“Found her?” Niko asks, twisting to look at us from the passenger’s seat.
“Not yet. But we’re about to,” Mikhail says.
He calls Maksim and gives him the list of names. If Ms. Donatello came here to steal an identity, we should be able to find records of one of these women somewhere in the vicinity. A lump forms in my throat, my stomach squeezing and churning with anxiety. If we can’t find her…then I’ll never know what happened to my mother.
My husband picks up my chin with his knuckles, twisting it toward him. “You okay?”
I nod, trying to convince both of us. “Yes. I just want to find her.”
As if on cue, his phone vibrates with an incoming message, and after reading it, he throws me a knowing look. “Looks like we just have.”
The scentof oil and damp concrete fills the parking garage. Half the lights are dead above us, the fluorescents flickering now and then. None of us are speaking, except the men seem to becommunicating silently through subtle hand gestures, as if there have been other situations like this one, and they know exactly how to handle it.
That’s when we see her.
Leaning against a black sedan, blonde wig, iPhone in her hand, Lisa Jenkins—Ms. Donatello’s new identity—waits for a ride that’s never coming. My husband’s hackers took care of it, but, of course, she doesn’t know that.
And she hasn’t seen us yet.
My heart pitter-patters inside my chest, sweat coating my palms. For a second, I’m six years old again, standing in her piano room, waiting to be told if I did well or not. She’s as intimidating as ever, all tall and sophisticated in a dark designer coat, yet the fear burns away when the memory of my mother’s blood flashes behind my eyes.
Niko and Rodion veer to the left, hiding between cars and concrete columns, while Mikhail jerks his head in the opposite direction. I nod, taking a deep breath, following him. My husband’s hold on me is firm yet gentle, reassuring me in all the right ways. I know there’s nothing he won’t protect me from, and a bit of that primordial confidence he carries with him transfers over to me for once. I’ve got this.
Finally, as we slide from behind a parked Jeep, my mentor raises her head and sees us.
It begins with a quick frown, like she can’t quite believe it’s little old me who caught up with her. Me, the kid whose hair she used to braid. The little girl whose head she filled with lies upon lies until the only truth she knew was the bullshit spilling from her mouth.
Before we stop in front of her, that frown quickly dissipates. Her lifelong, burnished killer instinct kicks in, and where there was surprise, now, there’s composure. A smile hangs off the corner of her lips, amused and patronizing.
“Well, this is a surprise,” she chirps. “What are you doing here, of all places?”
I take a final step forward, maintaining eye contact. “I could ask you the same thing.Lisa.”
A second of silence passes and, like a statue carved from arrogance, her expression remains unchanged. “Excuse me?”
“I wasn’t expecting a confession right away, but you could at least stop lying.” My voice shakes a little, but I still force the words out. “Tell me what really happened to my mother.”
She shifts her weight from one leg to the other. “I don’t know what you’re talking?—”
“Tell me!” I cry out, my voice echoing through the garage like thunder in a valley.
Her eyes widen, jaw clenching, before she hears Rodion and Niko’s steps as they approach behind her. She turns her face to see them then looks back at me and my husband, a hint of fear flickering there. Good.
“You brought your brutes to scare me off?” she sneers.
“It’s not us you should be scared of,” Mikhail says. “What my wife wants, my wife gets. And if she wants you dangling by your vocal cords from the ceiling…” He shrugs.
She tilts her head. “What lies has this man filled your head with,cara? We’ve talked about this. You know what you did that night, and you don’t need me to remind you.”
Her words make my upper lip curl. I step closer until we’re almost toe to toe.
“Did you carry me into my mom’s bedroom?” I ask.
She scoffs, her mouth opening without any words coming out.
“Did you put that knife in my hand?”
Again, silence.
