The woman shoves a handful of rubles at the man and steps back, crossing her arms over her chest. Her chin lifts defiantly, and the angle only makes the resemblance more impressive. She could be Ana's twin, separated at birth and raised in an entirely different world.
"Then who the fuck is she?" Yuri asks.
"Does it matter?" I don't look away from her as I speak, the plan already taking shape. "You wanted leverage. There she is."
Yuri falls silent as his mind begins to wrap around what I'm saying, and the woman turns away from the vendor and pulls her coat tighter around her torso as she waits. She looks frustrated and upset by him, but I can't hear what their argument is about.
"Yaros has spent five months lying," I say, "telling everyone his sister's alive and well. He can't admit she's gone because the moment he does, Kolar walks. But if Ana Veche suddenly reappeared?—"
"In our custody," Yuri finishes, his gray eyes sharpening. He nods because he's starting to get the picture.
"With proof that her brother's been lying about her whereabouts. Yaros would have no choice but to negotiate with us or face the wrath of Kolar and his entire army of men." The idea begins to settle in my chest like a lead weight. Ana Veche's sudden reappearance would force Yaros to produce his real sister or would inevitably allow the cracks that have formed under his alliances to become visible as he has to admit something's happened to her.
"She's not Ana," Yuri growls, but I can see how close he is to giving in to my idea.
"She doesn't have to be. She has to look enough like Ana that Kolar believes it long enough for us to squeeze Yaros into a corner. By the time anyone figures out the truth, we'll have the routes and the leverage to keep them."
"It could backfire badly," he says, rubbing his jaw and glowering at me. He's not a man to take huge risks, and with his losses inthe past six months, I don't blame him. His son was murdered in cold blood and he nearly lost his wife to a murder charge.
"Or it could swing in our favor…" I'm not foolish enough to believe that we can pull this off without any hiccups, but if all it does is bring situational awareness to Luka Kolar and his band of misfits who for whatever reason chose to align with the Veche family and not us, it'll be worth it.
"Then it's your plan. I have too many irons in the fire to babysit something like this." He turns from the window and relaxes in his seat, and I know I have the go-ahead.
If that woman looks as much like Ana Veche up close as she does from a distance, I'll have no problem taunting Yaros and convincing Kolar to eat right out of my hand. And there'll be no one around to stop me, because my gut tells me the real Ana Veche is dead somewhere and perhaps her own family had something to do with it.
2
VIVIKA
The steam from the food cart curls up into my face, carrying the smells of charred meat and grease. My feet ache and my shoes are ruined, the leather ballet flats still damp from this morning's coffee disaster. The vendor doesn't look up when I approach. He's busy turning sausages on the grill with a pair of tongs that scrape against the metal and grate on my last nerve.
Smoke wafts between us, and I breathe through my mouth to avoid its thickness settling in my throat. "Which ones are fresh?" I ask.
He grunts, still not meeting my eyes, and gestures vaguely at the row of browned casings glistening under the heat lamps. I lean closer, studying the lineup, trying to find one that doesn't look dried out or overly blackened.
The day has already beaten me down enough without settling for subpar street food, and I'm not about to add another disappointment to the collection. I hate dealing with picky clients like the one I just ended a sour four-year contract withover my choice of font. It's like I personally offended him by picking Arial instead of Times New Roman.
Then the airline representative informed me that my flight won't leave until Thursday now instead of this evening, which throws off my entire schedule. With no plan to be at home tonight, I also had no plan to eat at home, and that means no food in my fridge. Thus the street meat.
I press my fingertips against my temple where a dull throb has been building since noon. I hate when my life doesn’t go according to my plans. I've planned every waking second of every day of my life for as long as I can remember, right down to what time of day I will take bathroom breaks. Even the tiniest shifts feel jarring.
"That one," I say, pointing to a sausage near the back of the grill, darker than the others but not burnt.
The vendor finally looks up at me as his eyebrows pull together like I've asked for the impossible. "That one's not ready," he grumbles in a thick Serbian accent.
"It looks ready to me," I say, shifting my bag higher on my shoulder. The strap digs into the muscle there, and the pressure sends an ache down my arm. I just want to get this food and put it in my stomach so it stops growling and aching.
The street noise swells around us—a bus hissing to a stop two blocks down, someone shouting in Russian about parking, the distant wail of a siren cutting through the air. But the man ignores my statement and keeps turning the meat on his grill while mopping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
"Then which one is ready?" I ask again, getting annoyed.
He points with the tongs at a sausage near the front. It's too dark and shriveled, clearly sitting there longer than it should have been.
"I don't want that one," I scoff, scowling at him. With so little time to get my food and get back to work, I can't just walk around hoping to find a different vendor out here.
He shrugs. "Then wait." He sounds rude and dismissive, and I feel my jaw tighten in response. The cold air bites at my cheeks, and I pull my coat tighter around my body, but it does nothing to stop the chill that's already seeped through the fabric and settled against my ribs. My stomach growls, and I almost feel like walking away.
"How long?" I ask.
