“First paying job that wasn’t about using me as muscle?” Kirill made a smacking sound. “Money laundering at a toy store in Berlin.”
“Kirill!”
“What?” he asked in all innocence. “People started buying cheap toys, and we needed to bolster quality and keep the craftsmen who took pride in their work and business.”
He had a point. I understood his motives and how his mind worked, and I couldn’t say he was wrong.
Maybe I was becoming a little criminal.
Chapter
Thirty-One
Kirill
The phone blasted me awake.I immediately reached for Lucy. She wasn’t there. Kolya’s ringtone wouldn’t shut up, so I snatched the phone and answered.
“This better be?—”
“Shut up and listen,” Kolya cut me off.
My heart pounded, and I came fully awake. Early-morning phone calls were never good.
“You need to come back,” he said.
I exhaled an irritated breath. “If this is not an emergency, then I don’t know why you couldn’t have waited another hour to call me.”
“I waited five fucking hours. I’m not going to spiral alone in this one.”
“No one is dead?” I asked carefully.
“No.”
“In the hospital in critical condition?”
“No, but someone should be.”
“Okay, what now? Anya causing you problems?”
“Anya is not my business, she’s yours.”
“The fuck she is.”
Silence.
I stretched and rolled out of bed. After two nights of sleeping in front of the fireplace, my wife was ready for the comfort of the bed. As for me, I could sleep on all hard surfaces, but the hearth was like a fucking furnace and too hot for me, especially since I wanted to be plastered to my wife while I slept. Lucy complained I was too sweaty.
So we returned to the bed.
“Tell me why you called and couldn’t wait.”
“Jeremiah King visited Ivan and Irina late last night.”
A chill crawled up my spine. “Don’t tell me he’s interested in Aralina.”
“Bingo.”
“Over my dead body.” I stalked around the room.
