That’s when my phone rings. The vibration against my thigh sends a ripple of annoyance through me. No one calls me directly unless something’s gone wrong or they’re about to make it go wrong. So, yet another fire I’ll need to spend time putting out.
I fish the device out, scanning the screen.
Roman.
Of course. Myvory v zakoneis many things—loyal, ruthless, precise—butchattyisn’t one of them. He is notorious for nevercalling unless something’s gone horribly wrong. The man lives by a code older than the stones Moscow was built on, and part of that code means never bothering me with trivial updates.
So if he’s calling, it’s already bad.
I mutter a curse under my breath before answering with a clipped, “What?”
“That cafe owner you wanted me to question about what Matvey found regarding the Petrovs.”
I tense. “Yes?”
“He’s dead.”
I stop walking. Behind me, Lev stops too. He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel his gaze slide toward me, alert now, sensing the shift. I bring a hand up to pinch the bridge of my nose, willing away the tension already threading through my skull.
“What,” I say again, flatter this time. Not because I didn’t hear him, but because I need to hear it again just to believe it.
“A drive-by happened while Katya and I were there. Looked targeted from what I could tell. Owner was taken out. One of his employees too. I made it out without getting hit, but just barely,” Roman explains, his voice steady but tight.
“I assume the perpetrators weren’t apprehended?” He wouldn’t be calling me if they were. He would be in the middle of taking them back to the compound to interrogate information out of them by any means necessary.
“Not yet. My team’s tracking the vehicle now. We got partial plates and we’re scraping nearby surveillance footage. Once we find them, they’ll be taken back to ours to be questioned.”
He pauses, and I hear the faint sound of a door closing on his end. Then a softer voice, probably one of his lieutenants, murmuring in the background. Roman grunts something at them before speaking again. “Just wanted to let you know this lead is dead for the time being.”
Perfect.
Another goddamn door slammed shut before I even got a chance to look through it properly.
“Thank you for the update,” I say stiffly, already reaching in my pocket to grab the carton of cigarettes I shouldn’t be smoking.
Roman doesn’t hang up. There’s a pause, one that stretches too long. I know him well enough to recognize the rhythm of hesitation and keep the phone pressed to my ear while I shake out a cigarette and tuck it between my lips.
“There’s something else,” he says finally.
I don’t even try to hide my impatience. “What, Roman.”
“Sergei Sorokin’s daughter.”
I roll my eyes, flicking my lighter over the end of the butt. “What about her?”
“She was there. At the cafe. So was the American tutor.”
My entire body freezes.
“They weren’t hurt,” he adds quickly, “but they did witness everything. I’m bringing them back to the compound. It will besafer than letting them return to Sorokin without figuring out who the hell targeted the cafe in the first place. And you’ll need to make a call to him about this, anyway.”
He made the right decision, as he always does, but that doesn’t stop the sharp headache now drilling through my temple like a nail.
Of all the people in this goddamn city… it had to be Sergei’s precious little girl caught in the middle of a hit. And the tutor… the fuckingAmericantutor. Now she’s a goddamneyewitness.
I take a long drag from the cigarette, exhaling a ribbon of smoke into the cold air, and run a hand through my hair. “You’re sure they weren’t hurt?”
“Shaken but physically fine. The tutor shielded her during the shots by pushing her under the table. Quick thinking, actually.”
