“One neutralized,” I said. “Spotted me early.”
A pause. Then, “Cleanup?”
“I have already informed my men. It will happen shortly.”
Another pause, a little longer this time.
“Where are you?” he asked.
I glanced at Ilana, looking out on the deserted street before us. I had pushed the body into the alley to keep it out of sight, even if someone spotted the man before the body was removed.
“Out,” I said.
Iosif exhaled through his nose. “You’ve been out a lot lately, Avgust. What is wrong?”
“Don’t start.”
“I’m not,” he replied calmly. “As your older brother, it is my responsibility to keep a check.”
I didn’t answer.
After a second, he said, “Be careful, Avgust.”
The call ended, and Ilana finally looked at me again.
“That was your elder brother?” she asked.
“Iosif. Yes.”
“Is he… like you?”
I huffed a breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Much worse, actually.”
“Does he have a wife?”
“He does. Her name is Clara, and she is an angel.”
Ilana smiled at that. “I’d like to meet them one day.”
“I would like for you to meet them, too.”
I pulled the car out as soon as I noticed the van arriving and a few of my men pulling out. They noticed my car and nodded at me, and I quickly turned around and left. They would handle the rest of it while I would handle another task for the day. The only task I had been dreading.
“Alright, Bratva man, where to now?”
The next target wasn’t supposed to involve her, but it did anyway. I kept driving until we were a little closer to my own safe house, but Ilana hadn’t noticed it. She was clearly not aware of the routes of Miami, which was strange if she had lived here all her life.
“Just one more thing to do.”
I parked the car in an empty parking lot, my gaze on the man across the street. I did not tell her that the man leaning against the car in front of us, while pretending to scroll on his phone, had been there at the auction. That I had seen him in the footage, and he had been one of the assholes who had bid on her. Instead, I kept following from a distance. I stepped out of the car, and she stepped out too, pretending to look at the basketball match happening on the court beside us.
She walked beside me easily, close enough that I could feel the warmth of her arm through her coat.
Then she stopped.
Abruptly.
Her fingers closed around my wrist.
