hole in them."
"Don't let that rage consume you, Damien. And when you haveherin front of you, cut off a piece of skin for me."
The call disconnects.
I don't know when I left the office. When I grabbed Vasili and two other soldiers and threw them in a car. I don't know when we arrived at Sarin's house.
I see a trail of blood right at the gate, and when I punch in the code, it takes me only seconds to find the bodies of two of his soldiers in a shrub. Shot at close range, occipital bone, to be precise.
A red wave crashes over my mind. I know I should push it aside and let reason dictate. After all, those were his last words to me. Not to let fury consume me. But when I walk into his house and see him propped against the living room wall, stare vacant, a hole over his heart, I no longer have smell, hearing, or sight.
Somehow, I know Vasili is calling out to me. I know he's trying to reach me. I know I have witnesses to this episode, but I can't find it in myself to care.
This man got me out of Warsaw. This man is the one who threw me a lifeline when I thought my life would amount to nothing but doing my mother’s dirty work. This man made sure to teach me how to play my cards to keep Berna safe. This man was my father. And I failed him. I let them get to him.
Becausesheknows where to sink the blade. She's always known. But maybe most of all, she knew how to strip away my humanity with her own hands. When she'd press pieces of her victims' skin onto my body. When she made me watch everything that happened to Berna because of her hunger for power. When right now she's stolen the last weeks I had left with the man in front of me.
Fingers pinch me, and only when I manage to push through the smoke in my head do I see what I've done.
The chairs in the room are smashed against the walls, Sarin's history books and autobiographies are torn or in the still-burning fireplace, and Vasili has blood at his mouth and nose.
He knows not to intervene when I have a moment. He knows to stay away, but of course he can't help trying to save me. To reach me.
I have blood on my fingers, and the skin on my palms is scraped raw from the brutality with which I tore at books and furniture.
"Call the cleanup crew," I say hoarsely to Vasili.
"Damien, I'm sorry," he tells me quietly, and I know that he means it.
He, like me, is grateful. If Sarin hadn't gotten us out of Poland, I don't think we'd still be alive.
"I want you to promise me that when I have her in front of me, you'll do everything in your power to keep me from killing her too quickly, Vasili. I want to be lucid. I want to have reason. To know exactly where I'm sinking each blade."
He doesn't promise me that, because it's not up to him. And that's maybe one of my greatest fears. That I'll let that red smoke consume me in that moment.
I approach Sarin's body, drop to my knees, and close his eyes.
